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CONTENTS: APRIL 22, 2001

Click. Fringe Cloning Venture Raises Troubling Issues

Click. Reprogramming of Genes at Core of Cloning Debate

Click.  The Free Market Unraveled.

Click. Scrappy Lawyer Maureen Kallins Inspires Awe, Ire

Click. DA RECALL GROUP FILES FINANCIAL STATEMENT 

Click. Latest Attack on Fritz Springmeier 

From: "Brasscheck" <ken@brasscheck.com © 2001  http://www.brasscheck.com
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 9:17 AM 
Subject: The "free" market unraveled

James Grant had an excellent piece in the New York Times 4/20/01 called "A Foreseeable End to the Fed's Magic" that cuts to the heart of the matter about our "free" market:

"The Fed's myriad fans don't like to admit that what Mr. Greenspan does is to fix a price. Not just any price, either, but the federal funds rate: the fulcrum of the interest rate for the American dollar and a good portion of the global economy...

"..oddly enough, Mr. Greenspan has become a living symbol of the efficacy of price fixing. But it's likely that sometime before his career is over, he will become a symbol of the futility of that black art."

The following is an excellent short summary of what we have to look forward to. It's from my friends at http://www.LeMetropoleCafe.com. (They will some day shock the world when the world grasps the importance of
the research they've been doing into gold price manipulation.)

"Marcus Miller, the famous British economist, predicts the S&P 500 Index will fall to 750, a 50% correction from its high. He says Alan Greenspan must lose his superhuman image gradually if he is to prevent a world stock market crash. He said Greenspan is believed to have allowed a recession. Critics think he has delayed recovery by not cutting interest rates early or deeply enough. Professor Miller said future interest rate cuts should be gradual. He also said the FED has no put that provides insurance against the possibility of a market crash. "The reality is a bubble, because the put will not exist when it comes to be exercised." When the professionals and investors realize Alan Greenspan is but another mortal, the downside will
accelerate."

Of course, the whole thing becomes truly mind boggling when you focus on the FACT that the Fed is a `private' institution owned by a handful of major Wall Street banks. To talk about the Fed, without talking  about this fundamental seems ludicrous to me. But then again, much of what goes on strikes me that way.

And, least but not least, here's a taste of what working people can look forward to, when, down the road, the financial mess created for the benefit of a few banks creates a need for "austerity measures."

Reprogramming of Genes at Core of Cloning Debate
Science: Egg cell spurs fetal development but it can err. Zavos' claims on finding flaws questioned.
 
By AARON ZITNER, STEPHANIE SIMON, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers  © 4/22/01

     Panayiotis Zavos' dispute with the country's top cloning experts centers on the seemingly magical powers of the egg cell.
     Cloning takes advantage of the fact that almost every cell in an animal contains all the genes needed to grow and operate that animal all over again. Those include the genes that control how a fertilized egg grows into an embryo and then into a fully developed baby.
     But while fetal-growth genes exist within the cells of adult humans and animals, they have been silenced. Because they are not needed by a mature heart or brain or skin cell, the body has placed a kind of chemical lock on them so they cannot be turned on.
     One hurdle in cloning is to remove the locks so these fetal-development genes can be activated. As it turns out, researchers have found something that can do the trick: the egg cell.
     To clone a cow, to pick one example, scientists start with a cow egg cell. They remove the egg's DNA--the material that contains its genes--and replace it with DNA from a different, live cow, often from its skin cells.
     The egg removes the locks on the silenced genes, in a process called reprogramming.
     Then, the egg divides and grows into a cow embryo, which can be transferred to a surrogate mother and grown to term.
     The result is a calf that inherits all its genes from the cow that donated its DNA. By contrast, traditional reproduction involves both an egg and sperm, producing offspring with genes from a mother and father.
     However, the cloning process often goes terribly awry. In cloning cows, mice and other animals, most scientists have been able to produce only three to five live animals in every 100 attempts, said Dr. Thomas Okarma, chief executive of Geron Corp., a leading biotechnology firm.
     Most cloned embryos fail to grow, experts say, or they die shortly before birth. Others die soon after birth of lung or heart defects. And some that appear normal develop unexplained health problems in midlife.
     Rudolph Jaenisch, a cloning expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that most of the problems are because of errors committed by the egg cell in reprogramming adult genes. "There are 30,000 genes, and in principle any gene is a target for faulty reprogramming."
     What irks Jaenisch and many other cloning experts is that there is no known way to test an embryo for reprogramming errors. Today's prenatal tests can find problems with chromosomes--a sign of Down's syndrome and certain other diseases--or errors in the chemical sequence of a gene, which may suggest cystic fibrosis or other genetic disorders. But scientists are just beginning to understand how adult genes revert to a fetal state in cloning.
     Zavos maintains that his team can avoid reprogramming errors. Instead of using adult skin or cheek cells, he said, it is working with special cells in the body known as stem cells, whose genes may carry fewer of the chemical "locks" that require reprogramming. The team is also working on methods to prompt an adult cell to reprogram its genes, even before it is inserted in an egg.
     Zavos also says that his expertise in human fertility will allow him to reject faulty embryos and transfer only healthy ones to a patient. He acknowledges that he cannot test for malfunctions in all 30,000 genes and says, "It would be dishonest and irresponsible of us to say we can guarantee 100% success." But he is confident that his team can produce healthy children.
     Jaenisch and other experts say that Zavos' team may be able to spot embryos that are obviously flawed but that those embryos would likely die on their own anyway.
     "The worry is the fetus that appears normal but is not," Jaenisch said. A subtle brain defect might mean little in an animal, he said, but it would be very important to a parent aching to have a healthy child.

