http://www.almartinraw.com/column63.html by Al Martin
The Bush Cabal: Turning the USA into a Banana Republic
(July 15) George Bush Jr. has appointed Richard Breeden as special
investigator to investigate the collapse of WorldCom. It was, of
course, Richard Breeden, in his former capacity as SEC Commissioner,
who directed the investigation of Harken Energy - three times no
less. There were three separate SEC investigations into Harken
Energy, and through the influence of George Bush Sr. (who put the arm
on him), Breeden gave George Bush Jr. a Get Out Of Jail Free card.
What do you think Breeden will discover in the WorldCom case?
The final SEC reports clearly stated that George Bush Jr.
committed stock fraud. Bush didn't disclose his holdings. He sold the
stock short before. He sold out his long positions after having
pumped up the stock with a lot of deceptive and bullish hype. Then he
would sell it short before news about the negative earnings came out.
(See excerpt on Bush's Harken Stock Fraud from "The Conspirators"
http://www.almartinraw.com/harken.html)
Harken Energy, after all, was a typical Bush pump-and-dump
stock swindle. The Bushes had manipulated the stock consistently
between about 1-1/4 and about 7-3/4 dollars a share. (Even I made
money on it)
Harken was a stock that the Bushes gave tips around to pay off
favors. In other words, you'd be told when to sell it or when to buy
it. This was a stock, which had nothing to do with what the company
actually did. The company's stock acted as an artifice to pay off
favors. There were the useless Bahrainian oil leases, even though
Harken Energy never even produced that much oil. It wasn't about the
oil business. It was simply about manipulating the shares in order to
generate profits on both the long and the short sides.
Putting Breeden in charge, then, is another case of putting the
fox in charge of the henhouse - to find out where the missing chicken
went.
The World Resource Council group said the planet will run out
of life-sustaining resources by the year 2050 - unless population
growth is curtailed dramatically world wide, including the United
States. (This comes at a time when there are plans for mass
vaccinations of the US populace with highly toxic vaccines containing
thimerosal, so maybe a lot of useless eaters will die right on
schedule.) A United Nations group is asking the CDC (Center for
Disease Control) to make smallpox vaccinations mandatory. But we
don't want to get too conspiratorial…
In the WorldCom Hearings in Congress, a lot of guys invoked
their Fifth Amendment privilege, but there was this little short guy
with dark hair who meekly says, Well, Senator, I'd love to talk, but
the only reason I'm invoking my Fifth Amendment privilege is because
I don't have all of my money moved out of the country yet." He
actually said that. He should be given a gold star for speaking the
truth.
Bush was caught playing along to the crowd again. He acted
exasperated with all this talk of Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles. He said if you were to ask Americans what Generally
Accepted Accounting Principles are, nine out of ten wouldn't know.
Then he throws his hands up in the air and says, "Hell, I don't even
know what it means."
It should be added that perhaps that's why in George Bush's
capacity as a private businessman during his life, the four
businesses he ran - all failed.
Remember, all you aspiring Harvard MBA grads -- that's what an
MBA from Harvard will get you. You can fail your way to the top.
Especially if your last name is Bush.
Then Bush gave his big speech about unveiling a plan to fight
corporate fraud and to rectify all these accounting problems. It was
an extremely disappointing speech. The market immediately sold off
afterwards. He said the SEC doesn't need more legislation. All he did
was ask for more money for the SEC. It doesn't need more regulatory
authority, he says. It simply needs a billion dollar increase in its
budget to enforce the regulations already on the books.
This, they claim, is the consistent problem they've had. They
just don't have the money to enforce the regulations. And under his
breath, he said, "Thank God."
There was an excellent comment on his speech by William
Niskanen, the head of the Cato Institute. He said that Bush
specifically avoided the other half of the problem. Although he
talked about the accounting problem, he deliberately sidestepped the
problem of Republican connected fraud within corporations. He is not
proposing any new regulations to curtail the actual fraud part of
this problem. It is a two-part problem, 1. Accounting, and 2. The
actual commission of fraud.
When Niskanen was asked on CNBC, do you think somebody will
have to go to jail just to make a point to the American people that
something is being done? Niskanen smiled and said, "I'm sure that the
White House is busily looking through the short list of Democratic
scamscateers to try to find someone to put into jail."
