Know your BFEE: America’s Ruling Gangster Class

[Octafish]

Bush and his cronies have…

Stacked the Courts to make their actions permissible, from stealing Presidential Elections to using claims of “national security” to cover up their crimes.

Corrupted the Congress with the influence peddled by the likes of big money, big business, and transnational corporations and their K-Street Project henchmen to the point where lobbyists are the ones who write legislation.

Ignored Corporate and White Collar crime – from BCCI to the S&L Scandals to Global Crossing to the present day because they ALL are White Collar Criminals, including the crazy monkey’s HARKEN Energy and SPECTRUM 7 Energy.

Whether from gross criminal negligence to dereliction of duty, Bush, Condescenda Rice, Johnny Ashcan and Company failed to warn the American people and general flying public after receiving warnings of impending Al Quaeda attack on American soil, despite taking actions to protect themselves at the Genoa G-8 summit and by taking government charter instead of commercial carriers in the summer of 2001.

Hijacked control of the Pentagon and its ships, planes, guns and service men and women to make a most profitable, bloody, let alone illegal, war. And they plan to take it go into perpetuity as The War on Terror, just like their gangster-lubbin’ “War on Drugs.” Read or heard much nice about Iran, lately?

Ripped off the Treasury to pay for it, most profitably, including the rape of the U.S. working class – the largest group of U.S. Taxpayers – by giving the biggest breaks in history to the monied class, while giving tax breaks to company that shift manufacturing plants and good-paying jobs overseas.

Co-opted ABCNNBCBS Foul Noise Nutwork and the rest of Corporate McPravda through bribery, intimidation and outright control to paint a picture of America and the world that just ain’s so. Even the White House Press Corpse calls the crazy monkey, “Sir.”

The result of this concerted criminal effort is the largest transfer of wealth in known history from the working class to Bush and the folks he works for. Oh yeah. On the way, they corrupted respect for the Constitution to the point where the Bill of Rights has been shredded and the emphasis of American governance shifted from We the People to Bush the Unitary Decider.

All that money stolen and all that power gone and what do we have to show for it?

A broken country and a fear filled future, is about it -- a world where we’re led down the primrose path by the likes of GHWB.



You can tell a lot about a crook by the company he or she keeps.

Consider: Grover Norquist, Jack Abramoff and the Republican Tax Dodgers (sorry, redundant) ginned up just about every Repuke on Capitol Hill in every way.

Consider: Kenny Boy Lay and the ENRON Energy Pirates laughed as they bilked little old ladies of their retirement money.

Same goes for traitors. Take Henry Kissinger. Please.

The guy works for an AWOL Combat Dodger in the form of George W Bush (sorry, redundant). So, nothing is beneath him.

So, to show what kind of lower than whale turds people Henry the K, Baby Doc Bush and Poppy Doc are, I introduce Operation CONDOR and its main puppet, one Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Pinochet and Poppy, are Peas in Pod.



What one did in Chile, the other did in the United States of America.



Both were helped by Henry Kissinger.

It was Kissinger who said about the coup that toppled the democratically elected government of Chile and the assassination of its president, Salvadore Allende:

“I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

Wow. Pretty powerful contempt for the United States and everything it stands for in that statement.



That attitude probably is easy to rub off on others, if the price is right.

Too much blood: Kissinger and Pinochet

By Lucy Komisar

I recently got hold of a declassified memorandum about Henry Kissinger's only meeting with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The meeting occurred on June 8, 1976, in Santiago, and the internal State Department memorandum shows how hard Kissinger tried to shield the Chilean general from criticism and assure him that his human rights violations were not a serious problem as far as the U.S. government was concerned.

SNIP…

The memo describes how Secretary of State Kissinger stroked and bolstered Pinochet, how--with hundreds of political prisoners still being jailed and tortured--Kissinger told Pinochet that the Ford Administration would not hold those human rights violations against him. At a time when Pinochet was the target of international censure for state-sponsored torture, disappearances, and murders, Kis-singer assured him that he was a victim of communist propaganda and urged him not to pay too much attention to American critics.

SNIP…

Then he made clear that the U.S. government was squarely behind Pinochet. "In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here," Kissinger told Pinochet. "I think that the previous government was headed toward communism. We wish your government well."

SNIP…

Kissinger knew that Pinochet had set up an infamous international terrorist network, Operation Condor, to assassinate his enemies. In 1974, when the CIA discovered that Chile and its allies wanted to set up a covert office in Miami as part of Operation Condor, Kissinger rejected his own State Department officials' advice to publicly protest the plan.

That would have been a warning to prospective victims who had sought safety in exile, but Kissinger opted instead to let the CIA quietly pass on the word to Chile's secret police, the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), and the office wasn't opened.

But Operation Condor continued to target and murder Pinochet's enemies. In September 1974, agents assassinated General Carlos Prats, Pinochet's constitutionalist predecessor who had been forced out and had fled to Buenos Aires. The following September, Operation Condor organized the Rome attack that disabled Christian Democratic oppositionist Bernardo Leighton and his wife. Then in September 1976, the operation returned to the United States with a vengeance, planting the car bomb that killed Letelier and his Institute for Policy Studies colleague Ronni Moffitt in Washington.

George Landau, the U.S. ambassador in Paraguay, had warned the CIA that two Chilean agents had been trying to get visas to the United States in Asunción under false names, but the CIA never warned Letelier, a prime target for Pinochet, nor did it act through its agents at other U.S. consulates to block the agents' travel. The U.S. consulate in Santiago issued the killers visas to the United States.

CONTINUED…

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_5_63/ai_54468923

Kissinger once observed, “Chile is a dagger aimed at the heart of Antarctica.” Lots of class, there. Held in the capable hands Kissinger and the BFEE, history shows they aimed the dagger at the United States.

Pinochet is Gone, but His Methods Are Still with Us

A new report collating first-hand accounts gives us the clearest view yet of the torture going on in the US's secret prisons

by Adnan Siddiqui and Victoria Brittain
Published on Wednesday, December 13, 2006 by the Guardian / UK

Torture, secret prisons and disappearances: all feature prominently in the legacy of Augusto Pinochet. It is a matter of great regret that the former Chilean dictator - brought to power in a CIA-backed coup on September 11 1973 - avoided trial for gross abuses of human rights in his ravenous pursuit of power. But it is a matter of even greater regret that the same tools and the same sponsors are back in action today, with the same impunity, as part of the "war on terror" launched after September 11 2001.

When the Bush administration brought 14 of its most highly valued terrorism suspects to Guantánamo Bay from secret prisons in various countries in September, the US president himself acknowledged for the first time the existence of a network of CIA prisons. This was intended to close a chapter that had become embarrassing to Washington. The US practice of illegal kidnapping known as "extraordinary rendition", and the secret detention and torture that was part of it, had - after more than four years - finally become a scandal condemned by many European politicians, UN officials and international lawyers, as well as US-based human-rights groups.

But, as a new report from the British monitoring group Cageprisoners reveals, the men held in Guantánamo Bay are only the tip of the iceberg: thousands more are hidden elsewhere, outside the law. The "war on terror" is taking a terrible toll on Muslim families and societies through a vast programme of secret detention and torture.

Since January 2002, when the first Muslim men were flown from Afghanistan to Guantánamo, an estimated 14,000 men have been held. They have been hidden in prisons, army barracks, holes in the ground, private houses, hotels and schools. Those responsible for them have been in overlapping chains of command, including the US department of defence, the CIA and the national intelligence services of many countries, such as Britain.

CONTINUED…

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1213-23.htm

Gee. Could it be these people don’t think the vote should apply if We the People elect, say a Democrat? Wonder what they would do if a Liberal Democrat got elected?

U.S. Leaders are Using Pinochet's Playbook

by Peter Kornbluh
Published on Friday, December 9, 2005 by the Baltimore Sun

EXCERPT…

Under the leadership of the Pinochet regime, Condor became a sophisticated system of multilateral repression. Condor nations shared intelligence and communications through a special cryptographic system provided by Brazil known as Condortel. Agents from one nation would fly to another to organize kidnappings, covert transportation of suspects and brutal interrogations at secret detention centers. Often the Condor victim would be secretly rendered back to his country of origin to another secret torture camp for further interrogation before being killed.

SNIP…

In fact, these joint efforts were acts of state-sponsored international terror. Among their operations, Condor regimes targeted specific individuals for death. A declassified CIA summary noted in 1977 that the Condor nations would "undertake the assassination of allegedly subversive opponents of participating governments residing in Western Europe or Latin America."

In the most infamous of Condor missions, former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and an American associate, Ronni Moffitt, were killed by a car bomb in downtown Washington in September 1976.

SNIP…

The methods of interrogation also are similar. Condor victims were submitted to what their Southern Cone torturers called "the submarine." Mr. Bush has authorized a series of "enhanced interrogation techniques" that includes "waterboarding" - simulated drowning - which is the CIA's modernized version of the same type of torture.

Even the official denials sound the same. "We do not torture," President Bush stated recently. "The United States government does not authorize or condone torture of detainees," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated as she arrived in Europe this week.

In the wake of overwhelming evidence that U.S. officials have authorized, condoned and even committed acts of torture - in some cases torturing prisoners to death in Iraq and Afghanistan - those denials carry about as much credibility as General Pinochet's did during his 17-year dictatorship.

CONTINUED…

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1209-20.htm

So. That’s a snapshot of America’s Ruling Gangster Class and what they do with money and power and to keep power and get more money.



Please pile on your points, observations and objections. The more info we can pass around on them, the better our chances of beating them. For peace-loving people, the only real weapon is Truth.

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. K & R

[Octafish]

2. Pinochet and Kissinger: The Puppet and the Puppeteer

We learn more about who's pulling the strings courtesy of CounterPunch and professor Paul Cantor:

Pinochet and Kissinger

The Puppet and the Puppeteer

By PAUL CANTOR
CounterPunch Weekend Edition
December 16 / 17, 2006

After twisting in the wind since his 1998 arrest in London for human rights violations, the noxious bloody former dictator of Chile, General Augusto Pinochet died.

He died after he was allowed to return to Chile for health reasons and was then arrested again for the same crimes. He died exposed as a crook who stole Chilean tax payers' money and squirreled it away in personal bank accounts. He died shortly after Michele Bachelet, a woman he once imprisoned and tortured and the daughter of an air force general who he tortured and killed, took office as the first woman President of Chile. He died on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2006, 23 years after the people of his country forced him to relinquish power. So it is not surprising that his death and the circumstance under which it occurred were celebrated by human rights activists around the world. But now it is time to turn our attention to Henry Kissinger, the man who was complicit in every crime Pinochet committed.

Kissinger was President Nixon's national security advisor in 1970 when Salvador Allende, a socialist like Bachelet and her father, was elected President of Chile. "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people," he said at the time. Kissinger feared that if the Popular Unity government Allende headed was allowed to succeed in carrying out its program to nationalize resources and redistribute income other countries in Latin America would follow suit. That would harm the interests of multinational corporations in the United States upon which Nixon and Kissinger depended for their support. So Kissinger under Nixon's direction set up a special CIA task force to bring about the coup d'état that brought Pinochet to power.

The coup occurred on September 11, 1973. Anyone interested in the details of how it was engineered should read the 1975 staff report of the U.S. senate committee to study governmental operations. The report is titled Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973 and is available on the web. It tells the story of Kissinger's role in overseeing the destruction of one of the world's most vibrant democracies.

CONTINUED...

Paul Cantor was a journalist in Chile before and after the coup. He is now a professor of economics at Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/cantor12162006.html

Thanks, OwnedByFerrets. We've got a darn good chance of getting these crooks out, once and for all. What's needed is critical mass for critical thinking and a Congress armed with the Truth and the knowledge We the People are behind them.

