Wachovia has long held a reservation on my blacklist. Fair Finance Watch, among other corporate watchdog groups, maintains that the mortgage house "unfairly imposes higher rates on home loans to African-Americans than non-Hispanic whites and finances pawn shops and payday lenders known for charging high rates for short-term loans to low-income households." - AC/Source: MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12680868/from/RSS/
•••••••
" ... I love the notion of the Fed 'seizing banks.' It’s so banana republic ... "
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
Sep 30, 2008, 00:21
With the announcement of Citigroup’s purchase of the Wachovia Corporation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation told us Monday morning of the latest bank to get whacked by the predatory mortgage market, as in what goes around comes around. But not to worry, folks, Citigroup will pay a buck a share, about $2.2 billion, in a brand new deal. How’s that for a buy?
The FDIC said that it would suck up the losses from Wachovia above $42 billion and receive $12 billion in preferred stock and warrants from Citigroup in exchange for assuming the risk. Of course, it iterated that “Wachovia, did not fail . . . rather it is to be acquired by Citigroup Inc on an open-bank basis,” as reported in the New York Times.
Citigroup will inherit most of Wachovia’s assets and liabilities, which include $400 billion in deposits on the black side and take on senior and subordinated debt of Wachovia on the red side. Wachovia Corp will go on owning the retail brokerage firm AG Edwards and the money management sidekick Evergreen (hopefully to live up to its name). ...
Wachovia was duly whomped by a 2006 buy of Golden West Financial [Golden West operates its branches as World Savings Bank], the California “lender” (the nice name for a kind of uptown loan-sharking), specializing in euphemistically named pay-option mortgages, more likely pay or go. The bank was also dealing with increasing losses on loans to home builders and commercial real estate developers (pop goes the building bubble weasel). Wachovia shelled out more money for acquiring the AG Edwards retail brokerage firm (which could probably collateralize the bad loans and sell them as securities or bonds), which turned out to be trouble, and led to Wachovia’s board booting out G. Kennedy Thompson as the bank’s good old boy chief executive.
The talks heated over the weekend with the parallel negotiations in the $700 billion Wall Street welfare rescue for the banking industry (Go to Jail for that one). This came just a few days before fed “regulators” seized and sold Washington Mutual (WaMu), the largest savings and loan bank in the country. I love the notion of the Fed “seizing banks.” It’s so banana republic, not the clothing chain either. This was one in a series of dice rolls to “reshape the financial landscape,” better known as the world’s largest Ponzi scheme.
As the credit crisis, which is really a debt crisis went south, consolidation, as finance analysts predicted for a long time, happened in no time. Of course, as our CEO George Bush told us, the pain will be felt on Main Street, Wall Street and K Street, at least -- maybe in the Congress as well, as Monday as they voted not to pass their bailout.
This weekend’s deal was brokered in architect Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram’s building, where this editor once worked in the ad biz, wincing at the fact that you couldn’t open a window to let some fresh air in. Yet it was Mies who famously said, “Less is more.” Apparently that lesson went unheeded in the banking community. Or it may be just learning it. And get this. Robert K. Steel (great Ayn Rand name), the president and CEO of Wachovia and a former top honcho at both Goldman Sachs and later the Treasury, landed in New York to handle the deal personally, along with David M. Carroll, chief deal maker for the bank. And then Citigroup and Wells Fargo (the alternate bidder) took their first look at Wachovia’s books. Arrrghhh!
Of course, regulators told them to move quickly. If you think about this muddle for a minute, you will want to find an open window. Top Fed officials in DC, New York, Richmond and San Francisco, also held weekend Monopoly games with all the banks involved. Top guns at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) also got to roll the dice.
More, the Times tells us, the president of the Fed Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy F. Geithner, “personally reached out to executives involved in the process to assess the situation and spur it along.” Citigroup and Wells put the screws on Fed regulators to “seize” Wachovia so they could buy its assets and deposits, like JPMorgan did with WaMu -- or else set up a financial guarantee like “regulators” did when they stole (excuse me) acquired Bear Stearns.
Citigroup and Wells Fargo were shaky about sucking up Wachovia’s “giant loan portfolio,” stuffed like an enchilada with bad mortgages. Again, bankers had little time to weigh the risk. “Never enough time to do it right, always enough time to do it over,” as we used to say in the ad game, the mother of spin-industries.
Yet, it was Citigroup that saw the buy as a go-for-broke situation to boost their consumer banking position. With Wachovia, Citigroup would engulf and devour one of the leading bank operations (though you’d never tell by its wantonly unkempt books). This Citigroup considers will give it entrée to more “stable consumer deposits,” so it can count less on outside investors for funds. Citigroup depositors, caveat emptor (buyer beware).
Meanwhile, keep calling your senators, congressman, shamans, rabbis, reverends, and witch doctors to VOTE NO on the bailout, which undoubtedly will be brought up for another vote. That’s VOTE NO on the bailout. This offer cannot be repeated, especially after the savings and loan debacle, the junk bond debacle and the dot.com scam. A nation that’s already broke shouldn’t be digging an even deeper hole for future generations.
•••
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York City, where the smell of sulphurous fumes are wafting up from Wall Street like 9/11’s. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net. Look for his new book, “State Of Shock: Poems from 9/11 on” at www.jerrymazza.com, Amazon or Barnesandnoble.com.
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3810.shtml
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
On a Bad Case of Cranial Bleeding, the Birth of CSC & the Collapse of Fannie Mae
By Alex Constantine
(Revised)
A few weeks ago, the corporate world was disheartened to learn of the brain hemorrhage death of prominent business consultant Michael Hammer while bicycling with a friend in Boston - one of the 25 "most influential" people in America, per Time magazine.
From the Wall Street Journal obit:
Hammer was revered by the business press, but his prescription for reengineering the corporation "had a dark side" - similar to the industrial contributions of Arthur Koestler - as the streamlining of processes often went hand in hand with reductions in jobs. "Often the term became jargon for mass layoffs. Mr. Hammer's rhetoric didn't help. 'It's basically taking an ax and a machine gun to your existing organization,' he said in a 1994 interview with Computerworld. He once told Forbes: "On this journey we'll carry our wounded and shoot the dissenters."
A fond farewell written by financial consultant Peter S. Cohan sheds light on the formation of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the federal/military contractor that vies with Blackwater for the Most-Corrupt-Business-of-the-Year Award. Cohan, writing at Bloggingstocks.com:
Now my own brain felt as though it was bleeding. Thought I'd been reading about an intellectual who had revolutionized business management, albeit there was that "dark side." And now an even darker element entered the picture - CSC - and Index Systems. Sleaze.
This came personified in the form of Thomas P. Gerrity, the former dean and Joseph J. Aresty Professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to Wharton, he was the Chairman and CEO of the Index Group, the CSC subsidiary that grew out of Cohan's MIT project. Gerrity earned his S.B. and S.M. in EE from MIT in 1963 and 1964 respectively, attended Oxford University, was a Rhodes Scholar and received his Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1970.
Mr. Gerrity also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Fannie Mae Corporation from September 1991 to December 2006, and as the Chairman of the Audit Committee from January 1999 to May 2006. That's right, Fannie Mae - also in the news of late because the federal government is bailiing it out.
Mr. Thomas P. Gerrity, we note, from CSC/Index, chaired the AUDIT committee at Fannie Mae ... responsible for oversight. The mind reels ...
Ooh! - there's the cranial ache again - could it be that Michael Hammer was thinking about all of this when he keeled over on his bicycle, expired on the spot?
Did he think of Mr. Gerrity and his shameful departure from Fannie Mae two years ago, when he was forced out due to a very costly accounting scandal? The Washington Post reported:
The firm's accounting strategies smacked of Enron:
Gerrity had been perceived as a central participant in the Fannie Mae scandal for some time; so were other members of the board, and they are interesting in their own right:
Ultimately, federal charges against Gerrity etal. were dismissed. On August 1, 2007, the Washington Post reported:
Frederic V. Malek is of particular interest here - he was campaign manager of the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1992, and is only the deputy national finance chairman for John McCain’s current presidential campaign.
He's a Watergate holdover, a walking, talking conspiracy theory. "Malek," according to Medical World News, "was the son of a beer salesman in Berwyn, Illinois. He graduated from U.S. Military Academy in 1959. He served in Vietnam in the Special Forces, training South Vietnamese counterinsurgents. He left the Army in 1962 and married Marlene McArthur of San Francisco, and graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and went to work at the management consultant firm, McKinsey & Co. He and several other consultants had plans to start their own firm, but one was 'drafted by Robert McNamara to help out at Defense.' ..." (Is Health Planning Too Vital to be Left to MDs? Medical World News, Jul. 31, 1970, pp. 16-18.)
And there are his political bona fidés:
More connections place him snugly among the Nixonites: "Malek's boss at the Office of Management and Budget in Aug. 1973 was Roy L. Ash, for whom the Ash Council was named. The Ash Council created the Environmental Protection Agency. Until 1972, Ash was the president of Litton Industries, one of whose numerous divisions, Litton Bionetics, was in the second year of a $10 million-plus contract to manage, operate and maintain the National Cancer Institute's Frederick Cancer Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. (FASEB Newsletter, 1973 Aug;6(6):2-3.)"
Watergate:
Frederic V. Malek, President GW Bush's bud, placed him on the board of directors of a company controlled by The Carlyle Group as a favor to his father.
The connections go on: Sen. Frank Lautenburg, NSA, 9/11 ...
Was the late Michael Hammer thinking about them when his life was ended prematurely by a brain hemorrhage? I will stop now to avert a possible repetition - I expect to live a long life, and the shock of political realization in America can be damaging to one's constitution.
(Revised)
A few weeks ago, the corporate world was disheartened to learn of the brain hemorrhage death of prominent business consultant Michael Hammer while bicycling with a friend in Boston - one of the 25 "most influential" people in America, per Time magazine.
From the Wall Street Journal obit:
Michael Hammer (1948 - 2008)
Champion of 'Re-Engineering'
Saved Companies, Challenged Thinking
By CARI TUNA
September 6, 2008; Page A12
In the early 1990s, as personal computers, the Internet and cellphones began to transform the business landscape, Michael Hammer rose to prominence as the champion of the decade's trendiest management buzzword: "re-engineering."
Using new paradigms and technologies, companies were meant to redesign business processes from the ground up to meet goals faster and serve clients better.
Hammer and Company
Mr. Hammer, who died Thursday at age 60, gave the idea currency in an incendiary 1993 business best seller Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. The book sold over two million copies, stoking the growth of a multibillion-dollar re-engineering movement and catapulting Mr. Hammer to the forefront of management consultancy. In 1996, Time featured him on its first annual list of America's 25 most influential people, and Forbes in 2002 ranked "Reengineering the Corporation" the third most influential business book of the past two decades.
Hammer was revered by the business press, but his prescription for reengineering the corporation "had a dark side" - similar to the industrial contributions of Arthur Koestler - as the streamlining of processes often went hand in hand with reductions in jobs. "Often the term became jargon for mass layoffs. Mr. Hammer's rhetoric didn't help. 'It's basically taking an ax and a machine gun to your existing organization,' he said in a 1994 interview with Computerworld. He once told Forbes: "On this journey we'll carry our wounded and shoot the dissenters."
A fond farewell written by financial consultant Peter S. Cohan sheds light on the formation of Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the federal/military contractor that vies with Blackwater for the Most-Corrupt-Business-of-the-Year Award. Cohan, writing at Bloggingstocks.com:
"As it turns out, I have a professional connection to Hammer and his co-author, James A. Champy. Hammer taught me at MIT -- I took a course called Office Automation Systems from him in which he talked about the importance of imagining how a process would work if it could be re-imagined from scratch. And Champy hired me to work for the firm he co-founded with several MIT Sloan School professors -- Index Systems -- which grew dramatically after the Reengineering book was published. Index was ultimately acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC)."
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/09/05/reengineering-guru-dies/
Now my own brain felt as though it was bleeding. Thought I'd been reading about an intellectual who had revolutionized business management, albeit there was that "dark side." And now an even darker element entered the picture - CSC - and Index Systems. Sleaze.
This came personified in the form of Thomas P. Gerrity, the former dean and Joseph J. Aresty Professor of Management at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to Wharton, he was the Chairman and CEO of the Index Group, the CSC subsidiary that grew out of Cohan's MIT project. Gerrity earned his S.B. and S.M. in EE from MIT in 1963 and 1964 respectively, attended Oxford University, was a Rhodes Scholar and received his Ph.D. from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1970.
Mr. Gerrity also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Fannie Mae Corporation from September 1991 to December 2006, and as the Chairman of the Audit Committee from January 1999 to May 2006. That's right, Fannie Mae - also in the news of late because the federal government is bailiing it out.
Mr. Thomas P. Gerrity, we note, from CSC/Index, chaired the AUDIT committee at Fannie Mae ... responsible for oversight. The mind reels ...
Ooh! - there's the cranial ache again - could it be that Michael Hammer was thinking about all of this when he keeled over on his bicycle, expired on the spot?
Did he think of Mr. Gerrity and his shameful departure from Fannie Mae two years ago, when he was forced out due to a very costly accounting scandal? The Washington Post reported:
Fannie To Settle Charges, Pay Fine
Some $400 Million In Penalties Are Part of Agreement
By Kathleen Day and Annys Shin/WP
May 23, 2006; Page D01
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae will pay about $400 million in penalties under an agreement with two federal agencies to settle charges related to its $10.8 billion accounting scandal, sources said yesterday.
The settlement would end a nearly three-year investigation by the SEC and OFHEO into widespread accounting manipulation by the company -- including the use of improper accounting techniques to maximize bonus pay for top executives. It would not cover potential SEC action against individuals involved in Fannie Mae's problems, nor does it end a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.
But for the company, it could mark a step toward resolving a controversy that has undermined its credibility as well as its stock price and has fueled efforts in the White House and Congress for stricter regulation.
The firm's accounting strategies smacked of Enron:
The company's troubles were first made public in 2004 after a preliminary probe by OFHEO alleged that Fannie manipulated earnings between 1998 and 2004 to smooth the growth of profits it reported to investors. ... A separate probe, prepared for the Fannie Mae board by former senator Warren B. Rudman and released in February, concluded that the company manipulated earnings throughout the period under review and found that in one case it was done to maximize bonus payments.
