Someone once said that in a capitalistic society, where the super-rich reign over everyone else, truth is the first casualty. Never was this more true than in America today. Corporate-allied media is loathe to seriously investigate any event which might lead straight back to their bosses as the culprits. Thus, it is hard to find the truth of serious matters in current or recent American history being broadcast or printed anywhere. However, I have found a source that is breaking new ground in authentic journalism; it’s a website called WhoWhatWhy, led by editor-in-chief Russ Baker, whose stunning book “Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, And The Hidden History Of The Last 50 Years” is a read I highly recommend. Recently Baker was interviewed by Joan Brunwasser in a piece that was published on OpEd News. I have reprinted portions of it here:
JB: So, did they [the Boston Globe] do some long-overdue serious investigative journalism? And what is this secret “double government” exactly? Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound good, that’s for sure.
RB: Naw, but they did run a couple of pieces about a book by a “respectable” person starting to edge into the territory we’ve been blazing for several years—the idea that while we put all our attention on what the president and Congress do and don’t do there’s a whole other apparatus calling the shots. It’s that old combo Ike warned about—the one percent and their allies in the permanent part of government—intel agencies, Pentagon, bureaucracy throughout.
JB: Tell us a bit more about the “respectable” book and author that launched the Globe’s about-face. We need something to sink our teeth into, beyond generalizations about the evils of the 1%.
RB: A Tufts professor wrote a book on the “Double Government.” I haven’t read it yet, but his thrust is that a president’s will can easily be thwarted by the non-elected part of Washington. The point for me is that the mainstream media is willing to embrace critiques that get beyond the fantasy of a viable democracy where we choose our leaders and they do our bidding. What’s generally missing, even probably from his book, is the notion that it is not really the “double government” that drives things, but private capital. And then we begin to come to terms with why we never seem to get what we want—or what we are promised by the pols.
JB: Is there a tie-in between this reputed “Double Government” and the Bushes, the subject of your 2010 book, Family of Secrets? If so, what is it?
RB: Well, I haven’t read the professor’s book yet, but I highly doubt he mentions the Bushes in any detail. Academia generally shies away from anything too controversial. But I’d say the Bushes themselves embody the notion that elected officials are only successful to the extent they have deep links into the Double Government—and funding and support from…ahem…the Triple Government. My research for Family of Secrets really underlined the extent to which secret events and alliances shape our country’s course constantly.
JB: Well, that’s certainly a teaser, Russ. What are you referring to? Can you give us something more concrete to sink our teeth into, to mix a metaphor? It could ultimately cause a groundswell of interest in your book, you know!
RB: Well, what I found is difficult to sum up in just a few sentences, because the facts are so incredibly disturbing, and run so counter to what we’ve been told up to this point. There’s a fantasy in this country that our politicians, as occasionally criticized as they are, fundamentally are gentlemen and gentlewomen. We treat them like celebrities or royalty. But power accrual and wielding is an ugly business, more akin to other lines of work that are about ruthlessness. Anyway, handicapped by not being able to present my thousand-plus footnotes here, I’ll just present a few particulars on the Bush clan:
Bush 41, HW Bush, was in the secret employ of the intelligence services decades before he was appointed as a supposed newcomer, to the CIA directorship. Among other things, he was part of a group, inside and outside CIA, that felt threatened by JFK and furious at him. He hid the fact that he was in Dallas the day Kennedy was shot. He was a good friend of Lee Oswald’s mentor. He was mentioned in FBI documents related to the assassination and to Cuban exiles who were enraged at Kennedy.
He and his family were, secretly, principal sponsors of Richard Nixon’s career. But when Nixon tried to buck his handlers, they turned on him. The real story of Watergate is the framing of Nixon by others in the Republican camp.
JB: Hold on a second, Russ. Why did Bush and Co. want to get rid of Nixon? Didn’t they like him initially?
RB: I devote three chapters of Family of Secrets to unraveling the mystery of the relationship between Nixon and George H.W. Bush. I spent a long time investigating—discovered they anointed him to be the pawn of banking interests, but over the years he chafed at being dominated. Then he began seriously challenging the corporate folks. And then he was out.
JB: I had no idea. That’s quite a backstory. Sorry for the interruption. I was just curious. Nixon was such a nemesis in American history.
