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Quote:If you need any pointers etc on the minimal techie stuff for blog entries, just give me pm - or maybe start a thread in 'Forum Technical Issues' so we build up a sort of FAQ on 'starting to use the blog facilities' issues.
It's pretty straightforward really. The editor is much like the regular forum posts editor and there's quite a bit of user customisation available too.
Will do, I appreciate the support.
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This comment is for readers who have never read anything about Rachel Begley's story, the Cabazons, Bill Hamilton, or MCA except in Wired.com by Andrew Rice.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_octopus_conspiracy/all/1
If you want to read the real story about the people mentioned in the Wired article, you can go to: http://www.ark-roundtable.com/ and get the truth. You will be astounded by the discrepancies in the Wired article after reading Chapter 25 (49 pages) entitled "Rachel's Resolution" (free) from The Last Circle book. This chapter details Sheriff's Detective John Powers and Rachel Begley's 2-year homicide investigation and the subsequent arrest and release of Jimmy Hughes in July 2010.
http://www.ark-roundtable.com/images/TLC0Chptrs25.pdf
Chapter 22 contains interviews with prestigious DOJ prosecutors about the shut-down of a related FBI wiretapping investigation of MCA executives, the Gambino mob, and the U.S. Department of Justice. A Gambino member provided the seed money to develop the Cabazon Indian casino. The MCA executive's partner (wiretapped by the FBI) developed the weapons proposals for the Cabazon/Wackenhut Joint Venture at the reservation. No conspiracy theory here, guys
http://www.ark-roundtable.com/images/TLC0Chptrs22.pdf
Andrew Rice read all this before he wrote his article because he was provided, at his request, with a hard-copy of The Last Circle book in 2010.
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My jaw dropped when I read the mocking Wired article. If everyone who investigates or tries to unravel these real-life murders are labeled "obsessive conspiracy theorists," then the killer becomes the sympathetic character and the prober becomes the bad guy. Who will ever touch this case now, after Andrew Rice's hit-job in Wired.com?
Here's a question for Andrew Rice: Who are the mysterious, un-named "obsessed fellow travelers" that reportedly influenced Mike Murphy, an experienced Deputy Attorney General prosecutor, to set free self-confessed Mafia hit man Jimmy Hughes? Why didn't Rice provide the names in his article of these people that allegedly undermined the prosecutor's confidence?
I personally don't know their names, and I've never spoken to Mike Murphy, but I do know that is not why the Jimmy Hughes case was dropped.
Draw your own conclusions: Listed below are the public confessions of Jimmy Hughes (hit-man) who was arrested in 2009 and held in jail for nine months before he was released by the California Deputy Attorney General due to "lack of confidence," etc. in 2010. (These are independent of the "witnesses" who agreed to testify against him in court). Maybe Jimmy Hughes is a conspiracy theorist too!
Go to Google and type: "NBC Los Angeles, Victims Daughter Decries Dismissal of Murder Charges" where you will see and hear a young Jimmy Hughes confessing (in 1985) his knowledge/involvement in the triple murders. NBCLA reporter Patrick Healy reports in this clip that Hughes was " given immunity from prosecution" at that time by the California Attorney General. http://www.nbclosangeles.com/station/as-...geles.html
Go to Google and type: robinsax.com/rachelbegley. Then click on the picture of Rachel Begley with the caption "Daughter Seeks Justice for her father ---" You will read Jimmy Hughes' shocking confession at his own website. http://www.robinsax.com/rachelbegley.html
Go to http://www.ark-roundtable.com/ At the homepage, you can click on "Rachel's Resolution." Pages 425 - 428 provide "another" Jimmy Hughes full confession to a newspaper reporter in El Salvador entitled, "Jimmy Hughes - From CIA operative to mafia hitman to evangelical pastor," by Jessica Figeroa.
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"Truth is generally the best vindication against slander"
-Abraham Lincoln
As I have done a good bit of writing on the Danny Casolaro suicide', the Octopus Murders and the PROMIS software story I was encouraged when earlier this week I was sent a link to a major piece that Wired did on the topic. Being that Wired was the source of the excellent article from back in 1993 entitled The INSLAW Octopus I was expecting a breakthrough in a renewed interest in this ugly story that reached into the highest levels of the Reagan government. Jesus Christ, was I disappointed. The article which is entitled The Octopus Conspiracy: One Woman's Search for Her Father's Killer by an ambitions sleazy hack named Andrew Rice (his first piece for Wired) was not as much a serious piece of journalism a diabolical and shameful character assassination on Rachel Begley whose father, Ralph Borger was one of the three people murdered on the Cabazon Indian Reservation in 1981, an old story that has been resurrected thanks to the excellent work of investigative journalist Nathan Baca whose Emmy Award winning series for California TV station KESQ "The Octopus Murders" led to a reexamination of a nearly three decades old triple execution. The cold case murdere of Fred Alvarez, Ralph Borger and Patty Castro were at the center of a shady conclave of black ops specialists, organized crime figures, intelligence community assets and the clandestine operations taking place on sovereign Indian land in order to avoid government oversight. Baca, who has now moved onto a gig with a larger audience in Las Vegas and his series was instrumental in the arrest of Jimmy Hughes, an admitted former hitman now running a ministry in Honduras. At the time of the senselessly brutal triple slayings, Hughes was running security at the reservation casino at the time and in a 1985 television interview admitted that the murders were"an authorized, government backed covert action". Hughes also admitted as much when secretly filmed by Begley during a 2008 confrontation at a Fresno, California convention where Hughes was speaking.
