Total Madness: General Selected Writings by Various Authors.
Investigation of the New Imperial Regime [Everyone on this list is dead.]
Full Version: CGCS Investigative Report
Common Ground Common Sense > National & International News > Original Essays, Research and Op-ed Pieces by Our members
Investigative Report
Digging up the Past
One of our members helped to put this information together. That member has served with the CIA and predicted the election would be stolen using Diebold and past examples of Diebold results trumping exit polls. Thank you FormerCIA for your help on this project.
A long list has developed since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney started their rise to power. This list includes reporters and CIA agents. Everyone on this list is dead. Beside their names are the official reason given for their deaths. Below that you will find more in depth discussion about each one.
Bush Death List
You've heard of Clinton's 'Dead';
Here's a partial list of Bush 'Dead'...
Florida DOT investigator Ray Lemme | Suicide
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Executive Director John Millis | Suicide
State Dept. Iraq intelligence analyst John Kokal | Suicide
Former CIA official Dr Gus Weiss | Suicide
Dr David Kelly of Britain's MOD | Suicide
Danny Casolaro | Suicide
(Friend of Danny's) Paul Wilcher died after beginning research on what Casolaro was following
Charles Ruff and HPSCI's ranking member Julian Dixon dropped dead only weeks apart after being briefed by Millis on CIA-Bush-drug connection.
John F Kennedy Jr was working on a Bush-CIA-covert ops story for his George Magazine when his plane crashed.
Lori Klausutis discover before her body was discovered in Jan. 2001 in the FL office of GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough
Cliff Baxter, chief Enron witness for the govt. shot himself before he testified
John Tower had the goods on the Bushes, but his commuter plane crashed and killed him, his daughter and several other passengers.
Paul Wellstone and his family and staff
Bush biographer JH Hatfield **
Athan Gibbs, the founder of TruVote International, the only clean election machine company. ***
Schoedinger had accused Bush of rape and other sexual crimes against both her and her husband, only one publication in the USA saw fit to print anything about her or her allegations. That publication was her local newspaper. Her subsequent suicide earlier this year raised many eyebrows amongst those who learned of her death via the internet. Even though the sequence of events was bizarre, again the American media ignored Schoedinger completely. ****
Prominent Journalist Killed In San Francisco
Dec. 10 (BCN) — Beverly Kees, 63, the former president of the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists was struck and killed today crossing Harrison Street in San Francisco.
Mr. Lemme was an investigator with the Florida Department of Transportation who resided in Tallahassee, Florida. Mr. Lemme honorably served our country in Vietnam and was an active U.S. Air Force reservist at the time his of death. He was investigating serious allegations made against a Chinese software firm that had U.S. government contracts.
In Novemeber, Dr. Benito Que, cell biologist working on infectious diseases like HIV was found comatose outside of his lab at the Miami Medical School.
Within of week of Dr. Que's assault, Dr. Don C Wiley, foremost infectious disease researcher was declared missing. His rental car was found with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition. His disappearance made to look like a suicide.
On November 23rd, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, the foremost Soviet Biopreparat scientist who was responsible for aerosolizing plague and was the successful developer of binary weapons known as the 'Novichok group' of weapons was found dead.
On December 10th, Dr. Robert M. Schwartz was found murdered in his secluded farmhouse in Leesberg, Va. Dr. Schwartz was a well-known DNA sequencing researcher. He founded the Virginia Biotechnology Association where he worked on DNA sequencing in his lab for 15 years.
Halfway around the world in December, a skilled microbiologist was killed at CSIRO's animal diseases facility in Geelong, Australia. He had logged 15 years' experience with the unit. Victoria Police said Set Van Nguyen, 44, appeared to have died after entering an airlock into a storage laboratory filled with nitrogen. His body was found when his wife became worried after he failed to return from work. *
The Washington Post mocks the reporter connecting the CIA to Crack coacaine. "The San Jose Mercury News has apparently had enough of reporter Gary Webb and his efforts to prove that the CIA was involved in the sale of crack cocaine," announced Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, who has written some of the harshest attacks on Webb. "Editors at the California newspaper have yanked Webb off the story and told him they will not publish his follow-up articles. They have also moved to transfer Webb from the state capital bureau in Sacramento to a less prestigious suburban office in Cupertino." [Washington Post, June 11, 1997] *****
63 Dead reporters in Iraq in a year and a half as opposed to 60 reporters killed during the entire duration of the Viet Nam war.
***** http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/121604.html
**** http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com/bushrape.htm
***http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/121004_nw_...ist_killed.html
** http://dir.salon.com/politics/red/2001/07/20/blue/index.html * http://www.rense.com/general18/returb.htm
So, Coprorate Media....what will you do with this?
Digging up the Past
One of our members helped to put this information together. That member has served with the CIA and predicted the election would be stolen using Diebold and past examples of Diebold results trumping exit polls. Thank you FormerCIA for your help on this project.
A long list has developed since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney started their rise to power. This list includes reporters and CIA agents. Everyone on this list is dead. Beside their names are the official reason given for their deaths. Below that you will find more in depth discussion about each one.
Bush Death List
You've heard of Clinton's 'Dead';
Here's a partial list of Bush 'Dead'...
Florida DOT investigator Ray Lemme | Suicide
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Executive Director John Millis | Suicide
State Dept. Iraq intelligence analyst John Kokal | Suicide
Former CIA official Dr Gus Weiss | Suicide
Dr David Kelly of Britain's MOD | Suicide
Danny Casolaro | Suicide
(Friend of Danny's) Paul Wilcher died after beginning research on what Casolaro was following
Charles Ruff and HPSCI's ranking member Julian Dixon dropped dead only weeks apart after being briefed by Millis on CIA-Bush-drug connection.
John F Kennedy Jr was working on a Bush-CIA-covert ops story for his George Magazine when his plane crashed.
Lori Klausutis discover before her body was discovered in Jan. 2001 in the FL office of GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough
Cliff Baxter, chief Enron witness for the govt. shot himself before he testified
John Tower had the goods on the Bushes, but his commuter plane crashed and killed him, his daughter and several other passengers.
Paul Wellstone and his family and staff
Bush biographer JH Hatfield **
Athan Gibbs, the founder of TruVote International, the only clean election machine company. ***
Schoedinger had accused Bush of rape and other sexual crimes against both her and her husband, only one publication in the USA saw fit to print anything about her or her allegations. That publication was her local newspaper. Her subsequent suicide earlier this year raised many eyebrows amongst those who learned of her death via the internet. Even though the sequence of events was bizarre, again the American media ignored Schoedinger completely. ****
Prominent Journalist Killed In San Francisco
Dec. 10 (BCN) — Beverly Kees, 63, the former president of the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists was struck and killed today crossing Harrison Street in San Francisco.
Mr. Lemme was an investigator with the Florida Department of Transportation who resided in Tallahassee, Florida. Mr. Lemme honorably served our country in Vietnam and was an active U.S. Air Force reservist at the time his of death. He was investigating serious allegations made against a Chinese software firm that had U.S. government contracts.
In Novemeber, Dr. Benito Que, cell biologist working on infectious diseases like HIV was found comatose outside of his lab at the Miami Medical School.
Within of week of Dr. Que's assault, Dr. Don C Wiley, foremost infectious disease researcher was declared missing. His rental car was found with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition. His disappearance made to look like a suicide.
On November 23rd, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, the foremost Soviet Biopreparat scientist who was responsible for aerosolizing plague and was the successful developer of binary weapons known as the 'Novichok group' of weapons was found dead.
On December 10th, Dr. Robert M. Schwartz was found murdered in his secluded farmhouse in Leesberg, Va. Dr. Schwartz was a well-known DNA sequencing researcher. He founded the Virginia Biotechnology Association where he worked on DNA sequencing in his lab for 15 years.
Halfway around the world in December, a skilled microbiologist was killed at CSIRO's animal diseases facility in Geelong, Australia. He had logged 15 years' experience with the unit. Victoria Police said Set Van Nguyen, 44, appeared to have died after entering an airlock into a storage laboratory filled with nitrogen. His body was found when his wife became worried after he failed to return from work. *
The Washington Post mocks the reporter connecting the CIA to Crack coacaine. "The San Jose Mercury News has apparently had enough of reporter Gary Webb and his efforts to prove that the CIA was involved in the sale of crack cocaine," announced Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, who has written some of the harshest attacks on Webb. "Editors at the California newspaper have yanked Webb off the story and told him they will not publish his follow-up articles. They have also moved to transfer Webb from the state capital bureau in Sacramento to a less prestigious suburban office in Cupertino." [Washington Post, June 11, 1997] *****
63 Dead reporters in Iraq in a year and a half as opposed to 60 reporters killed during the entire duration of the Viet Nam war.
***** http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/121604.html
**** http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com/bushrape.htm
***http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/121004_nw_...ist_killed.html
** http://dir.salon.com/politics/red/2001/07/20/blue/index.html * http://www.rense.com/general18/returb.htm
So, Coprorate Media....what will you do with this?
Nightmares of early 1930's Germany, unexplained deaths,disappearances, and no one does a damn thing. Gays and lesbians do not ignore these events, these power mad Neo-Cons will go after our leaders next.
"In Novemeber, Dr. Benito Que, cell biologist working on infectious diseases like HIV was found comatose outside of his lab at the Miami Medical School.
Within of week of Dr. Que's assault, Dr. Don C Wiley, foremost infectious disease researcher was declared missing. His rental car was found with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition. His disappearance made to look like a suicide. "
and they've just discovered a SUPER strain of HIV on both coasts, what a coincidence.........NOT!
"In Novemeber, Dr. Benito Que, cell biologist working on infectious diseases like HIV was found comatose outside of his lab at the Miami Medical School.
Within of week of Dr. Que's assault, Dr. Don C Wiley, foremost infectious disease researcher was declared missing. His rental car was found with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition. His disappearance made to look like a suicide. "
and they've just discovered a SUPER strain of HIV on both coasts, what a coincidence.........NOT!
You go, Brendan!
Is this a pinned item?
2006 HERE WE COME!
Is this a pinned item?
2006 HERE WE COME!
Nice!
You may have just stepped on a land mine... Incredible series of events... It is a sickening, sinking feeling in the gut... we have a WMD right under our feet... with one step toward the truth it's not just our liberty going up in smoke, it's our lives!
Who among our leaders would be brave enough or "foolish" enough to investigate this cancer without being systematically targeted and eliminated?
Doesn't anyone die of natural causes? I guess it depends on who's toes you're stepping on. 
I always worried about Kerry. Would someone take him out? It was my biggest fear before the election. Who knows, maybe Kerry's life was saved by election fraud.
I always worried about Kerry. Would someone take him out? It was my biggest fear before the election. Who knows, maybe Kerry's life was saved by election fraud. Writer Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself
15 minutes ago U.S. National - AP
By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer
ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself
Related Links
• Hunter S. Thompson (Yahoo! Directory)
Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time.
Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.
Thompson is credited alongside Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese with helping pioneer New Journalism — or, as he dubbed it, "gonzo journalism" — in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story.
Thompson, whose early writings mostly appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, often portrayed himself as wildly intoxicated as he reported on such historic figures as Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton (news - web sites).
"Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist," Thompson told The Associated Press in 2003. "You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it."
Thompson also wrote such collections as "Generation of Swine" and "Songs of the Doomed." His first ever novel, "The Rum Diary," written in 1959, was first published in 1998.
Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and once said Richard Nixon represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character."
Thompson also was the model for Garry Trudeau's balding "Uncle Duke" in the comic strip "Doonesbury" and was portrayed on screen by Johnny Depp (news) in a film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
That book, perhaps Thompson's most famous, begins: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Other books include "The Great Shark Hunt," "Hell's Angels" and "The Proud Highway." His most recent effort was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness."
"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years," Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson's former editors, told The Associated Press by phone from his Southern California home.
"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible," quipped Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party.
"But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story," he said. "They were willing to risk all of his irresponsible behavior in order to share his talent with their readers."
The writer's compound in Woody Creek, not far from Aspen, was almost as legendary as Thompson. He prized peacocks and weapons; in 2000, he accidentally shot and slightly wounded his assistant trying to chase a bear off his property.
He also is survived by his son, Juan Thompson.
Born July 18, 1937, in Kentucky, Hunter Stocton Thompson served two years in the Air Force, where he was a newspaper sports editor. He later became a proud member of the National Rifle Association and almost was elected sheriff in Aspen in 1970 under the Freak Power Party banner.
Thompson's heyday came in the 1970s, when his larger-than-life persona was gobbled up by magazines. His pieces were of legendary length and so was his appetite for adventure and trouble; his purported fights with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner were rumored in many cases to hinge on expense accounts for stories that didn't materialize.
It was the content that raised eyebrows and tempers. His book on the 1972 presidential campaign involving, among others, Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey and Nixon was famous for its scathing opinion.
Working for Muskie, Thompson wrote, "was something like being locked in a rolling box car with a vicious 200-pound water rat." Nixon and his "Barbie doll" family were "America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the werewolf in us."
Humphrey? Of him, Thompson wrote: "There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you've followed him around for a while."
The approach won him praise among the masses as well as critical acclaim. Writing in The New York Times in 1973, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt worried Thompson might someday "lapse into good taste."
"That would be a shame, for while he doesn't see America as Grandma Moses depicted it, or the way they painted it for us in civics class, he does in his own mad way betray a profound democratic concern for the polity," he wrote. "And in its own mad way, it's damned refreshing."
___
Associated Press writer John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
15 minutes ago U.S. National - AP
By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer
ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself
Related Links
• Hunter S. Thompson (Yahoo! Directory)
Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time.
Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.
Thompson is credited alongside Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese with helping pioneer New Journalism — or, as he dubbed it, "gonzo journalism" — in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story.
Thompson, whose early writings mostly appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, often portrayed himself as wildly intoxicated as he reported on such historic figures as Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton (news - web sites).
"Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist," Thompson told The Associated Press in 2003. "You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it."
Thompson also wrote such collections as "Generation of Swine" and "Songs of the Doomed." His first ever novel, "The Rum Diary," written in 1959, was first published in 1998.
Thompson was a counterculture icon at the height of the Watergate era, and once said Richard Nixon represented "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character."
Thompson also was the model for Garry Trudeau's balding "Uncle Duke" in the comic strip "Doonesbury" and was portrayed on screen by Johnny Depp (news) in a film adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."
That book, perhaps Thompson's most famous, begins: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Other books include "The Great Shark Hunt," "Hell's Angels" and "The Proud Highway." His most recent effort was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness."
"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years," Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson's former editors, told The Associated Press by phone from his Southern California home.
"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible," quipped Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party.
"But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story," he said. "They were willing to risk all of his irresponsible behavior in order to share his talent with their readers."
The writer's compound in Woody Creek, not far from Aspen, was almost as legendary as Thompson. He prized peacocks and weapons; in 2000, he accidentally shot and slightly wounded his assistant trying to chase a bear off his property.
He also is survived by his son, Juan Thompson.
Born July 18, 1937, in Kentucky, Hunter Stocton Thompson served two years in the Air Force, where he was a newspaper sports editor. He later became a proud member of the National Rifle Association and almost was elected sheriff in Aspen in 1970 under the Freak Power Party banner.
Thompson's heyday came in the 1970s, when his larger-than-life persona was gobbled up by magazines. His pieces were of legendary length and so was his appetite for adventure and trouble; his purported fights with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner were rumored in many cases to hinge on expense accounts for stories that didn't materialize.
It was the content that raised eyebrows and tempers. His book on the 1972 presidential campaign involving, among others, Edmund Muskie, Hubert Humphrey and Nixon was famous for its scathing opinion.
Working for Muskie, Thompson wrote, "was something like being locked in a rolling box car with a vicious 200-pound water rat." Nixon and his "Barbie doll" family were "America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the werewolf in us."
Humphrey? Of him, Thompson wrote: "There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you've followed him around for a while."
The approach won him praise among the masses as well as critical acclaim. Writing in The New York Times in 1973, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt worried Thompson might someday "lapse into good taste."
"That would be a shame, for while he doesn't see America as Grandma Moses depicted it, or the way they painted it for us in civics class, he does in his own mad way betray a profound democratic concern for the polity," he wrote. "And in its own mad way, it's damned refreshing."
___
Associated Press writer John Rogers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Ray Lemme:
Madsen Alleges Florida Investigator Murdered, Cites Feeney Involvement
Posted on Monday, December 06 @ 21:32:10 EST by DavidAdmin
The death of Ray Lemme, a senior investigator with the Inspector General's Office of the Florida Department of Transportation, who prior to his death said he was close to cracking an investigation into a Florida company surreptitiously hired to create software to change the results recorded by electronic voting machines, is likely not a suicide, according to investigative reporter Wayne Madsen. Yang Enterprises, a NASA contractor, created the program at the request of Tom Feeney, former Speaker of the Florida House of Represenatives and now a Member of Congress. In mid-2003 when former DOT employee Clint Curtis spoke to Lemme for what turned out to be the final time, he recalled that Lemme was excited about the case he was building, telling Curtis that the pressure not to investigate Yang Enterprises was coming from "as high up as I could imagine" and that he had "proof" that was "shocking." Madsen has uncovered evidence that links a Bush-controlled fund known in Houston as "Five Star" and other names to the rigging of the 2004 election, according to intelligence community insiders. Writes Madsen: "A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The "agency," which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush's election." Madsen believes that a full investigation will reveal that in Ohio, Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and other states votes were flipped by computers from the Kerry to the Bush column.
Madsen's investigative reports on this issue published in Online Journal are extremely detailled, so while his primary sources continue to provide him with information that may not be attributed to them publicly we evaluate Madsen's work as being fundamentally credible and worthy of pursuit by law enforcement officials with subpoenae power.
http://www.redefeatbush.com/modules.php?na...article&sid=344
Madsen Alleges Florida Investigator Murdered, Cites Feeney Involvement
Posted on Monday, December 06 @ 21:32:10 EST by DavidAdmin
The death of Ray Lemme, a senior investigator with the Inspector General's Office of the Florida Department of Transportation, who prior to his death said he was close to cracking an investigation into a Florida company surreptitiously hired to create software to change the results recorded by electronic voting machines, is likely not a suicide, according to investigative reporter Wayne Madsen. Yang Enterprises, a NASA contractor, created the program at the request of Tom Feeney, former Speaker of the Florida House of Represenatives and now a Member of Congress. In mid-2003 when former DOT employee Clint Curtis spoke to Lemme for what turned out to be the final time, he recalled that Lemme was excited about the case he was building, telling Curtis that the pressure not to investigate Yang Enterprises was coming from "as high up as I could imagine" and that he had "proof" that was "shocking." Madsen has uncovered evidence that links a Bush-controlled fund known in Houston as "Five Star" and other names to the rigging of the 2004 election, according to intelligence community insiders. Writes Madsen: "A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The "agency," which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush's election." Madsen believes that a full investigation will reveal that in Ohio, Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and other states votes were flipped by computers from the Kerry to the Bush column.
Madsen's investigative reports on this issue published in Online Journal are extremely detailled, so while his primary sources continue to provide him with information that may not be attributed to them publicly we evaluate Madsen's work as being fundamentally credible and worthy of pursuit by law enforcement officials with subpoenae power.
http://www.redefeatbush.com/modules.php?na...article&sid=344
Texas to Florida: White House-linked clandestine operation paid for "vote switching" software
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
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December 6, 2004—The manipulation of computer voting machines in the recent presidential election and the funding of programmers who were involved in the operation are tied to an intricate web of shady off-shore financial trusts and companies, shady espionage operatives, Republican Party politicians close to the Bush family, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract vehicles.
An exhaustive investigation has turned up a link between current Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney, a customized Windows-based program to suppress Democratic votes on touch screen voting machines, a Florida computer services company with whom Feeney worked as a general counsel and registered lobbyist while he was Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and top level officials of the Bush administration.
According to a notarized affidavit signed by Clint Curtis, while he was employed by the NASA Kennedy Space Center contractor, Yang Enterprises, Inc., during 2000, Feeney solicited him to write a program to "control the vote." At the time, Curtis was of the opinion that the program was to be used for preventing fraud in the in the 2002 election in Palm Beach County, Florida. His mind was changed, however, when the true intentions of Feeney became clear: the computer program was going to be used to suppress the Democratic vote in counties with large Democratic registrations.