The problem is that there are so few Democrats connected to
this fraud, so it is indeed a short list. He did mention however
Global Crossing in which there were some Democrat scamscateers
involved.
(Should we expect an indictment of DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe
in the near future? Niskanen said, if I were Terry McAuliffe I'd be
looking at this with furrowed brows.)
Then on the Kudlow and Kramer Show (Larry Kudlow being the well
known economist and Reagan-Bush apologist), their guest was one of
the most prominent arch Right Wing Cabalists, namely C. Boyden Grey,
former White House counsel under both Reagan and Bush Regimes, who
was famous for forging the signature during the October Surprise
Affair.
Grey was the one who signed his name as "Charles Smith" on the
hotel register in Paris, when he went with Bush Sr. for the secret
meeting with the Iranians.
The other guest was Arch-Bush Cabalist Bill Seidman, who was
accused of fraud during his tenure as RTC Chairman. While he was at
the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), he was accused of practicing
the same type of Republican Cabalist real estate fraud that was
previously practiced by the very same banks that he was overseeing in
liquidation.
Seidman was actually selling the defaulted properties and
mortgages back to his Cabalist friends at twenty cents on the dollar -
after they had been previously sold for twenty cents on the dollar
some fourteen times before.
C. Boyden Gray was very much in favor of President Bush's new
plan to get tough with corporate Republican fraud. Larry Kudlow said
this is very tough - preventing Republican cabalists from serving on
boards of directors ever again. This was awful punishment, he said.
(It's almost as bad as being a Republican cabalist in your multi-
million dollar beach house at Cayman Brac and being told that there's
no more cracked crab with lobster sauce for lunch.)
C. Boyden Grey, on the other hand, supported the new line that
if you come clean and tell the truth, then you won't face any
criminal sanctions and you will be allowed to quietly go to your
Caribbean or Swiss retreats with your ill-gotten gains.
Kramer said that people should be allowed to only keep so much
money and that they should have to forfeit a lot of the proceeds of
fraud.
But Larry Kudlow said, "Obviously you haven't been to the
Cayman Islands recently, and you don't realize that the cost of
living has gone up. If you're a Republican Scamscateer in exile, with
these low interest rates, you need to have at least $10 million to
have even a reasonable standard of living in the Cayman Islands."
Senator Daschle has said that the Bush Administration's new
plan to fight Republican Scamscateerism actually makes it more
difficult for whistle blowers to seek protection from the FBI. It is
even more difficult for whistle blowers to get a percentage of the
recovery.
The Bush Administration wants to impose a minimum, which the
IRS or SEC is allowed to collect -- before any whistle-blowers can
collect. They are thus purposely discouraging whistleblowers.
In other news, a female airline passenger was put off an Air
West flight for asking if the pilots were sober or not. You remember
the incident before when two pilots were found to be drunk. She
complained and the federal sky marshal backed up the crew and said
that from now on, if any citizen asks whether the pilots are drunk,
it constitutes a matter of "flight security" -- any citizen who
questions the sobriety of airline personnel.
The federal air marshals want to encourage airline passengers
to be "respectful" of the flight crew personnel.
Larry Klayman's group Judicial Watch filed suit against Vice
President Dick Cheney alleging that in his capacity as CEO at
Halliburton, he undertook a massive scheme to defraud Halliburton
shareholders, including false accounting and stock manipulation,
which was specifically designed to enrich Republican cabalists.
At the same time, the SEC announced that it has stepped up its
investigation of Halliburton. They are investigating alleged
accounting irregularities and certain offshore limited partnership
deals which Cheney formed with other Bush Cabalists such as James
Baker and Frank Carlucci of the Carlyle Group. Klayman claims that
Cheney used Halliburton simply as an organization to enrich
Republican interests.
Meanwhile the market has entered an odd type of decline, i.e.,
when monthly economic statistics issued by the US Government clearly
indicate that the economy is beginning to grow again.
Most stock ratings services have announced that stock profits
are going to be up. This is actually a time, when you'd think the
market would begin to rally - but it doesn't.
A recent poll indicates that 78% of American investors have
simply lost confidence in the Bush Administration and their ability
to root out corporate fraud and their ability to soundly manage the
economy.
