Everyone who takes a Covid PCR test is entitled to see their Ct score. States should forbid reporting of “cases” without corresponding Ct scores. Rhode Island Ct numbers acquired via FOIA-Todd Kenyon, 1/8/21

“Every individual receiving a test should receive their associated Ct score. Furthermore, all states should require Ct scores to be reported along with “cases.””…

1/8/21, “COVID-19 PCR Testing: Cycle threshold values are the missing piece of the pandemic puzzle–until now,” by Todd Kenyon, PhD, CFA, RationalGround.com

 

“Most folks by now have heard that the great majority of COVID-19 tests are PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) tests. And you may have heard that there are potential problems with interpreting the results of these tests. New data obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in the State of RI [Rhode Island] confirms that there is much more information contained in PCR testing than a simple “positive/negative for COVID” result. Yet until now this information has been withheld.

.........

First, a quick review of the PCR test. Originally developed to detect the presence of DNA and RNA in biological samples, even its Nobel Prize-winning inventor Kary Mullis declared that PCR was never intended to diagnose a disease. It simply detects the presence of specific genetic material, which may or may not indicate infection.

With every other disease, clinical symptoms are required for diagnosis. The vaccine trials require specific symptoms along with a positive test to flag someone as a COVID-19 “case”. Yet we are running millions of PCR tests worldwide on asymptomatic folks and quarantining them (this includes essential health care workers) if they test “positive” – no symptoms required.

As Dr. Mullis put it, the PCR technique can find almost anything in anybody. The PCR test uses amplification cycles to find viral RNA. The sample is repeatedly chemically amplified to increase the RNA copies until they can be detected. Each “cycle” of amplification doubles the number of molecules in a sample. If you run enough cycles, you can effectively find a single molecule of any substance.

But is this clinically significant? Not according to many studies that confirm PCR results by culturing virus from the samples (a technique not practical for wide-spread testing). These studies indicate that if the machine must run more than 25 to 35 cycles to get the sample to the test’s Limit of Detection, there isn’t enough virus in the sample to matter clinically – i.e., no live virus can be cultured.

Yet data we have obtained indicates that most labs run more than 35 cycles, and some run as many as 45! Since each cycle doubles the RNA copies, 40 cycles means ONE TRILLION-fold amplification (2 to the 40^th power)!

The number of cycles required for the machine to flag the sample positive, known as the CYCLE THRESHOLD or Ct, is proportional to the original viral load in the sample. Higher viral load = more infection. Fewer cycles required to detect the virus (Lower Ct) = more infection. Once you get to ~30+ cycles, the likelihood that the subject is infectious becomes very small. This Ct number is a crucial part of the PCR test result!

Except that officials don’t seem to think so. If you get a positive PCR test result, good luck getting your Ct value. It is simply not reported. This is akin to taking a cholesterol test and getting a yes/no answer. You are “positive” for high cholesterol, but no information is given on LDL and HDL levels and how far out of normal range they are. That would be ridiculous, yet this is what the world is doing with PCR tests for COVID-19.

On top of the Ct issue is that tests don’t look for the complete RNA strand. Instead, they test for one, two, or three gene sequences. Tests that look for only one sequence are less accurate than those that use two or three, and even if the Ct value is reported, that value is often the average of the values for the different gene sequences instead of the number of cycles needed to detect each sequence. If the number of cycles for detecting different sequences varies widely, that may be an indication that there is a problem with the test, and averaging the values can hide that.

If you get a positive result, you have no idea “how positive” you are. Are you infectious? Likely to become ill?

There’s no way to know without the Ct score–

but go and quarantine anyway! Not only does this result in huge amounts of needless quarantines, it also serves to drive fear and panic. Overly sensitive

tests with no Ct “score” are used to inflate “case” counts.

Also, everyone who shows up at a hospital for any reason is tested, with no Ct information, and if “positive” they are counted as a “COVID hospitalization”. Even fatalities are inflated, as many jurisdictions only require a “positive” test any time in the 1-2 months before death to flag someone as a COVID fatality.

