Thursday, March 29, 2007

Crime Inc. Frank Sinatra's Mafia Connection



On February 10, 1961, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a pointed memo to United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, regarding singer Frank Sinatra's extensive connections to organized crime figures. In the memo Hoover gave a précis of Sinatra's alleged criminal background prior to his Mafia involvement. Hoover then ticked off Sinatra's criminal associates, including Joseph and Rocco Fischetti, who were cousins of Al Capone; New Jersey crime boss Willie Moretti; James Tarantino who was himself an associate of gangster Bugsy Siegel; Mickey Cohen of Los Angeles; and reigning Chicago boss Sam Giancana. According to Hoover, when Giancana had been arrested in 1958, the police found Sinatra's private telephone number in Giancana's wallet. Hoover described a command performance by Sinatra and singer Dean Martin at the home of "notorious Chicago hoodlum" Anthony "Joe Batters" Accardo. According to Hoover, in the summer of 1959, Sinatra allegedly hosted a nine-day, round-the-clock party at the Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City where Chicago wiseguys rubbed elbows with top East Coast mobsters, including Vito Genovese and Tommy Lucchese. Hoover even quoted a female informant who had met Sinatra and Joe Fischetti at the Hotel Fontainebleau in Miami and believed that the singer had "'a hoodlum complex.'"

1993 news - WTC bombing FBI Foreknowledge

Hearing on Allegations of GSA Misconduct: Higgins Questions



Text with video:
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform holds a hearing: "Allegations of Misconduct at the General Services Administration." The hearing inquires about allegations that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan failed to follow proper procedures for awarding federal contracts, attempted to intervene in contract negotiations, and engaged in partisan political activities on federal property. Rep. Higgins questions GSA head Doan on a series of emails about a political briefing held as GSA headquarters.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Jonathan Bush

Jonathan Bush

From SourceWatch

(Redirected from Jonathan J. Bush)

Jonathan J. Bush (Jonathan James Bush) (1931- ) is an uncle to President George Walker Bush.

Jonathan Bush's "Pioneer Profile" in "George W. Bush's $100,000 Club" cites him as the "head" of the Riggs Investment Management Co.; "Bush's uncle Jonathan ... founded its subsidiary, J. Bush & Co., of which he is chair. He also is an ex-chair of the New York Republican State Finance Committee. Bush credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early '80s." [1] See Bush's Rangers.

  • According to the July 30, 1999, Washington Post, "A Wall Street financier, Jonathan Bush pulled together two dozen investors to raise $3 million to help launch Arbusto. Among the investors was Dorothy Bush, George W.'s grandmother. At the same time, Jonathan Bush was lining up investors for Arbusto, he also was raising money for George H.W. Bush's presidential explorations. Many of the funders were the same." Bush is a Trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation. [2]
  • On May 31, 2000, Riggs Bank N.A. "announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman.
"Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997. Mr. Dudley, a 24-year veteran of Riggs, will continue to be responsible for all of Riggs Bank's investment management, trust and private banking business.
"Located in the nation's capital, Riggs Bank has 53 branches in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, as well as banking offices in Miami, London and Berlin."
"Massachusetts securities regulators have fined the stockbrokerage firm owned by President Bush's brother Jonathan $30,000 and barred it from trading with the general public for one year because the company and Bush violated state registration laws.
"As part of a consent order worked out with Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly's securities division, the New York firm of J. Bush & Co., whose only principal is Jonathan J. Bush, also agreed that it would offer to reimburse its clients in Massachusetts for stocks it had sold them since January 1988. . . .
"Connolly's securities chief, Neal Sullivan, said yesterday that Bush's problems began in February when Bush informed his agency that he had never registered as a broker-dealer in Massachusetts. But Sullivan said Bush compounded his legal problem by taking a cavalier attitude toward the violation of the Uniform Securities Act when he continued to carry out transactions even as state regulators were negotiating a consent decree with him.
"'That created great concern for us. We were dismayed,' Sullivan said. 'Anyone who has been notified that he is violating state law and continues to do so certainly exemplifies a cavalier attitude toward the registration laws.'"

Margie Burns reported in the February 4, 2003, Prince George's Journal (Maryland), that President George W. Bush "nominated William H. Donaldson to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donaldson, a longtime Bush family friend, was a Yale classmate of Jonathan Bush." [3]

Jonathan Bush is also the father of Access Hollywood's anchor Billy Bush and Jonathan Bush, Jr.,the President, CEO and Co-founder of athenahealth (www.athenahealth.com).



* * * *

Marvin Bush

From SourceWatch

(Redirected from Marvin Pierce Bush)

Marvin Pierce Bush, born October 22, 1956, is the brother of President George Walker Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the son of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush.

Marvin Bush was described in 2000 by ABCNews as a "venture capitalist in Alexandria, VA. ... Marvin pitched in on his father's campaigns and his doing his part to help George W. raise cash. He and wife Margaret have two children, Marshall and Walker."[1]


Margie Burns, "Bush-Linked Company Handled Security for the WTC, Dulles and United," Prince George's Journal, February 4, 2003. Also here and here.

