Saturday, May 31, 2008
Hillary Clinton's Role in the Marc Rich Pardon
Fixers Indicated That Hillary Was a Key Player in the Marc Rich Pardon Deal
Bill Clinton and the Rich Women
Jeffrey St. Clair
www.counterpunch.org
... Hillary has never addressed her role in the Rich pardon. In fact, she’s rarely been asked her opinion on the free pass given to one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, a man who violated embargoes against Iran and South Africa and fled the country rather than face trial in what was billed as “the biggest tax evasion case in history.” The senator has variously said that she was “unaware” of the decision and “surprised” by it. When pressed, she merely cackles.
Even though 300 pages of core documents relating to the pardon decision remain under seal at the Clinton Library, a review of the available record tells a much different story. In fact, the Rich legal team viewed Hillary as a secret weapon, and as one door after another closed on their search for a pardon they focused more and more on invoking what Rich lawyer Robert Fink called the “HRC option.”
Who is Marc Rich? And why did he need a presidential pardon?
Born in Belgium to Jewish parents, Marc Rich moved with his family to the United States to escape Hitler. Young Marc soon went to work for a commodity firm in New York called Phillip Bros, later acquired by Salomon Brothers. He soon made his mark as an oil trader and, along with his friend Pincus “Pinky” Green, he is credited with inventing spot market trading in oil, ferrous metals and sugar. Billions flowed into the firm, and the European press took to calling Rich “the Aluminum Finger.”
But Rich and “Pinky” Green felt underappreciated and underpaid. They bolted the firm, and Rich angrily vowed to “grind Phillip Bros. into oblivion.” In 1974, the pair started their own holding company, eventually known as the Marc Rich Group, and began making oil deals with Iran, Iraq and wildcatters in Texas. He and Pinky were soon billionaires and big shots in the global petrochemical trade.
Around this time, Rich courted a buxom young Jewish singer/songwriter from Worchester, Massachusetts, named Denise. He whisked her off to his seaside villa in Marbella, Spain, where the couple were married and rapidly assumed the life of international jet-setters and art collectors. It is said that Rich owns one of the largest private collections of Picasso paintings and sculptures in the world. Rich began referring to himself as a “business machine.” The years passed. Denise bore Rich three daughters and honed her songwriting skills on transcontinental flights on the family’s private jet. Saccharine pop flowed off her micro recorder , including minor hit “Frankie.” The bank accounts swelled.
Then in 1983 crisis hit the Rich family. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York notified Rich and Pinky that they were under investigation for fraud, illegal oil deals with Iran and the apartheid regime in South Africa, and tax evasion. Documents were subpoenaed. Indictments were in the works. Rich hired D.C. heavy-hitter Edward Bennett Williams to fend off assaults of a vicious young prosecutor – none other than Rudy Giuliani.
When Giuliani requested that Pinkyand Rich turn over their passports and post a large bond, Williams acted indignant and personally avowed to the federal judge overseeing the case that his client was not a flight risk. Two days later, Pinky and Rich were on a plane bound for Europe. As expected, the indictments came: a 65-count charge alleging fraud, trading with the enemy (Iran), and tax evasion.
Humiliated, Williams resigned in a huff, and Rich found a succession of new lawyers over the next decade, including former Nixon attorney Leonard Garment and Lewis Scooter Libby, who would later find refuge in the awesome power of presidential privilege.
Rich’s escape from Giuliani’s clutches is the stuff of spy novels, made even more thrilling due to the fact that he almost certainly had several moles inside Giuliani’s office, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies who kept him apprised of the schemes to nab him. He evaded the U.S. marshals on his tail at Heathrow Airport in England, and then later his plane bound for Finland mysteriously turned at the last moment for Sweden, once again narrowly avoiding landing in custody. Years later, Rich would also escape his captors in Germany and Jamaica, courtesy of anonymous tips to the fugitive billionaire.
The tycoon’s eventual passage to safe harbor in Switzerland went from Sweden through East Germany, aided by the notorious Wolfgang Vogel, an East German lawyer who specialized in shuttling spies into and out of Eastern Europe.
Rich dropped millions at every stop, especially in Switzerland. He and “Pinky” Green choose the town of Zuq to establish their new headquarters in a blueberry-colored office tower. Entreaties were made to Swiss officials, and money liberally dispensed.
“He bought Swiss loyalty,” says Shawn Tulley, a financial crimes reporter for Fortune magazine, who covered the Rich case. “He really put out the charm and the money.” When the U.S. Marshals finally tracked Rich down in Switzerland, they immediately petitioned the Swiss government for his extradition. Request denied. As far as the Swiss were concerned, financial crimes, especially involving taxation, were trifling concerns unworthy of governmental consideration.
When the Swiss refused to turn Rich over, the Marshals tried to kidnap the world’s most famous tax evader under the extraordinary rendition program, which has since become a staple of the Bush regime.
The Marshals set up a team outside of Rich’s mansion and his offices. But again, there was a fortuitous leak. The Swiss police approached the would-be kidnappers and told them to shut down their operation or they would be the ones sitting in jail. The Marshals retreated. Rich had found his sanctuary. He summoned Denise and the children to join him in sprawling mansion near Lucerne and then renounced his U.S. citizenship. This freed him from the nagging obligation of ever again having to worry about entanglements with the IRS over tax obligations. But it also threw the validity of his eventual pardon into question.
The exile of Marc Rich was not an idle one. Indeed, from 1983 to 1996 Rich’s fortune ballooned from a mere billion dollars to more than $7 billion. He and Pinky struck oil deals in Russia and Bulgaria (prompting accusations of fraud and thievery in both countries) and mining operations in central Asia, Africa and South America. Along the way, he sharpened the art of the political bribe. Rudy Giuliani alleges that during this period Rich tried to bribe the state of New York, offering millions to the State Department of Education in exchange for a withdrawal of the pending charges.
In order to buy alumina from the new leftist government of Jamaica for less than half the market price, Rich wired $50 million to Jamaican President Michael Manley in an hour of acute distress for the embattled ruler.
Even as he neared the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, Rich also didn’t see any reason to abandon his operations in the United States. In fact, his hand is seen orchestrating one of the most savage crackdowns on organized labor in recent decades. In 1989, Rich secretly acquired the controlling interest in a West Virginia-based company called Ravenswood Aluminum. Ravenswood was embroiled in a tumultuous battle between management and workers at the plant when in 1990, under Rich’s long-distance orders, the company tried to bust the union. On a bitterly cold night, a private security force arrived at the plant, set up armed guards at the gates and surveillance cameras around the perimeter of the facility, and locked out 1,700 workers, all members of the Steelworkers Union. Over the ensuing weeks, the armed guards repeatedly clashed with picketing union members, fogging the air with tear gas and beating skulls with their police clubs. Soon Rich made the call to hire permanent replacement workers, for less pay and reduced benefits. The lockout went on for two more years. “It was a brutal affair,” says Dan Stidham, president of the Ravenswood union local at the time of the lockout. “I’m still pretty upset with Clinton for pardoning that guy after all we went through.”
Meanwhile, back in Lucerne, Rich was beginning to cultivate the Israeli government. He established the Rich Foundation in Tel Aviv, which would distribute more than $100 million to Israeli causes over the next decade. To oversee the foundation, Rich selected a former high-ranking Mossad official named Avner Azulay, whose ties to the intelligence agency probably never totally evaporated. Azulay was a useful conduit to Israel’s political elite. He was close to Yitzak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert. A decade later, Azulay would play a key role in securing Rich’s pardon from the Clintons.
Through Azulay, Rich offered his services to the Israeli government, especially the Mossad. Indeed, according to letters from Israeli officials, Rich played the role of a “Say-Ayon,” or unpaid asset of the Mossad. In fact, Rich was subsidizing Israeli intelligence operations. He financed numerous covert missions and allowed Mossad operatives to work covertly in his offices around the world.
With experience as an international spook now added to his C.V., Rich reached out through intermediaries to both the FBI and the CIA. He offered his services to both agencies in exchange for dropping the charges against him. The CIA’s response is unknown, but the FBI was intrigued and sent the request to the Justice Department, where it was quashed.
Around this time, Rich launched into a public liaison with a glamorous Italian widow by the name of Gisela Rossi. He flaunted the affair in front of Denise, the tycoon’s wife who had followed him into his luxurious life on the lam. Denise filed for divorce and prepared to return to New York. But Rich, whose net worth now neared $10 billion, was offering her only a tiny settlement. So Denise took matters into her own hands. She removed a Van Gogh painting from the wall of their palace in Lucerne and warned her estranged husband that unless he ponied up more money, she would take the masterpiece with her. Ultimately, Rich offered her a settlement of $200 million. Although the amount is far less than she would have gotten in most U.S. courts, Denise signed the papers and took her daughters with her back to Manhattan.
Rossi and Rich soon married and now divide their time between St. Moritz and Marbella, Spain.
A year after the Rich’s divorce, their oldest daughter, Gabriella, was diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of leukemia. She died within the year. Marc Rich made no effort to visit Gabriella in her final months. Denise Rich seethed.
Pardon Me
The machinations to secure a pardon from Bill Clinton for Marc Rich began in earnest in the fall of 1998, when Rich’s public relations flack in the U.S., Gershon Kekst, squirmed his way into a seat next to Eric Holder, the number two in the Clinton Justice Department, at big D.C. party thrown by Daimler/Chrysler. Without mentioning Rich by name, Kekst asked Holder how a man of considerable resources might be relieved of the burden of being “unproperly indicted by an overzealous prosecutor.”
Holder took a sip of wine and told Kekst that such a man would need to hire a D.C. lawyer who knows the ropes and has deep connections inside the Clinton administration. “He comes to me and we work it out,” confided Holder.
“Can you recommend such a person?” Kekst inquired.
Holder pointed to a man sitting at a nearby table. “There’s Jack Quinn,” Holder whispered. “He’s a perfect example.”
Kekst dutifully wrote down Quinn’s name, did some research on the former lawyer for the Clintons, and transmitted the joyful news to the Rich camp.
There is every indication that Holder was trying to drum up business for Quinn, a partner at the powerhouse firm of Arnold and Porter, as well as a top advisor for Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Holder was desperate to have Quinn’s backing in his doomed bid to become attorney general.
Back in Switzerland, Rich ordered up a dossier on Quinn. His initial response was not favorable. Rich believed Quinn to be merely a “pretty boy” with little experience and “more connections than clout.” He decided to stick with Scooter Libby’s team. But Scooter, who had represented Rich since 1985, produced no results, and in the summer of 1999, with the clock ticking down on Clinton time, the desperate tycoon reached out to Jack Quinn.
Quinn formally became Rich’s lawyer on July 21, 1999. His fees were stiff: an initial retainer of $355,000, plus a minimum payment of $55,000 each month. Quinn’s firm, Arnold and Porter, reserved the right to represent clients suing Rich on matters. Rich consented.
Initially, Quinn intimated to the Rich team that securing the pardon would be a relatively easy matter. A few calls to his good friend Holder, and that would be that. Quinn was wrong. When Holder contacted the prosecutors in Manhattan about the Rich case, they vowed to oppose any deal until Rich returned to the U.S. and entered a plea in the case. Rich refused.
From that point on, the Rich team, including his sympathizers inside the Clinton administration, hid their maneuvers from federal prosecutors. After discussions with White House aides Bruce Lindsey and Beth Nolan, Quinn sent out an email calling for a new approach: “It’s time to move on the GOI [Government of Israel] front but we have to get the calls initiated over there.”
Letters and calls soon flooded the White House from Israeli officials and high profile Jews, including Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Elie Weisel. In one way or another, each had received benefits from Rich or one of his foundations. A problem soon developed. When presented the opportunity to discuss presidential pardons with Clinton, many of these leaders, anxious perhaps to legitimize Israeli penetration of the U.S. government, choose to plead the case of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard instead of Rich.
Quinn scrambled comically for a solution. Quinn sends an urgent email to Robert Fink, Rich’s longtime New York lawyer.
From: Jack Quinn. To: Fink, Robert, NY.
“Hope you’re checking email; I don’t have access here to avner’s email address, or marc’s, and wonder if you can inquire whether there is a possibility of persuading Mrs Rabin to make a call to POTUS [President of the United States].He had a deep affection for her husband. “
Fink leaps into action with an email to Avner Azulay, the former Mossad officer, now heading the Rich Foundation in Tel Aviv.
From: Fink, Robert, NY. Sent: Saturday. To: Avner Azulay
“... Jack asks if you could get Leah Rabin to call the President; Jack said he was a real big supporter of her husband…”
Azulay writes back with distressing news.
From: Avner. To: Fink, Robert, NY.
“Bob, having Leah Rabin call is not a bad idea. The problem is how do we contact her? She died last November ... ’’
Eventually, Quinn secures a letter and congenial phone call to Clinton from Rabin’s daughter, who doesn’t really know Rich. Their best hopes seem to be evaporating. Perhaps Rich was right about Quinn, after all.
First Catch Your Foxman
The scene shifts to a crowded restaurant in Paris. It’s Valentine’s Day. Two men are having dinner and drinking wine. They know each other well. One man has just received a $100,000 contribution from the other man’s boss. The man on the receiving end of the money is Abe Foxman, and the financial gift was for his group the Anti-Defamation League. The man picking up the hefty dinner tab is Avner Azulay – though Marc Rich will soon reimburse him.
Rich has one last shot, Foxman advises. They need to get directly to Bill and Hillary. And the key to unlocking the inner doors of the White House, Foxman told Azulay, is Denise Rich. Foxman confided that he and Denise had flown together on Air Force II to the funeral of Yitzak Rabin.
There was just one problem. Denise Rich still loathed her husband.
Entreaties are made to Denise, now a New York socialite and successful songwriter, by Quinn and others on the Rich teams. Three times “Denise Rich declines to come to the rescue of her former husband.
Then suddenly, in November 2000, she agrees to help. What made her change her mind?
That remains open to speculation, but given Marc Rich’s history and Denise’s view that she was shortchanged in the divorce, it may well have involved a financial offering. This much is known. On November 16, Avner Azulay flies to New York and takes Denise to dinner. He pleads for her to back Rich’s pardon to her friends Bill and Hillary. Two days later Denise consents.
Denise calls her close friend Beth Dozoretz for help in the best way to handle the matter. Another rich Manhattan socialite, Dozoretz had been the finance chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Dozoretz had contributed more than $1 million to Democratic coffers. Bill Clinton was the godfather of her daughter.
Dozoretz who, like Denise Rich, would later plead the Fifth at a Senate hearing in the matter, helped Rich craft her strategy. Almost immediately, a check for $25,000 was sent from Denise Rich’s account to the DNC. This was soon followed by Denise Rich’s first letter to the Clintons, imploring them to pardon her ex-husband. Dozoretz also helped Rich bundle a $450,000 contribution to the Clinton library fund. (A Democratic fundraiser told the New York Times in 2001 that Denise had also pledged another million in four installments over the next two years. This figure was disputed by Denise Rich. But the donor lists to the Clinton Foundation are kept secret.) In all, Denise Rich made at least $1.1 million in contributions to Democratic causes, including $70,000 to Hillary’s Senate campaign and PACs, and at least $450,000 to the Clinton foundation.
For her part, Dozoretz kicked in another million of her own money to the fund. This is the same library that now refuses to release more than 300 pages of Clinton’s records relating to the pardon. She later lavished gifts on the Clintons as they left the White House, including antique furniture for the new home and golf clubs for Bill.
As Dozoretz and Denise Rich plotted their strategy, Quinn and Azulay sought another opening. In a December 19, 2000, email to Quinn, Azulay emphasizes the importance of Hillary’s role in the affair. She has just been elected senator from New York, where Rich was indicted. If there was to be fallout, it might backfire on Hillary. She would need reassurance. Dozoretz and Denise would provide financial aid, but she might also need political cover. Azulay recommends Abraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset. “Burg is on very friendly terms with Hilary (sic) and knows POTUS from previous contacts.”
The next night there’s a party at the White House honoring Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones and Maya Angelou. Dozoretz and Denise are invited, and Denise lands a plum seat at the presidential table. Denise is wearing a burgundy ball gown trimmed in fox fur. She eats little and talks less. After dinner, Denise espies Bill having an intimate conversation with Streisand. She rushes across the room, cuts in on Babs and whisks Bill away. She makes an impassioned plea for the ex-husband , who had humiliated her, stuffs a letter into Bill’s hand and whispers, “I could not bear it were I to learn you did not see my letter.”
When Denise arrives home, she makes a call to Lucerne. It’s the first time she has talked to Marc Rich since the divorce. She describes her meeting with Clinton. Her friends say she ended the conversation by telling Rich: “You owe me.”
A week later the Rich team is getting antsy. There’s still been no word on how Hillary feels. Rich’s New York attorney Robert Fink sends an email to Quinn: “Of all the options we discussed, the only one that seems to have real potential for making a difference is the Hillary option.”
Quinn, Dozoretz, Burg and, perhaps, Denise call Hillary’s people. They are told that the senator needs cover. According to a December 26 email from Azulay titled “Chuck Schumer”: “Hillary shall feel more at ease if she is joined by her elder sen. of NY, who also represents the Jewish population.”
Gershon Kekst leaps at the opportunity, firing an email to Fink looking for Schumer’s pressure points:
“Can Quinn tell us who is close enough to lean on Schumer?? I am willing to call him but have no real clout. Jack might be able to tell us who the top contributors are … maybe Bernard Schwartz??”
Bernard Schwartz was a good guess. The former CEO of Loral (a Friend of Bill and Marc Rich) was a top DNC contributor and had lavished money on both Schumer and Hillary. Schwartz also donated $1 million to the Clinton library fund.
But Quinn had been around Washington a long time. He knew enough not to trust Schumer, a famous media hog who was already showing signs of being jealous of the attention Hillary was getting. Quinn notes: “I have to believe that the contact with HRC can happen w/o him after all, we are not looking for a public show of support from her.”
Calls continue to flood the Clinton White House. The King of Spain. Sandy Berger. Ehud Barak.
Meanwhile, Denise and Beth are skiing in Aspen. Beth’s phone rings. It’s Bill Clinton. Clinton tells Dozoretz, “I want to do it and am trying to get around the White House counsel.” Keep praying, Bill told the women. He also let them know that Michael Milken wasn’t getting a pardon.
A few days later, the two women are back in Washington. It’s now January 19, 2001. Jack Quinn is sitting at a board meeting of Fanny Mae. He quietly types a message to Denise on his Blackberry. (It’s not known if he bills both clients for this hour of his time.) The text message urges Denise to make one last call to Bill. Quinn tells her not to “argue merits” but merely to explain to Clinton that “it is important to me personally.”
Though both women will later dispute it, the Secret Service logs show that the next afternoon at 5:30, Beth and Denise were admitted to the private quarters of the White House. This was Denise’s nineteenth visit to the White House. Beth had visited the White House 76 times in merely the last two years. The logs do not record when the women departed. This is the encounter that appears to have consummated the pardon.
At 2:30 in the morning on January 20, Clinton gets a call from his National Security Advisor. Marc Rich’s name has surfaced in an intelligence file in connection with an international arms smuggling network. Clinton calls Quinn. Quinn says the allegations are bogus. Bill turns to his staff, all of whom oppose the pardon that is now being signed. “Take Jack’s word,” Clinton snapped. Later Clinton will claim to have been “sleep deprived” when he signed the pardon, an excuse that his wife would resurrect to explain her fabulation of her landing under sniper fire in Bosnia.
Marc Rich bought his pardon and now flies freely in his private jet, while Leonard Peltier languishes in prison with no hope of release. That sums up Clintonism.
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair05292008.html
Bill Clinton and the Rich Women
Jeffrey St. Clair
www.counterpunch.org
... Hillary has never addressed her role in the Rich pardon. In fact, she’s rarely been asked her opinion on the free pass given to one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, a man who violated embargoes against Iran and South Africa and fled the country rather than face trial in what was billed as “the biggest tax evasion case in history.” The senator has variously said that she was “unaware” of the decision and “surprised” by it. When pressed, she merely cackles.
Even though 300 pages of core documents relating to the pardon decision remain under seal at the Clinton Library, a review of the available record tells a much different story. In fact, the Rich legal team viewed Hillary as a secret weapon, and as one door after another closed on their search for a pardon they focused more and more on invoking what Rich lawyer Robert Fink called the “HRC option.”
Who is Marc Rich? And why did he need a presidential pardon?
Born in Belgium to Jewish parents, Marc Rich moved with his family to the United States to escape Hitler. Young Marc soon went to work for a commodity firm in New York called Phillip Bros, later acquired by Salomon Brothers. He soon made his mark as an oil trader and, along with his friend Pincus “Pinky” Green, he is credited with inventing spot market trading in oil, ferrous metals and sugar. Billions flowed into the firm, and the European press took to calling Rich “the Aluminum Finger.”
But Rich and “Pinky” Green felt underappreciated and underpaid. They bolted the firm, and Rich angrily vowed to “grind Phillip Bros. into oblivion.” In 1974, the pair started their own holding company, eventually known as the Marc Rich Group, and began making oil deals with Iran, Iraq and wildcatters in Texas. He and Pinky were soon billionaires and big shots in the global petrochemical trade.
Around this time, Rich courted a buxom young Jewish singer/songwriter from Worchester, Massachusetts, named Denise. He whisked her off to his seaside villa in Marbella, Spain, where the couple were married and rapidly assumed the life of international jet-setters and art collectors. It is said that Rich owns one of the largest private collections of Picasso paintings and sculptures in the world. Rich began referring to himself as a “business machine.” The years passed. Denise bore Rich three daughters and honed her songwriting skills on transcontinental flights on the family’s private jet. Saccharine pop flowed off her micro recorder , including minor hit “Frankie.” The bank accounts swelled.
Then in 1983 crisis hit the Rich family. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York notified Rich and Pinky that they were under investigation for fraud, illegal oil deals with Iran and the apartheid regime in South Africa, and tax evasion. Documents were subpoenaed. Indictments were in the works. Rich hired D.C. heavy-hitter Edward Bennett Williams to fend off assaults of a vicious young prosecutor – none other than Rudy Giuliani.
When Giuliani requested that Pinkyand Rich turn over their passports and post a large bond, Williams acted indignant and personally avowed to the federal judge overseeing the case that his client was not a flight risk. Two days later, Pinky and Rich were on a plane bound for Europe. As expected, the indictments came: a 65-count charge alleging fraud, trading with the enemy (Iran), and tax evasion.
Humiliated, Williams resigned in a huff, and Rich found a succession of new lawyers over the next decade, including former Nixon attorney Leonard Garment and Lewis Scooter Libby, who would later find refuge in the awesome power of presidential privilege.
Rich’s escape from Giuliani’s clutches is the stuff of spy novels, made even more thrilling due to the fact that he almost certainly had several moles inside Giuliani’s office, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies who kept him apprised of the schemes to nab him. He evaded the U.S. marshals on his tail at Heathrow Airport in England, and then later his plane bound for Finland mysteriously turned at the last moment for Sweden, once again narrowly avoiding landing in custody. Years later, Rich would also escape his captors in Germany and Jamaica, courtesy of anonymous tips to the fugitive billionaire.