In other words, relatively good economic news is not overcoming
the loss of investor confidence-a dangerous sign. This is a sign that
investors are no longer acting rationally and that there is an
irrational fear in the market.
If the economy were growing stronger, the normal reaction would
be for people to buy stocks. The fraud is only part of it. Stock
prices are relatively cheap and probably already reflect the fraud to
a great degree. So this is a dangerous cycle we have now entered,
when there is an irrational fear. The market should be rallying, but
it's not.
There is a new fear of collapse and the herd mentality of the
market tends to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It may come to the point that in order for the US to be saved,
both Bush and Cheney may have to resign to restore confidence.
You can't blame it on Greenspan. You can't blame it on the
Treasury Secretary or the head of the SEC. It is George Bush himself
and what he represents that is in itself the problem.
Now both President Bush and Vice President Cheney are under
investigation for frauds - Bush and his Harken stock fraud and Cheney
and his Halliburton scam. There's even a commercial about the fox in
the henhouse. It shows a fox running in the field and then it
mentions Bush's involvement in Harken Energy, Apache, Zapata and
National Heritage Life - all the stock frauds that George Bush Jr.
has been involved in. Then it talks about Cheney, and not only
Halliburton, but also all the oil companies and all the stock frauds
he's been involved in.
The Banana Republicans have taken over the country, and there's
no way out. There continues to be a negative reaction to Bush's
speech about cleaning up fraud. In fact, a recent poll claims that a
majority of people don't believe that George Bush and Company has the
political will to clean up corporate fraud because it is so heavily
intertwined with Republican interests.
This is Crony Capitalism (so popular in third world countries)
American Style. Finally, however, the Bush Cabal is becoming an
understandable entity to the people. This is the good that has come
out from all those people banging the drum out there and talking
about the Bush Cabal. Public opinion polls are finally starting to
fall.
And what's Bush's reaction to all this? He continues to leak
out information about starting a New War in Iraq - in order to once
again divert public attention.
Even mainstream media is having a harder and harder time
defending this Bushonian policy of leaking out state secrets in an
effort to divert public attention from the economy. This means that
all of the plans that they leak out - they can't really use. Why?
Because they've made them public knowledge. In other words, they got
all the political juice out of them, but as war operations or
planning go, they aren't any good anymore.
You're beginning to see people question this behavior even in
mainstream media. A lot of the retired military officers that
mainstream media uses as commentators, particularly guys like David
Hackworth, are saying that the Administration is doing this on
purpose - the constant leaking of secret information in an effort to
divert public attention from the dire state of the economy.
The House overwhelmingly approved the new Guns in the Cockpit
Law. There's a small provision in the bill, which the Office of
Homeland Security snuck in the back door, which I consider very
sinister.
Part of this bill extends the federal law enforcement shield of
immunity to cockpit crewmembers. This is the first time that any law
has been passed, which allows the federal government to extend law
enforcement immunity to civilians. The Office of Homeland Security
will use this as a test case.
In other words, this portion of the bill will almost certainly
be legally challenged by somebody. The constitutionality will be
challenged and the Supreme Court will naturally agree that it is
constitutional. Of course.
Then the Office of Homeland Security will have a law, which has
been declared constitutional and will have a legal precedent set to
extend the federal law enforcement immunity laws to civilians.
The first people, who will have extended to them the federal
law enforcement shield of immunity, will be the members of the
Neighborhood Watch Association and members of the new Civilian
Defense Force.
The government will want these civilians to have protection
from lawsuits which will inevitably arise in the event that they
shoot someone. Or accidentally beat someone up. Or whatever.
Imagine how this will expand the power of the Office of
Homeland Security -- to extend the federal law enforcement shield of
immunity to private groups of citizens who are essentially acting in
a paramilitary capacity to support the State. You can imagine how
this can be misused.
The government could literally turn them into paralegal
paramilitary vigilante groups by extending federal immunity to them.
These groups could then act with impunity.
In essence, you would have government-sanctioned right-wing
militia groups running around the neighborhood doing what they will -
enforcing the authority and the "security" of the State.
