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Octafish
Octafish's Journal
Octafish's Journal
February 27, 2016
Magic Bracelets of Buy Partisanship
Her husband Robert Altman was BCCI frontman Clark Clifford's No.1
Until the S&Ls went under, the largest bank scam in history with the usual crony capitalism, CIA, narcotrafficers, Mafia, GOP, DEM, etc...
Wonder Woman Isn`t Much Help In BCCI Scandal
August 04, 1991|By Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune.
WASHINGTON — If you ever wondered what happened to Wonder Woman, a.k.a. Lynda Carter, the statuesque actress whose comic-bookesque ``Wonder Woman`` TV series ran from 1976 to 1979, well, she later did a couple of miniseries and some cosmetics commercials and promotions. But mostly she married (in 1984) hot-shot Washington lawyer Robert Altman, junior partner and protege of Clark Clifford, longtime lobbyist/lawyer, presidential confidant and former defense secretary.
While her husband was knocking down the big bucks, setting her up in a fabulous estate in suburban Potomac, Md., with a reported 16 bathrooms, Carter hit the Washington social scene in as big a way as possible, lending her highly visible presence to ballet balls and disease-fighting charity functions and generally carrying on more like a grande dame than a comic book super hero.
According to Friday`s Washington Post, she`s been such a whiz at socializing that her circle of friends now includes Blaine Trump, the much-photographed wife of Donald Trump`s even less-successful younger brother, Robert; defrocked former House Speaker Jim Wright and his wife, Betty; the socially indefatigable Honey Skinner, wife of Illinoisan and Transportation Secretary Sam Skinner; tennis stars Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, and, yes, Dorothy Bush LeBlond, daughter of President and Mrs. Bush.
Not bad for a woman who used to go around in a skin-tight strapless outfit and use magic bracelets to help corral bad guys.
Trouble is, husband Robert and his boss, Clifford, are finding themselves all over the newspapers these days as major players with the capital`s First American Bankshares Inc., a bank holding company that turns out to have been connected with the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International. With a client list that allegedly includes some of the world`s least savory terrorists and drug dealers, BCCI has not only won the sobriquet ``sleaziest bank in the world`` but also was hit with indictments in New York charging bribery and fraud.
Altman, although president of First American, says he had no knowledge of any deep connection with BCCI, but is said to be preparing legal paperwork in anticipation of an investigation by federal prosecutors and Federal Reserve Board regulators.
CONTINUED...
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-08-04/features/9103250783_1_honey-skinner-mrs-bush-bush-family-compound
August 04, 1991|By Michael Kilian, Chicago Tribune.
WASHINGTON — If you ever wondered what happened to Wonder Woman, a.k.a. Lynda Carter, the statuesque actress whose comic-bookesque ``Wonder Woman`` TV series ran from 1976 to 1979, well, she later did a couple of miniseries and some cosmetics commercials and promotions. But mostly she married (in 1984) hot-shot Washington lawyer Robert Altman, junior partner and protege of Clark Clifford, longtime lobbyist/lawyer, presidential confidant and former defense secretary.
While her husband was knocking down the big bucks, setting her up in a fabulous estate in suburban Potomac, Md., with a reported 16 bathrooms, Carter hit the Washington social scene in as big a way as possible, lending her highly visible presence to ballet balls and disease-fighting charity functions and generally carrying on more like a grande dame than a comic book super hero.
According to Friday`s Washington Post, she`s been such a whiz at socializing that her circle of friends now includes Blaine Trump, the much-photographed wife of Donald Trump`s even less-successful younger brother, Robert; defrocked former House Speaker Jim Wright and his wife, Betty; the socially indefatigable Honey Skinner, wife of Illinoisan and Transportation Secretary Sam Skinner; tennis stars Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, and, yes, Dorothy Bush LeBlond, daughter of President and Mrs. Bush.
Not bad for a woman who used to go around in a skin-tight strapless outfit and use magic bracelets to help corral bad guys.
Trouble is, husband Robert and his boss, Clifford, are finding themselves all over the newspapers these days as major players with the capital`s First American Bankshares Inc., a bank holding company that turns out to have been connected with the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International. With a client list that allegedly includes some of the world`s least savory terrorists and drug dealers, BCCI has not only won the sobriquet ``sleaziest bank in the world`` but also was hit with indictments in New York charging bribery and fraud.
Altman, although president of First American, says he had no knowledge of any deep connection with BCCI, but is said to be preparing legal paperwork in anticipation of an investigation by federal prosecutors and Federal Reserve Board regulators.
CONTINUED...
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-08-04/features/9103250783_1_honey-skinner-mrs-bush-bush-family-compound
Magic Bracelets of Buy Partisanship
February 27, 2016
Friedman’s analysis went largely under the radar of the mainstream press.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/what-mainstream-media-wont-tell-you-about-bernie-sanders-economic-plan
Bernie's Economic Plan Works -- Mainstream Media News Blackout
For the record:
What the Mainstream Media Won't Tell You About Bernie Sanders' Economic Plan
Leading economist's study shows the plan would create a stimulus, but the mainstream media isn't covering it.
By Dave Johnson / OurFuture.org February 25, 2016
“When you dare to do big things, big results should be expected. The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result.” – James K. Galbraith
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says he wants the American people to join him and “fight for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all.” His website outlines a number of proposalstoward this end, including increasing taxation of corporations and the wealthy and using the money to repair the country’s infrastructure, extending public education four years to cover college, extending Medicare to everyone, expanding Social Security and addressing climate change.