Fringe Cloning Venture Raises Troubling Issues

A reproduction specialist once accused of unethical behavior is helping to spearhead a team of foreign scientists on a crash research program to replicate humans.

By AARON ZITNER, STEPHANIE SIMON, Los Angeles Times © 4/22/01 Times Staff Writers

     LEXINGTON, Ky. -- When Central Baptist Hospital fired Panayiotis Zavos seven years ago, officials issued a terse explanation: The male reproduction specialist had engaged in "unethical and illegal behavior," an administrator wrote to colleagues. "If Dr. Zavos appears in the lab, please inform me and security immediately. Do not leave him alone in the lab for any reason."
     Hospital officials believed that Zavos, a part-time contractor, had used their staff and their premises to help run his private fertility business. They suspected him of violating state law by helping patients have children through surrogate mothers and said he kept patient fees that should have gone to the hospital.
     What happened years ago in Lexington would mean little to the rest of the world except that Panayiotis Zavos has suddenly become a leading advocate of something far more controversial--and potentially far more dangerous--than surrogate motherhood. In January, he touched off an international media frenzy by claiming that he, along with a team of foreign scientists, would begin a crash research program to help infertile couples have children through the first-ever human cloning.
     Zavos boasts that his 25 years of research on reproduction make him the right person to develop a technology that most cloning experts say is too dangerous to try with humans. In animals, cloning produces dozens of stillborn or unhealthy offspring--some of them grotesquely deformed--for every healthy animal.
     To widespread skepticism among scientists, Zavos has told Congress, foreign leaders and countless journalists that he can overcome such problems. He says his team offers a competent contrast to the rogue researchers who may already be trying to clone people in secret--"irresponsible individuals, Saddam Hussein," he said recently. "Obviously, there are a lot of Saddam Husseins in the world."
     "Producing developmentally abnormal human children is clearly not ethically acceptable by us," he testified before Congress last month.
     But here in Lexington, Zavos' dismissal from Central Baptist Hospital colors his claim that he can draw the line between what is ethical and what is not.
     In fact, the dismissal touched off a long and improbable chain of events that led to a rebuke from a judge for misusing the legal system and a citation from the University of Kentucky, where he was a professor of animal sciences, for violating federal rules designed to protect people in medical research.
     A jury ordered him to pay a former employee nearly $500,000 in a lawsuit. His own lawyer was subsequently disbarred, in part because of an effort to hide Zavos' assets from the ex-employee.
     Zavos denies the allegations made by Central Baptist and the University of Kentucky, and he said that he legally "shielded" his assets from his former employee, which he considered a shrewd move. Yet his record troubles some former colleagues.
     "Past behavior seems to indicate to those of us who have had to work with Zavos that his values, ethics and integrity may be in question," said William G. Sisson, president of Central Baptist Hospital.
     "If he's not willing to follow those protocol requirements [at the hospital and university], what is he going to be doing when he gets into the larger issue of cloning?" asked Linda Hewitt, a lab technician who raised some of the earliest concerns about Zavos at Central Baptist.
     Zavos has plenty of fans, who consider him vibrant, smart and above all, extraordinarily devoted to helping infertile couples have children. "Dr. Zavos was instrumental in us being able to have a family after I can't tell you how many people told us to forget it," said Emily Dyre, a Louisville patient who now has two children. "I think the world of the man."

     Health of Child Still the Standard

     With his cloning venture, Zavos is drawing criticism far beyond Lexington. The technology has matured to where someone might indeed be able to clone a person. But nearly every cloning expert says it has not developed enough to ensure that the child would be healthy.
     Cloning humans today "would be extremely irresponsible," said Ian Wilmut, the Scottish scientist responsible for Dolly, the cloned sheep. "Likely outcomes would include late abortions, the birth of dead children and, worst of all, abnormal children that lived."
     Zavos claims to have raised millions of dollars from private donors and started cloning research in a clandestine lab overseas, which cannot be verified. Still, his team has already been criticized by Democratic and Republican lawmakers for proceeding before society has worked out the moral implications of human cloning. His plans have prompted lawmakers to file legislation to bar human cloning, angering medical researchers who fear this might also shut down cloning work aimed at producing cures for disease, rather than children.
     Said Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist who also testified before Congress: "I think he is the most dangerous of the current fringe proponents of cloning, because he knows more, stretches the facts and seems to be wallowing in a mix of publicity and fund-raising that rests on a foundation of hype."