According to Curtis, Feeney and other top brass at Yang Enterprises, a company located in a three-story building in Oviedo, Florida, wanted the prototype written in Visual Basic 5 (VB.5) in Microsoft Windows and the end-product designed to be portable across different Unix-based vote tabulation systems and to be "undetectable" to voters and election supervisors.
Yang, an engineering and computer services company subcontracted to NASA prime contractors like Lockheed Martin, was founded in 1986 by Dr. Tyng-Lin (Tim) Yang. Granted minority-owned "Section 8A" and woman-owned preferential status by the U.S. government, Yang's clients also include the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT). Yang's President, Li-Woan (Lee) Yang, is Tim Yang's wife. Feeney was the registered agent for another Yang company, Y & H Greens, Inc., a company that was dissolved in 1988 and operated from the Yangs' residence on Merritt Island. The Yangs also serve as co-trustees for an entity called Yang of Merritt Island, Ltd., founded on January 31, 2000, and also run from their residence.
In the autumn of 1999, Curtis, who served as a sort of technology adviser for Yang, first became aware of Feeney's interest in election rigging. Curtis said at one meeting, Feeney "bragged that he could reduce the minority vote and deliver the election to 'George.'" At the same meeting, according to Curtis, Feeney said he had "implemented a list that would eliminate thousands of voters that would vote for Democratic candidates" and that "a proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25 percent."
Feeney's desire to manipulate the vote would be manifested in his home base of Volusia County in the 2000 presidential election. According to The Washington Post, at 10 p.m. on election night, Al Gore was leading Bush in Volusia County by 83,000 to 62,000 votes. One-half hour later, Gore's vote total had been reduced by 16,000 to 67,000 and an obscure Socialist candidate saw a sudden surge to 10,000 votes in a precinct with only 600 voters. The information on the Volusia optical scanner voting anomalies came from a leaked internal Diebold memorandum. In the end, Bush won Florida and the White House by a mere 537 votes in the most controversial U.S. presidential election in history.
Feeney had long been a voice in Florida GOP politics. He was gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush's running mate in 1994, a race in which Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles defeated Bush. Chiles once referred to Feeney as "the David Duke of Florida politics."
In 2002, Feeney asked Curtis if he could develop a touch screen voting machine "flip flop" program. According to Curtis, Feeney asked him, "Can you write a program to flip votes around on touch screen machines?" Curtis said Feeney wanted the program to merely reduce votes in heavily Democratic areas and flip Republican votes to 51 percent and keep Democrat votes to 49 percent. Curtis added that Feeney "did not want to win by a lot." In return, Curtis said Feeney offered him "big jobs." Curtis's main tasks at Yang were to develop the Florida DOT's Electronic Document Management System. He also worked on the Project Pipeline Information System at another one of Yang's major clients, Exxon Mobil's Coral Gables facility.
Curtis said he developed the voting program and eventually handed off his prototype to Feeney. The program was also reviewed by Curtis's senior coder, Hai Lin (Henry) Nee, who according to Florida Department of Transportation sources, was an illegal alien working in the United States. According Curtis, not only did Nee review the vote switching program code but he constantly downloaded sensitive data to his computer from NASA's computers. Nee, according to Curtis, moonlighted at an Orlando company called Azure Systems, described by The Orlando Sentinel as a "three person engineering firm" and one of a number of companies linked to Ting Ih-Hsu, a former Lockheed Martin employee. At the same time Nee was reviewing Yang's vote switching program, he was also being investigated by U.S. federal investigators for illegally shipping Hellfire missile parts to China. Oddly, although U.S. law enforcement agents had put Nee and his associates under surveillance for illegal exports of technology to China in 1999, he and his colleagues were not arrested until March of this year.
Curtis claimed that Yang's corporate bosses stressed that the company had "unlimited" sources of money that came "mostly" from China. According to Florida DOT employees, House Speaker Feeney pressured their agency to give money to Yang for nonexistent software. The sources also revealed that Feeney was aware that Yang was employing a number of illegal aliens on State of Florida and federal contracts.
Feeney's ties to Yang paralleled similar close ties to NASA. Feeney's wife Ellen has worked as an engineer for NASA's Kennedy Space Center since 1985. Jeb Bush ensured that Florida's 24th Congressional District was redrawn so that Feeney would have an easy time in his 2002 race against Democratic opponent Harry Jacobs. According to Florida state officials, who spoke on the condition anonymity, 500 Yang employees at the Kennedy Space Center were paid for their time when they agreed to picket against Jacobs. In addition, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, according to the same sources, lobbied extensively for Feeney within NASA. In addition, O'Keefe and his close friend and former Pentagon boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, made campaign appearances for Feeney at the Kennedy Space Center.
Feeney's close ties to Jeb Bush and Cheney paid off. In 2002, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a race that also saw the re-election of Jeb Bush. Early in "vote switch's" development stages, Feeney had told Curtis that he wanted the program "made to control Palm Beach" in 2002. Palm Beach County's Election Supervisor was still the controversial Theresa LePore, nicknamed "Madam Butterfly," who designed the infamous "butterfly ballots" in the 2000 election. LePore had once been an employee of Saudi multi-billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi link that is tied to a huge multi-billion tranche of money distributed throughout off-shore trusts, accounts, and corporations with interlocking directorships that are controlled by Bush interests in Houston. It was this Bush-controlled money cache, originating in the East, and known in Houston by the name "Five Star" and other cryptonyms that was, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, used to fund the rigging of the 2004 election.
When he arrived in Congress, Feeney was given a seat on the House Science and Technology Committee, which oversees NASA's operations. Feeney was also appointed to the important House Finance and Judiciary Committees. He was also given a clean bill of ethical health by Florida's Ethics Commission, a panel that has a Republican majority.
After Feeney's ascension to Congress, Yang's questionable billing activities with its Florida DOT contract came to the attention of Ray C. Lemme, a seasoned senior investigator with the Florida DOT Inspector General's Office and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Lemme had a lot of evidence to suspect that Yang was overbilling the DOT for "millions." After discovering Yang's dirty laundry, Curtis went to work for the DOT. Mavis Georgalis, the DOT's contracting officer for the Yang contract, was also aware of improprieties with the contract. As a result of pressure from the Florida State House, both Curtis and Georgalis were eventually fired by the DOT because of their complaints about the Yang contract. Someone was obviously trying to send Curtis a message when, on August 14, 2002, he discovered that someone poisoned his pet Pomeranian dog, Emily. Lemme was forced to stop his official investigation of Yang for similar reasons. However, he decided to continue an "unofficial" investigation of Yang and its practices on the side. It was a fateful decision.
According to DOT employees familiar with the Yang case, Lemme was aware that it was Jeb Bush who personally shut down his investigation of Yang. Lemme also leaked details concerning his investigation to the Daytona Beach News Journal. The investigator had previously requested a full audit of the Yang contract with the DOT, a request that was denied. Lemme also became aware of something else outside the framework of the DOT contract—that Yang had been involved in producing a prototype vote switching program for use with touch screen voting machines and that Tom Feeney was in on the scam. The last time Clint Curtis spoke to Lemme, he remembers the silver haired investigator excited about where his case was leading. Lemme told Curtis that the cover up of Yang was coming from "as high up as I could imagine" and that he had "proof" that was "shocking."
On Sunday, June 29, 2003, evidence indicates that Lemme drove from Tallahassee to Valdosta, Georgia, the home of Moody Air Force Base. A motel receipt indicated that Lemme checked in at the Knight's Inn off Interstate 75 at 6:49 p.m. Lemme's wife said that her husband left home for work on Monday, June 30, at 5:15 a.m., an hour earlier than usual. According to a Leon County Sheriff's report, Lemme's wife said she received a voice message after she returned home at 6:45 p.m. on Monday. The message was from her husband's supervisor, Bob Clift, who informed her that earlier in the day, at 6:15 a.m., Lemme called into work, left a message, and said he would not be coming to work that day. Clift said he was checking up on Ray Lemme. Mrs. Lemme called Clift and told him that her husband was not at home. Mrs. Lemme told police that her husband was working on a "big case." Mrs. Lemme filed a missing person report with the Leon County, Sheriff's Office. Clift later determined that Ray Lemme made his earlier call to work at 6:15 a.m., one hour after he supposedly left his home for work, from a pay phone at the junction of Interstate 10 and Highway 1 in Jefferson County, Florida. Shortly after 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, the maid assigned to clean Lemme's room—132—received no answer when she knocked. The door was locked. There was no response when the maid called the room's telephone. The hotel manager then called the police.
The following is from the Valdosta Police Detective Report filed by Detective Craig Spencer and dated July 1, 2003: "On July 1, 2003 at approximately 1330 hours, I received a page advising me to be en route to Knights Inn at 2110 West Hill Avenue in reference to an unattended death." When Spencer and other police officers and detectives arrived at the motel, the manager told them that the occupant of Room 132, Ray Lemme, was to have checked out by 11a.m. The officers yelled through the slightly ajar door but received no answer and they discovered the upper swing latch was locked. The officers used a special tool provided by the motel to open the swing latch lock. Spencer said that one of the officers entered the room and found a suicide note and then proceeded to the bathroom where Lemme was found dead in the bathtub. Police also discovered that the inside of Lemmes's left elbow—the cubital tunnel—was slashed. There were spurts of blood on the wall but no blood found on the floor. A belt possibly used as a tourniquet and a double- edged straight razor blade were found on the side of the tub. A bath towel was unfolded and neatly placed on the floor next to the tub.
Later on July 1, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory in Moultrie informed the Valdosta Police that based on the "suicide" details, no autopsy would be performed on Lemme. Unlike Florida, Georgia does not perform mandatory autopsies. A doctor, with 25 years' clinical experience, who was interviewed for this story claimed that the circumstances of Lemme's death appeared to him to be a classic "mob hit." If the Leon County Sheriff missing person report is to be believed, it is clear that someone other than Lemme checked into the Valdosta motel on Sunday evening using his name. Clearly, the Leon County Sheriff's report contains a number of details that directly conflict with facts found in the Valdosta Police report. In addition, the Lowndes County, Georgia, Coroner's report fails to indicate an estimated time of death based on a full medical examination—it surmised that the time of death was the same time as indicated on the suicide note: 8:10 a.m. on July 1.
An empty manila folder and a blank legal pad notebook were found on the hotel room's desk along with an undated and unsigned suicide note written on lined paper, which lacked any identifiable fingerprints, from Lemme's day planner. The note merely contained the time 8:10 a.m. with the following notation: "I love my family (family underlined once) with all my heart. I am sorry. I am depressed and in pain. Mary Ann (Lemme's wife), I love you." ("I love you" underlined twice). It was certainly not indicative of a person who was ecstatic that he was finally going to nail a long investigation that involved vote rigging, overbilling, and fraud abetted by the very top political leadership in Tallahassee. Interestingly, the last number on Lemme's pager (an 850 960-XXXX) ended with the number "911." It is also interesting that Lemme's watch, when discovered by the police, was stopped at 12:34 p.m. on June 30–a possible indication that Lemme was trying to convey the time of a possible in extremis situation. Also, Lemme's Florida driver's license was in his room while his wallet was in the glove box of his car, which was parked in front of the room. Two motel receipts were found in Lemme's room by the police. One was a check-in receipt dated June 29 and timed at 6:44 p.m. The other was a receipt, without a notation of check-in or check-out, dated June 30 and timed at 6:54 a.m. A witness told police that Lemme's car was parked in front of his room on the afternoon of June 30.
Sergeant Eugene Bell of the Valdosta Police Department interviewed a 39-year old female guest who was staying in Room 236 over the weekend. She and her daughter noticed three men standing in the parking lot across from Lemme's room at 8 a.m. on the morning of July 1. The behavior of the men made the guest suspicious enough that the woman initially believed the men were engaged in a drug deal. According to the police report, the camera used to photograph the crime scene was later discovered to have a defect in the flash memory card. The defect resulted in no usable photographs being submitted with the official police report.
Lemme was no stranger to Florida politics. His wife, Mary Ann, worked as a secretary for Martha Walters Barnett, a partner with the politically-connected Holland & Knight law firm in Tallahassee, where she specializes in campaign finance and election law and government contracts. Another Holland & Knight partner, Ginny Myrick, was appointed by Jeb Bush as the vice chair of the Florida Community Trust, a state land acquisition and grant program. Although officially a bipartisan law firm, even Democrats working for Holland & Knight largely support Jeb Bush. In addition, Bill McBride, Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2002 gubernatorial race and a Holland & Knight partner who had defeated former Attorney General Janet Reno in the Democratic primary amid reports of voting irregularities from around the state, commented that his race against Bush "may be the Democrats' race to lose."
The NASA connection to the money trail that is linked to the development of the vote switching program is of particular note. When the first sketchy details of the vote switching operation emerged, a Houston-controlled money tranche associated with an offshore entity called Five Star Trust, registered in the Isle of Man, was reported by high-level intelligence sources familiar with past Bush-related covert activities to be behind the operation. Five Star has been connected by these informed sources to have originated in 1983, when deposed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush were allegedly looking for a repository for an estimated $3 billion in looted Philippine gold and gems. Since that time, Five Star's accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed. What is not yet certain is whether Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator and close Cheney friend who supported Feeney's and Yang's activities in Florida, facilitated the transfer of Five Star funds from Houston to Cape Canaveral using contract vehicles of both the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to disburse the funds to the principal players. A NASA insider in Texas said he has long suspected large amounts of money have been moved into the United States and that these transfers involved NASA and Saudi and Chinese money sources.
There is additional information that the election rigging principals connected to the State of Florida and Jeb Bush may have also tried to use contractors tied closely to state contracts to parlay the touch screen software into Maine, which has proportional distribution of its electoral votes by congressional district, and Ohio, the key state in 2004. The information was provided by insiders in Tallahassee who are close to offices involved in procurement by the state government.
Sources close to U.S. intelligence pointed to a $29.6 million check supposedly issued on October 22, 2004, by Laurentian Bank in Montreal, Canada, that was rumored by intelligence circles to have been used to pay for the technicians who developed the software to rig the election. The computer voting machine technicians and maintenance personnel involved with the rigging were reported to have included Russians, Mexicans, and Brazilians.
According to Laurentian Bank, the check, a U.S. dollar "money order," is a bogus instrument tied to Nigerian scamming activities. Laurentian Bank said that a U.S. dollar money order would never be for amounts over $1,000 and any higher amount would be in the form of a bank draft that would require the signature of two senior bank officers. In addition, the bank would never use a cell phone number (514-588-5569) on their checks. The payer on the "check," Equity Financial Trust of Toronto, is said by the Canadian Fraud Office to be involved with Nigerian scammers. In fact, the Canadian Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions reports that Equity Financial Trust, Toronto, Ontario "may be violating provisions of the Bank Act (Canada) or other Canadian financial institution regulations" and "may also be conducting unauthorized banking transactions in the United States."
The payee on the "check," Five Star Investments, Ltd., once registered on the Isle of Man, is a Lexington, Kentucky-based entity tied to Marion "J.R." Horn, convicted in 2002 by Judge Joseph M. Hood of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky for wire fraud. He was also ordered to serve time in Butner Federal Penitentiary, North Carolina for a "mental study." He eventually served an unusually light 18-month sentence while on parole for another fraud case. When interviewed by a researcher for this article, Horn expressed surprise that the check his lawyer in Nassau was waiting to clear a bank in New York, was, in fact, a fake. According to CIA documents obtained from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Five Star Trust may have, in fact, had a past relationship with Horn. According to Offshorebusiness.com, Five Star Trust has been linked with an "illegal" bank.
The connection of Enron money and Nigerian scammers to Five Star is intriguing because of a September 23, 2004, Houston Chronicle report that said Enron was involved in an off-the-books deal to invest in Nigerian power generation barges. Tina Trinkle, a former Merrill Lynch banker, said she was asked not to do the normal background checks for such a business deal.
A former Justice Department prosecutor who investigated the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) said that the bogus check and those responsible for it are typical "feints" used to mask actual clandestine money movements from law enforcement investigators. In addition, the former prosecutor said the purported check lacked the necessary SWIFT codes in the numbers found at the bottom of the check to facilitate the movement of money through international financial networks. He said that in his experience as a prosecutor, the name "Five Star Trust" came up in relation to the covert activities of the Nugan Hand Bank, a CIA-connected activity that was involved in covert activities in Australia and South East Asia.
Five Star entities, active and dissolved, have been discovered in the Isle of Man, the island of Nevis, the Bahamas, Florida, Kentucky, and Texas. Other Five Star-related entities stored large sums of money in the Cook Islands, according to U.S. intelligence sources, and these funds were directly linked to Khashoggi and BCCI. Khashoggi also approached top Nigerian leaders in 1982 to set up a company there that would deal exclusively in minerals. According to knowledgeable insiders, Khashoggi used a company called Triad to hammer out lucrative international deals on precious minerals. In 1994, Five Star Investments, Ltd., the entity tied to Horn, attempted to buy International Standards Group ISG), Ltd., a consulting company based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the Palm Beach Post, Horn was the person who proposed the acquisition. ISG was also the target of a bid by UMI, Inc., a mortgage banker based in Coral Gables, Florida. The Palm Beach Post was never able to determine the source of UMI's cash.
Phony checks are not the only telltale signs associated with some of the various Five Star entities. Another bogus document, a bogus UN customs declaration for a shipment to a "Counter Terrorist Unit" in Lagos, Nigeria, was also obtained in the investigation of this story.
Horn has had a running battle with the CIA over allegations that he is owed money for his past activities on behalf of the agency. Although Horn has produced a number of dubious documents to support his claims, one of the names mentioned in documents filed in U.S. court in Washington, DC is that of E. Warren Goss, an actual attorney in Boulder, Colorado. It has not been established if E. Warren Goss has any family connection to Porter Goss, the current CIA director.
In a September 17, 2003, declaration by Marilyn A. Dorn, Information Review Officer in the Directorate of Operations at the CIA, in response to Horn's Freedom of Information Act request, it was determined that the agency had no records containing the names "Five Star Trust" or a reported subsidiary, "U.S. Mortgage and Trust (Bahamas)." Dorn reported that no records containing references to either entity were discovered but that two documents, cables—"field traffic consisting of one and a half pages and eight partial lines of message text, respectively, dating from the early 1980s"—were responsive to Horn's request. It is interesting that the CIA admits the time frame because the genesis of Five Star Trust was 1983, when, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, then-Vice President Bush authorized a Boeing 747 with a special "carriage" to airlift several tons of gold bars from Clark Air Force base in the Philippines to LaGuardia Airport in New York.
The gold bars were then transported to the International Diamond Exchange Vaults near Rockefeller Center. A CIA proprietary firm called Oceaneering International of Houston was reportedly involved in airlifting some of the gold from the Philippines, in addition to sealifting the remainder to Oregon. After George W. Bush's victory in 2000, the last of the gold in New York was moved to UBS Bank in Zurich. Marcos and Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means to create a vehicle to use the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets. In 1989, Five Star Trust was officially established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a close friend of the Bush family.
The CIA's explanation of its decision to withhold the release the two cables was partly based on the use of cryptonyms–artificial words used as substitutes for the actual name or identity of a "person, organization, or project." The CIA statement continues: "when obtained and matched with other information, a cryptonym possesses a great deal of meaning for those who are able to fit it into the proper cognitive framework." The denial of Horn's FOIA request also stated that the two responsive documents could "reveal the existence or location of covert CIA field installations in multiple foreign countries." In addition, the CIA stated that release of the documents in question would "reveal specific and sensitive subjects in which the CIA is or was interested." Finally, disclosure of the requested documents was denied because of "foreign relations." The agency emphasized that, "in carrying out its legally authorized intelligence activities, the CIA engages in activities that if known by foreign nations, could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to U.S. relations with affected or interested nations."