Gerald Friedman, a respected economist (and Clinton supporter by the way) took a look at Sanders’ proposals, ran the revenue and spending numbers through a standard economic model, and suggested that the very high level of spending would provide a “significant stimulus to an economy that continues to underperform, with national income and employment at levels well below capacity.” This stimulus could lead to several positive economic outcomes, including increasing gross domestic product growth to 5.3 percent a year, cutting unemployment to 3.8 percent and increasing wages by 2.5 percent per year. This, combining with the revenue proposals, would bring a budget surplus. Friedman wrote:
Like the New Deal of the 1930s, Senator Sanders’ program is designed to do more than merely increase economic activity: the expenditure, regulatory, and tax programs will increase economic activity and employment and promote a more just prosperity, “broadly-based” with a narrowing of economic inequality.
On balance, the Sanders program will lead to a dramatic acceleration in economic growth and employment. It will raise wages, especially for the lowest-paid Americans, and narrow the gap between rich and poor. With these gains, economic conditions will return to the prosperity of the late-1990s, or even the mid-1960s.
Friedman’s analysis went largely under the radar of the mainstream press.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/what-mainstream-media-wont-tell-you-about-bernie-sanders-economic-plan
February 27, 2016
Spike Lee's right: black people should wake up to 'Brother Bernie'
The director endorsed the Vermont senator on Tuesday. He’s the latest in a series of black intellectuals to recognise Sanders’ superiority over Clinton
by Steven W Thrasher
The Guardian, Feb. 24, 2016
pike Lee is the latest black public intellectual to endorse Bernie Sanders and to question the sanity of black voters and politicians pledging their allegiance to the Clintons, who have done as much harm to black America as any living political couple. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am mystified by robust black support for Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing helped me wake up about race in America when I first watched it as a teenager. That’s why I was delighted to read that Spike Lee encouraged South Carolina democrats to “wake up” in a radio ad on Tuesday and to vote for “Brother Bernie”.
Bill Clinton governed through playing to white fears by hurting, locking up or even executing black Americans. He left the campaign trail in 1992 to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a black man so mentally incapacitated, he reportedly did not eat the dessert from his final meal because he was “saving it for later”. When in office, Bill Clinton ended welfare for poor children and destroyed countless black families through a crime bill even he now admits made mass incarceration worse, while Hillary Clinton would go out and whip up support for this accelerated disenfranchisement and marginalization of black America, even when it meant referring to children as “superpredators”.
The case against Clintonian neoliberalism is compelling. I am glad to see black thinkers making a case for Sanders’ democratic socialism and its potential to address structural racism as an alternative. If anyone is smart enough to effectively make Sanders’ case to black America, it would be the intellectual leaders who have endorsed him thus far.
Take Spike Lee. He is one of the contemporary black geniuses who have helped the nation (and me personally) reconsider race in transformative ways – and the latest to be feeling the Bern. Or Cornel West, who has been stumping for “Brother Bernie” for months. Just as I understood race differently after watching Crooklyn and Jungle Fever, I grew to understand black liberation theology and the radical potential of Christianity by reading West’s books – his influence been immeasurable. And, like much of America, I learned how to better think about the case for reparations after Ta-Nehisi Coates made it in the Atlantic. That’s why it matters so much that he said he would vote for Sanders.
Similarly, much of the country first got woke about the scale and racism of mass incarceration when they read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Alexander has not endorsed Sanders or any candidate – “I endorse the revolution” she wrote – but she has offered the most skewering critique on why “Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve the black vote” in the Nation. She has also reminded black voters that “we are not checkmated” – that we can approach politics with a sense of possibility.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/24/black-thinkers-bernie-sanders-studied-clintons-true-cost
Spike Lee's right: black people should wake up to 'Brother Bernie'
Spike Lee's right: black people should wake up to 'Brother Bernie'
The director endorsed the Vermont senator on Tuesday. He’s the latest in a series of black intellectuals to recognise Sanders’ superiority over Clinton
by Steven W Thrasher
The Guardian, Feb. 24, 2016
pike Lee is the latest black public intellectual to endorse Bernie Sanders and to question the sanity of black voters and politicians pledging their allegiance to the Clintons, who have done as much harm to black America as any living political couple. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am mystified by robust black support for Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing helped me wake up about race in America when I first watched it as a teenager. That’s why I was delighted to read that Spike Lee encouraged South Carolina democrats to “wake up” in a radio ad on Tuesday and to vote for “Brother Bernie”.
Bill Clinton governed through playing to white fears by hurting, locking up or even executing black Americans. He left the campaign trail in 1992 to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a black man so mentally incapacitated, he reportedly did not eat the dessert from his final meal because he was “saving it for later”. When in office, Bill Clinton ended welfare for poor children and destroyed countless black families through a crime bill even he now admits made mass incarceration worse, while Hillary Clinton would go out and whip up support for this accelerated disenfranchisement and marginalization of black America, even when it meant referring to children as “superpredators”.
The case against Clintonian neoliberalism is compelling. I am glad to see black thinkers making a case for Sanders’ democratic socialism and its potential to address structural racism as an alternative. If anyone is smart enough to effectively make Sanders’ case to black America, it would be the intellectual leaders who have endorsed him thus far.