     People Desperate for Own Children, He Says

     A self-described "cowboy," Zavos, 57, seems at peace with himself even while so many others complain about his behavior.
     "I'm willing to go to hell to get something done, if I believe it's the right thing to do," Zavos said earlier this month. Wiry, intense and wearing his customary white lab coat, he was interviewed in his combined medical supply and semen analysis office in Lexington. He said he was committed to helping people who have "no other option" to exercise their "right to reproduce."
     Zavos has received hundreds of e-mails from people desperate to produce their own children since he made the cloning project public. One U.S. naval officer stationed in Japan wrote that he and his wife had adopted three children, "but it's just not the same as a child from our blood." A man from New Zealand, unable to produce sperm, begged Zavos to help: "I would do anything to have my own child!"
     Zavos says he would not be doing the lab work on cloning. That job falls to a team of 10 or so scientists from around the world who, he says, have already started research on animals. They include the prominent Italian fertility doctor Severino Antinori, who has already pushed the boundaries of fertility treatment by helping women become pregnant well after menopause, including a 62-year-old woman.
     Zavos calls himself "the referee," in charge of reviewing the group's research data and recommending when it is safe to move from animal to human cloning, though other team members will have input. He says he is reviewing medical records of prospective patients to cull 10 couples from more than 1,000 volunteers who are willing to be cloned.
     Zavos has also become the team's international spokesman, a role he clearly relishes. "I just got off the phone with Barbara Walters!" he said on a recent morning, looking delighted.
     He showed off his computer in-box, clogged with e-mails from news reporters. A Japanese magazine writer was due the next day. So many TV crews have followed Zavos around--NBC's "Dateline" alone spent four days filming him in February--that the Federal Express delivery man was surprised to see no cameras in the office.
     "You're looking better now that you don't have all that press on you," he told Zavos.
     Zavos said he will debate Dolly creator Wilmut at Oxford University in June, and he has recently signed on with the speaker's bureau that represents Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Larry King. Already, he said, the bureau has found him three speaking engagements at $10,000 to $15,000 apiece, including one in June before health care executives at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
     "I have come a long way, I must say," Zavos said with a smile.

     Mother Became Pregnant 26 Times

     Born in Cyprus to a poor family, Zavos (pronounced: za-VOSE) remembers selling oranges on the roadside at age 5. His mother, who never learned to read or write, became pregnant 26 times, Zavos said. Eight siblings survived into adulthood. Zavos is the only one to have a college degree. In fact, as he likes to point out, he has four.
     Zavos arrived in the United States in 1966, at age 22, and enrolled at Emporia State University in Kansas. To earn cash, he worked nights in a milk-processing plant. To learn English, he watched television. He especially loved the commercials. The slogan from an old restaurant ad is now his motto for his cloning group: "We'll do it right, or we won't do it."
     Drawn to reproductive physiology, he eventually moved to the University of Minnesota, where he earned a doctorate. His research focused on ways to freeze turkey sperm.
     By the early 1990s, Zavos had won an academic post in the animal sciences department at the University of Kentucky. He published prolifically and won several U.S. patents. Eager to make his mark in the world of human reproduction, he started a private business that sold supplies to fertility clinics.
     Zavos also opened a second business, which offered sperm analysis and related services. In addition, he worked at Central Baptist, performing lab work for 10 hours a week in the hospital's reproductive clinic at an annual salary of $55,000. While not a physician, Zavos is trained as an andrologist, or male reproduction specialist.
     Then, in 1994, the many parts of his complex work life began colliding uncomfortably. That is when Zavos' lab technician at Central Baptist, Linda Hewitt, told her supervisors that she suspected Zavos was helping surrogate mothers become pregnant and breaking hospital billing rules.
     As a Christian institution, Central Baptist helps only married couples conceive children, and it bars any activities related to surrogate motherhood. Kentucky law also bars arrangements in which a surrogate mother is paid a fee.
     Hewitt "came to me with the names of people that she thought Dr. Zavos was doing surrogacy with," Michael W. Vernon, former director of the hospital's reproductive labs, testified in a 1996 deposition. "And also she was uncomfortable with the fact that it seemed like he was seeing his patients at Central Baptist, and she knew that when he saw patients at Central Baptist they were supposed to be registered and billed for Central Baptist, and they weren't."
     After running a computer check, the hospital found several people who had registered as patients but who had never been billed, Vernon testified in a 1997 civil suit that Zavos brought against another person. Vernon said the hospital contacted two of the patients, who claimed that they had actually paid their bills.
     One patient faxed a copy of a canceled check to show proof of payment, Vernon said, "for a procedure that was done by Linda Hewitt in Central Baptist, using Central Baptist equipment. The money should have gone to Central Baptist. It was for two sperm preparations, which are $63 apiece. . . . But the check came in for $1,540, and it was made out directly to Dr. Zavos for the procedure performed by Linda Hewitt. And on that day he was terminated."
     Zavos, in an interview, said that some of his private patients might have been inadvertently registered as hospital patients because he asked them to meet him at the hospital rather than his private lab to produce specimens. But he insisted that he never used hospital equipment or personnel to prepare specimens for his private business. "No, no, no, of course not," he said. "Absolutely not."
     Zavos also said he is confident his work with surrogacy patients, which he still performs, is legal, because all he does is prepare semen for insemination. He said he plays no role in arranging contracts between surrogates and clients, which, in his reading, is the action barred by state law.
     Zavos' dismissal by Central Baptist triggered a series of disputes with others, including employees at his medical supply company, Zavos Biotechnology Laboratories Inc.