The Neighborhood Watch groups would then become a government-
controlled militia group. They could then claim that the arming and
paramilitarization of the Neighborhood Watch is tucked neatly into
the Second Amendment, which gives the government the authority to
establish such groups. The government would have the authority to arm
them, train them and equip them - all under the guise of the Second
Amendment.
The government could literally create a Para militarized force,
which exists to enforce the will of the State.
If you as a citizen disagree with them, and they beat you up,
or shoot you, or arrest you, or torture you, you have no relief under
the law.
You have no recourse to sue them, and you can't sue the
government directly because they are only paramilitarized.
When this takes place in Somalia, they're called "militias"
or "warlords." It could then be called the Neighborhood Warlord
Association instead of Neighborhood Watch.
In Serbia, they were called the "White Eagles." They act on
behalf of government. Even in this country, as long as they are
listed as paramilitary forces, there is a legal difference.
(I'm watching CNN, which has been showing the new high tech
armed four-wheel drive vehicles and the new domestic suburban hover
drone. They're billing it as New Domestic Security Technology. We
reviewed it in a previous column called " Coming Soon Flying Fascism
at Your Doorstep"
http://www.almartinraw.com/column48.html)
Qwest Communications is also under criminal investigation by
the US Attorneys Office for stock fraud, manipulation, and kickbacks.
Qwest, by the way, has the greatest number of public complaints
against them by the people it serves.
Then there was testimony by Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, O'Neill and
Powell on the new proposed Department of Homeland Security. Ashcroft,
Rumsfeld said that we may have to ask the American people to give up
still more of their rights and liberties. He added that, at the same
time that we expect to save money through consolidation, we will
temporarily need even more billions of taxpayers' money in order to
put ourselves in a position to consolidate, in order to later save
the people money…
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill then admitted that Treasury
doesn't have any money left. Dick Armey asked if there was any hope
for a stock market recovery, and O'Neill replied, "Oh, I don't think
any time soon."
That's why I thought that we should now call the Americans the
Neo Sado-Masochists.
In the past, we have called the Canadians the Original Sado-
Masochists - as in "Whip Me, Beat Me, Tax Me Some More."
But now Americans have become the Neo Sado-Masochists. Not only
do we agree to have more of our civil rights and liberties taken from
us, but we also agree to pay for it at the same time.
In other words, we as Americans are paying our own government
to take away more of our civil rights and liberties.
At the same time, we support a regime, which through its fiscal
imprudence and economic recklessness, continues to cause the value of
our 401(k) and IRA accounts to diminish.
Thus, if you support the Bush Administration, you are saying,
in effect, "Raise my taxes. Take away my rights. Make the value of my
retirement plan go down." We the American People have therefore
become the Neo Sado-Masochists.
In response to the indignities imposed on air travelers at the
airports disguised as so-called "security", a 62-year old Frenchman
dropped his pants at Dade County's Miami International Airport.
The federal sky marshals have warned the people that any
citizen who attempts to moon anyone in an airport will be arrested
for violation of State Security.
Mooning has now become a violation of State Security.
Al Martin Raw has been warning people for years not to vote for
any more Bushes.
Anyone who has voted for Bushes has seen their IRA and 401(k)
accounts wiped out. They have seen their taxes increased. They have
seen their rights and liberties diminished.
Anyone who was stupid enough to vote for George Bush is now
getting his or her comeuppance. That's why I believe he will be a one-
term president. Unless we are totally out of our minds as a nation.
America is the Official Home of the Neo Sado-Masochists.
Everything is going to hell in a hand basket, and even mooning
in the USA could get you sent to Guantanamo.
AL MARTIN is America's foremost whistleblower on government
fraud and corruption. A retired US Navy Lt. Commander and former
officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence, he has testified before
Congress (the Kerry Committee and the Alexander Committee) regarding
Iran-Contra. Al Martin is the author of "The Conspirators: Secrets of
an Iran Contra Insider" (2001, National Liberty Press, $19.95; Toll
FREE order line: 1-866-317-1390) He lives at an undisclosed location,
since the criminals named in his book have been returned to national
power and prominence. His column "Behind the Scenes in the Beltway"
is published regularly on Al Martin Raw: Criminal Govt Conspiracy
(
http://www.almartinraw.com)