George W. Bush's brother was on the board of directors of a company providing electronic security for the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport and United Airlines, according to public records. The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for years to the Bush family.

The security company, formerly named Securacom and now named Stratesec, is in Sterling, Va.. Its CEO, Barry McDaniel, said the company had a 'completion contract' to handle some of the security at the World Trade Center 'up to the day the buildings fell down.'

It also had a three-year contract to maintain electronic security systems at Dulles Airport, according to a Dulles contracting official. Securacom/Stratesec also handled some security for United Airlines in the 1990s, according to McDaniel, but it had been completed before his arriving on the board in 1998.

McDaniel confirmed that the company has security contracts with the Department of Defense, including the U.S. Army, but did not detail the nature of the work, citing security concerns. It has an ongoing line with the General Services Administration - meaning that its bids for contracts are noncompetitive - and also did security work for the Los Alamos laboratory before 1998.

Marvin P. Bush, the president's youngest brother, was a director at Stratesec from 1993 to fiscal year 2000. But the White House has not publicly disclosed Bush connections in any of its responses to 9/11, nor has it mentioned that another Bush-linked business had done security work for the facilities attacked.

Marvin Bush joined Securacom when it was capitalized by the Kuwait-American Corporation, a private investment firm in D.C. that was the security company's major investor, sometimes holding a controlling interest. Marvin Bush has not responded to telephone calls and e-mails for comment.

KuwAm has been linked to the Bush family financially since the Gulf War. One of its principals and a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, Mishal Yousef Saud al Sabah, served on the board of Stratesec.

The managing director at KuwAm, Wirt D. Walker III, was also a principal at Stratesec, and Walker, Marvin Bush and al Sabah are listed in SEC filings as significant shareholders in both companies during that period.

Marvin Bush's last year on the board at Stratesec coincided with his first year on the board of HCC Insurance, formerly Houston Casualty Co., one of the insurance carriers for the WTC. He left the HCC board in November 2002.

But none of these connections has been looked at during the extensive investigations since 9/11. McDaniel says principals and other personnel at Stratesec have not been questioned or debriefed by the FBI or other investigators.

Walker declined to answer the same question regarding KuwAm, referring to the public record.

Walker is also chairman and CEO of Aviation General, a Tulsa, Okla.-based aviation company with two subsidiaries. SEC filings also show al Sabah as a principal and shareholder in Aviation General, which was recently delisted by the Nasdaq. Stratesec was delisted by the American Stock Exchange in October 2002.

The suite in which Marvin Bush was annually re-elected, according to public records, is located in the Watergate in space leased to the Saudi government. The company now holds shareholder meetings in space leased by the Kuwaiti government there. The White House has not responded to various requests for comment.

Speaking of the Watergate, Riggs National Bank, where Saudi Princess Al-Faisal had her 'Saudi money trail' bank account, has as one of its executives Jonathan Bush, an uncle of the president. The public has not learned whether Riggs - which services 95 percent of Washington's foreign embassies - will be turning over records relating to Saudi finance.

Meanwhile, Bush has nominated William H. Donaldson to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donaldson, a longtime Bush family friend, was a Yale classmate of Jonathan Bush.

On the very day of the tragic space shuttle crash, the government appointed an independent investigative panel, and rightly so. Why didn't it do the same on Sept. 12, 2001?



* * * *

Neil Mallon Bush

From SourceWatch

Neil Mallon Bush, born January 22, 1955, is a brother to President George Walker Bush and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the son of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush.


Contents

[hide]

Mallon

It is noted by several sources that the "Mallon" name derives from Neil Mallon, a one-time president of Dresser Industries (acquired by Halliburton in 1998/merger engineered by Dick Cheney) with strong connections to the Bush patriarchy.

  • "The Handbook of Texas" Online: Dresser Industries: "By 1927 the company's annual sales had reached $3.7 million, and some 400 workers were required to keep up with the demand. Dresser's descendants, who had been operating the company since the founder's death, decided to sell it, and in 1928 the Wall Street investment-banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company, Incorporated, converted the firm into a public company by issuing 300,000 shares of stock. H. Neil Mallon was selected as president and chief executive officer; he held that position until his retirement in 1962."
  • The Sins of the Father: "...Yuppie elite groups operating out of Yale, produce many familiar names, like Prescott Bush, grandfather of George Dubbya. ... Prescott convinced his partners at the banking house of Brown Brothers Harriman--among them Averell Harriman, a fellow Skull and Bones member-- to wave the firm's nepotism rule so George could work there. Uncle George Herbert Walker, Jr. offered him a job at G.H. Walker and Co., the private Wall Street banking firm founded by his father, Bush's maternal grandfather. ... Instead of taking those two prospects, George opted for a third family tie. He met with Henry Neil Mallon, the president of Dresser Industries. Mallon offered George his first job at Dresser subsidiary International Derrick and Equipment Company (Ideco), in Odessa, Texas. Brown Brothers Harriman had underwritten Dresser's transition from a private company to a publicly traded one. Years later, George named a son after Mallon.... "
  • 14 November 2002, Dallas News: "Former President George Bush will receive the prestigious H. Neil Mallon Award on Friday from the World Affairs Council of Greater Dallas. He'll be introduced by Dallas political legend Robert Strauss at the council's annual award dinner. ... The late Mr. Mallon, former chairman and chief executive of Dresser Industries, was a Yale University classmate of Mr. Bush's father, Prescott Bush. ... Mr. Mallon founded the Dallas Council on World Affairs, which was recently renamed the World Affairs Council. He also brought George Bush to Texas to work for Dresser and later helped him start his oil business in the Midland area."
  • 30 June 2002: "In merging with Dresser, Cheney picked a firm with long ties to the Bush family. Prescott Bush, the father of the former President Bush, was the banking representative who helped finance the deal that established Dresser and served on the company's board. The former president wrote in his autobiography that Neil Mallon, the former president of Dresser Industries, was a mentor second only to my father. ... It was Mallon who helped former President Bush get into the oil business, and Bush worked for Dresser for 21/2 years. The brother of the current President Bush, Neil, is named after Mallon."