Take Spike Lee. He is one of the contemporary black geniuses who have helped the nation (and me personally) reconsider race in transformative ways – and the latest to be feeling the Bern. Or Cornel West, who has been stumping for “Brother Bernie” for months. Just as I understood race differently after watching Crooklyn and Jungle Fever, I grew to understand black liberation theology and the radical potential of Christianity by reading West’s books – his influence been immeasurable. And, like much of America, I learned how to better think about the case for reparations after Ta-Nehisi Coates made it in the Atlantic. That’s why it matters so much that he said he would vote for Sanders.
Similarly, much of the country first got woke about the scale and racism of mass incarceration when they read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Alexander has not endorsed Sanders or any candidate – “I endorse the revolution” she wrote – but she has offered the most skewering critique on why “Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve the black vote” in the Nation. She has also reminded black voters that “we are not checkmated” – that we can approach politics with a sense of possibility.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/24/black-thinkers-bernie-sanders-studied-clintons-true-cost
February 27, 2016
Justice Scalia Spent His Final Hours With Members of an Ancient, Secretive Society of Elite Hunters
The mysterious International Order of St. Hubertus is steeped in the heritage of European nobility, the "royal hunt" — and war.
By Paula Young Lee / Salon February 26, 2016
When Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly on Feb. 13, he was at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas, hunting for pheasant and chukar. It has now been revealed that he was in the company of 35 members of an “exclusive fraternity for hunters called the International Order of St. Hubertus, an Austrian society that dates back to the 1600s.” According to the Washington Post, the owner of the ranch, John Poindexter, and Scalia’s traveling companion are both high-ranking members of the group.
It sounds like a terrific setup for a conspiracy theory. But how secret can a society be if it has offices and a website? Its existence is out in the open. The tricky part is pinning down the names of its members. Was Scalia one of their official numbers? Probably not, given that the Order is “under the Royal Protection of His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain, the Grand Master Emeritus His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria and our Grand Master … His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary.” In other words, the named ranking members are passionate about hunting to the point of folly. They also tend to be royal or, if American, officers in the military. I would not be surprised to learn that princes Charles, William and Harry are members. (Though Elizabeth I was renowned for her hunting skills, there don’t appear to be any women in this Order.)
There are reasons for both the high level of social privilege as well as the commitment of its members to an activity that many Americans find both anachronistic and offensive. The Order’s motto is “Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes” or “Honoring God by Honoring His Creatures.” No less quaint to modern ears is the affirmation that the “a true knightly order in the historical tradition.” So what’s the history here? Let’s start with the name of the order itself. Hubert (or Hubertus) was a French saint and bishop of Lìege in the 700s who took his story from Saint Eustace, who began his life as a Roman soldier named Placidus. As described in the Golden Legend, 1275:
In medieval illuminations, the hart of St. Eustace/St. Hubert appears with a crucifix suspended between its antlers, which have 10 prongs to represent each of the Ten Commandments. This is the origin of the much-mocked “holy hunter,” who combines reverence for God’s creations with a (seemingly contradictory) love of hunting wild creatures.
Crucially, until the 19th century, hunting in Europe was traditionally restricted to members of the nobility who had the express permission of the king to hunt his land. This could cause resentment among nobles as well as the peasantry. For example, Forest Law was the central conflict in “Robin Hood,” as the merry men, starving peasants all, were forbidden to hunt the King’s forest, and so they resorted to poaching. We have nothing today that resembles the theologically saturated performance that was the royal hunt, which involved hundreds of men, horses and dogs for a protracted activity that was ceremonial, symbolic and limited to ten quarry animals: Five noble beasts blessed by God, and five “black beasts (bete noirs)” who were creatures of the devil.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/justice-scalia-spent-his-final-hours-members-ancient-secretive-society-elite-hunters
In a democracy, all people are equal under the law; not just the noble-born and rich dips.
Undemocratic in the extreme, like Fascists and Royalty
Justice Scalia Spent His Final Hours With Members of an Ancient, Secretive Society of Elite Hunters
The mysterious International Order of St. Hubertus is steeped in the heritage of European nobility, the "royal hunt" — and war.
By Paula Young Lee / Salon February 26, 2016
When Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly on Feb. 13, he was at the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas, hunting for pheasant and chukar. It has now been revealed that he was in the company of 35 members of an “exclusive fraternity for hunters called the International Order of St. Hubertus, an Austrian society that dates back to the 1600s.” According to the Washington Post, the owner of the ranch, John Poindexter, and Scalia’s traveling companion are both high-ranking members of the group.
It sounds like a terrific setup for a conspiracy theory. But how secret can a society be if it has offices and a website? Its existence is out in the open. The tricky part is pinning down the names of its members. Was Scalia one of their official numbers? Probably not, given that the Order is “under the Royal Protection of His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain, the Grand Master Emeritus His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria and our Grand Master … His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary.” In other words, the named ranking members are passionate about hunting to the point of folly. They also tend to be royal or, if American, officers in the military. I would not be surprised to learn that princes Charles, William and Harry are members. (Though Elizabeth I was renowned for her hunting skills, there don’t appear to be any women in this Order.)