Despite a somewhat benign opening it is obvious that the intent of the Wired piece is to undermine the credibility of Rachel Begley and therefore make her radioactive to any serious mainstream writers as well as to discredit her case against Jimmy Hughes to discourage any future legal action. Really, it always works this way when one of the little people doesn't just do the obedient thing and shut the hell up about matters of great criminality and systemic corruption. Wired's intent is blatant, given the already ugly blight on the mag's reputation for Wired's role in the setup of Private Bradley Manning over the Wikileaks story and his subsequent imprisonment and torture by the U.S. government. When a so-called reputable media outlet like Wired crossed the line from reportage into propadandizing and acting as a de facto arm of the National Security State in participating in manipulation and entrapment as in the Manning case it ceases to be any more of a reputable source than many of the websites and blogs that Rice will go on to condemn in his attack piece. After the beginning we get to the meat, and therefore true intent of the article. It begins with Andy Rice's insensitive and callous treatment of Begley is disgraceful, describing her dead father as "a bearded mechanic who liked to drink, smoke pot and ride motorcycles", plays into the most trite and tired of stereotypes to somehow discredit the man, and his abysmal lack of knowledge about the subject is fully befitting of a corporate media toady. That Rice exploits Begley's crusade to investigate and bring the killer of her father to justice right off the bat by insulting the dead man is an indication of the descent into the sewer that follows.
Andrew Rice, at least from the picture on his bio page appears to be a run of the mill smarmy little yuppie prick. He proudly lists at the end of his article, in addition to his email address (andrewrice75@yahoo.com) that he is the author of a book entitled The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget. Jesus, now THAT is one goddamned stupid title; I'll bet that motherfucker's just flying off the shelves and rocketing up the best seller lists with an interest grabber like that. It more fittingly sounds like some sort of cheesy discount dentistry ad that comes in the weekly ValPak pouch in the junk mail. The book, from the reviews that I read seems to be some sort of examination of the psyches of the victims of Ugandan atrocities, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect that one who is capable of writing compassionately about the human costs of a such tragedy could then be so cruel and dishonest to also produce the rank and vile Wired hit piece. Perhaps Andrew Rice is just another cynical corpse-fucker, peddling bleeding heart drivel to weepy liberal types while calculatingly using such work as nothing more than a springboard. After reading the Wired piece I tend to believe the latter so Andy, why don't you just go back to Uganda and use your own smiling teeth to chew on the naugahyde tough skin on the ass of Idi Amin's corpse?
Now Before I get into any sort of serious commentary I would like to present some of Rice's more ugly lies and smears of this relentlessly remorseless character assassination of Rachel Begley. I am pretty certain that Andrew Rice falsely presented himself as a man of integrity and honor in order to get cooperation to write his article which is a complete bunch of crap, with that in mind the ugliness of this stuff only further embellishes Rice as nothing more than a malicious scoundrel and another corporate media mockingbird.
After the murders, Begley went through a rebellious phase and fell in with a bad crowd. By the time she was 15, she was pregnant and had dropped out of high school. Eventually she got her GED and moved to Iowa. She says she would periodically wonder about the case and check in with the police, who never seemed to have any new information. Beyond that, she didn't have time or tools to delve too deeply.
Setting the table for the onslaught Rice begins his mugging by painting Rachel Begley as an under-aged, pregnant high school dropout who ran with the wrong crowd and horror of horrors got her GED rather than a pass into a drone mill like Georgetown. According to his bio the author graduated from the prestigious Georgetown University. I strongly suspect that like so with many with a privileged and pampered background quite obviously sees people who are struggling economically and have had a rough time in a life where the deck is stacked against critical thinkers and those without the clout brought by schmoozing with the right people in the phony ritual formerly known as "networking" as nothing more than lower life forms and human rubbish.
