You should’ve served US better and died!’ Debt collector berates disabled veteran

A debt collector, angered that a disabled US Army veteran was living off of disability payments, told him he “should have died” in war instead of "taking advantage of" other Americans.

Minnesota-based debt collection agency Gurstel Chargo is now facing a lawsuit for verbally abusing the Army vet over a $6,000 defaulted student loan, Courthouse News reports.

“If you would have served our country better you would not be a disabled veteran living off Social Security while the rest of us honest Americans work our asses off,” one of the agency’s debt collectors allegedly told the vet. “Too bad, you should have died.”

Michael Collier was declared 100 per cent disabled after suffering permanent spine and head injuries while in the Army. As a result, both Collier and his wife receive disability payments from the federal Social Security Administration, which are exempt from seizure by debt collectors.

But in an attempt to collect on the defaulted student loan, the collector seized the money from Collier's wife’s savings account. The credit union then proceeded to freeze her account.

The Colliers filed an objection and requested a court hearing, at which the couple was told their frozen funds were exempt from such garnishment.

But the debt collection agency’s lawyer continued to harass the couple. Telling Collier “he would need to get a lawyer in order to get his money back,” an unidentified paralegal cursed at and threatened him over the phone.

“F--k you!” the paralegal allegedly said, “Pay us your money! You can’t afford an attorney. You owe us. I hope your wife divorces you.”

The couple is now seeking compensation for actual damages, statutory damages, and punitive damages for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), privacy invasion, malicious infliction of emotional distress and conversion.

The FDCPA considers it abusive for a debt collector to make empty threats, misrepresent the legal status of a debt, or use obscene of profane language.

According to the Daily Beast, debt collectors sometimes use abusive techniques to pry money from the indebted because of the commission rates they receive. On average, debt collectors make 20 cents for every dollar recouped. At this rate, the Colliers’ debt would be worth $1,200 to Chargo.

Verbal harassment is a commonly-used technique to instigate debtors into making payments. In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission received 50,000 complaints about severe harassment from debt collectors, 18,000 of which included the use of obscene language.

And some say that number is low.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, as far as I’m concerned,” attorney Sergei Lemberg told the Daily Beast.

While Chargo's berating took it too far for the Colliers, there are of thousands of cases of abuse that never make it to court.

Air Force knew of crippling F-22 flaws for a decade

High-level Air Force experts were aware of now-notorious flaws in the F-22 Raptor fighter jet’s oxygen supply system more than a decade ago. A range of solutions were proposed as early as 2005, the AP reported, citing internal documents and emails.

­A group of experts calling themselves RAW-G (Raptor Aeromedical Working Group) formed a decade ago during an early stage of production to brainstorm solutions to the problem. The group presented its recommendations in 2005, and held its final meeting in 2007 before it was dissolved.

The military rejected the proposed improvements to the jet’s oxygen supply and oxygen mask systems for purely economic reasons: The F-22 project was already well over budget, and there was no will to spend more on the already $190 million stealth jet.

A year after the group disbanded, F-22 pilots began to complain about the infamous "Raptor cough" and dizziness while flying at high altitudes.

In 2010, hypoxia was deemed to the main factor in the fatal F-22 crash in Alaska of Col. Jack McMullen, commander of the Air Force's 3rd Wing. His jet hit at such a high velocity that only small fragments of the debris could be recovered. McMullen’s body was never retrieved.

The Air Force grounded the 187-plane F-22 fleet for four months after the crash; F-22s were then only allowed to operate at altitudes where pilots did not need to use an oxygen mask.

Another blow was dealt to the program when two F-22 pilots – Major Jeremy Gordon and Captain Josh Wilson – gave a May 2012 interview on the CBS program ‘60 Minutes’ and publicly vowed they would refuse to fly in the aircraft. Both claimed they had experienced symptoms of oxygen deprivation during and after their flights in the F-22.

