Milkhouse Mouse

Forewoman Marcy Brooks (photo) convinced fellow jurors that defendant Whitey Harrell owned no Illinois state income tax since filing a return was contingent on a federal income law the court could not demonstrate existed. A video clip of Brooks' observations of Harrell's trial from Aaron Russo's 2006 documentary America: Freedom to Fascism is excerpted below. (This is the second in Milkhouse Mouse's "Tax Day Honesty" series; see Part I here.--Ed.)

In May 2000, a 12-member jury in Logan County, Illinois weighed the evidence from a legal defense team and Illinois state prosecutors. After jurors deliberated just four hours, they ruled that Whitey Harrell, 62, a U.S. Postal Service rural mail carrier, was innocent of all of the four criminal felony charge state prosecutors filed against him for "willful failure to file an Illinois State Income Tax form."

In 1993, Harrell filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in a U.S. Court of Appeals, claiming the agency illegally garnished his wages for failing to pay his federal income taxes for 1985 and 1986.

Harrell's 2000 Illinois state tax case decision appeared in a Logan County newspaper, which remains archived at FreeRebulic.com:

Jury acquits in tax case

Lincoln - Gaylon "Whitey" Harrell of rural Latham was acquitted by a 12 person jury of the 4 count criminal felony charges of willful failure to file an Illinois State Income Tax form.

The actual trial began on Wednesday May 24th in the Logan County Circuit Court room, presided over by Senior Judge David "Slick" Coogan ("Slick is how the judge identifies himself) and closed on Friday after four hours of deliberation when the jury returned with four consecutive "not guilty" verdicts.

"We were in a heated debate" reported one unnamed juror, "but when the court refused, after our specific written request, to furnish us copies of the actual statutes, (that imposed the obligation on the defendant,) it didn't take long for all of us to see that something was wrong with the State's case.

"That was not all the court refused to let the jury see," added Jerry Barringer, Harrell's attorney. "The court, at the request of the Illinois State's attorney, denied the jury access to evidence that already had been introduced and accepted." "Astoundingly, even the Bill of Indictment was denied to the jury." chimed in Barringer's legal assistant Lindsey Springer, "Also denied were jury instructions sanctioned by the Supreme Court and even a VCR recorder to play the video tape that Whitey had made of his meeting with the CID agent."

"I've seen a lot of tyranny in the courts, but never anything so blatent as what I saw here over the last two days," added Bob Minark, an Indiana friend of Harrell's.

The 4 criminal felony charges had been brought against Harrell in 1997 and just came to trial this past week. Harrell had submitted numerous motions in a case that saw both assigned judges and assigned state's attorneys resign or recuse themselves. All Harrell's motions were denied.

The case started back in early 1997 when Harrell was approached by Illinois Dept. of Revenue Criminal Investigation Division (CID) agent Robert Craner, who asked him for an interview. The testimony was that Harrel refused until he had witnesses present and a video camera set up at the local library where he later video taped a 45 minute meeting with Craner. On the video, which was shown to the jury at the trial, Harrell specifically pointed out that he could find no section of the Illinois statutes that obligated him to file an Illinois income tax return. He presented Craner with numerous documents which he identified as outlines of statutes and regulations and "administrative code" which he said he searched to no avail in finding any obligation that would apply to him. Craner accepted the documents.

The tape showed that Craner promised Harrell at least five different times, to produce the statutes that made Harrell liable and get answers to Harrell's questions.

The testimony later showed that Craner didn't do that and instead = went back to the Grand Jury to testify that Harrell was a resident of Logan County who failed to file Illinois state income tax forms. Unbeknownst to Harrell, at the time of the interview, Craner was also acting as a Grand Jury investigator. "He never told me," said Harrell, "He never read me a Miranda warning. He just promised to get me the information, but instead went back to the Grand Jury to get an Indictment."

Grand Jury Transcripts show that Craner testified that Harrell, at the library meeting, had nothing to offer in his defense of why he didn't file a tax return, but the video tape brought Craner's credibility into serious question.

Harrell testified in his own defense and verified his many efforts to obtain the law that made him liable for the income tax or how his activity was privileged. The prosecution brought out on cross examination that Harrell had filed many law suits in the past and that those suits were dismissed in both the state and federal courts.

In an attempt to prove knowledge, the state also elicited that Harrell had previously filed tax returns previously. Harrell's Attorney Barringer likened that to believing in Santa Claus when you were a child and then gaining knowledge of the fact that Santa Claus is a fantasy as you got older and wiser.

Barringer's questioning of Agent Craner as to his belief in Santa Claus brought an objection from the State's attorney which was sustained by the judge without any recognition of humor.

Harrell, 62, had worked for the United States Post Office as a rural mail carrier and also received a pension from Caterpillar from where he retired in 1990.

Asked if his case will set a precedent, Harrel said, "Legally, No, but I certainly hope it sets the precedent that more people question the loss of their rights and property whenever government claims its the law. I feel sure this jury will be thinking = twice."

Interestingly, even after the specific request of the jury, neither the state or the court ever did produce any statute showing Harrel had any obligation. "We don't have anything to say at this time other than Mr. Harrell was very lucky and we will be watching his activities carefully," stated an assistant State's Attorney who asked not to be identified.

Harrel plans to keep up his efforts to expose, what he says, is the one of the largest frauds ever committed on the people of Illinois.

"Al Capone couldn't hold a candle to these guys," Harrell commented when talking about the State's claim of a requirement for wage earners and independent contractors to file a state income tax form.

Harrell's bail bond has been released and the funds obtained from Harrell to guarantee the bond will be returned. No further court actions are pending against Harrell at this time, but Harrell anticipates further actions by himself against both the state Department of Revenue and the federal Internal Revenue Service.

In the clip below, Marcy Brooks tells filmmaker Aaron Russo some of the startling revelations that surfaced as she and fellow jurors heard the evidence presented in Harrell's tax case.



Postscript: Part III of MM's "Tax Day Honesty" series addressing the alleged illegal ratification in 1913 of the 16 Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--the "Income Tax" amendment--will appear, appropriately, April 1, April Fool's Day.