The tycoon’s eventual passage to safe harbor in Switzerland went from Sweden through East Germany, aided by the notorious Wolfgang Vogel, an East German lawyer who specialized in shuttling spies into and out of Eastern Europe.
Rich dropped millions at every stop, especially in Switzerland. He and “Pinky” Green choose the town of Zuq to establish their new headquarters in a blueberry-colored office tower. Entreaties were made to Swiss officials, and money liberally dispensed.
“He bought Swiss loyalty,” says Shawn Tulley, a financial crimes reporter for Fortune magazine, who covered the Rich case. “He really put out the charm and the money.” When the U.S. Marshals finally tracked Rich down in Switzerland, they immediately petitioned the Swiss government for his extradition. Request denied. As far as the Swiss were concerned, financial crimes, especially involving taxation, were trifling concerns unworthy of governmental consideration.
When the Swiss refused to turn Rich over, the Marshals tried to kidnap the world’s most famous tax evader under the extraordinary rendition program, which has since become a staple of the Bush regime.
The Marshals set up a team outside of Rich’s mansion and his offices. But again, there was a fortuitous leak. The Swiss police approached the would-be kidnappers and told them to shut down their operation or they would be the ones sitting in jail. The Marshals retreated. Rich had found his sanctuary. He summoned Denise and the children to join him in sprawling mansion near Lucerne and then renounced his U.S. citizenship. This freed him from the nagging obligation of ever again having to worry about entanglements with the IRS over tax obligations. But it also threw the validity of his eventual pardon into question.
The exile of Marc Rich was not an idle one. Indeed, from 1983 to 1996 Rich’s fortune ballooned from a mere billion dollars to more than $7 billion. He and Pinky struck oil deals in Russia and Bulgaria (prompting accusations of fraud and thievery in both countries) and mining operations in central Asia, Africa and South America. Along the way, he sharpened the art of the political bribe. Rudy Giuliani alleges that during this period Rich tried to bribe the state of New York, offering millions to the State Department of Education in exchange for a withdrawal of the pending charges.
In order to buy alumina from the new leftist government of Jamaica for less than half the market price, Rich wired $50 million to Jamaican President Michael Manley in an hour of acute distress for the embattled ruler.
Even as he neared the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, Rich also didn’t see any reason to abandon his operations in the United States. In fact, his hand is seen orchestrating one of the most savage crackdowns on organized labor in recent decades. In 1989, Rich secretly acquired the controlling interest in a West Virginia-based company called Ravenswood Aluminum. Ravenswood was embroiled in a tumultuous battle between management and workers at the plant when in 1990, under Rich’s long-distance orders, the company tried to bust the union. On a bitterly cold night, a private security force arrived at the plant, set up armed guards at the gates and surveillance cameras around the perimeter of the facility, and locked out 1,700 workers, all members of the Steelworkers Union. Over the ensuing weeks, the armed guards repeatedly clashed with picketing union members, fogging the air with tear gas and beating skulls with their police clubs. Soon Rich made the call to hire permanent replacement workers, for less pay and reduced benefits. The lockout went on for two more years. “It was a brutal affair,” says Dan Stidham, president of the Ravenswood union local at the time of the lockout. “I’m still pretty upset with Clinton for pardoning that guy after all we went through.”
Meanwhile, back in Lucerne, Rich was beginning to cultivate the Israeli government. He established the Rich Foundation in Tel Aviv, which would distribute more than $100 million to Israeli causes over the next decade. To oversee the foundation, Rich selected a former high-ranking Mossad official named Avner Azulay, whose ties to the intelligence agency probably never totally evaporated. Azulay was a useful conduit to Israel’s political elite. He was close to Yitzak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres and Ehud Olmert. A decade later, Azulay would play a key role in securing Rich’s pardon from the Clintons.
Through Azulay, Rich offered his services to the Israeli government, especially the Mossad. Indeed, according to letters from Israeli officials, Rich played the role of a “Say-Ayon,” or unpaid asset of the Mossad. In fact, Rich was subsidizing Israeli intelligence operations. He financed numerous covert missions and allowed Mossad operatives to work covertly in his offices around the world.
With experience as an international spook now added to his C.V., Rich reached out through intermediaries to both the FBI and the CIA. He offered his services to both agencies in exchange for dropping the charges against him. The CIA’s response is unknown, but the FBI was intrigued and sent the request to the Justice Department, where it was quashed.
Around this time, Rich launched into a public liaison with a glamorous Italian widow by the name of Gisela Rossi. He flaunted the affair in front of Denise, the tycoon’s wife who had followed him into his luxurious life on the lam. Denise filed for divorce and prepared to return to New York. But Rich, whose net worth now neared $10 billion, was offering her only a tiny settlement. So Denise took matters into her own hands. She removed a Van Gogh painting from the wall of their palace in Lucerne and warned her estranged husband that unless he ponied up more money, she would take the masterpiece with her. Ultimately, Rich offered her a settlement of $200 million. Although the amount is far less than she would have gotten in most U.S. courts, Denise signed the papers and took her daughters with her back to Manhattan.
Rossi and Rich soon married and now divide their time between St. Moritz and Marbella, Spain.
A year after the Rich’s divorce, their oldest daughter, Gabriella, was diagnosed with a rare and terminal form of leukemia. She died within the year. Marc Rich made no effort to visit Gabriella in her final months. Denise Rich seethed.
Pardon Me
The machinations to secure a pardon from Bill Clinton for Marc Rich began in earnest in the fall of 1998, when Rich’s public relations flack in the U.S., Gershon Kekst, squirmed his way into a seat next to Eric Holder, the number two in the Clinton Justice Department, at big D.C. party thrown by Daimler/Chrysler. Without mentioning Rich by name, Kekst asked Holder how a man of considerable resources might be relieved of the burden of being “unproperly indicted by an overzealous prosecutor.”
Holder took a sip of wine and told Kekst that such a man would need to hire a D.C. lawyer who knows the ropes and has deep connections inside the Clinton administration. “He comes to me and we work it out,” confided Holder.
“Can you recommend such a person?” Kekst inquired.
Holder pointed to a man sitting at a nearby table. “There’s Jack Quinn,” Holder whispered. “He’s a perfect example.”
Kekst dutifully wrote down Quinn’s name, did some research on the former lawyer for the Clintons, and transmitted the joyful news to the Rich camp.
There is every indication that Holder was trying to drum up business for Quinn, a partner at the powerhouse firm of Arnold and Porter, as well as a top advisor for Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Holder was desperate to have Quinn’s backing in his doomed bid to become attorney general.
Back in Switzerland, Rich ordered up a dossier on Quinn. His initial response was not favorable. Rich believed Quinn to be merely a “pretty boy” with little experience and “more connections than clout.” He decided to stick with Scooter Libby’s team. But Scooter, who had represented Rich since 1985, produced no results, and in the summer of 1999, with the clock ticking down on Clinton time, the desperate tycoon reached out to Jack Quinn.
Quinn formally became Rich’s lawyer on July 21, 1999. His fees were stiff: an initial retainer of $355,000, plus a minimum payment of $55,000 each month. Quinn’s firm, Arnold and Porter, reserved the right to represent clients suing Rich on matters. Rich consented.
Initially, Quinn intimated to the Rich team that securing the pardon would be a relatively easy matter. A few calls to his good friend Holder, and that would be that. Quinn was wrong. When Holder contacted the prosecutors in Manhattan about the Rich case, they vowed to oppose any deal until Rich returned to the U.S. and entered a plea in the case. Rich refused.
From that point on, the Rich team, including his sympathizers inside the Clinton administration, hid their maneuvers from federal prosecutors. After discussions with White House aides Bruce Lindsey and Beth Nolan, Quinn sent out an email calling for a new approach: “It’s time to move on the GOI [Government of Israel] front but we have to get the calls initiated over there.”
Letters and calls soon flooded the White House from Israeli officials and high profile Jews, including Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and Elie Weisel. In one way or another, each had received benefits from Rich or one of his foundations. A problem soon developed. When presented the opportunity to discuss presidential pardons with Clinton, many of these leaders, anxious perhaps to legitimize Israeli penetration of the U.S. government, choose to plead the case of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard instead of Rich.
Quinn scrambled comically for a solution. Quinn sends an urgent email to Robert Fink, Rich’s longtime New York lawyer.
From: Jack Quinn. To: Fink, Robert, NY.
“Hope you’re checking email; I don’t have access here to avner’s email address, or marc’s, and wonder if you can inquire whether there is a possibility of persuading Mrs Rabin to make a call to POTUS [President of the United States].He had a deep affection for her husband. “
Fink leaps into action with an email to Avner Azulay, the former Mossad officer, now heading the Rich Foundation in Tel Aviv.
From: Fink, Robert, NY. Sent: Saturday. To: Avner Azulay
“... Jack asks if you could get Leah Rabin to call the President; Jack said he was a real big supporter of her husband…”
Azulay writes back with distressing news.
From: Avner. To: Fink, Robert, NY.
“Bob, having Leah Rabin call is not a bad idea. The problem is how do we contact her? She died last November ... ’’
Eventually, Quinn secures a letter and congenial phone call to Clinton from Rabin’s daughter, who doesn’t really know Rich. Their best hopes seem to be evaporating. Perhaps Rich was right about Quinn, after all.
First Catch Your Foxman
The scene shifts to a crowded restaurant in Paris. It’s Valentine’s Day. Two men are having dinner and drinking wine. They know each other well. One man has just received a $100,000 contribution from the other man’s boss. The man on the receiving end of the money is Abe Foxman, and the financial gift was for his group the Anti-Defamation League. The man picking up the hefty dinner tab is Avner Azulay – though Marc Rich will soon reimburse him.
Rich has one last shot, Foxman advises. They need to get directly to Bill and Hillary. And the key to unlocking the inner doors of the White House, Foxman told Azulay, is Denise Rich. Foxman confided that he and Denise had flown together on Air Force II to the funeral of Yitzak Rabin.
There was just one problem. Denise Rich still loathed her husband.
Entreaties are made to Denise, now a New York socialite and successful songwriter, by Quinn and others on the Rich teams. Three times “Denise Rich declines to come to the rescue of her former husband.
Then suddenly, in November 2000, she agrees to help. What made her change her mind?
That remains open to speculation, but given Marc Rich’s history and Denise’s view that she was shortchanged in the divorce, it may well have involved a financial offering. This much is known. On November 16, Avner Azulay flies to New York and takes Denise to dinner. He pleads for her to back Rich’s pardon to her friends Bill and Hillary. Two days later Denise consents.
Denise calls her close friend Beth Dozoretz for help in the best way to handle the matter. Another rich Manhattan socialite, Dozoretz had been the finance chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Dozoretz had contributed more than $1 million to Democratic coffers. Bill Clinton was the godfather of her daughter.
Dozoretz who, like Denise Rich, would later plead the Fifth at a Senate hearing in the matter, helped Rich craft her strategy. Almost immediately, a check for $25,000 was sent from Denise Rich’s account to the DNC. This was soon followed by Denise Rich’s first letter to the Clintons, imploring them to pardon her ex-husband. Dozoretz also helped Rich bundle a $450,000 contribution to the Clinton library fund. (A Democratic fundraiser told the New York Times in 2001 that Denise had also pledged another million in four installments over the next two years. This figure was disputed by Denise Rich. But the donor lists to the Clinton Foundation are kept secret.) In all, Denise Rich made at least $1.1 million in contributions to Democratic causes, including $70,000 to Hillary’s Senate campaign and PACs, and at least $450,000 to the Clinton foundation.
For her part, Dozoretz kicked in another million of her own money to the fund. This is the same library that now refuses to release more than 300 pages of Clinton’s records relating to the pardon. She later lavished gifts on the Clintons as they left the White House, including antique furniture for the new home and golf clubs for Bill.
As Dozoretz and Denise Rich plotted their strategy, Quinn and Azulay sought another opening. In a December 19, 2000, email to Quinn, Azulay emphasizes the importance of Hillary’s role in the affair. She has just been elected senator from New York, where Rich was indicted. If there was to be fallout, it might backfire on Hillary. She would need reassurance. Dozoretz and Denise would provide financial aid, but she might also need political cover. Azulay recommends Abraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset. “Burg is on very friendly terms with Hilary (sic) and knows POTUS from previous contacts.”
The next night there’s a party at the White House honoring Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones and Maya Angelou. Dozoretz and Denise are invited, and Denise lands a plum seat at the presidential table. Denise is wearing a burgundy ball gown trimmed in fox fur. She eats little and talks less. After dinner, Denise espies Bill having an intimate conversation with Streisand. She rushes across the room, cuts in on Babs and whisks Bill away. She makes an impassioned plea for the ex-husband , who had humiliated her, stuffs a letter into Bill’s hand and whispers, “I could not bear it were I to learn you did not see my letter.”
When Denise arrives home, she makes a call to Lucerne. It’s the first time she has talked to Marc Rich since the divorce. She describes her meeting with Clinton. Her friends say she ended the conversation by telling Rich: “You owe me.”
A week later the Rich team is getting antsy. There’s still been no word on how Hillary feels. Rich’s New York attorney Robert Fink sends an email to Quinn: “Of all the options we discussed, the only one that seems to have real potential for making a difference is the Hillary option.”
Quinn, Dozoretz, Burg and, perhaps, Denise call Hillary’s people. They are told that the senator needs cover. According to a December 26 email from Azulay titled “Chuck Schumer”: “Hillary shall feel more at ease if she is joined by her elder sen. of NY, who also represents the Jewish population.”
Gershon Kekst leaps at the opportunity, firing an email to Fink looking for Schumer’s pressure points:
“Can Quinn tell us who is close enough to lean on Schumer?? I am willing to call him but have no real clout. Jack might be able to tell us who the top contributors are … maybe Bernard Schwartz??”
Bernard Schwartz was a good guess. The former CEO of Loral (a Friend of Bill and Marc Rich) was a top DNC contributor and had lavished money on both Schumer and Hillary. Schwartz also donated $1 million to the Clinton library fund.
But Quinn had been around Washington a long time. He knew enough not to trust Schumer, a famous media hog who was already showing signs of being jealous of the attention Hillary was getting. Quinn notes: “I have to believe that the contact with HRC can happen w/o him after all, we are not looking for a public show of support from her.”
Calls continue to flood the Clinton White House. The King of Spain. Sandy Berger. Ehud Barak.
Meanwhile, Denise and Beth are skiing in Aspen. Beth’s phone rings. It’s Bill Clinton. Clinton tells Dozoretz, “I want to do it and am trying to get around the White House counsel.” Keep praying, Bill told the women. He also let them know that Michael Milken wasn’t getting a pardon.
A few days later, the two women are back in Washington. It’s now January 19, 2001. Jack Quinn is sitting at a board meeting of Fanny Mae. He quietly types a message to Denise on his Blackberry. (It’s not known if he bills both clients for this hour of his time.) The text message urges Denise to make one last call to Bill. Quinn tells her not to “argue merits” but merely to explain to Clinton that “it is important to me personally.”
Though both women will later dispute it, the Secret Service logs show that the next afternoon at 5:30, Beth and Denise were admitted to the private quarters of the White House. This was Denise’s nineteenth visit to the White House. Beth had visited the White House 76 times in merely the last two years. The logs do not record when the women departed. This is the encounter that appears to have consummated the pardon.
At 2:30 in the morning on January 20, Clinton gets a call from his National Security Advisor. Marc Rich’s name has surfaced in an intelligence file in connection with an international arms smuggling network. Clinton calls Quinn. Quinn says the allegations are bogus. Bill turns to his staff, all of whom oppose the pardon that is now being signed. “Take Jack’s word,” Clinton snapped. Later Clinton will claim to have been “sleep deprived” when he signed the pardon, an excuse that his wife would resurrect to explain her fabulation of her landing under sniper fire in Bosnia.
Marc Rich bought his pardon and now flies freely in his private jet, while Leonard Peltier languishes in prison with no hope of release. That sums up Clintonism.
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair05292008.html
Book Review - Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing
" ... Shorrock profiles CACI’s leader, Jack London, who since news of the scandal broke, 'has treated Abu Ghraib as a public relations problem.' Over the past four years, CACI has sued or threatened to sue more than a dozen journalists because of their coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal ... "
www.pressaction.com
May 26, 2008
A Cunning and Conniving Adversary
Arlington County, Virginia, is home to a large number of government agencies and private companies involved in fighting the “the global war on terror” or “global struggle against violent extremism,” or whatever propaganda catchphrase politicos in Washington are using today to describe the U.S. government’s campaign to prop up its crumbling world empire. The Pentagon complex is the most notorious member of this group. Aside from the Pentagon, the Defense Department has many divisions housed in other office buildings scattered across Arlington, as do the CIA and other federal police and intelligence agencies.
The government outsourcing trend has gained momentum during the past 30 years, and Arlington has served as a popular location for many of these Beltway Bandits to set up shop, given its proximity to Washington. Many of these companies specialize in military and intelligence contracts. One of the best known Arlington-based contractors is CACI International, a company that has performed a variety of contract work for the U.S. military in Iraq, including providing intelligence analysis, background investigations, screenings and interrogation.
In his new book Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, Tim Shorrock takes a close look at CACI and how the company was brought into Iraq by the U.S. military to help with interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. Shorrock notes in the book that CACI challenged the idea that its growth over the past five years came solely from its business in Iraq. The company said its Abu Ghraib contracts were less than one percent of total worldwide revenue, according to Shorrock.
“In that narrow context, therefore, the company was right: antiwar activists, journalists, and filmmakers critical of CACI have vastly underestimated its role in U.S. foreign policy and the war on terror,” Shorrock writes. “By focusing exclusively on CACI’s role at Abu Ghraib—abysmal as it was—journalists and antiwar activists have obscured a much larger picture: CACI is one of the world’s largest private intelligence services providers and deeply involved in classified black operations everywhere on the globe where U.S. military forces are active.”
Shorrock profiles CACI’s leader, Jack London, who since news of the scandal broke, “has treated Abu Ghraib as a public relations problem.” Over the past four years, CACI has sued or threatened to sue more than a dozen journalists because of their coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal, according to Shorrock.
London, who relinquished his CEO title in 2007 but stayed on as chairman of the company’s board, embraces a political philosophy that “closely matched the imperial visions of Rumsfeld and the neocons he brought into the Pentagon,” Shorrock writes. “He stands out among his peers in the business of intelligence for his almost religious allegiance to the Bush-Cheney agenda of pre-emptive war and global military dominance.”
In the book, Shorrock shares a quote by London from 2006: “As the fight against terrorism and the Islamofascists continues, technologies will keep evolving to collect, analyze and disseminate vital intelligence to support the war fighter and the national security authorities.”
Shorrock says that London in 2002 came up with a “simpler way” to define the asymmetric warfare practiced by Palestinians and other Arab groups in their resistance to the United States and Israel: “Not fighting fair.” According to Shorrock, London said that “asymmetric warfare means facing a cunning and conniving adversary of inferior strength, who finds ways to exploit vulnerabilities to radical extreme, and frequently with frightening psychological effect.”
Arlington County is well known in Virginia for its liberal political tradition. Currently, all of the elected positions in the county are filled by Democrats.
In 2007, it was the all-Democratic Arlington County Board that honored London “for his personal contributions to Arlington and his leadership of CACI. Special appreciation was given for CACI’s assistance in planning for Arlington’s new National Defense Science and Technology Collaboration Center. The new center will be located near CACI’s headquarters in Arlington’s Ballston neighborhood.”
It probably surprised some county residents that its elected officials would honor the leader of a company whose financial well being is closely tied to the nation’s perpetual state of warfare. “Like George Bush, he [London] sees evil lurking throughout the developing world, where he points to a ‘rising environment’ of extremist individuals and organizations,” Shorrock writes.
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/caci05262008/
www.pressaction.com
May 26, 2008
A Cunning and Conniving Adversary
Arlington County, Virginia, is home to a large number of government agencies and private companies involved in fighting the “the global war on terror” or “global struggle against violent extremism,” or whatever propaganda catchphrase politicos in Washington are using today to describe the U.S. government’s campaign to prop up its crumbling world empire. The Pentagon complex is the most notorious member of this group. Aside from the Pentagon, the Defense Department has many divisions housed in other office buildings scattered across Arlington, as do the CIA and other federal police and intelligence agencies.
The government outsourcing trend has gained momentum during the past 30 years, and Arlington has served as a popular location for many of these Beltway Bandits to set up shop, given its proximity to Washington. Many of these companies specialize in military and intelligence contracts. One of the best known Arlington-based contractors is CACI International, a company that has performed a variety of contract work for the U.S. military in Iraq, including providing intelligence analysis, background investigations, screenings and interrogation.
In his new book Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, Tim Shorrock takes a close look at CACI and how the company was brought into Iraq by the U.S. military to help with interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. Shorrock notes in the book that CACI challenged the idea that its growth over the past five years came solely from its business in Iraq. The company said its Abu Ghraib contracts were less than one percent of total worldwide revenue, according to Shorrock.
“In that narrow context, therefore, the company was right: antiwar activists, journalists, and filmmakers critical of CACI have vastly underestimated its role in U.S. foreign policy and the war on terror,” Shorrock writes. “By focusing exclusively on CACI’s role at Abu Ghraib—abysmal as it was—journalists and antiwar activists have obscured a much larger picture: CACI is one of the world’s largest private intelligence services providers and deeply involved in classified black operations everywhere on the globe where U.S. military forces are active.”
Shorrock profiles CACI’s leader, Jack London, who since news of the scandal broke, “has treated Abu Ghraib as a public relations problem.” Over the past four years, CACI has sued or threatened to sue more than a dozen journalists because of their coverage of the Abu Ghraib scandal, according to Shorrock.
London, who relinquished his CEO title in 2007 but stayed on as chairman of the company’s board, embraces a political philosophy that “closely matched the imperial visions of Rumsfeld and the neocons he brought into the Pentagon,” Shorrock writes. “He stands out among his peers in the business of intelligence for his almost religious allegiance to the Bush-Cheney agenda of pre-emptive war and global military dominance.”
In the book, Shorrock shares a quote by London from 2006: “As the fight against terrorism and the Islamofascists continues, technologies will keep evolving to collect, analyze and disseminate vital intelligence to support the war fighter and the national security authorities.”
Shorrock says that London in 2002 came up with a “simpler way” to define the asymmetric warfare practiced by Palestinians and other Arab groups in their resistance to the United States and Israel: “Not fighting fair.” According to Shorrock, London said that “asymmetric warfare means facing a cunning and conniving adversary of inferior strength, who finds ways to exploit vulnerabilities to radical extreme, and frequently with frightening psychological effect.”
Arlington County is well known in Virginia for its liberal political tradition. Currently, all of the elected positions in the county are filled by Democrats.
