The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

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Go to 12511
http://www.bollyn.com/index/?id=10797
How Did Israel Spy Software Get Onto Critical FAA Computers?

The deathly precision of the attacks and the magnitude of planning would have required years of planning. Such a sophisticated operation would require the fixed frame of a state intelligence organization; something not found in a loose group, like the one led by the student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg.


- Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany's Verfassungsschutz intelligence service, comments on the sophistication and complexity of the 9-11 attacks; from a conversation with Christopher Bollyn, December 2001



Solving 9-11

How Did Israeli Spy Software Get Onto Critical FAA Computers?


By Christopher Bollyn
28 January 2008

Copyright © 2008



The Deputy Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at the time of 9-11 and the former Managing Director of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the man who oversaw the federal investigation of TWA 800, Egypt Air 990, and the downing of John F. Kennedy's plane, are linked with a captain of Israeli army intelligence and his system to remotely control aircraft.



The relationship between these appointed officials of the federal agencies responsible for aviation safety with a senior officer of a foreign military intelligence raises serious questions about the degree of Israeli influence at the FAA and NTSB.



THE COMPUTER CRIMES BEHIND 9-11



The dependence of the U.S. government and military on computer systems, which run on software provided by outside vendors, is the Achilles' heel of the world's most powerful nation. 9-11 was clear proof of that fundamental weakness and vulnerability.



9-11 was a computer crime. Apart from being a monstrous crime of mass murder and false flag terrorism, 9-11 was also a sophisticated computer crime, carried out through long-term foreign infiltration of the most sensitive U.S. military and government computer networks.



This infiltration, carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, gave the perpetrators of 9-11 "real-time" access to all the data on the computers of the U.S. government and military. On 9-11, this "super-user" access to the data of the most critical government computer networks gave the terrorists the ability to thwart the military response to the emergency as it developed.



Most importantly, the terrorists who committed 9-11 through their "super-user" access to the most critical computer networks of the U.S. government still have that access. The evidence indicates that this infiltration was carried out by the military intelligence agency of the State of Israel.



PTECH & 9-11



The subject of computer sabotage in relation to the aerial attacks of 9-11 was brought to the fore by Indira Singh, who spoke at early 9-11 truth events organized by Kyle Hence.



During these early 9-11 "truth" events, a small Massachusetts-based software company called Ptech was brought up by Singh, who sought to link it to Arab terrorists.



Ptech was said to be a start-up company from Quincy, Mass. whose software was loaded onto the most sensitive computer systems across the U.S. government, including those of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the U.S. Air Force, two agencies whose systems failed miserably on 9-11.



Singh, a senior consultant with JP Morgan Chase on 9-11, is described as a "whistle-blower" because of her revelations about Ptech's involvement with the critical computer systems that failed on 9-11.



"Ptech was with MITRE Corporation in the basement of the FAA for two years prior to 9/11," Singh said. "Their specific job is to look at interoperability issues the FAA had with NORAD and the Air Force in the case of an emergency. If anyone was in a position to know that the FAA -- that there was a window of opportunity or to insert software or to change anything -- it would have been Ptech along with MITRE."



Singh has spoken extensively about Ptech's alleged connections with Saudi Arabia, for example with Pacifica Radio in 2005:

"Maybe those organizations don’t fully know who their masters are. And Ptech is the one thread, the one golden thread you pull on and all of this is unraveled, because it goes into the corporations, it goes into these government entities, it goes into the terrorism financing entities that were, that none of which have been, by the way, taken to task. There are just so many questions about what does this all mean. And as we investigated, as I investigated further, we found that the origins of Ptech were very interesting – where did this company come from obviously is the first question. And how did they get to be so powerful, who were the people, who were the organizations that brought them in, who knew, who gave them the power?"



Ptech software "is utilized at the highest levels of almost every government and military and defense organization in this country," Singh said, "including the Secret Service, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the House of Representatives, the Treasury Department, the IRS, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, and, last but not least, the Federal Aviation Administration."



I found it hard to believe that the most sensitive government and military computers would run enterprise software from a Lebanese-owned start-up company called Ptech from Quincy, Mass. All the talk about the Saudi-financier behind Ptech being linked to Osama bin Laden smelled like a "cut out" to me.



It simply did not make sense that the most secure computer systems of the U.S. government would be running software written by a Lebanese Muslim financed by a Saudi who happened to be on the most-wanted list of global terrorists.



When I turned my attention to Ptech, I soon discovered that the real key person involved in the development of the company was a Zionist Jewish lawyer named Michael Goff from Worcester, Mass. Goff also worked for an Israeli-run computer security company called Guardium. This confirmed my suspicion that Ptech was probably an Arab "cut out" controlled by the Mossad, and that Goff was their point man in Ptech.






Michael S. Goff,
Mossad's Man at Ptech




Goff's father and grandfather had been high-level Masons in the Worcester lodge of B'nai B'rith, a secret Jewish Masonic group formed in New York City in 1843. Goff obviously lied to me about how he had gotten involved with Ptech in 1994 when he said that he had wound up becoming the manager of the company through a temporary agency.



It seemed to me that the Ptech cut-out had been exposed. My revelations about Ptech's Zionist roots were published in a newspaper based in Washington, D.C. Singh, however, ignored the evidence of Israeli involvement with the creation of Ptech and continued to accuse the company of being linked to Saudi sponsors of terror. Meanwhile, Ptech software is still running on U.S. government and military computers.



Singh and I were asking the same questions: How did Ptech get to be so powerful? Who were the people, who were the organizations that brought them in? Who knew? Who gave them the power?



After 9-11, the crucial question was how did Ptech's software get loaded onto the critical U.S. government networks – particulary those of the FAA, the U.S. Air Force, and NORAD.



Who, in their right mind, would have allowed Ptech personnel and software anywhere near the FAA's core air traffic control system computers in Herndon, Virginia?



During my research about the military exercises that were on-going when 9-11 occurred, I read documents about how the FAA and NEADS computer systems failed. The FAA, in particular, was extremely slow to contact the military about the rogue aircraft of 9-11. In one case, one of the rogue aircraft had been allowed to fly without communication for nearly 30 minutes before the military was notified.



"THE HEART OF THE MATTER"



The flawed and delayed FAA procedures and communications with the military are at "the heart of the matter," as 9-11 relative Kristen Breitweiser said:



"You know, it is very upsetting that the 9/11 Commission had to subpoena the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA]. According to news reports, there are 150,000 documents that were left out of what the FAA sent to the commission. Those documents went toward the time line of when the FAA notified the North American Aerospace Defense Command [NORAD], when the fighter jets were scrambled and the communications between air-traffic control and the pilots. These are threshold issues that go to the heart of the matter. How did the FAA overlook 150,000 documents pertaining to these issues? It is more than mildly upsetting that they would leave out these documents."



MONTE BELGER – FAA DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR



In the documents about the FAA failures on 9-11, I came across the name of a Monte R. Belger, acting deputy administrator of the FAA at the time. A long-term FAA official who began his career with the FAA in Chicago, Monte Belger was the senior official who oversaw the upgrading of the FAA air traffic computer systems that began in the late 1990s and which was on-going in 2001.


Monte Belger, Acting Deputy of the FAA from 1997-2002, was the key official responsible for the computerized air traffic control system that MITRE and Ptech were loading with Israeli spyware.








Belger, as the Acting Deputy Administrator for Air Traffic Services and System Operations, was the key man at the FAA making the executive decisions about these upgrades.



As the New York Times of June 7, 2001, reported:



"The aviation agency is installing a computer system that controllers can use to determine whether airplanes can depart from established traffic lanes and fly long distances, and whether they will conflict with other airplanes by doing so."



Belger was the key decision maker at the Federal Aviation Administration, responsible for the software and computer upgrades that involved Ptech, the suspicious upgrades which were being done during the years prior to 9-11.



Documents and reports from the MITRE Center for Advanced Aviation System Development in McLean, Virginia, show that Ptech was working with MITRE on FAA computer systems.



As his on-line biography says, Belger, a 30-year veteran of the FAA, was Acting Deputy Administrator for the FAA for five years, from 1997-2002, leading the 49,000-person team and in charge of operating the world's safest aviation system.



During his tenure with the FAA, Belger was the Associate Administrator for Air Traffic Services, responsible for day-to-day operations of the nation's airspace system, and supervised the FAA's modernization plan aimed at improving aviation capacity, safety and service to airlines. Belger played a pivotal role in assisting in the transition of aviation security responsibilities from the FAA to the new Transportation Security Administration, and he co-chaired the FAA's successful efforts to adopt acquisition and personnel reform. Belger retired from the FAA in September 2002.