So a binary “positive/negative” PCR test regime with no quantitative information inflates COVID numbers

from cases

to hospitalizations 

to deaths.

Ct data is simply not reported, and many labs claim they don’t even keep them. It took a FOIA request from an intrepid member of RIFreedom.org to finally uncover data from the [Rhode Island] RI State Health Laboratory (RISHL) spanning March-June 2020. If this Rhode Island data is at all representative, there is a lot to be learned from PCR test Ct scores.

First we take a look at each individual positive test, plotted as Ct score versus date of test. The pandemic hit RI hard in early spring, and these data cover that period. Note the color code that indicates which of these “positive” tests may have been truly infectious versus not infectious, or “cold positives”. One can argue where exactly to draw these zones, but the point is clear that a great number of the positive tests represented “cold”/non-infectious individuals.

Next we look at the relative numbers of tests in each category, by Ct value.

Data source: RI HHS via RIFreedom.org
By: TTBikeFit LLC

We can see that nearly half of the positive tests had Ct scores of greater than 32 – meaning they were probably not infectious. Only 42% were likely infectious, and this is during a time when RI was smack in the middle of the spring pandemic, AND when they were mainly testing symptomatic people!

We can analyze the data further by looking at what percentage of Ct scores were above 32 (likely not infectious) by month. As the Spring progresses, we see more tests with higher Ct values = more people with lower viral loads, to the point where 2/3 of tests in June were likely not infectious.

Data source: RI HHS via RIFreedom.org
By: TTBikeFit LLC

Note that RI’s case/hospitalization/death metrics peaked right near the end of April – which corresponds to the large jump in non-infectious Ct scores in May vs April!

Now it gets even more interesting. Let’s look at the daily mean Ct scores by date.

As May approaches, the average Ct score of positive tests rises linearly through the “maybe infectious” zone into the “not infectious” zone, again showing clearly that viral loads were decreasing (fewer people were actually sick).

Finally, if we overlay fatalities, we can clearly see the potential predictive effect of Ct score trends relative to pandemic severity. In the graph below, daily fatalities have been offset by 21 days (shifted 21 days earlier than actual date of death) to better align with infection date.

Here I inverted the Ct scale to represent viral load. As viral load is decreasing (Ct score increasing), we see that fatalities (21 days later) follow. As average Ct scores pass through the yellow into the green zone, fatalities wane.

So the Ct score clearly has predictive power! As it should, since it represents viral load, and higher viral load = more severe illness. It is quite possible that by May-June most of the positive tests were picking up non-viable RNA–dead virus. [What Dr. Fauci would call “dead nucleotides“ at 4:30]

Perhaps one might object that this is just one data set (sadly), so maybe this is a fluke. Well, we did manage to procure a second small data set from a lab on the U.S. west coast, also from the spring. And voila, the Ct score distributions are remarkably similar to those in RI.

Data source: confidential
By: TTBikeFit LLC

It is frankly negligent that officials and “experts” on both sides of pandemic policy are ignoring or cannot access this data. Labs simply don’t provide them, apparently because they are not required to do so. Beyond informing a tested individual regarding the severity of infection (or if there is even an infection at all), the distribution of Ct scores in any given time period provides information that clearly has predictive value in gauging pandemic severity. Yet Ct values are nearly impossible to obtain. To date, only the state of Florida has moved to require reporting of Ct scores, though it’s unclear what the level of public disclosure will be (if any). PCR testing is used as a blunt instrument to whip up reporting of “cases,” hospitalizations, and deaths, while crucial insights from Ct scores are ignored.

Worse than draconian lockdown policies are lockdowns based on faulty and incomplete data. How can rational policy be set based on metrics that are corrupted through improper use of PCR testing?

Every individual receiving a test should receive their associated Ct score. Furthermore, all states should require Ct scores to be reported along with “cases.””…

..........