In 2007, it was the all-Democratic Arlington County Board that honored London “for his personal contributions to Arlington and his leadership of CACI. Special appreciation was given for CACI’s assistance in planning for Arlington’s new National Defense Science and Technology Collaboration Center. The new center will be located near CACI’s headquarters in Arlington’s Ballston neighborhood.”
It probably surprised some county residents that its elected officials would honor the leader of a company whose financial well being is closely tied to the nation’s perpetual state of warfare. “Like George Bush, he [London] sees evil lurking throughout the developing world, where he points to a ‘rising environment’ of extremist individuals and organizations,” Shorrock writes.
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/caci05262008/
Roland Carnaby Update: The Officers who Shot him have Criminal Records
" ... The two officers who shot at Roland have sustained disciplinary records including suspensions from duty for offenses including theft, violent striking of a prisoner, failure to abide by laws, not being truthful, insubordination and speeding. ... "
Source: PLAINTIFF SUSAN CARNABY’S ORIGINAL COMPLAINT PAGE 1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS HOUSTON DIVISION
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message544540/pg1
Source: PLAINTIFF SUSAN CARNABY’S ORIGINAL COMPLAINT PAGE 1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS HOUSTON DIVISION
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message544540/pg1
Cult Leader kept Women as Slaves for 20 Years
By Anton Antonowicz
www.dailyrecord.co.uk
May 29 2008
A SECT leader kept five women as slaves for 20 years and left them looking like concentration camp victims. One was worked to death and sickened detectives say the starved survivors are like Auschwitz inmates.
Police are understood to be questioning the women about any sexual abuse by the cult leader, who called himself "God". And while the brutalised victims slaved for him, Jiri Adam, 74, forced them to sign over all their homes, property and cash to him. As they grew older, Adam even plundered their pensions. The selfstyled commandant is now facing 12 years in jail on slavery charges.
The secret camp was only discovered when one of the women escaped and tried to get medical treatment. Shocked medics in the Czech city of Brno called in the cops.
Police spokesman Oldrich Kriz said of the women: "I would compare their state to that of concentration camp victims in World War II."
Religious fanatic Adam was a member of the sinister Grail Movement and described himself as his victims' God. When one neighbour tried to persuade the women to rest, furious Adam raged at him: "We don't need God here. I'm God."
Adam recruited the women to his mind-bending cult before making them his personal slaves.
They lived in a ramshackle shed on Adam's land with no lighting, heat or water. They slaved from dawn to dusk building Adam and his wife a luxury home and another house where he had his cult chapel. Any spare time was spent doing back-breaking work on Adam's vineyard. He gave them only bread and water to live on with just a spoonful of honey for supper.
Disobedience was snuffed out by withdrawing food altogether.
Doctors say the women may never recover from the musclewasting caused by starvation.
The secretive Grail Movement are recognised as an official religion in the Czech Republic despite a sinister reputation.
Last year, they were involved in a child abuse scandal when a follower was arrested for keeping her eight-year-old son chained in a dungeon.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2008/05/29/women-kept-by-cult-leader-as-slaves-for-20-years-86908-20432784/
www.dailyrecord.co.uk
May 29 2008
A SECT leader kept five women as slaves for 20 years and left them looking like concentration camp victims. One was worked to death and sickened detectives say the starved survivors are like Auschwitz inmates.
Police are understood to be questioning the women about any sexual abuse by the cult leader, who called himself "God". And while the brutalised victims slaved for him, Jiri Adam, 74, forced them to sign over all their homes, property and cash to him. As they grew older, Adam even plundered their pensions. The selfstyled commandant is now facing 12 years in jail on slavery charges.
The secret camp was only discovered when one of the women escaped and tried to get medical treatment. Shocked medics in the Czech city of Brno called in the cops.
Police spokesman Oldrich Kriz said of the women: "I would compare their state to that of concentration camp victims in World War II."
Religious fanatic Adam was a member of the sinister Grail Movement and described himself as his victims' God. When one neighbour tried to persuade the women to rest, furious Adam raged at him: "We don't need God here. I'm God."
Adam recruited the women to his mind-bending cult before making them his personal slaves.
They lived in a ramshackle shed on Adam's land with no lighting, heat or water. They slaved from dawn to dusk building Adam and his wife a luxury home and another house where he had his cult chapel. Any spare time was spent doing back-breaking work on Adam's vineyard. He gave them only bread and water to live on with just a spoonful of honey for supper.
Disobedience was snuffed out by withdrawing food altogether.
Doctors say the women may never recover from the musclewasting caused by starvation.
The secretive Grail Movement are recognised as an official religion in the Czech Republic despite a sinister reputation.
Last year, they were involved in a child abuse scandal when a follower was arrested for keeping her eight-year-old son chained in a dungeon.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2008/05/29/women-kept-by-cult-leader-as-slaves-for-20-years-86908-20432784/
Friday, May 30, 2008
Mohammed Atta a "Kingpin?": Daniel Hopsicker's Past at NBC - 9/11 and Fake News
Exclusive! - Attention, Daniel Hopsicker fans:
Take a look at the first part of "The Path to 9/11" posted below. It concerns General Electric.
GE is a major force in 9/11-Condor.
GE owns NBC.
Where did Mr. Hopsicker come from? NBC ... and the revolution will not be televised.
What did Hopsicker do at NBC?
FAKE news* (see attached PR releases & my comments).
I discovered this years ago. Daniel has a valid response?
Not at all.
He claimed that I'm a "criminal" for asking about it.
Daniel produced a show called Global Business 2000 for NBC. ("Daniel Hopsicker is the producer of a business news television show airing internationally on NBC called Global Business 2000.")
You've never seen it. It aired in Asia and was only for corporate clients of NBC.
But NBC Corporate has no file on Daniel. I checked with executives who called Daniel a "liar" for suggesting that he has worked for NBC.
The employment office came up with nothing on him after four hours of searching their records.
Anyone can verify this by calling NBC in Los Angeles.
Daniel was an NBC contractor, and signed with MediaLink, notoriously known for the Great Iraq Incubator Hoax.
Daniel's program was composed of corporate, pre-fab "fake news" stories, sent to Daniel, who stitched them together and called himself a "producer."
He writes, speaks, tells Dave (Untamed-Genius) Emory on Pacifica that M. Atta was a "kingpin." True?
Bin Laden and Saudis and Atta behind the homicidal mess in NY ... while CIA smuggling drugs is somehow related. Okay ...
What do drugs have to do with 9/11?
Do you clever fans into "deep politics" really believe that Atta was the "kingpin?"
If so, you've been hopsuckered.
- AC
•••••••
Copyright 1996 Haymarket Publishing Services Ltd
PR Week
January 26, 1996
LENGTH: 131 words
HEADLINE: Media: Medialink wins NBC exclusive
BODY: Medialink has been appointed as the exclusive provider of video news releases to Global Business 2000, the business television show which
launches this month on NBC's satellite services covering Asia and Europe.
The deal, struck with the show's US-based production company Economic
Television, will see Medialink provide the programme with any appropriate
VNRs' suitable for the show's business audience, said Medialink's vice
chairman David Davis.
The show's launch is part of NBC's revamp of its international programme
service and the formal launch of NBC Asia on 15 January.
NBC, which is already available in Europe through NBC Super Channel, has
launched both an entertainment station and a 24-hour news and business
station under the NBC Asia banner.
Copyright 1996 M2 Communications Ltd.
M2 PRESSWIRE
April 10, 1996
LENGTH: 209 words
HEADLINE: ECONOMIC TELEVISION
Millions view "WebCruise" on TV news as "JumpCity!" launches
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES, CA
HIGHLIGHT: New primetime TV show about the Internet to debut
BODY: Millions of consumers this weekend watched a first-ever three minute feature news segment called "WebCruise!" which showcased three popular sites on the World Wide Web, bringing pictures of the wired revolution to watchers of network news.
"WebCruise was our way of testing the waters with TV news directors, who
really have a finger on the pulse of what people want. They jumped on this
story, and it really reinforces our belief that this is THE time to launch
our Primetime reality-based entertainment series about the Internet," stated
"JumpCity!" producer Daniel Hopsicker.
"We think the Internet's the biggest consumer phenomenon since the hula
hoop, and it clearly deserves a show conveying the gleeful fun and sheer joy
of 'cyberpilots' worldwide."
"WebCruise" will be a weekly feature, both going to satellite as news, and
playing as a segment on Global Business 2000, which airs on NBC internationally, as well as inflight on flagship carriers like United and USAir. Its designer to help consumers learn of great sites to access, and allow marketers to generate more traffic to their World Wide Web sites.
CONTACT: Daniel Hopsicker, Economic Television
Tel: +1-800-264-0920
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*****************************************************************
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 22:33:08 -0800
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Medialink has been appointed as the exclusive provider of video news
releases to [Daniel Hopsicker's] Global Business 2000..."
Now that we have one show verified, at least, I can look into it, and that's what I wanted to do originally, so let's get to it...
Who provided Hopsicker with his material? A fucking PR firm with heavy
propaganda ties.
- AC
Medialink wins NBC exclusive
Medialink has been appointed as the exclusive provider of video news
releases to [Daniel Hopsicker's] Global Business 2000...
--------------------
"Public diplomacy." Public relations.
FORMER BBC BROADCASTER LUCY HADFIELD TAKES HELM OF MEDIALINK LONDON OFFICE
PR Agency Veteran Jones Joins Medialink Management Team As Vice Chairman
For more information:
Mary C. Buhay Matt Burgess
Senior Vice President Group Marketing Manager
Corporate Communications Medialink Worldwide
Medialink Worldwide Incorporated Tel: +44 (0)20 7554 2787
Tel: (212) 682-8300 Mob: 07971 790 297
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
LONDON, December 1, 2003 - Former BBC broadcaster Lucy Hadfield has been appointed Managing Director of the international operations of Medialink Worldwide Incorporated (Nasdaq: MDLK), a global leader in providing news and media services for professional communicators, it was announced today. Joining Ms. Hadfield on the management team of Medialink in London is Bill Jones who was named Vice Chairman, a non-executive role.
The formation of a new management team represents a key step in the
implementation of Medialink's strategy to position itself for the growth of
its international business.
Ms. Hadfield, 42, brings a wide range of broadcast media and corporate
communications experience to her new role. After starting her professional
career with advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi in London, she moved into
the broadcasting industry by joining RTHK in Hong Kong. A BBC-trained
producer and presenter, she ascended to the position of Senior Program
Officer for BBC World Service and Radio Television Hong Kong, where she
supervised the quality of production, editorial content and commissioning of
primetime English language talk features. She held responsibilities in front
of and behind the cameras, producing and presenting investigative radio and
television programs for international syndication.
Following her broadcast career, Ms. Hadfield established TVCI, an
international brand experience company based in London, which designed and produced many of Europe's most successful millennium exhibitions for high profile clients including EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS, HSBC and the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION. She was most recently head of business development with CROWN Business Communications, a leading London-based integrated communications company providing live events, video and internet-based solutions for FTSE 250 companies. ...
A MADCOW'S FAKE NEWS
"Groups like MEDIALINK (www.medialink.com/vnr.htm) prepare television
versions of corporate press releases and produce them in broadcast news
style
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=25
MEDIA JUNGLE
James Elford
VNR takes all
If you thought The Onion or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart were your best
sources of fake news, think again: the Bush administration is giving them
some tough competition, thanks to a "video news release" (VNR) in support of
its new medicare law that many critics say blurs the boundary between
advertising and propaganda.
The VNR, distributed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
puts what some might call a biased spin on the Bush administration's medical
plan. Sample scenes include a crowd cheering while Bush signs the law into
effect, and another where an elderly customer is told by a pharmacist that
the new law "helps you better afford your medications." "It sounds like a
good idea," says the customer, to which the pharmacist replies, "A very good
idea."
But this kind of blatant drum beating wouldn't be so bad, or unexpected, if
it weren't for the way it was packaged. Instead of being clearly marked as
an advertisement from the government, the piece was not only designed to
look like a news story, but the government even got the company that made
the video, Home Front Communications, to hire someone to portray a
journalist.
Karen Ryan, a freelance reporter/actor/public relations professional (her
title varies depending upon who you ask) read the script prepared by the
government and signs off at end of the video without indicating that the VNR is anything but a legitimate news story. Even if they don't acknowledge it, the creators of the piece likely knew that there is a substantial difference
between what people heard ("In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting") and a properly identified VNR ("I'm Karen Ryan reporting from the U.S. Department of health and Human Services in Washington, D.C."). There's even a Spanish-language version aimed at Latino voters featuring correspondent "Alberto Garcia."
The ethical breach gets even stickier when you find out that the government
also prepared scripts for news anchors to use as they introduced the video,
featuring phrases like "Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details"
that seem designed to further its resemblance to real news. (While the video
itself has aired in a number of states, including Louisiana, it's unclear if
any newscasts elected to use this prepared script.)
The General Accounting Office (GAO), the nonpartisan body that functions as
Congress's investigative arm, has decided to investigate the matter because
of a concern that the VNRs might violate a prohibition on using funds for
"covert propaganda" and other government materials that are misleading about their origin. This prohibition came about after the U.S. State Department under the Reagan administration was discovered to be hiring consultants to author op-ed pieces and articles in support of their Central American policy back in 1987.
This incident is the latest in a long line of deceptions that the Bushites
seem almost addicted to. They've ranged from minor and relatively innocuous episodes like George W. presenting troops with a fake turkey for a staged Thanksgiving photo op to far more serious allegations about justifications for the invasion of Iraq. This reliance on fakery extends beyond turkeys and journalists to the use of fake firefighters
As for VNRs, they've been around since at least the 1980s and are used
widely by both government and business as sort of video press releases. The American Dental Association uses them, and even has their own, presumably fake "reporters" presenting them.Groups like Medialink
(www.medialink.com/vnr.htm) prepare television versions of corporate press
releases and produce them in broadcast news stylenewscasts, and a convenient resource for producers struggling to fill air
time, especially at small stations without the resources to produce enough
of their own quality news. Sometimes clearly identified as a message from
whatever interest group is releasing it and sometimes not, VNRs tread an
ethical grey area. Airing a VNR without proper identification is like
printing a press release as your own story.
VNRs have also been used in Europe but, at least in Britain, there has been
some action taken to restrict their use following an emotional Greenpeace
video about their efforts to prevent the dumping of Shell's Brent Spar oil
platform, which led to what editors at BBC and ITN later admitted was biased
coverage of the issue. Guidelines were drawn up to label VNRs as
such
In the U.S., while a coalition of prominent journalism organizations
including the Society of Professional Journalists have released a joint
letter of protest against VNRs, the Radio-Television News Directors
Association chose to simply clarify their guidelines on the use of VNRs in
newscasts. Hardly a muscular response to such an entrenched problem, and
certainly open to criticism. In their battle for the hearts and minds of
citizens in a democracy, governments and corporations can't be entirely
trusted to show all sides of a debate with any objectivity. The onus rests
with the journalists
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:30:31 -0800
Subject: HOPSICKER AND MEDIALINK'S "BLATANT PROPAGANDA"
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Mr. Hopsicker has claimed he did a business show for NBC.
Is this any way to describe corporate commercials and "public diplomacy"
in the name of globalism?
---------------
http://users.actweb.net/~eye/propaganda/articles/corporate_news.htm
"Perhaps the only bigger distributor of video 'news' releases than Medialink is the Pentagon. ..."
blatant propaganda home > propaganda index > here
blatant propaganda article:
CORPORATE SPONSORED NEWS?
Increasingly, what TV news stations pass off as news are actually video news
releases: expensive and professional videos prepared by advertising firms
and paid for by large corporations.
Groups like Medialink beam these video news releases, or VNRs, via satellite
to television news editors. These editors, lured by the polished product
available at no cost, run these press releases as news, much like the print
media do with the VNRs written counterparts.
The result?
Corporate-sponsored ad agencies are subtly changing and controlling the news we see on the tube.
Their use is widespread. For example, 81.2 million people saw a "news"
report on dolphin-safe tuna fishing methods on t.v. last year. Reporters did
not dig up this story. It was fed to them by Starkist Seafood Co., who hired
Chicago-based Edelman Public Relations Worldwide to produce it. Ad
executives sailed on fishing boats to promote Starkist's product. News
directors, undoubtedly impressed by the artfully shot and edited scenes of
playful dolphins, fierce seas, and rugged yet environmentally sensitive
boathands, ate it up. The question: Is dolphin-safe tuna newsworthy without
easily available PR material about it? If so, why not assign reporters to
the story instead of relying on the advertising people? If not, why run it
on the news at all? The answer, of course, is money. Assigning reporters and camera crews to an all-day or even all-week fishing expedition is an expense that most news stations cannot afford, or at least wish to avoid. But
Starkist can afford it. In fact, faced with a nationwide boycott of their
tuna, StarKist can't afford not to.
Edelman also produced a VNR for the Nutrasweet Company about fat substitutes which was run as "news" and seen by 54.1 million people. No doubt this VNR featured scientists talking about health hazards, maybe even an animated segment showing fat cells clogging up arteries and killing folks. Then an interview with a Nutrasweet technician reporting objectively on alternatives to fatty foods.
Other examples: 21.8 million people watched Soviets line up at the new
Moscow McDonald's to enjoy a hamburger. McDonald's Corporation paid
Patterson-Parkington First International of Toronto to create the news. Here
we have Americans watching a Canadian-made film of Russians eating Central American Beef. First International, indeed.
And 18.6 million people learned about the "International Rotten Sneaker
Contest" from their trusty news anchors. Odor-Eaters paid Combe Inc. of
White Plains, New York to create that "news".
All of these examples are amusing in a disgusting sort of way.
But some video news releases are deadly.
For instance, 61.4 million people saw a VNR on Iraq's (1990) invasion of
Kuwait. 35.3 milllion saw a later YNR depicting human rights abuses
perpetrated by the Iraqis against the Kuwaitis. Reporters were not involved
in these two particular news accounts. Hill and Knowlton of Washington, DC
crated this news, commissioned by a group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait.
This group, rumored to be working with five million petrodollars belonging
to the Emir (of Kuwait) himself, also hired a PR firm to mass produce "Free
Kuwait" T-Shirts, flags, bumper stickers, and assorted Desert Shield/Storm
souvenirs. The group's task was to put a positive spin on the Emir's
repressive regime so that Americans could feel good about killing and dying
to restore Kuwait's legitimate dictator.
Perhaps the only bigger distributor of video "news" releases than Medialink
is the Pentagon. What name other than VNR could you call the footage of
smart bombs dropping through Iraqi chimneys? The networks salivated over
that video clip, and hundreds of others like it, supplied by the military,
designed to put a positive spin on what the United Nations now calls "near
apocalyptic" allied bombing which has taken Iraq back to a pre-industrial
age.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The above article was taken from NEXUS Magazine. It was originally taken by
Nexus from an article entitled 'Advertising Invades the Newsroom' by Carl
Hammarskjold which appeared in a November 1991 issue of the "Anderson Valley
Advertiser", (Booneville, CA, USA).
Blatant Propaganda
PO Box 1327 Woden 2606 Australia
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To join the Blatant Propaganda e-mail list,
please enter your details below.
At present we send news once every 3 months or so.
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:39:19 -0800
Subject: HOPSICKER, MIND CONTROL AND "'GLOBAL BUSINESS 2000"
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
More on Hopsicker's "news" feed supplier - AC
http://keyholepublishing.com/Getting%20Inside%20Your%20Head.htm
Getting Inside Your Head:
Media, Mind Control,
and Marginalization of UFOs
by Richard M. Dolan
Reclaiming Our Freedom
According to Medialink study from 2001, 90% of TV newsrooms now rely on VNRs
and B-roll provided by outside sources as a regular part of their newscasts.
Much of this is simply self-serving corporate or GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA.
------------------
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Video_news_releases
--------------
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_102403_news.html
this week archive station guide Meet OTM The Nightly News Sell
October 24, 2003
BOB GARFIELD: Well, that's morning chat. At least viewers can rest assured
that stories they see on the local news are journalistically pure. Or can
they? The convergence of public relations ingenuity and broadcast stations'
budgetary exigencies has yielded another dubious hybrid: the Video News
Release -- a P.R. bonanza, and the news business's dirty little secret.
Here's an example. [TAPE PLAYS]
...
LARRY MOSCOWITZ: We determined prima facie and scientifically and
electronically that every television station in America with a newscast has
used and probably uses regularly this material from corporations and
organizations that we provide as VNRs or B-Roll or other terminology we may use.
BOB GARFIELD: Not all VNRs run whole. Most often they are mined for a clip
of background footage here, an interview fragment there. But producers
estimate that as many as one in three appear uncut, unedited and un-examined for balance or even basic accuracy. And why? Because they are there, tempting budget-battered news directors. And because they are free.
DEBORAH POTTER: VNRs are enabling devices.
BOB GARFIELD: Former CBS correspondent Deborah Potter is director of the
News Lab, the Washington, D.C. nonprofit dedicated to quality local
television.
DEBORAH POTTER: They allow newsrooms to do less of their own work without fear of running out of material before the end of the hour. It's a concern, and it ought to be a concern, frankly, for viewers if much of the material that they're starting to get on the news isn't news.
BOB GARFIELD: As long as there has been a press, there has been a symbiotic relationship between journalism and P.R. -- and not necessarily an insidious one. Publicists and politicians looking to promote their agendas can serve those interests, and the media's as well, by calling attention to news or even fluff of interest to the public. It then becomes the media's job to establish the broader context and to separate the newsworthy wheat from the gratuitously promotional chaff -- and to be clear about the source of
PR-furnished material. For instance, the Tropicana excerpt you heard at the
top of this piece we found in a documentary based on John Stauber's book.
Deborah Potter.
DEBORAH POTTER: I feel very strongly that if stations are going to use VNR
material they need to tell where it came from. It makes a difference if the
whaling video you're using came from Greenpeace or from the Coalition to
Support Whaling.
BOB GARFIELD: Barbara Cochrane, president of the Radio and Television News Directors Association says she believes most stations and networks do
routinely identify the source of outside video, as per the ethical
guidelines of her organization. But those within the VNR industry roll their
eyes at that assertion. Doug Simon of VNR producer D.S. Simon Productions
says disclosure is the exception -not the rule.
DOUG SIMON: From what we see, there's a very small percentage - perhaps less than 5% - that actually is identified what the source of the video is.
BOB GARFIELD: That makes him uneasy, but VNR producers can't do such
disclosure themselves. Each station uses a different on-screen typeface to
identify video, so the onus is on those airing the material, and dependent
as they are on the illusion of a far-flung newsgathering operation, with
tentacles throughout the community and beyond, there's little motivation to
do so.
LARRY MOSCOWITZ: Can I say that local television stations have been lax?
Yeah.
BOB GARFIELD: MediaLink's Moscowitz acknowledges that stations are less than scrupulous about identifying the source of the footage he supplies. He does not believe, however, that the sin is particularly grave -- at least
compared to other forms of journalism.
LARRY MOSCOWITZ: There is more unexpurgated, unedited and unredacted press information that shows up in the average daily newspaper in America, and certainly in the average weekly newspaper, probably by a 5 to 1 factor over the P.R. material that shows up in television. So you might be going after the wrong goat here.