U.S. AVIATION TECHNOLOGY LLC



After he left the FAA, Belger became the "Vice President, Government Connection" of a small Israeli-run company based in the Fort Lauderdale area called U.S. Aviation Technology. The company was founded by Ehud "Udi" Mendelson, who described himself as "a captain in the prestigious Army Intelligence Unit of the Israel Defense Force."



"Ehud received his BS Degree in Business and Economics from the Bar-Elan [sic] University in Tel-Aviv, Israel. He holds a computer Network Engineer certification from Microsoft and Novel," according to his webpage.



Company documents and information from the Israel Venture Capital Research Center website specifically name Monte Belger of Centreville, Virginia, as a Vice President and Government Connection of U.S. Aviation Technology LLC.


Mendelson, age 51, was also the Chief Technology Officer of U.S. Aviation Technology, which was based in his apartment in Parkland, Florida. Mendelson's company promoted a remote-control system that allows a "ground pilot" to monitor and adjust the computer flight systems on aircraft. As he says in his presentations, "We put the ground 'pilot' in the cockpit."



His software and design was promoted as a system to obtain real-time data from the aircraft's computer recorders (black box, FDR) in order to monitor flight systems – and make corrections – if necessary. The possibility to remotely hijack a plane with Mendelson's system is obvious.



Mendelson also promoted a Flight Data Animator, which he said gives the ground pilot all of the data and the visuals that the pilot in the aircraft has. In the two on-line presentations of this equipment it is implied that corrections can be made by the ground pilot to avoid an accident or situation.



The data is sent via satellite to the satellite antenna on the top of the aircraft. This software and equipment clearly would allow the ground "pilot" to fly the aircraft. Mendelson was promoting his software and system before 9-11 and hoped to have it on the market in November 2001, according to a document in his company presentation.



I called Monte Belger to ask him about his relationship with Ehud Mendelson, an officer in Israel's military intelligence agency, and his remote-control aviation company. I found it very disturbing that an administrator with the FAA would be associated with such a business project, especially after 9-11.



I called Mr. Belger at his home on Eagle Tavern Lane in Centreville, Virginia at about 9 a.m. on January 24, 2008. I asked him about his relationship with U.S. Aviation Technology and Ehud Mendelson. He denied knowing or having anything to do with either and asked me to call him later at his office at Lockheed Martin Corporation where he is a Vice President responsible for Transportation Systems Security.



When I called his office, he put me on speaker phone, he said, in order to try and access the websites where he was named as a Vice President of U.S. Aviation Technology. He continued to deny knowing anything about the company or its founder, a member of Israel's Army Intelligence Unit.



PETER GOELZ – NTSB



Peter Goelz, the former managing director of the NTSB, the federal investigative body that oversees air crashes, is also named, along with Monte Belger and others, as a Vice President, Corporate Stategy, in U.S. Aviation Technology.



Goelz, at the NTSB from 1995 until 1999, personally supervised the investigations of TWA Flight 800, Egypt Air 990, the ValuJet crash in Miami, and the mysterious crash of the young John F. Kennedy's plane off the coast of Cape Cod. There are many outstanding questions about what really happened to the aircraft involved in several of the high-profile cases that Goelz was involved in.






Peter Goelz, former managing director of NTSB, oversaw the seriously flawed TWA 800 and Egypt Air 990 investigations. The New York-born Goelz was a lobbyist for gambling interests in Kansas City prior to coming to the NTSB. A political advisor and lobbyist, Goelz lacks any real expertise in accident investigation.






Prior to being appointed to the NTSB during the Clinton administration, Goelz was a political advisor in New Hampshire and a lobbyist for gambling interests in Kansas City. I have not found anything in his resume that would make him a suitable candidate to oversee aviation accident investigations.



I called Peter Goelz at his home on January 25 and asked him about his relationship with Ehud Mendelson and U.S. Aviation Technology. Goelz immediately recalled Mendelson, saying that he had been based in Miami, and said he had met with the Israeli captain from Israeli military intelligence "two or three" times in Washington, D.C.



When asked if his relationship with Mendelson had begun before or after 9-11, Goelz said that he did not remember. He did, however, have a very clear recall what Mendelson's company was all about: real-time access to all the data from the computer system on an aircraft.



Goelz said he had a hard time understanding what was proprietary about Mendelson's U.S. Aviation Technology. He asked me to send him an email with my questions and the scope of my article.



In my email, I explained that he was listed as a Vice President of U.S. Aviation Technology on the company's website and on that of Israel Venture Capital, and asked how and when he had gotten involved with Mr. Mendelson.



He wrote back on January 26 and asked me to "enlighten" him "a little more on the focus of [my] work in this matter." It is worth noting that Goelz did not deny being a Vice President of Mendelson's company.



If Goelz was confused about Mendelson's system, he certainly does not show it in his comments that are found on the testimonial page of U.S. Aviation Technology, where he wrote (as found on the website):



I have review your proposed integrated aircraft early warning system and belive it has considerable technical merit. During my years at the National Transportation Safety Board we were greatly concerned about the increasing complexity of airplan accidents. Advance in safety (ground proximity warning devices,TCAS etc..) have virtually eliminated certain type of accidents and have forced a greater reliance on the flight data recorder (FDR). In a number of accidents, particular those over open water (TWA Flight 800,Egypt Air,Swiss Air) the investigations were seriously hindered until the boxes were recovered. In the tragic events of September 11th, three of the four FDR’s were destroyed so no data (or voice recordings) was recovered.



Your system of real time downloading of aircraft data meets a very real and pressing problem. Not only is it important from a safety and security standpoint it also has applicability for navigation and flight management. A robust two way data pipe from the aircraft to the ground and back could revolutionize the industry.



The key to your system is it initial simplicity, relying on tested almost off the shelf components. That your concept is well on the way to securing a patent further strengthens your proposal.



I look forward to working with you on this project and believe that with the appropriate backing it will be successful.



Peter Goelz

Former NTSB Managing director.


Copyright © 2008 Christopher Bollyn
All Rights Reserved



Sources and Recommended Reading:



Important Note – Since contacting Belger and Goelz, there has been an attempt underway to remove some of these incriminating documents from the Internet. This is evident from deletions being made within the U.S. Aviation Technology documents. A warning message may also pop up when you try to access these documents.



"Ground Zero 911, Blueprint For Terror, Part Two" Indira Singh Interview with Pacifica, July 20, 2005

Go to 12510
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x142316


Bollyn, Christopher, "How Mossad Deceived the U.S. Military on 9-11" April 1, 2005

Go to 12509
http://www.bollyn.com/index/?id=10761



O'Meara, Kelly Patricia, "A Historical Whitewash? - The ' 9/11 Commission' runs into resistance from official Washington as it investigates the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon," Insight, The Washington Times, December 22, 2003



MITRE Technical Report, FAA Data Registry (FDR) Concepts of Use and Implementation, September 2000


MITRE Working Note, Adapting Information Engineering for the National Airspace System and Its Application to Flight Planning, September 1999


Mendelson, Udi, U.S. Aviation Technology documents

Go to 12508
http://us-aviation-technology.com/bplan325.pdf


U.S. Aviation Technology LLC on Israel Venture Capital website:

Go to 12507
http://www.ivc-online.com/G_info.asp?fObjectID=5387&ObjectType=1



Monte Belger on Israel Venture Capital website:

Go to 12506
http://www.ivc-online.com/G_info.asp?objectType=9&fObjectID=7244&CameFrom=GoogleSearch


Peter Goelz on Israel Venture Capital website:

Go to 12505
http://www.ivc-online.com/G_info.asp?objectType=9&fObjectID=7243&CameFrom=GoogleSearch

©2007 Christopher Bollyn


Go to 12504
http://www.gregpalast.com/one-bush-left-behind/
One Bush Left Behind
Published January 29th, 2008
Here’s your question, class:

In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child? Correct! $20.

Here’s your second question. The President also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie, $287,000 apiece.

Mr. Bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country, there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent education is their only hope of achieving them.”

So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?

-George Bush’s alma mater, Phillips Andover Academy, tells us their annual tuition is $37,200. The $20 “Pell Grant for Kids,” as the White House calls it, will buy a poor kid about 35 minutes of this educational dream. So they’ll have to wake up quickly.