Gossage got an extra month to rest up when he was suspended in 1986 by the San Diego Padres

"Silly Goose got mad at Smith because Smith indicated that the team would not sign free agents with a drug history or those who refused testing."...

9/3/1986, "Goose's Specialty Isn't Golden Eggs, Nor Golden Arches," LA Times, Scott Ostler

"What we're experiencing in sport these days is an epidemic of bad manners....
A Yankee Stadium fan throws a knife at Angel first baseman Wally Joyner. Maybe the guy just wanted the knife autographed, but at least he should have yelled, "Yo, Wally, heads up!" Simple courtesy goes a long way.
And now the Goose is loose in San Diego.
Rich (Silly Goose) Gossage, the noted relief pitcher for the San Diego Padres, is in trouble with the front office. Padre president Ballard Smith has suspended Silly Goose for the remainder of the season. He'll probably be reinstated soon, but it has been an ugly incident.
Silly Goose got mad at Smith because Smith indicated that the team would not sign free agents with a drug history or those who refused testing. Gossage got even madder when Smith banned beer in the Padre clubhouse in early July.
So Gossage called Smith "spineless and gutless." Goose said of team owner Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's hamburger founder Ray Kroc: "She's poisoning the world with her hamburgers."
This is freedom of speech. This is also colossal bad manners.
I realize fast-food hamburgers aren't what they used to be, but neither are Goose Gossage fastballs. The guy's ERA is the size of a quarter pounder. Besides, this business of poisoning the world didn't bother Gossage two years ago when he signed a contract that will eventually bring him an $11-million McPiece of the burger action. Where was Silly Goose's moral conscience then? And what does Gossage grab for lunch when he's in a hurry? Tofu and bean sprouts on tree bark, no doubt.
The Padres will continue to pay Gossage until he is 65, although they won't require him to pitch that long.
I look at these contract figures and my question is: Where's the beef?
With $11 million, Goose can afford to have someone meet him in the stadium parking lot after games with a six-pack in a cooler.
Quite simply, Gossage was guilty of a flagrant cheap shot. He was biting the hand that feeds not only him but much of the free world.
I think he owes an apology to Mrs. Kroc, and also to Ronald McDonald, whose reputation has been damaged. The poor fellow will probably have to wear dark glasses in public until this blows over.
Freedom-of-speech advocates and freedom-of-Goose advocates will spring to Gossage's defense. They'll point out that creative insults are a part of baseball's rich tradition. They'll recall how pitcher Bill Lee once called Boston Red Sox Manager Don Zimmer a gerbil. And how Billy Martin once said of his star slugger (Reggie Jackson) and his employer (George Steinbrenner), "One's a born liar and the other's convicted."
They'll point out that Ballard Smith is no Will Rogers when it comes to liking people he meets. He has soundly criticized Padre players, individually and collectively, in the press.
Goose backers will also point out that the Padres should have known they were signing Goose Gossage, not Merv Griffin. The Gooser speaks his mind. When he pitched for the Yankees, he blasted Manager Martin. Gossage also spoke publicly of "the jerk upstairs" and "the fat man upstairs"--referring, one hopes, to Steinbrenner.
But Gossage supporters be damned. What about etiquette, one of the building blocks of our nation? Did that go out with powdered wigs? Was it right for Gossage to make fun of Smith's relationship to team ownership--he's married to Ray Kroc's daughter--by saying that Smith "just listens to what mom says"?
Doesn't a handsomely paid employee owe his owner a certain amount of loyalty, at least in public? Couldn't some of this have been handled behind closed doors? How would Silly Goose like it if every time he left his dirty socks laying around, his wife went to the newspapers? "Ms. Goose Calls Hurler Hubby Gutless, Spineless Slob."
Ah, what's the use? I know this whole situation will be resolved unsatisfactorily for all concerned. Smith will back off a little, and Goose will apologize a little. Then, like little kids, they'll be at it again as soon as our backs are turned.
For all the good it will do, I'd like to suggest to Goose that he invest a little of his $11 million in a mail-order etiquette course. And that when his Padre contract expires in 2016, Goose look for a team that is financed with untainted money and whose ownership is clearly engaged in noble service to mankind. The Yankees, maybe."