     Potential Biohazard Alleged by Workers

     On the day in February 1994 that the hospital ended his contract, Zavos "began running an andrology laboratory on the property of the company and allowing patients to masturbate in the bathrooms so as to produce a sample for analysis, and quite simply: we are concerned for our health," two employees later wrote to Kentucky's workplace safety office. Their concern was that Zavos was not properly handling semen samples, a potential biohazard.
     After the first patient had arrived and gone, the staff confronted Zavos about a variety of workplace complaints. And, unhappy with his responses, three of them soon quit. State officials ultimately fined Zavos $125 for failure to mark a container as holding biohazardous waste.
     The situation turned uglier. In May, Zavos swore out a criminal complaint charging one of those former employees, Sheila Thompson, with making harassing calls that disrupted his business.
     She was arrested at her home on Mother's Day weekend and detained for two hours, she later testified. But at trial, a judge testily threw out the charge.
     "I don't think this was brought by Dr. Zavos in good faith," then-District Judge Sheila Isaac said. "I believe it was vindictive."
     Still, Zavos pursued the matter, filing a civil suit against Thompson. But that backfired. She countersued, resulting in a trial that aired the details of the scientist's firing from Central Baptist Hospital. The result: Zavos was ordered to pay Thompson $492,500 for malicious prosecution.
     She had trouble collecting because Zavos transferred "a significant amount of assets" from his company to his wife's control, the Kentucky Bar Assn. later found. That contributed to the disbarment of Zavos' lawyer, Ronald A. Newcomer, for helping Zavos "dispose of property following an adverse monetary judgment." Zavos and Thompson later came to a financial settlement.
     The tension with Thompson had one other unfortunate consequence for Zavos. One of her calls about Zavos was to a medical research review board at the University of Kentucky. That helped prompt a probe of Zavos' role in supplying semen for a research project on ways to kill the AIDS virus. In August 1994, the review board ruled that Zavos had failed to seek needed approvals designed to protect people who participate in research experiments. It said he had violated university policies and federal regulations, and it put him on notice that his research would be subject to "unlimited, unannounced inspections."
     "In his years of experience at two institutions in Kentucky, he has developed problems at both. That should tell you something," said Sisson, the hospital chief, who said he was commenting not to attack Zavos personally but to raise awareness of the protections that patients are entitled to under law.
     Zavos retired from the university in February and today carries the title professor emeritus. He still operates a medical supply company and a sperm analysis lab. He also has a new focus: a fertility clinic that he operates with his physician wife, Pette Zarmakoupis-Zavos, which offers such sophisticated services as in vitro fertilization, the technique that produces "test-tube babies."
     On its Web site and in its literature, Zavos' Kentucky Center for Reproductive Medicine & IVF boasts a "clinical pregnancy rate of 50%" for 1999, which it says "may well be one of the highest success rates in the country."
     But, unlike most other clinics, it does not report how many of those pregnancies resulted in live births or give other details that the industry encourages.
     Presented this way, the clinic's statistics "leave no way for consumers to evaluate the information in a way that's going to be meaningful for them," said Sean Tipton, spokesman for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in Birmingham, Ala., a 9,000-member association of fertility clinic professionals. "What consumers want to know is, 'What are the chances of me having a baby?' And if you can't get any information about how many patients they've treated, or what the patients were like, and you're reporting pregnancies but not deliveries, that question remains unanswered for the consumer."
     Zavos responded that he and his wife "choose not to report our statistics" for now because they have been doing in vitro procedures for less than two years and want time to build a track record.

     'Cowboys Are the Guys That Get the Job Done'

     With his ambitious work life, Zavos has become prosperous. Two years ago, he bought a 10,000-square-foot house in a gated golf course community. The three-car garage can only hold half the Zavos fleet, which includes a Lexus, a Porsche and a Mercedes.
     That success, he said, is what motivates some of his critics. "Anybody that is successful is going to have a lot of enemies," he said. "They resent the fact that Zavos drives a different car every day."
     He said he and his research colleagues want to develop cloning out of a sincere desire to help couples produce children when all standard fertility treatments fail.
     "We are not regular scientists. We are the irregulars," he said. "This country was built on cowboys. Cowboys are the guys that get the job done."
     
***

     Basics of Cloning

      Traditional reproduction involves both eggs and sperm, producing offspring with genes from both a mother and a father. In cloning, an animal inherits all its genes from a single adult. Most cloned embryos fail to grow or they die in the womb, experts say.
     Normal reproduction
     An egg and a sperm each have only half a set of DNA. They must fuse and join their DNA to get the whole blueprint for an organism.
      Cloning process
      An egg's DNA is replaced with a single set of DNA from a different animal. The egg removes locks in fetal-growth genes. The egg divides and grows into an embryo, which can then be implanted.

Scrappy Lawyer Inspires Awe, Ire
Maureen Kallins' combative courtroom style has made her beloved by defendants and disdained by prosecutors and judges. Contempt citations and financial woes take a toll.