RB: No problem. Also:
The Bushes, including George W., were up to their elbows in bizarre massive money movements and odd companies that never seemed to be about actually turning a profit—populated by the Shah of Iran, the Saudis, Ferdinand Marcos, Harvard University, and other rogues and mainstays.
Much more on this in Family of Secrets—about 600 pages of this kind of stuff. Enjoy!
JB: Yikes! 600 pages of “this kind of stuff”? I’m not sure that “enjoy” is the operative word here. What happens with all these explosive revelations? The Bushes seem pretty impervious to major scandal or outrage which this might have engendered in years past. How has your blockbuster been received? Has the corporate media just ignored you? Does everything just get swept under the rug?
RB: The corporate media—and so-called “progressive” and “alternative” news sources as well—have almost completely ignored these discoveries. Why? Laziness and discomfiture with major openings that could fundamentally shift our understanding of how things work. Everyone’s in on the game of “left-right” that keeps members of the public at each other’s throats while the one percent of one percent of one percent keeps on driving the train.
JB: Based on what you’ve said and what I’ve read, how are things shaping up with the Bush Co. vis a vis 2016? Are we in for, God forbid, a permanent Bush-run, Republican dynasty?
RB: I would say that, due in large part to a complacent and docile media, plus a public with little long-term memory, we are very likely in for a third President Bush, aka Jeb. And, if I were to peer into a crystal ball, I’d say that in a dozen years or so we might see a fourth President Bush, in the person of Jeb’s son, George P. Bush. Just elected overwhelmingly to state office in Texas! Half-Hispanic! That will wow the same media that brought us Barack Obama.
JB: If that’s the case, do you worry that your work will be some day burned, banned or outlawed? Has everything you’ve learned so far caused you to pretty much given up on our restoring any semblance of a true democratic system or do you somehow hang on to a bit of cautious optimism?
RB: I am always alert that things can go very bad very quickly in any society. I do see signs of that possibility here. The Boston Bombing with the related apparent cover-up, harassment of witnesses, passivity of the media, tolerance of disappearing public rights to privacy and inquiry into law enforcement actions—this kind of situation is deeply disturbing. At the same time, I see the rise of a vigilant opposing sector, and remain both hopeful and energized—because, what option do we have?
http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Mortician-Tim-Fleming-ebook/dp/B00I6GNPD4
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
McCulloch’s Star Witness Lied; Presented False Evidence To Darren Wilson Grand Jury
There is now more evidence that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch manipulated and rigged the grand jury process in the case of Darren Wilson, murderer of Michael Brown. Not only did McCulloch give the grand jury misleading instructions, evidence and testimony, he actually put on a witness who was never at the scene of the shooting. Sandy McElroy, whom the FBI called a racist, presented testimony that almost identically matched the testimony of Darren Wilson himself. McCulloch certainly knew that McElroy's testimony was not credible, yet he presented her as the prosecution's "star witness."
McCulloch, whose father was a St. Louis policeman killed in the line of duty, is well known for protecting bad cops and cops who kill unlawfully. The illegal and unethical lengths he went to protect Wilson are only now being made public.
The article below, written by Shaun King, appeared in the online publication The Daily Kos:
"Sandy McElroy was never near Canfield Drive on August 9. She completely fabricated her entire story weeks after Darren Wilson killed Mike Brown. During their interrogation of her, Sandy McElroy was completely shredded by the FBI as a racist, a liar, unstable, and more. They proved in their own interview, with evidence, that McElroy lied about ever being there, about how she left the scene, about key details of the case that she claimed she witnessed, and more.
Furthermore, Sandy McElroy, beyond being a convicted felon, had a record in St. Louis of interfering with investigations and making preposterous claims about connections she had to cold cases. All of this was known to St. Louis officials. Her extreme racism was not private, but public, and was discussed at great length with the FBI before she was ever allowed to testify before the grand jury.
You must understand, then, that Sandy McElroy, whose testimony matches that of Darren Wilson's better than any witness who testified, was called to the grand jury, not once, but twice, and allowed to present concocted physical evidence at that, because she was a neutron bomb for this case. Not ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE proving that she was there could be found and scores of evidence that she made the entire thing up was presented weeks before she was ever allowed to testify before the grand jury, but it was all deliberately ignored.