-$20 won’t cover the cost of the final book in the Harry Potter series.

If you can’t buy a book nor pay tuition with a sawbuck, what exactly can a poor kid buy with $20 in urban America? The Palast Investigative Team donned baseball caps and big pants and discovered we could obtain what local citizens call a “rock” of crack cocaine. For $20, we were guaranteed we could fulfill any kid’s dream for at least 15 minutes.

Now we could see the incontrovertible logic in what appeared to be quixotic ravings by the President about free trade with Colombia, Pell Grant for Kids and the surge in Iraq. In Iraq, General Petraeus tells us we must continue to feed in troops for another ten years. There is no way the military can recruit these freedom fighters unless our lower income youth are high, hooked and desperate. Don’t say, ‘crack vials,’ they’re, ‘Democracy Rocks’!

The plan would have been clearer if Mr. Bush had kept in his speech the line from his original draft which read, “I have ordered 30,000 additional troops to Iraq this year – and I am proud to say my military-age kids are not among them.”

Of course, there’s an effective alternative to Mr. Bush’s plan – which won’t cost a penny more. Simply turn it upside down. Let’s give each millionaire in America a $20 bill, and every poor child $287,000.

And, there’s an added benefit to this alternative. Had we turned Mr. Bush and his plan upside down, he could have spoken to Congress from his heart.

-For more on Bush and education read “No Child’s Behind Left” in Armed Madhouse excerpted here.
-Also read Palast’s take on the 2007 State of the Union here.



Go to 12503
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/citigroups-selfimmolati_b_83518.html
Citigroup's Self-Immolation and the Beginning of the Eclipse Of American-Style Capitalism
Posted January 28, 2008
Consider this: Citigroup Inc. has ended last year holding at least $18 billion in mortgage-backed junk which they have had to write off. Their share price has been halved in a year causing their shareholders billions in losses. From a venerable bank, they have been reduced to a tincup institution, selling parts of themselves at fire sale prices. All this, while recent legal discovery has increased their liability exposure to the Enron bankruptcy.

For their management skills, the following awards have been visited on the Citigroup visionaries. Vikram Pandit, Cititgoup's new CEO, after just six weeks on the job has been awarded a $26.7 million stock bonus and 3 million in stock options. This for a man who when he was appointed to run trading, investment banking and alternative investments at Citigroup in early October caused Deutsche Bank AG analysts to pronounce that "... to restructure the investment bank means that changes in the Office of the Chairman, which we feel are needed, are unlikely to be forthcoming." Thus according to Deutsche Bank's prescient assessment, Pandit's appointment showed nothing more than that the past was prologue.

For his brilliance in 2007, CEO Charles "Chuck" Prince who was replaced by Pandit in December, was awarded $10.7 in stock in addition to a $13.2 million cash bonus. Wrecking franchises seems to be good work if you can get it.

Robert Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary, who after pocketing $100 million over the last nine years for being asleep at the switch, (and according to yesterday's New York Times "urged Citigroup to become more actively involved with in-vogue areas like structured credit, pools of securities backed by different assets, and commodities") told the board's compensation committee he didn't want a stock bonus this year (the previous year's payout was $6.81 million in stock plus an $8.4 million cash bonus). A true "geste d'estime" (gracious gesture) from someone with Rubin's public profile, would be to return the full $100 million. Now that would send an undeniable message and set a new standard of responsibility and accountability.

But here is the key. While all these "executives" were wallowing in "gravy" Citigroup had the effrontery to announce almost simultaneously that it was cutting 4,200 jobs! 4,200 jobs lost, 4200 families in distress. Shameless is hardly too strong an adjective. By proceeding with such unfairness, in such a one-sided and callous manner, Citigroup has become the poster child of so much that is wrong, and much of what is happening throughout corporate America.

Foreclosures, lost jobs and lost futures, for the middle class and the unempowered, while the corporate bigwigs dance off richer then ever before. It is a sign that American capitalism has grown rotten at the core. The capitalist impulse, the kind that made a Bill Gates possible, that nurtured his exemplary vision, making him rich and all of us as a society richer, is under attack by vested and influential interests that have stacked the game to such one sided advantage, that it is on the verge of losing all credibility and crushing our confidence in a system that was a meritocracy and a beacon unto others. It is obscene and a healthy society cannot permit it to continue.

The Citigroup bell has tolled!



Go to 12502
http://www.rense.com/politics5/murder.htm
Murder In The Gold
Market - Billionaire's
Mysterious Death
By Sherman H. Skolnick
12-6-99

Since my original story about the strange death of Edmond J. Safra, it was announced as if the matter is closed by the alleged confession of Safra's male nurse, stating that the nurse supposedly set the fire himself.

Please note: the Monaco police are puzzled by the following:

(1) The male nurse was hired 5 months previous. (That puts it about the time the Bank of England together with Safra's bank empire were implicated reportedly in a plot to force down the price of gold.)


(2) The Monaco police are puzzled after a psychiatric study of the male nurse. He was hired at the huge sum of 600 dollars PER DAY. YET, the male nurse was apparently known to being deranged, and unstable. He was formerly part of secret operations as with the U.S. Green Berets. Possibly, as a reported "hit" team.

(3) Under these circumstances, the police and others are pondering whether some criminal gang, such as the Russian mafiya, who had grievances against Banker Safra, arranged to plant the "male nurse" in Safra's dwelling to arrange whatever caused his death. This also opens the matter to some discussion that this "male nurse" was prepared to take the rap, or be the patsy, if his story unraveled. Can they prosecute him if he is a "mental case"? In the U.S., such a criminal suspect or defendant is sent away for "treatment" rather than put on trial. And more, was the "male nurse" planted by some intelligence agency having a motive, as in my earlier story, to snuff out banker Safra?

(4) the monopoly press, having down-played or left out entirely these details, gives the false impression it is a simple matter and the case is closed. NOT SO.

The founder and major owner of an international financial empire, active in clandestine gold trading, was murdered. This occurred at a key point in the gold market.

Highly secretive, Edmond J. Safra died in a pre-dawn incident when two alleged masked intruders reportedly got into the heavily-secure building in Monaco, and started a fire in or near his two-story penthouse apartment. His copper-domed dwelling is atop a six-story pink stucco building containing the branch of the bank he founded and of which he was the major owner, the Republic National Bank of New York and its subsidiaries such as Safra Republic Holdings of Luxembourg. He lived a short distance from the Grimaldi family royal palace and the Monte Carlo Casino.


Safra was officially a resident of the tax-haven principality notorious for its gold smuggling and its shoreline docks and warehouses used to transfer contraband worldwide. [SEE FOOTNOTE ONE.] Ships, some reportedly without names or identification, load and unload there.

Monaco police are puzzled as to the apparent absence of his bodyguard. Was it an inside job? Safra died, suffocated from the blaze. Was the latest arson ingredient used, namely, rocket propellant, which burns furiously and rapidly leaving little trace?

Formed in 1966, Safra's banking and precious metals empire was founded and built primarily after the creation of the State of Israel, by Safra acting as the savvy money laundry expert for wealthy Sephardic Jews desiring to extract their fortunes as they were fleeing Arab countries where they resided. Safra was reportedly an expert on gold smuggling and the use of the precious metal in secret financing of covert operations, such as political assassinations, by intelligence agencies, such as the American CIA. [SEE FOOTNOTE TWO.]


During 1999, gold bullion had declined to about 252 dollars per ounce, a record low in recent years, more than 30 dollars per oounce below the COST OF PRODUCTION of the most efficient gold mines, those in Canada. South African mines, going so deep in the earth and costly producers, complained they were being ruined. One such mine went into bankruptcy.


Gold bullion prices had a momentous upswing after September, 1999, when most of the European Central Banks made a surprise announcement that they are deferring for five years dumping of gold which previously they had done, supposedly because they did not like to have gold in their reserves anymore. Just prior to that, the Bank of England held a gold auction supposedly of some of its reserves. Actually, the Bank of England was offering gold owned only on paper, not actual gold in their possession. Upon the downfall of the Soviets, corrupt former Commissars stole thousands of tons of the Soviet gold treasury and made a crooked deal with the Dutch beholden to the Vatican.


A Dutch bank octopus, Algemene Bank Nederland, ABN, has reportedly been using that stolen gold to buy numerous banks in 15 U.S. cities. ABN's American flagship is La Salle National Bank of Chicago, a long notorious haven for secret accounts to bribe state and federal judges through offshore fund parking.