A month after Harrell's acquittal, Marcy Brooks spoke about Harrell's trial at a "Legality of Income Conference." A 14-minute video-part 1 and part 2--of her presentation is available for online viewing at YouTube.com.

And this note from the link to those clips: "A complete copy of the June 29, 2000, Legality of Income Tax Conference video may be obtained at the We the People Foundation Web site, by email at acta@capital.net or by telephone at (518) 656-3578." Ordering info also may be available at www.CuriousEvidence.com.

In 2006 Aaron Russo, a veteran music promoter (he brought Led Zepplin to America, managed Bette Midler) and six-time Academy Award-nominated film producer (The Rose, Trading Places, etc.), directed his first documentary, America: Freedom to Fascism. (Click here to view the complete film online).

A film making a huge splash on the internet, AFF tackles some provocative problems America's power-elite have created over the years for this country, to include the federal income tax. In the main, corporate media avoided covering Russo's film. Hollywood also ignored it, a testament to Tinsel Town's growing conservatism.

The 10-minute clip below is an interview Russo conducted for AFF with Sheldon Cohen, a former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner and IRS legal counsel; Cohen literally wrote the book on the U.S. tax code.

So why does Cohen become testy when Russo pushes him to pinpoint the law requiring Americans to send their tax payments each year by 15 April to the U.S. Treasury?



Postscript: NY Times Staff Writer Skewers Elite-backed U.S. Tax Code

New York Times staff writer and author David Cay Johnston arguably is American journalism's resident scholar and "enforcement officer" when it comes to our tax system. In 2003, Johnston published Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else, an eye-popping read for revelations such as this one:

"Since the mid-1970s, there has been a dramatic shift in who benefits from the American economy and who bears the burden of taxes. CEOs, big investors and business owners can delay paying their taxes for years and sometimes escape them almost entirely, while wage earners have them taken from each paycheck. Discreet lobbying by the political donor class has made tax policies and enforcement a disaster. Because of obligations to these donors, Washington has been unable, or unwilling, to fix these problems. The news media have largely ignored official favors to those who are supposed to pay the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the gift tax. Millions of families expecting tax cuts are losing some or all of them to a stealth tax that was originally enacted only to apply to the tax-avoiding rich, but that now stings single mothers making as little as $28,000."

In the same year Perfectly Legal appeared, Johnston reported on some intriguing court findings from a IRS tax prosecution trial in Memphis of Federal Express pilot Vernice Kuglin. (She briefly appeared in the Russo clip just before his Cohen interview.)

"U.S. jury faults IRS in a dispute over tax evasion"

David Cay Johnston - NYT
8/13/2003
Source: International Hearld Tribune

A federal jury in Memphis, Tennessee, has acquitted a Federal Express pilot on six counts of tax evasion after she testified that she had written letters asking the U.S. Internal Revenue Service what law required her to pay taxes but never received a response.

The verdict, reached Friday, brings into question the IRS practice of ignoring such questions, which it regards as frivolous because the first words of the Internal Revenue Code are "a tax is hereby imposed."

The pilot, Vernice Kuglin, 58, filed a withholding statement on Dec. 30, 1995, directing that no taxes be withheld from her pay. From 1996 through 2001 she earned $920,000 as a pilot for Federal Express, but no taxes were withheld, she said Monday. Normal withholding for the period would have been about $250,000.

Federal Express would not say Monday how many other employees had submitted W-4 forms requesting that little or no tax be withheld.

Sandra Munoz, a company spokeswoman, also declined to say whether the company had reviewed its payroll to identify employees who were having no taxes withheld. She did say that Federal Express was complying with all tax agency regulations on withholding.

.... [Kuglin's defense attorney Lowell] Becraft, who 12 years ago was part of a team that won acquittals for 17 defendants in another Memphis [Chattanooga?] tax trial, said jurors told him they had voted, 7-5, for conviction on Thursday. They then told Judge Jon McCalla of U.S. District Court that they were deadlocked. He ordered further deliberations, and the jury voted to acquit on Friday.

Read more

Good luck, tax pilgrims.

The cyber-journalists over at the Bay-Area Hippie News Network (www.hippienewsnetwork.com) would like Americans to understand the following about their country:

Online porn is perfectly acceptable--until you post pictures of the dead Iraqis and Americans from the Iraq War beside exploited underage teenagers. Chris Wilson had a growing online porn business called "NowThatsFuckedUp.com" until be posted images of dead bodies sent him from Iraq by U.S. soldiers.

Here's HippieNewsNetwork.com margin notes with the below below on Wilson's criminal case at Google video:

Chris Wilson had an adult website called "NowThatsFuckedUp." He was jailed, released on bail and jailed again (jailing a person who had been released on bail had never happened in US history). This was the first time. Chris Wilson allowed the US soldiers to post uncensored images of dead Iraqis.

At that point a U.S. prosecutor in Florida, deeply offended by Wilson diluting his kiddie porn collection, charged Wilson with a raft of obscenity charges related to the graphic images of dead bodies.

As one interviewee astutely points out about Wilson's prosecution, the Bush administration do not intend to as LBJ, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger did in getting the U.S. into the Vietnam War; they naively permitted field TV crews to broadcast war images into U.S. homes during evening family meals and the ensuing opposition resulted in massive protests and the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1975. Team Bush does not intend to repeat their mistake, so anyone like Wilson who dares to offer a more honest view on the Iraq War will be prosecuted.

In case you're wondering, Grady Judd, Sheriff of Polk County Florida, now administers Wilson's site. Surf on over there and let the good sheriff leave a tracking cookie in your web browser.

Meanwhile, be warned that the images in the clip below will be disturbing to Americans accustomed to their TV images of war pre-censored by CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc.




Postscript: The woman with the Russian accent in the clip is Gypsy Taub; her unique opposition to 9/11 Commission executive director Phillip Zeilkow's public whitewash of the terrorist attacks on America was chronicled at Milkhouse Mouse in September 2006.