Not only was it negligent to allow Sandy McElroy to testify, it was a deliberate attempt at poisoning the grand jury, who stated to her on record many times that they did not believe she was lying. Furthermore, her testimony has been used to champion the credibility of Darren Wilson time after time by conservative media who seem to not care at all about her character or credibility.
All by itself, I believe the inclusion of Sandy McElroy as a witness before the grand jury is grounds for a new grand jury. Her testimony did irreparable damage to the case—which was clearly her intent from the start."
This is grounds for McCulloch's dismissal from his post. The question is, does St. Louis County have the fortitude to do it?
http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Mortician-Tim-Fleming-ebook/dp/B00I6GNPD4
McCulloch, whose father was a St. Louis policeman killed in the line of duty, is well known for protecting bad cops and cops who kill unlawfully. The illegal and unethical lengths he went to protect Wilson are only now being made public.
The article below, written by Shaun King, appeared in the online publication The Daily Kos:
"Sandy McElroy was never near Canfield Drive on August 9. She completely fabricated her entire story weeks after Darren Wilson killed Mike Brown. During their interrogation of her, Sandy McElroy was completely shredded by the FBI as a racist, a liar, unstable, and more. They proved in their own interview, with evidence, that McElroy lied about ever being there, about how she left the scene, about key details of the case that she claimed she witnessed, and more.
Furthermore, Sandy McElroy, beyond being a convicted felon, had a record in St. Louis of interfering with investigations and making preposterous claims about connections she had to cold cases. All of this was known to St. Louis officials. Her extreme racism was not private, but public, and was discussed at great length with the FBI before she was ever allowed to testify before the grand jury.
You must understand, then, that Sandy McElroy, whose testimony matches that of Darren Wilson's better than any witness who testified, was called to the grand jury, not once, but twice, and allowed to present concocted physical evidence at that, because she was a neutron bomb for this case. Not ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE proving that she was there could be found and scores of evidence that she made the entire thing up was presented weeks before she was ever allowed to testify before the grand jury, but it was all deliberately ignored.
Not only was it negligent to allow Sandy McElroy to testify, it was a deliberate attempt at poisoning the grand jury, who stated to her on record many times that they did not believe she was lying. Furthermore, her testimony has been used to champion the credibility of Darren Wilson time after time by conservative media who seem to not care at all about her character or credibility.
All by itself, I believe the inclusion of Sandy McElroy as a witness before the grand jury is grounds for a new grand jury. Her testimony did irreparable damage to the case—which was clearly her intent from the start."
This is grounds for McCulloch's dismissal from his post. The question is, does St. Louis County have the fortitude to do it?
http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Mortician-Tim-Fleming-ebook/dp/B00I6GNPD4
Monday, December 15, 2014
Barbara Walters Lobs Softballs to David Koch; She Should Retire For Good
Didn’t Barbara Walters announce her retirement years ago? Then what in God’s name is she still doing on television? Her interview with David Koch which aired last night on that preposterous show she does (“The 10 Most Fascinating Billionaires”? Apparently Barbara thinks that only the wealthy are worthwhile interviews.), and it proves that she is not now, and probably never was, a legitimate journalist. Imagine if you had the devil himself in front of you and you asked him things like “If you were a tree, what kind would you be?” That’s about how easy Baba Wawa made it for the most evil man in America.
If you are a regular reader of this site, you know that I have detailed the twisted and megalomaniacal Koch family history, but it is worth reprinting here:
“Koch Family Exposed As John Birchers And JFK Haters
If you watched, as I did, the glut of JFK assassination documentaries this past November, you must have wondered why none of them built the case for a conspiracy, despite a mountain of evidence indicating that JFK was murdered by a secret cabal of intelligence/military operatives, facilitated by LBJ and his billionaire oilmen supporters. PBS, an otherwise credible source of investigative journalism, was out in front of this pack of broadcast liars, with such blatant historical frauds as ‘Cold Case JFK’ and ‘Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?’ Why was the truth squashed? For the answer, all you have to do is follow the money. Who paid for these disinformation pieces? David Koch, that's who. That's right, PBS sold its journalistic integrity down the river for a few shekels from one of the most vitriolic and extreme right-wing billionaires in America.
