Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Octafish
Octafish's Journal
Octafish's Journal
May 31, 2014
Frank says all sorts of nice things about DU and DUers.
An example:
Recently banned DUer here wishing Conservative Cave all the best...
« on: July 29, 2013, 03:27:34 PM »
I am a Democrat that votes straight Democratic all the time, but I'm here to tell you that I wish all your moles the best of luck in destroying the community of loony ****s that is Democratic Underground.
It's completely disgusting to me that they are considered a true representation of the Democratic Party when they ban people like me for defending the party platform and its leaders.
Keep poking sticks at dipshits like PowerToThePeople, Octafish, kpete, Segami, 99th_Monkey, quinnox, Fire Walk With Me, MannyGoldstein, woo me with science, Catherina, Cleita, and nadin and watch the fireworks fly.
SOURCE: http://conservativecave.com/index.php?topic=89446.0
May 29, 2014
"Scientific advisory panels at the Department of Energy and the EPA have enumerated ways the industry could improve and have called for modest steps, such as establishing maximum contaminant levels allowed in water for all the chemicals used in fracking. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not address the biggest loophole of all. In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton—exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Congress needs to close this so-called Halliburton loophole, as a bill co-sponsored by New York State Representative Maurice Hinchey would do. The FRAC Act would also mandate public disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking across the nation."
-- Scientific American, Nov. 2011, "Safety First, Fracking Second"
Know your BFEE: Dick Cheney FRACKED America
"Scientific advisory panels at the Department of Energy and the EPA have enumerated ways the industry could improve and have called for modest steps, such as establishing maximum contaminant levels allowed in water for all the chemicals used in fracking. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not address the biggest loophole of all. In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton—exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Congress needs to close this so-called Halliburton loophole, as a bill co-sponsored by New York State Representative Maurice Hinchey would do. The FRAC Act would also mandate public disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking across the nation."
-- Scientific American, Nov. 2011, "Safety First, Fracking Second"
May 28, 2014
A Fresh Look
Nazis and the Republican Party
by Carla Binion
Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in BLOWBACK that after World War II, Nazi émigrés were
given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U.S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions
in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not
come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas.
SNIP...
Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for
their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi
employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After
Germany's defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U.S. certain concessions in exchange for his own
protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up cold war propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and
helped shape U.S. perceptions of the cold war.
Journalist Russ Bellant (OLD NAZIS, THE NEW RIGHT, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY) shows that
Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican émigré network. Pasztor, who served as
adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate
Hungary's Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.
Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week,
disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The
article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign.
According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:
1.Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a
member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust
denier, Austin App.
2.Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush."
Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.
3.Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.
4.Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.
5.Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi
groups.
6.Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukrainians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish
wartime pogroms.
CONTINUED...
http://www.bartcop.com/nazigop.htm
It is sickening. To prevent the continuing spread of the contagion, I took the liberty of tying a few strings together...
Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich
Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn t win WWII, so they backed Bushes
So far, not so good.
"Money trumps peace." -- pretzeldent George W Bush, Feb. 14, 2007
Check out what Carla Binion wrote about NAZIs in the GOP.
Makes me sick, this does.
A Fresh Look
Nazis and the Republican Party
by Carla Binion
Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in BLOWBACK that after World War II, Nazi émigrés were
given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U.S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions
in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not
come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas.
SNIP...
Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for
their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi
employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After
Germany's defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U.S. certain concessions in exchange for his own
protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up cold war propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and
helped shape U.S. perceptions of the cold war.
Journalist Russ Bellant (OLD NAZIS, THE NEW RIGHT, AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY) shows that
Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican émigré network. Pasztor, who served as
adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate
Hungary's Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.
Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week,
disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The
article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign.
According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:
1.Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a
member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust
denier, Austin App.
2.Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush."
Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.
3.Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.
4.Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.
5.Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi
groups.
6.Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukrainians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish
wartime pogroms.
CONTINUED...
http://www.bartcop.com/nazigop.htm
It is sickening. To prevent the continuing spread of the contagion, I took the liberty of tying a few strings together...
Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich
Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn t win WWII, so they backed Bushes
So far, not so good.
"Money trumps peace." -- pretzeldent George W Bush, Feb. 14, 2007
May 28, 2014
Yeah. He only broke Iran-Contra.
And the Iran-Contra drug smuggling -- before Hasenfus' plane went down.