There are reasons for both the high level of social privilege as well as the commitment of its members to an activity that many Americans find both anachronistic and offensive. The Order’s motto is “Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes” or “Honoring God by Honoring His Creatures.” No less quaint to modern ears is the affirmation that the “a true knightly order in the historical tradition.” So what’s the history here? Let’s start with the name of the order itself. Hubert (or Hubertus) was a French saint and bishop of Lìege in the 700s who took his story from Saint Eustace, who began his life as a Roman soldier named Placidus. As described in the Golden Legend, 1275:
So on a day, as he was on hunting, he found a herd of harts, among whom he saw one more fair and greater than the other… And (the hart) spake to him, saying: Placidus, wherefore followest me hither? I am appeared to thee in this beast for the grace of thee. I am Jesu Christ.
In medieval illuminations, the hart of St. Eustace/St. Hubert appears with a crucifix suspended between its antlers, which have 10 prongs to represent each of the Ten Commandments. This is the origin of the much-mocked “holy hunter,” who combines reverence for God’s creations with a (seemingly contradictory) love of hunting wild creatures.
Crucially, until the 19th century, hunting in Europe was traditionally restricted to members of the nobility who had the express permission of the king to hunt his land. This could cause resentment among nobles as well as the peasantry. For example, Forest Law was the central conflict in “Robin Hood,” as the merry men, starving peasants all, were forbidden to hunt the King’s forest, and so they resorted to poaching. We have nothing today that resembles the theologically saturated performance that was the royal hunt, which involved hundreds of men, horses and dogs for a protracted activity that was ceremonial, symbolic and limited to ten quarry animals: Five noble beasts blessed by God, and five “black beasts (bete noirs)” who were creatures of the devil.
CONTINUED...
http://www.alternet.org/justice-scalia-spent-his-final-hours-members-ancient-secretive-society-elite-hunters
In a democracy, all people are equal under the law; not just the noble-born and rich dips.
February 26, 2016
Those images are mostly bogus -- reflections, manipulated negatives, etc.
The Trent and Heflin photos have not been debunked, however.
http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-corroborative-ufo-photo.html
The top image was one of two Polaroids taken by Mrs. Trent in 1950 from her farm in Oregon. The bottom was taken by a French Air Force officer in 1954 while airborne somewhere.
Mr. Rex Heflin, then an Orange County California employee, took a series of UFO images with his Polaroid while checking road signs that were being blocked by vegetation. Here's a better image of Mr. Heflin's first photo:
Note the dust on the ground directly underneath the object is standing straight up. That is hard evidence for some type of unknown phenomenon we wouldn't know about.
Ann Drufel on Rex Heflin: http://www.anndruffel.com/articles/ufo/goodbyerexheflin.htm
One photo case not mentioned that merits attention: The Trindade Island UFO (1958)
Rare document on the 1958 Trindade UFO case
Most of the crew of a Brazilian Navy ship witnessed the event, captured by a civilian photographer.
I don't know what the UFO things are -- or represent they are. I do know it is an amazing universe and I encourage others to learn about it and all its phenomena, even that which is odd or alien or doesn't fit in with my own perspectives.
February 26, 2016
Justice Kagan and Justice Scalia Are Hunting Buddies—Really
"I shot myself a deer," Elena Kagan said of a recent big game hunting trip with the conservative justice in Wyoming.
by GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA
The Atlantic, JUN 30, 2013
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan bagged herself a deer on a hunting trip to Wyoming with Justice Antonin Scalia last fall. You heard that right: Despite finding themselves on opposite sides of major court decisions, the liberal Obama-appointee and the conservative Reagan-appointee have become hunting buddies since Kagan was confirmed in 2010 as the fourth woman in history to sit on the highest court in the land.
"I shoot birds with him, fairly -- you know, two or three times a year now," Justice Kagan said during a wide-ranging and delightful Aspen Ideas Festival conversation with Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center, on Saturday. "And then he um, at the end of last year we had been bird shooting four or five times. I'll tell you how that came to be. But before I do, before I -- he said to me, 'It's time for big game hunting.' And we actually went out to Wyoming this past fall to shoot deer and antelope. Uh, and we did."
"You're getting some hisses from the audience. I hope you were a better shot than Dick Cheney," Rosen interjected as a smattering of hisses emerged from around the room at the mention of hunting in Wyoming.
"I shot myself a deer," Kagan continued. "The way this started, I'll tell the story. You know the NRA has become quite a presence in judicial confirmations, and that means when you go around from office to office, from chamber to chamber, I met with about 80 senators individually and quite a lot of them, both Republicans and Democrats, ask you about your views on the Second Amendment. But because you don't say anything about your views on anything, when they ask you well, they'll try to figure out what your views on the Second Amendment are likely to be and they'll say, 'Well, have you ever held a gun? Have you ever gone hunting? Do you know anybody who's gone hunting?' And you know me, Jeff, I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and this was not something we really did, you know.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/justice-kagan-and-justice-scalia-are-hunting-buddies-really/277401/
Scalia knew her, even before she got to be somebody.
I wonder how Scalia felt about keeping Gov. Don Siegelman in the pen? Rove Just Us lobbied to keep him there, too.
Unlike the Big Time "movers and shakers," Gov. Don Siegelman must not be one of The Aspens.
Elena Kagan Hunted with Antonin Scalia; and Antonin Scalia Lobbied for Elena Kagan.
With the notice being paid to the late Associate Justice's sportin' life:
Scalia and Kagan have a history shooting stuff together.
