TBR News June 11, 2011

Jun 11 2011

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. June 11, 2011: “Here is part of a very interesting catalog of hitherto hidden CIA papers from the collection of a top CIA official that is coming up for publication on the Internet. Julian now has his rivals, though in quality, not quantity:

prq Inet Box 1206 SE 11479 Stockholm Sweden

DOCUMENT CATALOG

Catalog Number                   Description of Content

__________________________________________________________________________________

1000 BH           Extensive file (1,205 pages) of reports on Operation PHOENIX. Final paper dated January, 1971, first document dated  October, 1967. Covers the setting up of Regional Interrogation Centers, staffing, torture techniques including electric shock, beatings, chemical injections. CIA agents involved and includes a listing of U.S. military units to include Military Police, CIC and Special Forces groups involved. After-action reports from various military units to include 9th Infantry, showing the deliberate killing of all unarmed civilians located in areas suspected of harboring or supplying Viet Cong units.

1002 BH           Medium file (223 pages)  concerning the fomenting of civil disobedience in Chile as the result of the Allende election in 1970. Included are pay vouchers for CIA bribery efforts with Chilean labor organization and student activist groups, U.S. military units involved in the final revolt, letter from  T. Karamessines, CIA Operations Director to Chile CIA Station Chief Paul Wimert, passing along a specific order from Nixon via Kissinger to kill Allende when the coup was successful. Communications to Pinochet with Nixon instructions to root out by force any remaining left wing leaders.

1003 BH           Medium file (187 pages) of reports of CIA assets containing photographs of Soviet missile sites, airfields and other strategic sites taken from commercial aircraft. Detailed descriptions of targets attached to each picture or pictures.

1004 BH           Large file (1560 pages) of CIA reports on Canadian radio intelligence intercepts from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa (1958) and a list of suspected and identified Soviet agents or sympathizers in Canada, to include members of the Canadian Parliament and military.

1005 BH          Medium file (219 pages) of members of the German Bundeswehr in the employ of the CIA. The report covers the Innere Führung group plus members of the signals intelligence service. Another report, attached, covers CIA assets in German Foreign Office positions, in Germany and in diplomatic missions abroad.

1006:BH           Long file (1,287 pages) of events leading up to the killing of Josef Stalin in 1953 to include reports on contacts with L.P. Beria who planned to kill Stalin, believing himself to be the target for removal. Names of cut outs, CIA personnel in Finland and Denmark are noted as are original communications from Beria and agreements as to his standing down in the DDR and a list of MVD/KGB files on American informants from 1933 to present. A report on a blood-thinning agent to be made available to Beria to put into Stalin’s food plus twenty two reports from Soviet doctors on Stalin’s health, high blood pressure etc. A report on areas of cooperation between Beria’s people and CIA controllers in the event of a successful coup.

1007 BH           Short list (125 pages) of CIA contacts with members of the American media to include press and television and book publishers. Names of contacts with bios are included as are a list of payments made and specific leaked material supplied. Also appended is a shorter list of foreign publications. Under date of August, 1989 with updates to 1992. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, Bradlee of the same paper, Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson and others are included.

1008 BH           A file of eighteen reports (total of 899 pages) documenting illegal activities on the part of members of the U.S. Congress. First report dated July 29, 1950 and final one September 15, 1992. Of especial note is a long file on Senator McCarthy dealing with homosexuality and alcoholism. Also an attached note concerning the Truman Administration’s use of McCarthy to remove targeted Communists. These reports contain copies of FBI surveillance reports, to include photographs and reference to tape recordings, dealing with sexual events with male and female prostitutes, drug use, bribery, and other matters.

1009 BH           A long multiple file (1,564 pages) dealing with the CIA part (Kermit Roosevelt) in overthrowing the populist Persian prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Report from Dulles (John Foster) concerning a replacement, by force if necessary and to include a full copy of AJAX operation. Letters from AIOC on million dollar bribe paid directly to J.Angleton, head of SOG. Support of Shah requires exclusive contracts with specified western oil companies. Reports dated from May 1951 through August, 1953.