..........................

Baseball Writers' Hall of Fame vote is one big conflict of interest

Dec. 30, 2011, "Baseball Writers’ vote for 2012 Hall of Fame class is a conflict of interest," Evan Weiner, NewJerseyNewsroom.com

Hoffman said 300 saves should be 'benchmark for a closer as is 3,000 hits for a hitter'-SF Chronicle, Jan. 2011

1/13/11, "Closer Hoffman no first-ballot Hall of Fame lock," SF Chronicle, John Shea

"Trevor's no Mo. Then again, who is?

The Yankees' Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer in baseball history, with apologies to Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Rich Gossage and a few others, and should break Trevor Hoffman's career saves record of 601 this year or next. Rivera's 42 shy.

More than that, he's in his own class in terms of achievements on the national stage, considering his postseasons (0.76 ERA, 0.766 WHIP, 42 saves, 94 appearances) and even All-Star Games (an 0.00 ERA in eight appearances).

Hoffman, who retired this week, wasn't near Rivera's level with his limited postseason experience. He blew a save opportunity in his only World Series appearance (1998 with the Padres) and also failed on two save tries in the final three days of the 2007 season, costing San Diego the playoffs. On a lesser note,

• Hoffman blew a save chance in the 2006 All-Star Game, allowing Rivera to close it out.

Rivera also has superior regular-season numbers. That's not to say Hoffman's not Hall of Fame worthy, but first ballot is no lock. No career reliever (we're not counting Eckersley, who won 148 games as a starter) reached Cooperstown on the first ballot.

Fingers made it in his second year of eligibility, Hoyt Wilhelm in his seventh, Gossage his ninth and Bruce Sutter his 13th.

At issue is how the closer's role is valued. It's a relatively new position, the save a relatively new stat, which probably is overly hyped. Not even Hoffman has a true grasp. He suggested on Wednesday that 300 saves should be a benchmark for a closer as is 3,000 hits for a hitter and 300 wins for a starter.

That's overly generous. Doug Jones, one of 21 relievers to save 300, is no all-timer. Four hundred saves (reached by just five) is more acceptable. Even then, maybe not. John Franco, despite 424 saves, is off the Hall ballot after receiving less than 5 percent of the votes.

Lee Smith was Hoffman before Hoffman, once the all-time saves leader with 478. But Smith received 45.3 percent in the latest vote.

• It was his ninth year on the ballot."

Nearly $3 million US taxpayer dollars wasted on Ocala, Florida green jobs bust

The CO2 mandates Washington Post employees mistakenly believe can make a difference in Florida can be found strangling 10 Northeastern states and the state of California. Florida doesn't make much of anything, has little to regulate, and has already tapped out its power companies for 'renewable' dollars via rate payers. This is one reason Florida is a state filled with poor people such as the subject of this article. If the Washington Post wants to help, they can get on their bicycle, pedal to Florida, give the bike to the job seeker there, and suggest he pedal to California. (As for 'sustainable landscape design' cited as a 'green jobs' possibility, they've known about that for years in Florida. You'd have to live in Central or South Florida to understand how different it is from the Beltway).

• 11/22/10, "Retrained for green jobs, but still waiting on work," Washington Post, M. Fletcher

Ocala, Fla."After losing his way in the old economy, Laurance Anton tried to assure his place in the new one by signing up for

• green jobs training earlier this year at his local community college.

Anton has been out of work since 2008, when his job as a surveyor vanished with Florida's once-sizzling housing market. After a futile search, at age 56 he reluctantly returned to school to learn the kind of job skills

• the Obama administration is wagering will soon fuel an employment boom: solar installation, sustainable landscape design, recycling and green demolition.

Anton said the classes, funded with a $2.9 million federal grant to Ocala's workforce development organization, have taught him a lot. He's learned how to apply Ohm's law, how to solder tiny components on circuit boards and how to disassemble rather than demolish a building.