[kohodog]

3. I met Kissinger when I was 15

The hair literally stood up on my my neck.

[Octafish]

5. Someone once told me shaking hands with him was a slimy experience.

They met socially at a Silicone Valley thing, IIRC.

He couldn't avoid it and remembers the moment as if he wasn't even there.

It may be where Swamp Rat gets his reptile underskin concepts.

Why and when did you have the pleasure of his company, kohodog?

It must have been scary and I am truly glad you're here today.

[ConsAreLiars]

4. Thanks, as always. People are utterly naive if they don't see

that a pile of loot worth trillions of dollars (control of the US state machinery and budget) would not be something that would attract the interest the most powerful criminal operation on the planet. By building alliances with certain corporate interests (oil, banking, war) that task was made easy.

[Octafish]

6. Use CIA as personal private police...like gangsters use ''protection'' to get things done...

Here's how Robert Parry put it:

The CIA, a Bush Family Fiefdom

By Robert Parry
May 9, 2006

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. government has tried both structural and personnel changes to fix the nation’s intelligence services – including now the ouster of CIA Director Porter Goss – but the remedies have failed because they’ve missed the core problem.

What’s wrong with the U.S. intelligence community is that over the past three decades its ethos of telling truth to power has been corrupted by politics to such a degree that George W. Bush now sees the Central Intelligence Agency as virtually his family’s fiefdom, with the Langley, Virginia, headquarters even named for his father, George H.W. Bush, a former CIA director.

So, when analysts at the CIA were viewed as undercutting George W. Bush’s case for war with Iraq, the White House launched a counter-attack against these intelligence professionals for perceived disloyalty.

During the buildup to the Iraq War, Vice President Dick Cheney personally went to CIA headquarters to bang heads with intelligence analysts who doubted White House claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. While some analysts resisted, many mid-level bureaucrats acquiesced to Cheney.

Paul Pillar, the CIA’s senior intelligence analyst for the Middle East, said the Bush administration didn’t just play games with the principle of objective analysis, but “turned the entire model upside down.”

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2006/050906.html

The Intel CIA provides gives a real "inside trader's" perspective on the world and investing.

Another Goss Aide Is Linked to Military Contracting Scandals

Investigators are looking into ties between one of the outgoing CIA Director's right hand men and a defense contractor at the center of the Duke Cunningham lobbying scandal

By TIMOTHY J. BURGER/WASHINGTON
Time V Wednesday, May. 10, 2006

An old Central Intelligence Agency hand who was close to outgoing Director Porter Goss was previously a paid consultant to one of the defense contractors who allegedly bribed ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, according to government documents and a person familiar with the matter. The financial link between Brant Bassett — who served two stints at the CIA and recommended the controversial Kyle "Dusty" Foggo for a top agency post — and defense contractor Brent Wilkes could prove a further embarrassment to Goss in the wake of what sources in and out of government say are investigations by the CIA inspector general and the Justice Department into Wilkes' ties to the Agency, as well as to Congress and the Pentagon.

Bassett was paid $5,000 in May 2000 as a consultant to ADCS Corp., a company headed by Wilkes, Foggo's friend since childhood, according to disclosure forms Bassett filed when he was a House intelligence committee aide to Goss while the former Congressman was the panel's Republican chairman. Bassett was not working for the CIA at the time of the payment. Still, it may not look good for yet another of Goss's right hand men to be associated with Wilkes — whom prosecutors allege, in Cunningham's guilty plea, provided more than $600,000 of the $2.4 million in bribes that landed Cunningham a more than eight-year federal prison sentence in March.

SNIP...

When Goss became CIA director in late 2004, he brought Bassett back for a second stint at the agency as a consultant in the directorate of operations, according to a person who spoke on behalf of Bassett. Bassett knew Foggo from the days when both served in the CIA's directorate of operations, according to one official.

The $5,000 Bassett accepted from Wilkes was for helping him with a business trip to a part of Europe where Bassett knew "the lay of the land from before" — presumably a reference to Bassett's earlier work for the CIA, said the person speaking for Bassett. Bassett "was not an employee of . It was a one-off consulting deal" this person said on Bassett's behalf. Wilkes' Washington attorney, Nancy Luque, said Wilkes has done nothing wrong and that Bassett was hired as a consultant "for his knowledge of the area they were working in and facility with the languages spoken there."

CONTINUED...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1192766,00.html?promoid=rss_nation

Then, there's the direct approach.

Unqualified But Well Connected: Bush Cronies Gone Wild

September 20, 2006
Democrats.org

On Sunday, the Washington Post chronicled how the Bush Administration's pattern of rewarding unqualified political cronies with jobs has hindered the Iraqi reconstruction efforts. These GOP allies were given jobs based on their political service in campaigns not their experience or expertise in the respective areas of reconstruction including security, health care and finance. This is just the latest example of the Bush Administration's continued practice of putting their party above the needs of the American people. Over the past five years, the White House has installed Bush cronies in all corners of the government, regardless of their qualifications, with serious, sometimes harmful consequences as a result.

Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority
Unqualified Cronies Appointed to Coalition Provisional Authority. Department of Defense political appointee Jim O'Beirne had been tasked with filling positions on organization which is to rebuild Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority. "Applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade." Jim O'Beirne is married to conservative commentator Kate O'Beirne.

Jay Hallen, Iraqi Stock Exchange / Coalition Provisional Authority. Jay Hallen, aged 24, was tapped by Jim O'Beirne to reopen the Iraqi stock exchange, despite having no background in finance. While in Iraq, "Hallen decided that he didn't just want to reopen the exchange, he wanted to make it the best, most modern stock market in the Arab world...Iraqis cringed at Hallen's plan. Their top priority was reopening the exchange, not setting up computers or enacting a new securities law. (B)roker Talib Tabatabai Hallen's plan was unrealistic. When Tabatabai was asked what would have happened if Hallen hadn't been assigned to reopen the exchange, he smiled. 'We would have opened months earlier. He had grand ideas, but those ideas did not materialize,' Tabatabai said of Hallen. 'Those CPA people reminded me of Lawrence of Arabia.'" (Washington Post, 9/17/06)


James Haveman, Iraqi Health Care System / Coalition Provisional Authority. James Haveman, a 60-year-old social worker, was tapped to restructure Iraq's health care system despite the fact that he was largely unknown among international health experts. Haveman launched an anti-smoking campaign rather than using the CPA's limited resources to prevent childhood diarrhea or other fatal diseases. He insisted that Iraqis should "pay a small fee" every time they saw a doctor, and allocated funds for community health centers rather than rehabilitating the emergency rooms and operating theaters at Iraqi hospitals, even though injuries from insurgent attacks were the country's single largest public health challenge. And he decided to rewrite the country's formulary for prescription drugs. "Haveman's critics, including more than a dozen people who worked for him in Baghdad, contend that rewriting the formulary was a distraction...The new health minister, Aladin Alwan, beseeched the United Nations for help, (saying) 'We didn't need a new formulary. We needed drugs,' he said. 'But the Americans did not understand that.' (Washington Post, 9/17/06)

CONTINUED...

http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/09/unqualified_but.php

Sorry to give the long answer, ConsAreLiars.

Lot of money to be made off of warmongering. Treason, too.

This sickening subject makes me have to launder the brain and wash the hands.

[bananarepublican]

7. K&R. JFK's assassination was just another CIA coup d'etat...

The CIA's line that it doesn't operate domestically is, and always has been, a hot steaming pile of BS!

If you think it through, how much easier would it be to make a hit on a domestic target?

I'm convinced there are BFEE ties to the destruction of Camelot.

[Octafish]

19. Poppy WAS in Dallas that day. At least that's what he told the FBI.

In the hour of the death of President John F. Kennedy, ostensible Texas oilman George Herbert Walker Bush named a suspect to the FBI in a "confidential" phone call. He then added he was heading for Dallas. Skeptics need not take my word for it, that's what Poppy told the FBI:



Here's a transcript of the text:

TO: SAC, HOUSTON DATE: 11-22-63

FROM: SA GRAHAM W. KITCHEL

SUBJECT: UNKNOWN SUBJECT;
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY

At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.

BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES PARROTT has been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.

BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt Mrs. FAWLEY, telephone number SU 2-5239, or ARLINE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican Party Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of PARROTT.

BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone number is CA 2-0395.

# # #

Gee. Why was Poppy Bush in Dallas when JFK was assassinated?

Could it be, he was on official business? I suspect he was on Secret Government business. After all, his eldest son bragged during his Texas Air National Guard and Harvard grad school days that his daddy was CIA.

Here's an FBI document from the same week of the assassination in which FBI Director J Edgar Hoover briefed one "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency." Some strange coincidence there, wot?



Here's a transcript of the above:

Date: November 29, 1963

To: Director
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Department of State

From: John Edgar Hoover, Director

Subject: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
NOVEMBER 22, 1963

Our Miami, Florida, Office on November 23, 1963, advised that the Office of Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami advised that the Department of State feels some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in U. S. policy, which is not true.

Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matters in the Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy concerning Cuba, the feeling is that the President's death represents a great loss not only to the U. S. but to all of Latin America. These sources know of no plans for unauthorized action against Cuba.

An informant who has furnished reliable information in the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in Miami has advised that these individuals are afraid that the assassination of the President may result in strong repressive measures being taken against them and, although pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination.

The substance of the foregoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W. T. Forsyth of this Bureau.

# # #

I do remember that GHWB was head of the CIA when the Church Committee was looking into the CIA assassination programs. He made things all friendly-like and turned what had been a serious hunt for truth under previous DCI Colby into another dog-and-pony show that was big on show and light on facts.

Regarding Dallas: Now I don't know if Poppy was a trigger man, was only there to watch what happened or what just happened to be there. I do know Poppy Bush has never explained these memos. He's never even admitted where he was the day JFK was killed.

Seeing how he would go on to become President, as would his dim son, I believe it's vitally important that we learn the Truth.

Why? The United States and the world haven't been the same since November 22, 1963. And not a single major player in the nation's mass media have stepped up and demanded a real investigation. So, it's up to us, We the People.



Know what you mean about Camelot, bananarepublican.

The facts are there and a bit of analysis puts together a scary picture.

And thanks for giving a damn.

[sce56]

24. How about a picture of Poppy at the TSBD

[thingfisher]

29. ABSOFUCKINLUTELY!

[blm]

57. The good agents in the CIA finally started to rebel after 9-11 and Iraq opened some

eyes to the damage that BushInc was doing through their operatives within the CIA.

Too bad so many of the good ones were purged in Dec 2004 - Bush purged any agent even suspected of supporting Kerry, too.

[bobbolink]

8. "lobbyists are the ones who write legislation"

There are many priorities, and poverty is the most important to me, but this is something, out of all you've posted, that MUST be changed.

If it's not too late already. :(

Great thread, as always. :thumbsup:

[Octafish]

21. Laws for sale - Republicans in Congress let lobbyists write laws (Gareth Cook)

Problems we've always had, but in recent times, elected leaders who really want to do something about them are rare. From 1995:

Laws for sale - Republicans in Congress let lobbyists write laws

Gareth Cook
Washington Monthly July-August, 1995

Washington state's Republican Senator Slade Gorton was as eager as a six-year-old with a brand-new toy. The draft for a new Endangered Species Act had just been completed, and he wanted to introduce it on the floor of the Senate as soon as possible. But one Gorton aide advised caution. "It is important," she wrote in a memo, "that we have a better than adequate understanding of the bill prior to introduction.... The coalitions should have a section by section general summary of the draft bill together today."

The "coalitions" the aide referred to were a collection of industry groups--most notably paper and timber companies--that had much to gain from eviscerating the Act's protections. The reason the coalitions had the knowledge to provide summaries--and the reason the Senator did not have "a better than adequate understanding" of the bill--was that Gorton, who had received hefty campaign contributions from the coalitions, simply let them draft the new legislation themselves.