The Dutch parked this former Soviet gold at or near an airport in Switzerland, for swift, clandestine shipments anywhere on the globe.


Basically, the Bank of England was thus offering by auction Soviet gold they did not own. When currency and gold pirate, George Soros, found out, he began an attack on the Bank of England, whereby gold shot up to almost 330 dollars per ounce. This was caused, in part, by Soros pressing for actual DELIVERY of the gold offered by the Bank of England, on paper, sold to Soros and others. The possibility of demand for DELIVERY is a key part of commodity trading, although actual delivery is seldom demanded. Caught in the middle of the squeezing of the Bank of England and other "short sellers", those selling borrowed or stolen gold not yet in their possession, was reportedly Republic National Bank and Safra's gang of gold smugglers and worldwide criminals.

One well-informed commentator on the rigging of the gold market, calling his essay "I Accuse", said the Republic National Bank was part of an anti-trust monopoly fraudulently forcing down the price of gold, damaging gold mine shareholders and various smaller nations. [SEE FOOTNOTE THREE.]

NO HONOR AMONG THESE THIEVES! Thus using his inside knowledge, George Soros launched his attack thereby fingering and blackmailing the criminal operations of the Bank of England and an accomplice, Goldman Sachs brokerage. Realizing gold is the "killer metal", and his opponents were relying on stolen gold not in their possession, Soros apparently was using the two-faced Safra and Safra's reported precious metals assassins.

Entering into this picture was Alan Greenspan and his highly conspiratorial PRIVATE BANK called the Federal Reserve, used in efforts to rescue those caught in the short selling trap worked by Soros. Soros was demanding huge DELIVERY from Goldman Sachs, a major gold contract peddler. To force down the price of gold by criminal means, Goldman Sachs and others had sold short subject to DELIVERY, the equivalent of TEN YEARS OF GOLDMINE PRODUCTION worldwide. And Safra and gang were in the middle. A default of a short selling contract results in the "long" buyer owning everything of the short seller. Soros was about to own Goldman Sachs and have an armlock on the Bank of England.


So Goldman Sachs reportedly was considering the invoking of a seldom-used contract provision, "force majeure", that an Act of God, horrendous storm, or such, made fulfilling the gold contract impossible. Of course, under the facts, this would be a ridiculous assertion by Goldman Sachs as aided by Greenspan. [Critics call him REDSPAN, since he acts like a rotten Soviet Commissar.]

To again fraudulently force down the price of gold, in December, 1999, the Bank of England conducted another "phantom" gold auction, purporting to sell what they did not possess. That is, the gold stolen by the Moscow criminals and handled by the Dutch with the aid of the Vatican and the Swiss. Just as gold started to collapse again, Edmond J. Safra was murdered.

Not the first time such an assassination happened. At a key point in gold treachery in the 1970s, a major gold promoter, who tangled with the paper-money crowd like the Rockefellers, was thrown to his death from the window of a building in Indianapolis, Indiana.

A flood of stories has developed. Such as, Safra was murdered by the Russian mafiya, because he double-crossed them on Russian ruble gambling. And that Safra's gang were going to finger the Russians with specifics of how the Moscow bandits embezzled billions of dollars from U.S. foreign aid and the International Monetary Fund, and others, and reportedly washed the sums through Safra's money ships.

Then there are the stories that the accused dope money laundry, Bancomer, a Mexican bank empire now spread out across the world, was reportedly criminally implicated with Safra and gang. And this, jointly with the money laundry experts disguising dope money as "soybeans" and "foreign currency" and "gold" dealing, on the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Stock Exchange, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange.


The more likely explanation? That the French CIA, operating in their neighbor Monaco, snuffed out Safra. Remember, the French are great fanciers of gold. When real problems develop in Monaco, the authorities there somehow call up on their neighbor, the French police. Yet, in Monaco they have some 300 police officers for about 25,000 residents---a higher proportion than in nearby Nice, France. Once in a position with the secret political police to understand such things, Safra doesn't laugh anymore. Ha! Ha!

FOOTNOTE ONE

Princess Grace, once a movie star called Grace Kelly, then becoming wife of Grimaldi, the Monaco royal family, was murdered in a sabotaged car crash on a hill between Monaco and France. Some claim she was silenced. She apparently spoke too much about the traditional Italian and Sicilian mafia and their use of the warehouses on the Monaco shoreline and gold smuggling. Also: "Founding Father" Joseph P. Kennedy, of the Kennedy clan, lived in Monaco late in his life to be able to work secretive gold deals for his family in the U.S. where up to 1975, gold ownership by U.S. citizens was against federal law.

FOOTNOTE TWO

In 1995 we taped a one hour TV Show, part on-location, regarding a former member of the London Gold Pool, John Tarullo and his links to the highly corrupt First National Bank of Cicero. Tarullo was tightly wound into that bank, the dominant figure of which has been Bishop Paul Marcinkus, up to 1991, head of the Vatican Bank. Now in the U.S., Marcinkus is wanted in Italy on charges of gold smuggling and dirty money washing through the Vatican Bank jointly with the American CIA and the tradiitonal mafia. Marcinkus, protects himself with his Vatican passport. He was originally from the long notorious Chicago mafia-enclave suburb of Cicero, Al Capone land. For many years, Tarullo, as he admitted to us, lived near that Bank, was active there, and arranged worldwide clandestine gold deals for the American CIA and others in the secret political police. [Sort of like Edmond J. Safra.] Tarullo was found murdered on the day in August, 1995, when our public access Cable TV show was aired.


FOOTNOTE THREE

As to the "I Accuse" accusations against Goldman Sachs, Republic National Bank, Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank, and others, criminally manipulating gold. See: Ted Butler's "I Accuse". www.gold-eagle.com/gold digest 99/butler112299.html Posted by Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. www.gata.org



Go to 12501
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml%3Bjsessionid%3DJO5SPV2B55D3ZQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/29/wiran129.xml
Iran offers aid to Egypt over Gaza crisis
By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem
Last Updated: 2:27am GMT 29/01/2008

Iran has sought to use Gaza's border crisis to increase its influence in the Middle East.

Teheran offered yesterday to provide Egypt with funds to help with the influx of Palestinians flooding across the frontier.

It is the latest sign of improved relations between Cairo and Teheran which last week saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, telephone Hosni Mubarak, his Egyptian counterpart, the first contact between the two.

advertisementThe contents of their discussion were not revealed but officials in Teheran said that diplomatic relations were close to being restored almost 30 years after they were cut over Egypt's decision to recognise Israel.

The rapprochement will be watched closely by Israel which regards Iran as a hostile state and which monitors closely all attempts by Teheran to influence Palestinian public opinion.

While Hamas, the Palestinian militant Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, is regarded by the West as a terrorist group, it already enjoys diplomatic, military and financial support from Iran.

Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, announced yesterday that diplomatic relations with Cairo were close to being restored.

"We are on the threshold of establishing official, political relations and are waiting for our Egyptian brothers to express their readiness," he said.

He also revealed that Teheran had asked Cairo not to seal the border with Gaza and to allow Iranian-funded aid deliveries to civilian Gazans.

Iran is known to use humanitarian aid to further its political aims around the region, most notably in its support of the Shia Arabs of southern Lebanon.

Israeli intelligence officials have long accused Iran of providing arms that were smuggled into Gaza through tunnels dug under the border.

Now the border fence has been breached, there are fears that the illicit arms traffic could surge with backing from Iran.

Links between Iran and Egypt were severed in 1980, a year after the revolution that turned Iran into an Islamic republic, in protest at Egypt's recognition of Israel, its hosting of the deposed Shah and its support of Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.



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http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=6326
Don't Treat Old & Unhealthy Say Doctors
01-28-2008
London Telegraph

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.

The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as "out­rageous" and "disgraceful".



Go to 12499
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=6336
EU Plans To See Economy Blown Away
01-28-2008
London Telegraph

It was appropriate that, just as our MPs were voting last week to hand over yet more of the power to run this country in the EU treaty, the EU itself should be unveiling easily the most ambitious example yet of how it uses the powers we have already given away. The proposals for "fighting climate change" announced on Wednesday by an array of EU commissioners make Stalin's Five-Year Plans look like a model of practical politics.

Few might guess, from the two-dimensional reporting of these plans in the media, just what a gamble with Europe's future we are undertaking - spending trillions of pounds for a highly dubious return, at a devastating cost to all our economies.