Then, there's his book, series of stories and Frontline special on the October Surprise -- all corroborated by eyewitness testimony from Jimmy Carter, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Yasser Arafat, Gary Sick, William Casey, Cyrus Hashemi, Lawrence Silberman, many other direct participants, as well as by declassified and leaked documents since.
There are many, many stories he's broken and covered. What's more, his analyses have been spot-on regarding Selection 2000 to news in the present day.
Too bad what he's revealed about the current administration doesn't jive with the official line. Because he doesn't pull his punches or show favorites, he's doing something more important for democracy. He's living up to his job as a member of the press. Unlike the toadies who go along to get along, Parry has what they will never know, Integrity.
May 25, 2014
The Burris Memorandum
The first paragraph introduces General Hickey and his group, the Net Evaluation Subcommittee. Although the subcommittee report is described as "annual," this would be the first one given to President Kennedy and his advisors, and it is not clear whether President Eisenhower received such reports in person. General Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, stepped in to explain the "assumption" of the 1961 report: "a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions." The question arises: A surprise attack by whom on whom?
link:http://prospect.org/article/did-us-military-plan-nuclear-first-strike-1963
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the nuclear war code books were taken out of Air Force One. At least that's what the people on Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963 reported.
Two-Fer MIC Op. Get the president out of the way of their wars...
...and go for broke by nuking the Soviets, once and for all.
The assassination was not just because of frustrated Vietnam dominoes or warmongering; nor just civil rights, justice and equality, and democracy; nor just to stop a foreign policy unlike that described by Smedley Butler; it also was to be a call to arms: "America! Look! The commies just killed your president! We gotta turn Havana into a glowing mess NOW! And we don't stop there...Real men go to Moscow!"
James Galbraith documented how Allen Welsh Dulles and the JCS Boss Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer formally approached JFK at a National Security Council meeting in July 1961 and submitted a plan for launching an all-out sneak attack on the USSR when the USA would enjoy maximum strategic superiority in fall 1963.
The Burris Memorandum
The first paragraph introduces General Hickey and his group, the Net Evaluation Subcommittee. Although the subcommittee report is described as "annual," this would be the first one given to President Kennedy and his advisors, and it is not clear whether President Eisenhower received such reports in person. General Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, stepped in to explain the "assumption" of the 1961 report: "a surprise attack in late 1963, preceded by a period of heightened tensions." The question arises: A surprise attack by whom on whom?
link:http://prospect.org/article/did-us-military-plan-nuclear-first-strike-1963
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the nuclear war code books were taken out of Air Force One. At least that's what the people on Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963 reported.
May 24, 2014
EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, how the MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan get to the White House. Shocking documentary reveals Mob connections that catapulted him to the presidency - and how a probe was thwarted at 'the highest levels'
By JERRY OPPENHEIMER
Daily Mail, PUBLISHED: 13:22 EST, 21 May 2014 | UPDATED: 03:42 EST, 22 May 2014
A shocking new documentary screened exclusively by MailOnline exposes the chilling conncections between the Mafia, one of Hollywood's most powerful entertainment companies and its head honcho Lew Wasserman and President Ronald Reagan and his Justice Department.
SNIP...
But there was a dark side to Wasserman - and to Reagan - all of which is revealed in a shocking new documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, that, according to the film's producer and those interviewed, links both of them in darkly shadowed ways to the Mafia, and the killing of a U.S. Department of Justice organized crime Strike Force investigation into Mob influence and infiltration at the highest levels of MCA.
SNIP...
Richard Stavin, a former veteran federal prosecutor who was assigned to the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force in Los Angeles and was an integral member of the MCA-Mafia probe team, declared in the film for the first time:
SNIP...
SAG's bylaws had always banned talent agencies like MCA from producing any form of entertainment, such as TV programs and movies. But during Reagan's fifth year as the guild's president a secret blanket waiver was negotiated with SAG, and it gave MCA and Wasserman the platinum opportunity to not only market talent as agents but also to move into TV and film making.
CONTINUED...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2635094/EXCLUSIVE-Revealed-MAFIA-helped-Ronald-Reagan-White-House-Shocking-documentary-reveals-Mob-connections-catapulted-presidency-probe-thwarted-highest-levels.html
Well. That's a "wow" as they used to say in Hollywood.
One very important name that was left out: Dan Moldea, an investigative reporter who actually uncovered and documented the story in the early 1980s and wrote about it in "Dark Victory: Reagan, MCA and the Mob."
That's the reality of it.