Such stories are becoming commonplace on Capitol Hill, prompting many to ask whether the Republicans are indeed living up to their promises. If the Republicans had a central message in the 1994 elections, it was this nugget of quasi-populism: It's time to throw the bums out and change the way Washington conducts its business. This broad-ranging philosophy, much more than the individual items of the Contract With America, was the GOP's true mandate. Polls show that most voters were not even familiar with the Contract's details. Rather, many were energized by the sense that Republicans would break through the partisan dams and challenge Washington's entrenched elite.

Even liberal commentators seemed ready to admit that the Republicans were delivering: congressional staff cut by a third; useless committees dropped; a legislative checklist completed. It is hard to recall a time when "Accountability" and "Responsibility," earnestly capitalized, were such popular words on Capitol Hill. Finally, proclaimed Republicans, the very culture of Washington was being changed.

But the Republicans' work on one of their top legislative priorities--the reform of government regulation--tells a very different story. From behind the Capitol's closed doors emerges a portrait of everything voters hate about Washington: special interests laying down fat campaign contributions to gain a Congressman's ear and, at times, his pen.

CONTINUED...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n7-8_v27/ai_17263138

Thanks for the kind words, bobbolink. Thanks also for giving a damn and being one of those who knows what needs to be done and is willing to do something about it.

[thingfisher]

30. Ah, to be a public servant these days!

You don't really know anything about the subject but you know the lobbyist who just promised a fat check for the warchest if you let him help you draft the legislation that you admit you don't know anything about. Why not. A win/win situation! After all these guys are in the business, who knows more about oh say energy than the "smartest guys in the room" from Enron? They will do the right thing!

You"re just doing your job, making sue that your constituent get the bebefit of your help in passing laws that the constituent himself was good enough and helpful enough to draft, thus guaranteeing legislation that will please the constituent.

[Swamp Rat]

9. Here ya go:

[Karenina]

12. EEEK!

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

14. Way'at dwalin'!!

:hug:

Yo, Ich gehe nach Spanien an einigen Tagen, dann nach Portugal... :bounce:

[Octafish]

22. Thassa thing of beauty, Swamp Rat.

The art, not the subject, I mean.

"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings."

-- John F. Kennedy

A bit more on the subject of America's Ruling Gangster Class:

"No man. No problem."

-- Joseph Stalin

Yes, Virginia and the Other 49, we live in gangster times.

It's my party and I'll spy if I want to

December 26, 2005
By Glen McAdoo
Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard (Nevada)

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so"- George W. Bush April 20, 2004.

At the very time of that statement, George W. Bush was personally overseeing wiretaps without any court orders.

For all of you who still claim this president doesn't lie, this must come as a shock. For the rest of us it just comes as another "we told you so." He admitted as much the other day when he vowed to continue the practice of spying on American citizens whom he suspects may have ties to Al Qaeda.

The problem is, who is deciding just what amounts to "ties to Al Qaeda?" Not the courts. George W. Bush is above the law. He and he alone will decide. Okay, he may consult with a crony or two. As Richard Nixon once said, "if the president does it, it can't be illegal." Right, George?

How times have changed. With a few exceptions, the most outspoken Republicans who were screaming for the head of Bill Clinton for lying about an extra-marital encounter, claiming no one was above the law, are singing a different tune now that it's their guy who seems to believe he is above the law.

CONTINUED...

http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20051226/Opinion/112260005

Maybe good ol' Bob Byrd will get some in Congress to notice.

IMPEACH BUSH: NO PRESIDENT IS ABOVE THE LAW, NOT IN CHILE, NOT IN THE U.S.

Bush’s Slippery Slope Leads To A Police State, Plain And Simple

(Dec. 21, 2005, Ed. Note: It is a sad state of affairs to have the President of the United States admit to the nation and to the world that he is spying on the citizens he is elected to safeguard.

It is worse to have the President aggressively justify his “big brother” politics in the name of an ill-begotten, counter-productive war on terrorism that, by his own admission, will go on for years and years and years. It would seem that George Orwell’s “1984” is now at hand; that Bush is aiming to outdo Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who also justified his assault on the human rights of Chileans in the higher name of a “war on terrorism.”

The slippery slope that Bush has embarked upon leads to a police state, plain and simple.

Bush argues that his powers as a president in “times of war” are plenary – that is, full, complete, without limit. Yet the very soul of a democracy is the equal powers that the three branches of government share, each serving as a counterweight to the messianic impulses that any one of the other branches might dare assume.

How can President Bush claim to want to instill a working democracy in Iraq, while at the same time violating our own U.S. laws, our own system of checks and balances? Terrorism is a serious risk to our nation, but a far greater threat is the centralization of American political power in the hands of any single branch of the government.

CONTINUED w Byrd's speech to the U.S. Senate...

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=10503&topic_id=1

Think! We live in a time when a newspaper in Chile has to remind America of the dangers of a CIA-induced dictatorship!

This isn't ironic. It's tragic. And that's the Truth.



Thanks for the wonderful work, Swamp Rat. Thanks also for your giving a damn. Things may yet go our way, as in Justice.

[formercia]

10. Pinochet and Poppy

both Knights of Malta.

Another thing to add in the power grab list was passing draconian copyright laws that prevent people from reverse engineering DRE software to determine if there was malfeasance.

[Octafish]

33. Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Who are these people? Well, first off, they love money.



And, they love power. Even if they have to pretend to worship a crazy monkey.

Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

by Bob Fitrakis
Published on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 by the Free Press, Columbus, Ohio

EXCERPT...

Many of Taft’s and President George W. Bush’s major donors, like Diebold’s current CEO Walden “Wally” O’Dell, reside in Columbus’ northwest suburb Upper Arlington. O’Dell is on record stating that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President” this year. On September 26, 2003, he hosted an Ohio Republican Party fundraiser for Bush’s re-election at his Cotswold Manor mansion. Tickets to the fundraiser cost $1000 per couple, but O’Dell’s fundraising letter urged those attending to “Donate or raise $10,000 for the Ohio Republican Party.”

SNIP...

In the early 1980s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS). California newspapers have long documented the Ahmanson family’s ties to right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles.

In 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported, “. . . primarily funded by evangelical Christians – particularly the wealthy Ahmanson family of Irvine – the institute’s $1-million annual program has produced 25 books, a stream of conferences and more than 100 fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral research.” The chief philanthropists of the Discovery Institute, that pushes creationist science and education in California, are Howard and Roberta Ahmanson.

According to Group Watch, in the 1980s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.

“On the right, figures such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson have given hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades to political projects both high (setting up the Heritage Foundation think-tank, the driving engine of the Reagan presidency) and low (bankrolling investigations into President Clinton’s sexual indiscretions and the suicide of the White House insider Vincent Foster),” wrote The Independent last November.

The Sunday Mail described an individual as, “. . . a fundamentalist Christian more in the mould of U.S. multi-millionaire Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who uses his fortune to promote so-called traditional family values . . . by waving fortunes under their noses, Ahmanson has the ability to cajole candidates into backing his right-wing Christian agenda.

SNIP...

In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a “stunning upset” by one Nebraska newspaper.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

Bob Fitrakis spoke up early in 2004 and no one in Corporate McPravda peeped squat one about it. Glad someone noticed, though, and was willing to stand up and be heard.

Death of a Patriot: No More 'Blind Faith Voting'

by Bob Fitrakis
Published on Wednesday, March 17, 2004 by the Free Press / Columbus, Ohio

The subject line on yesterday's email read: "Another mysterious accident solves a Bush problem. Athan Gibbs dead, Diebold lives." The attached news story briefly described the untimely Friday, March 12th death of perhaps America's most influential advocate of a verified voting paper trail in the era of touch screen computer voting. Gibbs, an accountant for more than 30 years and the inventor of the TruVote system, died when his vehicle collided with an 18-wheeled truck which rolled his Chevy Blazer several times and forced it over the highway retaining wall where it came to rest on its roof.

Coincidence theorists will simply dismiss the death of Gibbs as a tragic accident - the same conclusion these coincidence theorists came to when anti-nuclear activist Karen Silkwood died in November 1974 when her car struck a concrete embankment en route to a meeting with New York Times reporter David Burnham. Prominent independent investigators concluded that Silkwood's car was hit from behind and forced off the road. Silkwood was reportedly carrying documents that would expose illegal activities at the Kerr-McGee nuclear fuel plant. The FBI report found that she fell asleep at the wheel after overdosing on Quaaludes and that there never were any such files. A journalist secretly employed by the FBI, and a veteran of the Bureau's COINTELPRO operation against political activists, provided testimony for the FBI report.

Gibbs' death bears heightened scrutiny because of the way he lived his life after the 2000 Florida election debacle. I interviewed Athan Gibbs in January of this year. "I've been an accountant, an auditor, for more than thirty years. Electronic voting machines that don't supply a paper trail go against every principle of accounting and auditing that's being taught in American business schools," he insisted.

"These machines are set up to provide paper trails. No business in America would buy a machine that didn't provide a paper trail to audit and verify its transaction. Now, they want the people to purchase machines that you can't audit? It's absurd."

Gibbs was in Columbus, Ohio proudly displaying his TruVote machine that offered a "VVPAT, that's a voter verified paper audit trail" he noted.

Gibbs also suggested that I look into the "people behind the other machines." He offered that "Diebold and ES& S are real interesting and all Republicans. If you're an investigative reporter go ahead and investigate. You'll find some interesting material."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-02.htm

Mr. Gibbs perished in a car crash about then. An accident, I'm told.

Thank you, formercia. You and the other good people out of government service are the reason the people in government service -- those with power -- are on to the BFEE and their treasons. Thank goodness so many appreciate the Truth and the Constitution.

[formercia]

42. Some of us took our oath to the Constitution seriously

regardless of the consequences and many of those who did paid a terrible price for their loyalty.

Money is Power and Power in the hands of religious fanatics is a dangerous thing.

I appreciate how you feel about those of us who remained loyal to the Constitution and commend you for speaking for those who cannot speak or no longer have a voice to speak out.

[conscious evolution]

11. K & R

:kick:

[Octafish]

34. K Street Croupiers: How Two of Tom DeLay's Players Beat the House at the Grand Coushatta Casino

Lou DuBose pegged DeLay, Abramoff, Norquist and how the grease works right up to the puppet monkey.

K Street Croupiers

How Two of Tom DeLay's Players Beat the House at the Grand Coushatta Casino

BY LOU DUBOSE
Printed from http://www.texasobserver.org
© Texas Democracy Foundation

On May 9, 2001, Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff did President George W. Bush a small favor by directing a modest sum of money to Grover Norquist. Norquist was bringing a group of Republican state legislators to the White House to sell them Bush’s proposed tax cuts. He decided to use the event to make a little money for his organization, Americans for Tax Reform. So he had Abramoff ask two of his American Indian clients for $25,000 each for the privilege of meeting the president. This money ATR raised at the White House three years ago is a small part of a big scandal involving Abramoff, his partner Mike Scanlon, six Indian tribes, $66 million in questionable lobbying fees, and millions of dollars in political contributions.

Also entangled in the scandal is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose Washington “network” was offered to Indian casino clients by Abramoff and Scanlon, if the tribes would hire them. DeLay is the only member of Congress associated with Abramoff and Scanlon’s extensive casino tribe dealings. After DeLay used his leadership position to kill a bill that would have taxed Indian casinos, Abramoff and Scanlon used their access to “the Leader” to attract Indian casino clients. (Neither of the two men seemed to have any interest in Indian tribes that did not have casinos.) The Louisiana tribe that paid almost half of the lobbying fees collected by Abramoff and Scanlon contributed more to DeLay’s political action committee than they did to any other member of Congress in 2002. Because of his close ties with the two men, DeLay is the only member of Congress whose conduct has been questioned in an ongoing Senate committee investigation of the lobbying scandal. Other federal and state agencies are investigating the two men as well.