Gerrity had been perceived as a central participant in the Fannie Mae scandal for some time; so were other members of the board, and they are interesting in their own right:
... Last week, Fannie Mae said it will replace Thomas P. Gerrity as head of its audit committee at the end of the year. Gerrity ... has been audit committee chairman for seven years. Since the scandal broke in 2004, corporate governance watchdogs have urged Fannie Mae to replace its audit committee, which is responsible for overseeing the company's accounting and financial practices and the performance of its outside auditor. Most of the committee has turned over in the past two years. Xerox chairman and chief executive Anne M. Mulcahy left in September 2004. Then Thayer Capital Partners' Frederic V. Malek retired from the board at the end of last year. Presidential appointees William R. Harvey and Taylor C. Segue III were not reappointed. ...
Ultimately, federal charges against Gerrity etal. were dismissed. On August 1, 2007, the Washington Post reported:
A federal judge yesterday dismissed civil securities fraud charges against some current and former members of Fannie Mae's board, saying that investors had not presented specific enough allegations for those elements of their lawsuits to go forward. The charges were part of a tangle of litigation stemming from a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal at the government-chartered mortgage funding company. People who served on Fannie Mae's board remain defendants in lawsuits alleging a different offense -- that they breached their duties. ... The dismissed securities fraud charges involved directors who were on Fannie Mae's audit committee, including Thomas P. Gerrity, a professor and former dean at the Wharton School; Frederic V. Malek, a Washington financier; and Anne M. Mulcahy, chairman and chief executive of Xerox. Institutional investors had alleged that members of the audit committee "failed miserably" in the performance of their duties. The allegations about the committee "do not demonstrate the required state of mind of extreme recklessness," wrote Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Leon also dismissed charges against an insurance company, Radian Guaranty, which allegedly sold Fannie Mae a sham policy that helped Fannie Mae officers manipulate earnings. Radian "is merely a third party alleged to have provided Fannie Mae with the means to misrepresent its finances" and was not responsible for Fannie Mae's statements to investors, Leon wrote. http://securities.stanford.edu/news-archive/2007/20070801_Dismissal103806_Hilzenrath.html
Frederic V. Malek is of particular interest here - he was campaign manager of the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1992, and is only the deputy national finance chairman for John McCain’s current presidential campaign.
He's a Watergate holdover, a walking, talking conspiracy theory. "Malek," according to Medical World News, "was the son of a beer salesman in Berwyn, Illinois. He graduated from U.S. Military Academy in 1959. He served in Vietnam in the Special Forces, training South Vietnamese counterinsurgents. He left the Army in 1962 and married Marlene McArthur of San Francisco, and graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and went to work at the management consultant firm, McKinsey & Co. He and several other consultants had plans to start their own firm, but one was 'drafted by Robert McNamara to help out at Defense.' ..." (Is Health Planning Too Vital to be Left to MDs? Medical World News, Jul. 31, 1970, pp. 16-18.)
And there are his political bona fidés:
Malek was Chairman of Triangle Corporation, Columbia, SC, from 1967-1969. From 1969 to 1970 he was Deputy Under Secretary of the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare; Special Assistant to Pres. Richard Nixon from 1970-73; Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President ("CREEP") in 1972; Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, 1973-74; Member of the White House Domestic Council, 1974-75; and in 1975, he left government and became Vice President of the Marriott Corporation.
More connections place him snugly among the Nixonites: "Malek's boss at the Office of Management and Budget in Aug. 1973 was Roy L. Ash, for whom the Ash Council was named. The Ash Council created the Environmental Protection Agency. Until 1972, Ash was the president of Litton Industries, one of whose numerous divisions, Litton Bionetics, was in the second year of a $10 million-plus contract to manage, operate and maintain the National Cancer Institute's Frederick Cancer Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. (FASEB Newsletter, 1973 Aug;6(6):2-3.)"
Watergate:
"The Watergate scandal kept Nixon from fully carrying out his experiment in control, but his efforts were not forgotten. In fact, E. Pendleton James, who was in charge of Ronald Reagan's preinaugural talent search and then became assistant to the president for personnel, had worked under Fred Malek, Nixon's personnel chief. Malek was the author of the infamous 'Malek Manual,' a guide to political appointees, which emphasized a telling message: 'You cannot achieve management, policy or program control unless you have established political control.' ...Malek then went on to describe techniques designed to 'skirt around the adverse action proceedings' required to proceed against civil servants in a legal manner. All were designed 'to remove undesireable employees from their positions.'" (The President and the Executive Branch, by Joel D. Aberbach. UCLA Center for American Politics and Public Policy Occasional Paper Series 9 1-9.) William H. Taft IV was also a member of the Reagan transition team. (White House Transition Team. Washington Post, Feb. 18, 1980.)
Frederic V. Malek, President GW Bush's bud, placed him on the board of directors of a company controlled by The Carlyle Group as a favor to his father.
The connections go on: Sen. Frank Lautenburg, NSA, 9/11 ...
Was the late Michael Hammer thinking about them when his life was ended prematurely by a brain hemorrhage? I will stop now to avert a possible repetition - I expect to live a long life, and the shock of political realization in America can be damaging to one's constitution.
Prosecutor picked to investigate firings of U.S. attorneys
Criminal inquiry comes on recommendation of Justice Department investigators.
By Eric Lichtblau, Sharon Otterman
THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 30, 2008
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor Monday to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other officials in connection with the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.
The move came as the Justice Department released a 392-page report by its inspector general severely criticizing the process that led to the firings.
"The report makes plain that, at a minimum, the process by which nine U.S. attorneys were removed in 2006 was haphazard, arbitrary and unprofessional, and the way in which the Justice Department handled those removals and the resulting public controversy was profoundly lacking," Mukasey said in a statement. The report called for further investigation to determine whether prosecutable offenses were committed either in the firings or in testimony about them.
Nora Dannehy, acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut, will lead the investigation, Mukasey said. The continuation of the inquiry leaves open the possibility that it won't be finished before President Bush leaves office in January.
The inspector general has been trying since last year to determine who in the Bush administration ordered the firings, whether the dismissals were intended to thwart investigations, and whether anyone broke the law in carrying out the firings or in testifying about them. Critics say the firings were politically motivated.
U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, but they cannot be fired for improper reasons.
Gonzales, who resigned last year after coming under criticism because of the firings, has been the main focus of interest, in part because several members of Congress charged that he might have perjured himself in his testimony through his memory lapses and misstatements about the firings.
In a statement issued by his attorney, Gonzales said, "My family and I are glad to have the investigation of my conduct in this matter behind us and we look forward to moving on to new challenges."
Gonzales' attorney George Terwilliger noted that the report found no unlawful conduct. "It seems rather odd," Terwilliger said, "that rather than bring the investigation to a close, the department would escalate the matter to the attention of a prosecutor."
The report found that primary blame for the "serious failures" in the firing process lay with Gonzales and his deputy, Paul McNulty, "who abdicated their responsibility to adequately oversee the process and ensure that the reasons for removal of each U.S. attorney were supportable and not improper."
It also singled out for blame Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who supervised the firings. The report said he did not review formal evaluations of the attorneys' performance or consult the department officials most knowledgeable about their performance.
In addition, Gonzales, McNulty, Sampson and other officials failed "to provide accurate and truthful statements about the removals and their role in the process," the report says.
The report's lead authors — Glenn Fine, the department's inspector general, and H. Marshall Jarrett, the counsel for the department's Office of Professional Responsibility — wrote that their investigation remains incomplete because of the refusal of certain key witnesses to be interviewed, including Karl Rove, the president's former chief political adviser; Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel; Monica Goodling, the department's former White House liaison; Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.; and Domenici's chief of staff, Steven Bell.
In addition, they wrote, "the White House would not provide us with internal documents related to the removals of the U.S. attorneys."
Though White House officials did not explicitly assert executive privilege as the reason they refused to hand over to investigators internal e-mail messages and other documents related to the firings, the White House counsel's office said they were protected from disclosure because such material would "implicate White House confidentiality interests of a very high order," the report says.
The dismissal that has drawn the most scrutiny is that of David Iglesias, who was fired as the U.S. attorney for New Mexico after he clashed with GOP officials over what they saw as his slow pursuit of Democrats in a corruption investigation. Several other fired prosecutors were also working on public corruption cases; critics have claimed they were dismissed because they were unwilling to carry out the White House's political agenda.
The report singles out Iglesias' firing as a key reason that a counsel should be appointed to "conduct further investigation, and ultimately determine whether the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed."
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/09/30/0930usattorneys.html
By Eric Lichtblau, Sharon Otterman
THE NEW YORK TIMES
September 30, 2008
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed a special prosecutor Monday to investigate whether criminal charges should be brought against former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other officials in connection with the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.
The move came as the Justice Department released a 392-page report by its inspector general severely criticizing the process that led to the firings.
"The report makes plain that, at a minimum, the process by which nine U.S. attorneys were removed in 2006 was haphazard, arbitrary and unprofessional, and the way in which the Justice Department handled those removals and the resulting public controversy was profoundly lacking," Mukasey said in a statement. The report called for further investigation to determine whether prosecutable offenses were committed either in the firings or in testimony about them.
Nora Dannehy, acting U.S. attorney in Connecticut, will lead the investigation, Mukasey said. The continuation of the inquiry leaves open the possibility that it won't be finished before President Bush leaves office in January.
The inspector general has been trying since last year to determine who in the Bush administration ordered the firings, whether the dismissals were intended to thwart investigations, and whether anyone broke the law in carrying out the firings or in testifying about them. Critics say the firings were politically motivated.
U.S. attorneys are political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president, but they cannot be fired for improper reasons.
Gonzales, who resigned last year after coming under criticism because of the firings, has been the main focus of interest, in part because several members of Congress charged that he might have perjured himself in his testimony through his memory lapses and misstatements about the firings.
In a statement issued by his attorney, Gonzales said, "My family and I are glad to have the investigation of my conduct in this matter behind us and we look forward to moving on to new challenges."
Gonzales' attorney George Terwilliger noted that the report found no unlawful conduct. "It seems rather odd," Terwilliger said, "that rather than bring the investigation to a close, the department would escalate the matter to the attention of a prosecutor."
The report found that primary blame for the "serious failures" in the firing process lay with Gonzales and his deputy, Paul McNulty, "who abdicated their responsibility to adequately oversee the process and ensure that the reasons for removal of each U.S. attorney were supportable and not improper."
It also singled out for blame Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who supervised the firings. The report said he did not review formal evaluations of the attorneys' performance or consult the department officials most knowledgeable about their performance.
In addition, Gonzales, McNulty, Sampson and other officials failed "to provide accurate and truthful statements about the removals and their role in the process," the report says.
The report's lead authors — Glenn Fine, the department's inspector general, and H. Marshall Jarrett, the counsel for the department's Office of Professional Responsibility — wrote that their investigation remains incomplete because of the refusal of certain key witnesses to be interviewed, including Karl Rove, the president's former chief political adviser; Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel; Monica Goodling, the department's former White House liaison; Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.; and Domenici's chief of staff, Steven Bell.
In addition, they wrote, "the White House would not provide us with internal documents related to the removals of the U.S. attorneys."
Though White House officials did not explicitly assert executive privilege as the reason they refused to hand over to investigators internal e-mail messages and other documents related to the firings, the White House counsel's office said they were protected from disclosure because such material would "implicate White House confidentiality interests of a very high order," the report says.
The dismissal that has drawn the most scrutiny is that of David Iglesias, who was fired as the U.S. attorney for New Mexico after he clashed with GOP officials over what they saw as his slow pursuit of Democrats in a corruption investigation. Several other fired prosecutors were also working on public corruption cases; critics have claimed they were dismissed because they were unwilling to carry out the White House's political agenda.
The report singles out Iglesias' firing as a key reason that a counsel should be appointed to "conduct further investigation, and ultimately determine whether the evidence demonstrates that any criminal offense was committed."
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/09/30/0930usattorneys.html
Satanist Michael Aquino at the Presidio
Mind control subject/activist Diana Napolis has released a PDF of a transcribed interview with one of the alleged child victims of Michael Aquino from the Presidio case. I don't believe this has been available on the internet before:
http://diananapolis.wordpress.com/
"This is a Criminal Investigative Division interview tape of an (anonymous) alleged child victim of Michael Aquino?s dated March 15, 1989. I viewed several other interviews and audio tapes that had much of the same damning information on it.
http://members.cox.net/courtfeddocs/cidtape.pdf
According to Aquinio's damage claim, the CID initially charged him with Conduct Unbecoming an Officer (court martial), but dropped this particular charge and issued their report several months, after the statute of limitations had run.
http://members.cox.net/court50/Aquinosdamageclaim.pdf
"Instead, he was processed out of the Army in 1990. Perhaps someone might like to alert UC Davis Vice-Chancellor Robert Loessberg-Zahl, since this official attempted to interfere with my rights to free speech concerning information that I was publicly disclosing about the Aquinos and Dr. Gail Goodman."
http://diananapolis.wordpress.com/
"This is a Criminal Investigative Division interview tape of an (anonymous) alleged child victim of Michael Aquino?s dated March 15, 1989. I viewed several other interviews and audio tapes that had much of the same damning information on it.
http://members.cox.net/courtfeddocs/cidtape.pdf
According to Aquinio's damage claim, the CID initially charged him with Conduct Unbecoming an Officer (court martial), but dropped this particular charge and issued their report several months, after the statute of limitations had run.
http://members.cox.net/court50/Aquinosdamageclaim.pdf
"Instead, he was processed out of the Army in 1990. Perhaps someone might like to alert UC Davis Vice-Chancellor Robert Loessberg-Zahl, since this official attempted to interfere with my rights to free speech concerning information that I was publicly disclosing about the Aquinos and Dr. Gail Goodman."
Is Sarah Palin a John Birch Society Member?
By Bill Hahn
19 September 2008
http://www.jbs.org/index.php/jbs-news-feed/2995
An interesting event occurred late last night. Politico blogger Ben Smith contacted us to ask if a photo of Sarah Palin showed her with a copy of one of our publications.
Apparently the Palin family had released the photo to AP and the New York Times picked it up for an article last week. Politico was inaccurate in identifying the reprinted article as the cover of the magazine.
Clearly seen in the photo is a reprint of an article from The New American magazine back in 1995, entitled “Con-Con Call” in a three-ring binder in front of her. ...
Story continues at the JBS website.
19 September 2008
http://www.jbs.org/index.php/jbs-news-feed/2995
An interesting event occurred late last night. Politico blogger Ben Smith contacted us to ask if a photo of Sarah Palin showed her with a copy of one of our publications.
Apparently the Palin family had released the photo to AP and the New York Times picked it up for an article last week. Politico was inaccurate in identifying the reprinted article as the cover of the magazine.