Justice Kagan and Justice Scalia Are Hunting Buddies—Really
"I shot myself a deer," Elena Kagan said of a recent big game hunting trip with the conservative justice in Wyoming.
by GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA
The Atlantic, JUN 30, 2013
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan bagged herself a deer on a hunting trip to Wyoming with Justice Antonin Scalia last fall. You heard that right: Despite finding themselves on opposite sides of major court decisions, the liberal Obama-appointee and the conservative Reagan-appointee have become hunting buddies since Kagan was confirmed in 2010 as the fourth woman in history to sit on the highest court in the land.
"I shoot birds with him, fairly -- you know, two or three times a year now," Justice Kagan said during a wide-ranging and delightful Aspen Ideas Festival conversation with Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center, on Saturday. "And then he um, at the end of last year we had been bird shooting four or five times. I'll tell you how that came to be. But before I do, before I -- he said to me, 'It's time for big game hunting.' And we actually went out to Wyoming this past fall to shoot deer and antelope. Uh, and we did."
"You're getting some hisses from the audience. I hope you were a better shot than Dick Cheney," Rosen interjected as a smattering of hisses emerged from around the room at the mention of hunting in Wyoming.
"I shot myself a deer," Kagan continued. "The way this started, I'll tell the story. You know the NRA has become quite a presence in judicial confirmations, and that means when you go around from office to office, from chamber to chamber, I met with about 80 senators individually and quite a lot of them, both Republicans and Democrats, ask you about your views on the Second Amendment. But because you don't say anything about your views on anything, when they ask you well, they'll try to figure out what your views on the Second Amendment are likely to be and they'll say, 'Well, have you ever held a gun? Have you ever gone hunting? Do you know anybody who's gone hunting?' And you know me, Jeff, I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and this was not something we really did, you know.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/justice-kagan-and-justice-scalia-are-hunting-buddies-really/277401/
Scalia knew her, even before she got to be somebody.
Scalia once lobbied Obama advisor to have Elena Kagan nominated to the Supreme Court
BY CNN WIRE, FEBRUARY 15, 2016
When the shocking news of Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing hit Saturday night, my mind raced back to a White House Correspondents Association dinner seven years ago, when we were seated together.
We bantered about my hometown of Chicago, where he had taught law before ascending to the bench. He opined on wine and music and generally lived up to his reputation as a man who told and enjoyed a good story.
And then our conversation took an unexpected turn.
Justice David Souter, Scalia’s longtime colleague on the court, had just announced his retirement, creating a vacancy for President Obama to fill. Scalia figured that as senior adviser to the new president, I might have some influence on the decision — or at least enough to pass along a message.
“I have no illusions that your man will nominate someone who shares my orientation,” said Scalia, then in his 23rd year as the court’s leading and most provocative conservative voice. “But I hope he sends us someone smart.”
A little taken aback that he was engaging me on the subject, I searched for the right answer, and lamely offered one that signaled my slight discomfort with the topic. “I’m sure he will, Justice Scalia.”
He wasn’t done. Leaning forward, as if to share a confidential thought, he tried again.
“Let me put a finer point on it,” the justice said, in a lower, purposeful tone of voice, his eyes fixed on mine. “I hope he sends us Elena Kagan.”
CONTINUED...
http://wtkr.com/2016/02/15/scalia-once-lobbied-obama-advisor-to-have-elena-kagan-nominated-to-the-supreme-court
BY CNN WIRE, FEBRUARY 15, 2016
When the shocking news of Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing hit Saturday night, my mind raced back to a White House Correspondents Association dinner seven years ago, when we were seated together.
We bantered about my hometown of Chicago, where he had taught law before ascending to the bench. He opined on wine and music and generally lived up to his reputation as a man who told and enjoyed a good story.
And then our conversation took an unexpected turn.
Justice David Souter, Scalia’s longtime colleague on the court, had just announced his retirement, creating a vacancy for President Obama to fill. Scalia figured that as senior adviser to the new president, I might have some influence on the decision — or at least enough to pass along a message.
“I have no illusions that your man will nominate someone who shares my orientation,” said Scalia, then in his 23rd year as the court’s leading and most provocative conservative voice. “But I hope he sends us someone smart.”
A little taken aback that he was engaging me on the subject, I searched for the right answer, and lamely offered one that signaled my slight discomfort with the topic. “I’m sure he will, Justice Scalia.”
He wasn’t done. Leaning forward, as if to share a confidential thought, he tried again.
“Let me put a finer point on it,” the justice said, in a lower, purposeful tone of voice, his eyes fixed on mine. “I hope he sends us Elena Kagan.”
CONTINUED...
http://wtkr.com/2016/02/15/scalia-once-lobbied-obama-advisor-to-have-elena-kagan-nominated-to-the-supreme-court
I wonder how Scalia felt about keeping Gov. Don Siegelman in the pen? Rove Just Us lobbied to keep him there, too.
Unlike the Big Time "movers and shakers," Gov. Don Siegelman must not be one of The Aspens.
February 25, 2016
Paul Craig Roberts, Feb. 22, 2016
In my archives there is a column or two that introduces the reader to John Perkins’ important book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. An EHM is an operative who sells the leadership of a developing country on an economic plan or massive development project. The Hit Man convinces a country’s government that borrowing large sums of money from US financial institutions in order to finance the project will raise the country’s living standards. The borrower is assured that the project will increase Gross Domestic Product and tax revenues and that these increases will allow the loan to be repaid.