Profiles

According to information gathered by ABCNews in 2000, Neil Bush is a "Houston businessman [who] worked on [his brother George?s] failed 1978 congressional campaign and helped out with each of his father?s campaigns. Currently director of Interlink, an international consultancy based in Houston ? in his father?s offices. Noted most for his involvement as director of the failed Silverado Savings and Loan, which cost the federal government $1 billion to clean-up during the S&L crisis. Regulators never pressed charges, but he paid $50,000 to settle a lawsuit lodged by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Married to Sharon Smith, who he met while campaigning for his father in New Hampshire. They have two children, Lauren and Pierce. Education: St. Alban?s preperatory; Tulane University BA International Relations; MA Business."[1]

25 November 2003: "Bush Brother Business Deals Detailed in Divorce," Reuters:

"Neil Bush, younger brother of President Bush, detailed lucrative business deals and admitted to engaging in sex romps with women in Asia in a deposition taken in March as part of his divorce from now ex-wife Sharon Bush.

"According to legal documents disclosed on Tuesday, Sharon Bush's lawyers questioned Neil Bush closely about the deals, especially a contract with Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a firm backed by Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, that would pay him $2 million in stock over five years." -- see online copy of contract at the Memory Hole.

"Bush said he was co-chairman of Crest Investment Corporation, but worked only an average of three to four hours a week. For that, he received $15,000 every three months."

Related SourceWatch Resources

External Links



* * * *

William H.T. Bush

From SourceWatch

William H.T. Bush ("Bucky" Bush; William Trotter Bush) (1938- ) is the brother of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and uncle of President George W. Bush.[1] Bush chairs Bush-O'Donnell & Co., "a holding company with interests in insurance, money management, investment banking and manufacturing,"[2] of St. Louis, Missouri.

Contents

[hide]

Commercial interests: Engineered Support Systems

In January 2003, the Prince George's Journal (Maryland) reported [3]:

"William H.T. (Bucky) Bush, an uncle of George W. Bush, is on the Board of Directors of a company which will benefit substantially from war with Iraq, according to financial analysts. The company, Engineered Support Systems, is based in St. Louis. William H.T. Bush was also a major Bush donor and campaign fund-raiser... Defense Department databases list Engineered Support Systems 54th in the Department of Defense's top 100 contractors for fiscal 2001 (up from 62nd for 2000). The company received over $297.5 million in military contracts in 2001, including $120.5 million from the Army. Since 2000, following the presidential election and 9/11, the company's federal contracts have gone up, its revenues have gone up, and its stock price has gone up. Net revenues for the first nine months of 2002, when the company acquired two new subsidiaries in Northern Virginia, increased to $289.7 million."

In February 2005, the Associated Press reported that William Bush had cashed in some of his ESS stock [4]:

"An uncle of President Bush made more than 450-thousand dollars last month by selling stock in a defense contractor whose profits are growing because of the Iraq war. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it's been learned that William Bush made the money by exercising stock options in Engineered Support Systems, where he's also a board member. The youngest brother of former President Bush insists he had not pulled any strings in Washington for the company."

In a deal which closed January 2006, the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc. to DRS Technologies of New Jersey netted Bucky about $1.9 million in cash, plus stock valued at $800,000, according to an SEC filing, reported the Los Angeles Times on 23 March 2006. [5]

"Before DRS purchased it, Missouri-based ESSI experienced record growth as a result of expanded U.S. military contracts — many to supply U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Other Affiliations

  • Halliburton Company Connection: "...Lord Abbett & Co., with about 8 million shares of Halliburton. Lord Abbett's trustees, who manage billions controlled by this investment firm, include Bush uncle William H. T. Bush. Lord Abbett is also one of Halliburton's top ten mutual fund holders (another 4.7 million shares)." [8]

Profiles

"William H.T. Bush, is chairman of the St. Louis-based investment firm, Bush O'Donnell & Co., which he founded in 1986. Previously, he was president and CEO of Boatmen's National Bank of St. Louis and began his career with the Hartford National Bank and Trust Co. in Connecticut. Bush has been a Director of the Company since 2000 and serves as a director of Mississippi Valley Bancshares, Inc., Maritz, Inc., RightChoice Managed Care, Inc., DT Industries, Inc. and The Lord Abbett family of Mutual Funds." [9]