Clearly seen in the photo is a reprint of an article from The New American magazine back in 1995, entitled “Con-Con Call” in a three-ring binder in front of her. ...
Story continues at the JBS website.
Foggo Pleads Guilty in CIA Contract Bribery Case
Ex-CIA executive pleads guilty to wire fraud
Associated Press
September 29, 2008
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A former executive director of the CIA has pleaded guilty to wire fraud as part of a plea bargain.
Kyle "Dusty" Foggo was the number three man in the CIA from 2004 to 2006. At a hearing Monday in federal court in Alexandria, he pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud, admitting that he helped his best friend obtain contracts with the CIA at inflated prices.
As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors agreed to drop the other 27 counts against him. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in January, but prosecutors agreed that they will seek no more than three years.
The case against Foggo resulted from an investigation of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who admitted to taking bribes from the same defense contractor that Foggo illegally assisted.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Associated Press
September 29, 2008
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) - A former executive director of the CIA has pleaded guilty to wire fraud as part of a plea bargain.
Kyle "Dusty" Foggo was the number three man in the CIA from 2004 to 2006. At a hearing Monday in federal court in Alexandria, he pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud, admitting that he helped his best friend obtain contracts with the CIA at inflated prices.
As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors agreed to drop the other 27 counts against him. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in January, but prosecutors agreed that they will seek no more than three years.
The case against Foggo resulted from an investigation of former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., who admitted to taking bribes from the same defense contractor that Foggo illegally assisted.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Harvard Psychiatric Researcher Dr. Biederman Performed Medical Experiments on Children - Violations of Federal Law
Updated
Dr. Joseph Biederman: Caught red-handed lying about $1.6 million in drug money and performing illicit medical experiments on children.
by Mike Adams
NaturalNews | June 10, 2008
Harvard University's Dr. Joseph Biederman has been a loyal soldier in the battleground for chemical control over children's minds. A highly-influential researcher at Harvard University, Dr. Biederman spearheaded a 4000% increase in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder from 1994 to 2003, resulting in billions of dollars in revenues for drug companies and millions of children being put on mind-altering medications. Now, thanks to an investigation by the office of Sen. Charles Grassley and a damning report published in the New York Times, it has been revealed that Dr. Biederman lied about the amount of money he received from drug companies -- a figure that may exceed $1.6 million.
In the conflict-of-interest documents submitted to Harvard Medical School, Dr. Biederman vastly underreported funds received from multiple drug companies. In one instance, he reported a payment from Johnson & Johnson of just $3,500 when, in reality, company records show J&J paid him $58,169 in one year alone (2001). Before this story went public, Dr. Biederman sought to modify his conflict-of-interest records, and when pressed by Sen. Grassley's investigators, he made retroactive changes showing an additional $1.6 he had previously failed to disclose. These disclosure might never have happened if Sen. Grassley's investigators had not started asking questions about the financial links between drug companies and Dr. Biederman.
Psychiatric doctor violates federal law
Failing to disclose such large sums of money in conflict-of-interest forms is a violation of federal law, and if the National Institutes of Health (NIH) applies existing rules and regulations in responding to these charges, it could deny all future grants to the organization that provided additional funding to Dr. Biederman: Massachusetts General Hospital, which administered $287 million in grants in 2005. The NIH requires researchers to report earnings over $10,000 per year on conflict-of-interest forms.
But rather than being arrested for criminal behavior, Dr. Biederman and another colleague caught in the same financial scandal have been "referred to a university conflict committee for review," reports the New York Times. ...
What this latest scandal reveals is just how corrupt and dishonest today's psychiatric industry has become. When top researchers are largely funded by drug companies -- and they consistently lie about their financial ties to those companies -- it is clear that integrity and honesty have been abandoned in favor of disease mongering, drug pushing and corporate profits.
The psychiatric industry, in particular, has repeatedly relied on scientific fraud, financial corruption and grave intellectual dishonesty to ensnare a nation of children with dangerous prescription medications that have turned out to cause diabetes, weight gain, suicides and violent behavior. Even though these drugs are harming children, psychiatric researchers like Dr. Biederman continue pushing fictitious diseases like "bipolar disorder" and "ADHD" in an effort to engineer demand for Big Pharma's high-profit pills. In return, Big Pharma pays money to Dr. Biederman and other corrupt, intellectually dishonest researchers who keep beating the drum for more pills, increasingly labeling every living human being as suffering from mental health disorders that demand chemical "treatment."
As part of his drug-pushing efforts, Dr. Biederman has openly advocated non-approved uses of mind-altering drugs on children, encouraging doctors to prescribe pills for various so-called "disorders" even though no FDA approval has ever been granted for using those mind-altering medicines on children. This didn't stop Dr. Biederman, though, from openly pushing for the widespread prescribing of drugs for such "off-label" conditions, including their use on infants and very young children. Thanks in large part to Dr. Biederman's apparently financially-motivated efforts, sales of drugs used to treat "bipolar disorder" doubled from 2003 to 2006.
Recruiting Four-Year Olds for Medical Experiments
Dr. Biederman isn't merely on the take from drug companies, he's also actively engaged in using children as young as four years old for medical experiments. His current recruitment efforts attempt to round up four- to six-year olds and dose them with Astrazeneca's Seroquel drug to see what might happen to their brains.
This kind of testing of powerful psychotropic drugs on four-year olds is being pursued, of course, to try to convince doctors that young children need mind-altering drugs just like adults, thereby creating new, lucrative markets for the drug companies that sell such drugs. But rather than proving that four-year olds suffer from "brain chemistry disorders" that need chemical treatment, what Dr. Biederman has really demonstrated is that psychiatric researchers suffer from their own form of madness -- a kind of mental disorder that allows them to perform chemical experiments on very young children, all while accepting millions of dollars from drug companies as payment for their disease mongering efforts.
This was, perhaps, the same kind of madness that allowed Bayer's researchers to perform medical experiments on captured Jews in Nazi German's concentration camps. It is a historical fact that drug companies have routinely used children, blacks, minorities and women for their medical experiments, usually in an effort to create "new marketing opportunities" so they could sell more dangerous prescription medications. See the NaturalNews historical timeline of medical experiments on humans here: http://www.naturalnews.com/019189.html
... I'm willing to wager large sums of money that none of the organizations involved in this scandal will take any real, decisive action to have Dr. Biederman fired or blacklisted from the industry. His "work" (if you can call it that) is too important to the profits of the drug companies that wield powerful influence over the key players in this industry. Most likely, Dr. Biederman will simply be told, "Don't get caught again" and allowed to continue running medical experiments on children, exploiting the bodies of young children for Big Pharma's gain.
... There are three key organizations that you can contact to write a letter of outrage about Dr. Biederman's deceptive behavior and criminal actions against children. They are:
Harvard Medical School
http://hms.harvard.edu/hms/contact.asp
Direct your e-mails or letters to the Standing Committee on Conflicts of Interest and Commitments
Mass. General Hospital
http://www.massgeneral.org/contact.html
This is the hospital that has awarded Dr. Biederman with grant money.
National Institutes of Health
http://www.nih.gov/about/contact.htm
This is the huge government-run grant-giving organization that uses taxpayer dollars to fund such medical experiments on children. When you write the NIH, demand that they stop providing funding to psychiatric researchers who conduct medical experiments on children.
http://www.naturalnews.com/023408.html
•••••••
PS: An article published by Star News Online cites Dr. Biederman as a reputable expert on childrens' bipolar disorder. See: http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080914/ZNYT04/809140302&title=The_Bipolar_Puzzle
PSS: In June, Sen. Charles Grassley accused three Harvard Medical School psychiatrists, including Joseph Biederman, "of vastly underreporting their outside income from pharmaceutical companies." http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/09/24/tufts_doctor_is_chided_on_ethics/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7
Dr. Joseph Biederman: Caught red-handed lying about $1.6 million in drug money and performing illicit medical experiments on children.
by Mike Adams
NaturalNews | June 10, 2008
Harvard University's Dr. Joseph Biederman has been a loyal soldier in the battleground for chemical control over children's minds. A highly-influential researcher at Harvard University, Dr. Biederman spearheaded a 4000% increase in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder from 1994 to 2003, resulting in billions of dollars in revenues for drug companies and millions of children being put on mind-altering medications. Now, thanks to an investigation by the office of Sen. Charles Grassley and a damning report published in the New York Times, it has been revealed that Dr. Biederman lied about the amount of money he received from drug companies -- a figure that may exceed $1.6 million.
In the conflict-of-interest documents submitted to Harvard Medical School, Dr. Biederman vastly underreported funds received from multiple drug companies. In one instance, he reported a payment from Johnson & Johnson of just $3,500 when, in reality, company records show J&J paid him $58,169 in one year alone (2001). Before this story went public, Dr. Biederman sought to modify his conflict-of-interest records, and when pressed by Sen. Grassley's investigators, he made retroactive changes showing an additional $1.6 he had previously failed to disclose. These disclosure might never have happened if Sen. Grassley's investigators had not started asking questions about the financial links between drug companies and Dr. Biederman.
Psychiatric doctor violates federal law
Failing to disclose such large sums of money in conflict-of-interest forms is a violation of federal law, and if the National Institutes of Health (NIH) applies existing rules and regulations in responding to these charges, it could deny all future grants to the organization that provided additional funding to Dr. Biederman: Massachusetts General Hospital, which administered $287 million in grants in 2005. The NIH requires researchers to report earnings over $10,000 per year on conflict-of-interest forms.
But rather than being arrested for criminal behavior, Dr. Biederman and another colleague caught in the same financial scandal have been "referred to a university conflict committee for review," reports the New York Times. ...
What this latest scandal reveals is just how corrupt and dishonest today's psychiatric industry has become. When top researchers are largely funded by drug companies -- and they consistently lie about their financial ties to those companies -- it is clear that integrity and honesty have been abandoned in favor of disease mongering, drug pushing and corporate profits.
The psychiatric industry, in particular, has repeatedly relied on scientific fraud, financial corruption and grave intellectual dishonesty to ensnare a nation of children with dangerous prescription medications that have turned out to cause diabetes, weight gain, suicides and violent behavior. Even though these drugs are harming children, psychiatric researchers like Dr. Biederman continue pushing fictitious diseases like "bipolar disorder" and "ADHD" in an effort to engineer demand for Big Pharma's high-profit pills. In return, Big Pharma pays money to Dr. Biederman and other corrupt, intellectually dishonest researchers who keep beating the drum for more pills, increasingly labeling every living human being as suffering from mental health disorders that demand chemical "treatment."
As part of his drug-pushing efforts, Dr. Biederman has openly advocated non-approved uses of mind-altering drugs on children, encouraging doctors to prescribe pills for various so-called "disorders" even though no FDA approval has ever been granted for using those mind-altering medicines on children. This didn't stop Dr. Biederman, though, from openly pushing for the widespread prescribing of drugs for such "off-label" conditions, including their use on infants and very young children. Thanks in large part to Dr. Biederman's apparently financially-motivated efforts, sales of drugs used to treat "bipolar disorder" doubled from 2003 to 2006.
Recruiting Four-Year Olds for Medical Experiments
Dr. Biederman isn't merely on the take from drug companies, he's also actively engaged in using children as young as four years old for medical experiments. His current recruitment efforts attempt to round up four- to six-year olds and dose them with Astrazeneca's Seroquel drug to see what might happen to their brains.
This kind of testing of powerful psychotropic drugs on four-year olds is being pursued, of course, to try to convince doctors that young children need mind-altering drugs just like adults, thereby creating new, lucrative markets for the drug companies that sell such drugs. But rather than proving that four-year olds suffer from "brain chemistry disorders" that need chemical treatment, what Dr. Biederman has really demonstrated is that psychiatric researchers suffer from their own form of madness -- a kind of mental disorder that allows them to perform chemical experiments on very young children, all while accepting millions of dollars from drug companies as payment for their disease mongering efforts.
This was, perhaps, the same kind of madness that allowed Bayer's researchers to perform medical experiments on captured Jews in Nazi German's concentration camps. It is a historical fact that drug companies have routinely used children, blacks, minorities and women for their medical experiments, usually in an effort to create "new marketing opportunities" so they could sell more dangerous prescription medications. See the NaturalNews historical timeline of medical experiments on humans here: http://www.naturalnews.com/019189.html
... I'm willing to wager large sums of money that none of the organizations involved in this scandal will take any real, decisive action to have Dr. Biederman fired or blacklisted from the industry. His "work" (if you can call it that) is too important to the profits of the drug companies that wield powerful influence over the key players in this industry. Most likely, Dr. Biederman will simply be told, "Don't get caught again" and allowed to continue running medical experiments on children, exploiting the bodies of young children for Big Pharma's gain.
... There are three key organizations that you can contact to write a letter of outrage about Dr. Biederman's deceptive behavior and criminal actions against children. They are:
Harvard Medical School
http://hms.harvard.edu/hms/contact.asp
Direct your e-mails or letters to the Standing Committee on Conflicts of Interest and Commitments
Mass. General Hospital
http://www.massgeneral.org/contact.html
This is the hospital that has awarded Dr. Biederman with grant money.
National Institutes of Health
http://www.nih.gov/about/contact.htm
This is the huge government-run grant-giving organization that uses taxpayer dollars to fund such medical experiments on children. When you write the NIH, demand that they stop providing funding to psychiatric researchers who conduct medical experiments on children.
http://www.naturalnews.com/023408.html
•••••••
PS: An article published by Star News Online cites Dr. Biederman as a reputable expert on childrens' bipolar disorder. See: http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080914/ZNYT04/809140302&title=The_Bipolar_Puzzle
PSS: In June, Sen. Charles Grassley accused three Harvard Medical School psychiatrists, including Joseph Biederman, "of vastly underreporting their outside income from pharmaceutical companies." http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/09/24/tufts_doctor_is_chided_on_ethics/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Fox News Is Ignoring Reports About Palin's Extramarital Affair
lReported by Ellen
www.newshounds.us
September 26, 2008
When the National Enquirer broke the news a few months ago about John Edwards' extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, there was a steady stream of stories and discussions about it on FOX News although Edwards was no longer a candidate by then. Yet FOX News has been ignoring the same tabloid's report about an extramarital affair between current vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her husband's former business partner, Brad Hanson. ...
STORY CONTINUES
www.newshounds.us
September 26, 2008
When the National Enquirer broke the news a few months ago about John Edwards' extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter, there was a steady stream of stories and discussions about it on FOX News although Edwards was no longer a candidate by then. Yet FOX News has been ignoring the same tabloid's report about an extramarital affair between current vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her husband's former business partner, Brad Hanson. ...