If you don't know David Koch, let me give you some background. He is one of the richest men in America. He and his brother are right-wing fanatics committed to abolishing Social Security, taxation of the wealthy, Medicare, minimum wages, and voting rights for minorities. He has spent millions trying to prove that Obama is a socialist Muslim who was born in Kenya. He is a lying, tax-dodging, Kennedy-hating, fascist Oligarch. He can buy anything he wants, and the truth is for sale. And the family's extremist politics did not start with the brothers. Their father, Fred Koch, an oil billionaire and member of the John Birch Society, paid for hateful posters which were passed out in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The posters had front and side views of JFK beneath the headline ‘Wanted For Treason.’ So maybe there's good reason not to trust the Oswald-did-it-alone documentary paid for by the Kochs. You think?
The Koch family history is not tied to just the John Birch Society; there is evidence that the German Kochs were Nazis. There are some who believe that Ilse Koch, the notorious ‘Bitch of Buchenwald’ was related to the American Kochs. She was the wife of Karl-Otto Koch, commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp. After World War II, Ilse was tried for war crimes and imprisoned by a U.S. tribunal. Information connecting Ilse and Koch Industries is hard to find but is a string of fragments, pieces of information that connects the American and German Kochs and this connection gives us a clear image of the sentiment behind the Tea Party and conservative American politics since the 1950s. Where is the connection between the German Kochs and Fred Koch? Besides evidence the American Kochs were related to Ilse’s family, Erich Koch (an important Nazi official in charge of Prussia) induced Fred Koch to sell his oil in Nazi Germany when Fred was banned from doing business in the US. After the fall of Nazi Germany, Erich Koch and Fred expanded their oil empire to the Soviet Union. A few years later the Soviets took Fred Koch’s oil and prosecuted Erich for war crimes – Fred Koch returned to the US, became anti-communist, and was allowed to do business in the States again.
The links between the American and Nazi Kochs are tenuous, but they certainly shared the same political ideologies. What we know for certain about the Kochs in America comes from this article in the summer 2014 issue of ‘The Progressive’:
‘In 1961, at the age of twenty-six, Charles Koch moved home to Wichita, Kansas, to work for Rock Island Oil and Refining Company, which was led by his father, Fred Koch, who was on the national council of the John Birch Society. Charles subsequently opened a John Birch Society bookstore in Wichita with a friend of his father, Bob Love, the owner of the Love Box Company in Wichita, according to Dan Schulman’s Sons of Wichita. The John Birch Society’s 'American Opinion Bookstores' were stocked with material opposing the civil rights movement Birchers had put up billboards in Kansas and elsewhere calling for the impeachment of Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who had ordered the desegregation of the public schools in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. There’s no indication that Fred or Charles objected to the Birch campaign to impeach Warren. There are indications they paid for ads in Dallas in 1963 with President John F. Kennedy’s head depicted like two mug shot photos, with the word 'Treason' below, shortly before the assassination of the President ... Or when [Birchers] opposed the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, based on the Bircher claim that the movement was created as a forty-year front for the communists. Or when [they] supported billboards calling Martin Luther King a communist.’ "
Baba Wawa asked David what it was like to beat prostate cancer. I would have asked him what it was like to be able to afford the most expensive and capable medical care in the universe when you try so hard to deny health care to millions of others. Do you believe that only billionaires should have health care.
Here are just a few of the other questions a competent journalist would have asked Koch:
“Your family accused MLK of being a racist. Do you now denounce that accusation?”
“Your father was involved heavily in the John Birch Society. Are you still involved with it; are you a racist?”
“Did you pay for the posters which were handed out in Dallas in November 1963 accusing JFK of being a traitor?”
“Are you a direct descendant of the Nazi Germany Kochs? If so, do you still adhere to Nazi ideology?”
“You and your right-wing brother are single-handedly responsible for the creation of the Tea Party? Are you proud of that?”