The targets Britain will be legally committed to reach within 12 years fall under three main headings. Firstly, that 15 per cent of our energy should come from renewable sources such as wind (currently 1 per cent). Secondly, that 10 per cent of our transport fuel should be biofuels. Thirdly, that we accept a more draconian version of the "emissions trading scheme" that is already adding up to 12 per cent to our electricity bills.

The most prominent proposal is that which will require Britain to build up to 20,000 more wind turbines, including the 7,000 offshore giants announced by the Government before Christmas. To build two turbines a day, nearly as high as the Eiffel Tower, is inconceivable. What is also never explained is their astronomic cost.

At £2 million per megawatt of "capacity" (according to the Carbon Trust), the bill for the Government's 33 gigawatts (Gw) would be £66 billion (and even that, as was admitted in a recent parliamentary answer, doesn't include an extra £10 billion needed to connect the turbines to the grid). But the actual output of these turbines, because of the wind's unreliability, would be barely a third of their capacity. The resulting 11Gw could be produced by just seven new "carbon-free" nuclear power stations, at a quarter of the cost.

The EU's plans for "renewables" do not include nuclear energy. Worse, they take no account of the back-up needed for when the wind is not blowing - which would require Britain to have 33Gw of capacity constantly available from conventional power stations.

The same drawbacks apply to the huge increase in onshore turbines, covering thousands of square miles of countryside. They are only made viable by the vast hidden subsidies that wind energy receives, through our electricity bills. These make power from turbines (including the cost of back-up) between two and three times more expensive than that from conventional sources.

This is crazy enough, but the EU's policy on biofuels is even more so. The costs - up to £50 billion by 2020 - would, as the EU's own scientific experts have just advised, "outweigh the benefits". To grow the crops needed to meet the target would require all the farmland the EU currently uses to grow food, at a time when world food prices are soaring. Even Friends of the Earth have called on the EU to abandon its obsession with biofuels. Yet the Commission presses on regardless.

As for the "emissions trading scheme" (a system originating with the Kyoto Protocol, whereby businesses can buy or sell "carbon credits", supposedly to allow market forces to ensure that targets are met), the Commission last week predicted that by 2020 this could be raising £38 billion a year from electricity users. Of this, £6.5 billion a year would be paid by the UK, equating to £260 for every household in the country.

The Commission itself predicts, in recently leaked documents, that this will have major consequences for the EU's economy, and that heavy industries, such as steel, aluminium, chemicals and cement, will have to raise their prices substantially, some by as much as 48 per cent. Yet when it was pointed out that this will put EU industries at a competitive disadvantage, the Commission's only response was to suggest tariffs on imports from countries such as China or America that are not signed up to Kyoto.

It looks like the most expensive economic suicide note in history. But just as alarming is how little this madness has been exposed to informed analysis. It seems, finally, that the price we pay for membership of the EU and the price of our obsession with global warming are about to become very painfully synonymous. And no one seems to have noticed.



Go to 12498
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59935
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
BIZNETDAILY
Half of gold in central banks gone?
Watchdog: 'We want to expose and stop the manipulation'

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com

U.S. central banks may have less than half the gold they claim to possess in their vaults, charges a watchdog group in an ad scheduled for publication in the Wall Street Journal this week.

As WND reported, the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, or GATA, claims the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury are surreptitiously manipulating the country's gold reserves by participating in undisclosed leases, according to an advance copy WND obtained of the ad running in Thursday's edition of the Journal.

GATA believes much of the borrowed gold out on lease will never be returned to the central banks.

"With the demand for gold so strong worldwide, it has become impossible to return much of the leased gold without driving the price to the moon," said GATA's chairman, William J. Murphy III.

"Most observers calculate central bank reserves are supposed to have about 30,000 tons of gold worldwide in their vaults, but we believe the amount of gold actually there may be more like 15,000 tons," Murphy said. "The rest of the gold is gone."

The U.S. Treasury denies the claim, insisting the stock is accounted for regularly.

(Story continues below)

"We want to expose and stop the manipulation of the gold market by the United States Treasury and Federal Reserve right now," Murphy said.

"The purpose of this ad is to wake people up in the investment world as to what is going on behind the scenes in the U.S. gold and financial markets," Murphy told WND.

He explained GATA has decided to pay the Wall Street Journal $264,000 for a one-time placement of the full page ad in the national edition because the financial press has not covered the story.

"We have had two major international conferences since 2001; the mainstream financial press has blackballed our message," Murphy explained.

"Anybody Seen Our Gold?" the ad is titled, charging U.S. gold reserves held at depositories such as Fort Knox or West Point may have been seriously depleted as they are shipped overseas to settle complex transactions utilized by the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury to suppress prices.

GATA further charges the U.S. government strategy to manipulate the price of gold has begun to fail.

"The objective of this manipulation is to conceal the mismanagement of the U.S. dollar so that it might retain its function as the world’s reserve currency," the ad copy reads.

"Gold's recent rise toward $900 per ounce shows that the price suppression scheme is faltering," GATA says. "When it is widely understood how central banks have been suppressing gold, its price may rise to $3,000 or $5,000 an ounce or more."

As evidence of gold price manipulation by the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve, GATA cites Treasury's weekly report of the government's international reserve position that since May has listed gold loans and swaps as a line item in accounting for U.S. gold reserves.

The ad also cites a July 24, 1998, statement by then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who told Congress "central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise."

The most recent U.S. Treasury statement of the U.S. international reserve position, released Jan. 24, lists the total U.S. foreign currency reserves as $71.515 trillion, of which $11.041 trillion is listed as gold (including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped).

The Bank of International Settlements reports the gold derivatives market hit a peak of $640 billion dollars in December 2006.

Murphy emphasizes that tracing the derivatives back to central bank gold transactions and determining precisely the degree to which the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury are involved is not possible now, given the lack of public accountability and transparency built into the gold derivatives financial system worldwide.

Murphy said his grouip filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve "to find out what this line item is all about."

"What is the true status of the U.S. gold that is supposed to belong to the American people?" he asked. "Has U.S. gold been put into play without the Treasury or Fed letting the American people know?"

A statement on Treasury's website claims the agency's Exchange Stabilization Fund has not been used to manipulate gold prices. But no statement could be found on the Treasury website that categorically denies the agency engages in gold swaps, leases or futures contracts for reasons other than to manipulate the price of gold.

The London Bullion Market Association lists on its website more than 80 members working as "bullion bank market makers" engaged in the worldwide gold commodities market place as principals originating and participating in various gold derivative products, including gold leases and swaps.

The U.S. members of the London Bullion Market Association listed include Bear Stearns Forex Inc., Goldman Sachs International, JP Morgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.

A legal memorandum filed Feb. 28, 2003, on behalf of Barrick Gold Corporation, a major gold company affiliated with bullion bank J. P. Morgan, admitted Barrick engages with central banks in gold leases and other gold derivative transactions, without specifically admitting whether any such transactions were conducted on behalf of the Federal Reserve and Treasury.

In September 1999, European central banks meeting in Washington signed what has become known as the "Washington Accord," an agreement in which the banks agreed to limit the amount of their gold sales to 400 tons per year and not to expand their leasing operations during the five years of the agreement.

Under a gold lease, a central bank loans gold to a bullion bank at a nominal rate of interest, typically 1 percent.

The bullion banks then takes the gold lease to a commodities market such as the London Bullion Market, where the physical gold is sold, thereby adding to the supply of gold available on the market.

Problems develop when the price of gold rises dramatically, such as it has in recently months, with gold currently running over $900 an ounce.

Now, when the leased gold needs to be returned to the central banks at the end of the lease period, the bullion banks may have to go into the market and buy gold at a much higher price than the price when the gold initially was leased.

To hedge against the risk, bullion banks typically buy futures contracts or gold call options to secure gold delivery at a specified future date for a specified future price.

In the world of gold derivatives, a wide variety of contracts exist, including transactions in which central banks swap gold reserves, so they can carry out leasing or other gold derivative transactions using the gold of the other central bank rather than their own.

Gold swaps make central bank gold transactions even less transparent and more difficult to track.

Under current International Monetary Fund rules, central banks do not have to disclose on their financial statements how much of the gold in their stated reserves is encumbered by derivative contracts, including gold leases and swaps.

Nor are bullion banks required to disclose to the public the contracts under which they lease gold from central banks.

Gold yesterday hit a new all-time high, with futures contracts for February delivery surging to $929.80 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange in mid-day trading.



