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Lawyer who represented Oliver North, Iran-Contra--is he now representing Stanford? (Check this out)

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antigop Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 06:53 PM
Original message
Lawyer who represented Oliver North, Iran-Contra--is he now representing Stanford? (Check this out)
Edited on Wed Feb-25-09 06:54 PM by antigop
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/top-stories/story/920449.html?ref=fp3
>>
Texas billionaire financier R. Allen Stanford was in a heap of hot water with federal authorities even before the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges Feb. 17 accusing him of running an $8 billion ''massive ongoing fraud'' at his financial empire.

According to Miami-Dade Circuit Court records, the Internal Revenue Service filed a federal tax lien for $104,236,285.85 against Stanford and his estranged wife, Susan Stanford. The couple are in divorce proceedings in Texas.

The IRS lien, filed Aug. 21, 2008, in Miami, covers tax years 2002 through 2004, the court records said. The Stanfords are challenging IRS assessments in U.S. Tax Court related to federal income taxes for other years, and have fought tax bills at least as far back as 1996, according to tax court records.
...
Larry Campagna, a Houston attorney representing Stanford in the tax case, said the IRS tax case is still pending but declined to comment further. Besides fancy homes in Antigua, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Houston, Stanford owns property at 20 Casuarina Concourse in Gables Estates. The larger-than-life Texan, who has gone by the title ''Sir Allen'' since being knighted by the tiny island nation of Antigua and Barbuda in 2006, bought the sprawling bayfront Wackenhut estate in 2003 for $10.5 million and tore it down. It is now a vacant lot.

According to a Stanford employee who asked not to be named, Stanford has retained Brendan V. Sullivan, a senior partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly, to represent him in his legal woes. Sullivan, who represented Oliver North in the Iran-Contra case, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.>>

If true, small world, eh?
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 06:55 PM
Response to Original message
1. Wow. Just, wow. n/t
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tanyev Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:03 PM
Response to Reply #1
3. OK, this calls for a link to your thread from Monday
How much of economic meltdown is just Iran Contra, Continued?

It turns out that Bush's "intelligence czar" John Negroponte was authorized to approve SEC wavers (5/5/2006).
That would be John "Death Squads" Negroponte who never did a minute of time for his involvement in Iran Contra money laundering, drug running and war crimes.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5118451
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:06 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. And to seafan's parallel thread about the SEC standing down to BushCo:
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:22 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. Smelling EXACTLY like Marc Rich.....so does Madoff. Cue the 'coincidence' theorists.
Edited on Wed Feb-25-09 07:36 PM by blm
.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:24 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. I'm so glad you're watching this. n/t
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:32 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. as a Democratic American I'd prefer to be wrong...as a citizen Democrat I'm sickened and angry...
and won't be silenced by the complicit and the knownothings in my party.
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SpiralHawk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:01 PM
Response to Original message
2. "I not a potted plant." - Brendan Sullivan
Edited on Wed Feb-25-09 07:06 PM by SpiralHawk
"I am a Republicon Homelander Big Bucks lawyer, who does not care if treason or fraud has been committed against the USA, because there is mega-moneybucks to be made serving the Republicon Cabal. Smirk."

- Brendan Sullivan
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SpiralHawk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:09 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. "Republiconism uber alles." - Ollie North (Homelander)
"Too bad about America and American honor. Republiconism must be served, with drugs and guns and lies. Smirk."

- Ollie "I gave our US Hawk Missiles to Iran, and a Bible and a cake, too. -Smirk" North (R)
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:07 PM
Response to Original message
5. Well. Scooter Libby was unavailable - remember, Libby was a Bush fixer for IranContra figures and
Edited on Wed Feb-25-09 07:20 PM by blm
repped Marc Rich in the 80s and for his pardon from Clinton.

But....we're not supposed to have noticed that....it makes some Dems look complicit.

Yeah...right...it was all about tax evasion. Except...Rich was a named figure in both IranContra and BCCI. Lost history thanks to our corporate newsmedia.

Some of us have been saying that Madoff and Stanford smell an awful lot like Marc Rich.
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hughee99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:16 PM
Response to Original message
7. I'd hire the guy if I knew I was fucked (and could afford him)...
For all the shit that North did, he was convicted on only 3 of 16 counts and was sentenced to a three-year suspended prison term, two years probation, $150,000 in fines, and 1,200 hours community service (a slap on the wrist) and that was later vacated (the charges were dismissed). Sound like he's a pretty good lawyer to have.
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:37 PM
Response to Original message
11. Is Stanford a CIA asset being cut loose? If so, why?
See these threads/link for info on Stanford banks in Latin America, where it appears that he may have been laundering money for CIA-Bushwhack coup plots (and if that is true, probably for CIA drugs/weapons trafficking as well).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x12096
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2009/02/pirates-of-caribbean-stanford-drugs-and.html
(The Cannon piece says Stanford had two private airline companies running around the Caribbean and was long ago suspected of drug trafficking, but seemed to be protected by the U.S. gov't.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3755816