However, the plan is designed to over-estimate the benefits so that the indebted country cannot pay the principal and interest. As Perkins’ puts it, the plans are based on “distorted financial analyses, inflated projections, and rigged accounting,” and if the deception doesn’t work, “threats and bribes” are used to close the deal.
The next step in the deception is the appearance of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF tells the indebted country that the IMF will save its credit rating by lending the money with which to repay the country’s creditors. The IMF loan is not a form of aid. It merely replaces the country’s indebtedness to banks with indebtedness to the IMF.
To repay the IMF, the country has to accept an austerity plan and agree to sell national assets to private investors. Austerity means cuts in social pensions, social services, employment and wages, and the budget savings are used to repay the IMF. Privatization means selling oil, mineral and public infrastructure in order to repay the IMF. The deal usually imposes an agreement to vote with the US in the UN and to accept US military bases.
CONTINUED...
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/02/22/the-evil-empire-has-the-world-in-a-death-grip-paul-craig-roberts/
Sounds like Paul Craig Roberts reads DU, just not the part of DU you "contribute" to, zappaman: the part that fights the BFEE.
Asst. Sec. Treasury who said War Inc runs an Evil Empire.
The Evil Empire Has The World In A Death GripPaul Craig Roberts, Feb. 22, 2016
In my archives there is a column or two that introduces the reader to John Perkins’ important book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. An EHM is an operative who sells the leadership of a developing country on an economic plan or massive development project. The Hit Man convinces a country’s government that borrowing large sums of money from US financial institutions in order to finance the project will raise the country’s living standards. The borrower is assured that the project will increase Gross Domestic Product and tax revenues and that these increases will allow the loan to be repaid.
However, the plan is designed to over-estimate the benefits so that the indebted country cannot pay the principal and interest. As Perkins’ puts it, the plans are based on “distorted financial analyses, inflated projections, and rigged accounting,” and if the deception doesn’t work, “threats and bribes” are used to close the deal.
The next step in the deception is the appearance of the International Monetary Fund. The IMF tells the indebted country that the IMF will save its credit rating by lending the money with which to repay the country’s creditors. The IMF loan is not a form of aid. It merely replaces the country’s indebtedness to banks with indebtedness to the IMF.
To repay the IMF, the country has to accept an austerity plan and agree to sell national assets to private investors. Austerity means cuts in social pensions, social services, employment and wages, and the budget savings are used to repay the IMF. Privatization means selling oil, mineral and public infrastructure in order to repay the IMF. The deal usually imposes an agreement to vote with the US in the UN and to accept US military bases.
CONTINUED...
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/02/22/the-evil-empire-has-the-world-in-a-death-grip-paul-craig-roberts/
Sounds like Paul Craig Roberts reads DU, just not the part of DU you "contribute" to, zappaman: the part that fights the BFEE.
February 25, 2016
CIA director withheld information about JFK assassination
By Shawn Price
UPI, Oct. 13, 2015
LANGLEY, Va., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A declassified CIA report reveals former director John McCone withheld information to the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
A secret report written in 2013 by CIA historian David Robarge and declassified in fall of 2014, alleges McCone led a "benign cover up" that kept "incendiary" information about the CIA from the Warren Commission, the report said.
McCone's cover up was designed to keep the commission focused on "what the agency believed was the 'best truth' - that Lee Harvey Oswald, ... acted alone in killing John Kennedy," the report said.
SNIP...
Robarge told Politico, the agency had declassified the report "to highlight misconceptions about the CIA's connection to JFK's assassination." A common conspiracy theory is that the CIA was in some way behind the killing.
CONTINUED...
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/10/13/CIA-director-withheld-information-about-JFK-assassination/4701444710907/
Of course, there's the ongoing obstruction of justice by CIA in regards to JFK assassination:
Investigators say files could prove interference
Eddie Lopez was the investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
By Bryan Bender
Boston Globe, Oct. 15, 2014
WASHINGTON — It was nearly four decades ago that Eddie Lopez was hired by a congressional committee to reinvestigate the 1963 murder of President John F. Kennedy, a role that had him digging through top secret documents at the CIA.
In the end, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reported in 1978 that it believed the assassination was probably the result of a conspiracy, although it couldn’t prove that, and its conclusions are disputed by many researchers.
But now Lopez is seeking answers to a lingering question: Could still-classified records reveal, as he and some of his fellow investigators have long alleged, that the CIA interfered with the congressional investigation and placed the committee staff under surveillance?
SNIP...
“It was time to fight one last time to ascertain what happened to JFK and to our investigation into his assassination,” Lopez, who is now the chief counsel for a school district in Rochester, N.Y., said in an interview. He is joined in the effort by two other former investigators, researcher Dan Hardway and G. Robert Blakey, the panel’s staff director.
Lopez, 58, charges that the CIA actively stymied the probe and monitored the committee staff members as they pursued leads about the events leading up to the assassination.
CONTINUED...
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/10/15/decades-later-seeking-shed-light-cia-conduct-congressional-inquiry-jfk-assassination/dUf8qawsBQWfM2kxm7w7DM/story.html
What Ed Lopez's partner, Dan Hardway, told me and a college museum full of folks a year ago.
Thought DU might be interested, seeing how CIA and the Secret Government are still lying to the American people, still spying on the American people, and still making a killing off war. What else they're doing to the American people, I can't guess.
Considering the Agency has yet to come clean in regards to JFK assassination...