BOB GARFIELD: The two wrongs make a right argument isn't the only one in
favor of the video news release. Candace White, marketing professor at the
University of Tennessee at Knoxville and co-author of a 2001 study about
VNRs, says the same self-interest that encourages news directors to use VNRs dictates that the material is used responsibly.
CANDACE WHITE: See, I trust news producers to be able to weed out true news value; I give them credit for being able to recognize blatant sales pitches. Our study found that the corporate videos were used the least, and the ones about health and safety were used the most.
BOB GARFIELD: But it's not necessarily the blatant sales pitches that are so
dangerous. It is the subtle sales pitches, and the implication of independent journalistic approval conferred on a company or organization and its point of view, which is why her study's co-author, journalism professor Mark Harmon, sees VNRs as (quote) "insidious devices by corporate America to control the American agenda." Nor is the problem restricted to the local
news. Not only do major networks use VNR footage. At least one, CBS, has a
division which produces and distributes them. This gets back to the disdain
and fear voiced by author and consumer advocate John Stauber.
JOHN STAUBER: All public relations is not sinister or evil or bad. But I
think the important thing to understand is that indeed all public relations
is propaganda.
BOB GARFIELD: So whether it's images of a NASA space walk or a
self-congratulatory sound bite from your Congressman or swell health news
about delicious calcium-fortified Tropicana orange juice, the message for TV
news consumption is as ever: Let the viewer beware. While TV runs into
problems when it fails to separate advertising from programming, it
certainly can't do without advertising all together, and sponsors aren't
picking up the programming tab out of the goodness of their hearts. They
need an audience to watch the commercials. And the steady shrinking of
network audiences is creating a gathering terror. The latest shocker from
the A.C. Nielsen Company, a report that since last season alone, 750,000
men, aged 18 to 34 --advertisers' most coveted demographic -- have simply stopped watching TV. Joining me now to discuss this bombshell is David Poltrack, executive vice president of research and planning at CBS. Dave, welcome to On the Media.
DAVID POLTRACK: Thank you, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: All right, 750,000 human souls vanishing, just disappearing.
What's going on?
DAVID POLTRACK: Well I wish I had the answer to that question. This is one
of these anomalies that turns up in the audience measurement system
occasionally, and would just be sort of a idle curiosity if it didn't mean
so much economically.
BOB GARFIELD: Fine. It may be an anomaly, or it may just be some sort of
blip that will be self-correcting. But what if it isn't? Is it possible that
this is, as someone put it, the canary in the mineshaft?
DAVID POLTRACK: Advertisers are not going to abandon network television to any significant degree unless they can find something better, and the
fragmentation in the television marketplace has impacted the television
network audiences significantly, but it hasn't really created any new
alternative. The fact that the networks have maintained their pricing is
really a function of the fact that the top 20 shows have had significantly
less erosion than the balance of the shows. So the premium product of
network television has relatively held up. And in this particular case, of
course, it's not just the network audiences going down. It's the overall
audience that's going down. So there will be no relative winner in this, if
it continues, which means that there's not an alternative out there that's
getting stronger as a result of this, so it'll probably have very little
effect in terms of the supply and demand mechanics of the marketplace.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to ask you for a moment to at least consider taking off the rose-colored glasses. Recently you were quoted responding to a
projection that the use of personal video recording devices like TiVo was
going to quintuple by the year 2007, which will in effect dramatically
reduce the number of people actually watching commercials broadcast on over the air television.
You were quoted as kind of shrugging, saying, well you know, we lose a certain percentage of our audience every year to cable, and yet the model continues to be going strong. Is it possible that between the growth of the internet, between the introduction of such devices as TiVo and other PVR technology, and the overall fragmentation of the audience that networks are close to losing the critical mass of gigantic audiences that enable them to sustain this model, and that there's a death watch on for the goose that lays the golden egg? Is that one of the possibilities?
DAVID POLTRACK: Well these are all changes that we have to adapt to. We
recognize that we can't count on just our distribution system to keep us on
top, and we have to look at cross-platform types of arrangements,
re-purposing, all of the different things that are going to be very much a
function of an environment where the viewer has more control. We have a
challenge ahead of us. There's no question about it. I mean that's why
we're, you know, we're pushing so hard for the FCC relaxation on the
ownership limits, because the economics of local television station
ownership support the finances and the programming investments of the
television networks. The more stations we own, the more stable the
advertiser model is for us, and there are a lot of pressures on that model.
There's no question about it. You know, we're not being complacent or blase
about the fact that it's just going to continue to go on.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, David, thank you very much.
DAVID POLTRACK: Okay.
BOB GARFIELD: David Poltrack is executive vice president of research and
planning at CBS. He joined us from his office at Black Rock. [MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, a documentation of terror using the terrorists' own
video. This is On the Media, from NPR. [FUNDING CREDITS]
copyright 2003 WNYC Radio
---------
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 12:10:27 -0800
Subject: MediaLink
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title�diaLink
MediaLink
From Disinfopedia
MediaLink (http://www.medialink.com//_aboutuscorp.htm) is a GLOBAL
LEADER in corporate communications services, connecting corporate clients
with news industry producers. MediaLink boasts proprietary databases used
in audience research, while a PARTNERSHIP with the Associated Press puts the
PROPAGANDA of MediaLink clients on the desks of most United States'
television news editors. MediaLink claims credit for having pioneered video
news releases
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 19:45:49 -0800
Subject: SAIC/MediaLink/Gulf War Propaganda
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.medialink.com/pressreleases2003/042203.htm
... Personal thoughts about the release of prisoners of war and the training
received to prepare them for the eventuality were shared by one male and
three female pilots in interviews transmitted via satellite from Doha. Two
of the women refuel planes in flight and the third is a weapons systems
officer, one of only a few U.S. Air Force females assigned to this role in
her squadron.
The two groups of satellite interviews were the second and third projects in
as many weeks delivered by Medialink for Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC) on behalf of the U.S. Air Force. Earlier, SAIC tapped
Medialink to manage a similar live broadcast originating from a studio in
Washington, D.C., which garnered 22 television bookings in major markets.
"We are continuing to see demand from local TV stations for live satellite
interviews and taped video segments concerning war-related topics, as well
as relevant consumer news," said Lidj Lewis, Vice President of Media
Relations, Medialink. "Our strong relationships with broadcasters in the
United States and around the world have enabled us to provide our clients
with the timely strategic counsel that is critical in this swiftly-changing
news environment."...
*****************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:53:21 -0800
Subject: MediaLink & Iraq Incubator Hoax
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
MediaLink & Iraq Incubator Hoax
http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2�d9710a&L(R)jmc&F�� 281
THE VIDEO NEWS RELEASE
Before reviewing my pilot studies, it is important to understand why VNRs
can be so misleading. The VNR that triggered the greatest shock was created by the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, on October 10, 1992. This was one month after U.S. troops had been sent to Kuwait to stop Iraqi
aggressions, and before Congress had actually approved the Gulf War.
Nayirah, a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl, gave public testimony in front of
the congressional human rights caucus. With tears in her eyes, and at times
barely able to continue, she told of armed Iraqi soldiers storming hospitals
in Kuwait, snatching premature babies out of their incubators, and leaving
them on the floor to die...Nayirah's story was recorded by a camera crew
hired by Hill and Knowlton, and the film was used to produce a video news
release. Portions of the film were aired that night on NBC's Nightly News.
The VNR was also sent to MEDIALINK, eventually reaching a total audience of
about 35 million...President Bush evoked Nayirah's story six times in one
month while explaining the need to go to war...No fewer than seven senators referred to the babies as justification for their support of the January 12, 1991 resolution authorizing war....What members of Congress did not know was that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. She had been coached by Hill and Knowlton before giving testimony....The PR company was working for a group...being financed almost entirely by the Kuwaiti royal family.[14]
Take a look at the first part of "The Path to 9/11" posted below. It concerns General Electric.
GE is a major force in 9/11-Condor.
GE owns NBC.
Where did Mr. Hopsicker come from? NBC ... and the revolution will not be televised.
What did Hopsicker do at NBC?
FAKE news* (see attached PR releases & my comments).
I discovered this years ago. Daniel has a valid response?
Not at all.
He claimed that I'm a "criminal" for asking about it.
Daniel produced a show called Global Business 2000 for NBC. ("Daniel Hopsicker is the producer of a business news television show airing internationally on NBC called Global Business 2000.")
You've never seen it. It aired in Asia and was only for corporate clients of NBC.
But NBC Corporate has no file on Daniel. I checked with executives who called Daniel a "liar" for suggesting that he has worked for NBC.
The employment office came up with nothing on him after four hours of searching their records.
Anyone can verify this by calling NBC in Los Angeles.
Daniel was an NBC contractor, and signed with MediaLink, notoriously known for the Great Iraq Incubator Hoax.
Daniel's program was composed of corporate, pre-fab "fake news" stories, sent to Daniel, who stitched them together and called himself a "producer."
He writes, speaks, tells Dave (Untamed-Genius) Emory on Pacifica that M. Atta was a "kingpin." True?
Bin Laden and Saudis and Atta behind the homicidal mess in NY ... while CIA smuggling drugs is somehow related. Okay ...
What do drugs have to do with 9/11?
Do you clever fans into "deep politics" really believe that Atta was the "kingpin?"
If so, you've been hopsuckered.
- AC
•••••••
Copyright 1996 Haymarket Publishing Services Ltd
PR Week
January 26, 1996
LENGTH: 131 words
HEADLINE: Media: Medialink wins NBC exclusive
BODY: Medialink has been appointed as the exclusive provider of video news releases to Global Business 2000, the business television show which
launches this month on NBC's satellite services covering Asia and Europe.
The deal, struck with the show's US-based production company Economic
Television, will see Medialink provide the programme with any appropriate
VNRs' suitable for the show's business audience, said Medialink's vice
chairman David Davis.
The show's launch is part of NBC's revamp of its international programme
service and the formal launch of NBC Asia on 15 January.
NBC, which is already available in Europe through NBC Super Channel, has
launched both an entertainment station and a 24-hour news and business
station under the NBC Asia banner.
Copyright 1996 M2 Communications Ltd.
M2 PRESSWIRE
April 10, 1996
LENGTH: 209 words
HEADLINE: ECONOMIC TELEVISION
Millions view "WebCruise" on TV news as "JumpCity!" launches
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES, CA
HIGHLIGHT: New primetime TV show about the Internet to debut
BODY: Millions of consumers this weekend watched a first-ever three minute feature news segment called "WebCruise!" which showcased three popular sites on the World Wide Web, bringing pictures of the wired revolution to watchers of network news.
"WebCruise was our way of testing the waters with TV news directors, who
really have a finger on the pulse of what people want. They jumped on this
story, and it really reinforces our belief that this is THE time to launch
our Primetime reality-based entertainment series about the Internet," stated
"JumpCity!" producer Daniel Hopsicker.
"We think the Internet's the biggest consumer phenomenon since the hula
hoop, and it clearly deserves a show conveying the gleeful fun and sheer joy
of 'cyberpilots' worldwide."
"WebCruise" will be a weekly feature, both going to satellite as news, and
playing as a segment on Global Business 2000, which airs on NBC internationally, as well as inflight on flagship carriers like United and USAir. Its designer to help consumers learn of great sites to access, and allow marketers to generate more traffic to their World Wide Web sites.
CONTACT: Daniel Hopsicker, Economic Television
Tel: +1-800-264-0920
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*****************************************************************
Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 22:33:08 -0800
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Medialink has been appointed as the exclusive provider of video news
releases to [Daniel Hopsicker's] Global Business 2000..."
Now that we have one show verified, at least, I can look into it, and that's what I wanted to do originally, so let's get to it...
Who provided Hopsicker with his material? A fucking PR firm with heavy
propaganda ties.
- AC
Medialink wins NBC exclusive
Medialink has been appointed as the exclusive provider of video news
releases to [Daniel Hopsicker's] Global Business 2000...
--------------------
"Public diplomacy." Public relations.
FORMER BBC BROADCASTER LUCY HADFIELD TAKES HELM OF MEDIALINK LONDON OFFICE
PR Agency Veteran Jones Joins Medialink Management Team As Vice Chairman
For more information:
Mary C. Buhay Matt Burgess
Senior Vice President Group Marketing Manager
Corporate Communications Medialink Worldwide
Medialink Worldwide Incorporated Tel: +44 (0)20 7554 2787
Tel: (212) 682-8300 Mob: 07971 790 297
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
LONDON, December 1, 2003 - Former BBC broadcaster Lucy Hadfield has been appointed Managing Director of the international operations of Medialink Worldwide Incorporated (Nasdaq: MDLK), a global leader in providing news and media services for professional communicators, it was announced today. Joining Ms. Hadfield on the management team of Medialink in London is Bill Jones who was named Vice Chairman, a non-executive role.
The formation of a new management team represents a key step in the
implementation of Medialink's strategy to position itself for the growth of
its international business.
Ms. Hadfield, 42, brings a wide range of broadcast media and corporate
communications experience to her new role. After starting her professional
career with advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi in London, she moved into
the broadcasting industry by joining RTHK in Hong Kong. A BBC-trained
producer and presenter, she ascended to the position of Senior Program
Officer for BBC World Service and Radio Television Hong Kong, where she
supervised the quality of production, editorial content and commissioning of
primetime English language talk features. She held responsibilities in front
of and behind the cameras, producing and presenting investigative radio and
television programs for international syndication.
Following her broadcast career, Ms. Hadfield established TVCI, an
international brand experience company based in London, which designed and produced many of Europe's most successful millennium exhibitions for high profile clients including EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS, HSBC and the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION. She was most recently head of business development with CROWN Business Communications, a leading London-based integrated communications company providing live events, video and internet-based solutions for FTSE 250 companies. ...
A MADCOW'S FAKE NEWS
"Groups like MEDIALINK (www.medialink.com/vnr.htm) prepare television
versions of corporate press releases and produce them in broadcast news
style
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=25
MEDIA JUNGLE
James Elford
VNR takes all
If you thought The Onion or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart were your best
sources of fake news, think again: the Bush administration is giving them
some tough competition, thanks to a "video news release" (VNR) in support of
its new medicare law that many critics say blurs the boundary between
advertising and propaganda.
The VNR, distributed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
puts what some might call a biased spin on the Bush administration's medical
plan. Sample scenes include a crowd cheering while Bush signs the law into
effect, and another where an elderly customer is told by a pharmacist that
the new law "helps you better afford your medications." "It sounds like a
good idea," says the customer, to which the pharmacist replies, "A very good
idea."
But this kind of blatant drum beating wouldn't be so bad, or unexpected, if
it weren't for the way it was packaged. Instead of being clearly marked as
an advertisement from the government, the piece was not only designed to
look like a news story, but the government even got the company that made
the video, Home Front Communications, to hire someone to portray a
journalist.
Karen Ryan, a freelance reporter/actor/public relations professional (her
title varies depending upon who you ask) read the script prepared by the
government and signs off at end of the video without indicating that the VNR is anything but a legitimate news story. Even if they don't acknowledge it, the creators of the piece likely knew that there is a substantial difference
between what people heard ("In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting") and a properly identified VNR ("I'm Karen Ryan reporting from the U.S. Department of health and Human Services in Washington, D.C."). There's even a Spanish-language version aimed at Latino voters featuring correspondent "Alberto Garcia."
The ethical breach gets even stickier when you find out that the government
also prepared scripts for news anchors to use as they introduced the video,
featuring phrases like "Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details"
that seem designed to further its resemblance to real news. (While the video
itself has aired in a number of states, including Louisiana, it's unclear if
any newscasts elected to use this prepared script.)
The General Accounting Office (GAO), the nonpartisan body that functions as
Congress's investigative arm, has decided to investigate the matter because
of a concern that the VNRs might violate a prohibition on using funds for
"covert propaganda" and other government materials that are misleading about their origin. This prohibition came about after the U.S. State Department under the Reagan administration was discovered to be hiring consultants to author op-ed pieces and articles in support of their Central American policy back in 1987.
This incident is the latest in a long line of deceptions that the Bushites
seem almost addicted to. They've ranged from minor and relatively innocuous episodes like George W. presenting troops with a fake turkey for a staged Thanksgiving photo op to far more serious allegations about justifications for the invasion of Iraq. This reliance on fakery extends beyond turkeys and journalists to the use of fake firefighters
As for VNRs, they've been around since at least the 1980s and are used
widely by both government and business as sort of video press releases. The American Dental Association uses them, and even has their own, presumably fake "reporters" presenting them.Groups like Medialink
(www.medialink.com/vnr.htm) prepare television versions of corporate press
releases and produce them in broadcast news stylenewscasts, and a convenient resource for producers struggling to fill air
time, especially at small stations without the resources to produce enough
of their own quality news. Sometimes clearly identified as a message from
whatever interest group is releasing it and sometimes not, VNRs tread an
ethical grey area. Airing a VNR without proper identification is like
printing a press release as your own story.
VNRs have also been used in Europe but, at least in Britain, there has been
some action taken to restrict their use following an emotional Greenpeace
video about their efforts to prevent the dumping of Shell's Brent Spar oil
platform, which led to what editors at BBC and ITN later admitted was biased
coverage of the issue. Guidelines were drawn up to label VNRs as
such
In the U.S., while a coalition of prominent journalism organizations
including the Society of Professional Journalists have released a joint
letter of protest against VNRs, the Radio-Television News Directors
Association chose to simply clarify their guidelines on the use of VNRs in
newscasts. Hardly a muscular response to such an entrenched problem, and
certainly open to criticism. In their battle for the hearts and minds of
citizens in a democracy, governments and corporations can't be entirely
trusted to show all sides of a debate with any objectivity. The onus rests
with the journalists
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:30:31 -0800
Subject: HOPSICKER AND MEDIALINK'S "BLATANT PROPAGANDA"
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Mr. Hopsicker has claimed he did a business show for NBC.
Is this any way to describe corporate commercials and "public diplomacy"
in the name of globalism?
---------------
http://users.actweb.net/~eye/propaganda/articles/corporate_news.htm
"Perhaps the only bigger distributor of video 'news' releases than Medialink is the Pentagon. ..."
blatant propaganda home > propaganda index > here
blatant propaganda article:
CORPORATE SPONSORED NEWS?
Increasingly, what TV news stations pass off as news are actually video news
releases: expensive and professional videos prepared by advertising firms
and paid for by large corporations.
Groups like Medialink beam these video news releases, or VNRs, via satellite
to television news editors. These editors, lured by the polished product
available at no cost, run these press releases as news, much like the print
media do with the VNRs written counterparts.
The result?
Corporate-sponsored ad agencies are subtly changing and controlling the news we see on the tube.
Their use is widespread. For example, 81.2 million people saw a "news"
report on dolphin-safe tuna fishing methods on t.v. last year. Reporters did
not dig up this story. It was fed to them by Starkist Seafood Co., who hired
Chicago-based Edelman Public Relations Worldwide to produce it. Ad
executives sailed on fishing boats to promote Starkist's product. News
directors, undoubtedly impressed by the artfully shot and edited scenes of
playful dolphins, fierce seas, and rugged yet environmentally sensitive
boathands, ate it up. The question: Is dolphin-safe tuna newsworthy without
easily available PR material about it? If so, why not assign reporters to
the story instead of relying on the advertising people? If not, why run it
on the news at all? The answer, of course, is money. Assigning reporters and camera crews to an all-day or even all-week fishing expedition is an expense that most news stations cannot afford, or at least wish to avoid. But
Starkist can afford it. In fact, faced with a nationwide boycott of their
tuna, StarKist can't afford not to.
Edelman also produced a VNR for the Nutrasweet Company about fat substitutes which was run as "news" and seen by 54.1 million people. No doubt this VNR featured scientists talking about health hazards, maybe even an animated segment showing fat cells clogging up arteries and killing folks. Then an interview with a Nutrasweet technician reporting objectively on alternatives to fatty foods.
Other examples: 21.8 million people watched Soviets line up at the new
Moscow McDonald's to enjoy a hamburger. McDonald's Corporation paid
Patterson-Parkington First International of Toronto to create the news. Here
we have Americans watching a Canadian-made film of Russians eating Central American Beef. First International, indeed.
And 18.6 million people learned about the "International Rotten Sneaker
Contest" from their trusty news anchors. Odor-Eaters paid Combe Inc. of
White Plains, New York to create that "news".
All of these examples are amusing in a disgusting sort of way.
But some video news releases are deadly.
For instance, 61.4 million people saw a VNR on Iraq's (1990) invasion of
Kuwait. 35.3 milllion saw a later YNR depicting human rights abuses
perpetrated by the Iraqis against the Kuwaitis. Reporters were not involved
in these two particular news accounts. Hill and Knowlton of Washington, DC
crated this news, commissioned by a group called Citizens for a Free Kuwait.
This group, rumored to be working with five million petrodollars belonging
to the Emir (of Kuwait) himself, also hired a PR firm to mass produce "Free
Kuwait" T-Shirts, flags, bumper stickers, and assorted Desert Shield/Storm
souvenirs. The group's task was to put a positive spin on the Emir's
repressive regime so that Americans could feel good about killing and dying
to restore Kuwait's legitimate dictator.
Perhaps the only bigger distributor of video "news" releases than Medialink
is the Pentagon. What name other than VNR could you call the footage of
smart bombs dropping through Iraqi chimneys? The networks salivated over
that video clip, and hundreds of others like it, supplied by the military,
designed to put a positive spin on what the United Nations now calls "near
apocalyptic" allied bombing which has taken Iraq back to a pre-industrial
age.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The above article was taken from NEXUS Magazine. It was originally taken by
Nexus from an article entitled 'Advertising Invades the Newsroom' by Carl
Hammarskjold which appeared in a November 1991 issue of the "Anderson Valley
Advertiser", (Booneville, CA, USA).
Blatant Propaganda
PO Box 1327 Woden 2606 Australia
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To join the Blatant Propaganda e-mail list,
please enter your details below.
At present we send news once every 3 months or so.
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 11:39:19 -0800
Subject: HOPSICKER, MIND CONTROL AND "'GLOBAL BUSINESS 2000"
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
More on Hopsicker's "news" feed supplier - AC
http://keyholepublishing.com/Getting%20Inside%20Your%20Head.htm
Getting Inside Your Head:
Media, Mind Control,
and Marginalization of UFOs
by Richard M. Dolan
Reclaiming Our Freedom
According to Medialink study from 2001, 90% of TV newsrooms now rely on VNRs
and B-roll provided by outside sources as a regular part of their newscasts.
Much of this is simply self-serving corporate or GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA.
------------------
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Video_news_releases
--------------
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_102403_news.html
this week archive station guide Meet OTM The Nightly News Sell
October 24, 2003
BOB GARFIELD: Well, that's morning chat. At least viewers can rest assured
that stories they see on the local news are journalistically pure. Or can
they? The convergence of public relations ingenuity and broadcast stations'
budgetary exigencies has yielded another dubious hybrid: the Video News
Release -- a P.R. bonanza, and the news business's dirty little secret.