The story of this corruption is nothing new. What is new is the purpose. The use of this old and covert tranche of money for a special Bush operation to deny the American people their right to a free and fair vote was not the typical illegal sale of arms to a terrorist nation, the overthrow of a foreign government, or the payment of bribes to foreign potentates. It was a high crime in every constitutional sense. The target was the American political system and not just in 2004 but also in 2003, 2002, and 2000. The scandal goes right up to the White House and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. It involves an extremely crooked Florida national politician and other Florida state government officials. And, as with all modern American political scandals, we have at least one dead body, a number of whistleblowers and anonymous "Deep Throats," powerful but corrupt politicians, counterfeit and real documents, con men, and a money trail tied to off-shore foreign bank accounts.
People may wonder why a group of intelligence insiders would come forward to a non-major media outlet with such tantalizing information at this time. The corporate-beholden media cannot be trusted to report such a news story. A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The "agency," which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush's election.
The clues, for example, the bogus check, were conveyed to us as exactly that—clues. Those markers pointed to the illegal nature of the covert money flows. The connections between NASA contracts, Texas, and Florida were additional clues to one of the major sources of the money used for the vote rigging. There were a number of roads that led to the same destination. But that is the nature of covert intelligence. Some patriotic and brave people, who have served in silence for a number of decades, have chosen their country over a corrupt family and administration. It is now time for the constitutional process to begin. Rectification of the criminal conspiracy that denied John Kerry and John Edwards the White House must begin in Ohio, and extend to Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and other states where votes were flipped by computers from the Kerry to the Bush column. Past elections must also be investigated and those who were done in by this fraud, namely, people like Max Cleland, Gray Davis, Al Gore, and others must also have their day in court.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and syndicated columnist. He is the author of "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates."
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Repor...0604madsen.html
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
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December 6, 2004—The manipulation of computer voting machines in the recent presidential election and the funding of programmers who were involved in the operation are tied to an intricate web of shady off-shore financial trusts and companies, shady espionage operatives, Republican Party politicians close to the Bush family, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract vehicles.
An exhaustive investigation has turned up a link between current Florida Republican Representative Tom Feeney, a customized Windows-based program to suppress Democratic votes on touch screen voting machines, a Florida computer services company with whom Feeney worked as a general counsel and registered lobbyist while he was Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, and top level officials of the Bush administration.
According to a notarized affidavit signed by Clint Curtis, while he was employed by the NASA Kennedy Space Center contractor, Yang Enterprises, Inc., during 2000, Feeney solicited him to write a program to "control the vote." At the time, Curtis was of the opinion that the program was to be used for preventing fraud in the in the 2002 election in Palm Beach County, Florida. His mind was changed, however, when the true intentions of Feeney became clear: the computer program was going to be used to suppress the Democratic vote in counties with large Democratic registrations.
According to Curtis, Feeney and other top brass at Yang Enterprises, a company located in a three-story building in Oviedo, Florida, wanted the prototype written in Visual Basic 5 (VB.5) in Microsoft Windows and the end-product designed to be portable across different Unix-based vote tabulation systems and to be "undetectable" to voters and election supervisors.
Yang, an engineering and computer services company subcontracted to NASA prime contractors like Lockheed Martin, was founded in 1986 by Dr. Tyng-Lin (Tim) Yang. Granted minority-owned "Section 8A" and woman-owned preferential status by the U.S. government, Yang's clients also include the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT). Yang's President, Li-Woan (Lee) Yang, is Tim Yang's wife. Feeney was the registered agent for another Yang company, Y & H Greens, Inc., a company that was dissolved in 1988 and operated from the Yangs' residence on Merritt Island. The Yangs also serve as co-trustees for an entity called Yang of Merritt Island, Ltd., founded on January 31, 2000, and also run from their residence.
In the autumn of 1999, Curtis, who served as a sort of technology adviser for Yang, first became aware of Feeney's interest in election rigging. Curtis said at one meeting, Feeney "bragged that he could reduce the minority vote and deliver the election to 'George.'" At the same meeting, according to Curtis, Feeney said he had "implemented a list that would eliminate thousands of voters that would vote for Democratic candidates" and that "a proper placement of police patrols could further reduce the black vote by as much as 25 percent."
Feeney's desire to manipulate the vote would be manifested in his home base of Volusia County in the 2000 presidential election. According to The Washington Post, at 10 p.m. on election night, Al Gore was leading Bush in Volusia County by 83,000 to 62,000 votes. One-half hour later, Gore's vote total had been reduced by 16,000 to 67,000 and an obscure Socialist candidate saw a sudden surge to 10,000 votes in a precinct with only 600 voters. The information on the Volusia optical scanner voting anomalies came from a leaked internal Diebold memorandum. In the end, Bush won Florida and the White House by a mere 537 votes in the most controversial U.S. presidential election in history.
Feeney had long been a voice in Florida GOP politics. He was gubernatorial candidate Jeb Bush's running mate in 1994, a race in which Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles defeated Bush. Chiles once referred to Feeney as "the David Duke of Florida politics."
In 2002, Feeney asked Curtis if he could develop a touch screen voting machine "flip flop" program. According to Curtis, Feeney asked him, "Can you write a program to flip votes around on touch screen machines?" Curtis said Feeney wanted the program to merely reduce votes in heavily Democratic areas and flip Republican votes to 51 percent and keep Democrat votes to 49 percent. Curtis added that Feeney "did not want to win by a lot." In return, Curtis said Feeney offered him "big jobs." Curtis's main tasks at Yang were to develop the Florida DOT's Electronic Document Management System. He also worked on the Project Pipeline Information System at another one of Yang's major clients, Exxon Mobil's Coral Gables facility.
Curtis said he developed the voting program and eventually handed off his prototype to Feeney. The program was also reviewed by Curtis's senior coder, Hai Lin (Henry) Nee, who according to Florida Department of Transportation sources, was an illegal alien working in the United States. According Curtis, not only did Nee review the vote switching program code but he constantly downloaded sensitive data to his computer from NASA's computers. Nee, according to Curtis, moonlighted at an Orlando company called Azure Systems, described by The Orlando Sentinel as a "three person engineering firm" and one of a number of companies linked to Ting Ih-Hsu, a former Lockheed Martin employee. At the same time Nee was reviewing Yang's vote switching program, he was also being investigated by U.S. federal investigators for illegally shipping Hellfire missile parts to China. Oddly, although U.S. law enforcement agents had put Nee and his associates under surveillance for illegal exports of technology to China in 1999, he and his colleagues were not arrested until March of this year.
Curtis claimed that Yang's corporate bosses stressed that the company had "unlimited" sources of money that came "mostly" from China. According to Florida DOT employees, House Speaker Feeney pressured their agency to give money to Yang for nonexistent software. The sources also revealed that Feeney was aware that Yang was employing a number of illegal aliens on State of Florida and federal contracts.
Feeney's ties to Yang paralleled similar close ties to NASA. Feeney's wife Ellen has worked as an engineer for NASA's Kennedy Space Center since 1985. Jeb Bush ensured that Florida's 24th Congressional District was redrawn so that Feeney would have an easy time in his 2002 race against Democratic opponent Harry Jacobs. According to Florida state officials, who spoke on the condition anonymity, 500 Yang employees at the Kennedy Space Center were paid for their time when they agreed to picket against Jacobs. In addition, NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, according to the same sources, lobbied extensively for Feeney within NASA. In addition, O'Keefe and his close friend and former Pentagon boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, made campaign appearances for Feeney at the Kennedy Space Center.
Feeney's close ties to Jeb Bush and Cheney paid off. In 2002, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a race that also saw the re-election of Jeb Bush. Early in "vote switch's" development stages, Feeney had told Curtis that he wanted the program "made to control Palm Beach" in 2002. Palm Beach County's Election Supervisor was still the controversial Theresa LePore, nicknamed "Madam Butterfly," who designed the infamous "butterfly ballots" in the 2000 election. LePore had once been an employee of Saudi multi-billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi link that is tied to a huge multi-billion tranche of money distributed throughout off-shore trusts, accounts, and corporations with interlocking directorships that are controlled by Bush interests in Houston. It was this Bush-controlled money cache, originating in the East, and known in Houston by the name "Five Star" and other cryptonyms that was, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, used to fund the rigging of the 2004 election.
When he arrived in Congress, Feeney was given a seat on the House Science and Technology Committee, which oversees NASA's operations. Feeney was also appointed to the important House Finance and Judiciary Committees. He was also given a clean bill of ethical health by Florida's Ethics Commission, a panel that has a Republican majority.
After Feeney's ascension to Congress, Yang's questionable billing activities with its Florida DOT contract came to the attention of Ray C. Lemme, a seasoned senior investigator with the Florida DOT Inspector General's Office and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. Lemme had a lot of evidence to suspect that Yang was overbilling the DOT for "millions." After discovering Yang's dirty laundry, Curtis went to work for the DOT. Mavis Georgalis, the DOT's contracting officer for the Yang contract, was also aware of improprieties with the contract. As a result of pressure from the Florida State House, both Curtis and Georgalis were eventually fired by the DOT because of their complaints about the Yang contract. Someone was obviously trying to send Curtis a message when, on August 14, 2002, he discovered that someone poisoned his pet Pomeranian dog, Emily. Lemme was forced to stop his official investigation of Yang for similar reasons. However, he decided to continue an "unofficial" investigation of Yang and its practices on the side. It was a fateful decision.
According to DOT employees familiar with the Yang case, Lemme was aware that it was Jeb Bush who personally shut down his investigation of Yang. Lemme also leaked details concerning his investigation to the Daytona Beach News Journal. The investigator had previously requested a full audit of the Yang contract with the DOT, a request that was denied. Lemme also became aware of something else outside the framework of the DOT contract—that Yang had been involved in producing a prototype vote switching program for use with touch screen voting machines and that Tom Feeney was in on the scam. The last time Clint Curtis spoke to Lemme, he remembers the silver haired investigator excited about where his case was leading. Lemme told Curtis that the cover up of Yang was coming from "as high up as I could imagine" and that he had "proof" that was "shocking."
On Sunday, June 29, 2003, evidence indicates that Lemme drove from Tallahassee to Valdosta, Georgia, the home of Moody Air Force Base. A motel receipt indicated that Lemme checked in at the Knight's Inn off Interstate 75 at 6:49 p.m. Lemme's wife said that her husband left home for work on Monday, June 30, at 5:15 a.m., an hour earlier than usual. According to a Leon County Sheriff's report, Lemme's wife said she received a voice message after she returned home at 6:45 p.m. on Monday. The message was from her husband's supervisor, Bob Clift, who informed her that earlier in the day, at 6:15 a.m., Lemme called into work, left a message, and said he would not be coming to work that day. Clift said he was checking up on Ray Lemme. Mrs. Lemme called Clift and told him that her husband was not at home. Mrs. Lemme told police that her husband was working on a "big case." Mrs. Lemme filed a missing person report with the Leon County, Sheriff's Office. Clift later determined that Ray Lemme made his earlier call to work at 6:15 a.m., one hour after he supposedly left his home for work, from a pay phone at the junction of Interstate 10 and Highway 1 in Jefferson County, Florida. Shortly after 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, the maid assigned to clean Lemme's room—132—received no answer when she knocked. The door was locked. There was no response when the maid called the room's telephone. The hotel manager then called the police.
The following is from the Valdosta Police Detective Report filed by Detective Craig Spencer and dated July 1, 2003: "On July 1, 2003 at approximately 1330 hours, I received a page advising me to be en route to Knights Inn at 2110 West Hill Avenue in reference to an unattended death." When Spencer and other police officers and detectives arrived at the motel, the manager told them that the occupant of Room 132, Ray Lemme, was to have checked out by 11a.m. The officers yelled through the slightly ajar door but received no answer and they discovered the upper swing latch was locked. The officers used a special tool provided by the motel to open the swing latch lock. Spencer said that one of the officers entered the room and found a suicide note and then proceeded to the bathroom where Lemme was found dead in the bathtub. Police also discovered that the inside of Lemmes's left elbow—the cubital tunnel—was slashed. There were spurts of blood on the wall but no blood found on the floor. A belt possibly used as a tourniquet and a double- edged straight razor blade were found on the side of the tub. A bath towel was unfolded and neatly placed on the floor next to the tub.
Later on July 1, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory in Moultrie informed the Valdosta Police that based on the "suicide" details, no autopsy would be performed on Lemme. Unlike Florida, Georgia does not perform mandatory autopsies. A doctor, with 25 years' clinical experience, who was interviewed for this story claimed that the circumstances of Lemme's death appeared to him to be a classic "mob hit." If the Leon County Sheriff missing person report is to be believed, it is clear that someone other than Lemme checked into the Valdosta motel on Sunday evening using his name. Clearly, the Leon County Sheriff's report contains a number of details that directly conflict with facts found in the Valdosta Police report. In addition, the Lowndes County, Georgia, Coroner's report fails to indicate an estimated time of death based on a full medical examination—it surmised that the time of death was the same time as indicated on the suicide note: 8:10 a.m. on July 1.
An empty manila folder and a blank legal pad notebook were found on the hotel room's desk along with an undated and unsigned suicide note written on lined paper, which lacked any identifiable fingerprints, from Lemme's day planner. The note merely contained the time 8:10 a.m. with the following notation: "I love my family (family underlined once) with all my heart. I am sorry. I am depressed and in pain. Mary Ann (Lemme's wife), I love you." ("I love you" underlined twice). It was certainly not indicative of a person who was ecstatic that he was finally going to nail a long investigation that involved vote rigging, overbilling, and fraud abetted by the very top political leadership in Tallahassee. Interestingly, the last number on Lemme's pager (an 850 960-XXXX) ended with the number "911." It is also interesting that Lemme's watch, when discovered by the police, was stopped at 12:34 p.m. on June 30–a possible indication that Lemme was trying to convey the time of a possible in extremis situation. Also, Lemme's Florida driver's license was in his room while his wallet was in the glove box of his car, which was parked in front of the room. Two motel receipts were found in Lemme's room by the police. One was a check-in receipt dated June 29 and timed at 6:44 p.m. The other was a receipt, without a notation of check-in or check-out, dated June 30 and timed at 6:54 a.m. A witness told police that Lemme's car was parked in front of his room on the afternoon of June 30.
Sergeant Eugene Bell of the Valdosta Police Department interviewed a 39-year old female guest who was staying in Room 236 over the weekend. She and her daughter noticed three men standing in the parking lot across from Lemme's room at 8 a.m. on the morning of July 1. The behavior of the men made the guest suspicious enough that the woman initially believed the men were engaged in a drug deal. According to the police report, the camera used to photograph the crime scene was later discovered to have a defect in the flash memory card. The defect resulted in no usable photographs being submitted with the official police report.
Lemme was no stranger to Florida politics. His wife, Mary Ann, worked as a secretary for Martha Walters Barnett, a partner with the politically-connected Holland & Knight law firm in Tallahassee, where she specializes in campaign finance and election law and government contracts. Another Holland & Knight partner, Ginny Myrick, was appointed by Jeb Bush as the vice chair of the Florida Community Trust, a state land acquisition and grant program. Although officially a bipartisan law firm, even Democrats working for Holland & Knight largely support Jeb Bush. In addition, Bill McBride, Bush's Democratic opponent in the 2002 gubernatorial race and a Holland & Knight partner who had defeated former Attorney General Janet Reno in the Democratic primary amid reports of voting irregularities from around the state, commented that his race against Bush "may be the Democrats' race to lose."
The NASA connection to the money trail that is linked to the development of the vote switching program is of particular note. When the first sketchy details of the vote switching operation emerged, a Houston-controlled money tranche associated with an offshore entity called Five Star Trust, registered in the Isle of Man, was reported by high-level intelligence sources familiar with past Bush-related covert activities to be behind the operation. Five Star has been connected by these informed sources to have originated in 1983, when deposed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush were allegedly looking for a repository for an estimated $3 billion in looted Philippine gold and gems. Since that time, Five Star's accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed. What is not yet certain is whether Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator and close Cheney friend who supported Feeney's and Yang's activities in Florida, facilitated the transfer of Five Star funds from Houston to Cape Canaveral using contract vehicles of both the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to disburse the funds to the principal players. A NASA insider in Texas said he has long suspected large amounts of money have been moved into the United States and that these transfers involved NASA and Saudi and Chinese money sources.
There is additional information that the election rigging principals connected to the State of Florida and Jeb Bush may have also tried to use contractors tied closely to state contracts to parlay the touch screen software into Maine, which has proportional distribution of its electoral votes by congressional district, and Ohio, the key state in 2004. The information was provided by insiders in Tallahassee who are close to offices involved in procurement by the state government.
Sources close to U.S. intelligence pointed to a $29.6 million check supposedly issued on October 22, 2004, by Laurentian Bank in Montreal, Canada, that was rumored by intelligence circles to have been used to pay for the technicians who developed the software to rig the election. The computer voting machine technicians and maintenance personnel involved with the rigging were reported to have included Russians, Mexicans, and Brazilians.
According to Laurentian Bank, the check, a U.S. dollar "money order," is a bogus instrument tied to Nigerian scamming activities. Laurentian Bank said that a U.S. dollar money order would never be for amounts over $1,000 and any higher amount would be in the form of a bank draft that would require the signature of two senior bank officers. In addition, the bank would never use a cell phone number (514-588-5569) on their checks. The payer on the "check," Equity Financial Trust of Toronto, is said by the Canadian Fraud Office to be involved with Nigerian scammers. In fact, the Canadian Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions reports that Equity Financial Trust, Toronto, Ontario "may be violating provisions of the Bank Act (Canada) or other Canadian financial institution regulations" and "may also be conducting unauthorized banking transactions in the United States."
The payee on the "check," Five Star Investments, Ltd., once registered on the Isle of Man, is a Lexington, Kentucky-based entity tied to Marion "J.R." Horn, convicted in 2002 by Judge Joseph M. Hood of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky for wire fraud. He was also ordered to serve time in Butner Federal Penitentiary, North Carolina for a "mental study." He eventually served an unusually light 18-month sentence while on parole for another fraud case. When interviewed by a researcher for this article, Horn expressed surprise that the check his lawyer in Nassau was waiting to clear a bank in New York, was, in fact, a fake. According to CIA documents obtained from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Five Star Trust may have, in fact, had a past relationship with Horn. According to Offshorebusiness.com, Five Star Trust has been linked with an "illegal" bank.
The connection of Enron money and Nigerian scammers to Five Star is intriguing because of a September 23, 2004, Houston Chronicle report that said Enron was involved in an off-the-books deal to invest in Nigerian power generation barges. Tina Trinkle, a former Merrill Lynch banker, said she was asked not to do the normal background checks for such a business deal.
A former Justice Department prosecutor who investigated the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) said that the bogus check and those responsible for it are typical "feints" used to mask actual clandestine money movements from law enforcement investigators. In addition, the former prosecutor said the purported check lacked the necessary SWIFT codes in the numbers found at the bottom of the check to facilitate the movement of money through international financial networks. He said that in his experience as a prosecutor, the name "Five Star Trust" came up in relation to the covert activities of the Nugan Hand Bank, a CIA-connected activity that was involved in covert activities in Australia and South East Asia.
Five Star entities, active and dissolved, have been discovered in the Isle of Man, the island of Nevis, the Bahamas, Florida, Kentucky, and Texas. Other Five Star-related entities stored large sums of money in the Cook Islands, according to U.S. intelligence sources, and these funds were directly linked to Khashoggi and BCCI. Khashoggi also approached top Nigerian leaders in 1982 to set up a company there that would deal exclusively in minerals. According to knowledgeable insiders, Khashoggi used a company called Triad to hammer out lucrative international deals on precious minerals. In 1994, Five Star Investments, Ltd., the entity tied to Horn, attempted to buy International Standards Group ISG), Ltd., a consulting company based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the Palm Beach Post, Horn was the person who proposed the acquisition. ISG was also the target of a bid by UMI, Inc., a mortgage banker based in Coral Gables, Florida. The Palm Beach Post was never able to determine the source of UMI's cash.
Phony checks are not the only telltale signs associated with some of the various Five Star entities. Another bogus document, a bogus UN customs declaration for a shipment to a "Counter Terrorist Unit" in Lagos, Nigeria, was also obtained in the investigation of this story.