STORY CONTINUES
Auctioneer says Law Enforcement knew Beforehand about Scheme in Simpson Case
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Sep. 22, 2008
Several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, knew beforehand that O.J. Simpson was going to take back merchandise from memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas, said the auctioneer at the center of the case.
Thomas Riccio testified this morning that he told California police and the FBI that memorabilia dealer Alfred Beardsley was trying to sell collectibles that were stolen from Simpson’s trophy room.
Riccio said he even asked the FBI to come along with him and Simpson when they attempted to recover the property from the memorabilia dealers. California police and the FBI, however, weren’t interested in getting involved, he said.
Their lack of interested was frustrating because Riccio believed that the merchandise, which included some of Simpson’s family photos, was stolen. Riccio was previously convicted of dealing in stolen goods.
“This guy (Beardsley) admitted he had stolen property and no one cares,” he said. ...
Story continues
http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/29283149.html
Sep. 22, 2008
Several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, knew beforehand that O.J. Simpson was going to take back merchandise from memorabilia dealers in Las Vegas, said the auctioneer at the center of the case.
Thomas Riccio testified this morning that he told California police and the FBI that memorabilia dealer Alfred Beardsley was trying to sell collectibles that were stolen from Simpson’s trophy room.
Riccio said he even asked the FBI to come along with him and Simpson when they attempted to recover the property from the memorabilia dealers. California police and the FBI, however, weren’t interested in getting involved, he said.
Their lack of interested was frustrating because Riccio believed that the merchandise, which included some of Simpson’s family photos, was stolen. Riccio was previously convicted of dealing in stolen goods.
“This guy (Beardsley) admitted he had stolen property and no one cares,” he said. ...
Story continues
http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/29283149.html
Video: After Calling On Them To Finance His War And Tax Cuts, Bush Blames Foreign Investors For Crisis
wonkroom.thinkprogress.org
Last night, President George Bush addressed the nation, in an attempt to explain the current financial crisis and to build support for the administration’s $700 billion bailout proposal. In the address, Bush said that the crisis began after “a massive amount of money flowed into the United States from investors abroad because our country is an attractive and secure place to do business,” which led to easy credit and then to the housing bust.
Watch it.
Bush, though, left out a large part of the equation. The problem isn’t simply that too much foreign investment came into the U.S. because of businesses. It’s that the U.S. had to borrow money from foreign nations at an alarming rate, after it dug itself into debt paying for the Iraq War while cutting taxes. This, as well as lax regulation and oversight of Wall St. on the part of the administration, contributed to the credit troubles.
A significant reason for the current $9.6 trillion federal debt has been the Iraq War. And while the Bush administration has been spending $12 billion a month in Iraq, it’s also been cutting taxes. The Center for Budget Policy and Priorities (CBPP) says Bush’s tax cuts accounted for 42% of the “unprecedented” explosion of the deficit in recent years, which of course adds to the debt. The total cost of the full cuts amounts to about $400 billion per year.
Thus, the U.S. had to turn to foreign investment for financing. Currently, 45% of U.S. Treasury securities are owned by foreign nations, with the most owned by China and Japan. Other nations owned less than 20% of these securities as recently as 1994.
(Graph: Foreign debt held by international and foreign investors.)
Bush simply left out of his assessment the fact that much of the foreign investment went to finance a war and tax cuts that couldn’t be paid for.
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/09/25/bush-foreign-investment/
Last night, President George Bush addressed the nation, in an attempt to explain the current financial crisis and to build support for the administration’s $700 billion bailout proposal. In the address, Bush said that the crisis began after “a massive amount of money flowed into the United States from investors abroad because our country is an attractive and secure place to do business,” which led to easy credit and then to the housing bust.
Watch it.
Bush, though, left out a large part of the equation. The problem isn’t simply that too much foreign investment came into the U.S. because of businesses. It’s that the U.S. had to borrow money from foreign nations at an alarming rate, after it dug itself into debt paying for the Iraq War while cutting taxes. This, as well as lax regulation and oversight of Wall St. on the part of the administration, contributed to the credit troubles.
A significant reason for the current $9.6 trillion federal debt has been the Iraq War. And while the Bush administration has been spending $12 billion a month in Iraq, it’s also been cutting taxes. The Center for Budget Policy and Priorities (CBPP) says Bush’s tax cuts accounted for 42% of the “unprecedented” explosion of the deficit in recent years, which of course adds to the debt. The total cost of the full cuts amounts to about $400 billion per year.
Thus, the U.S. had to turn to foreign investment for financing. Currently, 45% of U.S. Treasury securities are owned by foreign nations, with the most owned by China and Japan. Other nations owned less than 20% of these securities as recently as 1994.
(Graph: Foreign debt held by international and foreign investors.)
Bush simply left out of his assessment the fact that much of the foreign investment went to finance a war and tax cuts that couldn’t be paid for.
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/09/25/bush-foreign-investment/
The Real Alaskan Witch Hunt: Sarah Palin Ducks The Truth
By Geoffrey Dunn
blackstarnews.com
September 26th, 2008
Let there be no mistake about it: there is—or, at least, was—a witch hunt going on in Alaska and, yes, it did, or does, involve Sarah Palin.
The exorcism of Sarah Palin
But this is a process not being directed at Sarah Palin by Democrats, the media or the Alaska state legislature. This is an actual exorcism from “witchcraft” that was conducted on Palin by a visiting pastor, Thomas Muthee, at her extremist church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, at which Palin has been a member for more than 20 years.
"In the name of Jesus,” Muthee extorts, “every form of witchcraft is what you rebuke. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, father make away now."
You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_hnc62nCAM
It’s not the first time Mutheee has prayed against witchcraft. He began his ministry with a witch-hunt against a Kenyan woman who he accused of causing car accidents through demonic spells. According to the Christian Science Monitor, which first reported the story in 1999, Muthee publicly declared the woman "a witch responsible for the town's ills, and ordered her to offer her up her soul for salvation or leave…” The woman fled.
In another by-now famous Youtube video of Palin, again at the Assembly of God Church, Palin reminded parishioners of Muthee’s appearance and “praying over me . . . He said 'Lord make a way and let her do this next step.' And that's exactly what happened.”
To watch these videos is to see how out of touch Sarah Palin is with not merely mainstream American politics and culture, but how far from the mainstream of modern-day Christianity she is. She is truly from the lunatic fringe.
But that is only part of the story. And, I would argue, not the most important one. While much of the mainstream media have focused on Palin’s failed leadership as mayor of Wasilla, her extremist views, and her dysfunctional family’s messy travails there, the real story today is taking place in Juneau, 600 miles away, where a bold and offensive game plan of obstructing justice is at play.
Palin, of course, is currently under investigation for the most sordid administrative behavior—her role in a scandal involving the firing of Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan over his reluctance to fire an Alaska state trooper, Mike Wooten—Palin's former brother-in-law who has been involved in a bitter custody fight with her younger sister, Molly McCann.
There’s an audio tape that confirms interference in the matter by Palin’s staff. Moreover, Monegan has also released emails documenting Palin’s attempted interference. As one Alaska blogger colorfully noted: “It’s all out there in black & white—drunk driving, foul language, illegal moose hunting, an extramarital affair, neighbors peeking in windows, private investigators, death threats, snow-machining on sick days, verbal abuse, and yes, dry tasering an 11-year old so he could see what it felt like.” It’s trailer-trash soap opera at its worse.
Palin initially welcomed the investigation, boldly declaring: "Hold me accountable."
But now, Palin, her husband and her inner political circle—aided and abetted by the McCain campaign—are claiming to be above the law of the land. They are thumbing their collective noses at the American judicial system, and by so doing, denouncing, by their very actions, the principles and foundations of American democracy.
An Alaskan state Senate committee subpoenaed Palin's husband, Todd Palin, along with several of her top aides and advisers earlier this month, but none of those served with demands for testimony appeared before the panel when it met last week. They have been leaned on—and leaned on heavily by the McCain campaign.
It is a chilling strategy.
Attorney Peter Maassen, representing Alaska’s Legislative Council, issued a statement which should cause all Americans grave concern. “The “McCain campaign and its supporters, having apparently convinced themselves that the facts would cause serious damage to the Republican ticket if publicly known before the national election, Maasen noted. “They are now moving on many fronts — including this one — to slow and stop [this] fact-finding inquiry and to prevent [its] issuance of the report authorized by the Legislative Council.”
Make no mistake about it: this is a power grab, pure and simple. And it does not a pretty picture make. Palin has lied. She has abused her power.
This is no witch hunt—it’s an investigative process built on the fundamentals principles of checks and balances provided for in the U.S. Constitution. And the McCain campaign has done everything it can to derail a legitimate, bipartisan investigation into Palin’s abuse of power.
The McCain campaign does not want this story to get out before the election. Sarah Palin is not only hiding from the American media and the Alaskan inquiry, she is hiding from the American people. She fashioned a hollow makeover of her political career in the days following her nomination, but it does not change the facts of her public record. She was a fraud and she remains a fraud.
Katie Couric’s recent interview with Palin revealed someone simply too stupid (there is really no other word for it) to serve as president of the United States. Palin’s inability to complete even a simple thought about foreign policy was painful to watch. As one conservative Republican candidly acknowledged, “Palin makes George Bush look like Cicero.” ...
http://blackstarnews.com/?c=135&a=4935
blackstarnews.com
September 26th, 2008
Let there be no mistake about it: there is—or, at least, was—a witch hunt going on in Alaska and, yes, it did, or does, involve Sarah Palin.
The exorcism of Sarah Palin
But this is a process not being directed at Sarah Palin by Democrats, the media or the Alaska state legislature. This is an actual exorcism from “witchcraft” that was conducted on Palin by a visiting pastor, Thomas Muthee, at her extremist church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, at which Palin has been a member for more than 20 years.
"In the name of Jesus,” Muthee extorts, “every form of witchcraft is what you rebuke. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, father make away now."
You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_hnc62nCAM
It’s not the first time Mutheee has prayed against witchcraft. He began his ministry with a witch-hunt against a Kenyan woman who he accused of causing car accidents through demonic spells. According to the Christian Science Monitor, which first reported the story in 1999, Muthee publicly declared the woman "a witch responsible for the town's ills, and ordered her to offer her up her soul for salvation or leave…” The woman fled.
In another by-now famous Youtube video of Palin, again at the Assembly of God Church, Palin reminded parishioners of Muthee’s appearance and “praying over me . . . He said 'Lord make a way and let her do this next step.' And that's exactly what happened.”
To watch these videos is to see how out of touch Sarah Palin is with not merely mainstream American politics and culture, but how far from the mainstream of modern-day Christianity she is. She is truly from the lunatic fringe.
But that is only part of the story. And, I would argue, not the most important one. While much of the mainstream media have focused on Palin’s failed leadership as mayor of Wasilla, her extremist views, and her dysfunctional family’s messy travails there, the real story today is taking place in Juneau, 600 miles away, where a bold and offensive game plan of obstructing justice is at play.
Palin, of course, is currently under investigation for the most sordid administrative behavior—her role in a scandal involving the firing of Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan over his reluctance to fire an Alaska state trooper, Mike Wooten—Palin's former brother-in-law who has been involved in a bitter custody fight with her younger sister, Molly McCann.
There’s an audio tape that confirms interference in the matter by Palin’s staff. Moreover, Monegan has also released emails documenting Palin’s attempted interference. As one Alaska blogger colorfully noted: “It’s all out there in black & white—drunk driving, foul language, illegal moose hunting, an extramarital affair, neighbors peeking in windows, private investigators, death threats, snow-machining on sick days, verbal abuse, and yes, dry tasering an 11-year old so he could see what it felt like.” It’s trailer-trash soap opera at its worse.
Palin initially welcomed the investigation, boldly declaring: "Hold me accountable."
But now, Palin, her husband and her inner political circle—aided and abetted by the McCain campaign—are claiming to be above the law of the land. They are thumbing their collective noses at the American judicial system, and by so doing, denouncing, by their very actions, the principles and foundations of American democracy.
An Alaskan state Senate committee subpoenaed Palin's husband, Todd Palin, along with several of her top aides and advisers earlier this month, but none of those served with demands for testimony appeared before the panel when it met last week. They have been leaned on—and leaned on heavily by the McCain campaign.
It is a chilling strategy.
Attorney Peter Maassen, representing Alaska’s Legislative Council, issued a statement which should cause all Americans grave concern. “The “McCain campaign and its supporters, having apparently convinced themselves that the facts would cause serious damage to the Republican ticket if publicly known before the national election, Maasen noted. “They are now moving on many fronts — including this one — to slow and stop [this] fact-finding inquiry and to prevent [its] issuance of the report authorized by the Legislative Council.”
Make no mistake about it: this is a power grab, pure and simple. And it does not a pretty picture make. Palin has lied. She has abused her power.
This is no witch hunt—it’s an investigative process built on the fundamentals principles of checks and balances provided for in the U.S. Constitution. And the McCain campaign has done everything it can to derail a legitimate, bipartisan investigation into Palin’s abuse of power.
The McCain campaign does not want this story to get out before the election. Sarah Palin is not only hiding from the American media and the Alaskan inquiry, she is hiding from the American people. She fashioned a hollow makeover of her political career in the days following her nomination, but it does not change the facts of her public record. She was a fraud and she remains a fraud.
Katie Couric’s recent interview with Palin revealed someone simply too stupid (there is really no other word for it) to serve as president of the United States. Palin’s inability to complete even a simple thought about foreign policy was painful to watch. As one conservative Republican candidly acknowledged, “Palin makes George Bush look like Cicero.” ...
http://blackstarnews.com/?c=135&a=4935
Friday, September 26, 2008
Yves Rossi (Off-Topic) Jetman Video
A Swiss man has become the first person to fly solo across the English Channel using a single jet-propelled wing. ...
The Farish Family's Auschwitz Profits and Connections
Edited by Alex Constantine
(Public interest reposting)
Timeline of Treason: The Bush Family Connections to the Nazis
... William S. Farish was appointed chairman of Standard Oil by John D. Rockefeller. Farish was close friends with Hermann Schmitz, chairman of I.G. Farben. Farish hired Ivy Lee, to write pro-I.G. Farben and pro-Nazi propaganda and get it into the U.S. press. He hired Nazi German crews for Standard Oil tankers. In addition, he hired "Emil Helfferich," chairman of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, as chairman also of the Standard Oil Company subsidiary in Germany. Karl Lindemann, board member of Hamburg-Amerika, also became a top Farish-Standard executive in Germany.