Her work, she says, has placed her own life in danger and made her a target of the same forces that killed her father. And yet she cannot stop. She keeps following the siren song of the conspiracy theory, the same beguiling cognitive path that lures others to the JFK assassination and Area 51. What was once a family tragedy has blossomed into something else entirely, a vast puzzle whose solution promises to illuminate not only her father's death but the dark forces behind the world's apparent chaos Here we go with the old "siren song of conspiracy theory" canard, this is the bread and butter of the winged monkeys and their establishment benefactors in that only the OFFICIAL conspiracy theories are allowed. Official conspiracy theories like the Warren Commission whitewash of the Kennedy Assassination and the Kean Commission coverup report on the terrorist' attacks of September 11, 2001 that was such a mockery largely through ommission that it didn't even see fit to mention the collapse of the 47 story WTC7, the U.S. Special Operations Command program Able Danger or the now heavily censored testimony of Turkish FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. There was no recording of the questioning of George W. Bush or Dick Cheney under oath and severe restrictions were placed on the review of documents. That the Kean Commission was originally to have been chaired by Henry Kissinger and that the Warren Commission included not only hated Kennedy nemesis Alan Dulles but also coverup artists Gerald Ford and Arlen Specter (the magic bullet) is supposed to be above questioning. Rice also begins his linkage with UFOs with the inclusion of Area 51, he will continue down this path as he paints his libelous picture. The UFO association is a slam bang proven technique to induce mockery and discredit those dangerous to the establishment. Note that Democrat Dennis Kucinich was neutralized during the 2008 presidential debates when he was baited into answering a UFO question.
Begley lives and works in a rickety house at the end of a gravel road, next to a small pond and a rotting wood barn in a rural town outside Louisville, Kentucky, that she doesn't want named for security reasons. Out front, her "guard dog," an aging flat-coated retriever named Lucky, lazes beneath her porch. Begley is 43 and heavyset, with piercing blue eyes. On this day, her air conditioner is broken, and her round face glistens with sweat. She has four children, and for the moment she is collecting unemployment and selling a line of weight-loss shakes to make money on the side.
and -
At the time, Begley was working in customer service for an Internet service provider, which was moving its back-office operations to another state, and she was spending her days sitting idly at her computer, waiting to get laid off. Begley had once worked for a collections agency, and she knew how to track people down. "I went into it with a mindset, I guess, almost like a police officer would," she says.
Now this is the money paragraph for Andy Rice. Now not only does he arrogantly describe the condition of the rural Kentucky home of Rachel Begley in the mocking tone of Big Apple holier than thou snobbery but he goes on to describe her appearance in very nasty and immature terms, more befitting to a middle-school playground than in a 'reputable' publication. He refers to her as "heavyset" with "her round face glistening with sweat" or translated in layman's terms to her story is bullshit because she is FAT. The picture of Begley in the piece is certainly not flattering as it only emphasizes that she is a large figured woman. Now, let's be honest here because Christ certainly knows that being fat is one very serious taboo in our glorious culture of media fantasy, glitzy models and the wonderful lives that the beautiful people on our televisions live. Such is the American mindset that such superficial horseshit carries the clout that it does, it is more indicative a a diseased and debauched society gone to seed and systematically dumbed down than anything but he taps directly into this like a veteran propagndist. Rice also sneeringly refers to Begley's former job working in customer service for an Internet service provider with the sort of deeply ingrained loathing that social climbing little pricks like him have for ordinary working Americans. Not to mischaracterize you Andy, and this may be a bit presumptous on my part, but in looking at the picture on your profile page you just come across as a smug and conniving little asshole to me, a real four-flushing douchebag with a tongue like a whip and a backbone made of jelly but at least you aren't FAT.
Finally he viciously runs her down as an unemployed mother of four on the government dole, you see, being down on your luck and jobless in the economically eviscerted Homeland it is only the rich that can be propped up by the government. Somehow I doubt that Mr. Rice has any sort of angry words for the wealthy tax chiselers, corporate cheats and other sucklers on the upper class end of the handout line. Also note the dirty little bastard's reference to selling weight-loss products on the side to further run Begley down. I don't know if Rice has ever heard of the DeVos family but they made billions of dollars selling similar products and not only own professional sports teams, huge real estate portfolios and the sort of serious political clout reserved for the ultra-rich here in our rotting empire but they also have their very own mercenary army courtesy of DeVos family member Erik Prince and Blackwater (now Xe thanks to too much bad PR due to murdering civilians in Iraq). But they aren't FAT now are they? Rice also mocks the little inspirational prayer that Begley has near her computer about being protected from "evil spirits sho prowl about the world". Not to break the author's little bubble or throw water on the bonfire of Wired's burning at the stake of Rachel Begley but isn't the entire fucking religion of Christianity sort of operate along that rationale?
As Begley plunged into the world of the conspiracy theorists, she found more than facts and assertionsshe found a community with its own rules, ethics, and currency. And it was a difficult one to penetrate; the cluster of people devoted to studying the Octopus tended not to throw their arms open to newcomers. Over the years, they had built a kind of gnostic society, a belief system that was both all-encompassinga grand unified theory of everything sinisterand exclusionary, open only to the select few who could accept the devastating truth. They were suspicious of outsiders and divided into factions that warred over arcane points, often accusing one another of being double agents.