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Week of November 10, 1997:

"In 1986, William H.T. Bush left Boatmen's Bank of St. Louis, where he served as president and director, to found Bush-O'Donnell & Co., a Clayton investment and financial advisory firm.
"Brother of former President George Bush, William Bush's firm's clients have included South Korea's Samsung group. Among its other deals, the company's Micro Partners investment partnership saw its stake in Microtek Medical Inc. rise nearly 40 percent when the medical supplies maker agreed to a $106.5 million sale last year.
"Bush serves on the board of directors of Mississippi Valley Bancshares, Maritz Inc., Southwest Bank, RightChoice Managed Care, D.T. Industries and Intrav Inc.
"He has also served on the boards of numerous civic organizations, including the Arthritis Foundation, Eastern Missouri Chapter, and was chairman of the board of the Gateway Arch Park Expansion, president of the St. Louis Variety Club and chairman of the Saint Louis University board of trustees."

According to his "Bush Pioneer Profile":

This Bush uncle co-founded a venture capital firm. He heads his nephew's fundraising operations in Missouri, which some analysts expect to be a potential swing state in November 2000. "Bucky" Bush sat on the board of the deluxe ocean liner company Intrav and received $405,000 for his shares in the company when it was purchased in '99. RightCHOICE Managed Care, a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Missouri subsidiary, named him to its board in '97.

Edgar Online Listings

EdgarOnline Listings for William H.T. Bush; More Listings:

  • Director, Right Choice Managed Care, Inc. (1997-2001)
  • Director, Cobalt Corp. (2003)
  • Director, DT Industries, Inc. (1997-2003)
  • Director, Engineered Support Systems (2001-2003)
  • Director, Intrav, Inc. (1998, 1999)
  • Proxy, Lord Abbett Funds (2002)
  • Annual Report, Mississippi Valley Bancshares, Inc. (1997-2002)
  • Proxy, Search Financial Services, Inc. (1997)
  • Proxy, Wellpoint Health Networks, Inc./DE (2002-03)
  • Ownership Statement, Medix Resources, Inc. (2002)
  • "WellPoint also announced that William H.T. Bush, formerly a member of the RightCHOICE Board of Directors, has been elected as a Class II member of WellPoint's Board of Directors. Bush, who has served as a RightCHOICE director since 1994, is chairman of Bush-O'Donnell & Company of St. Louis, an investment management and financial advisory firm." --Alliance Blue Cross Blue Shield, January 31, 2002.

Monday, March 26, 2007

US Bombing Iran to begin April 1?

Butch

Date: Mar 26, 2007 10:11 PM
Subject Used bablefish to translate the Iran story....
Body: Altavista Babelfish translator-Click Here

Put any web site url there and it will translate text to any language.
---------------------------------------------------------------------



http://fr.rian.ru/world/20070319/62260006.html


Iran would be tackled at the beginning of April (Russian military experts)
21:05 | 19/ 03/ 2007


MOSCOW, March 19 - RIA Novosti. The Russian military experts estimate that the planning of the American military attack against Iran passed the point of nonreturn on February 20, when the director of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei, recognized, in his report/ratio, the incapacity of the Agency "to confirm the peaceful character of the nuclear program of Iran".

According to the Russian weekly magazine Argoumenty nedeli, a military action will proceed during the first week of April, before Easter catholic and orthodoxe (this year they are celebrated the 8), when the "Western opinion" is on leave. It may be also that Iran is struck Friday 6, public holiday in the Moslem countries. According to the American diagram, it will be a striking of only one day which will last 12 hours, 4 hours of morning to 16 hours of afternoon. The code name of the operation is to date "English Cock" (Bite). A score of Iranian installations should be touched. With their number, centrifugal machines of uranium enrichment, centers of studies and laboratories. But the first block of the nuclear thermal power station of Bouchehr will not be touched. On the other hand, the Americans will neutralize the DCA, will run several Iranian buildings of war in the Gulf and will destroy the key positions of command of the armed forces.

As many measurements which should remove in Teheran any capacity to counteract. Iran projected to run several tankers in the strait of Ormuz with an aim of cutting the provisioning of the international markets of oil and of striking with the Israel missile.

The analysts affirm that strike them American will be launched from the island of Diego-Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, from where will take off of the bombers with long operating range B-52 with on their board cruise missiles; by the embarked aviation of the American aircraft carriers deployed in the Gulf and forming part of the 6th American Fleet in the Mediterranean; cruise missiles will be also drawn since the submarines concentrated in the Pacific and with broad from Arabia.

Result, the Iranian nuclear program will be rejected several years in back. In private talks, American Generals suppose that the times of deployment of American anti-missile defense in Europe can be postponed. Another event envisaged, the oil barrel could fly away to 75-80 dollars and this for one prolonged period.