• The only problem is that his new skills have not resulted in a single job offer.
  

Officials who run Ocala's green jobs training program say the same is true for three-quarters of their first 100 graduates.

• "I think I have put in 200 applications," said Anton, who exhausted his unemployment benefits months ago and now relies on food stamps and his dwindling savings to survive. "I'm long past the point where I need some regular income."

With nearly 15 million Americans out of work and the unemployment rate hovering above 9 percent for 18 consecutive months, policymakers desperate to stoke job creation

• have bet heavily on green energy.
  

The Obama administration channeled more than $90 billion from the $814 billion economic stimulus bill into clean energy technology,

• confident that the investment would grow into the economy's next big thing.

The infusion of money is going to projects such as weatherizing public buildings and constructing advanced battery plants in the industrial Midwest, financing solar electric plants in the Mojave desert and training green energy workers.

But the huge federal investment has run headlong into the stubborn reality that the market for renewable energy products - and workers - remains in its infancy. The administration says that its stimulus investment has saved or created 225,000 jobs in the green energy industry,

• a pittance in an economy that has shed 7.5 million jobs since the recession took hold in December 2007.

The industry's growth has been undercut by the simple economic fact that fossil fuels remain cheaper than renewables. Both Obama administration officials and

• green energy executives say that the business needs not just government incentives, but also rules and regulations that

• force people and business to turn to renewable energy.
  

Without government mandates dictating how much renewable energy utilities must use to generate electricity, or placing a price on the polluting carbon emitted by fossil fuels, they say, "...(see opening comment, ed.)

• (continuing): "green energy cannot begin to reach its job creation potential.

"We keep getting these stops and starts in the industry. There is no way it can work like this," said Bill Gallagher, president of Solar-Fit, a Florida energy company

• whose fortunes have fluctuated with government incentives in its 35 years in business.

Like many people who run renewable energy companies, Gallagher said he sees no need to expand his 25-employee firm because the business is simply not there."

• (The US is not Denmark. This should be obvious. Denmark's 'climate industry' is overrun with organized crime. Putting some weatherstripping on buildings won't provide any tax money to speak of. ed.).

via Michelle Malkin

Arnold to sell organized crime infested cap & trade as hip and sexy. Real environmentalists know 'cap and trade' can't possibly help the planet.

Dear Arnold, Apparently you see middle America as helpless in the face of self-beatified Hollywood bullies, the Soros machine, and UN thugs. You seem to think you can get us to drink Kool-Aid laced with arsenic.

• We are not interested in organized crime disguised as green, sexy or hip.
  

11/16, BBC, "By contrast the conference host - (outgoing California Governor) Mr Schwarzenegger - sees lack of international agreement as an opportunity.

• Under his leadership California has begun work on huge solar and wind farms.

As his time in office comes to a close, he is launching a new group called R20, to encourage

• local and regional authorities to invest in the low-carbon economy and to encourage public involvement.

Mr Schwarzenegger said: "We should not just rely on policy... what is important is that we

• make the general public buy in on this whole idea of going green.

"You've got to make it hip, you've got to make it sexy to be part of this movement.

• His enthusiasm is unlikely to reach Washington."...

Powerhouse environmental legal boutiques ravaging US taxpayer funds outside public limelight. Polar bears merely props in a mafia-like scandal

Most US taxpayers are unaware this is going on. The so-called Center for Biological Diversity filed 565 lawsuits from 2000-2009 and offers secrecy to its donors, ie rich donors need not be disclosed.

• 10/9/09, "Environmental lawsuits rake in billions for lawyers," by Jake Putnam

"During harsh economic times, rancher Karen Budd-Falen reached the breaking point on a day last fall. Falen had read about a huge court settlement the

• Federal Government paid out to a non-profit environmental group and after talking to the ranchers in the Western Legacy Alliance, it set her off.