Again, there is the reference to the dreaded pejorative "conspiracy theorists" (also see "tin foil hatters", only a deliberate idiot, or an intellectually lazy mental masturbator or a payrolled protector of the criminal elite benefits from throwing this one around. A better term would be "conspiracy researcher" or "geopolitical analyst" or "investigative reporter", the very definition of "conspiracy" at least according to the Meriam-Webster dictionary is:
Definition of CONSPIRACY
1: the act of conspiring together
2a : an agreement among conspirators
b : a group of conspirators
Not that THIS would ever happen in daily life. I mean who on our great star-spangled lemming farm that is America would ever be silly enough to believe that people would engage in any sort of scheming and conniving while conducting ordinary daily commerce, engaging in infidelity and conspiring to keep it secret or anything other than being completely honest in the true apple pie loving way. As for political assassination "conspiracy theories" you would think that someone with a culturally valuable Georgetown education might have at some point in school heard about the assassination of Julius Caesar. Maybe Andy Rice spent more time smoking dope than attending history classes.
There were many competing interpretations of the OctopusSeymour was particularly interested in the alleged role of entertainment company MCAand they were infinitely adaptable, able to accommodate the Patriot Act or the financial crisis. Devotees found and fought one another on sites like Above Top Secret, conspiracy clearinghouses that host every conceivable thread of discussion. Begley forged an alliance with a retired FBI agent who was exploring a link between the Octopus and Satanic cults. She did battle with a prominent UFO enthusiast who thought the Octopus was hiding the government's collaboration with a colonizing alien force. (In January, online sleuths discovered that alleged Arizona assassin Jared Lee Loughner was a regular poster on Above Top Secret, but his bizarre ramblings about currency and space travel, widely disdained by other contributors, never touched on the Octopus threads.) Begley also developed a venomous rivalry with Virginia McCullough, a California writer who accused her of being an enemy impostor, not really Ralph Boger's daughter. When Begley posted a copy of her birth certificate online, McCullough called it "a cut-and-paste job."
"I do not believe that Desertfae is a victim,' and she has not posted any information that she is who she claims to be," McCullough wrote on one message board. "She is a low-stage puppet reporting to the puppet master and two or three of his minions."
Now, this paragraph is my absolutely favorite one in the entire sordid piece. Andy Rice emphatically mentions the website Above Top Secret which any conspiracy researcher with any credibility avoids like the bubonic plague as it is so full of disinformation, real nutcases, government sanctioned operatives, hopheads, seriously deranged paranoids and completely unfiltered craziness that is so unreadable that it is laughable. Personally, I view it as a vacuum cleaner operation set up to sow disinformation, I would reference Obama administration figure Cass Sunstein's theory on how to cognitively infiltrate and break up serious research groups through use of plants and agent provocateurs, I doubt that Rice knows very much at all about COINTELPRO (God knows if they don't teach the assassination of Julius Caesar at fucking Georgtown why would they bother with that?) or any of the other historically documented government efforts to discredit or otherwise silence those who ask the inconvenient questions of power.
The truth is that Andy Rice invokes this website largely for the reason of making a bizarre, ludicrous and libelous linkage between Rachel Begley and that murderous little fiend Jared Loughner who whose recent Arizona killing spree shocked the nation. Hey Andy, why don't you explain just what the fuck that Jared (Lee) Loughner has to do with the price of rice in China regarding anything that you are supposedly writing about in this piece? Regarding the "bizarre ramblings" about currency if you would bother to pull your head out of your pampered ass and take a look around a REAL look around you will find that we are currently in the midst of a global economic crisis largely generated by the manipulation of currency, rampant commodities speculation and a Federal Reserve system that exists only to serve the needs of degenerate Wall Street gamblers. If you are going to indict that little fruitbag Loughner for his views on the grand scale financial scam that is "free market" capitalism then you indict millions more who are catching on to this long-running systemic fraud. I don't know if you are aware of it but one of the most consistently vocal critics of the Federal Reserve, Texas Representative and former presidential candidate Ron Paul is now Chairman of the Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Subcommittee and holding legitimate hearings on monetary policy abuse in his official capacity right now. Of course any mention of THAT inconvenient fact would kind of undermine your entire bullshit guilt by association between Begley and Loughner now wouldn't it? Hey Andy, a guy named Hosni Mubarak was just brought down due to the reverberations of currency speculation and spiraling food costs, you might want to note that when the shit was really starting to hit the fan in Cairo a few weeks back that the person sent to talk to our former Egyptian puppet dictator wasn't from the State Department but was a guy named Frank G. Wisner, the voice of the real power in this country and the son of infamous Wall Steet power broker and OSS/CIA uberspook Frank Wisner. Now Andy, I hate to come across as being it a know it all but it is increasingly apparent that you don't know jack shit about fucking anything! Oh and Andy... Frank Wisner Sr. had a little pet project over at CIA, it was called Operation Mockingbird, I damn sure know that you aren't familiar with this because to quote the late great muckraker Upton Sinclair once famously stated: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
But I digress...