Here's an example. [TAPE PLAYS]
...
LARRY MOSCOWITZ: We determined prima facie and scientifically and
electronically that every television station in America with a newscast has
used and probably uses regularly this material from corporations and
organizations that we provide as VNRs or B-Roll or other terminology we may use.
BOB GARFIELD: Not all VNRs run whole. Most often they are mined for a clip
of background footage here, an interview fragment there. But producers
estimate that as many as one in three appear uncut, unedited and un-examined for balance or even basic accuracy. And why? Because they are there, tempting budget-battered news directors. And because they are free.
DEBORAH POTTER: VNRs are enabling devices.
BOB GARFIELD: Former CBS correspondent Deborah Potter is director of the
News Lab, the Washington, D.C. nonprofit dedicated to quality local
television.
DEBORAH POTTER: They allow newsrooms to do less of their own work without fear of running out of material before the end of the hour. It's a concern, and it ought to be a concern, frankly, for viewers if much of the material that they're starting to get on the news isn't news.
BOB GARFIELD: As long as there has been a press, there has been a symbiotic relationship between journalism and P.R. -- and not necessarily an insidious one. Publicists and politicians looking to promote their agendas can serve those interests, and the media's as well, by calling attention to news or even fluff of interest to the public. It then becomes the media's job to establish the broader context and to separate the newsworthy wheat from the gratuitously promotional chaff -- and to be clear about the source of
PR-furnished material. For instance, the Tropicana excerpt you heard at the
top of this piece we found in a documentary based on John Stauber's book.
Deborah Potter.
DEBORAH POTTER: I feel very strongly that if stations are going to use VNR
material they need to tell where it came from. It makes a difference if the
whaling video you're using came from Greenpeace or from the Coalition to
Support Whaling.
BOB GARFIELD: Barbara Cochrane, president of the Radio and Television News Directors Association says she believes most stations and networks do
routinely identify the source of outside video, as per the ethical
guidelines of her organization. But those within the VNR industry roll their
eyes at that assertion. Doug Simon of VNR producer D.S. Simon Productions
says disclosure is the exception -not the rule.
DOUG SIMON: From what we see, there's a very small percentage - perhaps less than 5% - that actually is identified what the source of the video is.
BOB GARFIELD: That makes him uneasy, but VNR producers can't do such
disclosure themselves. Each station uses a different on-screen typeface to
identify video, so the onus is on those airing the material, and dependent
as they are on the illusion of a far-flung newsgathering operation, with
tentacles throughout the community and beyond, there's little motivation to
do so.
LARRY MOSCOWITZ: Can I say that local television stations have been lax?
Yeah.
BOB GARFIELD: MediaLink's Moscowitz acknowledges that stations are less than scrupulous about identifying the source of the footage he supplies. He does not believe, however, that the sin is particularly grave -- at least
compared to other forms of journalism.
LARRY MOSCOWITZ: There is more unexpurgated, unedited and unredacted press information that shows up in the average daily newspaper in America, and certainly in the average weekly newspaper, probably by a 5 to 1 factor over the P.R. material that shows up in television. So you might be going after the wrong goat here.
BOB GARFIELD: The two wrongs make a right argument isn't the only one in
favor of the video news release. Candace White, marketing professor at the
University of Tennessee at Knoxville and co-author of a 2001 study about
VNRs, says the same self-interest that encourages news directors to use VNRs dictates that the material is used responsibly.
CANDACE WHITE: See, I trust news producers to be able to weed out true news value; I give them credit for being able to recognize blatant sales pitches. Our study found that the corporate videos were used the least, and the ones about health and safety were used the most.
BOB GARFIELD: But it's not necessarily the blatant sales pitches that are so
dangerous. It is the subtle sales pitches, and the implication of independent journalistic approval conferred on a company or organization and its point of view, which is why her study's co-author, journalism professor Mark Harmon, sees VNRs as (quote) "insidious devices by corporate America to control the American agenda." Nor is the problem restricted to the local
news. Not only do major networks use VNR footage. At least one, CBS, has a
division which produces and distributes them. This gets back to the disdain
and fear voiced by author and consumer advocate John Stauber.
JOHN STAUBER: All public relations is not sinister or evil or bad. But I
think the important thing to understand is that indeed all public relations
is propaganda.
BOB GARFIELD: So whether it's images of a NASA space walk or a
self-congratulatory sound bite from your Congressman or swell health news
about delicious calcium-fortified Tropicana orange juice, the message for TV
news consumption is as ever: Let the viewer beware. While TV runs into
problems when it fails to separate advertising from programming, it
certainly can't do without advertising all together, and sponsors aren't
picking up the programming tab out of the goodness of their hearts. They
need an audience to watch the commercials. And the steady shrinking of
network audiences is creating a gathering terror. The latest shocker from
the A.C. Nielsen Company, a report that since last season alone, 750,000
men, aged 18 to 34 --advertisers' most coveted demographic -- have simply stopped watching TV. Joining me now to discuss this bombshell is David Poltrack, executive vice president of research and planning at CBS. Dave, welcome to On the Media.
DAVID POLTRACK: Thank you, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: All right, 750,000 human souls vanishing, just disappearing.
What's going on?
DAVID POLTRACK: Well I wish I had the answer to that question. This is one
of these anomalies that turns up in the audience measurement system
occasionally, and would just be sort of a idle curiosity if it didn't mean
so much economically.
BOB GARFIELD: Fine. It may be an anomaly, or it may just be some sort of
blip that will be self-correcting. But what if it isn't? Is it possible that
this is, as someone put it, the canary in the mineshaft?
DAVID POLTRACK: Advertisers are not going to abandon network television to any significant degree unless they can find something better, and the
fragmentation in the television marketplace has impacted the television
network audiences significantly, but it hasn't really created any new
alternative. The fact that the networks have maintained their pricing is
really a function of the fact that the top 20 shows have had significantly
less erosion than the balance of the shows. So the premium product of
network television has relatively held up. And in this particular case, of
course, it's not just the network audiences going down. It's the overall
audience that's going down. So there will be no relative winner in this, if
it continues, which means that there's not an alternative out there that's
getting stronger as a result of this, so it'll probably have very little
effect in terms of the supply and demand mechanics of the marketplace.
BOB GARFIELD: I want to ask you for a moment to at least consider taking off the rose-colored glasses. Recently you were quoted responding to a
projection that the use of personal video recording devices like TiVo was
going to quintuple by the year 2007, which will in effect dramatically
reduce the number of people actually watching commercials broadcast on over the air television.
You were quoted as kind of shrugging, saying, well you know, we lose a certain percentage of our audience every year to cable, and yet the model continues to be going strong. Is it possible that between the growth of the internet, between the introduction of such devices as TiVo and other PVR technology, and the overall fragmentation of the audience that networks are close to losing the critical mass of gigantic audiences that enable them to sustain this model, and that there's a death watch on for the goose that lays the golden egg? Is that one of the possibilities?
DAVID POLTRACK: Well these are all changes that we have to adapt to. We
recognize that we can't count on just our distribution system to keep us on
top, and we have to look at cross-platform types of arrangements,
re-purposing, all of the different things that are going to be very much a
function of an environment where the viewer has more control. We have a
challenge ahead of us. There's no question about it. I mean that's why
we're, you know, we're pushing so hard for the FCC relaxation on the
ownership limits, because the economics of local television station
ownership support the finances and the programming investments of the
television networks. The more stations we own, the more stable the
advertiser model is for us, and there are a lot of pressures on that model.
There's no question about it. You know, we're not being complacent or blase
about the fact that it's just going to continue to go on.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, David, thank you very much.
DAVID POLTRACK: Okay.
BOB GARFIELD: David Poltrack is executive vice president of research and
planning at CBS. He joined us from his office at Black Rock. [MUSIC]
BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, a documentation of terror using the terrorists' own
video. This is On the Media, from NPR. [FUNDING CREDITS]
copyright 2003 WNYC Radio
---------
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 12:10:27 -0800
Subject: MediaLink
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title�diaLink
MediaLink
From Disinfopedia
MediaLink (http://www.medialink.com//_aboutuscorp.htm) is a GLOBAL
LEADER in corporate communications services, connecting corporate clients
with news industry producers. MediaLink boasts proprietary databases used
in audience research, while a PARTNERSHIP with the Associated Press puts the
PROPAGANDA of MediaLink clients on the desks of most United States'
television news editors. MediaLink claims credit for having pioneered video
news releases
*****************************************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 19:45:49 -0800
Subject: SAIC/MediaLink/Gulf War Propaganda
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.medialink.com/pressreleases2003/042203.htm
... Personal thoughts about the release of prisoners of war and the training
received to prepare them for the eventuality were shared by one male and
three female pilots in interviews transmitted via satellite from Doha. Two
of the women refuel planes in flight and the third is a weapons systems
officer, one of only a few U.S. Air Force females assigned to this role in
her squadron.
The two groups of satellite interviews were the second and third projects in
as many weeks delivered by Medialink for Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC) on behalf of the U.S. Air Force. Earlier, SAIC tapped
Medialink to manage a similar live broadcast originating from a studio in
Washington, D.C., which garnered 22 television bookings in major markets.
"We are continuing to see demand from local TV stations for live satellite
interviews and taped video segments concerning war-related topics, as well
as relevant consumer news," said Lidj Lewis, Vice President of Media
Relations, Medialink. "Our strong relationships with broadcasters in the
United States and around the world have enabled us to provide our clients
with the timely strategic counsel that is critical in this swiftly-changing
news environment."...
*****************************************
Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:53:21 -0800
Subject: MediaLink & Iraq Incubator Hoax
From: Alex Constantine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
MediaLink & Iraq Incubator Hoax
http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2�d9710a&L(R)jmc&F�� 281
THE VIDEO NEWS RELEASE
Before reviewing my pilot studies, it is important to understand why VNRs
can be so misleading. The VNR that triggered the greatest shock was created by the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton, on October 10, 1992. This was one month after U.S. troops had been sent to Kuwait to stop Iraqi
aggressions, and before Congress had actually approved the Gulf War.
Nayirah, a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl, gave public testimony in front of
the congressional human rights caucus. With tears in her eyes, and at times
barely able to continue, she told of armed Iraqi soldiers storming hospitals
in Kuwait, snatching premature babies out of their incubators, and leaving
them on the floor to die...Nayirah's story was recorded by a camera crew
hired by Hill and Knowlton, and the film was used to produce a video news
release. Portions of the film were aired that night on NBC's Nightly News.
The VNR was also sent to MEDIALINK, eventually reaching a total audience of
about 35 million...President Bush evoked Nayirah's story six times in one
month while explaining the need to go to war...No fewer than seven senators referred to the babies as justification for their support of the January 12, 1991 resolution authorizing war....What members of Congress did not know was that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. She had been coached by Hill and Knowlton before giving testimony....The PR company was working for a group...being financed almost entirely by the Kuwaiti royal family.[14]
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Path to 9/11: PARTS 1-8
• PART ONE: General Electric, ChoicePoint - Key Interlocking Fascist Directorates - and Kenneth Langone
• PART TWO: ChoicePoint Admits Foreknowledge of 9/11
• PART THREE: ChoicePoint/CSIS/Markle Foundation Connections
• PART FOUR: ANSER
• PART FIVE: DARK WINTER/ANSER, CSIS & Other Main Players Stage a Terror Drill in Preparation for Black Tuesday & Anthrax Attacks
• PART SIX: Introduction to the Buffett-Farish-Hunt Axis
• PART SEVEN: Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch & Washington Group International
• PART EIGHT: Southeastern Asset Management (SAM), Longleaf Partners, the Return of Kenneth Langone - and "THE PATH TO 9/11"/SUPPLEMENT TO PART EIGHT: A Corruption Profile of Fidelity Investments
by Alex Constantine
PART ONE: General Electric, ChoicePoint - Key Interlocking Fascist Directorates - and Kenneth Langone
The Patriot Act ran the Congressional gauntlet like greased pork, untouched and unread, so civil libertarians opened it up and poked through its oleaginous mass prior to passage, wiped their hands, and came away with a nagging sense of deja vu - but by the time the obvious comparisons to the rise of National Socialism were made, the act was voted into law.
Then as now, the federal vaults swung open and revenue gushed through
redirected banking channels, washed through hidden corporate and "homeland security" funds, ultimately lapping on the shores of select world-class criminals, a transfer of fluid capital worthy of German and American Robber Barons alike.
Two of the principal American backers of the Nazi regime were General
Electric and ITT. Both multinationals were represented on the boards of IG
Farben, the corporation that conspired to put Adolf Hitler in power (we find the same symbiosis at ChoicePoint – the corporation that conspired to put George W. Bush in power).
TIME MACHINE
After 1915, International General Electric (I.G.E.) in New York, researcher Nhan Myrick informs us, "acted as the foreign investment, manufacturing, and selling organization for the General Electric Company." I.G.E. held a 25 to 30-percent interest in German General Electric (A.E.G.), and holdings in a company called Osram in Berlin.
The holdings gave I.G.E. four directors on the board of A.E.G., and another at Osram, "and significant influence in the internal domestic policies of these German companies. The significance of this General Electric ownership is that A.E.G. and Osram were prominent suppliers of funds for Hitler in his rise to power in Germany in 1933."
Farben, of course, was the most generous German-American financial underwriter of Hitler. "Several directors of A.E.G. were also on the board of I.G. Farben." The sinister luminaries included Hermann Bucher, chairman of A.E.G., also on the I.G. Farben board, and A.E.G. directors Julius Flechtheim and Walter von Rath. "I.G. Farben contributed 30 percent of the 1933 Hitler National Trusteeship (or takeover) fund."
Accumulatoren Fabrik A-G "was a Hitler contributor with two directors on the A.E.G. board, August Pfeffer and Gunther Quandt. Quandt personally owned 75 percent of Accumulatoren Fabrik..."1
The nameplates may have changed over time, but fascism has been a geopolitical constant since it was conceived by Mussolini in the 1920s, and
so have the political intrigues of General Electric.
At ChoicePoint, preceding the "election" of GW Bush, there was Richard "Killer Pimp" Armitage. Another CP director: Kenneth Langone, also a director at GE - who interlocked with the ChoicePoint directorate.
Langone received his MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York
University. He was the founder of Invemed Associates, LLC, and Home Depot, Inc. Langone has been on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, DBT Online, Inc., InterWorld Corporation, TRICON Global Restaurants, Inc. and Unifi, Inc.
He's is a familiar face in New York politics, one of the principal fund-raisers for Rudolph Giuliani in his senate race against Hillary Clinton.
Langone's place wasn't limited to backstair deal-making, however.
During the campaign, New Yorkers switched on their television sets to see a
commercial featuring a bimbo with a heavy southern drawl, dressed in a suit,
crooning over a hot, gummy pizza called the Big New Yorker. "How do I know so much about New York pizza?" she asks. "'Cause, New York, I want to be your next senator!" A New York cop exults, "$9.99! What do they think this is, Arkansas?"2 Pizza Hut was owned by TRICON, a company under Langone's directorship.
Did the GE-ChoicePoint director's support for New York's take-charge mayor have anything to do with the fact that Rudy's mentor was none other than Adnan Khashoggi's attorney, Mr. Robert G. Morvillo, or that all three were movers in the same CIA-Mafia-corporate-Big-Boy net that has given rise to scores of headline-grabbing political scandals in the last few decades?
Robert G. Morvillo
He is the name partner of Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Silberberg, a
40-lawyer firm he established in 1973. Among his other well-known clients
was Rep. Robert Garcia, convicted of extortion in the 1989 Wedtech scandal.
In another bribery case, he won acquittal in 1987 for John Zaccaro, husband
of former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
He also represented the Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi, alleged to have siphoned money from the Philippines for Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos but acquitted with them in a federal case. Two years ago he represented Robert Iler, who played the son of Tony Soprano of the HBO series The Sopranos,' on a robbery charge (he got probation). In the 1960s and 1970s, Morvillo served in the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York. He was a chief trial assistant in the fraud unit there, and then chief of the
criminal division, where he mentored a young assistant U.S. attorney named
Rudolph Giuliani."3
All contributions to Giuliani were handled by New York City Public-Private
Initiatives Inc. (PPI), headed by Ms. Tamra Lhota. "As its name suggests,"
Newsday reports, "the corporation falls into a fuzzy area among the government, the business and the philanthropic worlds, where city officials can arrange private financing for pet projects without directly soliciting funds, which would be illegal."4
Tamra Roberts Lhota was a fundraiser in all three of Giuliani's runs for
mayor. She ran PPI, according to the CUNY Clarion, "to raise private money for public projects.... PPI established and initially ran the Twin Towers Fund, which benefits the families of members of the City's uniformed services who were lost in the WTC disaster.... Members include Richard Grasso of the NY Stock Exchange, real estate magnate Jerry Speyer, NY Mets owner Fred Wilpon and former deputy mayor Peter Powers. Past PPI board members have included Henry Kissinger [and] David Rockefeller."5 Judith Nathan - Giuliani's highly-publicized "companion" through his messy divorce - was an unpaid board member. And Langone was there, of course.6
"This is shadow government," Peter Bienstock, a lawyer who chaired a state
investigation of PPI, told Newsday. "That investigation's report, issued in 1990, said of such nonprofits, authorities and foundations: Although these entities are all created by governments to serve a public purpose ... their transactions are generally not subject to normal government oversight and control. Over time, they have collectively become, in effect, a shadow government, quite powerful but little known and understood,' the study said."7
Back at his alma mater NYU, where he was a trustee, there was some
hand-wringing over Langone's association with the university. The campus
newspaper reports, "two NYU trustees who also serve on the board of the New York Stock Exchange pose a serious conflict of interest to the proper
functioning of the Big Board.... The report, released in July, also
spotlights NYU trustee Richard Grasso, who resigned last Wednesday as
chairman of the stock exchange amid criticism that a $140 million
compensation and retirement benefits package he was set to receive was too
large. The Council of Institutional Investors released the report, which
questions Sexton's ability to act impartially while serving on the stock
exchange's nominating committee.... The report cites numerous other
potentially compromising connections among board members and those on the nominating committee, beside those related to NYU. A serious overlap'
exists between the 27 board members and those on the nominating committee, Brentley said.... The council's report found only one nominating committee member with no obvious connection to the board.' Outside relationships exist among board members themselves, according to the council's report, which cited 24 such connections. Grasso had ties to five other members, Langone had relationships with four and Fink was connected to one other person, the report said."8
A few months later, Langone's Invemed, a Wall Street securitues brokerage,
was also in trouble with regulators. The company, it seems, had a close
relationship with the Credit Suisse Group dating to the 1980s. The New York
Times found that the companies together managed the shares for a company financed by Langone. Thereby, Invemed "would introduce companies that would issue stock to Credit Suisse, and then Credit Suisse would give a percentage of shares in a larger firm the group was managing to Invemed. According to The New York Times, in March 2000, Invemed participated in 50 new stock issues, more than 90 percent of which were underwritten by Credit Suisse."9
Credit Suisse ...
TIME MACHINE
"2000: In mid year, the two largest banks in Switzerland, UBS and Credit
Suisse, approved a "1.25 billion-dollar global settlement aimed at ending
the long-running dispute over Holocaust assets..." - "GOVERNMENTS'
COMPLICITY IN THE NAZI HOLOCAUST: France, Germany, and Switzerland"10
NOTES
1) Nhan Myrick, General Electric Funded Hitler," Rense.com, September 26,
2004.
http://www.rense.com/general57/ge.htm
2) "Hillary Panned by Pizza Hut," originally printed in the Times of London,
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:PjEte6AcJ70J:ojr.usc.edu/content/ejc.cfm%3Frequest%3D116+%22kenneth+langone%22+and+%22Rudolph+Giuliani%22
3) "Robert G. Morvillo,"
http://www.crimlaw.org/defbrief281.html
4) Dan Janison, "New York City's Shadow Government," New York Newsday,
12/27/99.
5) "CUNY's Board of Trustees: The Powers That Be,"
http://www.psc-cuny.org/ClarionBOT.htm
6) Stephanie Saul, "Rudy's WTC Fund Tied To Nathan's Firm," Newsday,
February 9, 2002.
7) Janison.
8) Xana OíNeill, "Unease with trustees NYU-NYSE link called suspect,"
nyunews.com, September 23, 2003.
9) Elisabeth Salemme, Langone '57 accused of securities fraud,' Bucknellian
(school newspaper), April 25, 2003.
10) http://www.religioustolerance.org/holo_apol.htm
PART TWO: ChoicePoint Admits Foreknowledge of 9/11
If it was year 2000 and you could see the future, you would know that Choicepoint was busily setting the stage for 9/11 and the Iraq War. You could track developments at CP, watch who comes and goes from the board of directors, gather news clips on acquisitions and marketing developments, knowing that they lead inevitably to mass murder in the sky. This company - with CIA assassin Richard Armitage on the board of directors (he moved the the State Department after the election) - placed GW Bush in the White House in preparation for the Big Event ...
See: "On the Road to 9/11: General Electric, ChoicePoint - Key Interlocking Fascist Directorates - and Kenneth Langone"
Choicepoint, verbatim:
"Choicepoint purchased Bode Technologies, the biggest private DNA testing lab, and was given the contract for identifying 9/11 victims. ... "
The company was READY for it. And Derek Smith admits it:
" ... In an April 2002 interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Choicepoint CEO, Derek Smith, said, 'We have spent the last five years preparing our business for an environment we thought was coming. The events of September 11th did not surprise us as a corporation. ... '"
Surprised by 9/11? Not us. We dialed it in, for Christ's sake ...
The quote comes from an article about another political candidate indebted to Choicepoint:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11476
Choicepoint President Funds Secretary of State Candidate Scott Holcomb in Georgia
Matthew Cardinale
author's web site
E-mail Address:
Matthew Cardinale
July 14, 2006
This article courtesy of Atlanta Progressive News.
By Matthew Cardinale and Betty Clermont, Atlanta Progressive News (July 13, 2006)
(APN) ATLANTA – With the Georgia Primary for Secretary of State only days away, Atlanta Progressive News has learned Democratic Candidate Michael “Scott” Holcomb has accepted campaign contributions from the President of Choicepoint Corporation and the President’s wife.
Choicepoint has come under scrutiny for its well-researched acquisition of the company responsible for the false felon voter list which disenfranchised tens of thousands of minorities in the 2000 elections in Florida. Choicepoint, headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, with over a billion dollars in revenue in 2005, is synonymous with voter fraud and Bush cronyism to many advocates. It has billions of data points about individuals and has contracts with the US government to provide much of that information to them toward their goal of total information awareness.
Mr. Douglas Curling, the President of Choicepoint, gave $500 to Holcomb’s Campaign on December 19, 2005, according to campaign finance disclosures dated December 31, 2005.
Curling’s wife, Donna Curling, gave $1,000 to Holcomb’s Campaign on December 21, 2005.