-----

And here's an amusing bit on who got hurt when the CIA (maybe) abandoned Stanford and sparked a run on the Stanford bank in Venezuela...
http://www.borev.net/2009/02/well_you_knew_this_story_was_i.html
http://uk.reuters.com/article/americasMergersNews/idUKN1930711820090220?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=0

------

I'm going to do some research right now, on when Chavez accused Stanford of being a CIA operation. I'm pretty sure it was in the fall of last year, prior to all this Stanford meltdown.

What I'm thinking is that there is some AWFUL SHIT about the Bush Cartel activities in South America that the Stanford meltdown is in the middle of, somehow. (What may be a side question: Was the CIA running a Stanford ponzi scheme in Venezuela that was intended to cause a run on the Venezuelan Stanford bank, as part of a coup plot? If they were laundering money through this bank, or this banking system, surely they knew its vulnerabilities. Did they trigger the Stanford thing? Or did the Stanford thing just get out of control?)
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:43 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. Here's the Chavez-Stanford-CIA story. It was in Nov 08.
Sir Allen Stanford in spotlight over CIA spying row with Venezuela
By Patrick Sawer
Last Updated: 4:40PM GMT 09 Nov 2008

Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire who organised the controversial $20 million tournament which split the world of cricket, is now at the centre of an international spying row, it can be revealed.

Officials from Venezuelan military intelligence raided a branch of his offshore bank over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the south American country.

The officials spent three hours searching files and documents at offices of Stanford International Banks in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, removing several of them for closer inspection.

(MORE)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/twenty20/3406293/Sir-Allen-Stanford-in-spotlight-over-CIA-spying-row-Cricket.html
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leftstreet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:51 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. Thanks for digging that up
:thumbsup:
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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 08:18 PM
Response to Reply #11
20. Serious questions
The first raid on the bank was October 31st last year
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=198778

Another good link
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/yb/126754138
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-26-09 06:38 AM
Response to Reply #20
24. Thanks for these links. Although Simon Romero is a notoriously unreliable
anti-Chavez 'reporter' for the NYT (i.e., Judith Miller type)--check out BoRev.net's hilarious riffs on Romero--he does supply me with a tidbit I didn't know (--if true; hard to say with Romero), that the raid on 10/31/08 by Venezuelan authorities had to do with opposition leader Manuel Rosales. I believe Rosales was one of the opposition leaders whom the indy reporter caught returning from Puerto Rico, after a meeting with a (Bushwhack) U.S. diplomat concerning $3 million that the opposition were seeking, to defeat the term limits referendum. The Puerto Rico meeting was early this year. (The referendum was Feb. 15.) Probably that money--and other Bushwhack black budget money to the Venezuelan fascists--was laundered through the Stanford Bank. (It is illegal in Venezuela to take foreign money for political campaigns.) The Venezuelan military prosecutor specifically mentioned the C.I.A. (according to the first article (of your links).

Romero, like other corpo/fascist 'news' floggers, is also useful for ferreting out Bushwhack/CIA plots and strategies in Venezuela, if you learn to read between the lines a bit. For instance:

"By 2007, the group, run by the Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford, had moved into a glittering new headquarters building in the heart of El Rosal, the city's financial district, in a rare display of confidence in the Venezuelan economy at a time when companies in an array of industries were cutting their exposure there." --Romero (emphasis added)

The theme of the article is that Venezuela is unstable, that investors are fleeing Venezuela, and that Chavez is scary to investors. I won't get into how many ways this is a screwed up, distorted, unreliable narrative--the Venezuelan economy is one of the healthiest in the world right now, due to excellent Chavez management, and has attracted all kinds of investment (France's Total, Norway's Statoil, British BP, Chevron and others in the oil sector; Brazilian, Chinese, Russian projects, among others; the UNASUR projects--South American 'common market'--ALBA and Mercosur trade groups, and on and on)--but if you re-read Romero as a CIA narrative, laying out a strategy the purpose of which is to try to destabilize Venezuela, suddenly enlightenment dawns. Ah, they set up this bank in Caracas with "the glittering new headquarters" in order to induce a run on the bank, and try to create a cascade effect, as they have done here, as a matter of fact, in our own Bushwhack-induced Financial 9/11 in September of last year.