Andy Rice continues with Loughner's obsession with "space travel" without bothering to mention that millions of other Americans who don't go on a kill crazy rampage are also obsessed with space travel (see Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and thousands of other sci-fi franchises), why not call out the Trekkies as dangerous cultists as well? There is also the reference to a "retired FBI agent who was exploring a link between the Octopus and Satanic cults". This would be a certain Ted Gunderson, a man whose work is as prolific as it is often batshit but Rice lacks the guts to even mention Gunderson by name least anyone actually go and look at his work. Though far too much of it is questionable and to be charitable, pretty far out there into the REAL tin-foil hatter stuff there are small tidbits of worthwhile information there. Things like the Franklin Credit Uinion scandal where a once prominent black and up and coming Republican named Lawrence King, who sang the national anthem at the 1988 GOP Convention before allegations emerged (and a cover-up operation flew into action) that King was running an underage prostitution ring for the D.C elite and that some of the poor abused kids were given White House tours. This alas is a seriously ugly story far worse than anything that Rachel Begley was investigating so I will leave it for another time. And as far as the satanism goes, there have long been dark stories of satanism and mind control within army and intelligence spheres of influence, this too will have to wait for another time as it is nauseating enough to deal with Andy Rice's torrent of bile. Rice also has an odd double standard in calling out serious researchers like Begley as basically loony tunes while then lavishing his implied approval on longtime conspiracy maven and batshit crazy gatekeeper Virginia McCullough. He treats her as though she is the Alien queen whose eggs by nature of her preferential place in the establishment food chain all are pre-approved for entry into the lucky sperm club.
Rice then goes on to take on the Jimmy Hughes travesty of justice, of course he is sympathetic to the poor minister victimized by the FAT crazy lady. Not to go into much of this other than the bullshit double standards pimped by Rice but he implies that Hughes is a retired and reformed man, just wanting to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, our lord and savior. This despite the fact that Hughes openly admits his past criminality as a part of his Elmer Gantry schtick, and that the group that sponsors him ministry, The Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International or FGBMFI is a haven for hard core right-wing fascists and has long served as a front for U.S. imperialist oppression in Latin America. Jimmy Hughes himself was allegedly involved in helping to plot the 2009 Honduran coup d'etat against president Manuel Zelaya who had to be deposed for being an ally of Venezuala's Hugo Chavez. So much for that retired and reformed horseshit. Then just to get in yet another nasty dig at Rachel Begley, Rice mocks her for justifiable celebrating the Hughes arrest:
Begley posted a celebratory video, scored to Coldplay's "Viva la Vida." It flashed up an image of Hughes' mug shot, across which she had scrawled: "Gotcha."
Now here, I can't completely disagree that it was a bit of a silly thing for her to do. Me, were the man involved in the long unsolved murder of my father, I would have Photoshopped a picture of Hughes' fucking fat, ugly, burr-cut head sawed off, dripping blood and mounted on a pike while playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic in the background. In addition to being a completely servile ass-kisser, Rice seems to have a particular fondness for "The Minister" that would belie the reality that Hughes is a stone-cold, old school killer.Lastly, Rice lovingly describes Michael Murphy, the prosecutor who may or may not have commited an act of obstruction of justice in dropping the charges against Hughes as "dapper", for some reason that just conjures up visions of Rice with Murphy's cock deeply embedded in his mouth. Jesus fucking Christ, reading this nonstop eruption of shitty sleaze is just making me feel dirty about everything, I think that I am just going to feed the whole rotten article into the shredder after I wrap this up.
I suppose that the Wired hit piece is just the requisite thirty pieces of silver that it takes to get a big time gig these days. In these ugly economic times one can hardly blame a careerist like Rice for coveting a cushy and well paid regular gig at Condé Nast. After all, Matt Taibbi who writes for Rolling Stone and has done by far some of the best writing on the ruinous greed of Wall Street criminals (especially Goldman Sachs) once wrote an article entitled "God Can Suck My Dick" and earned the condemnation of Hillary Clinton and others for his mocking piece on the death of the Pope, either of which would normally make one radioactive to the mainstream media. Tiabbi, a witty writer and personable guy disemboweled the 9/11 Truth Movement in a series of masterful pieces that hit all the right pejorative notes "conspiracy theorists" etc while completely ignoring any of the serious researchers of our American Reichstag Fire. Now Taibbi writes books, articles and when I was watching it, he even had a regular gig on another left gatekeeper, Bill Maher's HBO show. Maher was booted off of television entirely in the ugliness post 9/11 when he dared to say that the alleged hijackers weren't cowards for their kamizee runs into building but rather that the real cowards were the ones launching cruise missiles from thousands of miles away. Maher of course redeemed himself for his mockery of any who questioned the official government conspiracy theory on 9/11 and at one point wading into the audience to point out members of the activist group We Are Change to the police after they engaged in a bit of guerilla theatre. Now Maher is making millions and bragging about smoking dope and banging porn stars, Andy Rice could only dream over a gig like that but Maher had more name recogniton than a suckling bottom feeder like Rice. Not that Andrew Rice gives a rat's ass about the truth but the story of the Octopus is one that would provide a decent and honorable writer enough material to build a career as a very serious investigative journalist. Instead, he resorts to the dismissive idiocy that those with either a vested interest in the existing system or the need to enshroud themselves in a deflective cocoon of denial that there really ARE very bad people running the system.