The interlock placed Farish and Prescott Bush in a small group of Hitler supporters. Both Emil Helfferich and Karl Lindemann were authorized to write checks to Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi SS, on a special Standard Oil account. This account was managed by the German-British-American banker, Kurt von Schroeder. According to U.S. intelligence documents reviewed by author Anthony Sutton, Helfferich continued his payments to the SS into 1944, when the SS was supervising the mass murder at the Standard-I.G. Farben
Auschwitz and other death camps. Helfferich told Allied interrogators after the war that these were not his personal contributions-they were corporate Standard Oil funds.
http://www.country-liberal-party.com
/pages/Bush-Nazi-links.htm
••••••••••••••••
http://www.tribalmessenger.org/t-bush
/bush-family-history-pt2.htm
Gold Fillings, Auschwitz & George Bush
by Glen Yeadon with Larry Neilson
Upon winning the presidency in one of the dirtiest campaigns in memory, Poppy Bush placed his assets in a blind trust headed by his close friend William Stamps Farish III. That appointment should have raised a red flag. Farish's grandfather, William Stamps Farish I, was a war profiteer during World War II. In defiance of the American embargo, Farish sold the Japanese the aviation gas used in the Pearl Harbor attack. The elder Farish also supplied Hitler's war machine with oil and tetraethyl lead. Senator Prescott Bush, Poppy Bush's father, was a close friend of the elder Farish. Even after his testimony before Harry Truman's committee on waste and fraud in the war industry prompted Senator Truman to cry, "This is treason!" Farish remained a Bush intimate.
Report on European Trip 10.12.39
Mr. W.S. Farish 30 Rockefeller Plaza
Dear Mr. Farish:
… I stayed in France until Sept. 17th. … In England I met by appointment the Royal Dutch (Shell Oil Co.) gentlemen from Holland, and … a general agreement was reached on the necessary changes in our relations with the I.G. Farben, in view of the state of war … The Royal Dutch Shell group is essentially British … I also had several meetings with … the British Air Ministry. …
I required help to obtain the necessary permission to go to Holland … After discussions with the American Amb. Joseph Kennedy … the situation was cleared completely … The gentlemen in the Air Ministry … very kindly offered to assist me later in reentering England. …
Pursuant to these arrangements, I was able to keep my appointments in Holland having flown there on a British Royal Air Force bomber, where I had 3 days of discussion with the I.G. representatives. They delivered to me assignments of some 2,000 foreign patents and we did our best to work out complete plans for a modus vivendi which could operate through the term of the war, whether or not the U.S. came in. …
Very truly yours,
Frank A. Howard
http://www.sjcite.info/popcontrol.html
••••••••••••••••
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/RaceWar.htm
The Bush family knew Richardson and his wife through their mutual friendship with Sears Roebuck's chairman, Gen. Robert E. Wood. General Wood had been president of the America First organization, which had lobbied against war with Hitler Germany. H. Smith Richardson had contributed the start-up money for America First and had spoken out against the U.S. "joining the Communists" by fighting Hitler. Richardson's wife was a proud relative of Nancy Langehorne from Virginia, who married Lord Astor and backed the Nazis from their Cliveden Estate.
General Wood's daughter Mary had married the son of Standard Oil president William Stamps Farish. The Bushes had stuck with the Farishes through their disastrous exposure during World War II... Young George Bush and his bride Barbara were especially close to Mary Farish, and to her son W.S. Farish III, who would be the great confidante of George's presidency.
••••••••••••••••
http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/the-americas/the-americas-index-1942.htm
... Missouri Sen. Harry Truman later roasts Farish in front of his committee investigating home front wrongdoing, an event that raises Truman's profile and makes him a plausible running mate for FDR in 1944. The exposure of the [Nazi} scandal is widely believed to have contributed to Farish's sudden death from a heart attack in November of 1942. ...
••••••••••••••••
http://www.humanitas-international.org/holocaust/1942tbse.htm
1942 March 25 U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold announces that William Stamps Farish has pled "no contest" to charges of criminal conspiracy with the Nazis. Arnold discloses that Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon) of which Farish is president and CEO has agreed to stop hiding patents from the U.S. for synthetic rubber, which the company has in its possession, and which are already in use by the Nazis at Auschwitz.
1942 March 26 The first deportations of Jews to Auschwitz begins ...
Thoroughbred Club Honors Will Farish
by Ray Paulick
Date Posted: 11/5/2006
William S. Farish, honored guest at 75th TCA testimonial dinner
William S. Farish cited five current developments that give him optimism about the future of the Thoroughbred industry during his remarks as the honor guest at the Thoroughbred Club of America's 75th annual testimonial dinner, held at Keeneland Nov. 2.
Farish, who recently was named to Keeneland's three-person board of trustees, was introduced by James E. "Ted" Bassett III, the man he replaced in that position. Owner of Lane's End Farm, Farish is the former ambassador to the Court of St. James in England, and he has served in many key industry positions, including vice chairman of The Jockey Club.
Preceding Bassett was a videotaped tribute from former President George Bush, a close friend of the Farish family. Bassett, borrowing Sir Robert Whittington's 1521 description of Sir Thomas More, called Farish a "man for all seasons." ...
http://news.bloodhorse.com/
viewstory.asp?id=36249
••••••••••••••••
http://www.woodfordsun.com/Obits
/august%2015%202002.htm
Bayard Sharp
Bayard Sharp, 89, of Wilmington, Del., a thoroughbred breeder and owner, father of Sarah Farish of Versailles and London, England, great grandson of E.I. DuPont, died Friday, Aug. 9, 2002, at his home.
Sarah Farish is married to Will Farish, U.S. ambassador to Britain and a prominent Woodford County horse breeder and owner.
In addition to having raced many outstanding horses, Sharp was a former chairman of The Blood Horse Inc., a member and Steward of the Jockey Club, and a trustee emeritus of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. He had been actively involved in the Republican Party in Delaware and nationally, and was a longtime friend and supporter of former President George Bush, and was chairman of the Delaware committee for Bush’s two presidential campaigns.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by four grandchildren, Mary Johnston, Houston, Texas, Will Farish Jr., Versailles, Laura Chadwick, Nashville, Tenn., and Hillary Stratton, Houston; and 12 great grandchildren.
Private services will be held. The Chandler Funeral Home and Crematory, Wilmington, is in charge of arrangements.
••••••••••••••••
http://www.silver-investor.com/
charlessavoie/cs_may05_pilgrims.htm
Farish and the Bush family participated together in the Zapata Offshore Drilling Company. His grandfather founded Humble Oil & Refining Company in 1917, which became the largest subsidiary of what became Exxon, and was a founder of the American Petroleum Institute in 1926.
http://www.opensecrets.org/bush/ambassadors/farish.asp
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Embassy Row
UNITED KINGDOM
William S. Farish
$142,875 to the GOP
Note: Farish left his post in July 2004. In his place Bush nominated California automotive dealer and major GOP contributor Robert Holmes Tuttle.
There was little, if any, surprise when President Bush chose William S. Farish as ambassador to Great Britain. Farish, a millionaire horse breeder and chairman of Churchill Downs, which hosts the fabled Kentucky Derby each year, is a big Republican donor and a close family friend of the Bushes, whom he has known for more than 50 years.
••••••••••••••••
http://www.nndb.com/people/015/000098718/
William S. Farish
AKA William Stamps Farish III
Born: 17-Mar-1939 Birthplace: Houston, TX
Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Business, Diplomat
Nationality: United States Executive summary: W.S. Farish & Co.
While one of the wealthiest men in Texas (fortune derived from Humble Oil, co-founded by his grandfather), he is extremely secretive. Close personal friend of George H.W. Bush, and a heavy Republican donor. Gave Bush their pet dog Millie, and he is the one who managed the then-Vice President's assets in a blind trust. Queen Elizabeth II has been a guest at Farish's horse ranch (Lane's End Farm near Lexington, Kentucky), and their horses breed with each other -- Farish is a horse breeder at the highest level, including winners of the Belmont, Preakness, and Kentucky Derby; he also for a time was Chairman of the Board of Churchill Downs. From 2001 to 2004 he served as US Ambassador to Great Britain, including during September 11 and aftermath.
-----------
http://www.ntra.com/stats_bios.aspx?id=3431
William S. Farish III ... Born: March 17, 1939, in Houston, Texas ...
President and owner of 1,800-acre Lane's End Farm near Versailles, Ky. ... Also leases 1,200-acre Oak Tree Farm north of Lexington from the NIARCHOS family ... Family: wife Sarah, and four children: Bill Jr., who heads the sales division of Lane's End, Mary Farish Johnston, Laura Farish Chadwick, and Hillary Farish Stratton ... Education: Attended the University of Virginia ... Farish earned an Eclipse Award as outstanding breeder in 1992 ... Received the 1992 P. A. B. Widener Trophy presented by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders in recognition of outstanding accomplishments in breeding ... Other industry positions include vice chairman and steward of The Jockey Club, trustee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, board chairman and director of Churchill Downs, chairman of the Breeders' Cup Executive Committee, chairman of the American Horse Council, member of board of directors of Keeneland Race Course
••••••••••••••••
http://www.ntra.com/stats_bios.
aspx?id=3431
Martha F. Gerry ... Born: in Houston, Texas ... Resident: Mill Neck, N.Y. ... Family: Father William Stamps Farish founded Lazy F Ranch in Texas and Humble Oil Co. (Exxon), and chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey ... Husband Edward ... Four children including Mrs. Cornelia Corbett and William F. Gerry ... Nephew William S. Farish III owns and operates Lane's End Farm near Versailles, Ky. ... Education: Attended Dobbs School and Vassar College ... Acquired her love for horses from her parents. She and her mother Libbie Rice Farish carried on Lazy F's tradition after the death of her father in 1942 ...
(Public interest reposting)
Timeline of Treason: The Bush Family Connections to the Nazis
... William S. Farish was appointed chairman of Standard Oil by John D. Rockefeller. Farish was close friends with Hermann Schmitz, chairman of I.G. Farben. Farish hired Ivy Lee, to write pro-I.G. Farben and pro-Nazi propaganda and get it into the U.S. press. He hired Nazi German crews for Standard Oil tankers. In addition, he hired "Emil Helfferich," chairman of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, as chairman also of the Standard Oil Company subsidiary in Germany. Karl Lindemann, board member of Hamburg-Amerika, also became a top Farish-Standard executive in Germany.
The interlock placed Farish and Prescott Bush in a small group of Hitler supporters. Both Emil Helfferich and Karl Lindemann were authorized to write checks to Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi SS, on a special Standard Oil account. This account was managed by the German-British-American banker, Kurt von Schroeder. According to U.S. intelligence documents reviewed by author Anthony Sutton, Helfferich continued his payments to the SS into 1944, when the SS was supervising the mass murder at the Standard-I.G. Farben
Auschwitz and other death camps. Helfferich told Allied interrogators after the war that these were not his personal contributions-they were corporate Standard Oil funds.
http://www.country-liberal-party.com
/pages/Bush-Nazi-links.htm
••••••••••••••••
http://www.tribalmessenger.org/t-bush
/bush-family-history-pt2.htm
Gold Fillings, Auschwitz & George Bush
by Glen Yeadon with Larry Neilson
Upon winning the presidency in one of the dirtiest campaigns in memory, Poppy Bush placed his assets in a blind trust headed by his close friend William Stamps Farish III. That appointment should have raised a red flag. Farish's grandfather, William Stamps Farish I, was a war profiteer during World War II. In defiance of the American embargo, Farish sold the Japanese the aviation gas used in the Pearl Harbor attack. The elder Farish also supplied Hitler's war machine with oil and tetraethyl lead. Senator Prescott Bush, Poppy Bush's father, was a close friend of the elder Farish. Even after his testimony before Harry Truman's committee on waste and fraud in the war industry prompted Senator Truman to cry, "This is treason!" Farish remained a Bush intimate.
Report on European Trip 10.12.39
Mr. W.S. Farish 30 Rockefeller Plaza
Dear Mr. Farish:
… I stayed in France until Sept. 17th. … In England I met by appointment the Royal Dutch (Shell Oil Co.) gentlemen from Holland, and … a general agreement was reached on the necessary changes in our relations with the I.G. Farben, in view of the state of war … The Royal Dutch Shell group is essentially British … I also had several meetings with … the British Air Ministry. …
I required help to obtain the necessary permission to go to Holland … After discussions with the American Amb. Joseph Kennedy … the situation was cleared completely … The gentlemen in the Air Ministry … very kindly offered to assist me later in reentering England. …
Pursuant to these arrangements, I was able to keep my appointments in Holland having flown there on a British Royal Air Force bomber, where I had 3 days of discussion with the I.G. representatives. They delivered to me assignments of some 2,000 foreign patents and we did our best to work out complete plans for a modus vivendi which could operate through the term of the war, whether or not the U.S. came in. …
Very truly yours,
Frank A. Howard
http://www.sjcite.info/popcontrol.html
••••••••••••••••
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/RaceWar.htm
The Bush family knew Richardson and his wife through their mutual friendship with Sears Roebuck's chairman, Gen. Robert E. Wood. General Wood had been president of the America First organization, which had lobbied against war with Hitler Germany. H. Smith Richardson had contributed the start-up money for America First and had spoken out against the U.S. "joining the Communists" by fighting Hitler. Richardson's wife was a proud relative of Nancy Langehorne from Virginia, who married Lord Astor and backed the Nazis from their Cliveden Estate.
General Wood's daughter Mary had married the son of Standard Oil president William Stamps Farish. The Bushes had stuck with the Farishes through their disastrous exposure during World War II... Young George Bush and his bride Barbara were especially close to Mary Farish, and to her son W.S. Farish III, who would be the great confidante of George's presidency.
••••••••••••••••
http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/the-americas/the-americas-index-1942.htm
... Missouri Sen. Harry Truman later roasts Farish in front of his committee investigating home front wrongdoing, an event that raises Truman's profile and makes him a plausible running mate for FDR in 1944. The exposure of the [Nazi} scandal is widely believed to have contributed to Farish's sudden death from a heart attack in November of 1942. ...
••••••••••••••••
http://www.humanitas-international.org/holocaust/1942tbse.htm
1942 March 25 U.S. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold announces that William Stamps Farish has pled "no contest" to charges of criminal conspiracy with the Nazis. Arnold discloses that Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon) of which Farish is president and CEO has agreed to stop hiding patents from the U.S. for synthetic rubber, which the company has in its possession, and which are already in use by the Nazis at Auschwitz.