In the 10-minute video segment below, CNN host Anderson Cooper interviews Andrew Sullivan, a conservative journalist with the good sense to be distressed over the Military Commissions Act, a piece of fascist legislation passed by congress and signed into law by George Bush last October.

Sullivan characterizes the bill, which he says uses "deliberately confusing" language wide open to selective interpretation, as "legalized tyranny." Arguing that "90%" of Iraqis detained at Abu Ghraib and "dozens" of Muslims incarcerated at Camp Delta in Cuba were tortured but innocent of any charges, Sullivan believes innocent Americans eventually will be subjected to similar fates.

That interview is followed by a another with Maher Arar, the 36-year-old Syrian-born Canadian software engineer the U.S. convinced Canadian authorities to deport to Syria as an al-Qaeda suspect. For ten months, Arar endured horrific torture by his Syrian captives, only to be cleared of all charges by a two-year Canadian inquiry into the matter.

Last December Milkhouse Mouse posted MSNBC news host Keith Olbermann's interview with Georgetown University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley on the Military Commission Act's liberty-bashing implications for ordinary Americans.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' partisanship at the Department of Justice apparently extends beyond personnel directives for U.S. Attorneys. Based on local press reports in Florida and Louisiana, the DOJ has stalled a Clinton-era FBI investigation confirming First Brother Jeb Bush's links to fraudulent taxpayer-backed loans and influence peddling during his father's presidency.

On Tuesday (20 March), George Bush and the Democrat- controlled House and Senate Judiciary Committees began what appears will be an acrimonius and protracted legal battle over issuance of congressional subpoenas for internal White House documents and testimony of senior officials there about their respective roles in the Department of Justice's politicizied dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys.

While George Bush so far has remained above Prosecutor-gate's heated fracas now threatening Alberto Gonzales' tenure as U.S. Attorney General, eight years ago during his presidential campaign the FBI opened an investigation that implicated Florida Governor and First Brother Jeb Bush in an African business venture with a state GOP fundraiser who may have contributed to Bush's gubernatorial campaigns.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, in June 1999 the FBI opened an investigation into Florida Republican fundraiser-committeeman and longtime Bush family friend J. David Eller, owner of Moving Water Industries (MWI), about a multi-million-dollar deal Jeb Bush brokered for Eller in Nigeria at the end of Bush 41's presidency.

From 1989-1993, Bush and Eller co-owned Bush-El, a company that marketed Eller's MWI pumping equipment for flood control and irrigation. The four-year relationship garnered Florida's future governor $650,000--$452,000 of which he received after selling his interest in the company back to Eller. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Eller also donated roughly $128,000 to political campaigns between 1996-1999, a portion of which went to Republican candidates in Florida.

Even before Bush teamed up with Eller, "Nigeria [had] been MWI's key customer since the 1980s... Before Bush joined Eller's team in 1989, MWI received nearly $90-million in" U.S. taxpayer-backed loans to Nigeria.

But at the time Eller partnered with his future governor, MWI was suffering because of Nigeria's delinquent repayments that occasioned "Ex-Im to tighten its loan policies" for the African nation. " But by 1990, MWI was working on persuading Ex-Im officials to back more pumps sales to Nigeria. They approved eight separate loans to Nigeria totaling $74.3-million." The president's son seemed to have had a role in

In 1992, Jeb Bush brokered a $74.3 million deal in which Nigeria purchased giant water pumps and other equipment from Eller's company financed by a U.S. taxpayer-insured loan from through the Export-Import Bank of the United States. In traveling to Nigeria to broker the deal, Bush "received red-carpet treatment" as the president's son.

But by 1999, "Nigeria is about $23-million behind on its payments, and...many of the pumps were unaccounted for or sitting idle."

Former MWI pilot Greg Johnson interviewed at the time by the FBI told the paper "it appeared the investigation focused on how the U.S. loan money was spent." In addition, Johnson "contended that the pump prices were highly inflated and many of them could never be used because of infrastructure problems in Nigeria."

"It was the biggest scam I've ever seen in my life," Johnson told the Times.

Robert Purcell, a former MWI vice president who sued Eller's company, claimed that commissions due to him were improperly diverted to Bush-El and other Eller-related business. Though Purcell settled a suit with Eller in October 1999 in which he agreed never to discussion his settlement, he indicated the FBI inexplicably did not interview him about the Nigerian pump deals.

Jeb Bush said "he never spoke to anybody in the U.S. government about the the Ex-Im loans" nor was interviwed by the FBI. Eller retired, turning his businesses over to his son Dana.

Though the Department of Justice initiated a suit against MWI five years ago to recover the bogus Nigerian loans, the case is still pending. According to a 14 March 2007 Associated Press report appearing in the New Orleans Times-Picayune (archived here) on a MWI pump deal that sent similarly deficient equipment to the city after Hurricane Katrina,

The U.S. Justice Department sued the company in 2002, accusing it of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain $74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary water-pump equipment. The case has yet to be resolved.

Is there any chance the House and Senate Judiciary Committees would be interested in having DoJ officials--or perhaps even former Governor Jeb Bush--tell members why U.S. Attorneys in Florida have stalled the probe into he and his partner's Nigerian pump deals?

Limiting Americans' electoral choices for President in 2008 has officially commenced as U.S. media focus on pro-Iraq War candidates. On Tuesday (20 March) Wayne Madsen posted the passage below at WayneMadsen Report.com on CNN's inexplicable exclusion of 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel from an upcoming presidential debate in New Hampshire. In a taped message below, Gravel responds to the snub. --Editor

Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel, the former Democratic Senator from Alaska who spearheaded the de-funding of the Vietnam War and the draft and released the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record, has protested his exclusion from the New Hampshire presidential debate.

CNN, the Manchester Union Leader, and Hearst-owned WMUR-TV formally decided to exclude Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator Mike Gravel from the debates they will be sponsoring in New Hampshire. In response to the decision, Gravel said, "By denying me the same opportunity afforded to other presidential candidates to discuss in public debate the major issues that confront our nation, the sponsoring media outlets––CNN, The Manchester Union Leader and the Hearst-owned WMUR-TV––are exercising censorship, unbecoming in a free society. They are dictating whose political voice they will permit New Hampshire and American citizens to hear.”