Holcomb is the only candidate running for Secretary of State among all parties to have accepted money from Choicepoint leadership. And it would be unlikely given the amount of elections-related research on Holcomb’s website that he would be unaware of the concerns many citizens have about Choicepoint.
But there’s much more.
Donna Curling, the wife of the President of Choicepoint, it seems, is also the Co-founder of a group which has endorsed Holcomb, Georgians for Verified Voting, and has funded a national voter integrity organization, VoteTrustUSA.
“Candidates for office should not take dirty money, and voting advocates should not take dirty money either,” Greg Palast, an award-winning BBC journalist who has studied voting issues and Choicepoint, told Atlanta Progressive News.
“It’s called a conflict of interest. It’s NOT a question of [whether the Curlings are] good or bad [people]. When your decisions could effect the financial fate of a company, are they investing in you? Is there a quid pro quo?” Palast said.
It’s like asking the citizens of Georgia to take a big leap of faith when faith in our elections leadership is not so high.
The Office of Georgia Secretary of State is responsible for ensuring honest elections. The Elections Division “plays a crucial role in keeping Georgia’s elections fair and free from fraud,” according to the state’s website.
“The Curlings have donated to Scott Holcomb's Campaign solely as individuals. Donna Curling, in particular, has been a supporter of many Democratic causes and candidates,” Matt Gewolb, Chief Counsel and Chief of Staff for the Holcomb Campaign, told Atlanta Progressive News in response to our inquiry.
Seeing as how Mr. Curling has been one of Choicepoint’s top executives since 1997, first as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, then Chief Operation Officer, and now President, it seems disingenuous to try to separate the man from his company’s record.
But that’s just what Choicepoint and others have tried to do.
“Doug and Donna Curling contribute to many Democrat candidates,” Choicepoint spokesperson Matt Furman wrote in an email to Atlanta Progressive News.
“To suggest that by giving money to any single candidate they are doing anything but supporting the causes that candidate stands for is just plain wrong. These are politically informed, passionate people who are putting their money where their mouth is and nothing more,” Furman wrote.
Some activists did not agree with this explanation.
“That’s called a stakeholder. If your husband is the President, you cannot make the claim there’s not a connection because your livelihood is tied to that company,” Bev Harris of Black Box Voting told Atlanta Progressive News.
The Curlings are not only reliant on salary from Choicepoint; they are also stockholders, and so is their foundation, Harris said.
Meanwhile, Greg Palast threatened Atlanta Progressive News with a slander lawsuit if we were to reprint off-the-record comments made by some local and national voting rights activists which may have criticized Palast’s work.
“I’m not going to allow Choicepoint to run a whisper campaign against me. Choicepoint takes shots at me all the time. This is a sneaky tactic, to use cutouts to pretend there’s independent people questioning my reporting who are not independent,” Palast said.
Atlanta Progressive News has contacted a number of local and national voting rights and voting integrity activists, and was surprised to see how many were actually engaging in the practice of defending Choicepoint. Several respondents were granted off-the-record interviews.
John Gideon of VoteTrustUSA said he had “no comment,” when asked about the Curlings’ support of the organization or others, or of Scott Holcomb’s campaign.
“Choicepoint is a company that’s been involved with elections in ways that make a lot of us uncomfortable. They were definitely involved with buying the company while it was involved in the [faulty] felon voting purge,” Bev Harris said.
“At the heart of this is the fact the whole issue of what’s done with our personal data is not properly thought out and does not have the proper protections,” Harris said.
Mrs. Curling had been participating on the VoteTrustUSA listserv under a false name, Harris said. “So people didn’t know they were discussing their plans with the wife of Choicepoint’s President.”
Some of those who defended Choicepoint said it wasn’t Choicepoint that was responsible for the 2000 disenfranchisement in Florida; instead, it was the company they acquired and profited from.
“That’s like saying ‘my hand did it, not me,’” Greg Palast said in disagreement with that reasoning.
“They can be responsible for anything they should have known when considering the purchase,” Harris said.
MORE ABOUT CHOICEPOINT
Choicepoint’s deceptive practices begin with the first sentence on their website: “For almost a century Choicepoint has been a trusted source and leading provider of decision-making information.” A spin-off from another Georgia-based company, Equifax, Choicepoint became a separate, publicly-traded company, in August 1997.
Notable milestones in the company’s short history include:
Purchasing the company that KNOWINGLY produced inaccurate lists of felons, who are barred from voting in Florida, with information provided by Texas (where the governor was running for president) and supplied to Florida (where the governor is the candidate’s brother), resulting in tens of thousands of black voters, who were not felons, being disenfranchised in the 2000 election and thus ensuring the election of George W. Bush.
To be sure, Katherine Harris’s Elections Division in Florida stated it only wanted 80% accuracy on the list. Choicepoint has testified this to a panel called by US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, according to footage in American Blackout.
“They warned the state and took the money,” Palast said.
“They were watching the [disenfranchisement] of Black voters, and didn’t act. That’s called a willful failure to know, when you don’t act. When you aid it and earn money off of it,” Palast said.
Plus, “Choicepoint said we warned the state it was wrong. They can’t say that and also say, ‘It wasn’t us,’ [it was the company that we acquired]. They can’t have it both ways,” Palast said.
Besides, at the time, “they were very proud to claim entire credit for the voter rolls of Florida,” Palast said.
Choicepoint purchased Bode Technologies, the biggest private DNA testing lab, and was given the contract for identifying 9/11 victims. In an April 2002 interview with The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Choicepoint CEO, Derek Smith, said, "We have spent the last five years preparing our business for an environment we thought was coming. The events of September 11th did not surprise us as a corporation.” Choicepoint was also paid to identify victims of Hurricane Katrina. They just announced their Bode Technologies subsidiary is being sold.
According to Greg Palast, Choicepoint was awarded over a billion dollars in national security contracts. Since Choicepoint database information was obtained for “commercial purposes,” Bush can bypass constitutional limits on government domestic spying by obtaining information directly from Choicepoint, rather than relying on the FBI, which has yet to operate an effective computer system.
Choicepoint obtained voter registration lists for Argentina, Venezuela, and Mexico – all countries with presidents, or presidential candidates, who lead anti-Bush national factions. Argentina threatened to arrest Choicepoint contractors. Mexico did arrest Choicepoint data thieves. On his website, Palast pointed out our government may still be holding a copy of this information, using it to assist the conservative Mexican presidential candidate, Felipe Calderon, in stealing last weekend’s election.
In 2005, Choicepoint announced it sold 163,000 consumer records (including Social Security numbers and credit information) to identity thieves. The Federal Trade Commission fined the company a record $15 million, the largest fine ever for this purpose. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating stock trading by Smith and Curling between the time the company knew about the database scam and the time it became public, according to the AJC.
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed the anti-immigration bill SB529 into law in April 2006. The law, already imitated and passed in Colorado, requires employers to access a special national database before hiring anyone to ensure they are US citizens or legal immigrants. Perdue has accepted campaign contributions from Derek Smith and David Davis, another ChoicePoint executive. Choicepoint has contributed heavily to the Republican Party. Can we bet on which company will get the contract?
Choicepoint is also heavily involved in lobbying for bills that involve removing restrictions to gathering and distributing personal information, Harris said.
SO WHAT?
Is it possible, as some voting rights activists who are accepting money from the Curlings have suggested, that the Curlings are wonderful people and this is just Mr. Curling’s day job?
Yes.
It is possible their motives are good and pure? Yes, it is possible. Atlanta Progressive News has no evidence one way or another about the motives of Mr. and/or Mrs. Curling.
However, regardless of the intent of the relationships they’ve established with Holcomb and voting rights advocates, the consequences are clear and troubling. It appears that some voting rights advocates have become quasi-spokespersons for Choicepoint. Could the same happen with Holcomb?
“I gotta tell you, it is painful to turn down money. It would come with [unclear and unstated] expectations. You cannot become beholden. You start to rationalize,” Harris warned.
Was it worth $1500 for Holcomb to take funding from sources that may make many voters uncomfortable? That is yet to be seen. But one thing’s for sure. It was Scott Holcomb’s CHOICE and that’s the POINT.
EDITOR'S NOTE: APN issued 2006 endorsements last week. We endorsed Angela Moore for Secretary of State, adding Holcomb would have been out second choice. At this time, APN is retracting our statement that Holcomb would be our second choice; we no longer have a second choice.
About the authors:
Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor of Atlanta Progressive News and may be reached at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com. Betty Clermont is a Staff Writer at Atlanta Progressive News and may be reached at betty@atlantaprogressivenews.com
Syndication policy: This article may be reprinted in full at no cost where Atlanta Progressive News is credited.
PART THREE: ChoicePoint/CSIS/Markle Foundation Connections
From: Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 911 Terrorists (2005), by Alex Constantine
NORTH'S ENTERPRISE STAGES A COMEBACK; THE MARKLE FOUNDATION
"What is frightening and depressing is that a pseudoscientific propaganda word like terrorism' has come to have such a hypnotic effect on public debate ... a word featured constantly in the anti-partisan communiqués of the Third Reich ... Should we not be wary of a term with which rulers fool themselves and by which history is abolished and language debased? Don't we fool and console ourselves enough as it is?" - Christopher Hitchens, Harper's, September 1986
The mingling of Enterprise operatives with Middle Eastern radicals - discussed abstractly in the Iran-contra hearings - was completely acceptable to the Congressional quislings charged with oversight. Of the 26 committee members, 17 had voted in favor of funding the contras. The majority of "Select" Congressmen entrusted with deconstructing the secret sale of arms to Iran marched in step with the accused.
Chairman Lee Hamilton admonished North: "This secret policy of selling arms to Iran damaged US credibility." But he had to admit, "there are parts of your testimony that I agree with. I agree with you that our government needs the capability to carry out covert actions. During my six years on the
Intelligence Committee, over 90 percent of the covert actions that were
recommended to us by the president were supported and approved."
In 1988, Berkeley researcher Peter Dale Scott saw an "explicit agreement on
the need to continue covert operations, many of which (especially those in
ANGOLA and AFGHANISTAN) had support arrangements entangled with North's Iran-contra Enterprise."
These "support arrangements" continued through 911 to the present day.
Dr. Scott noticed that Hamilton's panel "mostly averted its eyes from the
broader extent of the North-Secord-Hamilton consensus" and that fraternal
consensus smiled on North, Secord, Armitage, Khashoggi, bin Laden, Zawahiri and their narcotics-tainted, genocidal paramilitary interventions around the globe.1
The oily CEO of The Enterprise was George H.W. Bush (with North as chief
operating officer), who brought terrorism home in 1976. Bush was implicated first by journalists, then federal investigators, in a terrorist attack in the nation's capital - the fatal car-bombing of Chilean activist Orlando
Letelier and co-worker Ronni Moffitt in 1976. The case was reopened and the CIA planned on letting go of a report that would have brought the name Bush to the surface ... but insisted on releasing it only after the 2000
election. And as the Washington Post reported on October 24, release of the
report would certainly face imposing "obstacles" should Son of Bush defeat
Son of Gore.
Full exposure of Iran-contra was hindered by a cover-up culture in Congress. George H.W. Bush was snared in the investigative net, so he enlisted the aid of a trusted ally in the House, Rep. Dick Cheney of Wyoming. Cheney was the ranking Republican in the Iran-contra probe. Robert Parry reports that Cheney "smartly exploited his relationship with Rep. Lee Hamilton," who "gave Bush a pass." The narrow, penlight focus of the investigation was the work of Cheney and Hamilton, who steered it away from "sensitive areas, such as contra-drug trafficking and the public diplomacy operation."
(Iran-contra's Otto Juan Reich was tarred by the Orwellian "public
diplomacy" scandal under Reagan. A Cuban exile with a sordid history of
romancing repressive Latin American regimes, he followed Armitage to the
State Department, was appointed to the office of Assistant Secretary of
State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in January 2002, under Powell.)
"Despite surrendering to Cheney's demands time and again, Hamilton failed,
in the end, to get a single House Republican to sign the final report. Only
three moderate Republicans on the Senate side - Warren Rudman, William Cohen and Paul Trible - agreed to sign the report, after extracting more
concessions." Cheney and a few fellow Republicans filed "a minority report
with the Committee that denied any significant wrongdoing had occurred."2
As a result, more significant wrongdoing was inevitable. Political
assassinations. Secret wars. ChoicePoint.
CP Directors Kenneth Langone and John J. Hamre are trustee and CEO/president respectively of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the District of Columbia, where the late Dr. Ray Cline, another Iran-contra veteran, made a substantial contribution to the international game plan that led to 911 and the ensuing clash of civilizations.
But before turning to Dr. Cline and his own significant evil, we should
pause to reflect for a moment on John Hamre, a bundle of revelations in a
portly package. Hamre is the aforementioned ChoicePoint connection to ITT
(see part one) - the communications and Chilean coup-plot people - where he has been a director since 00. This was the same year he became chairman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) - agent in place.
Before joining CSIS, Hamre was U.S. deputy secretary of defense, 1997-2000
... under William Cohen, one of the Senate Republicans who signed Lee
Hamilton's martinized Iran-contra report - and under-secretary of
defense/comptroller from 1993 to 1997. Before joining the DoD, Dr. Hamre was on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee, 1984-1993, with
responsibilities for oversight of weapons R&D and assorted defense budget
issues. From 1978 to 1984, he was deputy assistant director for national
security and international affairs at the Congressional Budget Office. Dr.
Hamre is a director of MITRE Corp. and Integrated Nano-Technologies LPC.
He's a Rockefeller Fellow at Harvard Divinity School, and received a Ph.D.
in 1978 from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.3
Dr. Hamre is also board chairman of the John and Mary R. Markle Foundation.
The list of Markle grant recipients and partners includes CNN, The
Children's Television Workshop, Infonautics, Crossover Technologies, M.I.T.,
The RAND Corporation, Carnegie-Mellon University and The Brookings
Institute. Some members of the "philanthropic" Markle foundation under Dr.
Hamre:
Philip Zelikow: executive director of the 911 Commission.
Judith A. Miller: The New York Times reporter whose articles on Saddam
Hussein's WMD program proved to be fictional.
Stewart A. Baker: Chief counsel, NSA.
William P. Crowell: CEO of Cylink, Inc. in Santa Clara, California. Crowell
came to Cylink from the NSA, where he had a series of senior positions,
including deputy director of operations and deputy director.
Eric Benhamou: vice chairman, Israel21c, a non-profit organization that
seeks, according to its website, to "promote the 21st century Israel that
exists beyond the conflict."
Paul Schott Stevens: Under President Reagan, special assistant for national
security affairs, executive secretary and legal adviser of the NSC.
Robert M. Bryant: former assistant director of the FBI, CEO of the National
Insurance Crime Bureau. In November 1999, after 31 years of service, he
retired as deputy director of the FBI, where he presided over the Bureau's
strategic plan, and served as the agency's chief operations officer. While
at the FBI, he directed a number of high-profile investigations, including
the Aldrich Ames spy case, the Oklahoma City bombing and the Montana Freeman standoff.
John O. Marsh: Former Secretary of the Army and Virginia Congressman. A
member of the Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for
Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction. Recently, the Panel
released its second annual report entitled "Toward a National Strategy for
Combating Terrorism."
Morton Halperin: Director of the Washington office of the Open Society
Institute. Halperin is a director of policy planning staff at the Department
of State. He was special assistant to President Clinton and a senior
director at the NSC, 1994-1996. Other positions include director of the
Center for National Security Studies, and director of the ACLU's Washington
D.C. office.
Margaret Hamburg, MD: VP of biological programs at the Nuclear Threat
Initiative.
Wesley Clark: War profiteer and former "liberal" presidential candidate.
Gilman Louie: President and CEO of In-Q-Tel, a CIA front, delivers new
technologies to the intelligence community.
Michael Okerlund Leavitt; Republican governor of Utah, first elected in
1992. Leavitt resigned his office in November 2003, and was sworn in as the
administrator of the EPA under Bush the next day. He was confirmed to this
office on October 28, 2003. Leavitt also serves on the Homeland Security
Advisory Council.
Ashton Carter: Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs, International Security Program.
The Markle Foundation, according to its website, was established in 1927 "to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge...and the general good of mankind..."
NOTES
1) Peter Dale Scott, "Northwards without North: Bush, Counterterrorism, and
the Continuation of Secret Power," International Center for Development
Policy, author's draft, March 12, 1988.
2) Robert Parry, "History will be on the ballot Nov. 7," Consortium,
November 5, 2000. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/110500c.html
3) "John J. Hamre," Forbes.com.
http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromMktGuideIdPersonTearsheet.jhtml?passedMktGuideId=159003
PART FOUR: ANSER
The term "homeland security" is out of place in the American lexicon. It's Old World, vaguely recalling Bavarian boot leather.
When the Bush administration started up with this phrase after 9/11, no one in the press thought to ask where it originated. According to a now-defunct ANSER Institute web page in March 2002, in response to a question by Air National Guardsman Mark Bower, it was coined by Richard Armitage, killer pimp in the State Department.
Armitage, an assassin with "conservative" values, was no doubt aware that in the 1930's, Adolf Hitler signed into existence a state police force known as the "Geheime Staatspolezei," the "Gestapo." Translation: "Home Nation Police," or, Anglicized, "Homeland Security."
The ANSER Institute for Homeland Security web site states that it was founded as "an independent, not-for-profit corporation chartered in California with the assistance of the RAND Corporation in 1958."
Shortly thereafter, ANSER was named a federal contract research center, one of nine such facilities in the "homeland," including RAND, MITRE (where John Hamre - of CSIS and Markle Foundation - is a director) and Lincoln Laboratory. On March 13, 1999 - the year scheming and positioning for 9/11 became really intense - a "Homeland Security Symposium" was held at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, hosted by the Military Operations Research Society (MORS), and the corporation adopted the title: The ANSER Insitute for Homeland Security opened its doors in May 2001. Three years later, the Department of Homeland Security selected ANSER to run a new federally-funded R&D center, the Homeland Security Institute.
Dr. Ruth A. David is president and CEO of ANSER, otherwise known as Analytical Services, Inc. She claims that a substantial part of the institute's mission is "to enhance public awareness and education" - an arguable statement, because from 1995-98, Dr. David was deputy director of the Science and Technology division at the CIA. The Science and Technology people, of course, are best known for barbarous forays into the science of mind control, including illicit experimentation at Ivy League universities, mental hospitals and prisons in the 1950s (Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski was a guinea-pig at Harvard); the release of LSD to divert and distract the anti-war movement in the '60s; unconscionable experiments on involuntary human subjects through to the present day. Coercive persuasion and other mind control techniques developed by the Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology are currently in use at the Abu Ghraib detention center - this is the sort of "awareness and education" that comes from the CIA.
The ANSER site informs us that Dr. David received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford in 1981. She has "served in several leadership positions at the Sandia National Laboratories, where she began her professional career in 1975. Most recently, she was Director of Advanced Information Technologies. From 1991 to 1994, Dr. David was Director of the Development Testing Center that developed and operated a broad spectrum of full-scale engineering test facilities. Dr. David has also been an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico. She has technical experience in digital and microprocessor-based system design, digital signal analysis, adaptive signal analysis, and system integration." She is a member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council, and the Corporation for the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory (NOTE: The MIT Instrumentation Lab - a primary developer of missile guidance
systems - went private and was renamed The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory after anti-war protests created a PR problem for the laboratory). Also the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Technical Division's Advisory Board, the National Advisory Committee for the Wichita State University Foundation, and the External Advisory Committee for Purdue University's Homeland Security Institute.
Dr. David chairs the National Research Council (NRC).
She also serves on the NSA Advisory Board.
Think-tanks like ANSER have "educated" the public into a police state, and the CIA-DoD "think-tanks" were ready for it in advance:
Foundations are in place for martial law in the US
By Ritt Goldstein,
Sydney Morning Herald
July 26, 2002
... From 1982-84 Colonel Oliver North assisted FEMA in drafting its civil defence preparations.... They included executive orders providing for suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA.... Former FEMA director Louis Guiffrida's deputy, John Brinkerhoff, handled the martial law portion of the planning. The plan was said to be similar to one Mr Giuffrida had developed earlier to combat "a national uprising by black militants." It provided for the detention "of at least 21million American Negroes" in "assembly centres or relocation camps."
Today Mr Brinkerhoff is with the highly influential ANSER Institute for Homeland Security. Following a request by the Pentagon in January that the US military be allowed the option of deploying troops on American streets, the institute in February published a paper by Mr Brinkerhoff arguing the legality of this. He alleged that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which has long been accepted as prohibiting such deployments, had simply been misunderstood and misapplied.
The preface to the article also provided the revelation that the national plan he had worked on, under Mr Giuffrida, was "approved by Reagan, and actions were taken to implement it." ...
Mr Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security, has just advocated a review of US law regarding the use of the military for law enforcement duties. Disturbingly, the full facts and final contents of Mr Reagan's national plan remain uncertain. This is in part because President Bush took the unusual step of sealing the Reagan presidential papers last November. However, many of the key figures of the Reagan era are part of the present administration, including John Poindexter, to whom Oliver North later reported ...
In August, Attorney General John Ashcroft caught camp fever, as well. Jonathan Turley, a constitutional scholar at George Washington University, noticed with a vengeance in an LA Times editorial:
"Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be 'enemy combatants' has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace. Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts.... The proposed camp plan should trigger immediate congressional hearings and reconsideration of Ashcroft's fitness for this important office. Whereas Al Qaeda is a threat to the lives of our citizens, Ashcroft has become a clear and present threat to our liberties. The camp plan was forged at an optimistic time for Ashcroft's small inner circle, which has been carefully watching two test cases to see whether this vision could become a reality. The cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi will determine whether U.S. citizens can be held without charges and subject to the arbitrary and unchecked authority of the government."1
The latter-day American Geheime Staatspolezei rose to prominence on its Reichstag, and dug in for the long haul ...
NOTES
1) Jonathan Turley, "Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision - Attorney general shows himself as a menace to liberty," Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2002.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.15B.ashcr.camps.htm
PART FIVE: DARK WINTER/ANSER, CSIS & Other Main Players Stage a Terror Drill in Preparation for Black Tuesday & Anthrax Attacks
JUNE 6, 2001 - DARK WINTER - NPR's "Morning Edition" ...
http://www.mipt.org/darkwinter06222001.asp
[ ... FX down ... ] This exercise was made possible by grant funding from The McCormick Tribune Foundation and The Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism [maintains with the RAND Corporation - a partner of the Institute - the RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident DataBase (1998-Present) - source: Wikipedia] ...
On 22-23 June, 2001, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention Terrorism, hosted a senior-level war game examining the national security, intergovernmental, and information challenges of a biological attack on the American homeland.