Know your BFEE: MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan move into White House
EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, how the MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan get to the White House. Shocking documentary reveals Mob connections that catapulted him to the presidency - and how a probe was thwarted at 'the highest levels'
President Reagan owed his acting and political career to Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, chief of entertainment behemoth MCA, who was in bed with the Mob
An investigation into the relationship between MCA and the Mafia was halted and Federal prosecutors believe it was one of the 'political favors' that can be traced back to Reagan's White House
'Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything,' one secret Justice Department document revealed
According to the producer of the documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, one MCA executive had ties to Mob boss John Gotti
'Reagan's whole career in politics was subsidized by MCA,' he asserts, and helped him financially because for a long time he was living above his means
The Mob was probably working Nancy Reagan too, according to the producer. 'She was a driving force behind Reagan'
By JERRY OPPENHEIMER
Daily Mail, PUBLISHED: 13:22 EST, 21 May 2014 | UPDATED: 03:42 EST, 22 May 2014
A shocking new documentary screened exclusively by MailOnline exposes the chilling conncections between the Mafia, one of Hollywood's most powerful entertainment companies and its head honcho Lew Wasserman and President Ronald Reagan and his Justice Department.
SNIP...
But there was a dark side to Wasserman - and to Reagan - all of which is revealed in a shocking new documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, that, according to the film's producer and those interviewed, links both of them in darkly shadowed ways to the Mafia, and the killing of a U.S. Department of Justice organized crime Strike Force investigation into Mob influence and infiltration at the highest levels of MCA.
SNIP...
Richard Stavin, a former veteran federal prosecutor who was assigned to the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force in Los Angeles and was an integral member of the MCA-Mafia probe team, declared in the film for the first time:
'It's my belief that MCA and its' involvement with Mafia individuals, Mafia-dominated companies and our inability to pursue those was not happenstance. I believe it was an organized, orchestrated effort on the part of certain individuals within Washington, D.C. to keep a hands-off policy towards MCA.
'At the time, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States and Edwin Meese was the Attorney General of the United States (Stavin's ultimate boss). A little known fact was MCA and Lew Wasserman supported Ronald Reagan when he wanted to become president of the Screen Actors Guild, which was the launch of Mr. Reagan's political career.
'I would like to think that the people in the highest levels of this government were not protective of MCA...But I'm not so sure about that.'
SNIP...
SAG's bylaws had always banned talent agencies like MCA from producing any form of entertainment, such as TV programs and movies. But during Reagan's fifth year as the guild's president a secret blanket waiver was negotiated with SAG, and it gave MCA and Wasserman the platinum opportunity to not only market talent as agents but also to move into TV and film making.
CONTINUED...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2635094/EXCLUSIVE-Revealed-MAFIA-helped-Ronald-Reagan-White-House-Shocking-documentary-reveals-Mob-connections-catapulted-presidency-probe-thwarted-highest-levels.html
Well. That's a "wow" as they used to say in Hollywood.
One very important name that was left out: Dan Moldea, an investigative reporter who actually uncovered and documented the story in the early 1980s and wrote about it in "Dark Victory: Reagan, MCA and the Mob."
That's the reality of it.
May 23, 2014
I, too, am mortally sick of secrets.
Secret government. Secret agendas. Secret agents. Secret beneficiaries.
Then there was the news out of Ukraine, where one guy made out like the son of HARKEN Energy, which was sickening in a buy-partisan way.
PS: Thank you for another great article, WilliamPitt!
May 22, 2014
by David M. Barrett
Mr. Barrett’s new book is The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy (University Press of Kansas, 2005). He is Associate Professor of Political Science at Villanova University.
EXCERPT...
(2) Days before Christmas 1960, DCI Allen Dulles held an important, and I would say scandalous, meeting in New York. In attendance, Pfeiffer writes, “were the Vice President for Latin America of Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Chairman of the Cuban-American Sugar Company, the President of the American Sugar Domino Refining Company, the President of the American & Foreign Power Company, the Chairman of the Freeport Sulphur Company, and representatives from Texaco, International Telephone and Telegraph, and other American companies with business interests in Cuba. The tenor of the conversation was that it was time for the U.S. to get off dead center and take some direct action against Castro.”
The corporate leaders had many ideas along these lines for Dulles. They included burning sugar cane fields, ruining refineries, interrupting electric power supplies, and putting an embargo on food and medicines going into Cuba. Dulles opposed the embargo idea and told the corporate leaders that he was not in business of policy planning. That, he probably added, was the job of “Higher Authority,” i.e, the United States president. He did comment (Pfeiffer writes) that “what he was interested in was getting rid of Castro as quickly as possible, and in this field, he had direct responsibility and would welcome any ideas or suggestions on how this might be achieved.”