Gravel also said, "These media outlets are depriving the people the right to hear a voice they may very well want to hear, and in my case, a voice with some new and different ideas not expressed by other candidates––not ‘politics as usual.’ This amounts to denying the people the right to an informed choice from among all the declared and legitimate candidates, not just those deemed worthy by a few media organizations.”

A poll of political scientists and speech specialists in Nevada rated Gravel the third most effective presenter at the debate/forum sponsored by ABC, AFSCME, and the Nevada Democratic party in Carson City last month.

Gravel warned, "“It is not CNN’s, the Manchester Union Leader’s or Hearst’s WMUR-TV’s place to decide whose voice should and should not be heard in a debate between legitimate and qualified presidential candidates for the nomination of their political parties," adding, "When my staff inquired as to why I was being barred from participating in the debate, they received the Orwellian response that my candidacy did not meet certain criteria––a criteria that the media organizations refused to divulge when asked.”

For more information visit www.gravel2008.us



25 April 2007 Update: In the Democrats first presidential debate last Thursday, Candidate Gavel apparently "upstaged" his fellow party aspirants. See Truthdig.com report here.

Updating his 2005 bombshell BBC report (first 13 minutes of the broadcast) that in the U.S. aired only on Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now!, Greg Palast again demonstrates why some of America's best investigative journalism originates in England-- and why the Democrat- controlled Congress's refusal to investigate his allegations confirms their strings now are being pulled by the same U.S. oil cartel (and here, here) as GOP predecessors who controlled pre-110th congressional sessions.

It's STILL the oil: Secret Condi Meeting on Oil Before Invasion

by Greg Palast

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Four years ago this week, the tanks rolled for what President Bush originally called, "Operation Iraqi Liberation" -- O.I.L.
I kid you not.

And it was four years ago that, from the White House, George Bush, declaring war, said, "I want to talk to the Iraqi people." That Dick Cheney didn't tell Bush that Iraqis speak Arabic … well, never mind. I expected the President to say something like, "Our troops are coming to liberate you, so don't shoot them." Instead, Mr. Bush told, the Iraqis,

"Do not destroy oil wells."

Nevertheless, the Bush Administration said the war had nothing to do with Iraq's oil. Indeed, in 2002, the State Department stated, and its official newsletter, the Washington Post, repeated, that State's Iraq study group, "does not have oil on its list of issues."

But now, we've learned that, despite protestations to the contrary, Condoleezza Rice held a secret meeting with the former Secretary-General of OPEC, Fadhil Chalabi, an Iraqi, and offered Chalabi the job of Oil Minister for Iraq. (It is well established that the President of the United States may appoint the cabinet ministers of another nation if that appointment is confirmed by the 101st Airborne.)

In all the chest-beating about how the war did badly, no one seems to remember how the war did very, very well -- for Big Oil.

The war has kept Iraq's oil production to 2.1 million barrels a day from pre-war, pre-embargo production of over 4 million barrels. In the oil game, that's a lot to lose. In fact, the loss of Iraq's 2 million barrels a day is equal to the entire planet's reserve production capacity.

In other words, the war has caused a hell of a supply squeeze -- and Big Oil just loves it. Oil today is $57 a barrel versus the $18 a barrel price under Bill "Love-Not-War" Clinton.

Since the launch of Operation Iraqi Liberation, Halliburton stock has tripled to $64 a share -- not, as some believe, because of those Iraq reconstruction contracts -- peanuts for Halliburton. Cheney's former company's main business is "oil services." And, as one oilman complained to me, Cheney's former company has captured a big hunk of the rise in oil prices by jacking up the charges for Halliburton drilling and piping equipment.

But before we shed tears for Big Oil's having to hand Halliburton its slice, let me note that the value of the reserves of the five biggest oil companies more than doubled during the war to $2.36 trillion.

And that was the plan: putting a new floor under the price of oil. I've have that in writing. In 2005, after a two-year battle with the State and Defense Departments, they released to my team at BBC Newsnight the "Options for a Sustainable Iraqi Oil Industry." Now, you might think our government shouldn't be writing a plan for another nation's oil. Well, our government didn't write it, despite the State Department seal on the cover. In fact, we discovered that the 323-page plan was drafted in Houston by oil industry executives and consultants.

The suspicion is that Bush went to war to get Iraq's oil. That's not true. The document, and secret recordings of those in on the scheme, made it clear that the Administration wanted to make certain America did not get the oil. In other words, keep the lid on Iraq's oil production -- and thereby keep the price of oil high.

Of course, the language was far more subtle than, "Let's cut Iraq's oil production and jack up prices." Rather, the report uses industry jargon and euphemisms which require Iraq to remain an obedient member of the OPEC cartel and stick to the oil-production limits -- "quotas" -- which keep up oil prices.

The Houston plan, enforced by an army of occupation, would, "enhance [Iraq's] relationship with OPEC," the oil cartel.

And that's undoubtedly why Condoleezza Rice asked Fadhil Chalabi to take charge of Iraq's Oil Ministry. As former chief operating officer of OPEC, the oil cartel, Fadhil was a Big Oil favorite, certain to ensure that Iraq would never again allow the world to slip back to the Clinton era of low prices and low profits. (In investigating for BBC, I was told by the former chief of the CIA's oil unit that he'd met with Fadhil regarding oil at Bush's request. Fadhil recently complained to the BBC. He denied the meeting with the Bush emissary in London because, he noted, he was secretly meeting that week in Washington with Condi!)

Fadhil, by the way, turned down Condi's offer to run Iraq's Oil Ministry. Ultimately, Iraq's Oil Ministry was given to Fadhil's fellow tribesman, Ahmad Chalabi, a convicted bank swindler and neo-con idol. But whichever Chalabi is nominal head of Iraq's oil industry in Baghdad, the orders come from Houston. Indeed, the oil law adopted by Iraq's shaky government this month is virtually a photocopy of the "Options" plan first conceived in Texas long before Iraq was "liberated."