Go to 12497
http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/30012
From: , Organic Consumers Association, More from this Affiliate
Published January 25, 2008 09:43 AM
As Supplies Dry Up, Growers Pass on Farming and Sell Water

from the Press-Enterprise, Riverside CA

In a state where water has become an increasingly scarce commodity, a growing number of farmers are betting they can make more money selling their water supplies to thirsty cities and farms to the south than by growing crops.

The shortages this season among the most intense of the last decade are already shooting water prices skyward in many areas, and Los Angeles-area cities are begging for water and coaxing farmers to let their fields go to dust.

"It just makes dollars and sense right now," said Bruce Rolen, a third-generation farmer in Northern California's lush Sacramento Valley. "There's more economic advantage to fallowing than raising a crop."

Instead of sowing seeds in April, Rolen plans to leave his rice stubble for the birds and sell his irrigation water on the open market, where it could fetch up to three times the normal price.

"It's been a good decade since there's been this much interest in buying and selling water on the open market," said Jack King, national public affairs manager for the California Farm Bureau Federation. "We're prepared to see significant fallowing in several key parts of the state."


ADVERTISEMENT
[AD-IMG]

Water from Northern California rivers irrigates most of the country's winter vegetables and keeps faucets flowing in the Los Angeles area. But it must be shipped south through a complex network of pumps, pipes and aqueducts, and that system recently developed a kink when a federal judge ordered new restrictions on pumping to save a threatened fish.

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California legislators argue about how to solve the state's water crisis, the bottleneck has sent the demand for water soaring in cities and farming districts far to the south.

Residents of Long Beach can't run fountains, and it's now illegal for restaurants to serve customers a glass of water unless they ask for it.

Near Bakersfield, the shortages are expected to force some almond and pistachio growers to triage which of their nut trees should survive.

And cities across California are drawing down underground stashes meant to carry them through dry years just to avoid any new purchases.

Full Story:
=http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/CA_Water_Wars_324821...



Go to 12496
http://curtmaynardsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/theres-big-lie-and-then-theres-really.html
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
There's the Big Lie, and then there's the Really Big Lie
Curt Maynard

There’s the “Big Lie,” everyone has heard of it, you know the one, the one where Hitler allegedly advocated propagandizing a lie so huge, so preposterous, that nobody would believe it to be a lie – rather they would assume it to be true, based on the premise that nobody could possibly develop a lie so unlikely and ridiculously evident and expect anyone to believe it, therefore such a lie must be true.

Then there’s the really big lie, and that is that Hitler ever advocated foisting such an enormous and outrageous lie on anyone – he never did – what he did do however, was point out in his political autobiography Mein Kampf that Jews had utilized the “Big Lie,” over the centuries and that they had mastered its use on the unsuspecting. Yes reader, that’s right, the big H never advocated utilizing the “Big Lie,” all he did was state that Jews were the originators of the “Big Lie,” and that they had utilized it over the years in often successful efforts to deceive large numbers of people.

It is interesting that the very people the big H accused of frequently utilizing the “Big Lie,” in order to deceive the public are the same ones that have done more than anyone else to lie about the fact that Hitler supported and actively campaigned for its use. Abraham Foxman, the Director of the Anti-Defamation League, utilized the term in his book Never Again, numerous times, and each time he applied it in such a way as to direct the reader’s attention to the idea that only an anti-Semite could be capable of lying to such a degree.

What are the facts? Read on dear reader. Below are the actual words of Adolf Hitler, please note that when he details the “Big Lie,” he does so not to advocate its use, but instead to direct attention to the fact that Jews are the ones to have utilized the Big Lie and to have mastered its point and purpose.

"All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. From time immemorial, however, the Jews have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, where as in reality they are a race? And what a race! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. Schopenhauer called the Jew "The Great Master of Lies". Those who do not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail."[1]

So as you can see, Hitler wasn’t advocating lying to one’s people, he was pointing out the fact that Jews know better than anyone else how to initiate the big lie for their own purposes. Note too please, that Hitler mentioned the equally true fact that the “grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it,” just as did 9-11 – yes dear reader, 9-11 was not an operation carried out by 19 Arabs trained in Afghanistan, that is part of the “Big Lie,” I suggest you start looking at the same people Hitler spoke of more than seventy years ago.

One recent example of the “Big Lie,” in action and foisted by the same people the big H accused of being so proficient with its use, is this canard that the two “kidnapped,” Israeli soldiers are to be transferred in some manner from Lebanon to Iran. There is without any doubt only one beneficiary of a war with Iran, and that’s Israel. Israel and its Jewish American Fifth Column in the United States have been banging the drums of war against Iran for many years now, and they will do anything within their power to persuade moronic Americans that Iran represents a serious threat to the security of the United States. This is a lie; Israel is the problem, not Iran. Take a moment, relax, and consider this. In the early 1980s various Lebanese factions, Christians, Muslims, and Druze mostly were frequently kidnapping one other and occasionally an American, Syrian or Israeli, in an effort to further whatever agenda it was they were trying to draw attention to. Not once did any of them ever find it necessary to take their hostages outside Lebanon; in some cases they held on to them for years.[2] Why now then does Hezballah suddenly find it advantageous to do so? The reason of course is that Israel and its Fifth Column in the United States [Read Mainstream Media] finds it advantageous to their cause – to draw the United States into a war against both Syria and Iran – leaving Israel safe to impose its will in the Middle East. In this writer’s opinion, there may not even be any Israeli soldiers that were kidnapped, it could be part of the “Big Lie,” after all; we are forced to accept the word of a pathological liar, the state of Israel. The truth is, Americans have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe the government of Israel, it has lied to us in the past, it has been caught red handed in the past engaging in the “Big Lie,” it attacked an American ship in 1967 in an effort to make it look like the Egyptians did it, but were unsuccessful at sinking the U.S.S. Liberty, thus leaving witnesses around to expose them and their nefarious actions later.[3] In the 1950s the Israeli’s attempted to bomb American assets in Cairo, once again in an effort to frame Egyptians, but one of the bombs exploded prematurely blowing the lid off Israel’s covert operation.[4]

In the end dear reader, the intelligent man disregards anything the mainstream media says – literally – the media as it is today is nothing more than the mouthpiece of Jewish Supremacism and its salient or access into your thoughts and those of your neighbors. If you are truly interested in the truth, start by turning off the television.



Go to 12495
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003948586_favorfactory14m.html
October 15, 2007
$4.5 million for a boat that nobody wanted
By David Heath and Hal Bernton

Seattle Times staff reporters

PREV of NEXT


THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES

$4.5 million | The earmark forced the Navy to buy a boat it didn't ask for and couldn't use. The company that built the boat, Guardian Marine International, got four earmarks totaling $17.65 million over several years.



JOANNA COLLAR

$2 million | The earmark directed the Marines to buy T-shirts that aren't allowed in combat. The shirts had polyester and could melt in explosions.



MICROVISION

Microvision got earmarks to develop the "Nomad," a see-through computer monitor that was rejected. It was called "junk" by a soldier who helped evaluate it.



KEVIN WOLF / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

Sen. Patty Murray boasts that her earmarks have created jobs and helped local companies that have good products.



THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES

The Navy decided it couldn't use this boat it was forced to buy. It was transferred to the University of Washington and later to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.



KEVIN WOLF / SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

Rep. Norm Dicks says favors to defense contractors don't come with strings attached.

Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., directed the Marines to buy T-shirts from InSport.

Related

Congressional earmarks database
Video: Sen. John McCain denounces the earmark process
Who gave the most? (PDF)
Who got the most? (PDF)
Earmark growth since 1994 (PDF)
Timeline: The boats no one wanted (PDF)
About this series
What do you think of this story?
How favors end up as law

After the president submits budgets prepared by departments and agencies, Congress determines the final budgets with 12 major spending bills.
At the start of each year, thousands of earmark seekers come to Capitol Hill to lobby for dollars.

The House and Senate appropriations committees allow each member of Congress to submit a wish list of earmarks — federal spending for projects the agencies did not request. Committee members have the most influence in getting earmarks.

The defense bill, like most spending bills, has spending limits. To make room for earmarks, Congress must cut items agencies have requested. Figuring out what those cuts are by reading the bill is quite difficult.

Earmarks approved by the committees are appended to the bills. Most earmarks are a few words in small type in a committee report.
Tucked away on Seattle's Portage Bay, a sleek, 85-foot speedboat sat idle for years — save for an annual jaunt to maintain its engine.