Falen channeled the frustration into a quest; she wanted to know how much money the Federal Government had paid out in lawsuit legal fees over the past decade and what she found is astounding.
In just six years non-profit environmental groups filed more than 15-hundred lawsuits and in turn the

• Federal Government paid out more than $4.7 billion in taxpayer dollars in settlements and legal fees in cases against the U.S. government.

Between 2000 and 2009, Idaho's Western Watersheds Project out of Hailey filed at least 91 lawsuits in federal district court with 31 appeals in federal appellate court according to Falen, who not only is a rancher but a former Department of Interior law clerk. She and husband Frank represent cattlemen in range issues throughout the west.

• Falen often wondered how tiny non-profit organizations like Western Watersheds could afford an attorney like the famed Laird Lucas of Boise who is known as one of the best natural resource attorneys in the country.

"We tried to track the fees paid to environmental groups in certain federal courts. These guys are charging between $350 and $450 an hour in legal fees." Falen says the Federal government is picking up the tab and adds: "In Federal District Court in Boise, over the last ten years, WWP received a total of $999,190 in tax dollars for 'reimbursement' for attorney fees and costs."

• "We've had a lot of litigation with WWP," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Haws of Boise. "We've had a lot of cases with them and they have prevailed on cases and been awarded Equal Access to Justice Attorney fees. I don't have a total, but that amount wouldn't surprise me."

"It's atrocious, as a private operator I can't gather that kind of money to fight anything like that," said rancher Ted Higley of Malta, Idaho. "If they're going to fight personal causes it should be with their personal money,

• not government money."

Falen's research shows that of the cases filed by Western Watersheds in Idaho's Federal Court, 19 went before Judge Lynn Winmill; eight resulted in decisions on merit with WWP prevailing with total attorney fees awarded to the tune of $746,184; six of the cases were settled by the feds paying of $118,000.
WWP lost six cases but still managed a payday in two cases, but the payment amount is confidential. Falen's findings show a pattern:

• there's a payday in court, win or lose or draw.

"I'm not going to point fingers at WWP but there are organizations out there that are just sitting there scrutinizing, watching every decision an agency makes waiting for that 'low hanging fruit' to jump on - just to get fees," said U.S. Attorney Mark Haws.
"Nonprofit, tax exempt groups are making billions of dollars in funding," said Falen. She says
the majority of this legal fee money is not going into programs to protect people, jobs, wildlife, or endangered species but

• to fund more lawsuits from non-profit environmental groups.

Farmers and ranchers that struggle to make a living off the land are forced to spend money out of their pocket to defend themselves; that's what happened to ranchers Tim Lowry and Paul Nettleton of Owyhee County.
The ranchers successfully defended a decade-long fight for water rights on their land against the BLM.

• The Idaho Supreme Court ruled on their side in a precedent setting case but the

U.S. Supreme Court denied them attorney fees under EAJA from the government because the decision came in state court.

That left the ranchers with a $1.5 million legal bill from a case in which

• the Federal Government dragged them into court.

"There's a lot of a things wrong with this picture," said Falen. "The federal government is spending billions in taxpayer dollars
without any accounting of where the money is going or to whom it is going.
There is no oversight in spending this money, especially the money that's coming out of agency budgets that

• should be funding programs to protect public lands, national forests, ranchers, recreationists, wildlife and other land uses," said Falen.

Falen's research shows that between 2000 and 2009, Forest Guardians (NKA as WildEarth Guardians) filed 180 lawsuits in federal district courts with at least 61 appeals in the federal appellate courts; during the same time frame the

• Center for Biological Diversity filed at least 409 lawsuits in the federal district courts with at least

• 165 appeals in the federal appellate courts.

In addition she found over the past 15 years that the Wilderness Society filed 149 federal court lawsuits, the Idaho Conservation League filed 69 lawsuits, the Oregon Natural Desert Association filed 58 lawsuits, the Southern Utah Wilderness Association filed 88 lawsuits and the National Wildlife Federation filed an astonishing 427 federal court lawsuits.