The Indian lobby fee story moved DeLay toward center stage in the Senate shortly after three of his fund-raisers were indicted in Austin and he himself was handed three separate admonishments by the House Ethics Committee for transgressions unrelated to Abramoff and Scanlon. So for DeLay, who is lawyered up and nervously watching a grand jury in Austin, Abramoff and Scanlon represent a third front in what now seems like an endless war over ethical and legal questions involving his fund-raising operations.

The paper trail that leads from Norquist’s office to the Coushatta Nation and to the White House illustrates how easily Abramoff and Scanlon extracted money from clients who were flush with casino cash and convinced that any political contributions the Washington lobbyists suggested, and the outrageous fees they charged, would serve the tribes’ interests. Norquist is the brains and muscle behind the policy of a Republican House defined by the “Class of 94,” which made Newt Gingrich speaker and elected DeLay whip. By the time George W. Bush took his constitutional oath in January 2001, Norquist’s weekly meetings between lobbyists and congressional staffers implementing the Gingrich-DeLay revolution were an extension of the permanent Republican government in Washington. He was also overseeing the K Street Project, a DeLay operation which ensures that only Republicans are hired for high-paying jobs on K Street—the D.C. strip of lobby shops, trade associations, and law firms. He was the most powerful policy advocate in Washington in 2001 and still is today.

Norquist’s discreet approach to the Indian tribal leaders provides rare insight into the elaborate lobbying and fund-raising machine that American Enterprise Institute congressional scholar Norm Ornstein describes as a modern-day Tammany Hall: a pay-to-play operation that moves congressional Republicans into high-paying lobby jobs and then requires them to contribute to the party and its various ancillary groups. While Abramoff and Scanlon enriched themselves, they never forgot who provided them their opportunity to plunder. Both men gave lavishly to Republican PACs and candidates. Abramoff, for example, was a Bush Pioneer, raising $100,000 for the 2004 presidential campaign while giving $40,000 to DeLay’s PACs. Before he was run off the reservation, Abramoff was ranked 93rd nationally among Republican Party donors. Scanlon, only a few years after he finished paying off his college loans, contributed $500,000 to the Republican Governors’ Association—the single largest donation it received in 2002. The influence the two men wielded in Republican circles was further leveraged by the money they persuaded their Indian clients to contribute.

For his go-between with the Indians in the spring of 2001, Norquist logically turned to Abramoff. At Norquist’s request, Abramoff went to the tiny Louisiana Indian tribe that was his most lucrative account and asked for the $25,000 contribution that would also serve as a ticket into the White House. (Abramoff made the pitch to at least one other tribe as well.) For Chief Lovelin Poncho of the Coushattas, $25,000 was a small request from his go-to guy in Washington. But it was part of a process by which Abramoff and his partner Mike Scanlon moved huge sums of Indian money to political candidates, political action committees, and pet charities—and to shadowy businesses and nonprofits from which the two men profited enormously. That process, and Abramoff and Scanlon’s three-year run as the top-grossing Indian consultants in the country, is currently under investigation by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, a federal grand jury, the IRS, the Department of the Interior, and the FBI.

The $25,000 contribution that served as Chief Lovelin Poncho’s ticket to a meeting with George W. Bush also served to answer the questions that North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad asked at the first Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on September 29:

“What was the representation to the tribe of what their benefit would be from a contribution to the Capital Athletic Foundation, or to the Americans for Tax Reform for that matter? I mean, I’m trying to understand what the origin was so I can ask who made what representations about this.”

“Was the request from Mr. Norquist?”

“Was the request from Abramoff?”

CONTINUED...

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1800

Thanks for the kick to the pants of the BFEE, conscious evolution. They can't stop all of us.

[H2O Man]

13. Re; Democracy ....

"That consensus has been upset by the emergence of democracy. ... The reactions of people of faith to this tendency to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it but resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."
-- Justice Scalia; January 2002 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

[bobbolink]

23. Between you and Octafish, I"m in tears.

I miss my country.

:cry:

Sometimes it's all too horrible to contemplate, and this is one of those times.

Bless you for forging ahead! :pals:

yer pooped friend....

[Octafish]

35. The Rumseld of the Supreme Court: The Law is What I Say It Is

Before all the torture stuff became known, professor Cassel was able to connect the dots...

Scalia: The Law is What I Say It Is

The Rumseld of the Supreme Court

By ELAINE CASSEL
CounterPunch June 17, 2003

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court made a sensible ruling, limiting when a criminal defendant could be forced to take psychotropic medications so that he or she could be tried. The case involved a nonviolent crime in which the defendant posed no danger to society or himself. The Court ruled that in such a case, a trial judge must make a finding that the drugs are medically necessary, will render the defendant competent to be tried, and that methods other than drugs are not readily available to achieve the same purpose.

Justice Scalia stuck to his usual style in his dissent--insult his colleagues who ruled in the majority, parody the issue, and engage in what Donald Rumseld refers to as "henny, penny, the sky is falling" rhetoric. Scalia said, in effect, now look what you've gone and done. Next thing you know a defendant will want to stop the trial and appeal because he can't wear his favorite t-shirt to his trial. Worse, Scalia said, some courts will take today's ruling seriously, and abide by it.

That sentiment really bothered me, given that we are supposed to do what the Supreme Court says. I mean, Florida stopped counting the votes, right? I think that Scalia probably only respects the law that goes his way, suggesting that he is in some early-childhood state of moral development. That the law should be obeyed because it is the law seems to be lost on him.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel06172003.html

Thanks for caring, H20 Man. The Good Lord's given us a real chance to rid our nation of these, um, traitors.

[me b zola]

40. IMO, that statement alone should be enough to impeach Scalia

Here is a man serving on the highest court in a nation built not upon men nor religion but laws, and he is advocating that there is something above the law?

I long for the day when rational thinking returns and pigs like Scalia will not be allowed to hold such a noble postition as they use the Constitution to wipe their ass with.

Makes me love Colbert even more for calling out the pig Scalia @ the WH press shin-dig. :loveya:

[H2O Man]

43. That statement

clearly disqualifies him from being able to be an advocate for the Bill of Rights.

It got enough "press" at the time that he began to avoid speaking his mind in public, where he could be quoted.

[leftchick]

15. outstanding octafish!

:hi:

[Octafish]

37. The Bush Family: A Continuing Criminal Enterprise?

Professor Potter's got them pegged, those gangsters who helped rip off thousands of America's S&Ls, the Bushes.

The Bush Family: A Continuing Criminal Enterprise?

Gary W. Potter, PhD.
Professor, Criminal Justice
Eastern Kentucky University

The S&Ls, the Mob and the Bushs

During the 1980's hundred of Savings and Loan Banks failed. Those bank failures cost U.S. taxpayers over $500 billion to cover federally insured losses, and much more to investigate the bank failures (Pizzo, Fricker, and Muolo, 1989; Brewton, 1992; Johnston, 1990). More than 75% of the Savings and Loan insolvencies where directly linked to serious and often criminal misconduct by senior financial insiders (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 305). In fact, less than 10 percent of bank failures are related to economic conditions, the rest are caused by mismanagement or criminal conduct (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 305).

A good example of the Savings and Loan failures can be found in the activities of Mario Renda, a Savings and Loan insider who often worked in close collaboration with organized crime (Pizzo, Fricker and Muolo, 1989: 123-126;302). Renda served as a middle man in arranging about $5 billion a year in deposits into 130 Savings and Loans, all of which failed (Kwitny, 1992: 27). Many of these deposits were made contingent on an agreement that the Savings and Loan involved would lend money to borrowers recommended by Renda, many of whom were organized crime figures or people entirely unknown to the banking institution involved (Kwitny, 1992: 27).

Equally good examples of financial misconduct in the Savings and Loan scandal is found in the activities of the Bush family. In some cases Bush family members helped skim Savings and Loan funds which were delivered to outsiders as a part of deals involving lucrative payoffs to bank directors. In other cases, members of the Bush family intervened to influence decisions involving highly speculative and unsound investments involving loans that would not be repaid if the venture was not profitable. And finally, the Bush family’s political connection served to protect those guilty of misconduct in the Savings and Loan scandal (Kwitny, 1992: 24).

Neil Bush: Taking Down Silverado

In 1990 federal bank regulators filed a $200 million lawsuit against the officers of Silverado Banking, including Neil Bush, brother of the current President. The lawsuit accused them of gross negligence which resulted in a loss of $1 billion by Silverado and the bank’s ultimate collapse (Los Angeles Times, 1990). According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: “Our conclusion is that Silverado was the victim of sophisticated schemes and abuses by insiders and of gross negligence by its directors and outside professionals” (Johnston, 1990). Neil Bush was reprimanded by the Office of Thrift Supervision for pervasive conflicts of interest while serving as a paid director of the bank Of particular concern was his role in a serious of loans totaling $132 million from the bank to two businessmen, Bill Walters and Kenneth Good (Los Angeles Times, 1990: 1; Isikoff, 1992: A1). Walters and Good, after securing the loans from Silverado, lent Neil Bush $100,000 and later forgave the loan entirely. In addition, Walters and Good owned a company which paid $550,000 in salaries to Neil Bush (Los Angeles Times, 1990: 1; Isikoff, 1992: A1). In the end Walters and Good lost a total of $330 million loaned to them by Silverado. They also received instructions from a member of Silrverado’s board of directors on the establishment of family trusts to prevent the government from seizing the money they owed the bank (Kwitny, 1992: 32). The shutdown of Silverado was postponed from October to December 1988 so that it would happen after President Bush, Sr.’s election campaign had ended. Neil Bush had to pay only $50,000 to settle the federal lawsuit against him and he was able to avoid any legal costs because a senior banking industry lobbyist formed a legal defense fund to pay the legal costs (Fritz, 1992).

Neil Bush also profited enormously from another company on verge of bankruptcy. Apex Energy paid him over $2000,000 in salary and oil deed compensation payments while teetering on the edge of bankruptcy (Failing firm paid Neil Bush big salary, 1992).

CONTINUED MUST DOWNLOAD AND SPREAD...

http://critcrim.org/critpapers/potter.htm

Thank you leftchick for caring and all you do.
We're seeing it move.
We're seeing it move.

[Initech]

39. Holy crap, the entire family is just as corrupt as he is!

[Gregorian]

16. Highly enlightening review.

This thread leaves me with a thought. And like this thread, the thought is not new. But a slightly different angle.

America is democracy at war.

Sadly, there is no fight left in Americans. And no information to give them reason to fight. Bread and circuses.

If ever there were a time to be worried, it's...all of the time.

[Octafish]

44. America's been pretty much at war 24/7 since 22 November 1963.

And because he stood up and said "No!" to war -- first during the Bay of Pigs disaster, then during the Cuban Missile Crisis and later when he decided to pull all US forces (combat advisors, at the time) out of Vietnam -- for that, the War Party killed President John F. Kennedy.

So, today, Bush and his sick turd cronies want more than anything to make money and gain power off of war.

They say it's not the killing part that gets them off. We only need to read what Libby wrote about big bears and little girls and you know they are truly twisted nutjobs to a man.

Regarding out nation's forgotten history:

During Vietnam:



Averell Harriman, business associate of Prescott Bush (a Senator, father and grandfather to the two presidents Bush), was the catalyst for America’s involvement in the disastrous Vietnam War. The historical record shows Harriman OK'd the assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem. America's right wing has long-tried to smear President John F. Kennedy for that murder.

Today, we can see it for what it was:

Harriman Bush Yakuza

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest?

From The Secret History of the CIA by Joseph Trento

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.”

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.”