Meanwhile, the new resolution on Iran and whose project was adopted by the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany should be voted with CS as of this week. The text envisages sanctions against 10 Iranian public companies and to three companies concerned with the Body of the guards of the Islamic revolution, unit of elite to the orders of the spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic, the ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Sanctions are also envisaged against 15 physical people: eight leaders placed high of companies of State and seven key characters with the Body of the guards of the Islamic revolution.

Information is Power

Do you want to understand a foreign website or a block of text?

Well, this online translator site might be for you from the search engine Altovista: [here]

Sunday, March 25, 2007

"Brothers" or Lovers?


Do Bush and Gonzales use condoms?

[click here] for a piece from Raw Story

[click here] for a post on the "Skull and Bones". Was George W. Bush handed a towel or napkins by other "Bonesmen" after he recounted his complete sexual experience to a secret Fraternity at Yale University after allegedly masturbating in a coffin in front of other men?

[click here] for the reasons for my special love for Bush

[click here] for my YouTube.com videos. May I suggest watching Ritt Goldstein complete? The quality is a definite minus, but the content is a definite plus.

My email: stevengerickson@yahoo.com

From T. Rex's Guide to Life

blog found [here]

The World Sucks More Than It Used To

I'm a little tardy on these, but I couldn't let a couple of recent deaths pass without comment. Larry "Bud" Melman:

The balding, bespectacled nebbish who gained cult status as the oddball Larry "Bud" Melman on David Letterman's late night television shows has died after a long illness. The Brooklyn-born Calvert DeForest, who was 85, died Monday at a hospital on Long Island, the Letterman show announced Wednesday. He made dozens of appearances on Letterman's shows from 1982 through 2002, handling a variety of twisted duties: dueting with Sonny Bono on "I Got You, Babe," doing a Mary Tyler Moore impression during a visit to Minneapolis, handing out hot towels to arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

I grew up watching Letterman and always loved DeForest as he was always one of the funniest aspects of the show. My family was so into his character, that for years I was called Kenny "Bud" Melman. He hadn't been active in a while, but I have many, many fond memories of him on Letterman.

Richard Jeni:

Reports have come in that stand-up comic Richard Jeni died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

I've always been really into stand-up comedy as long as I can remember. And one of the first comedians I can remember is Jeni. He wasn't groundbreaking, but he was always good. I put him in the Phil Hartman category. He never really got the fame he deserved and I wonder if that contributed to his death. I watched him do stand-up many times and was never disappointed.

Wherever they are, I want to thank Calvert and Jeni for the laughs and the memories.

The Snoop Saga

Snoop Dogg is denied UK tour visa

Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg was held overnight in Sweden earlier this month
US rap star Snoop Dogg has been denied a visa to enter the UK on a European tour alongside fellow rapper P Diddy.

He was due to play in London on Tuesday, followed by Manchester, Glasgow, Cardiff and Nottingham.

The performer accepted a police caution last year after being arrested on suspicion of violent disorder and affray at Heathrow Airport.

His spokeswoman said he was "mystified" at the decision. Tuesday's London show will go ahead regardless, she added.

P Diddy will appear at the Wembley Arena show, she said.

"Snoop and his team are hoping the British government will reconsider this decision, especially as he has toured here before and sees the UK as being the highlight of the tour," the spokeswoman said.

"He has asked how he can help rectify the situation and would happily talk to and give assurances to officials."

The 35-year-old - whose real name is Calvin Broadus - was held overnight by police in Sweden earlier this month on suspicion of using drugs.

He is also currently facing weapons and drugs charges in the US stemming from three separate arrests in 2006.

Snoop Dogg came to prominence as part of the 1990s gangsta rap scene, scoring hits with What's My Name? and Gin and Juice.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it could not comment on individual cases.

[The above is found here from the BBC on the web]

* * * *
* * * *

[click here] for the Stark Raving Viking Blog

[click here] for a post about the futility of writing a public abusing leader

[click here] for a post on lodging a police misconduct complaint, then being stabbed 13 times where the felon on probation isn't violated or jailed for almost killing the victim, and is then arrested in the hospital waking up alive with 13 stab wounds.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Are New Jersey and New York Police spying on and killing worldwide?



In summer 2004, citizens who peacefully protested during the Republican National Convention in New York City were subject to mass arrest, lengthy detention under horrible conditions and a wide range of other civil liberties violations. Civil liberties exist, much of the time, to protect minority rights, and that's important. But most of these protesters, in opposing the war and other Bush policies, were expressing the views of New York City's majority. If such mainstream dissent is punished severely, many wondered, what lies in store for those expressing unpopular opinions?

* * * *

[click here] for a piece from Raw Story

Are the Connecticut State Police spies employing a "Goon Squad"?
[click here]

Thursday, March 22, 2007

M K Ultra

Excerpt: The expedience of war opened the doors to American drug traffic and Mafia domination. This was the beginning of the Mafia-U.S. Intelligence alliance, an alliance that lasts to this day and helped to support the covert operations of the CIA, such as the Iran-Contra operations. In these covert operations, the CIA would obtain drugs from South America and Southeast Asia, sell them to the Mafia and use the money for the covert purchase of military equipment. These operations accelerated when Congress cut off military funding for the Contras. [more]

Cointelpro FBI (#24)



Text with video: Cointelpro is the anti-insurgency counterintelligence program that has institutionalized lethal tactics against domestic dissidents taking a page from the manual on counterinsurgency and applying it to loyal American citizens to lethal effect.