By MAURA DOLAN © 4/21/01 Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

    SAN FRANCISCO -- Judges shudder at her name, prosecutors sneer at her, and even some of her colleagues in the criminal defense bar shun her. But the jail population loves Maureen Kallins.
     Kallins, a former New York City public defender, has represented some of the most notorious defendants in Northern California and earned big money doing it. She has also been slapped with contempt sanctions repeatedly, fined at least six times and jailed three times by angry judges.
     Two years ago, Kallins, 52, so incensed an Oakland judge during a rape trial that he sentenced her to 20 days in jail and fined her $4,300.
     The judge accused Kallins of sticking her tongue out at a prosecutor and emitting "a loud, unrestrained and somewhat prolonged belch" after the judge sanctioned her. Kallins denies sticking out her tongue and is appealing the contempt citation in federal court.
     Although many attorneys were sanctioned for contempt in the political trials of the 1960s, it is a rare punishment today.
     Judges are supposed to control the courtroom, and strong lawyers frequently test their authority. Kallins may be their ultimate nightmare.
     She has hosted weekend seminars for defense attorneys in "How to Take Charge of the Courtroom" and has a Web site titled "KILL"--Kallins Intensive Litigation Lab--that offers instruction in aggressive courtroom tactics for a fee.
     In court, she is verbal, funny, vivid and dramatic. She communicates an animal energy to the jury.
     "Maureen is representative of a dying breed--that is, a lawyer who is just an unbelievably hellcat fighter for her clients," said Golden Gate Law School Dean Peter Keane. "She proceeds from a background of dedication. Sometimes she may overdo it, and unfortunately when that happens, she can get herself into problems."
     Kallins said she has lost business as a result of the sanctions and went into debt. She is even considering a new career, perhaps as an actress, she said.
     "She goes into every court now with a black cloud of alleged past misconduct hanging over her," said Roger Lowenstein, her Los Angeles lawyer. "She is a marked woman, and it is not fair."
     Because of her hard-charging style and victories in tough cases, Kallins has been called Northern California's version of Leslie Abramson, the high-powered Los Angeles criminal defender who became nationally known during the Menendez brothers' murder trial.
     "We get the same type of reaction: that people want to stop us because we are winning," Kallins said. But she added: "I don't think I am as great as Leslie."
     Kallins' courtroom antics are making lore and law in California. In 1999, a state appellate court devoted nearly an entire opinion to her in a case in which a former Kallins client unsuccessfully appealed a criminal conviction.
     "In our collective 97 years in the legal profession," the 3rd District Court of Appeal wrote in 1999, "we have seldom seen such unprofessional, offensive and contemptuous conduct by an attorney in a court of law."
     Kallins contends that the contempt sanctions stem from sexism, and some of her colleagues agree that judges might be more offended by a combative female attorney than a male.
     "The way I feel is this is how women are treated," said Kallins, who practices law with her husband in Marin County. "The truth of the matter is it is sexist."
     Lowenstein, who has known Kallins for 30 years, said a careful review of the allegations in the pending contempt case will show that her remarks in the courtroom were appropriate and that the jail sentence is unwarranted.

     Repertoire of Tactics in Desperate Cases

     She was sentenced to jail not for sticking out her tongue--she said she merely glared in a bug-eyed way--and not for belching, but for other remarks that the judge said were improper.
     Courtroom foes and judges contend that Kallins' courtroom behavior is staged. They say she repeats the same tactics over and over again--accusing others of prejudice, fighting with the judge, calling in sick to court--to gain advantage for desperate defendants accused of rape, murder, fraud, smuggling, robbery and drug dealing.
     By baiting witnesses, judges and prosecutors to snap at her, she attempts "to create an impression that 'the system' [is] against the defendant," the appeals court wrote in November 1999.
     According to one prosecutor who has faced her, her obstreperous behavior often works to her clients' advantage. Her asides and facial expressions can influence jurors and provoke a prosecutor or judge into making a mistake, he said. She has an unusually high success rate for a criminal defense lawyer, this prosecutor said, and she is a formidable opponent in the courtroom.
     The following 1997 exchange, outside the presence of a jury and reported in a court transcript, illustrates the dynamics between Kallins and one of the judges who has held her in contempt, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Joseph Hurley.
     Judge: Counsel . . .
     Kallins: Don't cut me off. Look, I'm not going to be cut off.
     Judge: Counsel, I will control this.
     Kallins: You're not going to cut me off. It's sexist and disgusting. You are . . .
     Judge: You are acting inappropriately. You are in contempt when you do this.
     Kallins: I am not acting inappropriately.
     Judge: I will not just keep . . .
     Kallins: You're to not interrupt me. I just want you to know.
     Judge: You are in contempt. I am finding you in contempt.
     Shortly thereafter, Kallins announced: "Sorry, I can't proceed. I have to leave."
     After she walked out of the courtroom, the judge remarked: "I am at a loss as to what is possessing her at this point. . . ."
     Weeks later during the same trial, in which her client was acquitted of drug charges, the two tangled again. She told the judge he was subjecting her to "the most sexist treatment that I have ever received in my entire life."
     Kallins also has enraged federal judges, and two of them jailed her briefly. Deputy Assistant U.S. Public Defender Lawrence B. Kupers recalls visiting her in a holding cell a few years ago.
     Even though she was locked up, "she was a trouper," Kupers said. "She said, 'This is wrong, but I have to fight for my client, and if this is what it takes, I will do this.' "
     Noting that she has had some "amazing results," Kupers said Kallins does things that "make the jury take more note of the case, perhaps think more critically of the case. . . . What she is good at is courtroom tactics in cases that are hard if not impossible to win," he said.
     Other colleagues say she takes some cases to trial that she should negotiate instead. "But the clients love the show," said one of her critics. "The criminally accused are not necessarily those who are going to make the smartest judgments."
     Former San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Brown summed up "the two schools" of thought about Kallins: She is admired by "people who just love that forward, over-the-top style of representation" and criticized by "other attorneys who say she doesn't deal with evidence surgically."