The Navy paid $4.5 million to build the boat. But months before the hull ever touched water, the Navy gave the boat to the University of Washington. The school never found a use for it, either.

Why would the Navy waste taxpayer dollars on a boat that nobody wanted?

Blame it on Sen. Patty Murray and Congressmen Norm Dicks and Brian Baird. All three exercised their political muscle to slip language into a 2002 spending bill to force the Navy to buy the boat from Edmonds shipbuilder Guardian Marine International.

Year after year, the Washington lawmakers did favors for the tiny company, inserting four "earmarks" into different bills to force the Navy and Coast Guard to buy boats they didn't ask for — $17.65 million in all. None of the boats was used as Congress intended.

The congressional trio say they were helping Guardian Marine because it had a great product. But each has also received generous campaign donations from the company's three executives, its sole employees: $14,277 to Baird, $15,000 to Murray, and $16,750 to Dicks.

Earmarks are federal dollars that members of Congress dole out to favor seekers — often campaign donors. In the process, lawmakers advocate for the companies, helping them bypass the normal system of evaluation and competition.

This can result in earmarks that are wasteful or potentially harmful.

For example, Murray directed $6 million to a Redmond company for high-tech battle gear that the Army had rejected as flawed for its armored-vehicle Stryker Brigade.

Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., directed the Marines to buy $2 million of combat T-shirts from an Oregon company. But they couldn't be used in battle in Iraq due to a subsequent ban on polyester garments that could melt under fire and badly burn the troops.

Until recently, the earmark process was secretive. Congress did not have to publicly reveal the names of companies getting the contracts or those of the sponsoring lawmakers.

The Seattle Times investigated the 2007 defense bill, examining the relationships between who got money in the bill and who gave to lawmakers' campaign funds. Reporters were able to tie nearly half of the bill's 2,700 earmarks to their sponsoring lawmakers.

The Times then built a database of tens of thousands of government records to perform an analysis. It provides an in-depth look at the extent to which these congressional favors and campaign giving go hand in glove.

The Times found:

People who benefit from earmarks generally give money to those who deliver them: Of the nearly 500 companies identified as getting 2007 defense earmarks, 78 percent had employees or political action committees who made campaign contributions to Congress in the past six years.

Though individual contributions are limited by law, people at companies that received defense earmarks gave lawmakers more than $47 million.

The 2,700 earmarks Congress put in the 2007 military spending bill cost $11.8 billion. The Pentagon didn't ask for the money in its budget and, because its budget is capped by law, cuts had to be made to find room for the favors.

Nearly all members of Congress dole out earmarks. Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, an earmark critic, calls the practice "circular fundraising" because of the perception that tax dollars given out as favors come back as campaign donations. "I think that most taxpayers would say that it doesn't pass the smell test," he said.

Winslow Wheeler, formerly a congressional aide who dealt with defense earmarks for years, said no one in Congress asks for campaign donations in exchange for earmarks because they don't have to; everyone understands the process.

"It's not talked about," but if favors are not followed with donations, Wheeler said, "it's noticed — you may get a little bit less help the next year."

Murray, Dicks and Baird say emphatically that their favors to defense contractors never come with strings attached. The distinction is critical because soliciting a campaign contribution in exchange for an earmark is a crime.

"People, if they want to support me, they support me," Dicks said. "If they don't want to support me, I still might do their earmark — if I thought it was a worthy project."

Earmarking has exploded in the past decade, quintupling from 1996 to 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service.

During "The Season," the first three months each year on Capitol Hill, thousands of favor seekers flood the offices of Congress, asking for earmarks. Appointments stack one on top of the other, tying up staffers for months, as lawmakers winnow through the myriad requests and decide what to buy.

Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist convicted of influence peddling, called the process "the favor factory."

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, who sponsors some earmarks, says that lawmakers find it easier to raise money from people they know from committee work. "I think it's very hard [for the public] not to have the impression that in some way what you do on the committee is some way related to how much money you get."

Officially, the Pentagon opposes earmarks because they circumvent its own efforts to set spending priorities, thoroughly evaluate products and seek competitive bids.

Some military officials, however, eagerly support earmarks that expand their programs. Gerald Darsch, who heads food research at Natick Soldier Systems Center, backed Murray when she set aside money to develop longer-lasting tomatoes and rations, a move that substantially increased his budget.

A senior Army official who fulfills Congress' earmarks said he first learns of them when the defense bill passes. He spoke only if his name was not used.

Often, he said he can't figure them out from the cryptic descriptions in the bill.

"If there's a new mark out there for something we've never seen before, [we go] back to the subcommittee and say, 'Hey, you put an earmark on this line for this amount of dollars. What the hell is it?' Because some of this stuff — hell, I've been in the Army for 20 years, and I don't know what some of that stuff is."

Boat gets a lift

The story of how Guardian Marine landed millions of dollars in public funds begins in Edmonds in the late 1990s. Company founder Richard Martinson had developed a "fast patrol boat," a hybrid of a speedboat and a ship, 85 feet long and capable of up to 40 knots, like crossing a sports car with a recreational vehicle.

The plan was to sell the $4 million patrol boat to foreign governments, but Martinson, a former Coast Guard commander, said sales floundered.

Martinson's fortunes brightened not long after he made his first recorded contribution to a congressional campaign in June 1998. He gave $500 to the re-election fund of Dicks, whom he knew when they lived a few doors apart at UW's Terry Hall in the 1960s.

In fall 1999, Dicks and Baird added a line in the defense bill to have the Navy buy Guardian Marine's $4 million boat.

Dicks urged the Navy to assign the boat to the Navy SEALs or other high-speed missions. But the boat was never deployed on any combat missions. It is now in Carderock, Md., "being used to evaluate new and emergent maritime technology," a Navy spokesman said.

Guardian Marine gained another powerful advocate in 2001 in Sen. Murray, who had just become chair of an appropriations subcommittee.

Murray describes herself as a "huge unabashed supporter of the maritime building industry" and boasts that her earmarks have helped to create jobs. She said she remembers hearing the Coast Guard talk about a need for fast boats to chase down drug runners.

Martinson recalls Murray telling him, "Maybe they should look at your boat."

"Senator, it sounds real good to me," Martinson recounts saying. "But remember one thing: You're going to get pushback from these people. The Coast Guard doesn't like any outside entity telling them what they need."

Martinson's prediction came true. Murray "had to work hard to get the Coast Guard to take the boat," he said. "There was a group that was upset because they felt the vessel was shoved down their throat."

Murray added a $4.65 million earmark to the 2002 defense bill and left the Coast Guard no choice about which boat it would buy, specifying in the bill that it had to be "a currently-developed 85-foot fast patrol craft that is manufactured in the United States."

The Coast Guard's mission shifted after Sept. 11, primarily to homeland security.

Murray said she might not have pursued the earmark "if we had been able to look forward and know that Sept. 11 was going to happen."

But the bill actually passed three months after Sept. 11. Before the final vote, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., attacked Murray's earmark.

"The Coast Guard did not request this vessel, does not need this vessel, nor does this vessel meet the Coast Guard's requirements," he said on the Senate floor. "The Coast Guard's resources are already stretched thin and this will only hamper its ability to meet its new challenges since Sept. 11."

The bill passed with all its pork intact.

After several evaluations, the Coast Guard concluded it couldn't use the Guardian boat. It didn't need it to chase drug smugglers because it uses helicopters to do that more easily and safely.

"It's a fine boat for what it is," said Lt. Cmdr. Bill Brewer, who led some of the testing. "It didn't fit well into what the Coast Guard operates."

The Coast Guard gave it to a sheriff's office that uses it to patrol San Francisco Bay.

At the time of McCain's attack, Murray, Dicks and Baird delivered a third earmark for Guardian Marine, having the Navy buy another boat.

The plan was to have the Navy use the Guardian Marine boat in tandem with another test boat called the Sealion. The lawmakers combined the two boats into an $8.4 million earmark; both would be built by Oregon Iron Works.

By joining forces with Oregon Iron Works, its subcontractor, Guardian Marine gained political muscle. From 2001 to 2002, executives of the two companies would give more than $22,000 in campaign funds to members of their local delegations, including $3,000 to Murray.

But even as the third Guardian Marine boat was being assembled, the Navy decided it didn't want it and transferred it to the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory.