• Falen says she found cases in which the Federal Government paid legal fees for both sides of a case -

• just so they could turn around and sue the federal government

• who in turn will force ranchers off the range.

In 2001 the Western Watersheds Project sued Verl Jones of Challis

• claiming that the rancher violated the Endangered Species Act by

diverting water from a creek on his ranch to irrigate an alfalfa field, killing endangered bull trout. Federal District Court Judge Winmill ordered Jones to stop diverting water, which cut into the family's hay production and

• nearly bankrupted the ranch.

But the harshest blow came when Jones was ordered to pay $36,000.00 to Watershed's attorney Laird Lucas. In the end the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal overturned Winmill's decision and the order to pay Lucas, but the

• family was left with a $50,000 bill from their attorney.

Falen also documented numerous cases in which the federal government agreed to pay attorney fees,

• but hid the exact amount from public view.

"Somewhere this has to stop and the government has to be held accountable for the money it's spending," adds Falen.
"If you just look at the raw number and say 'why in the world is the United States paying a million dollars bankrolling them to sue us,' well that's what

• congress set up through EAJA. That's the law,
• we're bound by it," said Mark Haws.

"My firm did this because it makes me so mad," said Falen. She agrees with Haws, these

• groups have mastered the art of filing suits and

collecting taxpayer money from the Federal Government by "prevailing" in litigation.
They can prevail either by winning the case on the merits

• or

by the Justice Department agreeing that the group "prevailed" in a settlement.
The main funding source is called the "Judgment Fund." It's a Congressional line-item appropriation that's

• used for Endangered Species Act cases,

Clean Water Act cases, and with other statutes that directly allow plaintiffs like Western Watersheds to

• recover attorney fees just by filing, even if there's no hope in winning.

"I wish we could get a payday just for showing up," said rancher Ted Higley. Falen uncovered six years of paydays for 'non-profit' lawyers, she found:

In fiscal year 2003, the federal government made 10,595 individual payments from the Judgment Fund to federal court plaintiffs for a price tag of $1,081,328,420.00.
In 2004, the federal government made 8,161 payments from the Judgment Fund for $800,450,029.00.
In 2005, 7,794 payments were made from the Judgment Fund for a total of $1,074,131,007.00.
In 2006, the federal government made 8,736 payments from the Judgment Fund for $697,968,132.00.

In just the first half of fiscal year 2007, the federal government made 6,595 payments

• from the Judgment Fund for $1,062,387,142.00.

In total, $4,716,264,730.00 (that is billion with a "b") in total payments were paid in taxpayer dollars from the Judgment Fund from 2003 through July 2007 for

• attorney fees and costs in cases against the federal government.

Falen says another major source of payments to "winning" litigants against the federal government is the Equal Access to Justice Act.
Equal Access funds are taken from the "losing" federal agencies' budget. So if the BLM loses a case in Federal District Court attorney fees are paid from the "losing" BLM office's budget.
"That's money that could be used for range improvement, habitat enhancement, timber projects, and archeology and cultural clearances and other agency programs," adds Falen.

Between 2003 to 2005, Region 1 of the Forest Service (Montana, North Dakota, northern Idaho) paid $383,094 in Equal Access to Judgment fees.
Between 2003 to 2005, Region 2 of the Forest Service (Wyoming, South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma) paid $97,750 in EAJA fees.
Between 2003 to 2005, Region 3 of the Forest Service (Arizona, New Mexico) paid $261,289.85 in EAJA fees.
Between 2003 to 2005, Region 4 of the Forest Service (southern Idaho, Utah, Nevada) paid $297,705 in EAJA fees.
Between 2003 to 2005, Region 5 (California) of the Forest Service paid $357, 023 in EAJA fees.
Between 2003 to 2005, Region 6 (Washington State, Oregon) of the Forest Service paid $282,302 in EAJA fees.
Out of the 44 total cases in which the Forest Service paid EAJA fees between 2003 and 2005,

35 payments went to ‘nonprofit' environmental group plaintiffs."