We didn’t get to hear the answers to these legitimate questions, because a fluffhead octogenarian, somehow still considered a competent interviewer, is on the airwaves dumbing down America.
http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Mortician-Tim-Fleming-ebook/dp/B00I6GNPD4
If you are a regular reader of this site, you know that I have detailed the twisted and megalomaniacal Koch family history, but it is worth reprinting here:
“Koch Family Exposed As John Birchers And JFK Haters
If you watched, as I did, the glut of JFK assassination documentaries this past November, you must have wondered why none of them built the case for a conspiracy, despite a mountain of evidence indicating that JFK was murdered by a secret cabal of intelligence/military operatives, facilitated by LBJ and his billionaire oilmen supporters. PBS, an otherwise credible source of investigative journalism, was out in front of this pack of broadcast liars, with such blatant historical frauds as ‘Cold Case JFK’ and ‘Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?’ Why was the truth squashed? For the answer, all you have to do is follow the money. Who paid for these disinformation pieces? David Koch, that's who. That's right, PBS sold its journalistic integrity down the river for a few shekels from one of the most vitriolic and extreme right-wing billionaires in America.
If you don't know David Koch, let me give you some background. He is one of the richest men in America. He and his brother are right-wing fanatics committed to abolishing Social Security, taxation of the wealthy, Medicare, minimum wages, and voting rights for minorities. He has spent millions trying to prove that Obama is a socialist Muslim who was born in Kenya. He is a lying, tax-dodging, Kennedy-hating, fascist Oligarch. He can buy anything he wants, and the truth is for sale. And the family's extremist politics did not start with the brothers. Their father, Fred Koch, an oil billionaire and member of the John Birch Society, paid for hateful posters which were passed out in Dallas on November 22, 1963. The posters had front and side views of JFK beneath the headline ‘Wanted For Treason.’ So maybe there's good reason not to trust the Oswald-did-it-alone documentary paid for by the Kochs. You think?
The Koch family history is not tied to just the John Birch Society; there is evidence that the German Kochs were Nazis. There are some who believe that Ilse Koch, the notorious ‘Bitch of Buchenwald’ was related to the American Kochs. She was the wife of Karl-Otto Koch, commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp. After World War II, Ilse was tried for war crimes and imprisoned by a U.S. tribunal. Information connecting Ilse and Koch Industries is hard to find but is a string of fragments, pieces of information that connects the American and German Kochs and this connection gives us a clear image of the sentiment behind the Tea Party and conservative American politics since the 1950s. Where is the connection between the German Kochs and Fred Koch? Besides evidence the American Kochs were related to Ilse’s family, Erich Koch (an important Nazi official in charge of Prussia) induced Fred Koch to sell his oil in Nazi Germany when Fred was banned from doing business in the US. After the fall of Nazi Germany, Erich Koch and Fred expanded their oil empire to the Soviet Union. A few years later the Soviets took Fred Koch’s oil and prosecuted Erich for war crimes – Fred Koch returned to the US, became anti-communist, and was allowed to do business in the States again.
The links between the American and Nazi Kochs are tenuous, but they certainly shared the same political ideologies. What we know for certain about the Kochs in America comes from this article in the summer 2014 issue of ‘The Progressive’:
‘In 1961, at the age of twenty-six, Charles Koch moved home to Wichita, Kansas, to work for Rock Island Oil and Refining Company, which was led by his father, Fred Koch, who was on the national council of the John Birch Society. Charles subsequently opened a John Birch Society bookstore in Wichita with a friend of his father, Bob Love, the owner of the Love Box Company in Wichita, according to Dan Schulman’s Sons of Wichita. The John Birch Society’s 'American Opinion Bookstores' were stocked with material opposing the civil rights movement Birchers had put up billboards in Kansas and elsewhere calling for the impeachment of Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who had ordered the desegregation of the public schools in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. There’s no indication that Fred or Charles objected to the Birch campaign to impeach Warren. There are indications they paid for ads in Dallas in 1963 with President John F. Kennedy’s head depicted like two mug shot photos, with the word 'Treason' below, shortly before the assassination of the President ... Or when [Birchers] opposed the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, based on the Bircher claim that the movement was created as a forty-year front for the communists. Or when [they] supported billboards calling Martin Luther King a communist.’ "
Baba Wawa asked David what it was like to beat prostate cancer. I would have asked him what it was like to be able to afford the most expensive and capable medical care in the universe when you try so hard to deny health care to millions of others. Do you believe that only billionaires should have health care.