DARK WINTER was developed and produced by:
The ANSER Institute for Homeland Security
Contact: Col. Randy Larsen (Ret.), Director
The Center for Strategic and International Studies
Contact: Dr. John Hamre, President & CEO
The Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies
The Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism
With tensions rising in the Taiwan Straits, and a major crisis developing in Southwest Asia, a smallpox outbreak was confirmed by the CDC in Oklahoma City. During the thirteen days of the game, the disease spread to 25 states and 15 other countries. Fourteen participants and 60 observers witnessed terrorism/warfare in slow motion. ... Additionally, a predictable 24/7 news cycle quickly developed that focused the nation and the world on the attack and response. Five representatives from the national press corps (including print and broadcast) participated in the game, including a lengthy press conference with the President. ...
SCENARIO OVERVIEW
DARK WINTER was an exercise designed to simulate possible US reaction to the deliberate introduction of smallpox in three states during the winter of 2002.
Jerome Hauer
KEY PLAYERS: Jerome Hauer, Judith Miller, Sam Nunn, David Gergen, R. James Woolsey, John White, John Tilelli (USA, Ret.), Frank Wisner, George Terwilliger, William Sessions, Frank Keating, Dan Mahoney, Jim Miklaszewski, Mary Walsh, Sian Edwards (reporter), Lester Reingold (reporter)
EXERCISE STAFF
Mr. John Wohlfarth - Research Analyst, ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER)
Col. Randall Larsen (USAF, Ret.) - Director, ANSER Institute for Homeland Security Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER)
Ms. Joyce Whiting - ANSER Institute for Homeland Security
Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER)
Mr. Mark DeMier - Editor-in-Chief, The Journal of Homeland Security
Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER)
John Hamre - President and CEO, Center for Strategic & International Studies
Ms. Sue Reingold - Visiting National Security Agency Fellow, Center for Strategic & International Studies
Mr. Robertson Gile - Research Assistant, Center for Strategic & International Studies
Tara O'Toole - Deputy Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies
Dr. Thomas Inglesby - Senior Fellow, Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies
Mr. Michael Mair - Fellow, Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies
The players were introduced to this crisis during a National Security Council meeting scheduled to address several emerging crises, including the deployment of a carrier task force to the Middle East. At the start of the meeting, the Director of Health and Human Services informed the President of a confirmed case of smallpox in Oklahoma City.
Additional smallpox cases were soon identified in Georgia and Pennsylvania. More cases appeared in Oklahoma. The source of the infection was unknown, and exposure was presumed to have taken place at least nine days earlier due to the lengthy incubation period of smallpox. Consequently, exposed individuals had likely traveled far from the loci of what was now presumed to be a biological attack. The exercise spanned 13 days, and served as a vehicle to illustrate the following points.
EXERCISE LEARNING POINTS
1) An attack on the United States with biological weapons could threaten vital national security interests. Massive civilian casualties, breakdown in essential institutions, violation of democratic processes, civil disorder, loss of confidence in government and reduced US strategic flexibility abroad are among the ways a biological attack might compromise US security.
2) Current organizational structures and capabilities are not well suited for the management of a BW attack. Major “fault lines” exist between different levels of government (federal, state, and local), between government and the private sector, among different institutions and agencies, and within the public and private sector. These “disconnects” could impede situational awareness and compromise the ability to limit loss of life, suffering, and economic damage.
3) There is no surge capability in the US health care and public health systems, or the pharmaceutical and vaccine industries. This institutionally limited surge capacity could result in hospitals being overwhelmed and becoming inoperable; could impede public health agencies’ analysis of the scope, source and progress of the epidemic, the ability to educate and reassure the public, and the capacity to limit causalities and the spread of disease.
4) Dealing with the media will be a major, immediate challenge for all levels of government. Information management and communication (e.g., dealing with the press effectively, communication with citizens, maintaining the information flows necessary for command and control at all institutional levels) will be a critical element in crisis/consequence management.
5) Should a contagious bioweapon pathogen be used, containing the spread of disease will present significant ethical, political, cultural, operational and legal challenges.
SMALLPOX, because of its high case-fatality rates and transmissibility, represents one of the most serious biological warfare threats to the civilian population. In 1980, the World Health Assembly announced that smallpox had been eradicated and recommended that all countries cease vaccination. Although labs in two countries still officially store smallpox samples (US and Russia), its re-appearance would almost certainly indicate an intentional outbreak.
Aerosol release of smallpox virus disseminated among a relatively small population could result in a significant epidemic. Evidence suggests the infectious dose is very small. Several factors are cause for concern: the disease has historically been feared as one of the most serious of all pestilential diseases; it is physically disfiguring; it bears a 30 percent case-fatality rate; there is no treatment; it is communicable from person to person. Vaccination ceased in this country in 1972, and vaccination immunity acquired before that time has undoubtedly waned. Prior to eradication, data on smallpox outbreaks in Europe indicated that victims had the potential to infect 10 to 20 others. However, there has never been a smallpox outbreak in such a densely populated, highly mobile, unvaccinated population such as exists today.
In 1947, in response to a single case of smallpox in New York City, 6,350,000 people were immunized (500,000 in one day), including President Harry Truman. In 1972, after disappearing from Yugoslavia for four decades, a single case of smallpox emerged. There are two ways to control a smallpox epidemic – vaccine and isolation. Yugoslavia’s Communist leader, Josip Tito, used both. He instituted a nation-wide quarantine, and immunized the entire country of 20 million people using vaccine supplied by the World Health Organization.
Estimates of the current US supply of smallpox vaccine range from seven to twelve million doses. This stock cannot be immediately replenished, since all vaccine production facilities were dismantled after 1980, and renewed vaccine production is estimated to require at least 24-36 months. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently contracted with a Cambridge, MA firm to produce 40 million doses of new vaccine. Initial deliveries will not begin before 2004.
SOME OF THE EXERCISE OBSERVERS
Dr. Ruth David - President and CEO, Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER)
Mr. Jeffrey Fuller - Manager, Regional Conflict Division, Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER)
Dr. Peter Roman - Chairman, Department of Political Science at Duquesne University and Senior Fellow at the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security
Henry St. Germain - Senior Consultant, Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER)
Mr. Frank Cilluffo - Deputy Director, Global Organized Crime Project
Center for Strategic & International Studies
Dr. Anthony Cordesman - The Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy Center for Strategic & International Studies
Mr. Richard Saunders - Principal, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Inc.
Mr. Skip Fischer - Legislative Assistant Office of Senator Jon Kyl
Dr. James Hodge - Project Director , Center for the Law & the Public's Health, Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities
Dr. Monica Schoch-Spana - Medical Anthropologist & Research Associate, Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies
Mr. John Sirek - Director, Citizenship Program, Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation
Mr. Joseph Jakub - Staff Member, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
COL Robert Kadlec, MD - Professor of Military Strategy and Operations, National War College
Dr. Scott Lillibridge - Director, Bioterrorism Preparedness Program
Centers for Disease Control
Mrs. Barbara Martinez - Chief, WMD Operations Unit, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Dr. Paula Olsiewski - Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
PART SIX: Introduction to the Buffett-Farish-Hunt Axis
Also see: "The Path to 9/11, Part One: General Electric, ChoicePoint - Key Interlocking Fascist Directorates - and Kenneth Langone"
This syndicate often interacts with the Bass Family of Texas and its business interests. W.S. Farish III and his well-heeled connections in Lexington, Kentucky bring another dimension to 9/11 research, and that is barely touched upon in this entry. The section closes with an examination of ES&S and other companies involved in voting technology. This series began with ChoicePoint, and the strategic acquisition of key companies detailed below illustrates that the 9/11 group was bent on controlling the election process before executing 9/11 and turning the government over to private sector contractors in the name of national security. Also, note the first appearance of Coca-Cola (Warren Buffett began accumulating stock in the company in 1988, and was a major shareholder by 2001) - the company will reappear in connection with Black Tuesday with some frequency. The same can be said of Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC).
BEAR STEARNS, BUFFETT's AIG & PRE-9/11 PUT OPTIONS
" ... Bear Stearns, which is now broke, was linked to [W. Buffett's] American Insurance Group (AIG) and PRE 9/11 put options placed on the New York and Chicago financial exchanges 72 hours before the September 11th attacks. ...
http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?p=2424547
GULF RESOURCES AND BEAR STERNS
" ... From the beginning of Gulf Resources, there was always a representative on its board of New York's Bear Stearns firm ... "
http://www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook/bush_book.txt
THE HUNT FAMILY CONTEXT: GULF RESOURCES, WILL FARISH, HENRY KRAVIS, GW BUSH
ON THE BOARD of Gulf Resources sat George A. Butler, CEO of Houston's Post Oak Bank. Butler represented W. S. ("Auschwitz") Farish III, American inheritor of Auschwitz fortunes. Farish was the founder of Post Oak Bank.
The Hunt family had controlled some 15% of Gulf Resources shares. In 1977, the Hunts appointed GHW Bush executive committee chairman of the First International Bank in Houston. Ray Hunt subsequently signed a lucrative oil deal with the ruler of North Yemen - under the aegis of Vice President Bush.
•••••••
Ray Hunt
HUNT'S GULF RESOURCES AND CHEMICAL, CIA'S WALTER MISCHER, A 9/11 PLOTLINE CONNECTION, WATERGATE HISTORY
Sidney Adger ... had two sons--John and Stephen. John was a business partner of man named Robert Corson. ... Corson's ex-father-in-law was Walter Mischer, whose son, Walt Jr. was a fraternity brother (Kappa Sigma) of Stephen. Mischer Sr. was a friend of Bush Sr.--a neighbor in the exclusive area of Houston.
In 1972 Sidney Adger was a director of the Bank of Texas along with Robert
H. Allen and William C. Liedtke, Jr. The Bank of Texas later merged into
Walter Mischer’s Allied Bank [Pete Brewton writes that "Coca-Cola and Walter Mischer provided Oliver North his Contra training facility on 700,000 acres in Belize." Mischer purchased the training ground in Belize with Coca-Cola's CEO, Charles W Duncan. Very coincidental: "Next door to Hilliard's Huffman Flying school in Venice Florida is Duncan Aero, which traces back to the Duncan's in Texas. Source: http://austinist.com/2005/08/23/in_the_news.php]. George A. Butler was "chairman emeritus" of Allied Bank in 1983-84, while Jack T. Trotter was chairman of the Board of the bank and Walter Mischer was chairman of the Board of Allied Bancshares, Inc., the holding company.
George Butler and Robert H. Allen were directors of Gulf Resources, which had a role in providing part of the funds which were found in the Miami bank account of Watergate burglar Bernard Barker, through Houston's Republican campaign for Nixon's CREEP, William Liedtke, Jr. Allen was the financial officer for CREEP. Butler was also chairman of the Post Oak Bank in Bush's wealthy neighborhood. ...
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg24525.html
•••••••
WALTER MISCHER OF IRAN-CONTRA FAME
Walter Mischer, Sr.
Walter Mischer is a secretive "shot caller" in Texas with clear connections to "The Company", which simply include the Bush family rather then emanating from his relationship with the Bush family.
Mischer has helped the CIA over the past several decades with their operations in Central America by purchasing remote areas of jungle and turning them into clandestine landing strips used to move drugs and guns. No politician in Texas has any hope of getting elected to any office beyond dog catcher without Walter Mischer's approval.
Ask Mischer about any of this -if you can get in touch with him- and he will deny he knows anyone you ask about, even when there are documented business and personal relationships between Mischer and the subject of the inquiry.
Mischer's modus operandi is not to ally himself with either political party, but to purchase influence with both parties so that whoever wins the election means that Walter Mischer can celebrate with the winners, and by extension so can Mischer's friends such as the CIA and Mischer's associates in organized crime.
http://www.talkaboutdrinks.com/group/alt.coffee/messages/354120.html
•••••••
Enter Election Systems and Software (ES&S) (RECALLING THE 9/11 CONNECTIONS OF CHOICEPOINT in Part Three of this series)
Founded in Omaha, Nebraska, under the name “Data Mark Systems” by brothers Todd and Bob Urosevich, the company soon changed its name to American Information Systems (AIS). In 1984, the Uroseviches obtained financing from William and Robert Ahmanson, whose family piled up a fortune in the savings-and-loan and insurance industries. Howard Ahmanson Jr., a younger cousin of the AIS financiers, has parlayed his fortune into extremist right-wing politics, pushingthe agenda of the Christian Reconstructionist movement, which openlyadvocates a theocratic takeover of American democracy. William and Robert Ahmanson appeared to be more moderate than Howard Jr. and invested money in theater and public broadcasting. In 1987, they sold their direct shares in the voting-machine company to the Omaha World-Herald (which took a 45 percent stake inthe company) and the McCarthy Group (35 percent.
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:eIwTKXuX-pgJ:www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf+Cronus+industries&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
The Ahmansons sold their stock in American Information Systems (AIS) to the McCarthy Group and World Herald Company in Omaha, Nebraska.
"Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of AIS and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, AIS purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. ONE OF THE BRC OWNERS WAS [CAROLINE] HUNT of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the COUNCIL ON NATIONAL POLICY. In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment.
"In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel's ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel's first election victory was described as a 'stunning upset' by one Nebraska newspaper. ...
"Bob Urosevich was the Programmer and CEO at AIS, before being replaced by Hagel. Bob now heads Diebold Election Systems and his brother Todd is a top executive at ES&S. Bob created Diebold’s original electronic voting machine software. Thus, the brothers Urosevich, originally funded by the far Right, figure in the counting of approximately 80% of electronic voting in the United States.
"Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system. SAIC's former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group.
"ROBERT GATES, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board. Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow. Alastair Thompson, writing for scoop.com of New Zealand, explored whether or not the 2002 U.S. mid-term elections were 'fixed by electronic voting machines supplied by Republican-affiliated companies.' The scoop investigation concluded that: 'The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.' Those machines were supplied by Diebold."
http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2006/11/lexington-comair-crash-part-17-gps.html
WHAT THE HUNT FAMILY OF TEXAS HAD TO GAIN BY GW BUSH'S ELECTION "WIN" IN 2000
" ... the allocation of Iraqi petroleum rights ...will be going, in part, to the Hunt Oil Company of Bush associate Ray Hunt. Heir to ultra-rightwing billionaire H.L. Hunt, Ray Hunt sat on George W. Bush’s foreign intelligence advisory board, a position that gave him immediate access to the most sensitive intelligence documents about Iraq and other matters. ... "
http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2007/10/ftr-611-update-on-911-and-related.html
ALSO SEE: "Bush Oil Buddies Divvy Up Iraq (Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears)":
"This news from last week didn't generate nearly enough buzz but is surely a big deal: Hunt Energy of Dallas has signed an oil production-sharing agreement with the grand poobahs of northern Iraq's Kurdistan region, in apparent defiance of the central government in Baghdad, which has questioned its legality. ... "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-williams/bush-oil-buddies-divvy-up_b_65361.html
Moving the Bush Bubble to the Big D
Media Transparency
June 4, 2007
One month after 9/11, Bush honored his friend Ray Hunt with a seat on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), and he was re-appointed in January 2006 (Bryce, 2005). According to the White House, this board operates to offer the president "objective, expert advice" on the conduct of foreign intelligence (Wolffe and Bailey, 2005b). Hunt, with international business interests, has access through PFIAB to intelligence that is unavailable to most members of Congress. This group is privy to the most current and sensitive information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the military intelligence organizations, and several others sources (Bryce, 2005). PFIAB operates in complete secrecy. According to Salon magazine, members of this oversight board "are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and unlike other public servants who work for the president, there is no public disclosure of the PFIAB members' financial interests" (Bryce, 2005).
Several experts are persuaded that Hunt's position at PFIAB could easily benefit both Hunt Oil's worldwide energy interests and Halliburton, which has been awarded billions of dollars worth of no-bid, cost-plus contracts in Iraq by the U.S. government (Bryce, 2005; Wolffe and Bailey, 2005). Hunt has been on Halliburton's board of directors since 1998, when Dick Cheney was running the company and serving as an SMU trustee (1997- 2000). Interestingly, soon after Hunt joined the Halliburton board, he was placed on its compensation committee, where he helped determine Cheney's pay package (Bryce, 2005). In fact, in 1998 Hunt's committee decided that Cheney deserved a $3.78 million bonus (Bryce, 2005), and in 2000 he got $33.7 million award when he joined the Bush campaign (Bryce, 2000).
http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=196
•••••••
RE ES&S
ES&S is “the largest company in the world focusing solely on automating the election process.” The company “provides specialized systems and software to automate the entire election process for local, state, and national governments worldwide.” ES&S is a reorganized company that was given a new name in November 1997 after combining two of the largest election machine companies: Business Records Corp. (BRC, formerly part of Cronus Industries) and American Information Systems, Inc. (AIS).
ES&S is a privately held company owned by unknown investors and headed by Aldo Tesi, who refers to the democratic franchise as “the election industry.” The company is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska and supplies “thousands and thousands of machines being used across the country” to more than 2,200 U.S. jurisdictions in 49 states.
http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2006/12/twists-and-turns-who-owns-sequoia.html
•••••••
Only the Paranoid Survive
rigorousintuition.blogspot.com
Eva Sion on the Christian reconstructionists and their faith-based electronic voting machines:
Theonomic Reconstructionism is a belief that the only true authority is God's, that allegiance to biblical laws trumps that of civic law and that the Kingdom of Heaven needs to be built on Earth before Jesus will come again. In addition to that, homosexuals should be put to death, women should be banned from civic office, apostates and heretics should be stoned to death and there is a great need for more Christian politicians.
Not content to philosophize about such things, the TR movement sprang into action. Funded by billionaires such as Howard Ahmanson and the Coors and Hunt families, Reconstructionists formed think tanks such as the Chalcedon Institute and the Rutherford Institute (the friendly guys that funded Paula Jones' lawsuit against Clinton) to give the Christian Right a philosophical base to draw from, and political action committees to finance their elections....
Ahmanson inherited his money from his father, owner of Home Savings & Loan (during the S&L scandal of the Reagan years, Home's investors, mostly small family investments, lost over $150 million dollars. No one went to jail). In addition to funding PACs and think tanks, Howard Jr. parlayed his fortune into the majority stock of a business called American Information Systems (AIS) started by two enterprising brothers, Todd and Bob Urosevich. AIS later merged with Business Records Corporation (BRC) and became Election Systems & Solutions (ES&S). ES&S is the number one provider of touch-screen voting machines. Their website claims that their products were used in collecting 56% of the national vote in the last presidential elections.
Todd Urosevich is now Vice President of ES&S. Strangely enough, brother Bob moved on to head the second largest computerized vote-counting business, Global Election Systems, recently purchased by ATM and security giant Diebold. (They now have both the Ohio and Georgia contracts.) In a round table swap of incestuous patronage the previous executives of Global moved on to head the third largest vote-counting company in the nation, Advanced Voting Systems. Combined, these three corporations will process nearly 80% of the next nationwide elections.
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004_11_01_archive.html
•••••••
ES&S and ACS
ES&S (which describes itself as privately owned) and Sequoia are effectively the same company, the company that owns both is called Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) of Dallas, TX. They are apparently also a major player in providing technology services to the US court system, USPS, DOT, FCC, the US Senate, the White House, and several other government agencies.
http://911review.org/Alex/CIA_deckers_Atta_ACS.html
•••••••
AFFILIATED COMPUTER SERVICES (ACS) - NSA CONTRACTOR WILL BE INVOLVED IN 9/11
FROM: "Lexington Comair Crash, Parts 1-5: The Hand on the Data Stream/Teterboro Incident/Darwin's Devolution, CIA Terrorism/Flight Lesson/Teterboro & the CIA," By Alex Constantine
... The founder and chairman of the ACS board is Mr. Darwin Deason, a generous contributor to the Republican Party. Deason's "partner in crime" at ACS, and a ranking company director, is J. Livingston Kosberg - a former S&L thief. Pete Brewton, in The Mafia, CIA and George Bush, wrote: "Gibraltar Savings, whose chairman, J. Livingston Kosberg, was a prominent fund-raiser in Texas for the Democratic Party."
Patriots. And "prominent," too. ...
At Gibralter Savings down in Dallas, there was this nasty business ...
"ROBERT STRAUSS, Dallas attorney; U.S. Ambassador to Moscow and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee; friend of George Bush and former business partner with James A. Baker III; he and his son, Richard, were involved in a number of failed Texas S&Ls, including Lamar and Gibraltar." -
http://www.freewebs.com/ciascams/
Yes, "CiaScams." Gibralter, like the other S&L heists of the '80s, was a CIA/Mafia operation.
CIA/Mafia, like ACS, with "prominent" friends at the pinnacles of both political parties. ... A little searching on the net turns up another interesting connection to ACS - the destruction of the World Trade Center, or at least the plotline. ACS approved the change in Mohammed Atta's visa status in the US from tourist to student in 2002, according to the testimony of Huffman Aviation CEO Rudy Dekkers, and Tom Blodgett, a managing director at ACS, before the Kean Commission. This was a well-publicized "computer glitch."
How far, exactly, was ACS involved in CIA business? The GovExec website reports, "in November 2003, Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. acquired a government contracts division of Affiliated Computer Services Inc., a smaller firm, headquartered in Dallas, with DEEP CONNECTIONS TO THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES." The very idea.
The intimate bond was apparent when it emerged that it was an ACS division purchased by Lockheed responsible for torture at Guantanamo Bay.
One week before the Comair crash in Lexington, on August 20, 2006, the Associated Press released a story on the "ACS Bribery and Federal Contract Fixing" scandal: "Affiliated Computer Services Inc., one of the companies negotiating with the Family and Social Services Administration for a state welfare eligibility contract worth an estimated $1 billion over 10 years, formerly employed FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob." But most significantly, "Privately-owned" ES&S and Sequoia voting machine concerns are effectively controlled by the same company - Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) of Dallas, Texas."
And it was an election year ...
While digging about, you will find an anonymous blogger who observes that ACS and ES&S are "a major player in providing technology services to the US court system, USPS, DOT, FCC, the US Senate, the White House, and several other government agencies.... What does this mean? It's an interesting concentration of power. If one controls the datastream of an organization, one has a great deal of knowledge of what it's really doing. Actually, in this case, it would be interesting to know the relationship between ACS and the GOP and/or the Bush family."
http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2008/03/lexington-comair-crash-parts-one-three.html
•••••••
EXECUTIVES AT ACS TOOK ADVANTAGE OF IMMEDIATE POST-9/11 STOCK MARKET INACTIVITY TO BACKDATE STOCK OPTIONS
Post 9-11 Backdating Issues: The War at Home
A recent lead article in the Wall Street Journal, “Companies Say Backdating Used in Days After 9/11” (March 7, 2007), was an obvious attempt to pluck at the readers’ heartstrings. In my case, it worked.
The article reads, in part,
... the nation’s stock markets were closed from Sept. 11 to Sept. 14. When they reopened the following week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded more than 14%, in the worst full week for the blue-chip average since Germany invaded France in May 1940. Scores of companies rushed to grant options during the market’s trough…. some companies said it was pure happenstance, while others said it was intended to help motivate executives through the difficult period. But until recently none had admitted the award dates reflected improper backdating.
The notion that corporate executives would take personal advantage of a national disaster is outrageous. It is especially disheartening to think that these same business leaders were decrying acts of aggression against our country while performing underhanded acts of financial aggression against their own investors. ...