     Detained in Holding Cell

     Even criminal defense lawyers who are critical of Kallins say that some prosecutors and judges lie in wait for her, hoping she will trip up so she can be punished. They complain that law enforcement is dying to see Kallins humiliated.
     In October, Kallins spent three hours in a closet-sized holding cell in Oakland to begin serving the 20-day state sentence before she was released on appeal by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
     Prosecutors and their investigators were on hand as she was led to her cell in the Alameda County courthouse. It was a kind of public caning, one defense attorney said.
     The so-called caning was of a small, attractive woman whose blistering words belie an almost frail appearance. She has short blond hair, brown eyes and pale skin.
     Being locked up "was scary," Kallins said. "It still is scary."
     State bar records show that Kallins has never been publicly disciplined, although the bar has listed her contempt sanctions for public viewing.
     Kallins was born in Brooklyn and worked in the New York public defender's office that has produced several big-name attorneys, including Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, whose Innocence Project has used DNA evidence to free dozens of people from prison.
     When Kallins arrived in the Bay Area more than 20 years ago, few women practiced criminal defense. Kallins stood out, not only because she was a woman but her style was unusually aggressive.
     Arthur Wachtel was a public defender in Marin County at the time and would stop in at court occasionally to watch Kallins. She was tough as nails, "everything a criminal defense lawyer should be," the defense lawyer said.
     During one trial that Wachtel remembers, Kallins attempted to remind a jury of a witness' testimony. She jumped into the witness box and began to mimic the witness during final arguments.
     The trial judge, who was highly experienced and usually calm, interjected. That may be the way lawyers in New York do it, the judge said, but out here we have rules.
     Kallins' reply was rapid and effective, Wachtel recalled, paraphrasing it as: I don't know what you mean about lawyers in New York. I hope it wasn't intended to be anti-Semitic. The judge backed down. "She got much better treatment from him," Wachtel said. "It was beautiful."
     In another case, Kallins represented an accused rapist. She had a theory that the prosecution's explanation for how the attack occurred was not possible.
     To demonstrate, she and another female attorney reenacted the alleged struggle before a jury. Kallins tipped her hands in blood-red rouge and wrapped them around the other lawyer's neck. The defendant could not have grabbed the woman the way she claimed, Kallins argued. The jury acquitted her client.
     Kallins became highly sought after, the "go-to" lawyer for defendants awaiting federal trials in San Francisco. She won a few major cases that other lawyers had considered sure losers, and inmates passed her name around in the jails. They thought she could perform miracles.
     She tooled around town in a purple and yellow Corvette convertible, with KALLINS on the license plate. She said a former client gave her the car as payment for her work.
     Many defendants dumped their attorneys and replaced them with Kallins. Her practice soared, and some of her colleagues believe she took on too many cases at once.

     Mounting Debts, More Competition

     Those heady years have given way more recently to a string of troubles for Kallins, including debt.
     Criminal defense law is highly competitive, particularly for the few clients who can pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a private lawyer.
     Kallins said she and her husband got into financial trouble in part because the federal government was slow to reimburse her for work she did on several cases as an appointed lawyer.
     She blames herself for not managing her finances well. "I thought it was a war," she said. "I didn't think it was a business."
     Kallins said her run-ins with judges have cost her money and energy and diverted her from her work. She has challenged judges only to protect her clients from erroneous or unfair rulings, she said. In fact, she added, she enjoys good relations with many jurists.
     Nonetheless, her previous clashes with judges sometimes precede her into court. That was the case two years ago in the rape trial that would end with her receiving the 20-day jail sentence for contempt.
     Alameda County Deputy Dist. Atty. Morris Jacobson reviewed her previous cases and filed a brief about her record with Superior Court Judge Jeffrey W. Horner. Jacobson's 33 pages of arguments said that Kallins had a routine she used to cheat the prosecutor out of a fair trial.
     Among the litany of examples cited by Jacobson was Kallins' handling of a bloody shirt, an exhibit, when she was representing a man accused of attempting to kill a CHP officer.
     She dropped the victim's shirt on the floor during the court proceeding and walked on it, Jacobson said. When the judge ordered her to pick it up, she draped it over the prosecution's table. Kallins said she may have accidentally dropped the shirt.
     After reading the brief, Horner granted an order listing 33 rules of conduct for the trial.
     Rule No. 1: "Neither attorney shall yell, scream or shout at witnesses, jurors, opposing counsel, the judge or court staff."
     Despite the rules, the trial did not go smoothly. In court records, Horner said Kallins used an "unrelentingly sarcastic, insolent and arrogant tone" in addressing the prosecutor and the judge and deliberately mispronounced the prosecutor's name.
     At one point, Kallins wanted previous testimony read to a witness, and the prosecutor said the reading should include comments further back in the transcript.
     The judge said he would review the transcript. While he was reading it in the courtroom, Kallins remarked: "I'm waiting."
     "I'm sorry, what did you say?" the judge asked.
     "I'm waiting," Kallins said.
     Horner told her to sit down. Her client was later convicted.
     California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the defenders' association, has filed arguments on behalf of Kallins in the pending sanctions case, saying that she may have been punished for actions "that not only are, but should be, permitted to criminal defense lawyers."
     But the defense bar has not otherwise warmly embraced Kallins.
     "I had every big case in town," Kallins said. "I think that economically, people were really threatened by me. It's hard to support your competition."

     'I Think My Enemies Have Won'

     Kallins said she has not taken a new client in a year and that her troubles have diminished her popularity in the jails. She wants to leave her law practice altogether.
     "I think my enemies have won," she said.
     The judge's contempt order would require her to serve her time alone in a cell, which horrifies her. "If you fight for the Constitution, they are going to get you," Kallins said.
     During a recent court appearance in Oakland, Kallins looked tired as she argued to suppress evidence in a drug case. She was aggressive in her questioning of the witnesses, but she did not argue with the judge. In fact, she was extremely polite.
     When the session was recessed for lunch, Kallins said she had to work while she ate. Wearing a loose chartreuse raincoat, she pushed a luggage cart containing a cardboard box of files around a court plaza. She looked more vulnerable than Vesuvian.
     People make mistakes, she said, standing in line at a bagel shop. Criminal law is highly competitive, and women are discriminated against, she went on. She took her lunch and moved to a table, where she ate alone.