Here are just a few of the other questions a competent journalist would have asked Koch:
“Your family accused MLK of being a racist. Do you now denounce that accusation?”
“Your father was involved heavily in the John Birch Society. Are you still involved with it; are you a racist?”
“Did you pay for the posters which were handed out in Dallas in November 1963 accusing JFK of being a traitor?”
“Are you a direct descendant of the Nazi Germany Kochs? If so, do you still adhere to Nazi ideology?”
“You and your right-wing brother are single-handedly responsible for the creation of the Tea Party? Are you proud of that?”
We didn’t get to hear the answers to these legitimate questions, because a fluffhead octogenarian, somehow still considered a competent interviewer, is on the airwaves dumbing down America.
http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Mortician-Tim-Fleming-ebook/dp/B00I6GNPD4
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Recommended Book Of The Month: Alter Ego by Tory Allyn
If you're looking for a page-turning thriller, I recommend "Alter Ego," by Tory Allyn. Here's the synopsis:
"After a partially-covered body displaying unusual physical characteristics was found in the backwoods of Virginia, FBI agent Jack Stanwick is once again summoned. This was the third victim to be discovered in this condition, and with most of the brotherhood on another high-profile case, he needed some outside help. Jack knew just where to go. He hires three former police officers who work for the Davenport Detective Agency. During the initial investigation, the detectives focus their attention on the militia group, M.A.G.O.C. (Men Against Government Overtaking Control), only to find that several members and a high-ranking official in the White House are involved in a governmental conspiracy. Digging further, the detectives come upon Prescott Chemicals, where an elixir that was discovered in the Amazon Rainforest by the Mayapo natives years before, is now being transformed into a formula with irreversible consequences. While investigating a lead, the detectives accidently come into contact with the elixir and experience a change to their bodies and minds causing some amusing, yet permanent issues. With the assistance of a beautiful journalist and a bitter French physicist, the detectives come upon the location of the perpetrators and uncover a plot which culminates into the betrayal and a secret that affects one of detectives, changing his life."
Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Alter-Ego-Tory-Allyn/dp/0692287507
http://neverlandpublishing.com/tpm.html
"After a partially-covered body displaying unusual physical characteristics was found in the backwoods of Virginia, FBI agent Jack Stanwick is once again summoned. This was the third victim to be discovered in this condition, and with most of the brotherhood on another high-profile case, he needed some outside help. Jack knew just where to go. He hires three former police officers who work for the Davenport Detective Agency. During the initial investigation, the detectives focus their attention on the militia group, M.A.G.O.C. (Men Against Government Overtaking Control), only to find that several members and a high-ranking official in the White House are involved in a governmental conspiracy. Digging further, the detectives come upon Prescott Chemicals, where an elixir that was discovered in the Amazon Rainforest by the Mayapo natives years before, is now being transformed into a formula with irreversible consequences. While investigating a lead, the detectives accidently come into contact with the elixir and experience a change to their bodies and minds causing some amusing, yet permanent issues. With the assistance of a beautiful journalist and a bitter French physicist, the detectives come upon the location of the perpetrators and uncover a plot which culminates into the betrayal and a secret that affects one of detectives, changing his life."
Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Alter-Ego-Tory-Allyn/dp/0692287507
http://neverlandpublishing.com/tpm.html
Friday, December 5, 2014
St. Louis County Prosecutor Should Resign; He Misled Michael Brown Grand Jury
In any grand jury hearing, especially when murder charges are considered, the prosecutor acts as an advocate for the victim and tries to convince the grand jury that charges should be brought against the defendant. In the Michael Brown case, St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch turned that process on its head. Rather than using the evidence to try to convince the grand jury to return a true bill against killer cop Darren Wilson, McCulloch did his very best to twist the evidence in favor of Wilson. Not only did he leave the grand jury to wade through a mountain of evidence without prosecutorial assistance, we now know that McCulloch lied to the grand jury.
On his MSNBC program "The Last Word," Lawrence O'Donnell reported that after reviewing the transcripts of the Darren Wilson Grand Jury he discovered that McCullough and his lackeys gave the jurors an outdated copy of Missouri Law. To wit, that St. Louis County police officers are justified in using deadly force if they believe they face a "reasonable threat." In other words, a cop can kill anyone at anytime if he imagines that he is in some sort of danger. "Imagine" is the operative word; no need for any objective basis for believing there's an imminent threat.