1942 March 26 The first deportations of Jews to Auschwitz begins ...
Thoroughbred Club Honors Will Farish
by Ray Paulick
Date Posted: 11/5/2006
William S. Farish, honored guest at 75th TCA testimonial dinner
William S. Farish cited five current developments that give him optimism about the future of the Thoroughbred industry during his remarks as the honor guest at the Thoroughbred Club of America's 75th annual testimonial dinner, held at Keeneland Nov. 2.
Farish, who recently was named to Keeneland's three-person board of trustees, was introduced by James E. "Ted" Bassett III, the man he replaced in that position. Owner of Lane's End Farm, Farish is the former ambassador to the Court of St. James in England, and he has served in many key industry positions, including vice chairman of The Jockey Club.
Preceding Bassett was a videotaped tribute from former President George Bush, a close friend of the Farish family. Bassett, borrowing Sir Robert Whittington's 1521 description of Sir Thomas More, called Farish a "man for all seasons." ...
http://news.bloodhorse.com/
viewstory.asp?id=36249
••••••••••••••••
http://www.woodfordsun.com/Obits
/august%2015%202002.htm
Bayard Sharp
Bayard Sharp, 89, of Wilmington, Del., a thoroughbred breeder and owner, father of Sarah Farish of Versailles and London, England, great grandson of E.I. DuPont, died Friday, Aug. 9, 2002, at his home.
Sarah Farish is married to Will Farish, U.S. ambassador to Britain and a prominent Woodford County horse breeder and owner.
In addition to having raced many outstanding horses, Sharp was a former chairman of The Blood Horse Inc., a member and Steward of the Jockey Club, and a trustee emeritus of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. He had been actively involved in the Republican Party in Delaware and nationally, and was a longtime friend and supporter of former President George Bush, and was chairman of the Delaware committee for Bush’s two presidential campaigns.
In addition to his daughter, he is survived by four grandchildren, Mary Johnston, Houston, Texas, Will Farish Jr., Versailles, Laura Chadwick, Nashville, Tenn., and Hillary Stratton, Houston; and 12 great grandchildren.
Private services will be held. The Chandler Funeral Home and Crematory, Wilmington, is in charge of arrangements.
••••••••••••••••
http://www.silver-investor.com/
charlessavoie/cs_may05_pilgrims.htm
Farish and the Bush family participated together in the Zapata Offshore Drilling Company. His grandfather founded Humble Oil & Refining Company in 1917, which became the largest subsidiary of what became Exxon, and was a founder of the American Petroleum Institute in 1926.
http://www.opensecrets.org/bush/ambassadors/farish.asp
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Embassy Row
UNITED KINGDOM
William S. Farish
$142,875 to the GOP
Note: Farish left his post in July 2004. In his place Bush nominated California automotive dealer and major GOP contributor Robert Holmes Tuttle.
There was little, if any, surprise when President Bush chose William S. Farish as ambassador to Great Britain. Farish, a millionaire horse breeder and chairman of Churchill Downs, which hosts the fabled Kentucky Derby each year, is a big Republican donor and a close family friend of the Bushes, whom he has known for more than 50 years.
••••••••••••••••
http://www.nndb.com/people/015/000098718/
William S. Farish
AKA William Stamps Farish III
Born: 17-Mar-1939 Birthplace: Houston, TX
Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Business, Diplomat
Nationality: United States Executive summary: W.S. Farish & Co.
While one of the wealthiest men in Texas (fortune derived from Humble Oil, co-founded by his grandfather), he is extremely secretive. Close personal friend of George H.W. Bush, and a heavy Republican donor. Gave Bush their pet dog Millie, and he is the one who managed the then-Vice President's assets in a blind trust. Queen Elizabeth II has been a guest at Farish's horse ranch (Lane's End Farm near Lexington, Kentucky), and their horses breed with each other -- Farish is a horse breeder at the highest level, including winners of the Belmont, Preakness, and Kentucky Derby; he also for a time was Chairman of the Board of Churchill Downs. From 2001 to 2004 he served as US Ambassador to Great Britain, including during September 11 and aftermath.
-----------
http://www.ntra.com/stats_bios.aspx?id=3431
William S. Farish III ... Born: March 17, 1939, in Houston, Texas ...
President and owner of 1,800-acre Lane's End Farm near Versailles, Ky. ... Also leases 1,200-acre Oak Tree Farm north of Lexington from the NIARCHOS family ... Family: wife Sarah, and four children: Bill Jr., who heads the sales division of Lane's End, Mary Farish Johnston, Laura Farish Chadwick, and Hillary Farish Stratton ... Education: Attended the University of Virginia ... Farish earned an Eclipse Award as outstanding breeder in 1992 ... Received the 1992 P. A. B. Widener Trophy presented by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders in recognition of outstanding accomplishments in breeding ... Other industry positions include vice chairman and steward of The Jockey Club, trustee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, board chairman and director of Churchill Downs, chairman of the Breeders' Cup Executive Committee, chairman of the American Horse Council, member of board of directors of Keeneland Race Course
••••••••••••••••
http://www.ntra.com/stats_bios.
aspx?id=3431
Martha F. Gerry ... Born: in Houston, Texas ... Resident: Mill Neck, N.Y. ... Family: Father William Stamps Farish founded Lazy F Ranch in Texas and Humble Oil Co. (Exxon), and chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey ... Husband Edward ... Four children including Mrs. Cornelia Corbett and William F. Gerry ... Nephew William S. Farish III owns and operates Lane's End Farm near Versailles, Ky. ... Education: Attended Dobbs School and Vassar College ... Acquired her love for horses from her parents. She and her mother Libbie Rice Farish carried on Lazy F's tradition after the death of her father in 1942 ...
Satanism - West Memphis Three: Judge in Echols' Case Recuses Himself
Arkansas Online
September 24, 2008
The federal judge who initially sent Damien Echols’ appeal back to state courts has recused from the case. In a one-sentence order filed Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge William R. Wilson Jr. said that “some of the principals in this case are long-time acquitances and friends of mine.”
It was not immediately clear who would take over the case or if Wilson’s recusal would affect Echols’ pending appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Echols and two others were accused of killing three second graders in a Satanic-like ritual. The boys were last seen riding their bikes May 5, 1993. Their bodies were found in a ditch the next day.
http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2008/sep/24/judge-echols-case-recuses-himself/?print
September 24, 2008
The federal judge who initially sent Damien Echols’ appeal back to state courts has recused from the case. In a one-sentence order filed Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge William R. Wilson Jr. said that “some of the principals in this case are long-time acquitances and friends of mine.”
It was not immediately clear who would take over the case or if Wilson’s recusal would affect Echols’ pending appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Echols and two others were accused of killing three second graders in a Satanic-like ritual. The boys were last seen riding their bikes May 5, 1993. Their bodies were found in a ditch the next day.
http://www2.arkansasonline.com/news/2008/sep/24/judge-echols-case-recuses-himself/?print
Russia: Teens 'Stabbed 666 Times and Eaten' in Satanic Ritual
Also see: "Satanism and Ritual Abuse: Case-by-Case Documentation"
www.theaustralian.news.com.au
By staff writers
September 16, 2008
DEVIL worshippers in Russia butchered four teenagers in a Satanic ritual - stabbing them 666 times each and eating them. The teens - a youth and three girls aged 16 or 17- had their gentitals mutilated and were cooked on a bonfire before being eaten, The Sun newspaper reported today.
Police found body parts dumped in a pit beside an upside-down cross, a symbol of Satanic worship, in a rural area of Russia, the newspaper said.
Eight people have been arrested over the slayings.
Police believed the teenagers, who were all friends, were lured to a cottage and encouraged to get drunk before they were slain.
The discovery in Yaroslavl, 480km from Moscow, has sent a shudder across Russia - where Satanists are feared to have committed a string of mutilations and killings.
The victims, who disappeared in June, were named as Anya Gorokhova, Olga Pukhova, Varya Kuzmina and Andrei Sorokin. Police began tracing the gang after finding out all the victims had made phone calls to alleged leader Nikolai Ogolobyak.
The rest of the cult were described by former teachers as being of low intelligence and moody. Three were named by police as Ksenia Kuznetsova, Alexander Voronov and Anton Makovkin.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24353395-12335,00.html
www.theaustralian.news.com.au
By staff writers
September 16, 2008
DEVIL worshippers in Russia butchered four teenagers in a Satanic ritual - stabbing them 666 times each and eating them. The teens - a youth and three girls aged 16 or 17- had their gentitals mutilated and were cooked on a bonfire before being eaten, The Sun newspaper reported today.
Police found body parts dumped in a pit beside an upside-down cross, a symbol of Satanic worship, in a rural area of Russia, the newspaper said.
Eight people have been arrested over the slayings.
Police believed the teenagers, who were all friends, were lured to a cottage and encouraged to get drunk before they were slain.
The discovery in Yaroslavl, 480km from Moscow, has sent a shudder across Russia - where Satanists are feared to have committed a string of mutilations and killings.
The victims, who disappeared in June, were named as Anya Gorokhova, Olga Pukhova, Varya Kuzmina and Andrei Sorokin. Police began tracing the gang after finding out all the victims had made phone calls to alleged leader Nikolai Ogolobyak.
The rest of the cult were described by former teachers as being of low intelligence and moody. Three were named by police as Ksenia Kuznetsova, Alexander Voronov and Anton Makovkin.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24353395-12335,00.html
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Robert Wadman's Perjury Party
By Alex Constantine
This is a partial report on Robert Wadman's lawsuit against my publisher, Feral House. Although the case was heard yesterday in an Ogden, Utah small claims court, no ruling was issued by Pro Tem Judge Brad C. Smith. He will send a verdict by mail in a week or so, and it will be announced here as soon as I have it.
ALEX CONSTANTINE: RESPONSE TO ROBERT WADMAN AFFIDAVIT - SEPTEMBER 14, 2008
Mr. Wadman claims that he lost employment at the Bush Justice Department due to allegations of pedophilia made in my book, Psychic Dictatorship in the USA (Feral House, 1995). The statute of limitations, three years for libel generally, has long since expired - but Wadman argued under oath - falsely - that the chapter is posted at my web site (it isn't), but that was par: nearly every sentence Wadman uttered under oath was a misstatement.
First, Wadman's part-time employment by the Bush Justice Department, training police overseas, hasn't exactly been terminated, according to Gregory Ducot, deputy assistant of international police training at the Justice Department. Ducot offered that the disgraced former police chief of Omaha has not been contractually rehired due to new employment guidelines instituted since Abu Ghraib - primarily one requiring a Google search prior to hiring (see page two).
I have a notarized affidavit from the Justice Department on this - my book is not mentioned at all:
(Click to enlarge)
Wadman - with the RNC and Bush regime watching with some interest - is attempting to silence me. Beyond frivolous small claim court filings, he has taken the desperate step of writing to the distributor of my books, claiming that since Psychic Dictatorship in the USA is in "litigation," it should be dropped from the distribution order list.
This is an insidious form of censorship.
Robert Wadman: "Using only provocative and suggestive statements extracted from the grand jury and committee hearings ... "
There is no support for this statement provided by Mr. Wadman. I did not draw exclusively from the sources mentioned by him - in fact, I barely referred to them at all, as the attached documentation confirms. "Suggestive" statements in my book are not cited by Mr. Wadman, and I know of no suggestive statements I've made in reference to him.
"Alex Constantine has created the impression that Robert C. Wadman was involved in sexual misconduct with children."
Sexual and professional misconduct on the part of Robert Wadman were the substance of a lawsuit won by Paul Bonacci vs. The Catholic Archbishop of Omaha, etal - including Mr. Wadman. Sexual and professional misconduct on the part of Robert Charles Wadman were also, in part, the substance of John DeCamp's book, The Franklin Cover-Up. Mr. Wadman sued DeCamp and lost the case seven weeks ago. Many other reports on the public record concerning Mr. Wadman's alleged criminal activities could be cited.
"Innuendo." I rely on documentation and try to be as thorough and credible as possible.
1.) "Top of page 151" - I reported that Mr. Wadman "cleared out of town." He argues that he "resigned" from the Omaha PD and was not fired, as I have reported. He was, at the time, police chief of Omaha, Nebraska and a focal figure in a child molestation scandal. It is immaterial whether he received "keys to the city" or a "grandfather clock," as he states. The facts that I reported are not changed by gifts that he may have received from political figures (with whom he is alleged by others to have been in collusion).
Wadman did indeed leave town in the wake of a child molestation scandal. I know of no "keys to the city" given to Robert Wadman. This is a highly dubious claim.
Mr. Wadman grossly misrepresents the circumstances of his departure from the Omaha police department - IN FACT, ROBERT WADMAN WAS FIRED - TWICE from the position of police chief: From the Wilmington Morning Star, 7-21-93:
Wadman "was Omaha's police chief from 1982 until Mike Boyle, then the mayor, FIRED him in 1986. Wadman was reinstated after appealing his DISMISSAL ... and remained chief until 1989, when the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed that decision and upheld the FIRING."
Under these circumstances, would Wadman be given the Keys to the City? (Doubtful, and I request documentation before believing it.)
2.) Mr. Wadman claims that he only met convicted felon Lawrence King on just one occasion, and had "no political connection" to him.
Lawrence King, in a 1989 interview with Frank Brown of TV-7, Omaha, refers to Robert Wadman as a "friend." King also states that Wadman would do "favors" for then-Chief Wadman. During the interview, Wadman himself discusses talking to Lawrence King by telephone (see below) - so the one meeting "at a social event" with King acknowledged by Robert Wadman was NOT the only contact. Another false statement.
King was questioned about an incident in which Wadman intervened at King's request to order the release of a suitcase seized in a drug raid:
BROWN: King acknowledges he is a friend of Chief Wadman's. We asked King did he call the chief to get a suitcase released that had been seized in a drug investigation?
BROWN: You had that friendship where, you could....
KING: Yes.
BROWN: You could call the Chief of Police and get a piece of evidence released?
KING: I felt that I could call anyone in this city.
...
BROWN: We asked Chief Robert Wadman if Larry King had ever telephoned him to get a suitcase released from police custody.
WADMAN: Yes ...
http://www.vrijheids.net/media/The_Franklin_Cover_Up.pdf
From late Franklin investigator Gary Caradori's notes: "[Troy Boner, a child abuse victim-witness] stated that LARRY KING and ROBERT WADMAN took a trip somewhere and with them were two young boys ... " Source: First edition of The Franklin Cover-Up, by John DeCamp, p. 81.
In addition, Paul Bonacci, in his successful lawsuit against Wadman, King and others, has detailed sex parties attended by minors at which King and Wadman were both present.