Hey, I love Taibbi's work, but rest assured, Andrew Rice is NO Matt Taibbi but real journalism isn't about placating power, cutting deals and engaging in character assassinations that serve the needs of the oligarchy. I recall when there was a national outpouring of grief over the premature death of celebrity host Tim Russert, a reputed journalist of great honor. Bob Woodward of Watergate fame churns out books on a regular basis thanks to his favorable status within the D.C. elite inner circles that provide him access. A real investigative journalist, a serious muckraker draws nothing but contempt from the establishment, is scorned and mocked as a nuisance and a "conspiracy theorist" by elitist snobs in the pocket media and in some cases, if his work is really good he ends up dead in a bathtub in a lonely hotel room with his wrists slashed to the bone like "fringe freelance journalist" Danny Casolaro.
Real investigative journalism doesn't pay, better to become a dreck peddler, secure a nice regular paycheck from Condé Nast and take a place as just another low level water carrier to ensure that the firewall between the real ugly shit that is the truth from ever being discovered by the smelly masses. In his savage destruction of poor Rachel Begley. It was when Rice mocked her as a former "customer service" worker with condescension and elitism just dripping from his poison pen it was just more evidence that there are two Americas, one for the connected and the other for the poor and fucked over schmucks. It is this complete contempt by those who control the American system and have systematically eradicated the middle class, destroyed the public education system and poisoned the minds of the young with televised sexual perversion, dumbness and thousands of simulated murders passed off as entertainment that has brought this country low. The old war criminal Henry Kissinger and Rockefeller Family operative once famously referred to the little people as nothing more than "useless eaters". Pity that guys like Andy Rice and his ilk, despite their willingness to lie and engage in ugly character assassinations just don't get it that the same elite holds them in just as much contempt, it's only that they are pliant and useful idiots.
Maybe the Rachel Begley takedown will vault Andy Rice onto the varsity team where he can participate with other politically motivated Wired hacks in jacking off Adrian Lamo and engaging in a vendetta against blogger Glenn Greenwald who called them out for their bullshit. I doubt it though, Rice is a punk and bereft of any courage when it comes to engaging anyone with an established reputation. After his filthy piece of crap attack on Begley he has zero credibility as well.
Rachel Begley should just sue this lying little cocksucker.I sure as hell would.
Just my two cents
EE
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Maybe we should take up a collection to cover the costs of sending the "Sinister Forces" trio by Peter Levenda to Mr. Rice.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
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Ed Jewett Wrote:Maybe we should take up a collection to cover the costs of sending the "Sinister Forces" trio by Peter Levenda to Mr. Rice.
As they say in Texas, you can't teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Punks like Andy Rice are a dime a dozen, I would take a serious researcher like Rachel Begley over two thousand of the imbeciles churned out of American journalism schools like link sausage made with tainted skunk meat.
Best to spend the time writing to Wired to make the little weasel issue an apology.
EE
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Just for the record about Satanism one may wish to look into Lt. Col. Michael Aquino and The Presidio.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
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Magda Hassan Wrote:Just for the record about Satanism one may wish to look into Lt. Col. Michael Aquino and The Presidio.
I was going to include that link and would highly recommend it to everyone.
And of course none of this has even touched on the U.S. government's immoral and inhumane mind control experiments like MKULTRA and the like. Looks like good ole Andy has opened a can of worms here that he can't wish away with his stupid-assed Jared Loughner guilt by association smears.
EE
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I think this belongs here, but admins certainly can duplicate it elsewhere as they see fit:
SourceWatch: Wackenhut's Ties to ALEC, Nuke Industry, CIA, DIA, FBI, Birch Society, Etc., Etc., Etc. …26th March 2012
WackenhutFrom SourceWatch The Wackenhut Corporation provides security services to commercial and government organizations. It is a subsidiary of U.K. based G4S, which is one of the largest security corporations in the world. [SUP][1][/SUP]
"It is known throughout the industry that if you want a dirty job done, call Wackenhut." retired FBI agent,William Hinshaw in a September 1992 SPY Magazine article by John Connolly.
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Ties to ALECWackenhut Corporation has been a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve "model" bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovationswithout disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a "unique," "unparalleled" and "unmatched" organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.
OverviewThe Wackenhut Corporation was founded in 1954 by former FBI official George R. Wackenhut, has been a publicly held corporation from 1966 to 2002, and they have recently merged with Group 4 Falck to create the monster private security firm Group 4 Securicor.
Before the merger the chairman was George Wackenhut, the vice chair and chief executive officer was George C. Zoley and the president and chief operating officer was Wayne H. Calabrese
Wackenhut has had a long history with the US government and military. They heavily recruit from military job fairs and publications. Many ex-CIA, FBI, and other government officials have worked in the upper levels of the company over the years.