Obstruction of justice in 1963 (just being acknowledged today -- 52 years later):
CIA director withheld information about JFK assassination
By Shawn Price
UPI, Oct. 13, 2015
LANGLEY, Va., Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A declassified CIA report reveals former director John McCone withheld information to the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
A secret report written in 2013 by CIA historian David Robarge and declassified in fall of 2014, alleges McCone led a "benign cover up" that kept "incendiary" information about the CIA from the Warren Commission, the report said.
McCone's cover up was designed to keep the commission focused on "what the agency believed was the 'best truth' - that Lee Harvey Oswald, ... acted alone in killing John Kennedy," the report said.
SNIP...
Robarge told Politico, the agency had declassified the report "to highlight misconceptions about the CIA's connection to JFK's assassination." A common conspiracy theory is that the CIA was in some way behind the killing.
CONTINUED...
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/10/13/CIA-director-withheld-information-about-JFK-assassination/4701444710907/
Of course, there's the ongoing obstruction of justice by CIA in regards to JFK assassination:
Investigators say files could prove interference
Eddie Lopez was the investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
By Bryan Bender
Boston Globe, Oct. 15, 2014
WASHINGTON — It was nearly four decades ago that Eddie Lopez was hired by a congressional committee to reinvestigate the 1963 murder of President John F. Kennedy, a role that had him digging through top secret documents at the CIA.
In the end, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reported in 1978 that it believed the assassination was probably the result of a conspiracy, although it couldn’t prove that, and its conclusions are disputed by many researchers.
But now Lopez is seeking answers to a lingering question: Could still-classified records reveal, as he and some of his fellow investigators have long alleged, that the CIA interfered with the congressional investigation and placed the committee staff under surveillance?
SNIP...
“It was time to fight one last time to ascertain what happened to JFK and to our investigation into his assassination,” Lopez, who is now the chief counsel for a school district in Rochester, N.Y., said in an interview. He is joined in the effort by two other former investigators, researcher Dan Hardway and G. Robert Blakey, the panel’s staff director.
Lopez, 58, charges that the CIA actively stymied the probe and monitored the committee staff members as they pursued leads about the events leading up to the assassination.
CONTINUED...
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/10/15/decades-later-seeking-shed-light-cia-conduct-congressional-inquiry-jfk-assassination/dUf8qawsBQWfM2kxm7w7DM/story.html
What Ed Lopez's partner, Dan Hardway, told me and a college museum full of folks a year ago.
Thought DU might be interested, seeing how CIA and the Secret Government are still lying to the American people, still spying on the American people, and still making a killing off war. What else they're doing to the American people, I can't guess.
February 24, 2016
BY: MICHELLE ALEXANDER
The Root, Posted: Feb. 10 2016
EXCERPT...
And it seems that we’re eager to get played. Again.
The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that. At a time when a popular slogan was “It’s a black thing; you wouldn’t understand,” Bill seemed to get us. When Toni Morrison dubbed him our first black president, we nodded our heads. We had our boy in the White House. Or at least we thought we did.
Black voters have been remarkably loyal to the Clintons for more than 25 years. It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries. Now Hillary is running again. This time she’s facing a democratic socialist who promises a political revolution that will bring universal health care, a living wage, an end to rampant Wall Street greed and the dismantling of the vast prison state—many of the same goals that Martin Luther King Jr. championed at the end of his life. Even so, black folks are sticking with the Clinton brand.
What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization and the disappearance of work?
No. Quite the opposite.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2016/02/the_clinton_legacy_decimated_black_america_so_why_are_we_still_voting_for.html
The Clinton Legacy Is Black Impoverishment—so Why Are We Still Voting for Hillary?
From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies that Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.BY: MICHELLE ALEXANDER
The Root, Posted: Feb. 10 2016
EXCERPT...
And it seems that we’re eager to get played. Again.
The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. He threw on some shades and played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. It seems silly in retrospect, but many of us fell for that. At a time when a popular slogan was “It’s a black thing; you wouldn’t understand,” Bill seemed to get us. When Toni Morrison dubbed him our first black president, we nodded our heads. We had our boy in the White House. Or at least we thought we did.
Black voters have been remarkably loyal to the Clintons for more than 25 years. It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries. Now Hillary is running again. This time she’s facing a democratic socialist who promises a political revolution that will bring universal health care, a living wage, an end to rampant Wall Street greed and the dismantling of the vast prison state—many of the same goals that Martin Luther King Jr. championed at the end of his life. Even so, black folks are sticking with the Clinton brand.
What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion? Did they take extreme political risks to defend the rights of African Americans? Did they courageously stand up to right-wing demagoguery about black communities? Did they help usher in a new era of hope and prosperity for neighborhoods devastated by deindustrialization, globalization and the disappearance of work?
No. Quite the opposite.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2016/02/the_clinton_legacy_decimated_black_america_so_why_are_we_still_voting_for.html
February 24, 2016
Who knew Prescott Bush and Allen Dulles were close with John McCloy? Certainly not the American public.
You are absolutely correct, Sir. When secret agents enjoy zero oversight by We the People, it's not a democracy.
Thank heavens for WikiLeaks. It's how we learned they serve masters like Big Oil.
Dulles and the NAZIs formed the secret clique within the secret state.
Who knew Prescott Bush and Allen Dulles were close with John McCloy? Certainly not the American public.