Horn has had a running battle with the CIA over allegations that he is owed money for his past activities on behalf of the agency. Although Horn has produced a number of dubious documents to support his claims, one of the names mentioned in documents filed in U.S. court in Washington, DC is that of E. Warren Goss, an actual attorney in Boulder, Colorado. It has not been established if E. Warren Goss has any family connection to Porter Goss, the current CIA director.
In a September 17, 2003, declaration by Marilyn A. Dorn, Information Review Officer in the Directorate of Operations at the CIA, in response to Horn's Freedom of Information Act request, it was determined that the agency had no records containing the names "Five Star Trust" or a reported subsidiary, "U.S. Mortgage and Trust (Bahamas)." Dorn reported that no records containing references to either entity were discovered but that two documents, cables—"field traffic consisting of one and a half pages and eight partial lines of message text, respectively, dating from the early 1980s"—were responsive to Horn's request. It is interesting that the CIA admits the time frame because the genesis of Five Star Trust was 1983, when, according to U.S. intelligence insiders, then-Vice President Bush authorized a Boeing 747 with a special "carriage" to airlift several tons of gold bars from Clark Air Force base in the Philippines to LaGuardia Airport in New York.
The gold bars were then transported to the International Diamond Exchange Vaults near Rockefeller Center. A CIA proprietary firm called Oceaneering International of Houston was reportedly involved in airlifting some of the gold from the Philippines, in addition to sealifting the remainder to Oregon. After George W. Bush's victory in 2000, the last of the gold in New York was moved to UBS Bank in Zurich. Marcos and Khashoggi set about to create Five Star Trust in 1983 as a means to create a vehicle to use the Philippine wealth to create and funnel fungible assets. In 1989, Five Star Trust was officially established in the Isle of Man by a Houston-based attorney who was a close friend of the Bush family.
The CIA's explanation of its decision to withhold the release the two cables was partly based on the use of cryptonyms–artificial words used as substitutes for the actual name or identity of a "person, organization, or project." The CIA statement continues: "when obtained and matched with other information, a cryptonym possesses a great deal of meaning for those who are able to fit it into the proper cognitive framework." The denial of Horn's FOIA request also stated that the two responsive documents could "reveal the existence or location of covert CIA field installations in multiple foreign countries." In addition, the CIA stated that release of the documents in question would "reveal specific and sensitive subjects in which the CIA is or was interested." Finally, disclosure of the requested documents was denied because of "foreign relations." The agency emphasized that, "in carrying out its legally authorized intelligence activities, the CIA engages in activities that if known by foreign nations, could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to U.S. relations with affected or interested nations."
The story of this corruption is nothing new. What is new is the purpose. The use of this old and covert tranche of money for a special Bush operation to deny the American people their right to a free and fair vote was not the typical illegal sale of arms to a terrorist nation, the overthrow of a foreign government, or the payment of bribes to foreign potentates. It was a high crime in every constitutional sense. The target was the American political system and not just in 2004 but also in 2003, 2002, and 2000. The scandal goes right up to the White House and the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee. It involves an extremely crooked Florida national politician and other Florida state government officials. And, as with all modern American political scandals, we have at least one dead body, a number of whistleblowers and anonymous "Deep Throats," powerful but corrupt politicians, counterfeit and real documents, con men, and a money trail tied to off-shore foreign bank accounts.
People may wonder why a group of intelligence insiders would come forward to a non-major media outlet with such tantalizing information at this time. The corporate-beholden media cannot be trusted to report such a news story. A common theme from all the intelligence and ex-intelligence officials with whom I have communicated is that George W. Bush made a major mistake in attacking and purging the clandestine service of the CIA. The "agency," which extends far beyond the confines of Langley, Virginia, is having its revenge. It has willingly exposed a portion of a traditional clandestine CIA money route to expose the vote scam that was used to ensure Bush's election.
The clues, for example, the bogus check, were conveyed to us as exactly that—clues. Those markers pointed to the illegal nature of the covert money flows. The connections between NASA contracts, Texas, and Florida were additional clues to one of the major sources of the money used for the vote rigging. There were a number of roads that led to the same destination. But that is the nature of covert intelligence. Some patriotic and brave people, who have served in silence for a number of decades, have chosen their country over a corrupt family and administration. It is now time for the constitutional process to begin. Rectification of the criminal conspiracy that denied John Kerry and John Edwards the White House must begin in Ohio, and extend to Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, and other states where votes were flipped by computers from the Kerry to the Bush column. Past elections must also be investigated and those who were done in by this fraud, namely, people like Max Cleland, Gray Davis, Al Gore, and others must also have their day in court.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and syndicated columnist. He is the author of "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates."
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Repor...0604madsen.html
Uncovered Email 'Contradicts' Feeney Statements to 'Florida Commission on Ethics'!
2002 Article Revealed Evidence "At Odds" with Testimony to Commission.
2004 Threats of Legal Action by Feeney Use Commission Findings as Defense.
In a story yesterday , we alluded to "public documents and email which seemed to directly contradict statements made by Feeney" to the Florida Commission on Ethics which investigated some...
In a story yesterday, we alluded to "public documents and email which seemed to directly contradict statements made by Feeney" to the Florida Commission on Ethics which investigated some -- but not all -- of the serious charges Clint Curtis has recently made in a sworn affidavit and public testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee concerning Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL).
Some of the information we alluded to was based, in part, on an October 12, 2002 Daytona Beach News-Journal piece headlined "E-mails at odds with Feeney denials".
We'd seen the article some time ago, but as it was not publicly available other than via purchase at the The News-Journal Print Archives we hadn't linked to it specifically or discussed it in depth.
A linkable copy of that original 2002 article has now been found via The Wayback Machine (an Internet archive/cache site), which allows us to look in a bit more detail at the contradictory statements made by Feeney at the time to the Florida Commission on Ethics which was investigating charges against the then-House Speaker of the Florida Legislature.
Feeney, now a U.S. Congressman who sits on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and several of his surrogates have recently pointed, on a number of occassions, to the findings of that Commission citing their conclusions of "no probable cause" as his defense for the charges being made by Clint Curtis.
Those findings were alluded to in a threatening letter from Feeney's attorney to The Seminole Chronicle, who wrote a recent article on the matter; in another nearly-identical threatening letter to The Chronicle purported to be from a Yang Enterprise, Inc. (YEI) attorney; and again just today in an off-the-record interview by Feeney, which was used in an article published by The Oviedo Voice. (More on that article here hopefully later today).
As the findings of that commission seem to be the main, if not sole, defense that Feeney is using to answer to Curtis' charges that Feeney was involved in a "vote-rigging" conspiracy in 2000, it would seem that some of the contradicting information discovered in the 2002 News-Journal article (and there were a series of them) has become rather relevant again.
We've already pointed out that 6 of the 8 appointees to the commission were appointed to it by and/or had close ties to either Feeney himself or his one-time running mate Jeb Bush (Feeney was Bush's running mate during his first unsuccessful run for Florida Governor in 1994).
We also pointed out that -- in apparent contradiction to Florida state law -- the two people having filed the charges in the first place with the commission, Clint Curtis and his then-boss at the Florida Dept. of Transportion (FDOT) Mavis Georgalis, were never interviewed at all by the commission.
And as well, we pointed out that the commission wasn't even investigating the alleged "vote-rigging" conspiracy now being discussed amongst Curtis' charges.
But let's take a look at some of the specific troubling information that the News-Journal's Laura Zuckerman uncovered during her investigation into those Emails back in 2002.
Many of both YEI and Feeney's current apparent strategies of denial, dismissal and multiple contradictory statements about the charges seems to have already been in full play even back in 2002, despite strong evidence which contradicted many of their public statements on the matter...
TALLAHASSEE -- Despite repeated claims that he never used his influence to benefit his client, House Speaker Tom Feeney arranged at least one meeting between state officials and an Oviedo computer firm that was having trouble with its state contract.
E-mails obtained by The Daytona Beach News-Journal through the state's public records law contradict statements made by the Oviedo Republican to the state Ethics Commission, which cleared him of ethical missteps surrounding his ties to his client, Yang Enterprises.
...
Feeney, who doubles as Yang's general counsel and lobbyist in Orange County, told ethics investigators that he had not spoken to "anyone at FDOT or the State Technology Office concerning the Yangs."
But the e-mails show Feeney, then incoming House speaker, arranged a meeting in Oviedo in July 2000 between his client and Roy Cales, head of the State Technology Office and the official with the most say over state computer contracts.
...
Feeney sponsored an earlier meeting for Yang in Tallahassee with Cales, Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Tom Barry and Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, records show.
After the Oviedo meeting, Yang wrote to DOT officials to say it was very successful. Cales later wrote Feeney, "I am most interested in pursuing additional conversations with them (the Yangs) to determine the most effective way to utilize their expertise."
Sylvester Lukis, a spokesman for Yang, at first denied in an interview Friday that Feeney arranged any meetings for Yang owners Tyng-Lin Yang and Li-Woan Yang with state officials. But later, when told about the e-mails, he confirmed Feeney had set them up.
"Apparently Mr. Feeney did arrange some meetings with Mr. Cales, but it had nothing to do with the (DOT) contract," he said. "I'm not going to comment on Mr. Feeney and whether he did anything wrong."
Lukis said the Yangs were innocent of any misdeeds, describing them as "hard-working people" who have been unfairly caught in the political crossfire.
...
Feeney denied helping Yang, even after the firm was accused of submitting fraudulent invoices in its contract with DOT to provide software.
DOT is still investigating those claims, which were made by two state workers who have since been fired.
{ed. Note: The "two state workers" were Clint Curtis and Mavis Georgalis. The DOT investigator on the case, Raymond Lemme, died in what some have described as a "suspicious suicide" in July of 2003. The BRAD BLOG has been researching that matter and hopes to publish more information about it in a future article.}
Feeney continued to be copied on correspondence in the dispute long after he said he advised the Yangs to hire a Tallahassee lobbying firm to handle the matter, records show.
And a worker in Feeney's law office called state officials demanding that a letter praising Yang be signed -- despite the ongoing contract dispute -- by Cales and a DOT official and faxed to Feeney without delay.
...
...Feeney points to the decision by the state Ethics Commission as evidence he did nothing wrong...
YEI would eventually receive an eight-year $8 million contract with FDOT to develop their "Electronic Document Management System".
The article also refers to Feeney's Democratic challenger, Harry Jacobs, as having pointed to the questionable Feeney/YEI relationship during the 2002 race for the newly created 24th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jacobs aired a television spot at the time on the matter, video from which -- along with coverage of the controversy about it and an interview with YEI CEO Li-Woan Yang -- can be seen online in this 2002 report from Orlando's NBC news affiliate WESH.
Several sources have told The BRAD BLOG that at the time of the airing of Jacob's commercial, YEI released all of it's workers for the day so that they could picket Jacob's campaign headquarters. We have not yet been able to corroborate that report with either YEI or the Jacob's campaign, but will continue to attempt to do so in the future.
Prior to the The News-Journal article quoted above, they offered a rather extensive report on June 9, 2002 into the charges being made by Curtis and Georgalis against Feeney, YEI, FDOT and others. We've now also been able to find that article via Archives.org and point you to it above.
That rather extensive report documented many detailed aspects of a number of Curtis' claims in this matter at the time, and several of Feeney's questionable relationships with both YEI, FDOT and the investigators looking into the related charges.
For his part, Feeney found it necessary to respond to that article in a Letter to the Editor of The Informed Volusian which was published three days later.
We hope to offer a more detailed report on information from both of those articles in the near future.
STILL...AS YOU'VE UNDOUBTEDLY NOTICED...DEVELOPING...
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001083.htm
2002 Article Revealed Evidence "At Odds" with Testimony to Commission.
2004 Threats of Legal Action by Feeney Use Commission Findings as Defense.
In a story yesterday , we alluded to "public documents and email which seemed to directly contradict statements made by Feeney" to the Florida Commission on Ethics which investigated some...
In a story yesterday, we alluded to "public documents and email which seemed to directly contradict statements made by Feeney" to the Florida Commission on Ethics which investigated some -- but not all -- of the serious charges Clint Curtis has recently made in a sworn affidavit and public testimony to members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee concerning Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL).
Some of the information we alluded to was based, in part, on an October 12, 2002 Daytona Beach News-Journal piece headlined "E-mails at odds with Feeney denials".
We'd seen the article some time ago, but as it was not publicly available other than via purchase at the The News-Journal Print Archives we hadn't linked to it specifically or discussed it in depth.
A linkable copy of that original 2002 article has now been found via The Wayback Machine (an Internet archive/cache site), which allows us to look in a bit more detail at the contradictory statements made by Feeney at the time to the Florida Commission on Ethics which was investigating charges against the then-House Speaker of the Florida Legislature.
Feeney, now a U.S. Congressman who sits on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and several of his surrogates have recently pointed, on a number of occassions, to the findings of that Commission citing their conclusions of "no probable cause" as his defense for the charges being made by Clint Curtis.
Those findings were alluded to in a threatening letter from Feeney's attorney to The Seminole Chronicle, who wrote a recent article on the matter; in another nearly-identical threatening letter to The Chronicle purported to be from a Yang Enterprise, Inc. (YEI) attorney; and again just today in an off-the-record interview by Feeney, which was used in an article published by The Oviedo Voice. (More on that article here hopefully later today).
As the findings of that commission seem to be the main, if not sole, defense that Feeney is using to answer to Curtis' charges that Feeney was involved in a "vote-rigging" conspiracy in 2000, it would seem that some of the contradicting information discovered in the 2002 News-Journal article (and there were a series of them) has become rather relevant again.
We've already pointed out that 6 of the 8 appointees to the commission were appointed to it by and/or had close ties to either Feeney himself or his one-time running mate Jeb Bush (Feeney was Bush's running mate during his first unsuccessful run for Florida Governor in 1994).
We also pointed out that -- in apparent contradiction to Florida state law -- the two people having filed the charges in the first place with the commission, Clint Curtis and his then-boss at the Florida Dept. of Transportion (FDOT) Mavis Georgalis, were never interviewed at all by the commission.
And as well, we pointed out that the commission wasn't even investigating the alleged "vote-rigging" conspiracy now being discussed amongst Curtis' charges.
But let's take a look at some of the specific troubling information that the News-Journal's Laura Zuckerman uncovered during her investigation into those Emails back in 2002.
Many of both YEI and Feeney's current apparent strategies of denial, dismissal and multiple contradictory statements about the charges seems to have already been in full play even back in 2002, despite strong evidence which contradicted many of their public statements on the matter...
TALLAHASSEE -- Despite repeated claims that he never used his influence to benefit his client, House Speaker Tom Feeney arranged at least one meeting between state officials and an Oviedo computer firm that was having trouble with its state contract.
E-mails obtained by The Daytona Beach News-Journal through the state's public records law contradict statements made by the Oviedo Republican to the state Ethics Commission, which cleared him of ethical missteps surrounding his ties to his client, Yang Enterprises.
...
Feeney, who doubles as Yang's general counsel and lobbyist in Orange County, told ethics investigators that he had not spoken to "anyone at FDOT or the State Technology Office concerning the Yangs."
But the e-mails show Feeney, then incoming House speaker, arranged a meeting in Oviedo in July 2000 between his client and Roy Cales, head of the State Technology Office and the official with the most say over state computer contracts.
...
Feeney sponsored an earlier meeting for Yang in Tallahassee with Cales, Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Tom Barry and Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, records show.
After the Oviedo meeting, Yang wrote to DOT officials to say it was very successful. Cales later wrote Feeney, "I am most interested in pursuing additional conversations with them (the Yangs) to determine the most effective way to utilize their expertise."
Sylvester Lukis, a spokesman for Yang, at first denied in an interview Friday that Feeney arranged any meetings for Yang owners Tyng-Lin Yang and Li-Woan Yang with state officials. But later, when told about the e-mails, he confirmed Feeney had set them up.
"Apparently Mr. Feeney did arrange some meetings with Mr. Cales, but it had nothing to do with the (DOT) contract," he said. "I'm not going to comment on Mr. Feeney and whether he did anything wrong."
Lukis said the Yangs were innocent of any misdeeds, describing them as "hard-working people" who have been unfairly caught in the political crossfire.
...
Feeney denied helping Yang, even after the firm was accused of submitting fraudulent invoices in its contract with DOT to provide software.
DOT is still investigating those claims, which were made by two state workers who have since been fired.
{ed. Note: The "two state workers" were Clint Curtis and Mavis Georgalis. The DOT investigator on the case, Raymond Lemme, died in what some have described as a "suspicious suicide" in July of 2003. The BRAD BLOG has been researching that matter and hopes to publish more information about it in a future article.}
Feeney continued to be copied on correspondence in the dispute long after he said he advised the Yangs to hire a Tallahassee lobbying firm to handle the matter, records show.
And a worker in Feeney's law office called state officials demanding that a letter praising Yang be signed -- despite the ongoing contract dispute -- by Cales and a DOT official and faxed to Feeney without delay.
...
...Feeney points to the decision by the state Ethics Commission as evidence he did nothing wrong...
YEI would eventually receive an eight-year $8 million contract with FDOT to develop their "Electronic Document Management System".
The article also refers to Feeney's Democratic challenger, Harry Jacobs, as having pointed to the questionable Feeney/YEI relationship during the 2002 race for the newly created 24th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jacobs aired a television spot at the time on the matter, video from which -- along with coverage of the controversy about it and an interview with YEI CEO Li-Woan Yang -- can be seen online in this 2002 report from Orlando's NBC news affiliate WESH.
Several sources have told The BRAD BLOG that at the time of the airing of Jacob's commercial, YEI released all of it's workers for the day so that they could picket Jacob's campaign headquarters. We have not yet been able to corroborate that report with either YEI or the Jacob's campaign, but will continue to attempt to do so in the future.
Prior to the The News-Journal article quoted above, they offered a rather extensive report on June 9, 2002 into the charges being made by Curtis and Georgalis against Feeney, YEI, FDOT and others. We've now also been able to find that article via Archives.org and point you to it above.
That rather extensive report documented many detailed aspects of a number of Curtis' claims in this matter at the time, and several of Feeney's questionable relationships with both YEI, FDOT and the investigators looking into the related charges.
For his part, Feeney found it necessary to respond to that article in a Letter to the Editor of The Informed Volusian which was published three days later.
We hope to offer a more detailed report on information from both of those articles in the near future.
STILL...AS YOU'VE UNDOUBTEDLY NOTICED...DEVELOPING...
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001083.htm
Here is a decent attempt to Debunk the story but there are still many questions connection Jeb Bush to the Florida DOT, both sides seem to think there should be more inquiries into this aspect. So, why isn't there?
http://www.kathymcmahon.utvinternet.com/mr...audTaleSpin.htm
http://www.kathymcmahon.utvinternet.com/mr...audTaleSpin.htm
John Millis
The Times reported that Millis, appointed to his post as staff director by Republican Chairman Porter Goss of Florida three years ago, was himself, like Goss, a former CIA case officer. In his 13 year career with CIA, Millis served in Pakistan with Afghani "Freedom Fighters" in the 1980s. Those Freedom Fighters, known as Mujahedeen, and led by radical Islamic leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar, have been documented as supplying or producing as much as 50% of the heroin entering the United States by 1984.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/poli...ohn_millis.html
The Times reported that Millis, appointed to his post as staff director by Republican Chairman Porter Goss of Florida three years ago, was himself, like Goss, a former CIA case officer. In his 13 year career with CIA, Millis served in Pakistan with Afghani "Freedom Fighters" in the 1980s. Those Freedom Fighters, known as Mujahedeen, and led by radical Islamic leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar, have been documented as supplying or producing as much as 50% of the heroin entering the United States by 1984.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/poli...ohn_millis.html
Director Of Central Intelligence
George J. Tenet
On The Death Of John Millis
"I was informed by Chairman Goss this morning of the death of John Millis, the Staff Director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We in the Intelligence Community are shocked and saddened by this tragic loss. We have worked closely with John for many years. He was a tenacious advocate for a strong national intelligence capability. Stephanie and I express our deepest condolences to John's wife Linda and the Millis family on behalf of all the men and women of the Intelligence Community."