By 2001, Wackenhut's revenues topped $2.8 billion as the leading provider of security at U.S. national defense sites, with a global presence on six continents. [1]
They serve as the US division of the global corporation, providing uniformed security officers, Customs protection officers, building security, as well as training programs and consultation and investigative services.[2] They have provided security for the Alaskan oil pipeline, US embassies around the world, and nuclear reactor sites.
Wackenhut Services Incorporated is a subsidiary which handles security, law enforcement, "operations and maintenance", facilities services management, fire suppression and prevention, emergency medical services, airfield management, operations and maintenance for federal, state and local government agencies. [3]
Wackenhut had revenues of $1.5 billion in 2004 and currently have over 340,000 employees. They are headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.[4]
Government connectionsWackenhut has been tied to the US goverment since inception. The early board members included Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, Gen. Mark Clark and Ralph E. Davis, a leader of the John Birch Society. Other members include former FBI director Clarence Kelley, former Defense secretary and CIA deputy directorFrank Carlucci, former Defense Intelligence Agency director Gen. Joseph Carroll, former Secret Service director James J. Rowley, former Marine commandant P.X. Kelley, former CIA deputy director Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, and previous to becoming CIA director, William J. Casey as outside legal counsel. [5]
SurveillanceWackenhut's surveillance services were fined in 1999 by a federal district court in Alabama for illegal wire tapping, theft of business documents and corporate sabotage. This should come as no surprise as Mr. Wackenhut, a fervent right-winger, made his money in the 1950s creating dossiers on suspected communists, achieving by 1966 over four million files, or one for every 46 adults in the country.[6]
Front companyIn the same above mentioned SPY Magazine article, 18 year terrorism expert and CIA analyst, William Corbett, stated "For years, Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the Drug Enforcement Agency. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandistine operations." He went on to say Wackenhut provided the intelligence agencies with information and was paid in return "in a quid pro quo arrangement". This would explain in part the huge number of contracts awarded to Wackenhut in delicate areas of the national security, such as embassies and nuclear plants, and the $150 million increase in work under the Reagan Administration.
Wackenhut was also involved in illegal US operations in Central America in the 1980s. By exploiting the Cabazon Indian reservation as a sovereign nation, they intended to produce and export explosives to theContras, evading Congressional law to the contrary.[7][8]
The director of international operations at the time, Ernesto Bermudez, admitted to having 1,500 men in El Salvador doing "[t]hings you wouldn't want your mother to know about."
According to Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan in The Terrorism Industry (ISBN 0679725598), "Wackenhut quickly got involved with right-wing terrorists who were themselves linked to state security agents" in Belgium. They left in the early 1980s after some of their guards were accused of luring immigrant children into basements and beating them.
Strike breakersWackenhut is known for providing muscle and force against organized labor and protesters. They provided strike breakers at the Pittston mine in Kentucky. Their armed guards have beaten protesters at nuclear sites for the Department of Energy. [9]
Among nuclear weapons lab employees, Wackenhut was better known for "wacking" radiation whistleblowers like Karen Silkwood and attempting to run Dr. Rosalie Bertell off the road. [10]
Celling prisonsSee also Geo Group.
Progressives at the turn of the last century were able to stamp out the trend of private prisons, however theReagan Revolution and the rise of crime in the 1980′s reversed those accomplishments of old labor and allowed the prison market to develop. Once a State-responsibility, prisons now rely on criminals for profit and labor
Wackenhut rose quickly to the challenge, entering the prison business in 1987 and turning pofits of $630.3 million annually by 1992. [11] By 1997, they controlled one third of the prison market contracts, were paying out minimal wages, and providing cheap labor for other corporations such as IBM and Microsoft. Industry experts state a 90-95% capacity rate is necessary to attract investors, ensuring a vested interest in a growing prison population for the future.
They have become notorious for cutting programs out of prisons to increase their profits. Programs include drug rehabilitation, counseling and educational services. They were investigated in 1995 for diverting $700,000 in drug rehabilitation funds from facilities in Texas. [12]
Wackenhut guards have repeatedly been accused of raping inmates in Texas, Arkansas and Florida jails.[13][14][15] They have been sued for their treatment of inmates at juvenile facilities in the south, including the horrid beating of a seventeen-year-old wearing a colostomy bag. [16]
In Australia, all detention centers were owned and operated by the subsidiary, Australasian Correctional Management.
By the end of 2000, Wackenhut had received contracts spanning the US, UK, South Africa, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, and Canada with a total of over 40,000 beds [17]
Joint venturesWackenhut is a joint venture partner along with MPRI, Kellogg Brown and Root and AGS in the civilian police training company Civilian Police International, LLC which is under a State Departmentcontract for $1.6 billion to work with the Civilian Police and Rule of Law office in coordination with theUnited Nations training emerging police forces around the world. [18]
Wackenhut's subsidiary in Peru, Wackenhut del Peru, has been representing an Indiana based security recruiting company, 3D Global Solutions, in efforts to recruit former military in Peru for service in Iraq andAfghanistan.[19]
InvestigationsOn June 26th, 2007 the City of Los Angeles opened an investigation into Wackenhut for contract abuses with the city ranging from workplace discrimination, labor violations, and management incompetence to employing irresponsible contractors with poor performance on other contracts and failing to comply with relevant laws and regulations.