[click here] for the Pentagon Papers

CIA and Operation Phoenix in Vietnam

Excerpt: Vietnam, 75 Counter-spy magazine describes Phoenix Program as "the most indiscriminate and massive program of political murder since the nazi death camps of world war two." Counterspy

spring/summer 75 6.

Vietnam, in 82 Ex-Phoenix operative reveals that sometimes orders were given to kill U.S. military personnel who were considered security risks. He suspects the orders came not from "division", but from a higher authority such as the CIA or the ONI. Covert Action Information Bulletin (now Covert Action Quarterly) summer 82 52. [click here] for more

Cop Beating Women Bartender caught on video 3/21/07

Hearing on National Security Letters: "Blanket NSL's"

Chernobyl - revisited 20 years since the disaster

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

What if a fleet of these drove up into Connecticut?



I did a google search on “Police Bus”.

I was thinking that if the Feds started enforcing laws in Connecticut and RICO was used to nail officials for their obstruction of justice and racketeering, a fleet of buses would be needed to take away State Officials that were to be arrested.

I think concerned citizens should get involved to do their part so there is not anarchy and chaos.

I’ll do my part and send this post into bus companies so they can start doing bids for the “Mass Transit” needed to transfer Connecticut’s corrupt officials and their friends to a “holding facility” for a trial, suggesting they get their bid packages ready.

Buses could have temporary flashing lights and police logos placed on them, honest police officers mostly from other states could get contract police duty, non-abusive prison guards from other states could be hired by contract, “special holding” facilities could be built, and the streets could be safer in Connecticut and tax dollars not wasted.

[click here] for my letter to the Feds

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Presidents think they can get away with more and more

Oliver North Questioned - Rex 84 Exposed During Iran Contra



The "matter" of trying to suspend the US Constitution during the Reagan era to block prosecution of official during the Iran Contra scandal. Do you see any parallels today?

Text with video:
FEMA plans on suspension of the US constitution exposed during Iran contra hearings. Oliver North is questioned by Jack Brooks.

A comment under the YouTube.com video:
...
"If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us." -George H.W. Bush to journalist Sarah McClendon

* * * *

[click here] for full post of the below.

Iran-Contra Affair

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

The Iran-Contra Affair was the largest political scandal in the United States during the 1980s, considered by some to be one of the largest political scandals in history.[1] Large volumes of documents relating to the scandal were destroyed or withheld from investigators by Reagan Administration officials.[2] The affair is still shrouded with secrecy and it is very hard to discover the facts. It involved several members of the Reagan Administration who in 1986 helped sell arms to Iran, an avowed enemy, and used the proceeds to fund the Contras, an anti-communist guerrilla organization in Nicaragua. [3]

After the arms sales were revealed in November 1986, President Ronald Reagan appeared on national television and denied that they had occurred.[4] However, a week later, on November 13, he returned to the airwaves to affirm that weapons were indeed transferred to Iran. He denied that they were part of an exchange for hostages. [5]

Labels: , ,

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Bush’s “Necessary” Revolution

Is there a private corporate Hit Squad, Good Squad, Mercenaries, Body Guards set loose in America and all over the world? Are there no rules, just as Bush and Co. likes? Were Blackwater operatives killing non-whites during the “New Blackout”? Were bodies of victims placed in refrigerated tractor trailers or containers to be flown over the ocean to be dropped in the ocean under the cover of darkness?

Global Corporate War?



BlackWater: Privatized Warfare in Iraq (1/2)



BlackWater: Privatized Warfare in Iraq (2/2)



[click here] for Blackwater official website

* * * *

Mercenaries 'R' Us

By Bill Berkowitz, AlterNet. Posted March 24, 2004.

There are currently thousands of mercenaries serving in Iraq. Their high salaries and shorter terms of employment will inevitably make a serious dent on the military's budget -- and soldiers' morale.

With the casualty toll ticking ever upward and troops stretched thin on the ground, the Bush administration is looking to mercenaries to help control Iraq. These soldiers-for-hire are veterans of some of the most repressive military forces in the world, including that of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and South Africa's apartheid regime.

In February, Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based Pentagon contractor, began hiring former combat personnel in Chile, offering them up to $4,000 a month to guard oil wells in Iraq. The company flew the first batch of 60 former commandos to a training camp in North Carolina. These recruits will eventually wind up in Iraq where they will spend six months to a year.

"We scour the ends of the earth to find professionals -- the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system," Gary Jackson, the president of Blackwater USA, told the Guardian.

While Blackwater USA is not nearly as well known as Halliburton or Bechtel -- two mega-corporations making a killing off the reconstruction of Iraq -- it nevertheless is doing quite well financially thanks to the White House's war on terror. The company specializes in firearm, tactics and security training and in October 2003, according to Mother Jones magazine, the company won a $35.7 million contract to train more than 10,000 sailors from Virginia, Texas, and California each year in 'force protection.'