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/pres...pr06062000.html
George J. Tenet
On The Death Of John Millis
"I was informed by Chairman Goss this morning of the death of John Millis, the Staff Director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. We in the Intelligence Community are shocked and saddened by this tragic loss. We have worked closely with John for many years. He was a tenacious advocate for a strong national intelligence capability. Stephanie and I express our deepest condolences to John's wife Linda and the Millis family on behalf of all the men and women of the Intelligence Community."
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/pres...pr06062000.html
Is it just a coincidence that the first anthrax victim was a photo editor at American Media, Inc. who owns the National Enquirer which published a............
State Dept. Worker Found Dead Outside Agency
FOX News -- State Department sources told The Washington Post that John Kokal worked in a unit that dealt with intelligence and research. Sources said he handled classified documents regularly but was not involved in intelligence analysis.
http://www.infowars.com/archives/2004/Jan/01-08-04.htm
FOX News -- State Department sources told The Washington Post that John Kokal worked in a unit that dealt with intelligence and research. Sources said he handled classified documents regularly but was not involved in intelligence analysis.
http://www.infowars.com/archives/2004/Jan/01-08-04.htm
Mystery surrounds death of State Dept. official
By Wayne Madsen
Washington, DC, Nov. 20-- In a case eerily reminiscent of the death of British Ministry of Defense bio-weapons expert, Dr. David Kelly, an official of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research Near East and South Asian division (INR/NESA), John J. Kokal, 58, was found dead in the late afternoon of Nov. 7. Police indicated he may have jumped from the roof of the State Department. Kokal’s body was found at the bottom of a 20 foot window well, 8 floors below the roof of the State Department headquarters near the 23rd and D Street location. Kokal’s death was briefly mentioned in a FOX News website story on Nov. 8 but has been virtually overlooked by the major media.
Interestingly, the FOX report states that State Department officials confirmed Kokal’s death to The Washington Post yet the Post — according to an archive search — has published nothing at all about Kokal’s death.
Kokal’s INR bureau was at the forefront of confronting claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Washington police have not ruled out homicide as the cause of his death. Kokal was not wearing either a jacket or shoes when his body was found. He lived in Arlington, Virginia.
However, a colleague of Kokal’s told this writer that the Iraq analyst was despondent over “problems” with his security clearance. Kokal reportedly climbed out of a window and threw himself out in such a manner so that he would “land on his head.” At the time Kokal fell from either the roof or a window, his wife Pamela, a public affairs specialist in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, was waiting for him in the parking garage. Mrs. Kokal had previously worked in Consular Affairs where she was involved in the stricter vetting of visa applicants from mainly Muslim countries after the Sept. 11 attacks.
State Department officials dispute official State Department communiqués that said Kokal was not an analyst at INR. People who know Kokal told the French publication Geopolitique that Kokal was involved in the analysis of intelligence about Iraq prior to and during the war against Saddam Hussein.
Another INR official, weapons expert Greg Thielmann, said he and INR were largely ignored by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton and his deputy, David Wurmser, a pro-Likud neo-conservative who recently became Vice President Dick Cheney’s Middle East adviser. Kokal’s former boss, the recently retired chief of INR, Carl W. Ford, recently said that Bolton often exaggerated information to steer people in the wrong directions.
A former INR employee revealed that some one-third to one-half of INR officials are either former intelligence agents with the CIA or are detailed from the agency. He also revealed it would have been impossible for Kokal to have gained entry to the roof on his own. INR occupies both a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on the sixth floor that has no windows and a structure on the roof that has neither windows nor access to the roof, according to the former official. The other windows at the State Department have been engineered to be shatter proof from terrorist bomb attacks and cannot be opened.
INR and other State Department officials report that a “chill” has set in at the State Department following Kokal’s defenestration. A number of employees are afraid to talk about the suspicious death. It also unusual that The Northern Virginia Journal, a local Arlington newspaper, has not published an obituary notice on Kokal.
Source: From The Wilderness
http://www.agrnews.org/issues/254/nationalnews.html
By Wayne Madsen
Washington, DC, Nov. 20-- In a case eerily reminiscent of the death of British Ministry of Defense bio-weapons expert, Dr. David Kelly, an official of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research Near East and South Asian division (INR/NESA), John J. Kokal, 58, was found dead in the late afternoon of Nov. 7. Police indicated he may have jumped from the roof of the State Department. Kokal’s body was found at the bottom of a 20 foot window well, 8 floors below the roof of the State Department headquarters near the 23rd and D Street location. Kokal’s death was briefly mentioned in a FOX News website story on Nov. 8 but has been virtually overlooked by the major media.
Interestingly, the FOX report states that State Department officials confirmed Kokal’s death to The Washington Post yet the Post — according to an archive search — has published nothing at all about Kokal’s death.
Kokal’s INR bureau was at the forefront of confronting claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Washington police have not ruled out homicide as the cause of his death. Kokal was not wearing either a jacket or shoes when his body was found. He lived in Arlington, Virginia.
However, a colleague of Kokal’s told this writer that the Iraq analyst was despondent over “problems” with his security clearance. Kokal reportedly climbed out of a window and threw himself out in such a manner so that he would “land on his head.” At the time Kokal fell from either the roof or a window, his wife Pamela, a public affairs specialist in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, was waiting for him in the parking garage. Mrs. Kokal had previously worked in Consular Affairs where she was involved in the stricter vetting of visa applicants from mainly Muslim countries after the Sept. 11 attacks.
State Department officials dispute official State Department communiqués that said Kokal was not an analyst at INR. People who know Kokal told the French publication Geopolitique that Kokal was involved in the analysis of intelligence about Iraq prior to and during the war against Saddam Hussein.
Another INR official, weapons expert Greg Thielmann, said he and INR were largely ignored by Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton and his deputy, David Wurmser, a pro-Likud neo-conservative who recently became Vice President Dick Cheney’s Middle East adviser. Kokal’s former boss, the recently retired chief of INR, Carl W. Ford, recently said that Bolton often exaggerated information to steer people in the wrong directions.
A former INR employee revealed that some one-third to one-half of INR officials are either former intelligence agents with the CIA or are detailed from the agency. He also revealed it would have been impossible for Kokal to have gained entry to the roof on his own. INR occupies both a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) on the sixth floor that has no windows and a structure on the roof that has neither windows nor access to the roof, according to the former official. The other windows at the State Department have been engineered to be shatter proof from terrorist bomb attacks and cannot be opened.
INR and other State Department officials report that a “chill” has set in at the State Department following Kokal’s defenestration. A number of employees are afraid to talk about the suspicious death. It also unusual that The Northern Virginia Journal, a local Arlington newspaper, has not published an obituary notice on Kokal.
Source: From The Wilderness
http://www.agrnews.org/issues/254/nationalnews.html
Gus Weiss
Gus W. Weiss, 72, adviser to four presidents on top secret policy matters, died violently in Washington, DC, on November 25, 2003, but his death was not reported by The Washington Post until December 7, 2003, in the obitiuary section at the bottom of page C12. His home town newspaper, The Nashville Tennessean, was only a week late in reporting his death, but at that late date all they could say was, "The circumstances surrounding his death could not be confirmed last night."
'''He was wired into the intelligence community, and there were a lot of mystical secrets we weren't privy to,' said Harris Gilbert, a Nashville attorney who had been friends with Mr. Weiss since childhood. 'He was very interested in diplomatic strategy and was VERY, VERY OPPOSED TO THE IRAQ WAR. It was the first military action he ever opposed, but he believed we shouldn't go to war in the Middle East without knowing what we were getting into.''' (emphasis added)
much more: http://www.dcdave.com/article4/031207.html
Gus W. Weiss, 72, adviser to four presidents on top secret policy matters, died violently in Washington, DC, on November 25, 2003, but his death was not reported by The Washington Post until December 7, 2003, in the obitiuary section at the bottom of page C12. His home town newspaper, The Nashville Tennessean, was only a week late in reporting his death, but at that late date all they could say was, "The circumstances surrounding his death could not be confirmed last night."
'''He was wired into the intelligence community, and there were a lot of mystical secrets we weren't privy to,' said Harris Gilbert, a Nashville attorney who had been friends with Mr. Weiss since childhood. 'He was very interested in diplomatic strategy and was VERY, VERY OPPOSED TO THE IRAQ WAR. It was the first military action he ever opposed, but he believed we shouldn't go to war in the Middle East without knowing what we were getting into.''' (emphasis added)
much more: http://www.dcdave.com/article4/031207.html
The Gus Weiss Prize for Exemplary Academic Achievement on the Part of a Physics Student
This prize is sponsored by Dr. Gus W. Weiss, Jr. who is a former Director of International Economics for the National Security Council; Director of the White House Council on International Economic Policy; Professor of Economics, New York University; and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Space Policy. He has served as advisor to the CIA, 1972 to 1980, and to the Presidents. He continues to lecture, write, and advise.
http://www2.gwu.edu/~physics/weiss.htm
This prize is sponsored by Dr. Gus W. Weiss, Jr. who is a former Director of International Economics for the National Security Council; Director of the White House Council on International Economic Policy; Professor of Economics, New York University; and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Space Policy. He has served as advisor to the CIA, 1972 to 1980, and to the Presidents. He continues to lecture, write, and advise.
http://www2.gwu.edu/~physics/weiss.htm
SIBERIAFEBRUARY 4 2004.CATASTROPHIC SIBERIAN GAS PIPELINE EXPLOSION HAS CANADIAN LINKRandy BoswellA new book says a Canadian company was at the centre of an elaborate Cold War scheme inwhich a Soviet agent was allowed to steal gas pipeline software that had been secretly designed to fail ona catastrophic scale. The ruse led to a June 1982 explosion in the Siberian wilderness -- "the mostmonumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," according to Thomas C. Reed,former secretary of the U.S. Air Force and author of At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War.The natural gas explosion is alleged to have crippled the Soviet government's secret technology-theft operation and hastened the demise of the Communist Bloc. Reed's memoir -- with an introduction byformer U.S. president George H.W. Bush -- will not be published until next month. But New York Timescolumnist William Safire, who obtained a draft copy of the book, wrote this week that the pipeline ruserevealed in At the Abyss "helped us win the Cold War."Some aspects of the industrial espionage saga told by Reed have already been described byGus Weiss, a former special assistant to the U.S. Defence Department and director of internationaleconomics with the U.S. National Security Council in the 1970s and 1980s.Weiss, who is widely credited with masterminding the plan to trick the Soviets by letting themacquire faulty technology, published a brief account of the project in 1996 called Duping the Soviets: TheFarewell Dossier.The idea was born in July 1981, during an international economic summit in Ottawa, whenFrench president Francois Mitterand informed then U.S. president Ronald Reagan that a KGB officer inMoscow -- code-named "Farewell" and recruited by France as a double agent -- had provided a revealingdossier on how the Soviets were stealing classified computer equipment and other technology fromNATO countries. The KGB turncoat, Vladimir Vetrov, was an engineer in the directorate responsible for"technology transfer," which often involved planting agents in western aerospace and computercompanies to steal or copy classified equipment designs.At Weiss's urging, the Reagan administration approved a plan to use the information in theFarewell Dossier to turn the KGB's techno-piracy against the Soviet regime itself."Contrived computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines wereinstalled on a gas pipeline and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractorfactory," Weiss wrote. "The program had great success, and it was never detected."Reed apparently picked up the rest of the pipeline story from Weiss, who recently died. Accordingto Safire, Reed describes how the KGB planted one of its agents with a Canadian company to steal
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps3computer control technology for its northern gas pipelines -- a critical component of the Soviet economy.Safire's article does not name the Canadian company. Under the observation of NATO officials, theSoviet spy was allowed to get away from Canada with doctored equipment that was rigged to pass safetytests but fail in operation."The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to gohaywire, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable tothe pipeline joints and welds.The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,"Reed writes in At the Abyss.The explosion was apparently mistaken for a nuclear detonation at first, but "Gus Weiss camedown the hall to tell his fellow NSC (National Security Council) staffers not to worry," writes Reed. "It tookhim another 20 years to tell me why."Reed, who is now retired and living in California, could not be reached Monday to elaborate onthe Canadian link to the pipeline sting.A spokesman for Reed's publisher, Random House, said the author won't be schedulinginterviews until the book is released on March 9.The Siberian explosion, along with failures caused by other booby-trapped technologies acquiredfrom the West, is alleged to have thrown a major monkey wrench into Soviet research and developmentat a pivotal moment in the Cold War.The Farewell Dossier and the U.S.-led counter-espionage project "led to the collapse of a crucial(technology) collection program at just the time the Soviet military needed it, and it resulted in a forcefuland effective NATO effort to protect its technology," argued Weiss."Along with the U.S. defence buildup and an already floundering Soviet economy, the U.S.S.R.could no longer compete, a conclusion reached by the Politburo in 1987. "When historians sort out thereasons for the end of the Cold War, perhaps Farewell will receive a footnote," he added. "It would bedeserved."http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/story.asp?id=23B2DAF2-2CA8-498D-9023-D691A27A9492AUSTRALIA, NEW SOUTH WALESFEBRUARY 5 2004.PORT KEMBLA BLAST PROMPTS CONCERNS ON STORAGE SAFETYBy Ray ThomasCalls have been made for a government task force to be established to investigate safetyprocedures at storage depots around the nation in the light of last week's spectacular blaze at PortKembla in New South Wales.One man sustained minor burns and hundreds of workers were evacuated from Port Kembla'sindustrial heart after the mid-morning explosion at a site owned by ethanol producer Manildra. Flamesleapt 30m into the air, fuelled by seven million litres of ethanol - a highly flammable and volatile liquid,which is a by-product of the grain industry.As yet, fire investigators haven't revealed the cause of the blaze, although there is somespeculation that it may have been started by installation work on a sprinkler system for the tank thatexploded. As local union boss Andy Gillespie told CCH, "I can't understand why the sprinkler systemwasn't put in before the tank was filled with flammable liquids".Minimal environmental impactAs ethanol is made from biomass, it generates 90% less carbon dioxide (the leading cause ofglobal warming) and 70% less sulphur dioxide (responsible for acid rain) than petroleum products. Beinga clean burning fuel, the massive fire at the Manildra plant had limited environmental effects.Had a storage tank containing petrol or diesel exploded, the ensuing thick, black smoke wouldhave had enormous consequences for the population of Wollongong.Nevertheless, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in New South Wales is investigatingthe event to determine whether any legal action will be taken against Manildra. Spokesman for the EPAJohn Dengate stressed the importance of working out whether the company was liable and ensuringappropriate safeguards and controls were in place so that a repeat of such an incident was unlikely.As ethanol comes from cereal crops, spontaneous combustion has not been ruled out. Ethanol
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps4has a lower energy content, but is more volatile than normal petrol, prompting the Australian Workers'Union to call for an inquiry as whether current safety regulations are stringent enough.Car lights meltedAndy Gillespie, who is the union's branch secretary, said that the heat radiating from the tank,next to the Bluescope Steel Coke Ovens, was so intense that taillights on cars 60m away melted.Storage depots operated by Caltex and Shell, which are adjacent to the Manildra plant, and MrGillespie said it was fortunate not one of the many pipes in the area containing gas had been punctured.The domino effect could have quickly led to a disaster."As it was, firefighters had to make a huge effort to stop it from spreading. Given the heat, I'mbuggered if I know how the other tanks didn't explode as the pressure on the oil tanks would have beenintense," said Mr Gillespie. Thousands of litres of foam eventually doused the flames more than 30 hoursafter the explosion.Housing estatesAs residential land in Sydney becomes scarcer and more expensive, housing estates are startingto spring up in areas once deemed unsuitable. The result is that increasing numbers of people are livingcloser to these types of storage facilities.Mr Gillsepie told CCH that governments need to address these issues and ensure that currentsafety regulations are still appropriate. "People have become a bit blasé about these issues", he said. Inthe meantime, there have been serious fires at the solvent extraction plant at WMC's uranium mine atOlympic Dam in South Australia and a gas fire at the Moomba Natural Gas plant, operated by Santos inSouth Australia.Governments tardyOverall, Australian governments have reacted slowly to the need for common laws governing thecontrol and operation of major hazard sites such as those where fuel storage tanks are located, althoughall jurisdictions have dangerous goods and occupational health and safety legislation.As far back as 13 years ago, the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC)endorsed the development of a national standard for the control of major hazard facilities.Yet it wasn't until the aftermath of the disaster at Esso's Longford plant in 1998 that two States -Victoria and Queensland - put specific laws in place to embrace a national framework for major hazardfacility regulations.Despite the NOHSC's urgings that such a standard was needed to prevent major accidents andnear misses at major hazard facilities, no other State or Territory has followed. The NOHSC expressedstrong concerns over these delays saying that prevention strategies depended on a nationally consistentregulatory framework. In December 2002, the Council of Australian Governments (which represents allFederal and State governments) endorsed the development of guidelines for the protection of criticalinfrastructure and noted reported deficiencies in the protection of some hazardous materials. It wasexpected that all jurisdictions would have legislation or regulations in place by the middle of last year, butas yet, only the two States mentioned have acted.Safety casesThe new regulations in Victoria and Queensland lay down specific obligations on the operators ofmajor hazard sites as well as their employees.In particular, the operators must establish and implement a safety management system, identifyall hazards, adopt measures to eliminate the likelihood of a major incident, prepare off-site and on-siteemergency plans, consult with workers on major hazards and provide all safety information to the localcommunity.Operators have two years to apply for a licence to operate under the new regime. This must beaccompanied by a safety case, in which the operator demonstrates that adequate measures are in placeto prevent a major incident and that if an incident did occur, appropriate measures existed to mitigate theconsequences.Major hazard facility laws in keeping with the national standard are currently being developed inother States and Territories. CCH understands that NSW is likely to have new legislation later this yearwhile the Dangerous Substances Bill 2003 was introduced into the Australian Capital Territory LegislativeAssembly in December.http://www.cch.com.au/feature_story.asp?document_id=45664&topic_code=8&category_code=0
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps5USA, CALIFORNIA, SANTA ROSAFEBRUARY 5 2004.PETALUMA FIRM FINED $475,000 FOR 2 DEATHS - SPECTRUM ADMITS VIOLATING SAFETYRULES IN '02 ACCIDENTBy Jeremy HayA Petaluma health products company where two workers died in a 2002 industrial accident onWednesday admitted "willfully violating" state workplace safety laws and will pay $475,000 in fines,restitution and other damages.Prosecutors said the plea bargain with Spectrum Organic Products included one of the largestfines ever levied in California in connection with a workplace death. "This a very big case. It will benoticed throughout the state," said Gale Filter, deputy executive director of the California DistrictAttorneys Association and supervi sor of its worker safety program. Sonoma County prosecutors said thesettlement should send a clear message about corporate responsibility."When employees die because employers have not complied with worker safety laws, it's morethan just an accident, it's a crime," said Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Holtzman, who prosecuted thecase. For Spectrum, the stakes were high. State law changed in 2000, increasing potential penalties forworkplace safety violations resulting in deaths from $75,000 to $1.5 million.The law also increased the exposure to criminal liability of a company and its officers. Thecriminal charges against Spectrum followed an investigation by the state Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration, which cited the company for eight serious safety violations in connection with the deathsand said it failed to provide a proper safety training program and equipment.The violations "caused the death" of Javier Del Rio, 42, and Francisco Estrella Galvan, 24,Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Raima Ballinger said. Immediately after the April 25, 2002,accident, and again on Wednesday, Spectrum officials said they had the right training and equipment inplace and expressed anguish over the deaths. Both men asphyxiated while cleaning a 12-foot tall steeltank used to filter flax seed oil that Spectrum uses in a variety of organic food and health products."We would have spent any amount of money to put these measures in place before and makesure this never happened," said Bob Fowles, Spectrum's chief financial officer. "It was never aboutmoney. This was a complete tragedy for the company. It put us on our ear for months."The company spent $84,000 on safety consultants, engineers and equipment to correct theviolations after the accident, said attorney Chris Andrian, who represented Spectrum. The company sincehas hired a contractor to clean the tanks and keeps the tanks padlocked at all times, Fowles said.Galvan and Del Rio died because the tank they were cleaning had been pumped full of argongas, a preliminary step used to displace oxygen to kill bacteria, investigators concluded. There were nowitnesses to the accident, but it's believed Galvan tried to rescue Del Rio after the older man fellunconscious after entering the tank.Petaluma police and Cal-OSHA investigators found the men lacked safety harnesses, oxygenmonitors and breathing apparatus, all required under state regulations governing confined spaces, suchas the tanks. Holtzman said the police investigation had "put us in a significantly better posture" in thesettlement talks because they "saw this not just as a workplace but as a crime scene."He said arriving at the $475,000 fine involved a "delicate calculus" that took into account thefinancial condition and size of the publicly traded company. He credited the company with cooperating inthe investigation.On Wednesday, Andrian said numerous previous safety inspections by insurance carriers, fireinspectors and Cal-OSHA never indicated a lack of proper training or equipment. "At no time were theyever told, warned or cited that there was anything deficient in their confined space program," he said.Del Rio and Galvan had performed the cleaning job many times and had been trained at it, hesaid, echoing statements company officials made after the accident. Andrian and Fowles acknowledgedthe training and safety measures, which included throwing a lighted match into the tank to see if itcontained oxygen or not, were neither adequate nor as extensive as the law required."This was an awakening experience for everybody -- the company and the community," Andriansaid. There have been at least 17 other deaths statewide in confined-space accidents since 2000,according to Cal-OSHA records. Including Spectrum, Filter said, three had resulted in criminalprosecutions. Spectrum "may be one of the most significant cases in the state" since the law took effect