UW researchers concluded it would take $750,000 to make it usable. The university tried to get the Navy to take it back. For years, the boat was docked outside the school.

To maintain the boat, staff ran it at full speed once a year. "We're sort of trapped in doing the routine things that need to be done," Russell McDuff, director of the School of Oceanography, said earlier this year.

The Navy recently assigned the boat to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle.

Although none of the three Guardian Marine boats were used as Congress intended, Murray, Dicks and Baird inserted a $4.5 million earmark for a fourth boat in the 2004 defense bill. This time, they said the speedboat was needed to retrieve torpedoes at the Navy base in Keyport, Kitsap County.

The Navy did buy a fourth Guardian Marine speedboat but assigned it to a base in California for evaluation.

In the past four years, executives of Guardian Marine and Oregon Iron Works have given nearly $125,000 in contributions to Congress members.

Baird stands behind the earmarks. "We didn't just say, 'Oh, a company in our district wants an earmark — let's get it for them.' We looked at the mission, we looked at the history of the boat, and we looked at the alternatives out there," he said. "And I think that's pretty good work, frankly."

Murray remains a staunch defender of earmarks. She pointed to Insitu, a high-tech company in Klickitat County that makes aerial drones the Army uses for surveillance in Iraq. She said she helps local companies with good products that may be overlooked by the sprawling Pentagon and its faraway bureaucrats who might favor their "buddies" who they "were having drinks with ... on Friday night."

"People tend to talk about earmarks as something that is a bad thing," she said. "I see it as a way to make sure that the tax dollars that are spent are spent in a very wise way."

Battle gear in boxes

Some defense contractors rely almost completely on earmarks. Redmond's Microvision, a small, publicly traded high-tech company, has gotten $55 million in earmarks, most of it to develop the technology used in a helmet display that was flawed.

In 2001, Microvision, with only $10.8 million in revenues, got $8 million in earmarks with the help of several members of Congress, including Sen. Slade Gorton.

(Two years later, after losing his Senate seat, Gorton took a seat on Microvision's board. It gave him $32,000 in annual director's fees and options to buy 90,000 shares of stock, company filings show.)

Microvision's product was the "Nomad," a tiny computer display that attaches to the helmets of soldiers. It was supposed to allow Stryker commanders to stick their heads out of their vehicles and see computerized maps without having to duck back inside.

In June 2004, Murray announced that she had gotten a $5.5 million earmark for the company and its core product for the Army. A month earlier, five Microvision executives each gave Murray's campaign $1,000 on the same day.

One Stryker Brigade commander — Col. Robert Brown — wrote in a November 2004 memo, approved by higher-ups, that an improved Nomad would be a key asset in combat missions in Iraq.

But a December 2004 report by the Center for Army Lessons gave a different conclusion: It was distracting to wear and had a blind spot, among other flaws. As a result, soldiers weren't using it.

Retired Command Sgt. Major Thomas Adams — one of those who evaluated equipment used by the Stryker Brigade in Iraq in 2005 — called the Nomad "junk." Vehicle commanders face the greatest risk when they have to look out of Strykers as they roll through Iraqi cities. They cannot risk testing a new product on the battlefield, Adams said, especially one that can interfere with their vision.

As a result, most of the Nomads sent to Iraq remained in unopened boxes at a warehouse in Mosul.

In August 2005, the Nomad was put to a competitive trial, battling head-to-head with five competing miniature monitors at a Yakima event dubbed "The Shootout."

Microvision lost the competition to Rockwell Collins. The biggest problem for Microvision was that Stryker maps distinguish friendly troops with colored icons. But the Nomad came only in a monochromatic red, so soldiers had difficulty telling good guys from bad.

Even so, Murray got the Senate four months later to approve a $6 million earmark that directed the Stryker Brigades to obtain 1,599 Nomads.

Microvision then announced it would shut down the Nomad program.

But with the $6 million, Microvision negotiated a deal to create 10 color prototypes of the see-through display.

This year, the troops found a simple and cheap solution for commanders needing to see computerized maps while standing and looking out of the hatch: They moved the computer to the top of the vehicle.

"It works just fine," said Col. Stephen Townsend, whose brigade just returned from Iraq.

Since late 2005, the company has overhauled its management. Its new chief executive officer, Alexander Tokman, said he wants to wean the company from earmarks and develop a real product for consumers.

"You can't bank your future on appropriations every year," Tokman said.

T-shirts that melt

In June 2005, Rep. Wu of Oregon arrived in Iraq and handed out free T-shirts to Marines. He was promoting the wares of InSport, a Portland-area company that makes fast-drying polyester shirts.

Earlier that year, Wu and other Northwest lawmakers got a $2 million earmark in the defense bill to sell T-shirts to the Marines. Wu said the shirts would be far more comfortable than the cotton ones the Marines wore under body armor.

But there was a big problem with these T-shirts, a problem encountered in the deserts of Iraq and in 1982 during the Falklands invasion.

Polyester clothing melts in intense heat, adhering to the skin. "This essentially creates a second skin and can lead to horrific, disfiguring burns," said Capt. Lynn E. Welling, the 1st Marine Logistics Group head surgeon, who conducted research in Iraq in early 2006.

Months after Wu's visit, a Marine wearing a polyester T-shirt was riding in an armored vehicle in Iraq when a bomb hidden on the road exploded. Even though the Marine wore a protective vest, the shirt melted in the explosion, contributing to severe burns over 70 percent of his body. Doctors had to extract the shirt's remains from the Marine's torso.

In April 2006, the Marines banned polyester T-shirts for use in combat or anywhere outside the protected "Green Zone" bases.

But in July, because of Wu's earmark, the Marines announced the purchase of 87,000 of the banned polyester T-shirts, along with 11,000 T-shirts with fire-resistant sleeves. None was allowed in battle, the Marines said.

David Costello, a lobbyist for InSport, said that when InSport and Wu sought the earmark, the company thought the troops' body armor would prevent the shirts from melting. Once the Marines banned these kinds of shirts, they were instead used for training.

Wu's spokeswoman said the Marines were happy to have funds for the shirts, citing a thank-you letter from the Secretary of the Navy that came a month before the ban.

Even after the ban, Wu inserted another $1 million earmark in the next defense bill to make the Marines buy the InSport shirts again, noting that the company was working to develop a heat-resistant shirt for combat use.

The Marines instead used that money to buy flame-resistant fleece garments from InSport.

Executives of InSport and its owner, Vital Apparel, donated $6,100 to Wu's campaign in a single day at the end of the earmark "season."

The day after the bill passed on Sept. 29, 2006, one executive gave another $750 to Wu. Two others followed with identical donations within three weeks.

But by then, the Marine Corps had done months of testing to find the best fire-resistant T-shirts. It selected two shirts, one made by Potomac Field Gear, the other by Danskin, according to the Marines.

InSport's T-shirt — even its new fire-resistant version — still can't be used in combat, said 1st Lt. Geraldine Carey of the Marine Corps Systems Command.

Changes needed

Congress members from both parties want to loosen the grip of money on politics. One solution, proposed earlier this year in a bill by senior Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., calls for public funding for congressional campaigns.

McDermott supports the idea but says reform won't come soon. "This is a country that worships at the altar of the free enterprise system, and so the Congress is reflective of that culture," he said.

Congress just recently began requiring lawmakers to reveal each earmark they've sponsored, name its beneficiary, and certify that neither they nor their spouse have any financial stake in them.

But such transparency only works if lawmakers feel "some degree of shame" for doling out favors to their backers, Rep. Flake said. "If you're not embarrassed by that, then transparency doesn't help a lot."

Meanwhile, Congress is approving a batch of new earmarks for next year.

Once again, Rep. Wu wants $1.5 million for InSport to sell T-shirts to Marines in Iraq — shirts designed to be worn under body armor but not approved for that use.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, recipient of $15,000 in contributions from Microvision executives since 2005, is seeking $1 million for more work on the company's 10 prototypes.

And Rep. Baird still wants to get patrol boats like Guardian Marine's into Coast Guard hands. During a congressional hearing earlier this year, Baird asked an admiral if they could "chat" about "other alternatives that are available on the marketplace" to the Coast Guard's slower, 87-foot patrol boats.

"Might we do that?" Baird asked.

"Happy to do that, sir," the admiral replied.


David Heath: dheath@seattletimes.com, 206-464-2136

Hal Bernton: dheath@seattletimes.com, 503-292-1016

Interns Elizabeth Burlingame and Chanel Merritt contributed to this story.



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