Allen Dulles, the NAZIs, and the CIA
Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg once stated that "The Dulles brothers were traitors." Some historians believe that Allen Dulles became head of the newly formed CIA in large part to cover up his treasonous behavior and that of his clients.
-- Christian Dewar, Making a Killing
Just before his death, James Jesus Angleton, the legendary chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, was a bitter man. He felt betrayed by the people he had worked for all his life. In the end, he had come to realize that they were never really interested in American ideals of "freedom" and "democracy." They really only wanted "absolute power."
Angleton told author Joseph Trento that the reason he had gotten the counterintelligence job in the first place was by agreeing not to submit "sixty of Allen Dulles' closest friends" to a polygraph test concerning their business deals with the Nazis. In his end-of-life despair, Angleton assumed that he would see all his old companions again "in hell."
-- Michael Hasty, Paranoid Shift
EXCERPT…
Allen Welsh Dulles was born to privilege and a tradition of public service. He was the grandson of one secretary of state and the nephew of another. But by the time he graduated from Princeton in 1914, the robber baron era of American history was coming to an an end, ushered out by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act -- which had been used in 1911 to break up Standard Oil -- and by the institution of the progressive income tax in 1913. The ruling elite was starting to view government less as their own private preserve and more as an unwanted intrusion on their ability to conduct business as usual. That shift of loyalties in itself may account for many of the paradoxical aspects of Dulles's career.
Dulles entered the diplomatic service after college and served as a State Department delegate to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which brought a formal end to World War I. The Versailles Treaty which came out of this conference included a provision making it illegal to sell arms to Germany. This displeased the powerful DuPont family, and they put pressure on the delegates to allow them to opt out. It was Allen Dulles who finally gave them the assurances they wanted that their transactions with Germany would be "winked at."
Dulles remained a diplomat through the early 1920's, spending part of that time in Berlin. However, he left government service in 1926 for the greener pastures of private business, becoming a Wall Street lawyer with the same firm as his older brother, John Foster Dulles.
By the middle 20's, Germany had started recovering from the effects of the war and its postwar economic collapse, and the great German industrial firms were looking like attractive investment opportunities for wealthy Americans. W.A. Harriman & Co., formed in 1919 by Averell Harriman (son of railroad baron E.H. Hariman) and George Herbert Walker, had led the way in directing American money to German companies and had opened a Berlin branch as early as 1922, when Germany was still in chaos. At that time, Averell Harriman traveled to Europe and made contact with the powerful Thyssen family of steel magnates. It was to be a long-lasting and fateful partnership.
CONTINUED…
http://www.panshin.com/trogholm/secret/rightroots/dulles.html
Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg once stated that "The Dulles brothers were traitors." Some historians believe that Allen Dulles became head of the newly formed CIA in large part to cover up his treasonous behavior and that of his clients.
-- Christian Dewar, Making a Killing
Just before his death, James Jesus Angleton, the legendary chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, was a bitter man. He felt betrayed by the people he had worked for all his life. In the end, he had come to realize that they were never really interested in American ideals of "freedom" and "democracy." They really only wanted "absolute power."
Angleton told author Joseph Trento that the reason he had gotten the counterintelligence job in the first place was by agreeing not to submit "sixty of Allen Dulles' closest friends" to a polygraph test concerning their business deals with the Nazis. In his end-of-life despair, Angleton assumed that he would see all his old companions again "in hell."
-- Michael Hasty, Paranoid Shift
EXCERPT…
Allen Welsh Dulles was born to privilege and a tradition of public service. He was the grandson of one secretary of state and the nephew of another. But by the time he graduated from Princeton in 1914, the robber baron era of American history was coming to an an end, ushered out by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act -- which had been used in 1911 to break up Standard Oil -- and by the institution of the progressive income tax in 1913. The ruling elite was starting to view government less as their own private preserve and more as an unwanted intrusion on their ability to conduct business as usual. That shift of loyalties in itself may account for many of the paradoxical aspects of Dulles's career.
Dulles entered the diplomatic service after college and served as a State Department delegate to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which brought a formal end to World War I. The Versailles Treaty which came out of this conference included a provision making it illegal to sell arms to Germany. This displeased the powerful DuPont family, and they put pressure on the delegates to allow them to opt out. It was Allen Dulles who finally gave them the assurances they wanted that their transactions with Germany would be "winked at."
Dulles remained a diplomat through the early 1920's, spending part of that time in Berlin. However, he left government service in 1926 for the greener pastures of private business, becoming a Wall Street lawyer with the same firm as his older brother, John Foster Dulles.
By the middle 20's, Germany had started recovering from the effects of the war and its postwar economic collapse, and the great German industrial firms were looking like attractive investment opportunities for wealthy Americans. W.A. Harriman & Co., formed in 1919 by Averell Harriman (son of railroad baron E.H. Hariman) and George Herbert Walker, had led the way in directing American money to German companies and had opened a Berlin branch as early as 1922, when Germany was still in chaos. At that time, Averell Harriman traveled to Europe and made contact with the powerful Thyssen family of steel magnates. It was to be a long-lasting and fateful partnership.
CONTINUED…
http://www.panshin.com/trogholm/secret/rightroots/dulles.html
You are absolutely correct, Sir. When secret agents enjoy zero oversight by We the People, it's not a democracy.
Thank heavens for WikiLeaks. It's how we learned they serve masters like Big Oil.
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