In other words, the war has gone exactly to plan -- the Houston plan. So forget the naïve cloth-rending about a conflict gone haywire. Exxon-Mobil reported a record $10 billion profit last quarter, the largest of any corporation in history. Mission Accomplished.

The international campaign for 9/11 Truth continues--to the chagrin of the guilty still in hiding--with the recent release of a music video from the UK and a 15 March 1-minute Air America "rant". There is no statute of limitations for the crime of mass murder.

9/11 Blogger continues to carry the torch for 9/11 Truth. The 4:30-minute music video below from the UK 9/11 Visibility Project titled "9/11 Building 7" (lyrics here) recently appeared on its website; it is indeed worth a look and listen for the melding of song with internet images focusing on the still-mysterious collapse of WTC 7.

In addition, 9/11 Blogger was the highest bidder of a recent Air America auction for a 1-minute on-air "rant", which airs tomorrow on Sam Seder's show between 11AM-NOON EST.

It's a shame, really, that 9/11 Blogger must pay to have the public hear the truth about the events surrounding 9/11. But when justice eventually prevails--and the evidence is so overwhelming it will--9/11 Blogger will have made Air America one of the handful of corporate-owned media outlets honest by airing the plethora of evidence countering the Official 9/11 Fairy Tale.



I've excerpted below 9/11 Blogger promo for its Air American "rant" tomorrow:

"Last month we won an auction for 1 minute of air time on Air America - specifically on the Sam Seder show. This 1 minute rant will air tomorrow (Thursday, March 15th) in the 3rd hour of the show which should be between 11AM and 12PM EST. Unfortunately 1 minute is not enough time to get much across. All I can hope is that we turn on at least a handful of honest Americans to stand up for our cause.

Here is the transcript:

---

In August of 2006, 9/11 family members released a statement questioning the "entire veracity" of the 9/11 Commission report. [1]

In September of 2006, a documentary entitled "9/11: Press For Truth" was released, and family members at the National Press Club called for a new investigation into the events of 9/11. [2]

In October of 2006 a New York Times poll found that only 16 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration is telling the truth about 9/11. [3]

NONE of these stories were covered by the so called 'progressive media'.

(It is time for the 'progressive media' to start covering these stories.)

It is time to stop pretending that the very basis of the so-called 'war on terror' is the ONLY subject that the Bush administration has NOT lied about.

Please visit 911pressfortruth.com, google video, or netflix.com for more information on 9/11: Press For Truth. And visit patriotsquestion911.com, or wtc7.net to start researching 9/11 today.

This is Michael Wolsey of visibility911.com on behalf of 911blogger.com, thank you for your time.

---

References:
[1]http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Group_of_widows_claim_911_Independent_...
[2]http://www.911podcasts.com/display.php?vid=167
[3]http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/134...

I would encourage users here to make their voices heard tomorrow by reaching out and challenging others in the 'progressive media'. You can email into the Sam Seder show at samsedershow{at}gmail.com, call into the show at 866-303-2270, or post comments on the show's online blog here.

While the money will eventually end up in the coffers of the YearlyKos convention (a not too friendly place for 9/11 skeptics), I hope that it still serves a greater purpose in getting even just one minute of challenging 9/11 onto the national airwaves (you know, since Mike Malloy is gone and all). But don't worry, I am quite sure that the YearlyKos convention will have a sizable 9/11 contention when it hits Chicago this August (more), and that the 9/11 community will make sure Air America hears us tomorrow.

Thank you to everyone who chipped into this fundraiser, and to Michael Wolsey for doing the recording for us. We hope to have a recording of the show by tomorrow afternoon, if you can rip it and share it please do so!"

Last week, George Bush began a six-day Latin America tour to convey a sense of abiding "social justice" while protesters and priests there oppose his "bad spirits."

After Columbia's nationwide protests and riots Wednesday in anticipation of his visit Sunday, George W. Bush began on Thursday his swing through five Latin America nations to welcoming riots in Brazil.

According to the Associated Press, Bush's trip "is widely viewed by analysts and Brazil's media as an attempt to neutralize [Venezuelan Socialist President Hugo] Chavez' influence in the region." Last September Chavez made international headlines when he called Bush "history's greatest killer" and "the devil."

Other sources suggest Bush's trip is indicative of his administration's concern over Latin America's increasingly "leftward tilt," i.e., growing anti-Americanism. The region's poverty apparently occasioned Bush to forgo his favorite public spiel on combating the war on terror.

In a part of the world where the U.S. invasion of Iraq is particularly unpopular, Bush is not talking much about the global war on terror. And while he won’t mention Chavez by name, his soft-sell pitch clearly is intended to counter the Venezuelan leader’s rising stature and rants that blame Latin America’s poverty on U.S.-style capitalism.

Moreover, after scaling back and even terminating domestic service programs to pay for the Iraq War--cuts in health care, housing (and here), education, etc., etc.-- Bush now will show Latin American his abiding concern for "social justice" by sending some of those American tax dollars south of the border.

During his six-day tour of Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, Bush plans to promote initiatives that expand on the usual U.S. regional agenda of trade agreements and counter-narcotics programs. He has announced new programs to train teachers in Latin America, the June arrival of a U.S. Navy medical ship that will provide health services in a dozen Latin American and Caribbean countries, low-income housing initiatives and a regional energy alliance to promote the production of ethanol.

But Guatemalan Indian priests ministering to a country populated mostly by indigenous peoples know very well the kind of man who on Monday will visit Iximche, a Mayan holy site.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan non-governmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

...Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace. He also said the rites — which entail chanting and burning incense, herbs and candles — would prepare the site for the third summit of Latin American Indians March 26-30.

It's uncertain if Bush concludes his Latin American tour in Mexico either on Tuesday or Wednesday. But the welcome he receives there may be no friendlier than the violent protests greeting him in Brazil and Columbia.

Note: Click here for a photo slide show of Bush's Latin American tour.