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Saigon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance.

SOURCE:

“The Secret History of the CIA.” Joseph Trento. 2001, Prima Publishing. pp. 334-335.

Thank you for understanding the picture and thus my rationale, Gregorian.
It amazes me that so few Americans understand how they've become conditioned to a steady-state of war.
If enough people know what these turds are about, the better chance we have of putting an end to their War Party.

[Gregorian]

46. Thank you for sharing your research.

I'm only beginning to understand the politics, now. And even though I am 50, some of the references in your post have me running to keep up. Some people are better at retaining facts, and learning them in the first place.

My understanding of why these things happen is due to my experience as an engineer. When one understands what it takes to make the modern society work, and the thermodynamics of it all, it becomes obvious. It's interesting that I arrived at my understanding from that facet of things.

But now I am six years into an intense education on the political machinery, and what makes it run. And so the two facets become part of one object.

However, there are many roadblocks to understanding. Not the least is that this is ugly stuff. And it's hard work. Without kids, and without a job, I have had free time to delve into this. And even then, only with the help of people such as you. And to top it off, I'm a Democrat. So I think it isn't too surprising that Americans don't get this stuff. Europeans got it first hand. They get it. Plus their educational system is better. Not to mention their media.



We can stop this mess. Our numbers are large. Like the Grannies who plan to hit up the Senate on Jan. 18th, we can stop the invasion of Iran. We can get them out of Iraq. I may be naive, but I don't think it's a far fetched dream.

[BillORightsMan]

17. Kissinger on Laws

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
-- Henry Kissinger, New York Times, Oct. 28, 1973

30+ years later it looks like they're on the brink of UNCONSTITUTIONAL right now.

:patriot:

[Octafish]

45. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Henry Kissinger (Barbara O'Brien DU)

Thassa great quote, BillORightsMan.

DU's had the dark-hearted scut pegged for a long time...

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know
About Henry Kissinger

By Barbara O'Brien, Democratic Underground

Just when you thought George W. Bush couldn't get more outrageous, he appoints Henry Kissinger to head the "independent" September 11 investigation.

Julian Borger writes in The Guardian that Americans reacted to this appointment with "relief mixed with nostalgic affection," while Europeans were surprised to learn Kissinger was not dead or in jail.

I knew he was not dead or in jail. But to this American, having him back in government is like finding maggots in a sandwich.

Henry Kissinger: International Man of Mystery

Kissinger was Richard Nixon's national security advisor and, later, secretary of state for Nixon and Gerald Ford. He helped Nixon concentrate power in the White House by excluding Congress and professional diplomats from the conduct of foreign policy. He was a "lone ranger" of world affairs, traveling the globe, conducting secret meetings and covert operations with little oversight.

He scored some remarkable successes; for example, a secret trip to Beijing in 1971 paved the way for Nixon's famous visit to China in 1972. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 (shared with Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam) for the negotiations that eventually ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam. After the 1973 Middle East war Kissinger negotiated disengagement agreements that separated Israeli and Arab armies.

However, let's not forget that Kissinger and Nixon were responsible for widening the Vietnam War into Cambodia.

Let's not forget that Kissinger ordered the FBI to tap the telephones of subordinates on the staff of the National Security Council.

Let's not forget the covert actions that led to the overthrow of socialist President Salvador Allende of Chile and the ascension of the oppressive Augusto Pinochet.

Let's not forget East Timor. During a state visit to Jakarta in 1975, Kissinger gave a "green light" to the Indonesian dictator Suharto to invade East Timor. Less than a day after Kissinger and President Gerald Ford left Jakarta, Suharto's troops began their assault. According to Christopher Hitchens, a quarter of a million Timorese died as a result of the occupation by Indonesia.

Kissinger left government service at the end of the Ford Administration, but was called upon by Ronald Reagan in 1983 to head the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America, just in time for the Iran-Contra scheme. From 1984-1990 he served as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Although there is no "smoking gun" evidence directly connecting Kissinger to Iran-Contra, Kissinger's long-time associate and protége John Negroponte - now ambassador to the UN - was in the thick of it.

Kissinger is associated with the word "Realpolitik," which means politics or national policy governed by principles of power, expansion, and expediency rather than by ideals or ethics. It's a policy favored by powerful people interested in hanging on to their power. However, in the long run it does more harm than good.

"Previous Kissingerian forays into realpolitik have placed the US into some of history's ugliest footnotes: support for the intemperate Shah of Iran; the bombing of civilians in Vietnam and ultimate destabilization of Southeast Asia; kidnap, murder, assassination, and coup in Chile; the liquidation of hundreds of thousands of 'leftists' in Indonesia; a coup in Guatemala that led to four decades of mayhem and butchery; legally dubious escapades in Nicaragua; complicity in the slaughter of uncountable Catholic laypeople, clergy, and religious in El Salvador; support of Saddam Hussein as a balance against Iran, followed by a war against an overly ambitious Hussein, culminating in the shameful abandonment of Kurds and Shiites foolish enough to join a U.S.-instigated uprising.

"Some of these adventures, such as US flirtation with Kurdish nationalists, can only be called cynical and cruel. What typifies virtually all of the others, besides the almost incomprehensible brutality visited upon the world's most vulnerable people, is their consistent failure. In the long term, none of these realpolitik-inspired interventions can be said to have achieved their purported or even unspoken goals."

Kevin Clarke, "Realpolitik Redux," U.S. Catholic, January 2002


More Blasts from the Past

Kissinger founded the New York-based consulting firm Kissinger Associates in 1982, a year before accepting the position as head of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America. And, beginning in 1986, Kissinger Associates became entangled with the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

BCCI was a Pakistani-managed, Middle East-financed bank with branches in 70 countries. In a nutshell, BCCI's purpose was "stealing very large amounts of money and using it for a multitude of illegal purposes, perverting governments, corrupting politicians, corrupting regulators, corrupting bank regulators," according to Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Truell.

In 1986-1989, BCCI initiated a series of contacts with Kissinger Associates. Over several months, representatives of BCCI and representatives of Kissinger Associates explored the possibilities for joint projects. Following BCCI's indictment in 1988, representatives continued to meet to discuss how Kissinger Associates might help BCCI respond to the indictment. Kissinger ended these discussions in 1989, according to Kissinger.

BCCI itself may not have become a client of Kissinger Associates. However, a congressional investigation found that BCCI's secretly owned affiliate, the National Bank of Georgia, was.

"The committee has obtained documents showing that the former president of the National Bank of Georgia, Mr. Roy Carlson, received a briefing from Mr. Kissinger. Mr. Carlson's expense report from July 1986 states, `Briefing Session Dr. Henry Kissinger.'

"As Mr. Stoga<*> stated, Kissinger Associates does not give free advice. The National Bank of Georgia therefore must have been a client of Kissinger Associates. After all, Mr. Kissinger knew Ghaith Pharoan's<**> father, an adviser to Saudi royal family, and he knew Ghaith Pharoan for many years." (Congressman Henry Gonzalez, Texas, Congressional Record, House of Representatives, April 28, 1992, Page: H2694-H2702)

(* Alan Stoga was chief economist at Kissinger Associates)
(** Ghaith Pharoan owned National Bank of Georgia)


Worse, another Kissinger Associate client, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro , connect Kissinger to Saddam Hussein.

Here is more from Congressman's Gonzalez's testimony to the House:

"Several former employees of the Atlanta branch of BNL conspired to provide the Government of Iraq with over $4 billion in unreported loans between 1985 and 1990. They accomplished this massive fraud by keeping a secret set of accounting records that concealed the over $4 billion in loans to Iraq.

...To date, several of the former employees have pleaded guilty to the conspiracy and signing false financial statements. The former manager of BNL, Chris Drogoul, goes to trial on June 2. He claims that the BNL management in Rome was aware of the loans to Iraq and the United States and Italian Governments should have been aware of the loans.

"The $4 billion plus in BNL loans to Iraq between 1985 and 1990 were crucial to Iraqi efforts to feed its people and to build weapons of mass destruction. In addition, the BNL loans were crucial to Reagan and Bush administration efforts to assist Saddam Hussein. ...

"The procurement network, which operated through front companies situated in Europe and the United States, used the BNL loans to supply Iraqi missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs with industrial goods such as computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods....

"Several of BNL's high level friends in the United States should have been aware of the BNL loans to Iraq. The high level patrons that I am referring to are Henry Kissinger, and his Kissinger Associates compadres, Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger." (Gonzalez, ibid.)

Note that Kissinger was a paid member of BNL's advisory board.

© Democratic Underground, LLC

Source with loads o' links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/12/04_henry.html

Thanks for understanding, BillORightsMan.

[wildbilln864]

52. and here's another...

quote from Mr. K:

"American soldiers are dumb animals to be used in the furtherance of 'our' foreign policy. Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or 'promulgated,' that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this 'scenario', individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government. NAFTA is a major stepping stone to the New World Order."
-Austrian Jewish Dr. Heinz "Henry" Kissinger Communist recruiter of NAZI warcriminals to USA in Pentagon/CIA/NASA Operation PAPERCLIP, indicted warcriminal, picked by Resident George Bush Jr to control the Presidential Commission self-investigation of the terror massacres on 9-11-2001 http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2005/06/246400.shtml

[Kurovski]

18. Kick and recommend. (nt)

[Octafish]

48. The Last Man of the Junta: An Open Letter to Kissinger from One of Pinochet's Political Prisoners

Thanks for the kick to the pants of the BFEE, Kurovski.

The Last Man of the Junta: An Open Letter to Henry Kissinger from One of Pinochet's Political Prisoners

by Fernando A. Torres

Global Research, December 18, 2006
CounterPunch.org

All of the original members of the military junta that overthrew Allende and his government with the knowledge and the direct support of the US government, are now gone.

Nixon is gone and Kissinger is left alone on this earth.

Now we will never know the number of secrets or the details that they took to their graves with them. Nor will we ever know the whereabouts of the missing ones--- every single one of them. I also wonder if justice will prevail and will catch up with Kissinger, the last man of the Junta? F.T.

"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." - Henry Kissinger

An open letter to Henry Kissinger

I was not an "irresponsible" Chilean sir, but I did pay the heavy price of your words.

Mr. Henry Kissinger Kissinger Associates. New York

I do remember your reprimand to Chileans when they elected socialist Salvador Allende in 1970: "We cannot allow a country to go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible"

Although we were used to this kind of rhetoric coming out from the White House those years, we couldn't imagine that those opprobrious words of yours would eventually seal the future of Chile in one of the most horrendous episodes in Latin America's history. Yes, I can say we underestimated you sir.

Bombs falling from the skies, towers and buildings destroyed, hundreds of people butchered. Thousands missing and soccer stadiums converted into concentrations camps. Do you remember this, your own 9/11?

Since day one; since before Allende was ratified by Chilean parliament as its legitimate President, you, Secretary of Sate and National Security Advisor, Mr. Kissinger, were plotting the overthrow of Allende. You conjured up the assassination of General Rene Schneider -- who supported the Chilean Constitution -- to provoke an early military coup.

You plotted a "two track" policy toward this small country aimed, on the one hand, to isolate Allende internationally and, on the other (more dirty) hand, to provoked a military coup through assassinations, political subversion and economic sabotage.

Your goal, Mr. Kissinger, in uniting military leaders in neighboring countries to pressure Chile, later became "Operation Condor", which was the coordination of the secret political police forces to carry out exchange of information and prisoners, kidnappings, torture, and political assassination such as the one against Orlando Letelier and his aide Ronni Moffit carried out in Washington DC by Chilean and Cuban terrorists lead by CIA agents Michael Townley and Novo Sampol .