LATEST ATTACK ON FRITZ SPRINGMEIER
by Patty Springmeier © 2000

The latest attack on Fritz Springmeier is interesting to study because it shows how the police working with their controlled media lackeys can create a propaganda story against someone out of thin air.

The headline reads FBI probes alleged threat to officer". The words "FBI probes" and "threat" sound very ominous, like something serious is in the works. The subheadline in a smaller font is more accurate; it states, "Man tied to extremists reportedly sent letter in '97 seeking information on cop." The man they are referring to in the headline is Fritz Springmeier. The letter they refer to is a simple letter of inquiry written four years ago
asking a private detective if he could provide the address of a policeman who has been in the news frequently for shooting people. Because the system (police and media) have been trying to cast Springmeier's image as a terrorist in their own minds and the public mind, everything Springmeier does must of course be related in their thinking to terrorism. A simple letter of inquiry about an address must be seen (reframed using their
tunnel vision) as a threat.

Again, just a few additional comments on the subtitle: the links between Springmeier and 'extremists" are of the police's own making. What links exist?

They never say. And who determines who is extreme? Some people would say that the things the United States government is doing are extreme. Some people would say the way the government puts the rights of fleas, flies, mice and frogs before American property rights are extreme. Some would say the way the
police act are extreme. Who are the extremists? What has Springmeier done that is extreme? He wrote a letter asking for an address! The reporter who wrote the story and the police who worked with him probably have inquired countless times for the addresses of other people. Does that by equal logic mean they
are trying to threaten all those people, and should be investigated by the FBI, and that the public made afraid of them by warnings in the press? Now we have just explained the headline. Let's look at the text of this
propaganda attack against Springmeier.

First paragraph reads, The Portland Police Bureau is investigating a potential threat against one of its officers by a writer with links to the extremist group of Army of God." Who invented these links? The police and the media. There is no proof of any links because Springmeier wasn't a member of the Army of God. And what is a potential threat"? It's more Big Brother doublespeak. The letter was not a real threat, so it becomes a potential threat".

Further we read, "No weapons or Army of God literature were found at Springmeier's home, but the two men knew each other, sheriff's office spokeswoman Angela Blancard said. " Here we have a classic case of guilt by association. Because Springmeier knew someone who the police allege was a suspected member of the Army of God, then obviously Springmeier, who they view with tunnel vision as a terrorist must also be tainted. It's guilt by association. And the original person's "guilt" hasn't even be proved, just alleged."

Further in the article's sixth paragraph we read,  "On Nov. 3, 1997, Springmeier wrote to local free-lance journalist John Stevens asking for the home address of Portland police officer Scott Westerman. Stevens was alarmed by the letter and had an associate tell a relative on the police bureau about it. Westerman did not learn about the letter until just a few weeks ago, however." John Stevens is really an undercover Fed agent who posed as a detective who would help Fritz Springmeier locate anyone. Springmeier sent Stevens $100 to get an address, which Stevens generously stole and gave nothing in return to Springmeier. If Springmeier did anything wrong it was in trusting a lying thieving Federal agent. If the letter had been more than a genuine inquiry, Stevens would have notified Westerman. To get around the obvious logic in this, the news article must resort to some propaganda tricks.

First, they quote Westerman, "That's a pretty substantial threat, I wish I had been told about it at the time." Then they quote Westerman as indicating "He doesn't blame Stevens for the lack of notice. "He did the right thing'
Westerman said."

What was the threat? They never say. That is why Westerman was not warned, there never was a threat. But if we suppose there was really a threat like they are pretending, then their undercover Federal agent goofed. So they conveniently get Stevens off the hook by Westerman saying, "He did the right thing."

The article also mentions the Army of God and how they use explosives. This is more guilt by association and propaganda scare tactics. No real links have been discovered. They go on to describe how Westerman shot a women who claimed she had "lots of hard evidence of judicial corruption in Multnomah County."

They also describe Springmeier as "Springmeier is a fundamentalist Christian who has written several books charging that satanic forces are conspiring with corrupt government officials to take over the world. During a radio interview, he described his job as "exposing the New World Order agenda." What the media and police hope is that they have sufficiently tainted Springmeier as a dangerous terrorist so that they public will discount who he is and what he has done. However, the public is not so stupid. Anyone who reads this news article and thinks things through will see that nothing real has been found against Springmeier, but that the police have shot a woman who had evidence of judicial corruption, and that the police and media have a strong enough grudge against Springmeier that they would smear him with false innuendos and distortions. If the writer of the article thinks that people will think Springmeier a madman because he is "exposing the New World Order",
he is out of touch with the public's awareness. The public is not so stupid.

They have heard their own American presidents repeatedly desire to lead us into this New World Order and they are seeing the evidence of this fascist socialist globalism all around them. On April 16, 2001 KPDX Fox news broadcast a retraction that Fritz and Patricia Springmeier were members of the Army of God on the 10:00 p.m. news program. The retraction was as follows:

"On March 2, 2001, we reported that Fritz and Patricia Springmeier were members of a group known as the Army of God. This statement was not factually supported and we regret this error."

This is a step in the right direction. How many other lies need to be retracted? Unfortunately, the media is spreading lies about the Springmeiers much faster than they are retracting them. This is the only retraction by any media agent so far.