The Chavez government outsmarted them, though. They got onto Stanford early--before anybody, I believe--tracking the illegal opposition money--already had raided the bank's offices and had documentation on what they were doing, and when the run on the bank was precipitated, were able to quickly shut it down, before local savers/investors were hurt (and before the run on the bank could cascade into the general economy). That's the local Stanford bank, which they are going to sell. Articles I've read indicate that they can't help the Venezuelans who were stashing millions in the off-shore Stanford banks, who were, in any case, doing it to evade currency regulations and taxes. The Chavez government can't seize those banks, but may go after the Venezuelan investors who are scofflaws. (I would guess that the off-shore banks were also laundering drug money and other rightwing criminal enterprises--and possibly CIA drug/weapons trafficking money.)

I am not sure if this is the case--that the Stanford local bank was an all-out CIA front, set up to induce a financial panic, when the time was ripe--but Romero's propagandistic narrative, and some remarks of Leon Panetta the other day, reinforce this possibility. Panetta said that Venezuela, Ecuador and Argentina--three of the four main Bushwhack-CIA targets in South America (the fourth is Bolivia)--are "unstable," and this is very worrisome, he said. (He-he.) I think Panetta is both trying to benefit from Bushwhack-CIA operations in these countries over the last several years, and also trying to clean up after the Bushwhacks, as to their dirtier, bloodier and most outrageously criminal operations. We can figure that the Bushwhacks were running the "war on drugs" in South America just as they ran the war on Iraq--unfrigging-believable corruption. They create the appearance of incompetence, but that's not what it is. It is hand over fist, mind-boggling theft.

As with everything else, the CIA will now go back to the "status quo"--normal criminality on behalf of multinational corporations. The Bushwhacks endangered everybody (the super-rich and their U.S. government). That's why they're out. But the putrid, bubbling corpse of our democracy will continue to be kept out of sight. Or, to put it another way, Panetta will seal the lid back over the Pandora's box of our secret government, that the Bushwhacks had uncorked, with their openly hateful, ugly, murderous, thieving activities. The Stanford bank in South America may be a microcosm (or even the central swirl) of the whole. It was a tool or project whose real purpose will now be covered up, by the "old school" CIA. (That's who I think Panetta is--one of the engineers--maybe the chief engineer--of the counter-coup to get the Bushwhacks out. He is "old school" CIA--high up in the organization--"the Company"--that Cheney and Rumsfeld were trying to both circumvent and destroy.)

I wonder if the fascists in South America that were on the receiving end of Bushwhack largesse, for a time, realize what throwaway pawns they are to the Bushwhacks. For instance, the rich Venezuelan investors who got lured into Stanford's ponzi scheme, possibly in order to induce them into a panic--their losses are immaterial to the Bushwhacks; or the white separatists in Bolivia who were stirred up by the Bushwhacks to try to secede from Bolivia, in the eastern provinces, and take Bolivia's main gas/oil reserves with them, whose 'movement' descended into rioting and mayhem, and the slaughter of some 30 unarmed peasants, when Morales threw the U.S. ambassador and the DEA (the organizers/funders of the white separatists) out of the country. Now they have to eat crow. Morales got the backing of all of South America--in the UNASUR resolution and actions--and then won the vote on the new Constitution. No way was the new leadership in South America going to allow the split-up of Bolivia, and the creation of a fascist mini-state in control of the resources.

In fact, I suspect that the whole Bushwhack scheme in Bolivia may have been merely a test run for a larger plan to do the same in Venezuela's and Ecuador's northern oil provinces (as Ecuador's Rafael Correa has publicly discussed). The Bushwhacks ran up against tremendous resistance, even by the more U.S.-friendly, centrist government of Chile. (And even by Colombia--a great surprise--which voted with the majority on the UNASUR actions on Bolivia, making it unanimous.) The Bolivian fascists were just expendable idiots in the Bushwhack game. The Bushwhacks may have been using them merely to find out what the reaction would be. When the "old school" CIA takes over these operations--in Bolivia, Venezuela and other countries--they may find some very bitter and uncooperative people on their hands--the 'victims' of a grand Bushwhack geopolitical robbery scheme that they were mere bagboys for. And this may be another reason why the Bushwhacks were ousted. Latin America is littered with the debris of Bushwhack 'incompetence' (i.e., grand theft).
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MinM Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-26-09 11:09 AM
Response to Reply #11
27. A "Burn Notice"?
:yoiks: :hide:
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leftstreet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:41 PM
Response to Original message
12. K&R
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formercia Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 07:50 PM
Response to Original message
14. Small World?
Not really. A lot of that same gang are lawyers.
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bleever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 08:08 PM
Response to Original message
16. Yes indeedy.
K&R.
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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 08:12 PM
Response to Original message
17. I read somewhere that W & C denied this
Word is he didn't show up for the divorce hearing. Could be seeking plastic surgery about now.
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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 08:15 PM
Response to Original message
18. Stanford must have been impressed
with Sullivan's bang-up job representing Ted Stevens.
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Peace Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 08:18 PM
Response to Original message
19. Interesting tidbit from Freeperville...
"Obama’s nominee for CIA chief has a daughter who just loves anti-American dictators"
http://www.butasforme.com/2009/01/17/obama%E2%80%99s-nominee-for-cia-chief-has-a-daughter-who-just-loves-anti-american-dictators/

---------------

Then there's this...