You, Mr. Kissinger, and Nixon lied to Congress, given misleading information and assuring the US played no role in Chile's democracy deceased. You may know that at the time there was no danger of the elusive "weapons of mass destruction" but the "danger" of the spread of communism in the southern cone. You believed Chile's "irresponsible" people were prescribing a wrong example; Chile was a dangerous "dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica," as you put it. A dagger that needs to be removed at any cost. Allende must be stopped even at the expense of democracy itself.

Because 9/11/1973 is of your absolute responsibility Mr. Kissinger, we the "irresponsible" people of Chile are naming you the Chilean version of Osama Bin laden, to say the least.

Mr. Kissinger, I was not an "irresponsible" Chilean because I was a 14 year old kid that couldn't vote, but I did have to fully pay the heavy and bloody price of your words, sir. However thinking about your role not only in Chile but in Indochina, East Timor, Cyprus, your betrayal of the Kurds in Iraq, your unconditional support of South Africa's Apartheid, etc. etc., I can say something you cannot: my hands are clean.

Sincerely

Fernando A. Torres

Fernando A. Torres was a political prisoner in Chile when he was sent to exile in 1977. He is now a freelance journalist

SOURCE (with permission to printe above in its entirety):

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=TOR20061218&articleId=4187

May we never forget those who've lost their freedom and their lives simply for how they believed or spoke or voted.

Thanks also for giving a damn, Kurovski.

[wildbilln864]

20. excellent post as usual Octafish!

Keep up the good fight.
:hi:

[Octafish]

49. CIA flights likened to the work of gangsters

From people who give a damn about the fascist gang that's hijacked the United States of America:

CIA flights likened to the work of gangsters

By Stephen Castle in Strasbourg
Published: 25 January 2006

The United States was accused of "gangster tactics" yesterday, and European governments were accused of turning a blind eye to the "outsourcing of torture", as a human rights watchdog concluded that the CIA conducted illegal anti-terror activities in Europe.

Dick Marty, a Swiss parliamentarian conducting a formal inquiry, said evidence pointed to a system of "relocation" of torture of terror suspects, and that reliable indications suggested secret interrogation centres may have existed in Europe.

The document highlighted cases under legal investigation in Europe involving an Egyptian cleric, Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who disappeared from Milan in 2003, and a Lebanese-born German, Khaled el-Masri, who was abducted in Macedonia last year and flown to Afghanistan where he was held for four months.

Mr Marty said he was "scandalised that a few kilometres from where I live people can be lifted by foreign governments. When someone goes on holiday in Macedonia they are lifted by foreign agents."

He added: "If a government has to resort to gangster tactics - I say 'no'."

Speaking to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, the continent's main human rights watchdog, Mr Marty revealed he had received flight logs, archived by the Brussels-based air safety organisation Eurocontrol, that could show the route of CIA-sponsored flights.

CONTINUED...

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article340818.ece

Thanks, wildbilln864. Truly appreciate your Friendship and everything else!

[hootinholler]

25. "For peace-loving people, the only real weapon is Truth."

Rec'd for that sentence alone. Great post again Der Fishy.

-Hoot

[Octafish]

50. Gangster Government

We live in interesting times, Hoot-san.

GANGSTER GOVERNMENT:

A LEAKY PRESIDENT RUNS AFOUL OF 'LITTLE RICO'

by Greg Palast, Buzzflash: Sunday, April 9, 2006

It's a crime. No kidding. But the media has it all wrong. As usual.

'Scooter' Libby finally outed 'Mr. Big,' the perpetrator of the heinous disclosure of the name of secret agent Valerie Plame. It was the President of United States himself -- in conspiracy with his Vice-President. Now the pundits are arguing over whether our war-a-holic President had the legal right to leak this national security information. But, that's a fake debate meant to distract you.

OK, let's accept the White House alibi that releasing Plame's identity was no crime. But if that's true, they've committed a BIGGER crime: Bush and Cheney knowingly withheld vital information from a grand jury investigation, a multimillion dollar inquiry the perps themselves authorized. That's akin to calling in a false fire alarm or calling the cops for a burglary that never happened -- but far, far worse. Let's not forget that in the hunt for the perpetrator of this non-crime, reporter Judith Miller went to jail.

Think about that. While Miller sat in a prison cell, Bush and Cheney were laughing their sick heads off, knowing the grand jury testimony, the special prosecutor's subpoenas and the FBI's terrorizing newsrooms were nothing but fake props in Bush's elaborate charade, Cheney's Big Con.

On February 10, 2004, our not-so-dumb-as-he-sounds President stated, "Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing. ...And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it."

SNIP...

Why'd they do it? The White House junta did the deed for the most evil of motives: to hoodwink the public during the 2004 election campaign, to pretend that evil anti-Bush elements were undermining the Republic, when it was the Bush element itself at the center of the conspiracy. (Notably, elections trickery also motivated Richard Nixon's "plumbers" to break into the Watergate, then the Democratic Party campaign headquarters.)

Let me draft the indictment for you as I would have were I still a government gumshoe:

"Perpetrator Lewis Libby (alias, 'Scooter') contacted Miller; while John Doe 1 contacted perpetrators' shill at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, in furtherance of a scheme directed by George Bush (alias 'The POTUS') and Dick Cheney (alias, 'The Veep') to release intelligence information fraudulently proffered as 'classified,' and thereinafter, knowingly withheld material evidence from a grand jury empanelled to investigate said disclosure. Furthermore, perpetrator 'The POTUS' made material statements designed to deceive investigators and knowingly misrepresent his state of knowledge of the facts."

CONTINUED...

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/20/2006/1918

Thanks, hootinholler, for your friendship and for every thing.
We got these turds on the run.
Who knows?
We may still see them -- all of them -- busted and put behind bars.

[bleever]

26. Thank you for your work, Octafish. May we see

the dawning of a new age of questioning, in which so many lies of today and yesterday become exposed.

[Octafish]

51. Secret Government & Continuity of GOP-vernment

Remember after 9-11, how the only ones hustled away to safety at the undisclosed secret locations for "Continuity Of Government" were Repukes?

That's un-American, let alone un-democratic.

The Single Party System

By Robert Manis, March 5, 2002, "The Manis Report"

Let’s get one thing straight: The Bush “Continuity of Government” plan, less charitably known as the “Shadow Government” was designed to keep Republicans alone alive.

According to the Associated Press today (March 5), “President Bush’s spokesman disputed complaints from lawmakers who said they were not informed that the administration had established a ‘shadow government’ outside Washington in case nuclear-armed terrorists strike the nation's capital.”

On Sunday March 3, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Democrat, said he wanted Bush to keep congressional leaders better informed about the war on terrorism and the shadow government, saying no lawmakers knew about the continuity of government plan.

This was spokesman Ari Fleischer’s response, according to the AP: “Fleischer said ‘the appropriate people’ on Capitol Hill knew of the plan. ‘I cannot speak to how Congress fully informs itself. I'm confident and the president is confident that when people pause and talk to each other on the Hill’ they will discover who was told of the administration's plan.”

This is laughable. Congress does not "inform itself". Someone, somehow, must inform it.

One thing is already clear though: The ranking Democrat, the Senate Majority leader, the second most important person in Congress was NOT informed. Who, if anyone, was? Apparently no Democrats. If there WERE Democrats who were told, who were they?

CONTINUED...

http://www-earth.tripod.com/asingleparty.html

You're welcome, bleever. Thank you for all you do and thanks for your Friendship.

[cosmicdot]

27. and, the Honorary Chair of the Nixon Center's Board

of Directors is Henry K himself ... they HONOR him ... and, look who all love hanging at the Nixon Center and its ilk ... oh, look, there's LIEberBu$h and that Lee Hamilton who helps cover up BFEE crimes and treason ...

... if we could retire from public disservice much of this group, the Council for National Policy, the Council for Foreign Relations, the Heritage and Hoover Institutions, and a few other prominent <cough> "non-partisan" think tanks (the so-called 'TPTB' - the powers that be or 'ARGC' - America's Ruling Gangster Class ... we might be able to make some progress in this country and world ... these people are in it for the corporate and personal profiting, not the people ... not peace nor democracy.


K&R: A great holiday present from Octafish. Thank you for your contributions.


Board of Directors

Honorary Chairman: Henry A. Kissinger

Chairman: Maurice R. Greenberg
Dwayne O. Andreas
Jeffrey L. Bewkes
Conrad M. Black
Charles G. Boyd
Tricia Nixon Cox
Julie Nixon Eisenhower
Robert F. Ellsworth (Vice Chairman)
Leslie H. Gelb
Henry A. Kissinger
Eugene K. Lawson
Joseph I. Lieberman
John McCain
Lionel H. Olmer
Peter G. Peterson
Richard Plepler
Pat Roberts
James Schlesinger
Brent Scowcroft
J. Robinson West
Dimitri K. Simes, Center President (Ex Officio)
John H. Taylor, Executive Director of Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation (Ex Officio)

Advisory Council
Chairman: James Schlesinger
David Abshire
Richard V. Allen
Christopher Cox
John Deutch
David Eisenhower
Susan Eisenhower
Evan G. Greenberg
Lee H. Hamilton
Rita E. Hauser
Josef Joffe
Donald M. Kendall
Peter Kovler
Charles Krauthammer
Robert C. McFarlane
Janne Nolan
Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Alexei K. Pushkov
John E. Rielly
Peter R. Rosenblatt
William V. Roth, Jr.
Thomas A. Russo
Angela Stent
Marin Strmecki
Yuli Vorontsov

http://web.archive.org/web/20050205063607/www.nixoncenter.org/boardac.htm

http://tinyurl.com/pubbw

[cosmicdot]

32. Poppy's Library's Trustees

more of America's Gangster Ruling Class (BFEE connections)

it's a small world after all

Don A. Adam
Bryan, Texas

Robert B. Holt
Midland, Texas*

Joe L. Allbritton
Washington, D. C.

Carl H. Lindner, III
Cincinnati, Ohio

Hushang Ansary
Houston, Texas

Ray L. Hunt
Dallas, Texas

Thomas Ludlow Ashley
Leland, Michigan*

Donald M. Kendall
Purchase, New York

Dexter F. Baker
Allentown, Pennsylvania (Emeritus)

Dorothy Bush Koch
Bethesda, Maryland*

James A. Baker, III
Houston, Texas

Terri Lacy
Houston, Texas*

Sam Bamieh
San Mateo, California

Jack Laughery
Rocky Mount, North Carolina

Bruce Benson
Denver, Colorado

John H. Lindsey
Houston, Texas*

Jack S. Blanton, Sr.
Houston, Texas

John D. Macomber
Washington, D.C.

Katherine E. Boyd
Hillsborough, California

Cary M. Maguire
Dallas, Texas

Nicholas F. Brady
Easton, Maryland

Frederic V. Malek (google his name with Richard Nixon to see what his assignment was)
Washington, D.C.