Posted to YouTube.com earlier this month, the 3-minute U.S. military- produced vid clip below features an innovative point-and-shoot laser pulsing weapon that, according to an accompanying online blurb, remains in development at the Northrop Grumman Corporation. (An 8-minute version of that clip also is available.)

Called the "Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser," MTHEL is a new order of killing machine. The firing demonstrations featured in the clip circa 2000-2001, but even then it easily exploded--in flight, in varying combinations--artillery shells, mortar rounds and rockets. You begin to realize this weapon eventually will take out even larger rockets or even aircraft, perhaps nuclear missile warheads as well.

Watch and get an appreciation for MTHEL's awesome power when a team of computer techies direct its infrared beams onto flying targets.



Now the difficult part. The 25-minute Italian TV report that follows claims that in 2003, during the US/UK-Iraqi battle for Baghdad's international airport, an "experimental" laser weapon resembling MTHEL's awesome capabilities was directed at Iraqis, many of them civilians in cars and buses trying to dodge the fighting.

As the report reveals, the U.S. military was rather ham-fisted in its attempt to physically cover up the aftermath.

Though the Italian TV report was posted to Google video last May, it has received surprising few views; it's difficult viewing. Around the 4:30 minute mark, an Iraqi doctor confides to the Italians his dismay and horror at seeing people brought into his hospital with injuries he had never before witnessed.



I found the Italian report last November and sent the Google video URL along with the email below to a mailing list of international Red Cross employees that includes U.S. Red Cross chapter executive directors.

Dear Red Crossers:

If you are brave enough to watch, the URL I've provided below offers you a small window onto the hell we Americans have allowed to be loosened on Iraqi innocents in our name and with our tax dollars.

Aren't you even remotely interested in knowing some of the real news coming out of Iraq, scrubbed from US reports, broadcast in Europe? Then here's your chance.

But I should warn you; the disturbing 25-minute TV news report by two Italian videographers (in English) graphically reveals the US military's deployment of illegal beam and energy-pulsing weaponry in Iraq. It isn't pretty.

If you choose to watch, perhaps you then are sufficiently moved to circulate the link among family and friends. I, for one, think American crimes against humanity documented in the report should abruptly end. I believe you will think so, too.

"Star Wars in Iraq," by Maurizio Torrealta and Sigfrido Ranucci for RAI 24 News, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3270057318896077743&q=Star+Wars+in+Iraq

Labels: crimes against humanity, Iraq War, laser weapons

In December, all 5'5" of Democrat Rep. Henry "Bulldog" Waxman bragged to the Associated Press he had "recreated [himself] as an investigator" of corruption during the 12-year (1994-2006) GOP House interregnum. In January he received subpoena power but Katrina had made him legislatively flaccid by February.

A 16-term House veteran, Henry Waxman epitomizes that ordinary Joe who, after years of envisioning a romantic interlude with a internationally famous supermodel, can't (or won't) consummate his desire when that rare opportunity actually befalls him.

Five weeks after November's midterm elections shifted congressional power to the Democrats, the Associate Press was chatting up the party's populist "Eliot Ness" crime fighter. Fresh from winning 71% of the votes in California's 30th Congressional District that includes some of Los Angeles' wealthiest outlying communities,(Beverly Hills, Malibu, etc.), Waxman was in line to chair the House's powerful Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It was Waxman who would rectify his GOP predecessors' abysmal oversight of an executive branch comporting itself like a Viagra-addicted Marquis de Sade on a all- expenses-taxpayer-funded Girls Gone Wild global war bender.

Waxman's O&GR Committee website even champions his own libertine lust for legislatively curbing such profligacy: "As set forth in House Rule X, clause 4, the Committee on Government Reform may, at any time, conduct investigations of any matter regardless of whether another standing committee has jurisdiction over the matter." [emphasis added] The website further notes Waxman in 1998 created "the Special Investigations Division to conduct investigations into issues that are important to members of the Government Reform Committee and other members of Congress."

Indeed, the outgoing Republican O&GR Committee chair who Waxman was replacing believed the Bush White House was in for a rough tumble once his cross-aisle colleague took over in 2007.

"There is just no question that life is going to be different for the administration," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia. "Henry is going to be tough. ... And he's been waiting a long time to be able to do this."

According to AP, Waxman "has spent the last six years investigating the White House and its corporate allies, focusing on everything from military contracts to Medicare prices from his perch on the Government Reform Committee." So what would be

Waxman's biggest challenge as he mulls what to probe?

"The most difficult thing will be to pick and choose," he said.

Katrina Breaks Waxman's Picker

All the advance media billing aside, a casual inspection of Chairman Waxman's investigative hearings into "waste, fraud and abuse" since the 110th Congress convened two months ago suggests Beltway Bandits and Heartland accomplices have little to fear over who and what Henry picks to probe.

According to the AP, Waxman's priority as committee chairman would include probing government contracts, especially involving Hurricane Katrina cleanup and related Department of Homeland Security contracts. An October 2006 Associated Press story had "reported instances in which the Katrina debris cleanup involved five layers of subcontractors. The Army Corps of Engineers refused to provide the cost figures specified in the master contracts and denied AP’s request for those figures, made under the Freedom of Information Act."

Of course, there's plenty more graft to go around in the government's post-Katrina reconstruction debacle. A progress report released 28 February by the Institute for Southern Studies reveals congressional oversight is long overdue in curtailing rampant mismanagement and contract fraud sabotaging the Gulf Coast region's rebuilding efforts.

A 31 January 2007 Democracy Now! news broadcast further revealed federal, state and city governments were welcoming only the very well- connected and affluent back to New Orleans while discouraging poorer former residents from returning.

Jamie “Bork” Loughner, a housing activist for uprooted Katrina victims, told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman that police SWAT teams were forcibly removing residents from structurally sound, livable public housing that Housing and Urban Development (HUD) inexplicably was targeting for demolition.