----------------

CIA says economic crisis could destabilize some countries

Thursday 26th February, 04:56 AM JST

WASHINGTON —

CIA Director Leon Panetta says Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela are in dire economic straits and could be destabilized by the worldwide economic crisis.

Panetta told reporters Wednesday that the spy agency has to pay attention to the impact of the recession around the world.

In his first on-the-record meeting with the news media, Panetta said the CIA has to know how the economy is affecting the international policies of China, Russia and other countries.

The new CIA chief says that the spy agency has issued its first daily Economic Intelligence Briefing on overseas economic and political matters for the Obama administration.


http://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/cia-says-economic-crisis-could-destabilize-some-countries

---------------

...makes me think I'm right that the run on the Stanford Venezuela bank was CIA-induced. But I think Panetta's wishful thinking about Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela--which, together with Bolivia--have been the main Bushwhack-CIA targets. He may want them to be in "dire economic straits," but they are not. Venezuela, for instance--due to good management by the Chavez gov't--has $40 billion in international cash reserves. We're entirely bankrupt; they've got a great cushion against this Financial 9/11. And they help their neighbors.

However, I think what Panetta is doing, mainly, is trying to clean up some godawful messes of the Bushwhack-CIA. (Anyone who thinks Panetta is a civilian really needs to think the thing through a little better.) And Stanford money-laundering for CIA dirty ops in Venezuela and other leftist countries, and also drugs/weapons trafficking, and Colombia death squad activity, is likely one of them.

1. Venezuela has thrown the U.S. ambassador out of Venezuela.
2. Bolivia has thrown the U.S. ambassador and the DEA out of Bolivia.
3. Ecuador is about to throw the U.S. military base at Manta out of Ecuador.
4. The new leftist president of Paraguay wants the U.S. military out of Paraguay.
5. South American countries united--in their new organization, UNASUR--with Chile, Brazil and Argentina in the lead--in defeating the U.S.-Bushwhack coup in Bolivia in September.
6. And Chavez in Venezuela is onto the the CIA money laundering bank (Stanford).

And, finally, the Bushwhacks were filthy dirty in Colombia--with drug running, weapons trafficking, corruption in the $6 BILLION in military aid to Colombia, trying to kill hostages that Chavez was trying to get released, manufacturing "evidence" that Chavez and Correa (Ecuador) are "terrorist lovers," death squads within Colombia (thousands of union leaders and others murdererd) and used (possibly also Blackwater) for plots elsewhere, and on and on and on.

There is A LOT to clean up, to keep our secret government from getting too exposed, and to maintain (or rather return to) the "status quo" in the U.S., with the "military-industrial complex" and the multinational barricudas, still in charge, and the population pacified and ignorant. South America is in revolt. They have got to find a way to calm things down, as to exposure of our real government. I think Panetta is an old CIA hand, way up in the organization--the kind of CIA boss you never hear about, because he doesn't want you to--whose job is to re-seal the Pandora's box that the Bushwhacks opened, with their raw, ugly, openly hateful, bloody methods.



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starroute Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 08:34 PM
Response to Original message
21. Here's Sullivan mentioned in an Octafish thread from 2005
Replying to something from robert paulsen:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5027094

Octafish
Tue Oct-11-05 10:24 AM

36. Domo arigato, RP! You remember REX 84 and how Ollie North squirmed...

My main memory from the House-Senate Iran-Contra hearings was the moment Jack Brooks, D-Texas, asked Oliver North if it was true he was working on a plan to suspend the Constitution of the United States?

Ollie stared at Brooks and turned to whisper some question to his lawyer, Brendan Sullivan. Before they answered, Sen. Inouye, D-Hawaii, said questions like that were best answered in closed session.

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Truth2Tell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-26-09 04:05 AM
Response to Reply #21
23. Here's the video...
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-26-09 09:08 AM
Response to Reply #21
26. One LONG, CONTINUOUS Crime Wave that never stopped in the 90s as we hoped.
.
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-25-09 08:35 PM
Response to Original message
22. So the lesson is if you're going to steal, steal billions..
So you can pay the top lawyers in the country with that stolen money.
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-26-09 12:44 PM
Response to Reply #22
28. the lesson is...if you want to steal billions make sure you do it in partnership with BushInc
.
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Baikonour Donating Member (979 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-26-09 06:56 AM
Response to Original message
25. Definitely no coincidence.
I hope Stanford's drug connections, and consequent republican drug connections, get fully revealed.
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