Business has been booming for Blackwater, which now owns, as its press release boasts, "the largest privately-owned firearms training facility in the nation." Jackson told the Guardian, "We have grown 300 percent over each of the past three years and we are small compared to the big ones. We have a very small niche market, we work towards putting out the cream of the crop, the best."

The practice of using mercenaries to fight wars is hardly new, but it is becoming increasingly popular in recent years. During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary. The number had climbed up to one in ten during the Bosnian conflict. Currently there are thousands of Bosnian, Filipino and American soldiers under contract with private companies serving in Iraq. Their duties range from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Apart from Chile, the other popular source for military recruits is South Africa. The United Nations recently reported that South Africa "is already among the top three suppliers of personnel for private military companies, along with the UK and the US." There are more than 1,500 South Africans in Iraq today, most of whom are former members of the South African Defense Force and South African Police.

According to the Cape Times, among the South African companies under contract with the Pentagon are Meteoric Tactical Solutions, which "is providing protection and is also training new Iraqi police and security units," and Erinys, a joint South African-British company, which "has received a multimillion-dollar contract to protect Iraq's oil industry," the Cape Times reported.

The recruitment of its citizens, however, isn't making either the Chilean or the South African governments happy. The Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act prohibits South African citizens from direct participation as a combatant in armed conflict for private gain. Michelle Bachelet, Chile's defense minister, has ordered an investigation into whether such recruitment is legal under Chilean laws. Bachelet also was troubled by stories that soldiers on active duty are leaving the company to sign up as mercenaries.

It is also only a matter of time before U.S. soldiers grow unhappy with the presence of mercenaries in their midst. The high salaries and shorter terms of employment offered to mercenaries will inevitably make a serious dent on the military's budget. As Blackwater's Jackson acknowledged in the Guardian, "If they are going to outsource tasks that were once held by active-duty military and are now using private contractors, those guys [on active duty] are looking and asking, 'Where is the money?'"

Raenette Taljaard, a member of the South African Parliament, describes the ubiquitous reach of this "booming cottage industry" of private security companies:

"In addition to becoming an integral part of the machinery of war, they are emerging as cogs in the infrastructure of peace. US-allied military officials and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan are quickly becoming familiar with the 'brand services' provided by companies."

In the era of globalization, war has become just another industry to be outsourced.

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Thursday, March 15, 2007

Pass the Pretzels?



If you masturbate in a coffin with a bunch of skulls around in front of other males is that a form of a homosexual orgy if others are doing it too? If there had a camera in their dungeon, would they be filming "gay porn"?

If George W. Bush was "Freebasing" cocaine does that mean he was sucking on the "Glass Dick", a term Crack Cocaine abusers have for each other for using the drug?

Does the Oval Office smell like ass?

Should people that are involved in activities such as this [click] be in charge of the country?

State Supreme Court Judge gets busted for Drunk Driving

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Fixing the George W. Bush damage to America

House Democrats introduce bill to restore habeas corpus

Mike Sheehan
Published: Thursday March 8, 2007

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Powerful House Democrats have introduced legislation intended to restore the right of habeas corpus.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who chairs the Homeland Security Subcommitee on Intelligence, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, announced today the presentation of bills that would reverse "problematic parts of the Military Commissions Act," according to a statement released by Harman's office.

"Both the 'Restoring the Constitution Act' and the 'Habeas Corpus Restoration Act' will bring credibility to the process of detaining terrorist suspects by placing it within a legal framework," the statement begins. "This includes: restoring habeas corpus, narrowing the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant' as defined in the Military Commissions Act, prohibiting evidence obtained under coercion, and affirming the Geneva Conventions."

Harman herself says in the release, "The Administration has never completely found its way out of the 'fog of law' that set in after September 11."

She continues, "No one questions that September 11 and the threat of future attacks required a swift, decisive, and forceful response. Many Members -- me included -- offered to help the Administration create a legal framework to guide this response, setting the ground rules for detaining, interrogating, and eventually trying terrorism suspects.

"We had an opportunity to show the world that the United States could fight those who would do us harm and protect our core values. That we could be both strong and just," Harman says. "We missed this opportunity."

She rips the Bush administration because it "chose to act unilaterally, claiming for itself the right to ignore long-standing US and international law regarding the treatment of detainees."

In the process, "the United States has paid a steep price in eroded moral authority," she argues. Yet she insists, "There is no reason why we can't fight the War on Terror and live up to our obligations under US law and the Geneva Conventions."

The bills are companions to Senate legislation introduced by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT), who is running for president, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Arlen Specter (R-PA). An effort in September 2006 to restore habeas corpus was rejected by the then-Republican controlled Senate.

Excerpts from the Harman statement, available in full at her official site, follow...

#

The United States has never been as unpopular in the world as it is now. We have flouted the very legal protections that we have sought to export to the rest of the world. We have undermined international human rights standards that we helped create, and which we have used to press other nations to protect the rights of their citizens.