Moreover, New Orleans law professor and Hurricane Katrina victims' advocate Bill Quigley (quigley@loyno.edu) also cited evidence of a putative racist class war that was redistributing public relief funds earmarked for low-income residents to the city's predominately white business community. Besides revealing efforts by federal and state officials to stop his disclosures to the media, Quigley told Goodman

the tragedy is that they are using the money that Congress gave to the victims of Katrina, and they are what I call like a Robin Hood in reverse. They are stealing the money that should be coming to the low-income community, and instead converting that money and using it for property owners and the developers and the like. And in case of public housing, they're using Katrina tax credits, they're using Katrina rebuilding money in excess of $100 million and additional money to destroy houses that are structurally sound and are actually in better physical shape than almost any of the residential buildings in the city of New Orleans. So they are using money to help Katrina -- that was designated to help Katrina victims, to destroy affordable housing, put money into the pockets of developers and then put up some other housing that they're not going to let low-income people back into.

Loughner and Quigley's startling revelations of unchecked fraud, corruption, graft and intimidation make for must-see TV. You can watch Democracy Now!'s 12-minute online interview with them: 128k stream or 256K stream. Or just read the transcript here.

Question: So how is Chairman Waxman handling all this post-Katrina graft?
Answer: Pretending all's fine--including an impressive pre-2006 election backlog of Katrina fraud (September 2005-August 2006) his investigative staff compiled before he received subpoena power.

Among his pre-election investigations, Waxman found a dubious $236 million Department of Homeland Security contract with Carnival Cruise Line for three ships to provide temporary housing for post-Katrina evacuees. Three weeks after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Waxman sent a letter (pdf) to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff requesting documentation on the contract that cited taxpayer costs to house a family of five were an exorbitant $20,000 a month, much higher than community-based temporary housing options.

Perhaps it was Florida Governor and Presidential Bro Jeb Bush's role as Carnival Cruise Line's putative deal-maker in negotiating the generous contract that occasioned Chertoff to conclude he could completely blow off Waxman's letter. Similarly, Brother Jeb also blew off Waxman's subsequent 28 February 2006 letter inquiring into the governor's involvement in a deal reeking of quid pro quo payback for Carnival Cruise Line's $65,000 campaign contributions "to the Republican Party of Florida in advance of the 2002 gubernatorial election in which [Gov. Bush was] running for reelection."

But when Chairman Waxman convened hearings 8 February 2007 on Department of Homeland Security contracts, no mention was made his earlier Katrina reconstruction and contract probes. Instead, Waxman et al. "focused on two examples of multi-billion dollar contracts: the Deepwater program to develop new ships for the Coast Guard and the Secure Border Initiative to integrate technology and personnel to defend the nation’s borders."

Chertoff again ignored a 23 January 2007 letter Bulldog sent him requesting documentation of those two sets of contracts be turned over to his committee by 30 January. But since wasn't subpoenaed, he found no motivation in joining the list of witnesses volunteering information to Waxman et al. on the 8th.

Still, following that round of faux-committee hearings, Waxman cynically noted he had introduced "two bills to increase government transparency and encourage the discovery of waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money." What?!

Henry, you've already done that part of your job. Here's a newsflash: "YOU HAVE SUBPOENA POWER. YOU CAN SEND CHERTOFF A DOCUMENT MAKING IT MORE DIFFICULT FOR HIM TO BLOW YOU OFF." But according to a TalkingPointsMemo/Muckraker.com 1 March report, Chairman Waxman may have an apparent dysfunction regarding subpoenas. That may explain why Waxman has yet to issue one.

(Incidentally, the first four witnesses subpoenaed by the 110th Congress last week--four politically dismissed U.S. Assistant Attorneys summonsed by the House Judiciary Committee--requested them so they legally could speak to Congress.)

If there is a legislative equivalent to the virility drug Viagra, it's time Chairman Waxman begin a daily regime. The alternative is that ol' Bulldog becomes the congressional eunuch he currently is impersonating.

Katrina Postscript: Toxic New Orleans Neighborhoods; Bush Puts in Gulf Coast Appearance

Neighborhoods around New Orleans and elsewhere across Louisiana -- many in predominantly minority communities -- are facing toxic threats from dumpsites that have cropped up or expanded in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Environmental advocates detailed the growing problem in a hearing held earlier this week by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works titled "Moving Forward After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita."

The problem of construction and demolition ("C&D") debris disposal is enormous in storm-affected areas. In testimony before the committee, Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Mike McDaniel reported that Katrina and Rita generated more than 62 million cubic yards of debris -- enough to fill the Louisiana Superdome more than 10 times. And more is on the way: While 12,000 storm-damaged homes have been demolished to date, about 30,000 additional homes are slated for dismantling.--"Post Katrina Dumping Threatens Louisiana Communities," Facing South: Blogging for a Progressive South, 1 March 2007

[On 1 March] President Bush visited the Gulf Coast region for the first time in six months. Bush failed to mention Katrina in his 2007 State of the Union address, despite pledging one year earlier that he would "stay at it until they're back on their feet." Yesterday, he sought to "fight the perception that those whose lives were devastated by the August 2005 storm had fallen off his agenda," telling local residents the "federal government still knows you exist." In Biloxi, MS, Bush acknowledged that "there's a continued frustration with the slowness of federal response at times." Eighteen months after the storm hit, approximately 110,000 Katrina victims still live in trailers or receive rental assistance. "More than half of Orleans Parish's public schools and nearly 70 percent of its child-care centers remain closed while the limited hospital emergency rooms are 'saturated' with patients." Only 17 percent of New Orleans's public schools have reopened. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Education Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) plan to "unveil legislation that would pour $250 million into the city's hurricane-ravaged school system over the next five years." The bill would grant financial incentives to teachers and principals to stay in or move to New Orleans.-- Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney et al., Progress Report “Under the Radar: Bush visits the forgotten victims of Katrina,” Center for American Progress, 2 March 2007

Labels: Henry Waxman, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Hurricane Katrina

New Dem-led 110th Congress looks other way as public funds filched from the poor for projects for the well-off

After Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in September 2005, the Institute of Southern Studies' Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch "to document and investigate the rebuilding of the Southern Gulf in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita."