Daniel B. Burke
Rye, New York

Donald B. Marron
New York, New York

Jonathan J. Bush
New Haven, Connecticut

Lynn M. Martin
Chicago, Illinois

Marvin Bush
McLean, Virginia

Louis Marx, Jr.
New York, New York

Neil M. Bush
Austin, Texas

Elvis L. Mason
Dallas, Texas (Emeritus)

William H. T. Bush
Saint Louis, Missouri

Frederick D. McClure
Washington, D.C.*

Jeb Bush
Tallahassee, Florida*

William A. McKenzie
Dallas, Texas

Prescott S. Bush, Jr.
Greenwich, Connecticut

Robert S. Strauss - FORMER DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIRMAN! EMERITUS member!
Washington, D.C. (Emeritus)

John T. Cater
Houston, Texas (Emeritus)

Robert Mosbacher <-------- so many names in this list ring bells
Houston, Texas

James W. Cicconi
Washington, D.C.*

William P. Moss
Dallas, Texas

William P. Clements
Dallas, Texas

Brian Mulroney - former PM of Canada; Barrick Gold advisor
Quebec, Canada (Honorary)

Tony Coelho
Arlington, Virginia

Edward N. Ney
New York, New York

Lodwrick Cook
Sherman Oaks, California*

Gerald L. Parsky
Los Angeles, California

Dan W. Cook, III
Dallas, Texas

Dan Quayle - gee, I thought potato'e' head was from Indiana
Scottsdale, Arizona (Honorary)

Edwin L. Cox
Dallas, Texas

Sigmund A. Rogich
Las Vegas, Nevada

Mr. & Mrs. Earle M. Craig, Jr.
Midland, Texas (Emeritus)

Susan Porter Rose
McLean, Virginia

Harlan Crow
Dallas, Texas

Jin Roy Ryu
Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Trammell Crow
Dallas, Texas

William A. Schreyer
Plainsboro, New Jersey

Walter J. P. Curley
New York, New York

Arnold A. Schwarzenegger
Santa Monica, California

Barbara F. Daniel-Hetherington
Houston, Texas

Brent Scowcroft (shows up in a lot of places)
Washington, D.C.*

Robert A. Day
Los Angeles, California

Peter Secchia
Grand Rapids, Michigan

William H. Draper, III
Atherton, California (Emeritus)

Melvin F. Sembler
Saint Petersburg, Florida

Archie W. Dunham
Houston, Texas

Samuel K. Skinner
Winnetta, Illinois

Nancy Ellis
Boston, Massachusetts

Joshua Smith
North Bethesda, Maryland

William Farish, III
Versailles, Kentucky

Alex Spanos
Stockton, California

Laurie Firestone
Newport Beach, California

Jacob Stein
Hicksville, New York

Bradford M. Freeman
Los Angeles, California

John H. Sununu (Scowcroft, Sununu, Kissinger, Baker can be found at the top of the US-Azerbaijan
Washington, D.C. Chamber of Commerce, along w/Sam Brownback http://www.usacc.org/contents.php?cid=2 -- Azerbaijan is strategically located in the Caspian Sea Oil Basin)

Craig L. Fuller
Alexandria, Virginia

Jack Valenti (his agency was in charge of the press during the November 1963 visit of President John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Lyndon Johnson to Dallas, Texas. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, Valenti was present in the famous photograph of Lyndon Johnson's swearing in aboard Air Force One)
Washington, D.C.

H. Laurance Fuller
Wheaton, Illinois

Robert Waltrip
Houston, Texas

Preston M. Geren, Jr.
Fort Worth, Texas

Jerry Weintraub
Burbank, California

C. Boyden Gray (another curious character)
Washington, D.C.

John F. Welch, Jr. (better known as "Jack"; former GE CEO who got NBC to call Florida for **Bu$h in
Boston, Massachusetts 2000)

Adele Hall
Shawnee , Kansas

Gary Winnick (google him for more Poppy info; FOUNDER OF GLOBAL CROSSING - gave Poppy millions in stock for a simple speech)
Los Angeles, California

John M. Hennessy
New York, New York

Richard D. Wood
Indianapolis, Indiana (Emeritus)

Mr. & Mrs. Henry L. Hillman
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Stephen A. Wynn
Las Vegas, Nevada

Eric Hilton
Las Vegas, Nevada

Gordon Zacks
Pickerington, Ohio

http://www.georgebushfoundation.org/bush/asp/OverView/Trustees.asp

[Octafish]

54. A Brief History of Bush, Harken and the SEC

Oh yeah. Fred Malek was under orders to count Jews in government for Nixon, if memory serves. And like Gov. Harriman, Ambassador Strauss illustrates the bipartisan nature of the BFEE.

When it comes to real money and power, it is a very small world, cosmicdot. We see signs of the interconnectedness through their affiliations on boards -- Gadzooks, many, many of the folks you brought in are each worthy of their own thread, let alone indictment. For those new to this field of interest, HARKEN Energy serves as an excellent example of how America and the world serve a certain elite class of criminal.

A Brief History of Bush, Harken and the SEC

By John Dunbar

WASHINGTON, October 16, 2002 — In 1976, George W. Bush was a freshly minted graduate of the Harvard Business School looking for a job.

He had $20,000 left over from his education trust fund, a well-known last name and some great connections. He decided to follow in his father's footsteps by getting into the oil business, and moved back to his childhood home of Midland, Texas.

The early years

In 1977, Bush organized his first company, Arbusto Energy Inc. (Spanish for bush), an oil exploration venture. After an unsuccessful 1978 run for the House of Representatives, Bush returned to the oil business, attempting to take Arbusto public in 1982 with disappointing results. Bush changed the name of the company to Bush Exploration that same year and struggled on.

By 1984, Bush Exploration was in dire need of capital. In stepped Spectrum 7 Energy Corp. of Ohio, owned by William DeWitt Jr. The two companies merged and Bush was made CEO with a $75,000 salary. As part of the deal, he received 1.1 million shares of stock, or 16.3 percent of the company.

An April 1986 New York Times story described Spectrum 7 as less concerned with recovering oil than in creating tax shelters. The company specialized in selling limited partnerships, which generated generous write-offs before the tax laws were revised in 1986.

Spectrum 7 did not fare much better than Bush Exploration in the 1980s, with the end of the Arab oil embargoes, a flood of cheap, imported crude oil drove many small, domestic producers out of business. Bush was at the helm of another struggling company seeking a bailout. Spectrum 7 was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and this time the white knight was Harken Oil.

Harken was a small concern, but poised to become much bigger. In 1983, a young New York lawyer named Alan G. Quasha, a man with no experience in the oil business, but with financial connections to Compagnie Financière Richemont AG, a Swiss-based investment company, took over the firm.

The company's biggest backer was fund manager George Soros*. In late 1984, Harken was appointed exclusive agent and manager of Soros Oil Inc., a privately held corporation formed to invest in oil and gas properties. The deal allowed Soros shareholders to exchange their interest for shares of Harken stock.

On Sept. 22, 1986, Harken announced it had bought Spectrum 7, and Bush joined the board of directors. He was given an $80,000-a-year consulting contract (which was raised to $120,000 in 1989), $500,000 in Harken stock, and options valued at $131,250.

Once Bush joined the firm, Harken began a tremendous period of growth. Barely a month after Bush came aboard, the company received a huge capital infusion from Harvard Management Company, which manages Harvard University's vast endowment. Aeneas Venture Corp., the venture capital investment arm of Harvard Management, agreed to invest $20 million in Harken and buy $2 million in newly issued Harken stock.

CONTINUED...

http://www.public-i.org/report.aspx?aid=196

Sorry I didn't get back sooner, Cosmic Lighthouse. Exigencies of the holidays and stuff. DU's been a blessing in that it allows my mind to focus, or fixate, on another area.

[thingfisher]

28. Here is a little something to add to the bonfire.

http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth/13/KINGPIN_INDICTMENT.htm

An excerpt:

The following is adapted from a draft indictment of George Bush prepared by former DEA agent Celerino Castillo and the editors of Executive Intelligence Review. All the evidence contained in this draft indictment has been thoroughly documented. Most of it has been taken either from the Kerry Report of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or the Final Report on Iran-Contra.

[Octafish]

56. DEA Agents Agree: CIA means ''Cocaine Import Agency''

Oh, yeah, thingfisher. Celerino Castillo is a most important eyewitness to treason. The guy was only the head of the DEA in Honduras where he witnessed Ollie North's crew -- incouding Luis Posada Carriles -- dropping off loads of guns and loading up on cocaine for the trip north. So, yes, Virginia, there’s enough evidence to bust George Herbert Walker Bush and the rest of his right-wing stooges under the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act).

http://www.ricoact.com /

Still. Don’t take my word for it. Let’s hear what the brave agents of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) have to say.

Celerino “Cele” Castillo III

Celerino "Cele" Castillo, 3rd
Ex-DEA Agent

May 17, 2005

© Copyright 2005, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com . All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.

For over a century, our government has made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that we have done to other people in third world countries, especially in Latin America. With the creation of the School of the Americas, a breeding ground for assassins, and the death squads, we have become the greatest human rights violators in the world.

We have become the most hated country in the world, not because we practice democracy or value our freedom. We are hated because our government denies these basic principles to these people. The hate has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism, and as they say, once again, "the chickens have come home to roost" with our own homegrown American made terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles.

When I was posted in Central America as a DEA agent I saw Luis Posada and Felix Rodriguez, another American terrorist, at Illopango airport base in El Salvador. Joining them was a CIA asset Venezuelan advisor Victor Rivera. They had become part of what was known as a CIA apparatus that did not have to answer to anyone. They were involved in everything from drug trafficking to kidnapping to the training of the death squads. It was at the height of the Iran-Contra investigation that I had documented these atrocities to my government. I could not understand how our government had assisted in having Posada escape from a Venezuelan prison, and then placed him at Illopango airport as a CIA asset under the new name of Ramon Medina. He was now working hand in hand with then U. S. Lt. Col. Oliver North.

When I asked about Posada's presence at Illopango, I was once again told that it was a covert operation being run by the White House. I started to learn real fast that just about every time I questioned illegal action, I would be told that it was "a covert operation being run by the White House." And as we found out later, my allegations were facts; that became especially clear when, in 1990, President Bush Sr. pardoned another American-made terrorist, Posada's partner in crime: Orlando Bosch. To the degree that the "war on terror" is a response to actual terrorism, that terrorism is retaliation: the U.S. has exported death and violence to the four corners of the Earth with individuals like Posada and Bosch.

Posada admitted to a New York Times reporter that he organized a wave of bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured others. However, he is best known as the prime suspect in the bombing of a Cuban Airlines flight in Barbados in October 1976. All 73 crewmembers and passengers including teenaged members of Cuba's national fencing team were killed.

CONTINUED…

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/hall/contra1.html

Additional resources:

http://www.albionmonitor.com/9612a/ciacontra.html

http://www.drugwar.com/castillonorthmay1104.shtm

www.powderburns.org

Well. Here’s to “Conspiracies In Action.”

Here’s what Michael Levine, DEA had to say about the organization started by Allen Dulles has brought tons of cocaine into the United States of America. Don’t worry, Mr. Conservative. It was at a profit.

Speaking of Capitalism’s Invisible Army:

Michael Levine Interview

by Paul DeRienzo

from THE SH@DOW - box 20298 - NY, NY 10009

Michael Levine is a veteran of 26 years of undercover work for four federal agencies. He is the recipient of many Justice and Treasury Department awards for hi s work undercover, including the International Narcotics Enforcement Officer Association's Octavio Gonzales Award. He is also the subject of Donald Goddard's book Undercover: The Secret Lives of a Federal Agent (Dell, 1990).

Joining the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) after discovering his brother's heroin addiction which eventually killed his brother, Levine was the most successful agent in DEA history. By 1977, he had made 3,000 drug arrests going undercover to set up buy and bust operations against New York City heroin and cocaine dealers. This led to his assignment as DEA station chief in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

By 1989, after having several of his operations stopped by higher ups who allowed his targets to get away, Levine quit the DEA in disgust. Levine then wrote the book Deep Cover (1990, Delacorte Press), describing his experiences that led to his leaving the DEA, exposing the government's phony "War on Drugs".

Levine tells a chilling story of treachery by members of his own agency, and the CIA, men Levine calls the ":suits" who he says use the War on Drugs as a cynical cover for covert foreign policy adventures. Levine says that since he began speaking out against the War on Drugs he has been threatened by high level DEA agents and has been the target of campaigns meant to discredit him.

CONTINUED…

http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/institutional_analys...

Additional resources:

http://www.serendipity.li/wod/levine.html

http://www.physicaldream.com/Eyeonsam/Is%20Anyone%20Apo...

So. There we have it. No evidence of conspiracy, as importing cocaine is a matter of national policy.