3) Wadman: "I never spoke to the press about DNA tests." My chapter on Wadman was written 14 years ago. It has been reported that Mr. Wadman passed a "genetics" test (eg., Feb 11, 1991 issue of the Omaha World-Herald, pg. 5), but this is a false report, to my knowledge. Wadman took a standard blood test - not a DNA test. One Nebraska Leadership Conference (NLC) newsletter states that there is a high probability that the test was "tampered" with. (See supporting documents for response #4.) Ultimately, Wadman must be the source of ALL newspaper reports that a DNA test (or tests) proved "negative," for reasons explained in the next paragraph ...
4) " ... Three individual DNA tests confirmed that I was not the father of Alisha Owen's child." Refutation from a newsletter published by the NLC, undated copy: "A blood test WAS eventually done in connection with a paternity suit filed on Alisha's behalf by her mother, but it was NOT A DNA BLOOD TEST AS THE MEDIA HAS CONSISTENTLY TRUMPETED." The author of this article believes the test was "tampered with." But "in any case, FORGET the DNA BLOOD TESTS, BECAUSE, FRIENDS, THEY NEVER HAPPENED."
5) Robert Wadman: "I was never a defendant in any case or court proceeding." Wadman has been a defendant in a several court cases, to my knowledge. But I believe that he refers here to the period when he was in Omaha, Nebraska, and he WAS, at the time, a defendant in a paternity suit concerning the child of Alisha Owen. By "co-defendents," I was referring to other prominent citizens of Omaha under investigation, with prosecution pending or underway, for involvement in child pornography, molestation and prostitution. They were co-defendents, not in one case but in a number of related investigations and prosecutions. These led to the conviction of Wadman associate Lawrence King for the looting of the Franklin Credit Union, among others. Another key "co-defendant" in the investigation - known by the general description of "The Franklin Case" - was Peter Citron, who pleaded "no contest" to charges of sexual assault on a minor. A quantity of child pornography was confiscated from Citron's house.
In The Franklin Cover-Up (which the plaintiff attempted to suppress with a failed, small claims "libel" suit), Wadman is found to be in league with a number of corrupt Omaha citizens, including King.
6) Wadman claims: "I have never met" Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci.
I can produce numerous independent investigative records and pieces of courtroom testimony that refute this statement. The general view of it was described by DeCamp. In Nebraska, a number of victim-witnesses identified Omaha Police Chief Robert Wadman, FBI agents Mickey Mott, Gerry Wahl and Alan Baer, Harold Andersen, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald.
King and Wadman, along with FBI agents Mott and Baer, were accused of pedophilia and drug dealing with boys as young as 12. The charges were made by numerous children interviewed by private investigator Gary Caradori. See: John DeCamp, The Franklin Cover-Up: Chile Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska [Lincoln, NE: AWT, 1996], pp. 198-199.
7) Wadman: "I have never met any of King's associates." This is a misstatement, according to Paul A. Bomacci v. The Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha, Robert Wadman, etal. - a lawsuit that ended with a ruling in favor of Wadman's accuser. In the suit, Wadman is seen cavorting with King, and associates Citron, Baer, etc.
A complaint against Wadman and others was filed by Bonacci to demand the jury trial that subsequently ruled for the plaintiff. Bonacci compained, in part in reference to Wadman, of "slander, malicious prosecution, negligence, child abuse, battery, emotional distress and violations of his civil rights."
Nevertheless, Wadman now claims that he has "never met" Bonacci. The latter's court victory - and one million dollar award from the court - say otherwise. So do other victim-witnesses in Omaha.
First paragraph: Mr. Wadman was, prior to his work for the Justice Department, forced to resign as chief of police in three cities - Omaha, Aurora and Wilmington, N.C. - due to the public knowledge of sexual misconduct on his part. NONE of the allegations that led to his resignation in these cities originated with me or my book. I reported on the controversies surrounding him, and wrote of allegations made by others. My book was only published AFTER Wadman's alleged misconduct occurred, and the media reports he mentions were a matter of public record.
Page two: "as a consultant ... " - Mr. Wadman has produced no evidence to support his claim that my book, Psychic Dictatorship in the USA, had any connection whatsoever to his "loss of employment" at the Justice Department.
Second paragraph: "The book ... makes false statements ... " The information is not false, nor do I believe it to be false, as Wadman contends.
Under "supportive documents," Tirana, Albania is misspelled.
Re Supportive Document three, "Douglas County records"concern a gross misscarriage of justice in the conviction of Alisha Owen - thus the title of John DeCamp's book, "The Franklin Cover-Up," which addresses the issue of Ms. Owen's false conviction and imprisonment at length. Wadman has attempted to sue Mr. DeCamp (who is himself an attorney) for libel, and LOST that case in an Ogden, Utah small claims court on July 30, 2008.
8) "I don't know the name Jerry Springer. was a supervisor in the John Singer case, but was in Salt Lake City when he was shot in Kamas, Utah. He was in fact armed and pointed a loaded gun at a police officer."
The name John Singer WAS misspelled in my text - all first editions have some typographical errors. (In this case, I spoke to my publisher and asked to edit the text before a second edition was issued, but my publisher considered it too costly to revise the book, so I left it alone.)
The shooting took place in Marion, Utah, not the town identified by Mr. Wadman.
I do not recall the source of my allegation fourteen years after the fact, but he was held strictly responsible for the shooting in in Vickie SINGER, et al, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert WADMAN, et al, Defendants-Appellees, 745 F.2d 606
In fact, Mr. Wadman and police involved in the case have a long history of making misstatements in reference to the case. Police claimed that Singer was shot and killed by officers attempting to serve a warrant. But his family notes that Singer was "shot in the BACK." This negates the police version of events, which maintain that Singer pointed a gun at them. Source: "Prison term ends today for Singer; he's Utah-bound," by Pat Reavy, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 10, 2006. The article is posted on the Internet here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20061010/ai_n16768846
The family argues that Singer was murdered by police without provocation, but his widow was unable to initiate a jury trial against Wadman, etal.: "In October 1982, Mrs. Singer appealed this case to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Two years later, in September 1984, the 10th Circuit Court turned down the Singer suit. The following month Vickie appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. During March 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, permanently ending the legal battle over John Singer’s death."
http://des.utah.gov/highwaypatrol/history_1989/marion.html
So there has been no resolution of the dispute, and Mr. Wadman's version of the shooting is contradicted by material evidence, eg. the fatal shot in the back.
9) My book states that the police union in Omaha fought Wadman's appointment to police chief of Omaha due to the Singer shooting. This is how I recall it. Wadman contradicts me, pointing out that the union "dropped its concern about my appointment as chief within a few weeks of my appointment." Whatever the time period, the police union fought his appointment - as he acknowledges and as I stated - and I see no error in my statement.
10) Wadman: "I have never met Alisha Owen."
King case victim-witness Paul Bonacci was first interviewed by late investigator Gary Caradori in May 1990. From Caradori's notes:
"... Subject stated that he first met Wadman sometime in late 1985 or early 1986. He stated that he had seen Bob Wadman at [at] least two parties. ... Subject stated that Alisha Owen was present at [at] least one of these parties. ... " Source: John DeCamp, The Franklin Cover-Up, p. 101.
" ... Troy Boner [another victim-witness] tells of being in the Starlight Motel while Wadman and Owen [were] having sex in an adjoining room. ... Boner said that he was with Owen after she had been given an injection by Wadman that made her very laid-back." Source: "Evidence the Owen Jury Didn't Get to See," by Rita Hamilton, The Nebraska Observer, July 12, 1991.
"One of the counts on which Owen was indicted for perjury concerned Wadman showing her a gun. Wadman testified that he had not carried a gun since '73. Attorney Jerry Spence was taking a deposition from Wadman in 1980 in connection with a Utah lawsuit. He asked Wadman if he were carrying a gun to which Wadman replied 'yes.' Wadman lied to the Grand Jury." (Source: The Nebraska Leadership Conference newsletter, undated.)
11) See my response to #10.
12) Mr. Wadman claims, "I didn't file a lawsuit" against the daughter of Alisha Owen."
This is a complete misstatement of fact.
According to the Nebraska Leadership Conference newsletter, Wadman "filed a $4,000 suit against Owen's 5 year old daughter Amanda, to recover his expenses for taking the blood test in connection with the paternity suit (see complaint #3 of my response to Wadman's affidavit).
"In itemizing his expenses, he listed first-class airfare from Chicago, four days of missed work and $800 for the blood test." Unfortunately for Wadman, "Owen's attorney countersued with a charge of filing false paper work. Wadman was on vacation at the time and had driven from his son's place in Arizona (not flown from Illinois). The suit was dropped and Wadman paid the $25 court fee. Records of the case can be purchased from $3.00 from the clerk of the Douglas County Court." (Source: Undated copy of the NLC newsletter)
13) Mr. Wadman claims that "three individual genetics tests confirmed that I was not the father."
Any testing done was NOT DNA, or "genetic." Wadman, as explained in my response to complaint #12 above, filed "false paper work," claiming that he took a blood test, when in fact he was "on vacation."
If three genetics tests exist, as Wadman alleges, then I am unaware of them. (No tests were produced in the Feral House suit, and I do not know that they even exist.)
14) I mention photos of King, Wadman and others in the Franklin case "involved in criminal acts" published in a newsletter. King and others WERE convicted for their own criminal acts. Wadman still stands accused of participation and cover-up of heinous crimes, and thus the title of DeCamp's book.
There are no "damaging lies" in my book - and Wadman has repeatedly, as evident in my responses so far, lied about basic facts on the public record.
15) My source on allegations re Wadman in Wilmington was Ron Silver, a local actor and resident who gave testimony to city council that led, a year later, in 1994, to Wadman's resignation as police chief. Silver told me of the SCLC connection by telephone at about the time Wadman resigned, and I taped that conversation.
16) Mr. Wadman resigned after a year of adverse publicity in city council hearings, local headlines, talk radio and op-ed pieces. A faction within his own police department agitated for his termination. Mr. Wadman DID resign of his "own free will," but only after a year of intense debate in the community over whether he should continue as police chief. My statement is true enough - he resigned after continuous pressure from within the Wilmington community to resign.
The Wilmington Morning Star, on July 21, 1993 reported that the City Council was exploring the possibility of contacting with the sheriff's dept. to run the police department, because sheriff Joe McQueen "could do a better job than Wadman." The article states that, under Wadman, there was a "culture of mistrust" in the department, so he should be replaced. This constitutes pressure to resign, and Wadman did. (Also see police department internal newsletter about Wadman).-
LETTER FROM WALTER CONRAD (Page six of Robert Wadman Affidavit) RE ALBANIAN NEWSPAPER ATICLE ON ROBERT WADMAN (re the pedophile allegations)
Robert Wadman submitted this article from an Albanian newspaper to the court, "evidence" of my "guilt." I am not cited in the article. In the upper right-hand corner lurks the masthead of the Washington Times, which does appear to be a source - but Wadman hasn't sued the Times. The article discusses allegations of pedophilia at Boys' Town. But I didn't write about Boys' Town. ... In fact, I have no connection whatsoever to this story, yet Wadman considers it suitable evidence of my "guilt" - in an obvious attempt to censor a critical reporter.
I am not mentioned in the letter, can find no evidence that the letter or article relates to me at all, and the reference to Boys' Town suggests that Mr. Conrad alludes to another book or article entirely - I do not recall having written at any length about Boys' Town, if at all.
Allegations related to Boys' Town DO appear in John DeCamp's book, The Franklin Cover-Up. It has an entire chapter on the Catholic-run charity. I see no specific reference to anything I've written in Conrad's letter, and if it cited my book, I assume that Mr. Conrad would have stated that this was the case. Conrad's letter relates equally to hundreds of postings on the Internet.
••••••
ALSO SEE: http://www.franklingate.com/ AND: Duncan & Blake "Suicides" Solved: The Omaha/Des Moines Allegations, MediaBistro.Com Data Mining & the CIA
This is a partial report on Robert Wadman's lawsuit against my publisher, Feral House. Although the case was heard yesterday in an Ogden, Utah small claims court, no ruling was issued by Pro Tem Judge Brad C. Smith. He will send a verdict by mail in a week or so, and it will be announced here as soon as I have it.
ALEX CONSTANTINE: RESPONSE TO ROBERT WADMAN AFFIDAVIT - SEPTEMBER 14, 2008
Mr. Wadman claims that he lost employment at the Bush Justice Department due to allegations of pedophilia made in my book, Psychic Dictatorship in the USA (Feral House, 1995). The statute of limitations, three years for libel generally, has long since expired - but Wadman argued under oath - falsely - that the chapter is posted at my web site (it isn't), but that was par: nearly every sentence Wadman uttered under oath was a misstatement.
First, Wadman's part-time employment by the Bush Justice Department, training police overseas, hasn't exactly been terminated, according to Gregory Ducot, deputy assistant of international police training at the Justice Department. Ducot offered that the disgraced former police chief of Omaha has not been contractually rehired due to new employment guidelines instituted since Abu Ghraib - primarily one requiring a Google search prior to hiring (see page two).
I have a notarized affidavit from the Justice Department on this - my book is not mentioned at all:
(Click to enlarge)
Wadman - with the RNC and Bush regime watching with some interest - is attempting to silence me. Beyond frivolous small claim court filings, he has taken the desperate step of writing to the distributor of my books, claiming that since Psychic Dictatorship in the USA is in "litigation," it should be dropped from the distribution order list.
This is an insidious form of censorship.
Robert Wadman: "Using only provocative and suggestive statements extracted from the grand jury and committee hearings ... "
There is no support for this statement provided by Mr. Wadman. I did not draw exclusively from the sources mentioned by him - in fact, I barely referred to them at all, as the attached documentation confirms. "Suggestive" statements in my book are not cited by Mr. Wadman, and I know of no suggestive statements I've made in reference to him.
"Alex Constantine has created the impression that Robert C. Wadman was involved in sexual misconduct with children."
Sexual and professional misconduct on the part of Robert Wadman were the substance of a lawsuit won by Paul Bonacci vs. The Catholic Archbishop of Omaha, etal - including Mr. Wadman. Sexual and professional misconduct on the part of Robert Charles Wadman were also, in part, the substance of John DeCamp's book, The Franklin Cover-Up. Mr. Wadman sued DeCamp and lost the case seven weeks ago. Many other reports on the public record concerning Mr. Wadman's alleged criminal activities could be cited.
"Innuendo." I rely on documentation and try to be as thorough and credible as possible.