The timing of this meeting was highly sensitive. Republican Eisenhower was soon to exit the presidency, so there was little chance that he would have CIA dislodge Castro (though, as Pfeiffer writes, Ike had insisted that CIA develop effective plans and forces to do so). It was Democrat Kennedy, a proponent of action against Castro during his presidential campaign, who would have to decide whether or not to authorize some version of what CIA had planned. By blabbing to the corporate leaders about wanting to get rid of Castro as soon as possible, Dulles did a disservice to Kennedy. If JFK had chosen in the spring of 1961 not to authorize CIA to invade Cuba, it wouldn’t have been just those thousand-plus Cuban exiles who would have charged Kennedy with a cowardly abandonment; some of the corporate leaders surely would have leaked word of the new president’s “weakness.”
Furthermore, Dulles had endangered CIA’s reputation—if critics of the Agency had known of this meeting, they would have charged that CIA was (in the words of Dulles’ own underling, Tracy Barnes) “protecting economic royalists.” At a minimum, as Pfeiffer writes, corporate interests played a “sometimes overactive” role in support of the anti-Castro efforts.6
Beyond that, the word “covert” means secret. At a time when Eisenhower and Kennedy fervently believed (and told Dulles) that secrecy should shroud CIA’s Cuba plans, the DCI had been horribly indiscreet.
CONTINUED...
http://hnn.us/article/14951
Corporations never have to die. What Vol. III found Dulles told the 'Economic Royalists'...
The Two Stories About the Bay of Pigs You Never Heardby David M. Barrett
Mr. Barrett’s new book is The CIA and Congress: The Untold Story from Truman to Kennedy (University Press of Kansas, 2005). He is Associate Professor of Political Science at Villanova University.
EXCERPT...
(2) Days before Christmas 1960, DCI Allen Dulles held an important, and I would say scandalous, meeting in New York. In attendance, Pfeiffer writes, “were the Vice President for Latin America of Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Chairman of the Cuban-American Sugar Company, the President of the American Sugar Domino Refining Company, the President of the American & Foreign Power Company, the Chairman of the Freeport Sulphur Company, and representatives from Texaco, International Telephone and Telegraph, and other American companies with business interests in Cuba. The tenor of the conversation was that it was time for the U.S. to get off dead center and take some direct action against Castro.”
The corporate leaders had many ideas along these lines for Dulles. They included burning sugar cane fields, ruining refineries, interrupting electric power supplies, and putting an embargo on food and medicines going into Cuba. Dulles opposed the embargo idea and told the corporate leaders that he was not in business of policy planning. That, he probably added, was the job of “Higher Authority,” i.e, the United States president. He did comment (Pfeiffer writes) that “what he was interested in was getting rid of Castro as quickly as possible, and in this field, he had direct responsibility and would welcome any ideas or suggestions on how this might be achieved.”
The timing of this meeting was highly sensitive. Republican Eisenhower was soon to exit the presidency, so there was little chance that he would have CIA dislodge Castro (though, as Pfeiffer writes, Ike had insisted that CIA develop effective plans and forces to do so). It was Democrat Kennedy, a proponent of action against Castro during his presidential campaign, who would have to decide whether or not to authorize some version of what CIA had planned. By blabbing to the corporate leaders about wanting to get rid of Castro as soon as possible, Dulles did a disservice to Kennedy. If JFK had chosen in the spring of 1961 not to authorize CIA to invade Cuba, it wouldn’t have been just those thousand-plus Cuban exiles who would have charged Kennedy with a cowardly abandonment; some of the corporate leaders surely would have leaked word of the new president’s “weakness.”
Furthermore, Dulles had endangered CIA’s reputation—if critics of the Agency had known of this meeting, they would have charged that CIA was (in the words of Dulles’ own underling, Tracy Barnes) “protecting economic royalists.” At a minimum, as Pfeiffer writes, corporate interests played a “sometimes overactive” role in support of the anti-Castro efforts.6
Beyond that, the word “covert” means secret. At a time when Eisenhower and Kennedy fervently believed (and told Dulles) that secrecy should shroud CIA’s Cuba plans, the DCI had been horribly indiscreet.
CONTINUED...
http://hnn.us/article/14951
Profile Information
Gender: MaleMember since: 2003 before July 6th
Number of posts: 55,745