Well. Hector Berrellez would arrest you if he caught you. He’s another good guy.

Gary Webb

(1955-2005)

EXCERPT…

I had been thinking about looking into the claim that during the civil war in Nicaragua in the eighties, the CIA helped move dope to the United States to buy guns for the contras, who were mounting an insurrection against the leftist Sandinistas. So I called up Hector Berrellez, a guy who worked under Mike Holm in Los Angeles, a guy known within the DEA as its Eliot Ness, and he said, "Look, the CIA is the best in the world. You're not going to beat them; you're never going to get a smoking gun. The best you're going to get is a little story from me."

SNIP…

After a while, the San Jose Mercury News series disappeared except on a few byways of the Internet, Gary Webb was ruined, and things went back to normal. Things like Oliver North's diary entry linking dope and guns for the contras, like Carlos Lehder, a big Colombian drug dealer, testifying as a prosecution witness in federal court during the Noriega trial about the Medellín cartel's $10 million donation to the contras, like the entire history of unseemly connections between the international drug world and the CIA--all this went away, as it has time and time again in the past. A kind of orthodoxy settled over the American press that assumed Webb's work had been thoroughly refuted. He became the Discredited Gary Webb.

SNIP…

HECTOR BERRELLEZ STUMBLED ONTO GARY WEBB'S STORY YEARS before Gary Webb knew a thing about it. ….

In September 1986, Sergeant Tom Gordon of the Los Angeles sheriff's narcotics strike force pieced together intelligence about a big-time drug ring in town run by Danilo Blandón. A month later, on October 23, Gordon went before a judge with a twenty-page detailed statement documenting that "monies gained from the sales of cocaine are transported m Florida and laundered.,.. The monies are filtered to the contra rebels to buy arms in the war in Nicaragua." He got a search warrant for the organization's stash houses. On Friday, October 24, there was a briefing of more than a hundred law-enforcement guys from the sheriff's office, the DEA, the FBI. That was the same day that President Ronald Reagan, after months of hassle, signed a $100 million aid bill that reactivated a licit cash flow to the beleaguered contras. And on Monday, October 27, at daybreak, the strike force simultaneously hit fourteen L. A. area stash houses connected with Blandón.

That's where just another day in the life of Hector Berrellez got weird. Generally, at that early hour, good dopers are out cold; the work tends toward long nights and sleeping in. As Berrellez remembers, "We were expecting to end up with a lot of coke." Instead, they got coffee and sometimes doughnuts. The house he hit had the lights on, and everyone, two men and a woman, was up. The guy who answered the door said, "Good morning; we've been expecting you. Come on in." The house was tidy, the beds were already made, and the damn coffee was on. The three residents were polite, even congenial. "It was obvious," says Berrellez, "that they were told." The place was clean; all fourteen houses were clean. The only thing Berrellez and the other guys found in the house was a professional scale.

But there was a safe, and Berrellez got one of the residents to open it reluctantly. Inside, he found records of kilos matched with amounts of money, an obvious dope ledger, a photograph of a guy in flight dress in front of what looked to be a military jet, and photographs of some guys in combat. Hector asked the guy who the hell the people in the photographs were, and the guy said, "Oh, they are freedom fighters."

CONTINUED…

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2004/041217_mf...

Additional resources:

http://www.ckln.fm/~asadismi/whiteout.html

http://www.csun.edu/CommunicationStudies/ben/news/cia /

And these guys knew Gary Webb, DUers may remember the Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter who was lauded for his groundbreaking series detailing how Contra-connected dealers got the inside track on the dope that eventually created the crack cocaine epidemic. Too bad what the government chose to “crack” down on was honest journalism, as protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Then it was only a matter of time before the rest of the Establishment press corpse piled on. Interesting expression: Kill a few birds with one stone.

Is that something? Three DEA agents who never knew of one another’s existence while they worked together in the federal government. There were united by something else, though. Each, after reporting drug dealing by Contras and other “protected organizations,” were left out to hang.

That’s un-American. Drug dealing to fund illegal wars? Gee. That’s Treason.

We know the names of more than a few involved: George Herbert Walker Bush, John Poindexter, Oliver North, Elliott Abrams, John Negroponte, Ted Shackley. Gee. A lot of past and current government officials, there, wot? What's needed is a Grand Jury to investigate the actions of these drug-dealing, warmongering conspirators, for starters.

Thank you for remembering, thingfisher. Thanks also for giving a damn.

[nam78_two]

31. K&R

If you are not outraged you are not paying attention.....

[Octafish]

58. Iraq-gate, BNL & Arms to Saddam

America's Gangster Elite finds war most profitable.

Iraq-gate, BNL & Arms to Saddam

Just how do you think Iraq managed to run its war against Iran for all those years?

Saddam had to get juice from somebody, and George Bush wanted to sell him the arms he needed to kill the Iranians he attacked. So, George got the US taxpayers without their knowledge, to loan (read: "give") Saddam $5 billion in "agricultural credits." Meanwhile the Iran-Iraq war is prolonged by years and several hundreds of thousands of lives are lost. Of course, Bush needed a patsy, so his henchmen found a low-level banker in Miami to take the fall. His bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, got a slap on the wrist. Notice, too, how they cover up their criminality by labeling public information "secret." Neat, that BFEE.

Here's what the great Liberal thinker and ex-Agnew speechwriter William Safire had to say on the subject. It's from the Congressional Record, entered by Rep. Tom Lantos and the late Rep. Henry Gonzalez.


THE ADMINISTRATION'S IRAQ GATE SCANDAL

(BY WILLIAM SAFIRE)

(Extension of Remarks - May 19, 1992)


HON. TOM LANTOS

in the House of Representatives

TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1992

* Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, just 1 year ago, Americans were flush with the glow of the military victory over Saddam Hussein. Parades were held in the largest of cities and in the smallest of hamlets. New York and Washington were trying to outdo each other in the splendor of their competing celebrations of victory.

* This year, however, we are wallowing in the sordid aftermath of the revelations of the misguided administration policy that brought about that war. We have been treated to details of how the administration bent over backwards in its misguided effort to support the regime of Saddam Hussein on the very eve of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

* Mr. Speaker, William Safire summarized this squalid tale of policy run amuck in an excellent article that appeared in yesterday's issue of the New York Times. I ask that this article be placed in the Record, and I urge my colleagues to read it carefully.

(BY WILLIAM SAFIRE)

Washington: Americans now know that the war in the Persian Gulf was brought about by a colossal foreign-policy blunder: George Bush's decision, after the Iran-Iraq war ended, to entrust regional security to Saddam Hussein.

What is not yet widely understood is how that benighted policy led to the Bush Administration's fraudulent use of public funds, its sustained deception of Congress and its obstruction of justice.

As the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandar, was urging Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker to buy the friendship of the Iraqi dictator in August 1989, the F.B.I. uncovered a huge scam at the Atlanta branch of the Lavoro Bank to finance the buildup of Iraq's war machine by diverting U.S.-guaranteed grain loans.

Instead of pressing the investigation or curbing the appeasement, the President turned a blind eye to lawbreaking and directed another billion dollars to Iraq. Our State and Agriculture Department's complicity in Iraq's duplicity transformed what could have been dealt with as `Saddam's Lavoro scandal' into George Bush's Iraqgate.

The first element of corruption is the wrongful application of U.S. credit guarantees. Neither the Commodity Credit Corporation nor the Export-Import Bank runs a foreign-aid program; their purpose is to stimulate U.S. exports. High-risk loan guarantees to achieve foreign-policy goals unlawful endanger that purpose.

Yet we now know that George Bush personally leaned on Ex-Im to subvert its charter--not to promote our exports but to promote relations with the dictator. And we have evidence that James Baker overrode worries in Agriculture and O.M.B. that the law was being perverted: Mr. Baker's closest aid, Robert Kimmett, wrote triumphantly, `your call to . . . Yeutter . . . paid off.' Former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter is now under White House protection.

Second element of corruption is the misleading of Congress. When the charge was made two years ago in this space that State was improperly intervening in this case, Mr. Baker's top Middle East aide denied it to Senate Foreign Relations; meanwhile, Yeutter aides deceived Senator Leahy's Agriculture Committee about the real foreign-policy purpose of the C.C.C. guarantees. To carry out Mr. Bush's infamous National Security Directive 26, lawful oversight was systematically blinded.

Third area of Iraqgate corruption is the obstruction of justice. Atlanta's assistant U.S. Attorney Gail McKenzie, long blamed here for foot-dragging, would not withhold from a grand jury what she has already told friends: that indictment of Lavoro officials was held up for nearly a year by the Bush Criminal Division. The long delay in prosecution enabled James Baker to shake credits for Saddam out of malfeasant Agriculture appointees.

When House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez gathered documents marked `secret' showing this pattern of corruption, he put them in the Congressional Record. Two months later, as the media awakened, Mr. Bush gave the familiar `gate' order; stonewall.

`Public disclosure of classified information harms the national security,' Attorney General William Barr instructed the House Banking Committee last week. `. . . in light of your recent disclosures, the executive branch will not provide any more classified information'--unless the wrongdoing is kept secret.

`Your threat to withhold documents,' responded Chairman Gonzalez, `has all the earmarks of a classic effort to obstruct a proper and legitimate investigation . . . none of the documents compromise, in any fashion whatsoever, the national security or intelligence sources and methods.'

Mr. Barr, in personal jeopardy, has flung down the gauntlet. Chairman Gonzalez tells me he plans to present his obstruction case this week to House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks, probably flanked by Representatives Charles Schumer and Barney Frank, members of both committees.

`I will recommend that Judiciary consider requiring the appointment of an independent counsel,' says Mr. Gonzalez, who has been given reason to believe that Judiciary--capable of triggering the Ethics in Government Act--will be persuaded to act.

Policy blunders are not crimes. But perverting the purpose of appropriated funds is a crime; lying to Congress compounds that crime; and obstructing justice to cover up the original crime is a criminal conspiracy.

SOURCE:

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920519l....

MODS: The above is an official government document and is not restricted by copyright considerations. Thanks for all you DU!

Odd how these fellows also were selling arms to the Ayatollah, like Hawk missiles and spare parts for all those Phantom F4Fs we sold the Shah. Playing off both sides against each other must be especially profitable.

Thanks for knowing all that. And thanks for caring, nam78_two.

[Cleita]

36. Another K&R

[Initech]

38. Keep it coming! The more we learn about these criminals, the sooner we'll be free!

That's what they are: criminals. Liars, thugs, murderers, embezzlers and cheats. And they get away with it scot-free. How? They stack the courts in their favor and use the right-wing talking heads (not to mention religion) to keep the masses docile and ignorant. It's really genius on their part.

[Judi Lynn]

41. This is a wonderful thread. I intend to read every word in it. If only more information

of what has really been going on finally bled into the common arena it would make many Americans far more serious about whom they support from the moment they start learning about it.

Ignorance has been bliss for them, and their ignorance prevented their ability to pressure their legislators to REPRESENT them in ways that didn't massacre and brutalize all of Latin America with the exception of the very, very wealthy, and the puppet Presidents, of course.

It's time someone started giving a damn, and information is the way to get it done. Thank you for putting this information out there!







Nothing's worse than seeing a tyrant crying, unless it's seeing a tyrant vomiting, or skydiving.

[Jcrowley]

47. Book 'em already

[me b zola]

53. A Christmas Eve kick for truth

:kick:

[HughBeaumont]

55. Has there been a bigger bastard enabler than Kissinger EVER?

Kissinger also said that "Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs". Is it any accident that this joker has his hands in more American/International liquid manure than you can shake a stick at?

Octafish once again is the legend with the parallels of the BFEE to the dirty dictatorships they mirror.

[bobthedrummer]

59. kick