1.) "Top of page 151" - I reported that Mr. Wadman "cleared out of town." He argues that he "resigned" from the Omaha PD and was not fired, as I have reported. He was, at the time, police chief of Omaha, Nebraska and a focal figure in a child molestation scandal. It is immaterial whether he received "keys to the city" or a "grandfather clock," as he states. The facts that I reported are not changed by gifts that he may have received from political figures (with whom he is alleged by others to have been in collusion).
Wadman did indeed leave town in the wake of a child molestation scandal. I know of no "keys to the city" given to Robert Wadman. This is a highly dubious claim.
Mr. Wadman grossly misrepresents the circumstances of his departure from the Omaha police department - IN FACT, ROBERT WADMAN WAS FIRED - TWICE from the position of police chief: From the Wilmington Morning Star, 7-21-93:
Wadman "was Omaha's police chief from 1982 until Mike Boyle, then the mayor, FIRED him in 1986. Wadman was reinstated after appealing his DISMISSAL ... and remained chief until 1989, when the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed that decision and upheld the FIRING."
Under these circumstances, would Wadman be given the Keys to the City? (Doubtful, and I request documentation before believing it.)
2.) Mr. Wadman claims that he only met convicted felon Lawrence King on just one occasion, and had "no political connection" to him.
Lawrence King, in a 1989 interview with Frank Brown of TV-7, Omaha, refers to Robert Wadman as a "friend." King also states that Wadman would do "favors" for then-Chief Wadman. During the interview, Wadman himself discusses talking to Lawrence King by telephone (see below) - so the one meeting "at a social event" with King acknowledged by Robert Wadman was NOT the only contact. Another false statement.
King was questioned about an incident in which Wadman intervened at King's request to order the release of a suitcase seized in a drug raid:
BROWN: King acknowledges he is a friend of Chief Wadman's. We asked King did he call the chief to get a suitcase released that had been seized in a drug investigation?
BROWN: You had that friendship where, you could....
KING: Yes.
BROWN: You could call the Chief of Police and get a piece of evidence released?
KING: I felt that I could call anyone in this city.
...
BROWN: We asked Chief Robert Wadman if Larry King had ever telephoned him to get a suitcase released from police custody.
WADMAN: Yes ...
http://www.vrijheids.net/media/The_Franklin_Cover_Up.pdf
From late Franklin investigator Gary Caradori's notes: "[Troy Boner, a child abuse victim-witness] stated that LARRY KING and ROBERT WADMAN took a trip somewhere and with them were two young boys ... " Source: First edition of The Franklin Cover-Up, by John DeCamp, p. 81.
In addition, Paul Bonacci, in his successful lawsuit against Wadman, King and others, has detailed sex parties attended by minors at which King and Wadman were both present.
3) Wadman: "I never spoke to the press about DNA tests." My chapter on Wadman was written 14 years ago. It has been reported that Mr. Wadman passed a "genetics" test (eg., Feb 11, 1991 issue of the Omaha World-Herald, pg. 5), but this is a false report, to my knowledge. Wadman took a standard blood test - not a DNA test. One Nebraska Leadership Conference (NLC) newsletter states that there is a high probability that the test was "tampered" with. (See supporting documents for response #4.) Ultimately, Wadman must be the source of ALL newspaper reports that a DNA test (or tests) proved "negative," for reasons explained in the next paragraph ...
4) " ... Three individual DNA tests confirmed that I was not the father of Alisha Owen's child." Refutation from a newsletter published by the NLC, undated copy: "A blood test WAS eventually done in connection with a paternity suit filed on Alisha's behalf by her mother, but it was NOT A DNA BLOOD TEST AS THE MEDIA HAS CONSISTENTLY TRUMPETED." The author of this article believes the test was "tampered with." But "in any case, FORGET the DNA BLOOD TESTS, BECAUSE, FRIENDS, THEY NEVER HAPPENED."
5) Robert Wadman: "I was never a defendant in any case or court proceeding." Wadman has been a defendant in a several court cases, to my knowledge. But I believe that he refers here to the period when he was in Omaha, Nebraska, and he WAS, at the time, a defendant in a paternity suit concerning the child of Alisha Owen. By "co-defendents," I was referring to other prominent citizens of Omaha under investigation, with prosecution pending or underway, for involvement in child pornography, molestation and prostitution. They were co-defendents, not in one case but in a number of related investigations and prosecutions. These led to the conviction of Wadman associate Lawrence King for the looting of the Franklin Credit Union, among others. Another key "co-defendant" in the investigation - known by the general description of "The Franklin Case" - was Peter Citron, who pleaded "no contest" to charges of sexual assault on a minor. A quantity of child pornography was confiscated from Citron's house.
In The Franklin Cover-Up (which the plaintiff attempted to suppress with a failed, small claims "libel" suit), Wadman is found to be in league with a number of corrupt Omaha citizens, including King.
6) Wadman claims: "I have never met" Alisha Owen and Paul Bonacci.
I can produce numerous independent investigative records and pieces of courtroom testimony that refute this statement. The general view of it was described by DeCamp. In Nebraska, a number of victim-witnesses identified Omaha Police Chief Robert Wadman, FBI agents Mickey Mott, Gerry Wahl and Alan Baer, Harold Andersen, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald.
King and Wadman, along with FBI agents Mott and Baer, were accused of pedophilia and drug dealing with boys as young as 12. The charges were made by numerous children interviewed by private investigator Gary Caradori. See: John DeCamp, The Franklin Cover-Up: Chile Abuse, Satanism and Murder in Nebraska [Lincoln, NE: AWT, 1996], pp. 198-199.
7) Wadman: "I have never met any of King's associates." This is a misstatement, according to Paul A. Bomacci v. The Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha, Robert Wadman, etal. - a lawsuit that ended with a ruling in favor of Wadman's accuser. In the suit, Wadman is seen cavorting with King, and associates Citron, Baer, etc.
A complaint against Wadman and others was filed by Bonacci to demand the jury trial that subsequently ruled for the plaintiff. Bonacci compained, in part in reference to Wadman, of "slander, malicious prosecution, negligence, child abuse, battery, emotional distress and violations of his civil rights."
Nevertheless, Wadman now claims that he has "never met" Bonacci. The latter's court victory - and one million dollar award from the court - say otherwise. So do other victim-witnesses in Omaha.
First paragraph: Mr. Wadman was, prior to his work for the Justice Department, forced to resign as chief of police in three cities - Omaha, Aurora and Wilmington, N.C. - due to the public knowledge of sexual misconduct on his part. NONE of the allegations that led to his resignation in these cities originated with me or my book. I reported on the controversies surrounding him, and wrote of allegations made by others. My book was only published AFTER Wadman's alleged misconduct occurred, and the media reports he mentions were a matter of public record.
Page two: "as a consultant ... " - Mr. Wadman has produced no evidence to support his claim that my book, Psychic Dictatorship in the USA, had any connection whatsoever to his "loss of employment" at the Justice Department.
Second paragraph: "The book ... makes false statements ... " The information is not false, nor do I believe it to be false, as Wadman contends.
Under "supportive documents," Tirana, Albania is misspelled.
Re Supportive Document three, "Douglas County records"concern a gross misscarriage of justice in the conviction of Alisha Owen - thus the title of John DeCamp's book, "The Franklin Cover-Up," which addresses the issue of Ms. Owen's false conviction and imprisonment at length. Wadman has attempted to sue Mr. DeCamp (who is himself an attorney) for libel, and LOST that case in an Ogden, Utah small claims court on July 30, 2008.
8) "I don't know the name Jerry Springer. was a supervisor in the John Singer case, but was in Salt Lake City when he was shot in Kamas, Utah. He was in fact armed and pointed a loaded gun at a police officer."
The name John Singer WAS misspelled in my text - all first editions have some typographical errors. (In this case, I spoke to my publisher and asked to edit the text before a second edition was issued, but my publisher considered it too costly to revise the book, so I left it alone.)
The shooting took place in Marion, Utah, not the town identified by Mr. Wadman.
I do not recall the source of my allegation fourteen years after the fact, but he was held strictly responsible for the shooting in in Vickie SINGER, et al, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert WADMAN, et al, Defendants-Appellees, 745 F.2d 606
In fact, Mr. Wadman and police involved in the case have a long history of making misstatements in reference to the case. Police claimed that Singer was shot and killed by officers attempting to serve a warrant. But his family notes that Singer was "shot in the BACK." This negates the police version of events, which maintain that Singer pointed a gun at them. Source: "Prison term ends today for Singer; he's Utah-bound," by Pat Reavy, Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Oct 10, 2006. The article is posted on the Internet here:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20061010/ai_n16768846
The family argues that Singer was murdered by police without provocation, but his widow was unable to initiate a jury trial against Wadman, etal.: "In October 1982, Mrs. Singer appealed this case to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Two years later, in September 1984, the 10th Circuit Court turned down the Singer suit. The following month Vickie appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. During March 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, permanently ending the legal battle over John Singer’s death."
http://des.utah.gov/highwaypatrol/history_1989/marion.html
So there has been no resolution of the dispute, and Mr. Wadman's version of the shooting is contradicted by material evidence, eg. the fatal shot in the back.
9) My book states that the police union in Omaha fought Wadman's appointment to police chief of Omaha due to the Singer shooting. This is how I recall it. Wadman contradicts me, pointing out that the union "dropped its concern about my appointment as chief within a few weeks of my appointment." Whatever the time period, the police union fought his appointment - as he acknowledges and as I stated - and I see no error in my statement.
10) Wadman: "I have never met Alisha Owen."
King case victim-witness Paul Bonacci was first interviewed by late investigator Gary Caradori in May 1990. From Caradori's notes:
"... Subject stated that he first met Wadman sometime in late 1985 or early 1986. He stated that he had seen Bob Wadman at [at] least two parties. ... Subject stated that Alisha Owen was present at [at] least one of these parties. ... " Source: John DeCamp, The Franklin Cover-Up, p. 101.
" ... Troy Boner [another victim-witness] tells of being in the Starlight Motel while Wadman and Owen [were] having sex in an adjoining room. ... Boner said that he was with Owen after she had been given an injection by Wadman that made her very laid-back." Source: "Evidence the Owen Jury Didn't Get to See," by Rita Hamilton, The Nebraska Observer, July 12, 1991.
"One of the counts on which Owen was indicted for perjury concerned Wadman showing her a gun. Wadman testified that he had not carried a gun since '73. Attorney Jerry Spence was taking a deposition from Wadman in 1980 in connection with a Utah lawsuit. He asked Wadman if he were carrying a gun to which Wadman replied 'yes.' Wadman lied to the Grand Jury." (Source: The Nebraska Leadership Conference newsletter, undated.)
11) See my response to #10.
12) Mr. Wadman claims, "I didn't file a lawsuit" against the daughter of Alisha Owen."
This is a complete misstatement of fact.
According to the Nebraska Leadership Conference newsletter, Wadman "filed a $4,000 suit against Owen's 5 year old daughter Amanda, to recover his expenses for taking the blood test in connection with the paternity suit (see complaint #3 of my response to Wadman's affidavit).
"In itemizing his expenses, he listed first-class airfare from Chicago, four days of missed work and $800 for the blood test." Unfortunately for Wadman, "Owen's attorney countersued with a charge of filing false paper work. Wadman was on vacation at the time and had driven from his son's place in Arizona (not flown from Illinois). The suit was dropped and Wadman paid the $25 court fee. Records of the case can be purchased from $3.00 from the clerk of the Douglas County Court." (Source: Undated copy of the NLC newsletter)
13) Mr. Wadman claims that "three individual genetics tests confirmed that I was not the father."
Any testing done was NOT DNA, or "genetic." Wadman, as explained in my response to complaint #12 above, filed "false paper work," claiming that he took a blood test, when in fact he was "on vacation."
If three genetics tests exist, as Wadman alleges, then I am unaware of them. (No tests were produced in the Feral House suit, and I do not know that they even exist.)
14) I mention photos of King, Wadman and others in the Franklin case "involved in criminal acts" published in a newsletter. King and others WERE convicted for their own criminal acts. Wadman still stands accused of participation and cover-up of heinous crimes, and thus the title of DeCamp's book.
There are no "damaging lies" in my book - and Wadman has repeatedly, as evident in my responses so far, lied about basic facts on the public record.
15) My source on allegations re Wadman in Wilmington was Ron Silver, a local actor and resident who gave testimony to city council that led, a year later, in 1994, to Wadman's resignation as police chief. Silver told me of the SCLC connection by telephone at about the time Wadman resigned, and I taped that conversation.
16) Mr. Wadman resigned after a year of adverse publicity in city council hearings, local headlines, talk radio and op-ed pieces. A faction within his own police department agitated for his termination. Mr. Wadman DID resign of his "own free will," but only after a year of intense debate in the community over whether he should continue as police chief. My statement is true enough - he resigned after continuous pressure from within the Wilmington community to resign.
The Wilmington Morning Star, on July 21, 1993 reported that the City Council was exploring the possibility of contacting with the sheriff's dept. to run the police department, because sheriff Joe McQueen "could do a better job than Wadman." The article states that, under Wadman, there was a "culture of mistrust" in the department, so he should be replaced. This constitutes pressure to resign, and Wadman did. (Also see police department internal newsletter about Wadman).-
LETTER FROM WALTER CONRAD (Page six of Robert Wadman Affidavit) RE ALBANIAN NEWSPAPER ATICLE ON ROBERT WADMAN (re the pedophile allegations)
Robert Wadman submitted this article from an Albanian newspaper to the court, "evidence" of my "guilt." I am not cited in the article. In the upper right-hand corner lurks the masthead of the Washington Times, which does appear to be a source - but Wadman hasn't sued the Times. The article discusses allegations of pedophilia at Boys' Town. But I didn't write about Boys' Town. ... In fact, I have no connection whatsoever to this story, yet Wadman considers it suitable evidence of my "guilt" - in an obvious attempt to censor a critical reporter.
I am not mentioned in the letter, can find no evidence that the letter or article relates to me at all, and the reference to Boys' Town suggests that Mr. Conrad alludes to another book or article entirely - I do not recall having written at any length about Boys' Town, if at all.
Allegations related to Boys' Town DO appear in John DeCamp's book, The Franklin Cover-Up. It has an entire chapter on the Catholic-run charity. I see no specific reference to anything I've written in Conrad's letter, and if it cited my book, I assume that Mr. Conrad would have stated that this was the case. Conrad's letter relates equally to hundreds of postings on the Internet.
••••••
ALSO SEE: http://www.franklingate.com/ AND: Duncan & Blake "Suicides" Solved: The Omaha/Des Moines Allegations, MediaBistro.Com Data Mining & the CIA
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