On Wednesday (28 February) the organization issued its second progress report in rebuilding the region, and results are little improved from the first report issued late last summer on the anniversary of Katrina's horrific landfall.

Here are some highlights from the recent update:

Total worth of 19 Katrina contracts that experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending or mismanagement: $8.75 billion

Amount that Hurricane Katrina spending waste could exceed this year because half of government cleanup contracts valued at $500,000 or greater being awarded with little competition: $1 billion

Since Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, the number of Louisiana homeowners who've received federal rebuilding aid: 94

The number of tenants who've received federal rebuilding aid: 0

Amount of federal funds Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour allocated to compensate homeowners without flood insurance: $3.4 billion

Amount Barbour allocated to rebuild public housing in impacted areas: $100 million

Amount he's allocated to assist owners of damaged rental properties: $0

Number of students put on waiting lists for New Orleans public schools in January 2007 because there was no room to accommodate them: 300

Number of teachers that Louisiana's state-run Recovery School District was short for 2007: 70

Proportion of Louisiana schools serving displaced students where class size increased: 1/3

Percent drop in enrollment of Louisiana state public colleges and universities from fall 2005 to fall 2006: 12

Damage sustained by local nonprofit health centers in Louisiana and Mississippi: $60 million

Amount of federal aid made available to those health centers to date, in the form of tax credits: $15 million

The number of adult inpatient psychiatric beds in post-Katrina New Orleans, compared to a pre-storm high of 234: 17

When New Orleans University Hospital reopened in November 2006, the number of its 575 pre-storm beds available: 85

Of the $300 million Louisiana requested to help hospitals and health care workers from the $2 billion pool Congress appropriated for post-storm health care needs, the amount that ar: $0

Estimated economic benefit each year of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, or “Mr. GO,” which experts say helped worsen the impact of Hurricane Katrina: $6.2 million

Annual cost of operating and maintaining Mr. GO: $12.5 million

Source: A New Agenda for the Gulf (pdf), Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch/Institute for Southern Studies, February 2007

Postscript: New Orleans Attorney/Advocate Bill Quigley Challenges the Fraud

Though Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has tried to censor Big Easy attorney Bill Quigley from speaking out about the agency's efforts to raze viable public housing in New Orleans "even while thousands of people are searching for affordable housing in the city," he insists on skewing reckless federal public housing officials. According to Facing South, the Institute of Southern Studies' award-winning magazine:

"As we reported, HUD has tried to gag Quigley for his criticisms, demanding he not speak to the press (Quigley has not complied.) The activists also recently won a legal victory when a judge refused to throw out their lawsuit saying housing officials are evicting people without due process. You can read more at Justice for New Orleans."

Quigley also appeared 31 January on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, telling her:

"And the tragedy is that they are using the money that Congress gave to the victims of Katrina, and they are what I call like a Robin Hood in reverse. They are stealing the money that should be coming to the low-income community, and instead converting that money and using it for property owners and the developers and the like. And in case of public housing, they're using Katrina tax credits, they're using Katrina rebuilding money in excess of $100 million and additional money to destroy houses that are structurally sound and are actually in better physical shape than almost any of the residential buildings in the city of New Orleans. So they are using money to help Katrina -- that was designated to help Katrina victims, to destroy affordable housing, put money into the pockets of developers and then put up some other housing that they're not going to let low-income people back into."

...and the new Democrat Congress has yet to investigate any of the ongoing shams and scams.

Labels: Hurricane Katrina, Institute of Southern Studies

Amid much glad-handing and DC Beltway ballyhoo, George W. Bush in 2002 signed into law his vaunted No Child Left Behind Act to make American education more competitive on the global market.

The thrust of the program requires all traditional school underachievers--low-income and minority (African-American, Hispanic and Native American) students--in all schools be "proficient" in reading and math by 2014.

But test results are not at all encouraging. Now five years into the program, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently has released a study that concludes "The measures of our educational shortcomings are stark indeed; most 4th and 8th graders are not proficient in either reading or mathematics."

In its 28 February 2007 daily Progress Report, the Center for American Progress, which assisted the Chamber of Commerce on the report, provided additional bad news on Bush's educational program.

by Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel, Payson Schwin, and Satyam Khanna

EDUCATION
Behind the Curve

For the United States to succeed in a new era of global competitiveness, the next generation needs to be equipped for the intellectual demands of the modern workplace. An alarming new state-by-state assessment of our nation's education system indicates that the United States is failing to prepare a 21st century workforce (click here to see an interactive map that breaks down the data). The new report card, produced by the Chamber of Commerce with assistance from the Center for American Progress, finds that there is not a single state in the country where a majority of 4th and 8th graders are proficient in math and reading. The report's aim is to identify both "leaders and laggards in the tough business of school performance" and to highlight the many areas needed for education improvement. The report card's conclusion is unambiguous: states need to do a far better job of monitoring and delivering quality schooling. As Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings noted recently, “The consensus for strengthening our high schools has never been stronger.” Progressives and conservatives are united around common goals for our education system -- better teaching, more innovation, better data, and better management. The report is one step in building the political will needed to "upend familiar arrangements and comfortable routines" and achieve much-needed reform.

WHO'S HOT AND WHO'S NOT: The study -- entitled "Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness" -- distributed grades for all 50 states and Washington, D.C., assessing each across nine different areas, including academic achievement of low-income and minority students, return on investment, rigor of standards, postsecondary and workforce readiness, 21st century teaching force and flexibility in management and policy. Massachusetts earned the top ranking overall, followed by Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Washington, D.C.'s school system ranked last in educational effectiveness, joined in the bottom tier with Mississippi, New Mexico, Alabama, Louisiana, Hawaii, Nevada, West Virginia, California, and Oklahoma. The report does find some good news amidst its largely disturbing survey: the states with large percentages of low-income and minority students score far better than others on achievement tests. Florida, Kansas, Texas, and Virginia stand out as case studies for achieving success with large percentages of low-income and minority student populations.... Read more

Labels: No Clild Left Behind