However, according to O'Donnell, "In 1985 the Supreme Court amended this law to include a 'probable cause' requirement under Tennessee v Garner. The misleading information was given to the Grand Jury directly before Darren Wilson's testimony giving the impression that all that was required under the law for Wilson to kill Michael Brown was his belief that he was in danger, without the additional requirement of probable cause for such a belief."
The difference between "reasonable threat" and "probable cause" is enormous. It is the difference between pardoning a random, whimsical judgment about life or death being made by an angry, trigger-happy cop...or calling it a criminal act. The St. Louis Grand Jury should have been told this before Wilson testified, so that jurors could have judiciously assessed his actions. McCulloch violated all prosecutorial ethics by misleading the Grand Jury, and for that he should lose his job.
http://neverlandpublishing.com/tpm.html
On his MSNBC program "The Last Word," Lawrence O'Donnell reported that after reviewing the transcripts of the Darren Wilson Grand Jury he discovered that McCullough and his lackeys gave the jurors an outdated copy of Missouri Law. To wit, that St. Louis County police officers are justified in using deadly force if they believe they face a "reasonable threat." In other words, a cop can kill anyone at anytime if he imagines that he is in some sort of danger. "Imagine" is the operative word; no need for any objective basis for believing there's an imminent threat.
However, according to O'Donnell, "In 1985 the Supreme Court amended this law to include a 'probable cause' requirement under Tennessee v Garner. The misleading information was given to the Grand Jury directly before Darren Wilson's testimony giving the impression that all that was required under the law for Wilson to kill Michael Brown was his belief that he was in danger, without the additional requirement of probable cause for such a belief."
The difference between "reasonable threat" and "probable cause" is enormous. It is the difference between pardoning a random, whimsical judgment about life or death being made by an angry, trigger-happy cop...or calling it a criminal act. The St. Louis Grand Jury should have been told this before Wilson testified, so that jurors could have judiciously assessed his actions. McCulloch violated all prosecutorial ethics by misleading the Grand Jury, and for that he should lose his job.
http://neverlandpublishing.com/tpm.html
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Emissary’s 1963 Discussions With Castro Illuminate Motives Of JFK’s Killers
The New Republic recently reprinted a riveting article written by journalist Jean Daniel describing his conversations with Fidel Castro the very week of JFK’s assassination. Daniel had been sent to Cuba on a secret mission at the behest of President Kennedy. What follows are excerpts from the article. Notice how prescient and shrewd Castro’s remarks are. He had an insight into American political and intelligence communities that was spot-on.
“During this nocturnal discussion, Castro [said that] Washington had had ample opportunity to normalize its relations with Cuba, but that instead it had tolerated a CIA program of training, equipping and organizing a counter-revolution…He was speaking, he said, from the viewpoint of the interests of peace in both the American continents. To achieve this goal, a leader would have to arise in the United States capable of understanding the explosive realities of Latin America and of meeting them halfway. Then, suddenly, he took a less hostile tack: ‘Kennedy could still be this man. He has the possibility of becoming, in the eyes of history, the greatest President of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists…he would then be an even greater President than Lincoln. I know, for example, that for Kruschev, Kennedy is a man you can talk with. I have gotten this impression from all my conversations with Kruschev. Other leaders have assured me that to attain this goal, we must first await his re-election…[Kennedy] has come to understand many things over the past few months…I’m convinced that anyone else would be worse.’ Then he added with a broad, boyish grin, ‘If you see him again tell him I’m willing to declare Goldwater my friend if that will guarantee Kennedy’s re-election.’”
The above conversation between Daniel and Castro took place just hours before JFK was assassinated. They two were together when news of Kennedy’s wounding came over the radio in Cuba. Daniel wrote, “[Castro] remarked while we waited, ‘Es una mala noticia (this is bad news). There is an alarmingly sizable lunatic fringe in America…but you wait, I know them they will try to put the blame on us for this thing.’ Then the word came through, in effect, that the accused assassin was a young man who was a member of the Fair Play For Cuba Committee, that he was an admirer of Fidel Castro. ‘There, didn’t I tell you?’ exclaimed Castro. ..Fidel declared, ‘If they had had proof they would have said he was agent, an accomplice, a hired killer. In saying simply that he is an admirer, this is just to try and make an association in people’s minds between the name of Castro and the emotion wakened by the assassination. This is a publicity method, a propaganda device. It’s terrible.’”