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps6and will put companies "on notice" if they aren't following confined space rules, he said.Spectrum was charged with two felonies, one count of violating the confined space law for eachof the men. Under the settlement, Andrian asked that they be reduced to misdemeanors, to whichSpectrum pleaded no contest. He said the company may not have agreed to the settlement if it didn'tdirect so much of the money -- at least $225,000 and as much as $255,000 -- to worker safety andconfined space training programs at the Petaluma Police and Fire departments, the District Attorney'sOffice and the state district attorneys association. An additional $150,000 in direct criminal fines will bepaid to the state and other agencies. None of the cost is covered by the company's insurance because itwas a criminal prosecution, Fowles said.http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/05spectrum_a1.htmlUSA, COLORADO, DENVER, WESTMINSTERFEBRUARY 6 2004.CLOSE CALL FOR FIREFIGHTERS -TWO BARELY ESCAPE INJURY AS CARPET FIRE IGNITESPROPANE TANKBy Charley AbleTwo firefighters narrowly escaped injury Thursday when an exploding propane tank that wasignited by a fire in a carpet warehouse flew past them. The fire broke out at Carpet Express, 3240 W.71st Ave., shortly before 9:30 a.m.When fire crews arrived, they found fire and smoke pouring from the garage area of the business,which is in a 20-unit industrial complex. "They tried to do an initial interior attack, but they heard someexplosions going off so they backed off. As they were backing away from the building, a propane tankexploded and rocketed out and just missed two of our firefighters," said Ken Watkins, Westminster FireDepartment deputy chief.The owner of the business, John Vannoy, suffered minor burns to his hands when he tried to putout the fire with an extinguisher. Vannoy said he had started a fork-lift and left it in the garage area towarm up. When he returned from his adjacent office, Vannoy saw a roll of foam carpet pad engulfed inflames."It just got hot too fast," Vannoy said. "You can't fight a fire like that because it is closed all theway around. The only entry is to get in from the big door." Vannoy said his burns "were nothing." "Themost important thing is everybody got out" safely, he said.Firefighters evacuated about 100 people from nearby businesses, but no other injuries werereported. Vannoy said three propane tanks used to fuel the forklift exploded during the fire and hisinventory of carpet and carpet pads was destroyed. He estimated his loss at $200,000 to $300,000.Two adjacent units were damaged by smoke and water and the roof of the building housing the20 units also was damaged. Watkins said it was too early to put a dollar estimate on the damages. Theburning carpet and padding continued to smolder into the afternoon and thick, black smoke drifted awayfrom the building. The smoldering carpet and pads emitted toxic fumes, forcing firefighters to takeprecautions, Watkins said.Nearby residents were not in danger because the toxic smoke dissipated quickly as it drifted fromthe building, Watkins said.http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2633495,00.htmlUSA, TX, DALLASFEBRUARY 6 2004.TEXAS WOMAN STRIKES OIL IN TOILETAn East Texas woman struck oil in a strange way when she came home to find her toilet gushingwith the bubblin' crude. Liela LeTourneau returned from her work as a nurse on Monday to find oilgushing out of everything in her house connected to the water drainage lines, including her kitchen sinkand toilet. The floor of her Longview residence was drenched with a thick coating of what locals call"Texas Tea".Texas state and Longview city officials said today they believe that a mix-up in sewer linesconnected to the house might be the cause of the oil spill."There was this black (ooze) coming out from my house. I thought, 'What have I left on? What
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps7has my son left on that's spilled over?'" LeTourneau told the local daily Longview News-Journal.She had moved into a rental home due to the oil spill and was not immediately available forcomment. Longview city officials said they believe the trouble was due to the residence being connectedto a line used to dispose of saltwater instead of a sewage line. Saltwater disposal lines are used in the oilproduction process as a conduit to drain off liquids associated with that process - mostly saltwater. Thesaltwater disposal line became backed up, and oil seeped out of that line, turning the LeTourneau homeinto an oil patch, they said."I was always proud to have an oil derrick in my back yard. Every Texan should have one," shetold the paper. "Now, I don't know."http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/06/1075854035792.htmlUSA, FLORIDA, GAINSEVILLEFEBRUARY 6 2004.FILTER TO HELP KEEP GASOLINE FROM HOGTOWNGreg c. BrunoForget the shopping carts, the garbage piles or even the storm-water runoff: In the northernreaches of Hogtown Creek, it's gasoline that environmentalists are worried about.For as long as two decades, diluted petroleum has been seeping into the creek behind thesprawling Gainesville Mall on NW 13th Street. As early as 1986, Alachua County officials reported highlevels of benzene and other gasoline-related contaminants flowing into the creek from beneath theshopping center's parking lot. But because of uncertain science, budget shortfalls and state-ordered workstoppages, county environmentalists say there's been little they could do to stop the contamination fromreaching the creek's northern waters.Until now. With the help of $38,000 in state funding and recently acquired property access, theAlachua County Environmental Protection Department is on the verge of putting the breaks oncontamination that has plagued Hogtown for years."We've finally gotten the state to recognize the need to clean up this discharge into HogtownCreek," said Chris Bird, the county's environmental director.Within days, a carbon filtration system is to begin treating contaminated water flowing through adrainage pipe directly into Hogtown, which begins as a trickle near NW 53rd Avenue and flows sevenmiles south to the Floridan Aquifer through a sink west of Interstate 75."This is a great example of how state and local governments can work together to restore ournatural resources," Jill Johnson, a DEP spokeswoman, added. Despite recent progress, it's been slowgoing for the decades-old cleanup. For starters, while evidence of gasoline contamination dates to themid-1980s, it's only been recently that environmental officials have known for sure where the gasolinewas coming from, county groundwater experts contend.When news first broke of the creek -side contaminants, environmental officials identified threepossible sources along NW 13th Street and NW 23rd Avenue: an old Sears automotive center, the closedJ.M. Fields automotive center and the University Shell station.Since then, state and local efforts have focused primarily on the Shell station at 2225 NW 13th St.According to a 1987 memo from Shell Oil Co. to the state's Department of Environmental Regulation -now the Department of Environmental Protection - gasoline from the station's underground tanks wasdischarged sometime between 1976 and 1977.It is unclear how much petroleum was released, but Bird said the amount was likely around 8,000gallons. Over the next few years, on-site remediation of groundwater was conducted immediately belowthe gas station, and soil samples were taken downhill in the vicinity of Hogtown Creek, county recordsshow.Prasad Kuchibhotla, an EPD environmental engineer, said a state cleanup program at the timeallowed for storage tank owners to report spills without assuming financial responsibility, or liability forcontamination that had migrated off-site.But while the program was a noble one with lofty environmental goals, Kuchibhotla said, theoverwhelming number of sites slated for cleanup prompted state officials to change the way it wasadministered.In the mid-1990s, DEP began prioritizing state spills to streamline the way money was spent,
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps8funneling funds first to those considered imminent threats to public safety. And because no drinking waterwells were within the Shell station's impacted area, clean up of the site - officially the Shell- First CoastEnergy facility - was therefore put on hold.It wasn't until January 2002, when the county "positively identified gas contaminants in thecreek," according to Michael Sanders, a senior environmental specialist with the county, that state moneywas made available for the remediation.Bird said the identification of springs in the area, which flow under the mall and into the creek,may also have played a role in securing the state money. While concentrations of gas leaking from thepipe are low, and no sheen is visible on the water's surface, strong wafts of gasoline still drift through theheavily wooded area.The carbon filtration system, expected to power up within days, should take care of the smellonce and for all, Sanders said. Still, for all the county's work to push the petroleum cleanup forward,environmental experts touring the site Tuesday acknowledged that gasoline is just one of Hogtown'smany pollution problems.The shopping carts and random mounds of garbage littering the creek's banks were proof of that."All we know is that this is a very impacted part of the creek," Bird said.
http://gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...L/40206010/1007
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:EKgri...+Weiss%22&hl=en
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps3computer control technology for its northern gas pipelines -- a critical component of the Soviet economy.Safire's article does not name the Canadian company. Under the observation of NATO officials, theSoviet spy was allowed to get away from Canada with doctored equipment that was rigged to pass safetytests but fail in operation."The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to gohaywire, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable tothe pipeline joints and welds.The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space,"Reed writes in At the Abyss.The explosion was apparently mistaken for a nuclear detonation at first, but "Gus Weiss camedown the hall to tell his fellow NSC (National Security Council) staffers not to worry," writes Reed. "It tookhim another 20 years to tell me why."Reed, who is now retired and living in California, could not be reached Monday to elaborate onthe Canadian link to the pipeline sting.A spokesman for Reed's publisher, Random House, said the author won't be schedulinginterviews until the book is released on March 9.The Siberian explosion, along with failures caused by other booby-trapped technologies acquiredfrom the West, is alleged to have thrown a major monkey wrench into Soviet research and developmentat a pivotal moment in the Cold War.The Farewell Dossier and the U.S.-led counter-espionage project "led to the collapse of a crucial(technology) collection program at just the time the Soviet military needed it, and it resulted in a forcefuland effective NATO effort to protect its technology," argued Weiss."Along with the U.S. defence buildup and an already floundering Soviet economy, the U.S.S.R.could no longer compete, a conclusion reached by the Politburo in 1987. "When historians sort out thereasons for the end of the Cold War, perhaps Farewell will receive a footnote," he added. "It would bedeserved."http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/story.asp?id=23B2DAF2-2CA8-498D-9023-D691A27A9492AUSTRALIA, NEW SOUTH WALESFEBRUARY 5 2004.PORT KEMBLA BLAST PROMPTS CONCERNS ON STORAGE SAFETYBy Ray ThomasCalls have been made for a government task force to be established to investigate safetyprocedures at storage depots around the nation in the light of last week's spectacular blaze at PortKembla in New South Wales.One man sustained minor burns and hundreds of workers were evacuated from Port Kembla'sindustrial heart after the mid-morning explosion at a site owned by ethanol producer Manildra. Flamesleapt 30m into the air, fuelled by seven million litres of ethanol - a highly flammable and volatile liquid,which is a by-product of the grain industry.As yet, fire investigators haven't revealed the cause of the blaze, although there is somespeculation that it may have been started by installation work on a sprinkler system for the tank thatexploded. As local union boss Andy Gillespie told CCH, "I can't understand why the sprinkler systemwasn't put in before the tank was filled with flammable liquids".Minimal environmental impactAs ethanol is made from biomass, it generates 90% less carbon dioxide (the leading cause ofglobal warming) and 70% less sulphur dioxide (responsible for acid rain) than petroleum products. Beinga clean burning fuel, the massive fire at the Manildra plant had limited environmental effects.Had a storage tank containing petrol or diesel exploded, the ensuing thick, black smoke wouldhave had enormous consequences for the population of Wollongong.Nevertheless, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in New South Wales is investigatingthe event to determine whether any legal action will be taken against Manildra. Spokesman for the EPAJohn Dengate stressed the importance of working out whether the company was liable and ensuringappropriate safeguards and controls were in place so that a repeat of such an incident was unlikely.As ethanol comes from cereal crops, spontaneous combustion has not been ruled out. Ethanol
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps4has a lower energy content, but is more volatile than normal petrol, prompting the Australian Workers'Union to call for an inquiry as whether current safety regulations are stringent enough.Car lights meltedAndy Gillespie, who is the union's branch secretary, said that the heat radiating from the tank,next to the Bluescope Steel Coke Ovens, was so intense that taillights on cars 60m away melted.Storage depots operated by Caltex and Shell, which are adjacent to the Manildra plant, and MrGillespie said it was fortunate not one of the many pipes in the area containing gas had been punctured.The domino effect could have quickly led to a disaster."As it was, firefighters had to make a huge effort to stop it from spreading. Given the heat, I'mbuggered if I know how the other tanks didn't explode as the pressure on the oil tanks would have beenintense," said Mr Gillespie. Thousands of litres of foam eventually doused the flames more than 30 hoursafter the explosion.Housing estatesAs residential land in Sydney becomes scarcer and more expensive, housing estates are startingto spring up in areas once deemed unsuitable. The result is that increasing numbers of people are livingcloser to these types of storage facilities.Mr Gillsepie told CCH that governments need to address these issues and ensure that currentsafety regulations are still appropriate. "People have become a bit blasé about these issues", he said. Inthe meantime, there have been serious fires at the solvent extraction plant at WMC's uranium mine atOlympic Dam in South Australia and a gas fire at the Moomba Natural Gas plant, operated by Santos inSouth Australia.Governments tardyOverall, Australian governments have reacted slowly to the need for common laws governing thecontrol and operation of major hazard sites such as those where fuel storage tanks are located, althoughall jurisdictions have dangerous goods and occupational health and safety legislation.As far back as 13 years ago, the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC)endorsed the development of a national standard for the control of major hazard facilities.Yet it wasn't until the aftermath of the disaster at Esso's Longford plant in 1998 that two States -Victoria and Queensland - put specific laws in place to embrace a national framework for major hazardfacility regulations.Despite the NOHSC's urgings that such a standard was needed to prevent major accidents andnear misses at major hazard facilities, no other State or Territory has followed. The NOHSC expressedstrong concerns over these delays saying that prevention strategies depended on a nationally consistentregulatory framework. In December 2002, the Council of Australian Governments (which represents allFederal and State governments) endorsed the development of guidelines for the protection of criticalinfrastructure and noted reported deficiencies in the protection of some hazardous materials. It wasexpected that all jurisdictions would have legislation or regulations in place by the middle of last year, butas yet, only the two States mentioned have acted.Safety casesThe new regulations in Victoria and Queensland lay down specific obligations on the operators ofmajor hazard sites as well as their employees.In particular, the operators must establish and implement a safety management system, identifyall hazards, adopt measures to eliminate the likelihood of a major incident, prepare off-site and on-siteemergency plans, consult with workers on major hazards and provide all safety information to the localcommunity.Operators have two years to apply for a licence to operate under the new regime. This must beaccompanied by a safety case, in which the operator demonstrates that adequate measures are in placeto prevent a major incident and that if an incident did occur, appropriate measures existed to mitigate theconsequences.Major hazard facility laws in keeping with the national standard are currently being developed inother States and Territories. CCH understands that NSW is likely to have new legislation later this yearwhile the Dangerous Substances Bill 2003 was introduced into the Australian Capital Territory LegislativeAssembly in December.http://www.cch.com.au/feature_story.asp?document_id=45664&topic_code=8&category_code=0
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps5USA, CALIFORNIA, SANTA ROSAFEBRUARY 5 2004.PETALUMA FIRM FINED $475,000 FOR 2 DEATHS - SPECTRUM ADMITS VIOLATING SAFETYRULES IN '02 ACCIDENTBy Jeremy HayA Petaluma health products company where two workers died in a 2002 industrial accident onWednesday admitted "willfully violating" state workplace safety laws and will pay $475,000 in fines,restitution and other damages.Prosecutors said the plea bargain with Spectrum Organic Products included one of the largestfines ever levied in California in connection with a workplace death. "This a very big case. It will benoticed throughout the state," said Gale Filter, deputy executive director of the California DistrictAttorneys Association and supervi sor of its worker safety program. Sonoma County prosecutors said thesettlement should send a clear message about corporate responsibility."When employees die because employers have not complied with worker safety laws, it's morethan just an accident, it's a crime," said Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Holtzman, who prosecuted thecase. For Spectrum, the stakes were high. State law changed in 2000, increasing potential penalties forworkplace safety violations resulting in deaths from $75,000 to $1.5 million.The law also increased the exposure to criminal liability of a company and its officers. Thecriminal charges against Spectrum followed an investigation by the state Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration, which cited the company for eight serious safety violations in connection with the deathsand said it failed to provide a proper safety training program and equipment.The violations "caused the death" of Javier Del Rio, 42, and Francisco Estrella Galvan, 24,Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Raima Ballinger said. Immediately after the April 25, 2002,accident, and again on Wednesday, Spectrum officials said they had the right training and equipment inplace and expressed anguish over the deaths. Both men asphyxiated while cleaning a 12-foot tall steeltank used to filter flax seed oil that Spectrum uses in a variety of organic food and health products."We would have spent any amount of money to put these measures in place before and makesure this never happened," said Bob Fowles, Spectrum's chief financial officer. "It was never aboutmoney. This was a complete tragedy for the company. It put us on our ear for months."The company spent $84,000 on safety consultants, engineers and equipment to correct theviolations after the accident, said attorney Chris Andrian, who represented Spectrum. The company sincehas hired a contractor to clean the tanks and keeps the tanks padlocked at all times, Fowles said.Galvan and Del Rio died because the tank they were cleaning had been pumped full of argongas, a preliminary step used to displace oxygen to kill bacteria, investigators concluded. There were nowitnesses to the accident, but it's believed Galvan tried to rescue Del Rio after the older man fellunconscious after entering the tank.Petaluma police and Cal-OSHA investigators found the men lacked safety harnesses, oxygenmonitors and breathing apparatus, all required under state regulations governing confined spaces, suchas the tanks. Holtzman said the police investigation had "put us in a significantly better posture" in thesettlement talks because they "saw this not just as a workplace but as a crime scene."He said arriving at the $475,000 fine involved a "delicate calculus" that took into account thefinancial condition and size of the publicly traded company. He credited the company with cooperating inthe investigation.On Wednesday, Andrian said numerous previous safety inspections by insurance carriers, fireinspectors and Cal-OSHA never indicated a lack of proper training or equipment. "At no time were theyever told, warned or cited that there was anything deficient in their confined space program," he said.Del Rio and Galvan had performed the cleaning job many times and had been trained at it, hesaid, echoing statements company officials made after the accident. Andrian and Fowles acknowledgedthe training and safety measures, which included throwing a lighted match into the tank to see if itcontained oxygen or not, were neither adequate nor as extensive as the law required."This was an awakening experience for everybody -- the company and the community," Andriansaid. There have been at least 17 other deaths statewide in confined-space accidents since 2000,according to Cal-OSHA records. Including Spectrum, Filter said, three had resulted in criminalprosecutions. Spectrum "may be one of the most significant cases in the state" since the law took effect