In July 2012, the US Air Force reported that it had identified the reason behind the spate of F-22 pilots fainting. The hypoxia incidents were blamed on constricting altitude vests.

The Air Force said it would lift the flight restrictions on the F-22 imposed by the US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. At the same time, ground crews exhibiting the same symptoms as the pilots led some to speculate that a contaminated oxygen supply could be the culprit.

Congress recently decided that the F-22 was too expensive, effectively delivering a death sentence to the program. F-22 production was halted last spring, with fewer than 200 units produced. The initial production plan called for more than 2,000 F-22s.

The Air Force currently plans to introduce some of the measures proposed by the RAW-G group, such as a backup oxygen system and a replacement for the faulty valve in the pilots' vests.

The so-called ‘best fighter jet ever’ has never actually been tested in live combat, despite the US being in a near-constant state of war since it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Most of the F-22 Raptor’s supposed combat advantages are, at this moment, entirely theoretical.

Israeli tourist attack: A pretext for war with Iran?

Israel has accused Iran of masterminding a terror attack in Bulgaria just hours after the tragedy claimed the lives of several Israeli tourists. The incident could be used as a pretext for a legitimate strike against Iran, analyst Jamal Abdi told Russian Media.

RM: It took Benjamin Netanyahu just two hours to blame Tehran for the bombing, saying that all signs point to Iran. What are the grounds for such hasty conclusions?

Jamal Abdi: I don’t think he has grounds to make such an accusation. I think it is an extremely dangerous accusation. And it really feeds some of the concerns that I know privately officials in Washington have expressed, that these attacks that have been carried out between the parties, between Israel and Iran, could somehow provide casus belli for a war.

In the case of Israel not having a pretext to go into Iran and overtly attack its nuclear facilities, if you have a situation like this, in which Iran is implicated, whether rightly or wrongly, for a terrorist attack, that could create a basis where an Israeli "counter" attack may be perceived as more legitimate than a preventative strike against Iran, against a nuclear program that – all indications say – has not developed into a nuclear weapons program.

RM: Given the pressure Iran is under concerning its nuclear program, and the international sanctions that come with it, would it be in Tehran's interests to mastermind an attack like this?

JA: I don’t know about the interests of Tehran, but I would not necessarily rule out some of the accusations that Iran was behind this. I think that we have entered a very dangerous cycle of escalation between the US, Iran and Israel. And given the attacks that we’ve seen inside of Iran against nuclear scientists, some of the sabotage efforts that have apparently been carried out by Israel, honestly I haven’t seen the evidence but I would not be shocked if Iran was behind this. And I think it is absolutely deplorable when innocent civilians are targeted by terrorist attack like this, regardless of where it happens or who conducts the attacks.

RM: Do you think blaming Iran for this attack could be diverting attention from Israel's ongoing domestic problems?

JA: I don’t know what Netanyahu's intentions are. I do know that he has used some extremely dangerous rhetoric and that there does seem to be a push by him to ratchet up the pressure for military action conducted either by Israel or the United States. And so when we have this confrontation between Israel and Iran, this is a strong suit that Netanyahu has politically, the very hard line that he has taken against Tehran.

I don’t know that it necessarily undermines anything that he is trying to do by immediately blaming Iran for this before even his own intelligence people have declared that Iran is behind this disgusting attack.

RM: The US recently reiterated its support for the Jewish state. How far do you think they would go to back Israel should it decide to take action?

JA: I don’t think the Unites States is going to have much of a choice, unfortunately, if it comes to a third party like Israel attacking Iran or if Iran does something provocative in the Persian Gulf. I think we are on the precipice right here, and this is a hair-trigger situation. If something happens, the United States is very likely going to be sucked into it.

There was a leak, in the Pentagon couple months ago, a simulation in which they found that in the case of Israeli strike on Iran immediately you have the United Stated getting sucked into it, immediately you have US soldiers getting killed in a counter-attack by Iran.