Also interesting is that the police report of what they seized at the Springmeier's home lists "misc. books", "misc. papers", and  "misc. mags". The county sheriff's web site then reports that what they seized was
"anti-government literature." This in turn is then reported by the media as '"hate literature". Using the media's type of thinking the Declaration of Independence is hate literature. It is a good thing the signers of the
Declaration of Independence were not alive today. They most certainly would be arrested for a hate crime for even thinking of a limited law abiding government. The treatment the Springmeiers are receiving for having Patriotic material in the privacy of their own homes shows that the American people are no longer free to read, learn, and think for themselves in the privacy of their own homes. If Americans want to study on how to keep their government legal and honest, they now risk SWAT teams and the television networks intruding into their lives and branding them as terrorists with hate literature.

The Springmeiers are not out of danger. The Feds are dogging them to try to find something to charge them with. They are also getting harassment, and there are other insidious things that the system is doing that cannot be reported on at this time.

DA RECALL GROUP FILES FINANCIAL STATEMENT 
by Richard Halstead © 2001, Marin Independent Journal

The group responsible for forcing Marin District Attorney Paula Kamena into a May 22 recall election has filed a financial statement documenting monetary contributions - several months late.

The statement indicates that from July 2000 to December 2000 the Marin Alliance Legal Defense Fund Committee raised a total of $9,870 from just five contributors.

Lynnette Shaw of Fairfax, one of the leaders of recall effort, contributed $5,000 from an insurance settlement on her car. The next largest contribution was $1,500 - from Kenneth E. Hayes of San Francisco, who on Wednesday was acquitted of felony charges of marijuana cultivation and possession for sale by a Sonoma County jury.

Hayes was arrested on suspicion of growing marijuana for medical pot users in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood. In the past, however, Hayes said he has grown cannabis for the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, which Shaw founded.

Three other individuals made donations of $500 each. They are:

- Don Duncan, co-director of the Berkeley Patients' Group, a medical marijuana dispensary that also offers massage and acupuncture

- Ed Rosenthal, an author and publisher of several books on the subject of cannabis, including: "Easy Marijuana Gardening" and "Ask Ed: Marijuana Law (Don't Get Busted)"

- Sister Mary Jane Weirick, a Catholic nun who worked at Dennis Peron's Cannabis Buyers' Club in San Francisco until it was closed in 1996.

According to the financial statement, the remaining balance of the contributions - $1,870 - came from donation jars displayed on various outreach tables stationed throughout Marin from July to December.

So far, Kamena has raised $79,628, more than eight times the amount generated by recall backers.

The disclosure documents, detailing donations and expenses between Jan. 1 to April 7, show Kamena already has spent $26,873 to fight the recall.

During the February press conference kicking off her recall campaign, Kamena highlighted the anonymity of the recall contributors.

"Until they come out of the shadows and we know who they are, then we might be led to believe this recall effort is perhaps supported by drug dealers," Kamena said then.

"Are these the people who sell drugs to our kids? I don't know but I sure would like to," she added.

The individuals who contributed to the Legal Defense Fund all reacted angrily to Kamena's remarks.

"That's the first thing they say, 'What are you, a bunch of stoners?' " said Sister Weirick. "There is a horrible perception people have, and it is mostly created by law enforcement - because it makes their job easier."

Rosenthal said, "Kamena is very close to libel and slander."

The financial statement indicates the Legal Defense Fund spent a total of $9,793 - nearly all of it, $8,793, to pay 16 petition circulators.

Madelyne DeJusto, Marin's assistant registrar of voters, said that the Legal Defense Fund's financial statement, which arrived in her office on Thursday, should have been submitted in November.

"It's nice she has finally made this disclosure," said Mike Gridley, Marin's chief assistant prosecutor, who added his boss, Kamena, was not available for comment.

DeJusto said she had received numerous inquiries regarding the late filing from the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which oversees laws governing the conduct of public officials and campaign committees.

"We just got a call the other day from the FPPC, asking for more information," DeJusto said.

Roman Porter, an FPPC spokesperson, said he could not comment on whether there is an investigation or if any fines are anticipated.

Shaw said she was late filing the statement because the Legal Defense Fund's bank statements were sent back to the Bank of America's central California office due to a computer glitch.

"I was not able to get copies of all bank statement records to confirm our check amounts and deposit amounts until April 12," Shaw said.

Shaw initially maintained that the Legal Defense Fund was not required to disclose the names of its contributors.

The individuals who contributed to the recall effort all said they think Kamena should be removed because of the way she has enforced Proposition 215.

The initiative, which was supported by 73 percent of Marin voters, exempted from prosecution patients and caregivers who possess or cultivate marijuana for medical treatment recommended by a health-care provider.

"Paula Kamena doesn't seem to be implementing Prop. 215," said Hayes, who was busted on suspicion of possessing 899 plants and hashish at a rented farm in Petaluma in May 1999.

"She is one of these rogue DAs, coupled with the cowboy cop mentality, that are continuing to offer us roundblocks," Hayes said.

The contributors emphasized that while Kamena might not be prosecuting all medical marijuana users, they nevertheless are being arrested and having their cannabis confiscated.

"Their lives are still being destroyed," Sister Weirick said.

Rosenthal said Kamena should be removed because her enforcement of Proposition 215 does not reflect the wishes of Marin residents.

"She would be a really good DA somewhere else," he said.