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps6and will put companies "on notice" if they aren't following confined space rules, he said.Spectrum was charged with two felonies, one count of violating the confined space law for eachof the men. Under the settlement, Andrian asked that they be reduced to misdemeanors, to whichSpectrum pleaded no contest. He said the company may not have agreed to the settlement if it didn'tdirect so much of the money -- at least $225,000 and as much as $255,000 -- to worker safety andconfined space training programs at the Petaluma Police and Fire departments, the District Attorney'sOffice and the state district attorneys association. An additional $150,000 in direct criminal fines will bepaid to the state and other agencies. None of the cost is covered by the company's insurance because itwas a criminal prosecution, Fowles said.http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/05spectrum_a1.htmlUSA, COLORADO, DENVER, WESTMINSTERFEBRUARY 6 2004.CLOSE CALL FOR FIREFIGHTERS -TWO BARELY ESCAPE INJURY AS CARPET FIRE IGNITESPROPANE TANKBy Charley AbleTwo firefighters narrowly escaped injury Thursday when an exploding propane tank that wasignited by a fire in a carpet warehouse flew past them. The fire broke out at Carpet Express, 3240 W.71st Ave., shortly before 9:30 a.m.When fire crews arrived, they found fire and smoke pouring from the garage area of the business,which is in a 20-unit industrial complex. "They tried to do an initial interior attack, but they heard someexplosions going off so they backed off. As they were backing away from the building, a propane tankexploded and rocketed out and just missed two of our firefighters," said Ken Watkins, Westminster FireDepartment deputy chief.The owner of the business, John Vannoy, suffered minor burns to his hands when he tried to putout the fire with an extinguisher. Vannoy said he had started a fork-lift and left it in the garage area towarm up. When he returned from his adjacent office, Vannoy saw a roll of foam carpet pad engulfed inflames."It just got hot too fast," Vannoy said. "You can't fight a fire like that because it is closed all theway around. The only entry is to get in from the big door." Vannoy said his burns "were nothing." "Themost important thing is everybody got out" safely, he said.Firefighters evacuated about 100 people from nearby businesses, but no other injuries werereported. Vannoy said three propane tanks used to fuel the forklift exploded during the fire and hisinventory of carpet and carpet pads was destroyed. He estimated his loss at $200,000 to $300,000.Two adjacent units were damaged by smoke and water and the roof of the building housing the20 units also was damaged. Watkins said it was too early to put a dollar estimate on the damages. Theburning carpet and padding continued to smolder into the afternoon and thick, black smoke drifted awayfrom the building. The smoldering carpet and pads emitted toxic fumes, forcing firefighters to takeprecautions, Watkins said.Nearby residents were not in danger because the toxic smoke dissipated quickly as it drifted fromthe building, Watkins said.http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2633495,00.htmlUSA, TX, DALLASFEBRUARY 6 2004.TEXAS WOMAN STRIKES OIL IN TOILETAn East Texas woman struck oil in a strange way when she came home to find her toilet gushingwith the bubblin' crude. Liela LeTourneau returned from her work as a nurse on Monday to find oilgushing out of everything in her house connected to the water drainage lines, including her kitchen sinkand toilet. The floor of her Longview residence was drenched with a thick coating of what locals call"Texas Tea".Texas state and Longview city officials said today they believe that a mix-up in sewer linesconnected to the house might be the cause of the oil spill."There was this black (ooze) coming out from my house. I thought, 'What have I left on? What
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps7has my son left on that's spilled over?'" LeTourneau told the local daily Longview News-Journal.She had moved into a rental home due to the oil spill and was not immediately available forcomment. Longview city officials said they believe the trouble was due to the residence being connectedto a line used to dispose of saltwater instead of a sewage line. Saltwater disposal lines are used in the oilproduction process as a conduit to drain off liquids associated with that process - mostly saltwater. Thesaltwater disposal line became backed up, and oil seeped out of that line, turning the LeTourneau homeinto an oil patch, they said."I was always proud to have an oil derrick in my back yard. Every Texan should have one," shetold the paper. "Now, I don't know."http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/06/1075854035792.htmlUSA, FLORIDA, GAINSEVILLEFEBRUARY 6 2004.FILTER TO HELP KEEP GASOLINE FROM HOGTOWNGreg c. BrunoForget the shopping carts, the garbage piles or even the storm-water runoff: In the northernreaches of Hogtown Creek, it's gasoline that environmentalists are worried about.For as long as two decades, diluted petroleum has been seeping into the creek behind thesprawling Gainesville Mall on NW 13th Street. As early as 1986, Alachua County officials reported highlevels of benzene and other gasoline-related contaminants flowing into the creek from beneath theshopping center's parking lot. But because of uncertain science, budget shortfalls and state-ordered workstoppages, county environmentalists say there's been little they could do to stop the contamination fromreaching the creek's northern waters.Until now. With the help of $38,000 in state funding and recently acquired property access, theAlachua County Environmental Protection Department is on the verge of putting the breaks oncontamination that has plagued Hogtown for years."We've finally gotten the state to recognize the need to clean up this discharge into HogtownCreek," said Chris Bird, the county's environmental director.Within days, a carbon filtration system is to begin treating contaminated water flowing through adrainage pipe directly into Hogtown, which begins as a trickle near NW 53rd Avenue and flows sevenmiles south to the Floridan Aquifer through a sink west of Interstate 75."This is a great example of how state and local governments can work together to restore ournatural resources," Jill Johnson, a DEP spokeswoman, added. Despite recent progress, it's been slowgoing for the decades-old cleanup. For starters, while evidence of gasoline contamination dates to themid-1980s, it's only been recently that environmental officials have known for sure where the gasolinewas coming from, county groundwater experts contend.When news first broke of the creek -side contaminants, environmental officials identified threepossible sources along NW 13th Street and NW 23rd Avenue: an old Sears automotive center, the closedJ.M. Fields automotive center and the University Shell station.Since then, state and local efforts have focused primarily on the Shell station at 2225 NW 13th St.According to a 1987 memo from Shell Oil Co. to the state's Department of Environmental Regulation -now the Department of Environmental Protection - gasoline from the station's underground tanks wasdischarged sometime between 1976 and 1977.It is unclear how much petroleum was released, but Bird said the amount was likely around 8,000gallons. Over the next few years, on-site remediation of groundwater was conducted immediately belowthe gas station, and soil samples were taken downhill in the vicinity of Hogtown Creek, county recordsshow.Prasad Kuchibhotla, an EPD environmental engineer, said a state cleanup program at the timeallowed for storage tank owners to report spills without assuming financial responsibility, or liability forcontamination that had migrated off-site.But while the program was a noble one with lofty environmental goals, Kuchibhotla said, theoverwhelming number of sites slated for cleanup prompted state officials to change the way it wasadministered.In the mid-1990s, DEP began prioritizing state spills to streamline the way money was spent,
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Tank and Petroleum Use Mishaps8funneling funds first to those considered imminent threats to public safety. And because no drinking waterwells were within the Shell station's impacted area, clean up of the site - officially the Shell- First CoastEnergy facility - was therefore put on hold.It wasn't until January 2002, when the county "positively identified gas contaminants in thecreek," according to Michael Sanders, a senior environmental specialist with the county, that state moneywas made available for the remediation.Bird said the identification of springs in the area, which flow under the mall and into the creek,may also have played a role in securing the state money. While concentrations of gas leaking from thepipe are low, and no sheen is visible on the water's surface, strong wafts of gasoline still drift through theheavily wooded area.The carbon filtration system, expected to power up within days, should take care of the smellonce and for all, Sanders said. Still, for all the county's work to push the petroleum cleanup forward,environmental experts touring the site Tuesday acknowledged that gasoline is just one of Hogtown'smany pollution problems.The shopping carts and random mounds of garbage littering the creek's banks were proof of that."All we know is that this is a very impacted part of the creek," Bird said.
http://gainesvillesun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...L/40206010/1007
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:EKgri...+Weiss%22&hl=en
The Farewell Dossier:
Reagan expressed great interest in Mitterand's sensitive revelations and was grateful for his offer to make the material available to the U.S. administration. The dossier, added to the "KUDO" intelligence compartment, arrived at the CIA in August 1981. It immediately caused a storm. The files were incredibly explicit. They set forth the extent of Soviet penetration into U.S. and other Western laboratories, factories and government agencies. They made clear that the Soviets had been running their research and development on the back of the West for years. Given the massive transfer of technology in radars, computers, machine tools and semiconductors from U.S. to USSR, the Pentagon had been in an arms race with itself.
The Farewell dossier also identified hundreds of case officers, agents in place and other supporters of information and parts throughout the West and Japan. During the early years of détente, the U.S. and the USSR had set up working groups in agriculture, civil aviation, nuclear energy, oceanography, computers and the environment. The purpose was to start the construction of "peaceful bridges" between the superpowers. Working group members were to exchange home-and-home visits. The Soviets thoroughly corrupted this process by inserting intelligence officers into those delegations dealing with technology of interest to them. Farewell made the extent of this subterfuge glaringly apparent. Even one of the Soviet cosmonauts, participating in the joint U.S./USSR Apollo/Soyuz space flight, was a KGB science officer.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0426/...ge-04-26-04.asp
Reagan expressed great interest in Mitterand's sensitive revelations and was grateful for his offer to make the material available to the U.S. administration. The dossier, added to the "KUDO" intelligence compartment, arrived at the CIA in August 1981. It immediately caused a storm. The files were incredibly explicit. They set forth the extent of Soviet penetration into U.S. and other Western laboratories, factories and government agencies. They made clear that the Soviets had been running their research and development on the back of the West for years. Given the massive transfer of technology in radars, computers, machine tools and semiconductors from U.S. to USSR, the Pentagon had been in an arms race with itself.
The Farewell dossier also identified hundreds of case officers, agents in place and other supporters of information and parts throughout the West and Japan. During the early years of détente, the U.S. and the USSR had set up working groups in agriculture, civil aviation, nuclear energy, oceanography, computers and the environment. The purpose was to start the construction of "peaceful bridges" between the superpowers. Working group members were to exchange home-and-home visits. The Soviets thoroughly corrupted this process by inserting intelligence officers into those delegations dealing with technology of interest to them. Farewell made the extent of this subterfuge glaringly apparent. Even one of the Soviet cosmonauts, participating in the joint U.S./USSR Apollo/Soyuz space flight, was a KGB science officer.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0426/...ge-04-26-04.asp
Dr. David Kelly
Hutton rejects 'whitewash' claim
Lord Hutton was this time facing the questions
Lord Hutton has rejected claims his report into Dr David Kelly's death amounted to a "whitewash".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3709243.stm
Hutton rejects 'whitewash' claim
Lord Hutton was this time facing the questions
Lord Hutton has rejected claims his report into Dr David Kelly's death amounted to a "whitewash".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3709243.stm
The Murder Of Dr. David Kelly
Part One of Two
Medium Rare
By Jim Rarey
10-14-3
=(This first part lays out the case from the evidence presented in the Hutton inquiry why the death of Dr. David Kelly was not by suicide. Part two will show the reasons, in this writerâs opinion, Dr. Kelly was killed.)
On Thursday, July 17th sometime between 3 and 3:30pm, Dr. David Kelly started out on his usual afternoon walk. About 18 hours later, searchers found his body, left wrist slit, in a secluded lane on Harrowdown Hill. Kelly, the UK's premier microbiologist, was in the center of a political maelstrom having been identified as the 'leak' in information about the 'dossier' Prime Minister Tony Blair had used to justify the war against Iraq.
http://www.rense.com/general43/kelly.htm
Part One of Two
Medium Rare
By Jim Rarey
10-14-3
=(This first part lays out the case from the evidence presented in the Hutton inquiry why the death of Dr. David Kelly was not by suicide. Part two will show the reasons, in this writerâs opinion, Dr. Kelly was killed.)
On Thursday, July 17th sometime between 3 and 3:30pm, Dr. David Kelly started out on his usual afternoon walk. About 18 hours later, searchers found his body, left wrist slit, in a secluded lane on Harrowdown Hill. Kelly, the UK's premier microbiologist, was in the center of a political maelstrom having been identified as the 'leak' in information about the 'dossier' Prime Minister Tony Blair had used to justify the war against Iraq.
http://www.rense.com/general43/kelly.htm
QUOTE
Great minds think alike!!!
Bush's own "Vince Foster" story
by lawnorder
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/3/12443/43023
Thu Mar 3rd, 2005 at 01:24:43 CDT
After reading yet one more chain e-mail my cousin dittohead sent portraying Clinton as a murderous serial rapist I've had enough. If rumors and crazy people's accusations count, than GW has some things to answer for:
She dated GW as a minor. In 2002 she sued him for rape. One year later she was found dead
On December 2002 Margie Schoedinger, a Texas woman of color filed a rape lawsuit against George W. Bush. Although the local press denied at the time, the case did get entered in Fort Bend's County Civil Court with the case number 22127 (1). The case was not dismissed right away. In fact, investigators were able to verify that Maggie dated GW while being underage (2). On Sept. 22, 2003 Margie was found dead due to a "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head". (3) On 10/29/2004 the case was finally dismissed entirely.
Double Standards
Maggie's description of the rape seems plucked right out of an X-Files episode and apparently she had a history of mental problems. A suicide is not that surprising in those circunstances. Nevertheless, when it was Clinton or Kerry's case that didn't stop the GOPpies
Teaching GOPpies a lesson
The presence of an underlying mental problem didn't stop the media, fueled by reich wing pundits from attributing Foster's death to Clinton. And their many accusations of "rape" by Clinton, stem from any woman who would claim it, regardless of proof. So maybe Maggie's ordeal should be more well known, if only to remind GOPpies that in this country people are innocent until proven guilty
One more thing bothers me about this case
Why would the Fort Bend newspaper lie that there was no Civil case, on a case so easy to refute by telling the truth, i.e., she's a nutjob ? Simple knee-jerk brown nosing to Bush ? Is covering up for Bush becoming a habit ? A reflex action that the press does automatically, without even thinking ?
The record above and the PDF files below can be obtained by searching the Civil Court cases in Fort Bend here
And why do I feel a chill every time I read Maggie's description of being harassed for filing the lawsuit, by GW and his minions ? See for yourself on the court records here , if you are curious... (remember, there is no proof those are not just the ramblings of someone very sick)
Bush's own "Vince Foster" story
by lawnorder
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/3/12443/43023
Thu Mar 3rd, 2005 at 01:24:43 CDT
After reading yet one more chain e-mail my cousin dittohead sent portraying Clinton as a murderous serial rapist I've had enough. If rumors and crazy people's accusations count, than GW has some things to answer for:
She dated GW as a minor. In 2002 she sued him for rape. One year later she was found dead
On December 2002 Margie Schoedinger, a Texas woman of color filed a rape lawsuit against George W. Bush. Although the local press denied at the time, the case did get entered in Fort Bend's County Civil Court with the case number 22127 (1). The case was not dismissed right away. In fact, investigators were able to verify that Maggie dated GW while being underage (2). On Sept. 22, 2003 Margie was found dead due to a "self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head". (3) On 10/29/2004 the case was finally dismissed entirely.
Double Standards
Maggie's description of the rape seems plucked right out of an X-Files episode and apparently she had a history of mental problems. A suicide is not that surprising in those circunstances. Nevertheless, when it was Clinton or Kerry's case that didn't stop the GOPpies
Teaching GOPpies a lesson
The presence of an underlying mental problem didn't stop the media, fueled by reich wing pundits from attributing Foster's death to Clinton. And their many accusations of "rape" by Clinton, stem from any woman who would claim it, regardless of proof. So maybe Maggie's ordeal should be more well known, if only to remind GOPpies that in this country people are innocent until proven guilty
One more thing bothers me about this case
Why would the Fort Bend newspaper lie that there was no Civil case, on a case so easy to refute by telling the truth, i.e., she's a nutjob ? Simple knee-jerk brown nosing to Bush ? Is covering up for Bush becoming a habit ? A reflex action that the press does automatically, without even thinking ?
The record above and the PDF files below can be obtained by searching the Civil Court cases in Fort Bend here
And why do I feel a chill every time I read Maggie's description of being harassed for filing the lawsuit, by GW and his minions ? See for yourself on the court records here , if you are curious... (remember, there is no proof those are not just the ramblings of someone very sick)
March 3, 2005
Tillie Fowler, 62, a Former House Leader, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Former Representative Tillie Fowler, who despite being the most powerful woman in Congress did not run for re-election in 2000 to keep a promise to serve only four terms, died yesterday in Jacksonville, Fla. She was 62.
She had suffered a brain hemorrhage two days earlier, a family spokesman, Tom Alexander, told The Associated Press.
Ms. Fowler was vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference and No. 5 in the House leadership when she left Congress. Her steely intelligence earned her the nickname Steel Magnolia. A member of the House Armed Services Committee, she was known for her expertise on military matters, including vigorous efforts to retain armed services bases in her Florida district.
After leaving Congress in 2001 and joining a law firm, she continued her leadership role in military matters as chairwoman of both the commission that investigated sexual abuse accusations at the United States Air Force Academy and the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, which advises the secretary of defense.
Ms. Fowler was also on an independent panel that last year investigated the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, attributing the problem to a string of failures that led all the way up the chain of command to the Pentagon.
She was born on Dec. 23, 1942, in Milledgeville, Ga., where her father, Culver Kidd, owned a drug store. Mr. Kidd served for 44 years in the Georgia Legislature.
A photograph in Ms. Fowler's Congressional office showed her at age 7 playing on the desk of Gov. Herman Talmadge of Georgia. She recalled that she was arguing with him.
She earned a law degree from Emory University, where she also did her undergraduate work. She later worked as a Congressional aide and in the Nixon White House, in consumer affairs. In 1971, she moved to Jacksonville with her husband, Buck Fowler.
She threw herself into volunteer work, then used those contacts to run successfully for the Jacksonville City Council. Elected president of the Council, she had three members arrested in 1989, when they tried to walk out of a meeting, which would have prevented a quorum needed to pass the city budget.
In 1992, she ran for Congress, promising to serve no more than four terms. She received 57 percent of the vote and was unopposed in her next three races.
She got a seat on the Armed Services Committee and was elected co-chairwoman of the Freshman Republican Task Force on Reform. In her second term, she became a deputy whip for the Republicans. In late 1996, Speaker Newt Gingrich gave her and Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, the tough assignment of investigating sexual harassment in the Army.
In 1998, Ms. Fowler was elected vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference on the vow that she would serve no longer than two years in the Republican leadership. She filed papers in 1999 to seek re-election, but later decided to keep her initial promise.
She is survived by her husband and her daughters, Tillie Anne, of Washington, and Elizabeth, of California.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/politics...print&position=
Here is a story that was done by Newsweek before the commission that Fowler was on finished their investigation.
The Abu Ghraib Scandal Cover-Up?
Bush insists that 'a few American troops' dishonored the country. But prisoner abuse was more widespread, and some insiders believe that much remains hidden
By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
June 7 issue - The meeting was small and unpublicized. In a room on the third floor of the Old Executive Office Building last week, Condoleezza Rice grittily endured an hour's worth of pleading from leading human-rights activists who want to see a 9/11-style commission created to investigate the abuse of detainees in the war on terror. According to participants, the president's national-security adviser didn't repeat the line that George W. Bush had delivered to the American people in a speech two days before: that the scandal was the work of "a few American troops who dishonored our country." Nor did Rice try to make the case that by razing Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison—a Bush proposal that took even his Defense secretary by surprise—administration officials would put the scandal behind them. "I recognize we have a very grave problem," Rice said, according to Scott Horton, a New York lawyer at the meeting whose account was corroborated by another participant. "There are major investigations going on right now to fully understand the scope and nature of it."
But numerous critics—not just in the human-rights community, but in Congress and the U.S. military as well—insist that the current probes are still too limited to bring full accountability. Some critics say Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department is doing its best to stop potentially incriminating information from coming out, that it's deflecting Congress's inquiries and shielding higher-ups from investigation. Documents obtained by NEWSWEEK also suggest that Rumsfeld's aides are trying hard to contain the scandal, even within the Pentagon. Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, who is in charge of setting policy on prisoners and detainees in occupied Iraq, has banned any discussion of the still-classified report on Abu Ghraib written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, which has circulated around the world. Shortly after the Taguba report leaked in early May, Feith subordinates sent an "urgent" e-mail around the Pentagon warning officials not to read the report, even though it was on Fox News. In the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, officials in Feith's office warn that the leak is being investigated for "criminal prosecution" and that no one should mention the Taguba report to anybody, even to family members. Feith has turned his office into a "ministry of fear," says one military lawyer. A spokesman for Feith, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, says the e-mail warning was intended to prevent employees from downloading a classified report onto unclassified computers.