The nine companies known to have backdated in the fall of 2001 are Affiliated Computer (ACS), Broadcom (BRCM), Brocade (BRCD), Corinthian Colleges (COCO), KLA-Tencor (KLAC), Monster Worldwide (MNST), Progress Software (PRGS), Take-Two Interactive (TTWO), and UnitedHealth (UNH)....
http://seekingalpha.com/article/30330-post-9-11-backdating-issues-the-war-at-home
•••••••
Council for National Policy, Sequoia
Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: the corporate lines--even the bloodlines--of these "competitors" are so intricately mixed. For example, at Diebold--whose corporate chief, Wally O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, has publicly committed himself to "delivering" his home state's votes to Bush next year--the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top executive at "rival" ES&S. The brothers were originally staked in the vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing "steering group" stacked with Bushist faithful.
Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the "Christian Reconstructionist" movement, an extremist faction that openly advocates a theocratic takeover of American democracy, with the imposition of strict Christian dominion, placing "the state, the school, the arts and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere under Christ the King." This "dominion" includes the death penalty for homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians, stoning of sinners and--we kid you not--slavery, "one of the most beneficent of Biblical laws." As the movement's leader--and Ahmanson's fellow CNP member--R.J. Rushdoony puts it: "The Christian should therefore not fear laws in support of Christian social goals just because they interfere with personal freedom."
Ahmanson also holds a major stake in ES&S, where he's joined by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Before his ascension to high office, Hagel was CEO of an earlier ES&S incarnation. Thus, when he ran for the Senate, his own company counted the votes. Needless to say, his initial victory was reported as "an amazing upset." Hagel still has a million-dollar stake in the parent company of ES&S. In Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice for a running mate in his 1998 gubernatorial race was ES&S lobbyist Sandra Mortham, who made a mint installing the machines that counted Jeb's votes.
Sequoia also has a colorful history, most recently in Louisiana, where it was the center of a massive corruption case that sent top state officials to jail for bribery, most of it funneled through Mob-connected front firms. Sequoia executives were also indicted, but escaped trial after giving immunized testimony against state officials. The company's corporate parent is the UK communications and printing firm De La Rue, which even as we speak is churning out the colonial currency notes for the new Iraq, courtesy of a hefty Coalition contract. De La Rue, in turn, is owned by the private equity firm Madison Dearborn--a partner of the Carlyle Group, where George Bush I makes millions trolling the world for war pork, privatizations and sweetheart deals with government insiders.
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd09262003.html
PART SEVEN: Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch & Washington Group International
Peter Lynch was the husband of the late neo-con National Review propagandist Cathy Seipp. Ms. Seipp was the mentor of MediaBistro's Kate Coe, a spider-like propagandist who revels in trashing "conspiracy theorists." The following is from my investigation of the Duncan/Blake "suicides," and this is how I discovered Peter Lynch and the Washington Group International:
CATHY SEIPP'S CIA-FASCIST PROPAGANDA ROLE: " ... Like [Dennis] Miller, Ron Silver, Rob Long, Ben Stein, and a few celery-stick munchers, [Cathy] Seipp works the angle of being a rare, beleagured conservative in heathen Hollywood. You know, the type of writer/personality who peddles tales about saying something positive about George Bush at a party and everybody falling down in a dead faint; that sort of thing."
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/wolcott/2005/12/index.html
----> CATHY SEIPP "GOES TO BAT FOR JOE MCCARTHY and attacks the Hollywood Left:
http://www.plugnickeltimes.com/archives/S_0704a.html
----> DENNIS SEIPP, HER HUSBAND, WORKS FOR WASHINGTON GROUP INTERNATIONAL, INC. (WGI), formerly Morrison-Knudsen Corporation, which intersected with the CIA: " ... Brown & Platt is a rather prestigious Chicago law firm with a history dating back to 1881. It has become international in scope and has offices all across this country and around the world. Why would this legal giant have an interest in my little, obscure blog? One word and that is Seipp! The real kicker is that their interests do not revolve around the recently departed Cathy Seipp, but rather Dennis Seipp, associated with Washington Group International, Inc. ... "
http://mike-connectingthedots.blogspot.com/2007/03/cathy-seipp-story.html
----> THIS RETURNS US DIRECTLY TO WARREN BUFFETT'S CHARITY GOLF OUTING AT OFFUTT ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. WGI IS THE FORMER MORRISON-KNUDSON CORP., WHICH BRINGS US TO: "Peter S. Lynch - Manager o/t Fidelity Magellan Fund; FIDELITY MUTUAL FUND Whiz; Director of Morrison Knudsen and W. R. Grace & Company; Wall Street Stock Investor; Advisory Committee AmeriCares."
----> Re Lynch: He is a Knight of Malta, a distinction he shares with WR Grace and son. AmeriCares, of course, is a CIA front. On and on ...
http://letsrollforums.com/movers-and-shakers-sovereign-t16438p10.html
But more importantly, ANNE TATLOCK (see part four), who was with Warren Buffett when her Fidelity Savings office was destroyed at the World Trade Center on 9/11, is also a principal of the FIDELITY MUTUAL FUND.
SEC Filing - http://www.secinfo.com/dwvdh.z22.htm
----> Let's Draw the Buffett-Tatlock-Lynch-9/11 Loop even Tighter: Recall that Anne Tatlock was an executive at FIDELITY INVESTMENTS. AND: "Peter Lynch (born January 19, 1944) is a Wall Street stock investor. He is currently a research consultant at FIDELITY INVESTMENTS."
----> Today, PETER S. LYNCH - A KNIGHT OF MALTA - IS VICE CHAIRMAN OF FIDELITY INVESTMENTS.
http://www.zoominfo.com/search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=1389647
He's been there for some time: " ... Lynch was hired as an intern with Fidelity Investments in 1966 partly because he had been caddying for Fidelity's president (among others) at Brae Burn Country Club in Newton, Massachusetts. ... When he returned after a two year Army stint he was hired permanently in 1969."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Lynch
----> RE: Washington Group International, Inc.
WGI'S Defense Services Program, from the company web site:
" ... The Department of Defense, CLASSIFIED INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES and military installations face considerable challenges in responding to multiple world events. The transformation of the military structure, base closures and natural disasters has increased the demand for a highly qualified pool of contractors that quickly engage and mobilize to provide affordable, timely response. From new construction to refurbishment of existing facilities, we add value and cost savings to military projects and government-related agency life cycle programs. Our core strength lies in complex operations management in government facilities, backed by 70 years of military service in engineering, procurement, construction, operations, maintenance and management:
Global Military Base Operations, Maintenance, Closure and Realignment
Classified Engineering and Construction
Global Infrastructure and Privatization
http://www.wgint.com/markets/defense/defense_services/
----> WGI is owned by the URS Corporation. Let's take a look at the URS Board of Directors, where we find representatives from Rand Corp., Lockheed (Cohen Group is its lobbying arm), Textron, some CIA fronts (Agilent, VeriSign), and other scurillous corporations:
H. Jesse Arnelle - ... a director of Textron Corporation since 1993 ... a director of Gannett Company [owned in part by BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY] ... a director of Union Pacific and Resources, Inc.; as a director of Wells Fargo and Company; and as a director of Waste Management, Inc. ...
Armen Der Marderosian - ... Mr. Der Marderosian served as President and Chief Executive Officer of GTE Government Systems Corporation from 1995 to 1999 ...
Lydia H. Kennard - ... served on the Board of Trustees of Rand Corporation since 2002 ...
General Joseph W. Ralston - ... Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group since 2003 ... a director of Lockheed Martin since 2003 ... General Ralston's military career began in 1965 and concluded in 2003 when he retired from active duty. General Ralston's military career was highlighted by his service as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C. from 1996 to 2000 and Commander, U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO from 2000 to 2003.
John D. Roach - ... a director of VeriSign, Inc. (since July 2007) ...
William P. Sullivan - ... the President and Chief Executive Officer of Agilent Technologies, Inc. ... He served as Agilent's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer from March 2002 until March 2005 ... a Director of Agilent since March 2005..
William D. Walsh - Mr. Walsh has served as Chairman of Sequoia Associates LLC, a private investment firm, since 1982
••••••
----> Re: Cathy Seipp
Fox News mourned her passing after a long bout with lung cancer: " ... Cathy was a conservative by choice, not by upbringing, and she delighted in exposing liberals for their elitism and insensitivity. ... "
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,260268,00.html
MEMORABLE QUOTES BY CATHY SEIPP
"The WGA West remains filled with unreconstructed apologists for American Communists."
" ... People on the left [who in America push for affirmative action for women and gay marriage] are making common cause with political Islam, which regards women as chattel and think homosexuals should be crushed in walls. ... "
http://www.lukeford.net/essays/contents/mediabias.htm
"The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times are liberally-biased and will not admit it... "
http://www.lukeford.net/essays/contents/mediabias.htm
"A disapproving phrase you get called a lot here if you’re conservative is 'mean-spirited.'"
PART EIGHT: Southeastern Asset Management (SAM), Longleaf Partners, the Return of Kenneth Langone - and "THE PATH TO 9/11"
Possum in the Road
On June 2, 2006, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, another evangelical whose religion is stitched indelibly on his sleeve, learned the meaning of existential terror.
"There were some frightening moments for Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and his family last week," Aero-News sympathized, "as the business jet they were on experienced engine failure at 43,000 feet."
Huckabee, his wife Janet Huckabee, daughter Sarah, staffer Chad Rockett and a state trooper were on board. The jet climbed to circumvent storm clouds when "a noise came from the jet's right engine. 'We were flying over Tennessee, enjoying the flight, when suddenly a most horrible sound started coming from the airplane engine,' Huckabee said in a speech to North Carolina Republicans Tuesday. 'It was doing all sorts of funny things airplane engines are not supposed to do.'...
The close call, "which the southern governor likened to 'running over a great big possum in the road,' ended with everyone safe on the ground." Mechanics repaired the malfunctioning engine, everyone climbed back on board and were on their way.
"Huckabee wouldn't say who the plane's owner was, saying it wouldn't be fair to single out the aircraft's owner as 'it wasn't the fault of the airplane.'" You wouldn't want to trample on the Cessna's feelings ... or publicize a violation of federal political campaign laws ...
Huckabee refused to answer inquiries from the politrazzi, but the incident report filed at the Chatanooga airport listed the owner of the Cessna, Southeastern Asset Management (SAM), based in New Hampshire.
Huckabee blogger Michael Powell, an NYU grad student, describes SAM as "a New Hampshire-based company of which Ted Suhl is the manager. Suhl is a past contributor to Huckabee campaigns, a Huckabee-appointee to the state Child Welfare Agency Review Board, and also the director of the Lord’s Ranch in Warm Springs, a religious-based youth home whose $8.5 million contract with the state is paid through Medicaid." ...
The airplane with the "funny" engine generated a hogshead of headlines, but none of them concerned the title holder of the Cessna, Southeastern Assets Management, itself. SAM holdings include a sizable share of General Motors. Disney. Renault. Phillips Electronics ....
Southeastern Assets Management, the Lord's Ranch operator, currently owns owns Yum! Brands and KFC through the Longleaf Partners Fund.
The Longleaf Partners Fund was the financial eminence gris of much-despised "The Path to 9/11," the Pixar/Disney propaganda piece that calls up the most dishonest anti-communist bandwagons of the Cold War.
Editor & Publisher reported with an offended air ...
COMPANIES DIRECTLY INVOLVED OR CONNECTED WITH THE MOVIE
The Path to 9/11
...
AKA Longleaf Partners Funds
6410 Poplar Ave., Suite 900, Memphis, TN 38119
O. Mason Hawkins, Chairman/CEO
http://forums.therandirhodesshow.com/lofiversion/index.php/t96251.html
...
Southeastern Asset Management, Inc.
TOP DISNEY INSTITUTIONAL SHAREHOLDERS
Vanguard Group, Inc.
Morgan Stanley
Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd
FMR Corp. (Fidelity Management & Research Corp)
Wellington Management Company, LLP
Capital Research and Management Company ...
Also the BASS FAMILY
About Capital Research and Management Company and General Re, the re-insurer of the World Trade Center when it fell. Capital is a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. The New York Times reported on June 22, 1988: " ... At the end of March, five institutions each owned more than 3 percent of General Re's shares, according to Technimetrics Inc., which tracks institutional stock data. Capital Research and Management, which oversees the American Funds family of mutual funds, was the largest holder, owning 6 percent of the shares, followed by Fidelity Investments, the Regents of the University of California, Davis Selected Advisers and Invesco Capital Management. ... "
TOP MUTUAL FUND HOLDERS
Longleaf Partners Fund
[see Southeastern Asset Management above]
Vanguard 500 Index Fund
[see Vanguard Group above]
College Retirement Equities Fund-stock Account
Administered by TIAA-CREF Investment Management, LLC(324)
ABC was cursed far-and-wide for the 9/11 "documentary" – particularly for the imaginary scene in which President Clinton casually waves off a chance to kill Osama bin Laden.
Most newswire reports said: "ABC responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the miniseries was 'a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews.'"
Governor Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, chimed in with a statement that the scene was, after all, "a composite."
That is, Pepsico's Thomas Kean, destined to be an all-too-familiar face in this story ... as it happens, the SAM/Longleaf affiliate, Yum! Brands, with Chickenfuehrer David Novak at its helm, is a spin-off of Pepsico. Interests are in conflict here ... with 9/11 ... and God ... in the middle of it.
Who is David Novak? The loyalist of another evangelical front, of course (can our old friend Howard Ahmanson, Jr. be far away?), Southeast Christian Church, the largest church in Godly Kentucky.
Sean Sellers, co-coordinator of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, writes: "Southeast Christian sent busloads of people to lobby the Kentucky legislature in favor of an anti-gay marriage amendment this year. The pastor of Southeast Christian, Bob Russell, said during the recent presidential campaign, 'We [evangelicals] have more reasons to start a revolution than they did in 1776... I don't see how you can be a dedicated Christian and remain neutral.' Mr. Novak is also is a proud and vocal evangelist of what he calls 'Jesus-Centered Leadership,' joining Reverend Russell to stage motivational workshops on the topic for thousands of people at a time."
This was a curious set of connections. Longleaf Partners Fund – Lord's Ranch – Mike Huckabee – Thomas Keane – David Novak – "The Path to 9/11" ...
And - wouldn't you know - Kenneth Langone (see part one), a close associate of Novak's.
•••••••
A Corruption Profile of Fidelity Investments
(Supplement to Part Eight)
Eleven reasons to not do business with Boston-based Fidelity Inestments:
CONTENTS
1) Fidelity is Heavily invested in the Military-Industrial Complex
2) Drugs and Prostitutes
3) Former Secretary of Defense (and CIA & SAIC Director) Robert Gates was a a Fidelity Director Until 2006
4) Investments in Genocide
5) CENSORSHIP OF THE FIDELITY GENOCIDE ISSUE
6) Willful Violations of Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Laws
7) Dwarf Tossing
8) Insider Trading
9) Annuity Fraud
10) More Genocide
11) Class Warfare
Fidelity and the Military-Industrial Complex:
From: "Flirting with Fascism -- US Imperialism's Hidden Romance"
www.agitprop.org.au
" ... The major financial institutions of Wall Street have heavy stakes in the military business, as do new power centres. FMR Corporation, the holding company of the Fidelity Group of mutual funds — the largest in the world, with over $400 billion in assets — has the most widespread military equipment holdings, including 6.7 per cent of Lockheed Martin, 10.2 per cent of General Dynamics, 22.8 per cent of Litton Industries and 6.1 per cent of Northrop Grumman. ... "
http://www.agitprop.org.au/stopnato/1999110502.php
•••••••
Drugs and Prostitutes
" ... In Boston, the U.S. attorney's office is separately investigating whether brokers paid for illegal drugs and prostitutes for Fidelity traders, including at a bachelor's party in March 2003 that Mr. Quinn and rivals from two other brokerage firms helped pay for, according to people familiar with the matter. ..."
http://fidelityobserver.blogspot.com/2005/08/fidelity-bribery-scandal-and-this.html
•••••••
Robert Gates (Dod, formerly CIA, SAIC) was a Fidelity Director Until 2006
" ... Gates' largest source of outside income last year, at $373,000, was from Boston-based Fidelity Investments, one of the world's largest investment houses. Gates' Fidelity holdings are described as deferred compensation, according to his disclosures. Gates said recently that he would resign from Fidelity's board, on which he has served for nine years. Elected last year as chairman of the board's independent directors, Gates and his group oversee 345 mutual funds, including ones featuring U.S. defense and energy stocks. He commuted from Texas for 11 board meetings a year, once noting that he had missed only one meeting because of a conflict with a college event. Gates' Fidelity salary was set by the independent directors. ... "
"Gates' personal holdings have grown substantially since he left government, when he had no more than $165,000 in savings and retirement accounts. Now, he has $1.1 million in holdings with Fidelity Investments, as well as stock holdings in some of the companies where he has served as director. ... "
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bb/lofiversion/index.php/t12560.html
••••••••
Investments in Genocide
"As you know, Greens and other activists have been protesting Al Gore because his mother's trust owns stock in Occidental Petroleum, which has been striving to drill for oil on the sacred lands of the indigenous U'wa people in Colombia. In the US, the protests have had two main targets: Mr. Gore and Fidelity Investments, one of the largest holders of Occidental stock. Fidelity holds far more shares, by the way, than Pauline Gore's trust. Fidelity controls about $500 million worth of Occidental Stock, according to the Rainforest Action Network, which accuses Fidelity of "Investing in Genocide." Protestors have urged Fidelity investors to divest from Fidelity unless Fidelity pressures Occidental to cancel its Colombia project. ...
"Fidelity Magellan also owns stock in Dick Cheney's Halliburton Company, which has been linked in a published report to the deaths of environmental activists and indigenous people in the Niger Delta. "
http://www.bushwatch.com/nader2000.htm
CENSORSHIP OF THE FIDELITY GENOCIDE ISSUE
" ... Fidelity Investments is staring down an advertising campaign that urges its money managers to 'stop investing in companies that fund genocide in Darfur.' Major media outlets are also on the spot. The mutual funds giant said it recently convinced CNN and Newsweek to change their minds about running ads sponsored by The Save Darfur Coalition. ...
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/05/10/divestment_dilemma/
•••••••
Willful Violations of Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Laws
Former compliance officer blows whistle on Fidelity Investments over willful Patriot Act violations
July 3, 2007
A lawsuit against Fidelity Investments accuses the mutual fund giant of deliberately avoiding and violating portions of the U.S. Patriot Act. The whistle was blown on the company by, of all people, one of its former compliance officers. What has resulted is a mess of finger-pointing, additional lawsuits, and rush to put a seal on anything related to the case or the purported activity.
David van Duyn, who worked as an anti-money laundering advisor for the company, accused Fidelity executives of instructing him to sidestep the Patriot Act, which laid out requirements for monitoring and reporting client transactions. To top things off, he accuses his former superiors of handing down orders to falsify documents. Duyn claims the company blatantly violated the Act and other laws intended to track money laundering and funding for terrorist networks.
Fidelity has countered with a suit of its own in an effort to prevent Duyn from divulging “confidential information” - which Fidelity insists would violate the company’s non-disclosure agreement signed by employees. The suit is in addition to its hurried efforts to stamp out from the public record any potentially damaging information or allegations surrounding its internal policies and possible negligence of customer accounts.
http://ethisphere.com/former-compliance-officer-blows-whistle-on-fidelity-investments-over-willful-patriot-act-violations/
•••••••
Dwarf Tossing
SEC probes dwarf-tossing party for Fidelity trader
By Jason Nisse
Sunday, 14 August 2005
US regulators probing "inappropriate gifts" given to dealers at the financial giant Fidelity Investments have unearthed evidence of an astonishing party.
The March 2003 bachelor weekend for Thomas Bruderman Jnr, a star Fidelity trader, was paid for by three Wall Street firms - Jefferies & Co, Lazard and SG Cowan. A $65,000 (£36,000) private jet was laid on to take Mr Bruderman and his guests, who included Fidelity's then head of stock trading, Scott DeSano, and Dennis Kozlowski, the former head of Tyco International, from Boston to Miami. They were put up at the Delano Hotel, beloved of celebrities such as Madonna, and taken out on a yacht, along with at least two women who were hired to attend.
Another person hired was Danny Black, who describes himself as the "Heidi Fleiss of dwarf talent". His official role was as a waiter, but he also allowed himself to be thrown by partygoers in an activity called "dwarf tossing". Mr Black said that it "was a lavish party and a good time was had by all". ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/sec-probes-dwarftossing-party-for-fidelity-trader-502734.html
•••••••
Insider Trading
SEC Charges Fidelity Trader with Insider Trading
24/04/2008
"The SEC has charged David Donovan, Jr., a former equity trader at Fidelity Investments, and David Hinkle, a former broker at Capital Institutional Services, with defrauding Fidelity and its advisory clients through a series of inside trades. According to the Commission’s allegations, Donovan and Hinkle used confidential information from Fidelity’s internal order database to trade on or ahead of the firm’s orders. The SEC claims that the duo failed to inform Fidelity about the trades and that they profited through them.
"The SEC’s suit seeks disgorgement with prejudgment interest and the imposition of civil penalties against Donovan and Hinkle. ... "
http://www.csapartners.eu/blog/index.php/category/insider-trading-scandal/
•••••••
Fidelity - The House of Annuity Fraud
http://www.thesqueakywheel.com/complaints/2006/APR/complaint8728.cfm
•••••••
More Genocide
Investors Against Genocide launched, extending the work of Fidelity Out Of Sudan
On September 5, the Fidelity Out Of Sudan campaign broadened its investment firm targets and launched Investors Against Genocide. In addition to Fidelity, targets will include other major financial institutions with large holdings in PetroChina.
The InvestorsAgainstGenocide.org site will replace and extend the FidelityOutOfSudan.com website and continue the work against Fidelity, while extending to the other major holders of PetroChina. ...
http://fidelityoutofsudan.googlepages.com/
Also see: Fidelity's Sudan Problem, Forbes: "Fidelity is the biggest investor in PetroChina. PetroChina is one of the largest companies operating in Sudan. They're pumping tons of oil. And that's generating massive amounts of revenue for the government of Sudan." The Khartoum government has been condemned by the United States, the U.N. and most everybody else who has paid attention to the long-running crisis in Darfur, where an estimated 400,000 people have died. How has Fidelity responded to calls for divestment? With form letters and prepared statements. ... "
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/29/news/companies/pluggedin_gunther_sudan.fortune/index.htm
•••••••
Class Warfare
Fidelity Investments "at War with the Workers of America"
" ... AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka [said]: 'There is a war against the workers of America. The labor movement is confronting all the aiders and abetters of corporate greed and the corporate con men.' Fidelity Investments refuses to make public its proxy voting, regarding major decisions it makes about its shareholders’ mutual funds, including those workers of the major corporations that it handles. ... "
http://www.pww.org/index.php/article/view/1773/1/103/