The plotters wanted to have it both ways: remove the man who was moving towards détente (peace and nuclear disarmament) with the communist world and blame it on those very communists. The Joint Chiefs and the CIA hoped that attaching Oswald to Castro would incite Americans to war and the demise of Castro. But Lyndon Johnson used this threat of war to bully and coerce Warren Commission members into whitewashing the truth of the assassination. He told more than one congressman he recruited that 50 million dead from a nuclear holocaust are the stakes if they didn’t name Oswald as the lone killer. LBJ got his cover-up, and the CIA and Joint Chiefs got their war—southeast Asia.
Jean Daniel’s conversations with Castro are illuminate the motives JFK’s killers had. Thus, in the 50 years since, they have downplayed the significance of Kennedy sending his own back-channel emissary to Cuba in the first steps towards normalizing relations with Cuba, an act that no doubt would have infuriated the CIA, the right-wing fringe in America, and American business interests (including the Mafia) who wanted Castro dead.
http://neverlandpublishing.com/tpm.html
“During this nocturnal discussion, Castro [said that] Washington had had ample opportunity to normalize its relations with Cuba, but that instead it had tolerated a CIA program of training, equipping and organizing a counter-revolution…He was speaking, he said, from the viewpoint of the interests of peace in both the American continents. To achieve this goal, a leader would have to arise in the United States capable of understanding the explosive realities of Latin America and of meeting them halfway. Then, suddenly, he took a less hostile tack: ‘Kennedy could still be this man. He has the possibility of becoming, in the eyes of history, the greatest President of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists…he would then be an even greater President than Lincoln. I know, for example, that for Kruschev, Kennedy is a man you can talk with. I have gotten this impression from all my conversations with Kruschev. Other leaders have assured me that to attain this goal, we must first await his re-election…[Kennedy] has come to understand many things over the past few months…I’m convinced that anyone else would be worse.’ Then he added with a broad, boyish grin, ‘If you see him again tell him I’m willing to declare Goldwater my friend if that will guarantee Kennedy’s re-election.’”
The above conversation between Daniel and Castro took place just hours before JFK was assassinated. They two were together when news of Kennedy’s wounding came over the radio in Cuba. Daniel wrote, “[Castro] remarked while we waited, ‘Es una mala noticia (this is bad news). There is an alarmingly sizable lunatic fringe in America…but you wait, I know them they will try to put the blame on us for this thing.’ Then the word came through, in effect, that the accused assassin was a young man who was a member of the Fair Play For Cuba Committee, that he was an admirer of Fidel Castro. ‘There, didn’t I tell you?’ exclaimed Castro. ..Fidel declared, ‘If they had had proof they would have said he was agent, an accomplice, a hired killer. In saying simply that he is an admirer, this is just to try and make an association in people’s minds between the name of Castro and the emotion wakened by the assassination. This is a publicity method, a propaganda device. It’s terrible.’”
The plotters wanted to have it both ways: remove the man who was moving towards détente (peace and nuclear disarmament) with the communist world and blame it on those very communists. The Joint Chiefs and the CIA hoped that attaching Oswald to Castro would incite Americans to war and the demise of Castro. But Lyndon Johnson used this threat of war to bully and coerce Warren Commission members into whitewashing the truth of the assassination. He told more than one congressman he recruited that 50 million dead from a nuclear holocaust are the stakes if they didn’t name Oswald as the lone killer. LBJ got his cover-up, and the CIA and Joint Chiefs got their war—southeast Asia.
Jean Daniel’s conversations with Castro are illuminate the motives JFK’s killers had. Thus, in the 50 years since, they have downplayed the significance of Kennedy sending his own back-channel emissary to Cuba in the first steps towards normalizing relations with Cuba, an act that no doubt would have infuriated the CIA, the right-wing fringe in America, and American business interests (including the Mafia) who wanted Castro dead.
http://neverlandpublishing.com/tpm.html
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