Wackenhut had more than $5 million annually in contracts with the city to guard at least two dozen buildings and public places including Los Angeles City Hall East; Mount Lee the home of the famous Hollywood sign; the Ed Davis Training Facility, an elaborate LAPD training facility; other parks, performing arts centers, and the Watts and Van Nuys city halls.
The contracts were not renewed. [20]
Political contributionsGeorge C. Zoley, Chair & CEO of Wackenhut Corrections Corp., was a Bush Pioneer having raised at least $100,000 for Bush in the 2004 presidential election. [SUP][2][/SUP]
Wackenhut Corp gave $21,600 to federal candidates in the 2006 election through its political action committee 0% to Democrats and 100% to Republicans. [SUP][3][/SUP]
PersonnelKey executives: [SUP][4][/SUP]
Nuclear facilitiesWackenhut, through contracts with the Department of Energy provides security services for the following sites:- Arkansas Nuclear One
- Braidwood Nuclear Power Station
- Byron Nuclear Power Station
- Callaway Plant
- Clinton Power Station
- Dresden Nuclear Power Station
- Ginna Nuclear Power Plant
- Grand Gulf Nuclear Station
- Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant
- LaSalle County Nuclear Power Station
- Limerick Generating Station
- Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant
- Oyster Creek
- Palisades Nuclear Plant
- Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station
- Pilgrim Nuclear Station
- River Bend Nuclear Station
- Point Beach Nuclear Plant
- Prairie Island Nuclear Plant
- Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station
- Salem/Hope Creek Generating Station
- Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant
- South Texas
- St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant
- Three Mile Island (TMI) Unit 1
- Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant
- V.C. Summer Nuclear Station
- Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station
- Waterford
- Zion Nuclear Power Station
Wackenhut has since lost contracts with many of these stations after guards at various nuclear sites were found asleep. Some were recorded by an insider who later sent the video to CBS news resulting in several firings and Exelon to form Exelon Nuclear Security to relieve Wackenhut from their contracts.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]
Contact4200 Wackenhut Drive
Suite 100
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida 33410
USA
Phone: 561-622-5656
Fax: 561-691-6423
http://www.wackenhut.com
SourceWatch resources
External linksReferences
- ↑ Wackenhut Profile, Hoovers, accessed September 2007.
- ↑ Bush Pioneer George C. Zoley, Texans for Public Justice, accessed September 2007.
- ↑ 2006 PAC Summary Data, Open Secrets, accessed September 2007.
- ↑ Management, Wackenhut, accessed September 2007.
Articles- Greg Palast, "Wackenhut's Free Market in Human Misery, London Observer, September 26, 1999.
- Ken Silverstein, "America's Private Gulag," Prison Legal News, June 17, 2000.
- "Private prison failings exposed," BBC News, March 9, 2005.
- "DOE: Wackenhut Facing Investigation Concerning Falsification of Training Records, According to SEIU, SEIU via PR Newswire, April 25, 2006.
- Press release, "Wackenhut Corrections' UK company opens new prison for HM Prison Service at Marchington, UK," Wackenhut Corrections via PR Newswire, undated.
Resources- Eye On Wackenhut, hosted by the Service Employees International Union
- "Privatised Prisons and Detention Centres in Scotland: An Independent Report" by Phil Taylor and Christine Cooper. (.pdf file)
- Wackenhut CEO leaves company after problems, Associated Press, 11.Jan.08, The CEO of Wackenhut Corp., which recently lost its job protecting 10 nuclear power plants after guards at one plant were caught napping, has left the company. … The security provider, a subsidiary of British-based security giant G4S PLC, thanked Gary A. Sanders for his service but did not say why he left in a press release issued Thursday. Grahame Gibson, a board member & G4Ss chief operating officer, now has responsibility for the company's North American operations.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wackenhut
found at http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/?p=56587
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Cheri Seymour Wrote:TO: Steve Duffy
I am currently working on completing a book about the OKC bombing on April 19, 1995 entitled, "The Coup," due to be published sometime in late 2011 or early 2012. I was hired as a private detective by a client in 1997 to investigate the bombing (prior to the McVeigh trial), so I drove 11,500 miles across the U.S. interviewing people who claimed to have prior knowledge of the bombing before it occurred. This included some very notorious characters in Texas and Idaho, the former head of the Arizona Patriots in Phoenix, as well as Robert Millar at Elohim City (obtained some great photos inside Elohim City), and others.
...
"The Coup" will be easy reading, lots of action, and not as complicated as The Last Circle.
Cheri, I remember you saying you had a March, 2011 deadline for "The Coup." I hope things are progressing.
"We'll know our disinformation campaign is complete when everything the American public believes is false." --William J. Casey, D.C.I
"We will lead every revolution against us." --Theodore Herzl
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