So the ability to control a situation like this once it actually does spiral into a war scenario, I think, is going be outside of US hands.

New study suggests Arafat was killed by polonium poisoning

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may have died after being poisoned by polonium, a new investigation suggests. His widow is now certain his death was not natural, and wants his body exhumed for further study.

­A nine-month investigation conducted by Al-Jazeera has concluded that Arafat’s personal belongings contained abnormally high levels of polonium, a rare and highly radioactive element. The items, including his clothing, his toothbrush, and even his iconic kaffiyeh, were supplied to Al-Jazeera by his widow, Suha Arafat. They were then analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported (unnatural) polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids,” said Dr. Francois Bochud, the director of the institute.

Scientists found that the amount of polonium on some of Arafat’s belongings was ten times higher than that on control subjects. For example, his urine-stained underwear contained 180 millibecquerels (mBq) of polonium, compared to a control subject’s count of 6.7 mBq. Arafat’s toothbrushes also had an elevated polonium level of 54 mBq.

The uncovered traces of polonium, however, are mere fractions of what could have been the cause of Arafat’s death. The polonium-210 isotope has a half-life of 138 days, meaning half of the substance decays every four and half months. Given that Arafat died almost eight years ago, the current amount of polonium present would be less than one two-millionth of the original amount.

Additional tests indicate that most of the polonium in Arafat’s belongings was “unsupported,” meaning it came from unnatural sources.

Arafat's death was "not natural"

 Doctors in Lausanne also ruled out other possible causes of Arafat’s death. At one time or another, there were claims he had died from leukemia, cirrhosis of the liver, and even AIDS.

“There was no liver cirrhosis, apparently no traces of cancer, no leukemia,” Dr. Patrice Mangin, the head of the Institute of Legal Medicine at the Lausanne University, stated to Al-Jazeera. “Concerning HIV, AIDS – there was no sign, and the symptomology was not suggesting these things.”

The conclusions were based on documentation, rather than firsthand examination of bodily fluid samples. Scientists in Lausanne hoped to study samples of blood and urine taken from Arafat at the Percy Military Hospital in France shortly before his death, but the hospital stated that it had destroyed them.

“I was not satisfied with that answer,” Suha Arafat said. “Usually a very important person, like Yasser, they would keep traces – maybe they don’t want to be involved in it?”

Several of the doctors that treated Arafat also refused to discuss his case, saying it was considered a “military secret.”

Suha Arafat, the wife of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, wants her late husband’s body exhumed to reveal the truth behind his death. The Palestinian Authority has already agreed to give its permission to the procedure, saying it will cooperate with anyone interested in establishing the cause of death. The Israeli government also has to give its formal permission to take bone samples out of the West Bank.

Nevertheless, Suha Arafat is satisfied that at least some light on what killed her husband has been shed.

“We got into this very, very painful conclusion, but at least this removes this great burden on me, on my chest,” she explained. "At least I’ve done something to explain to the Palestinian people, to the Arab and Muslim generation all over the world, that it was not a natural death, it was a crime.”

Arafat was the founder of the Fatah movement, and became the chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the principal political organization of the Palestinians, in 1967. The Arafat-led PLO was hostile towards Israel throughout most of the next two decades, but in 1993, Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Peace Accords, establishing Palestinian self-government. Arafat was elected President of the Palestinian Authority in 1996.

Negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel largely broke down with the start of the Second Intifada in 2000. In 2002, the Israeli army besieged Arafat in his Ramallah compound, preventing him from leaving it for the next two years. In October 2004, Arafat vomited during a meeting, with doctors saying he contracted influenza. However, his condition rapidly deteriorated, and Israel eventually allowed him to be transported to the Percy Military Hospital in France, where he died on November 11, 2004.

In the days before his death, Arafat suffered severe diarrhea, vomiting and weight loss, all of which are signs of polonium poisoning. The same symptoms were exhibited by former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died from polonium poisoning