More worrisome, critics say, is that the Pentagon is investigating itself. Maj. Gen. George Fay, the No. 2 in Army Military Intelligence, is in charge of the probe into whether his own intel officers directed the MPs to abuse prisoners. But so far Fay has questioned no one above the rank of colonel, military and other sources say. Among those critical of Fay is Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was formerly in military intelligence at Abu Ghraib and has told reporters in recent weeks that the Army is engaged in a cover-up. "I had to volunteer more information than was being asked of me [by Fay]. It was like I was adding to his burden," Provance told NEWSWEEK last week. "There are so many soldiers directly involved who haven't been talked to."
The Army has tried to silence Provance. In a May 21 disciplinary order, a copy of which was shown to NEWSWEEK, battalion commander Lt. Col. James Norwood notifies Provance that he has lost his security clearance and is being "flagged" for violating a previous order to keep quiet. That means he is ineligible for promotions, awards or security clearance. Norwood appears to threaten Provance with prosecution, saying, "There is reason for me to believe that you may have been aware of the improper treatment of the detainees at Abu Ghraib before they were reported by other soldiers." General Fay's conclusions, Norwood warns, "may reveal that you should face adverse action for your failure to report."
Yet no officer above General Fay's rank is likely to have to worry about the conclusions of his investigation. Under military doctrine, Fay, as a two-star general, "can only hold a one-star accountable," says an Army general familiar with such investigations. "He can say someone higher up is the proximate cause, but he can't actually have a finding that says, 'I recommend Maj. Gen. so-and-so be relieved of command.' And if somebody tells him it came from the CIA, what can Fay do? Nothing. He can only say it's outside the jurisdiction of his investigation." Because Fay was appointed by Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, he is also effectively limited from taking his probe beyond Sanchez's command, says Scott Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who is now a law professor at Duke. "It would be difficult for Fay even to question Sanchez," says Silliman. In fact, none of the five investigations the military itself is now conducting is aimed higher up the chain of command than Sanchez.
Pentagon officials said last week that Sanchez would be replaced as commander of Joint Task Force-7 in Iraq. Formally, Sanchez's recall is unrelated to the scandal. But military sources acknowledge that an increasing body of evidence indicates his command has not been forthright about when it learned of the abuses or what it did—and failed to do—about them. The Red Cross first warned Joint Task Force-7 of the kind of abuses seen in the prison photos last November, fully two months before Sanchez launched an investigation. The general says he didn't find out about the abuses until January. But two military sources say his deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, was present at a meeting in late November to discuss a response to the Red Cross. Also at the meeting was Col. Mark Warren, Sanchez's top legal adviser. In mid-May Warren denied in reply to a NEWSWEEK question that his office had drafted the command's response, which brushed off the Red Cross allegations. But Warren later acknowledged under oath to the Senate Armed Services Committee that his JAG team had drafted the command's response.
The White House insists the president wants to conduct a "systemwide" probe of the detainee issue. Administration officials point to a new "independent panel" formed by Rumsfeld. A top Bush aide says the panel—consisting of four members of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, including former Defense secretaries James Schlesinger and Harold Brown—will address "the totality" of all the investigations. But Rumsfeld himself, in his letter appointing the panel, indicates that his interest is mainly in looking at future issues like interrogation, force structure and training. "Issues of personal accountability will be resolved through established military justice and administrative procedures," Rumsfeld says, "although any information you may develop will be welcome." (Former Rep. Tillie Fowler, a member, says the group is now "putting together a timeline of who knew what when.")
On Capitol Hill, legislators on both sides of the aisle complain testily that the Pentagon has turned into an informational black hole. Some 2,000 out of 6,000 pages were missing from the copy of the Taguba report delivered from the Pentagon to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita last week called this merely an "oversight." But among the missing pages were key documents, including the final section of Taguba's lengthy questioning of Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, the unit that actually ran the interrogations in Abu Ghraib Block 1A when the abuses occurred. Sources say Pappas gave Taguba a detailed account of why he believed that "policies and procedures" at Abu Ghraib "were enacted as a specific result" of recommendations made by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo. Miller denies that he exported to Iraq techniques used on Qaeda and Taliban suspects at Gitmo. But Pappas even had some documents to buttress his case, sources say, including one titled "Draft Update for the Secretary of Defense."
Some senators say the Pentagon has so far obscured two issues: who ordered Miller to Abu Ghraib in the first place, and who in the Pentagon knew of the interrogation practices put in place there. Steve Cambone, Rumsfeld's under secretary for intelligence, merely said at a May 7 hearing of the Armed Services Committee that Miller had gone to Iraq "at my encouragement." But neither Sanchez nor CENTCOM commander, Gen. John Abizaid, would tell a later hearing if they knew of involvement by civilian higher-ups at the Pentagon. As one committee member, Sen. Robert Byrd, told NEWSWEEK: "I was stunned that the two top generals [in the Gulf] hemmed and hawed and claimed they had no idea whether the secretary of Defense or the civilian leadership of the Defense Department played any role."
Miller himself has been accused of being less than forthright in a classified briefing before Congress. In a May 21 letter to Miller, Rep. Jane Harman chastised the general for "gaps and discrepancies in your presentation" and for selectively withholding information in a classified session the day before. Harman, the ranking minority member on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, added that she now questions Miller's "candor." (A spokesman for Miller, Barry Johnson, told NEWSWEEK that Miller "is drafting a response and providing additional facts.")
Even Bush's Republican allies, like Armed Services Committee chair John Warner, want to know more. And now the White House seems to be constructing a legal moat around the president. Its argument is that Bush's orders were simply disobeyed. Rice told the human-rights lawyers last week that the president's clear directives on observing the Geneva Conventions and anti-torture laws were not followed. She also allowed that she didn't know yet the full scope of the scandal, which seemed to conflict with Bush's insistence that a few bad MPs were to blame. A senior administration official insists there is no contradiction: "When the president talks about Abu Ghraib in that specific, particular way ... I just don't think anybody believes you're going to find it that widespread across the system." But until all of the facts of the prisoner-abuse scandal come out, nobody will be able to make a sound judgment about who is ultimately responsible.
With Stefan Theil in Berlin, Tamara Lipper and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Melinda Liu in Amman
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5092776/site/newsweek/
Tillie Fowler, 62, a Former House Leader, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Former Representative Tillie Fowler, who despite being the most powerful woman in Congress did not run for re-election in 2000 to keep a promise to serve only four terms, died yesterday in Jacksonville, Fla. She was 62.
She had suffered a brain hemorrhage two days earlier, a family spokesman, Tom Alexander, told The Associated Press.
Ms. Fowler was vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference and No. 5 in the House leadership when she left Congress. Her steely intelligence earned her the nickname Steel Magnolia. A member of the House Armed Services Committee, she was known for her expertise on military matters, including vigorous efforts to retain armed services bases in her Florida district.
After leaving Congress in 2001 and joining a law firm, she continued her leadership role in military matters as chairwoman of both the commission that investigated sexual abuse accusations at the United States Air Force Academy and the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, which advises the secretary of defense.
Ms. Fowler was also on an independent panel that last year investigated the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, attributing the problem to a string of failures that led all the way up the chain of command to the Pentagon.
She was born on Dec. 23, 1942, in Milledgeville, Ga., where her father, Culver Kidd, owned a drug store. Mr. Kidd served for 44 years in the Georgia Legislature.
A photograph in Ms. Fowler's Congressional office showed her at age 7 playing on the desk of Gov. Herman Talmadge of Georgia. She recalled that she was arguing with him.
She earned a law degree from Emory University, where she also did her undergraduate work. She later worked as a Congressional aide and in the Nixon White House, in consumer affairs. In 1971, she moved to Jacksonville with her husband, Buck Fowler.
She threw herself into volunteer work, then used those contacts to run successfully for the Jacksonville City Council. Elected president of the Council, she had three members arrested in 1989, when they tried to walk out of a meeting, which would have prevented a quorum needed to pass the city budget.
In 1992, she ran for Congress, promising to serve no more than four terms. She received 57 percent of the vote and was unopposed in her next three races.
She got a seat on the Armed Services Committee and was elected co-chairwoman of the Freshman Republican Task Force on Reform. In her second term, she became a deputy whip for the Republicans. In late 1996, Speaker Newt Gingrich gave her and Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, the tough assignment of investigating sexual harassment in the Army.
In 1998, Ms. Fowler was elected vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference on the vow that she would serve no longer than two years in the Republican leadership. She filed papers in 1999 to seek re-election, but later decided to keep her initial promise.
She is survived by her husband and her daughters, Tillie Anne, of Washington, and Elizabeth, of California.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/politics...print&position=
Here is a story that was done by Newsweek before the commission that Fowler was on finished their investigation.
The Abu Ghraib Scandal Cover-Up?
Bush insists that 'a few American troops' dishonored the country. But prisoner abuse was more widespread, and some insiders believe that much remains hidden
By Michael Hirsh and John Barry
Newsweek
June 7 issue - The meeting was small and unpublicized. In a room on the third floor of the Old Executive Office Building last week, Condoleezza Rice grittily endured an hour's worth of pleading from leading human-rights activists who want to see a 9/11-style commission created to investigate the abuse of detainees in the war on terror. According to participants, the president's national-security adviser didn't repeat the line that George W. Bush had delivered to the American people in a speech two days before: that the scandal was the work of "a few American troops who dishonored our country." Nor did Rice try to make the case that by razing Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison—a Bush proposal that took even his Defense secretary by surprise—administration officials would put the scandal behind them. "I recognize we have a very grave problem," Rice said, according to Scott Horton, a New York lawyer at the meeting whose account was corroborated by another participant. "There are major investigations going on right now to fully understand the scope and nature of it."
But numerous critics—not just in the human-rights community, but in Congress and the U.S. military as well—insist that the current probes are still too limited to bring full accountability. Some critics say Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department is doing its best to stop potentially incriminating information from coming out, that it's deflecting Congress's inquiries and shielding higher-ups from investigation. Documents obtained by NEWSWEEK also suggest that Rumsfeld's aides are trying hard to contain the scandal, even within the Pentagon. Defense Under Secretary Douglas Feith, who is in charge of setting policy on prisoners and detainees in occupied Iraq, has banned any discussion of the still-classified report on Abu Ghraib written by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, which has circulated around the world. Shortly after the Taguba report leaked in early May, Feith subordinates sent an "urgent" e-mail around the Pentagon warning officials not to read the report, even though it was on Fox News. In the e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, officials in Feith's office warn that the leak is being investigated for "criminal prosecution" and that no one should mention the Taguba report to anybody, even to family members. Feith has turned his office into a "ministry of fear," says one military lawyer. A spokesman for Feith, Maj. Paul Swiergosz, says the e-mail warning was intended to prevent employees from downloading a classified report onto unclassified computers.
More worrisome, critics say, is that the Pentagon is investigating itself. Maj. Gen. George Fay, the No. 2 in Army Military Intelligence, is in charge of the probe into whether his own intel officers directed the MPs to abuse prisoners. But so far Fay has questioned no one above the rank of colonel, military and other sources say. Among those critical of Fay is Sgt. Samuel Provance, who was formerly in military intelligence at Abu Ghraib and has told reporters in recent weeks that the Army is engaged in a cover-up. "I had to volunteer more information than was being asked of me [by Fay]. It was like I was adding to his burden," Provance told NEWSWEEK last week. "There are so many soldiers directly involved who haven't been talked to."
The Army has tried to silence Provance. In a May 21 disciplinary order, a copy of which was shown to NEWSWEEK, battalion commander Lt. Col. James Norwood notifies Provance that he has lost his security clearance and is being "flagged" for violating a previous order to keep quiet. That means he is ineligible for promotions, awards or security clearance. Norwood appears to threaten Provance with prosecution, saying, "There is reason for me to believe that you may have been aware of the improper treatment of the detainees at Abu Ghraib before they were reported by other soldiers." General Fay's conclusions, Norwood warns, "may reveal that you should face adverse action for your failure to report."
Yet no officer above General Fay's rank is likely to have to worry about the conclusions of his investigation. Under military doctrine, Fay, as a two-star general, "can only hold a one-star accountable," says an Army general familiar with such investigations. "He can say someone higher up is the proximate cause, but he can't actually have a finding that says, 'I recommend Maj. Gen. so-and-so be relieved of command.' And if somebody tells him it came from the CIA, what can Fay do? Nothing. He can only say it's outside the jurisdiction of his investigation." Because Fay was appointed by Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, he is also effectively limited from taking his probe beyond Sanchez's command, says Scott Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who is now a law professor at Duke. "It would be difficult for Fay even to question Sanchez," says Silliman. In fact, none of the five investigations the military itself is now conducting is aimed higher up the chain of command than Sanchez.
Pentagon officials said last week that Sanchez would be replaced as commander of Joint Task Force-7 in Iraq. Formally, Sanchez's recall is unrelated to the scandal. But military sources acknowledge that an increasing body of evidence indicates his command has not been forthright about when it learned of the abuses or what it did—and failed to do—about them. The Red Cross first warned Joint Task Force-7 of the kind of abuses seen in the prison photos last November, fully two months before Sanchez launched an investigation. The general says he didn't find out about the abuses until January. But two military sources say his deputy, Maj. Gen. Walter Wodjakowski, was present at a meeting in late November to discuss a response to the Red Cross. Also at the meeting was Col. Mark Warren, Sanchez's top legal adviser. In mid-May Warren denied in reply to a NEWSWEEK question that his office had drafted the command's response, which brushed off the Red Cross allegations. But Warren later acknowledged under oath to the Senate Armed Services Committee that his JAG team had drafted the command's response.
The White House insists the president wants to conduct a "systemwide" probe of the detainee issue. Administration officials point to a new "independent panel" formed by Rumsfeld. A top Bush aide says the panel—consisting of four members of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, including former Defense secretaries James Schlesinger and Harold Brown—will address "the totality" of all the investigations. But Rumsfeld himself, in his letter appointing the panel, indicates that his interest is mainly in looking at future issues like interrogation, force structure and training. "Issues of personal accountability will be resolved through established military justice and administrative procedures," Rumsfeld says, "although any information you may develop will be welcome." (Former Rep. Tillie Fowler, a member, says the group is now "putting together a timeline of who knew what when.")
On Capitol Hill, legislators on both sides of the aisle complain testily that the Pentagon has turned into an informational black hole. Some 2,000 out of 6,000 pages were missing from the copy of the Taguba report delivered from the Pentagon to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita last week called this merely an "oversight." But among the missing pages were key documents, including the final section of Taguba's lengthy questioning of Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, the unit that actually ran the interrogations in Abu Ghraib Block 1A when the abuses occurred. Sources say Pappas gave Taguba a detailed account of why he believed that "policies and procedures" at Abu Ghraib "were enacted as a specific result" of recommendations made by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo. Miller denies that he exported to Iraq techniques used on Qaeda and Taliban suspects at Gitmo. But Pappas even had some documents to buttress his case, sources say, including one titled "Draft Update for the Secretary of Defense."
Some senators say the Pentagon has so far obscured two issues: who ordered Miller to Abu Ghraib in the first place, and who in the Pentagon knew of the interrogation practices put in place there. Steve Cambone, Rumsfeld's under secretary for intelligence, merely said at a May 7 hearing of the Armed Services Committee that Miller had gone to Iraq "at my encouragement." But neither Sanchez nor CENTCOM commander, Gen. John Abizaid, would tell a later hearing if they knew of involvement by civilian higher-ups at the Pentagon. As one committee member, Sen. Robert Byrd, told NEWSWEEK: "I was stunned that the two top generals [in the Gulf] hemmed and hawed and claimed they had no idea whether the secretary of Defense or the civilian leadership of the Defense Department played any role."
Miller himself has been accused of being less than forthright in a classified briefing before Congress. In a May 21 letter to Miller, Rep. Jane Harman chastised the general for "gaps and discrepancies in your presentation" and for selectively withholding information in a classified session the day before. Harman, the ranking minority member on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, added that she now questions Miller's "candor." (A spokesman for Miller, Barry Johnson, told NEWSWEEK that Miller "is drafting a response and providing additional facts.")
Even Bush's Republican allies, like Armed Services Committee chair John Warner, want to know more. And now the White House seems to be constructing a legal moat around the president. Its argument is that Bush's orders were simply disobeyed. Rice told the human-rights lawyers last week that the president's clear directives on observing the Geneva Conventions and anti-torture laws were not followed. She also allowed that she didn't know yet the full scope of the scandal, which seemed to conflict with Bush's insistence that a few bad MPs were to blame. A senior administration official insists there is no contradiction: "When the president talks about Abu Ghraib in that specific, particular way ... I just don't think anybody believes you're going to find it that widespread across the system." But until all of the facts of the prisoner-abuse scandal come out, nobody will be able to make a sound judgment about who is ultimately responsible.
With Stefan Theil in Berlin, Tamara Lipper and Mark Hosenball in Washington and Melinda Liu in Amman
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5092776/site/newsweek/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=1...-name_page.html
QUOTE
ARMY'S TOP ABUSE COP KILLS HIMSELF IN IRAQ
Captain's body is found at barracks
By Chris Hughes Security Correspondent
17 October 2005
THE Army officer in charge of investigating abuse of civilians by British forces in Iraq has been found dead, it was revealed yesterday.
Royal Military Police Captain Ken Masters, 40, is believed to have killed himself. His body was found on Saturday evening.
An army colleague is said to have made the grim discovery in Waterloo Lines camp within the main British military base at Basra airport.
Ministry of Defence sources said last night it is not believed Capt Masters had left a suicide note and it is not yet known how he died. No firearms are believed to have been involved.
The married father-of-two is not believed to have been suffering from depression, mental illness or physical injury and had not been due to appear as a witness in any cases relating to mistreatment.
Capt Masters, who had served with the Royal Military Police since 1981, was commissioned from the ranks in 2001.
A spokesman for the British Forces in Basra said last night: "The commanding officer of 61 Section Special Investigations Branch Captain Ken Masters was found dead at a military establishment. It is under investigation and until this is complete it would be inappropriate for me to comment. It was not due to any hostile action. It was not down to natural causes."
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the captain was "responsible for investigating all in-theatre serious incidents".
Army sources at Basra air base confirmed military police are not looking for anybody else in relation to his death.
A military source said: "This has come as a total surprise to Ken's forces colleagues."
On early Saturday evening troops in Basra were confined to barracks after a "no personnel or vehicle movement" order was delivered by Tannoy.
A search of the camp was ordered and ranks were told not to leave their tents. It is not known if the alert is related to the death of Capt Masters.
Captain's body is found at barracks
By Chris Hughes Security Correspondent
17 October 2005
THE Army officer in charge of investigating abuse of civilians by British forces in Iraq has been found dead, it was revealed yesterday.
Royal Military Police Captain Ken Masters, 40, is believed to have killed himself. His body was found on Saturday evening.
An army colleague is said to have made the grim discovery in Waterloo Lines camp within the main British military base at Basra airport.
Ministry of Defence sources said last night it is not believed Capt Masters had left a suicide note and it is not yet known how he died. No firearms are believed to have been involved.
The married father-of-two is not believed to have been suffering from depression, mental illness or physical injury and had not been due to appear as a witness in any cases relating to mistreatment.
Capt Masters, who had served with the Royal Military Police since 1981, was commissioned from the ranks in 2001.
A spokesman for the British Forces in Basra said last night: "The commanding officer of 61 Section Special Investigations Branch Captain Ken Masters was found dead at a military establishment. It is under investigation and until this is complete it would be inappropriate for me to comment. It was not due to any hostile action. It was not down to natural causes."
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the captain was "responsible for investigating all in-theatre serious incidents".
Army sources at Basra air base confirmed military police are not looking for anybody else in relation to his death.
A military source said: "This has come as a total surprise to Ken's forces colleagues."
On early Saturday evening troops in Basra were confined to barracks after a "no personnel or vehicle movement" order was delivered by Tannoy.
A search of the camp was ordered and ranks were told not to leave their tents. It is not known if the alert is related to the death of Capt Masters.
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