...

I've been briefed on our surveillance, counter-terrorism, and interrogation programs. I've been to Guantanamo Bay three times. And I can tell you that a clear legal framework would empower - not limit - those who fight the War on Terror. We would ensure those who act on our behalf that they are doing so legally.

Congress had the opportunity to get this right last year, when we considered the Military Commissions Act. Some of our Members - Senators McCain and Graham among them - made valiant efforts to produce a bill that was consistent with our core values. But the White House prevailed, and the resulting legislation did little more than codify the rules already in place.

The two bills that Congressman Nadler and I introduced today would roll back certain provisions of the Military Commissions Act. The "Habeas Corpus Restoration Act" would reaffirm the right of habeas corpus, which allows all those detained by the government to challenge their detention before an independent court. The right - which dates back to the Magna Carta -is as central to the American conception of liberty as any other in the Constitution.

The "Restoring the Constitution Act" goes further, restoring a host of rights and procedural protections stripped away by the Military Commissions Act. The bill narrows the vague and potentially limitless applicability of the Military Commissions Act. It affirms the importance and applicability of the Geneva Conventions. It prohibits the use of coerced testimony, and gives the trial judge more discretion to ensure a fair trial.

We all want the United States to use all tools at its disposal to fight terrorism and protect our interests. But we must do so under the rule of law, and in a manner consistent with our values. These bills are an important course correction.

The Officials Abusers are only slicker now

[click here] for full webpage


According to Brian Glick, in War at Home, COINTELPRO used a broad array of methods, including:

1. "Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents." [3]

2. "Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used myriad other "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists." [4]

3. "Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, 'investigative' interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters."

4. "Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI and police threatened, instigated, and themselves conducted break-ins, vandalism, assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt their movements. In the case of radical Black and Puerto Rican activists (and later Native Americans), these attacks—including political assassinations—were so extensive, vicious, and calculated that they can accurately be termed a form of official 'terrorism.'". [5]

The FBI also conducted "black bag jobs", warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members.[6]

Supporters of the FBI argue that the Bureau was convinced that there was such a threat of domestic subversion posed by radical groups that extraordinary efforts were required to forestall violence and revolutionary insurgency. Hoover was willing to use false claims to attack his political enemies. In one memo he wrote: "Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt the Black Panther Party and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge."

In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black Panther Party revealed that in his city, at least, the Black nationalists were primarily feeding breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo implying the career ambitions of the agent were directly related to his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the BPP was "a violence prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means".

In one particularly controversial incident, civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo was killed in 1965 by a shot from a car in which four Ku Klux Klansmen were riding; one of the Klansmen was an FBI informant. Afterward, COINTELPRO spread false rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and had abandoned her children in order to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement. [7]

[edit] Illegal surveillance

The Final report of the Church Committee concluded:

"Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone "bugs", surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous -- and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations -- have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity. Groups and individuals have been harassed and disrupted because of their political views and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory and vicious tactics have been employed -- including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform.
Governmental officials -- including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law --have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.
The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them."[8] [9]


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Bobby Seale

Monday, March 12, 2007

From Blogbort:

Helliburton

I’ve longed maintained that corporations are going to be the death of America. I’ve put more people to sleep railing on this topic than Ken Lay screwed out of retirement savings at Enron. The corporate structure is like that of a shark’s. It constantly has to move in order to find new prey. If it sits still it will drown. This is, of course, a dysfunctional model on which to base an entire world economic system. But there it is: globalization is nothing but predatory corporatism. So it should surprise no one to learn that America’s top shark, Halliburton—Dick Cheney’s Halliburton—has just moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This will allow them to more fully screw American taxpayers without suffering the legal consequences and to avoid paying American taxes. Why Dubai? According to the AP, “it is an Arab boomtown where free-market capitalism has been paired with some of the world's most liberal tax, investment and residency laws.”

Here’s how the head sleazebag, er, CEO at Halliburton justified this clearcut sleazy shark-like move to the AP: “The eastern hemisphere is a market that is more heavily weighted toward oil exploration and production opportunities and growing our business here will bring more balance to Halliburton's overall portfolio.” The gangsta rappers say, “It’s all about the Benjamins.” The corporate CEOs say, “It’s all about the portfolios.” Unfortunately, it’s also all about a war in Iraq that should not have been fought, but because the White House is in the bag for the oil companies we are stuck there. In the meantime, I would say we have helped quite handsomely to“balance Halliburton’s overall portfolio.” Indeed, Halliburton “earned” profits of $2.3 billion last year. Those profits came while the corporation faces a federal probe for the $2.7 billion they overcharged the American government for contractor work in Iraq. If we had a real Attorney General instead of a lapdog like Gonzalez, this lawsuit would have already been filed and won by the government. As it is, we still have two more years of this bullshit...unless...unless...can you say impeachment?

Halliburton is not America’s friend. If my mind thought in martial terms, I would even suggest that they are America’s real enemy.

[click here] for the Hartford Advocate


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Putting a Governor, the Judiciary, and Police on Hot Seat?


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