1010 BH           Medium file (419 pages) of telephone intercepts made by order of J.J. Angleton of the telephone conversations between RFK and one G.N. Bolshakov. Phone calls between 1962-1963 inclusive. Also copies of intercepted and inspected mail from RFK containing classified U.S. documents and sent to a cut-out identified as one used by Bolshakov, a Russian press (TASS) employee. Report on Bolshakov’s GRU connections.

1011 BH           Large file (988 pages) on 1961 Korean revolt of Kwangju revolt led by General Park Chung-hee and General Kin-Jong-pil. Reports on contacts maintained by CIA station in Japan to include payments made to both men, plans for the coup, lists of “undesirables” to be liquidated  Additional material on CIA connections with KCIA personnel and an agreement with them  to assassinate South Korean chief of state, Park, in 1979.

1012 BH           Small file (12 pages) of homosexual activities between FBI Director Hoover and his aide, Tolson. Surveillance pictures taken in San Francisco hotel and report by CIA agents involved. Report analyzed in 1962.

1013 BH           Long file (1,699 pages) on General Edward Lansdale. First report a study signed by DCI Dulles in  September of 1954 concerning a growing situation in former French Indo-China. There are reports by and about Lansdale starting with his attachment to the OPC in 1949-50 where he and Frank Wisner coordinated policy in neutralizing Communist influence in the Philippines.. Landsale was then sent to Saigon under diplomatic cover and many copies of his period reports are copied here. Very interesting background material including strong connections with the Catholic Church concerning Catholic Vietnamese and exchanges of intelligence information between the two entities.

1014 BH           Short file (78 pages) concerning  a Dr. Frank Olson. Olson was at the U.S. Army chemical warfare base at Ft. Detrick in Maryland and was involved with a Dr. Gottleib. Gottleib was working on a plan to introduce psychotic-inducing drugs into the water supply of the Soviet Embassy. Apparently he tested the drugs on CIA personnel first. Reports of psychotic behavior by Olson and more police and official reports on his defenstration by Gottleib’s associates. A cover-up was instituted and a number of in-house CIA memoranda attest to this. Also a discussion by Gottleib on various poisons and drugs he was experimenting with and another report of people who had died as a result of Gottleib’s various experiments and CIA efforts to neutralize any public knowledge of these.

1015 BH           Medium file (457 pages) on CIA connections with the Columbian-based Medellín drug ring. Eight CIA internal reports, three DoS reports, one FBI report on CIA operative Milan Rodríguez and his connections with this drug ring. Receipts for CIA payments to Rodríguez of over $3 million in CIA funds,showing the routings of the money, cut-outs and payments. CIA reports on sabotaging  DEA investigations. A three-part study of the Nicaraguan Contras, also a CIA-organized and paid for organization.

1016 BH           A small file (159 pages) containing lists of known Nazi intelligence and scientific people recruited in Germany from 1946 onwards, initially by the U.S. Army and later by the CIA. A detailed list of the original names and positions of the persons involved plus their relocation information. Has three U.S. Army and one FBI report on the subject.

1017 BH           A small list (54 pages) of American business entities with “significant” connections to the CIA. Each business is listed along with relevant information on its owners/operators, previous and on going contacts with the CIA’s Robert Crowley, also a list of national advertising agencies with similar information. Much information about suppressed news stories and planted stories.

1018 BH           A large file (875 pages) concerning Operation PBFORTUNE, the overthrow of Guatemalan president Arbenz at the urgent request of top officials of the United Fruit Company (Levy and Zentner-UFCO) A file under date of January 26,  1952 in which plans were made to kill 58 Guatemalan leaders by CIA-trained assassins. This had the full approval of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower. Payments to Lt, Carlos C. Armas. German WWII weapons bought by INTERARMCO from the Communist Polish authorities and shipped to Honduras for use in the coup. The disposal of Arbenz Guzman and later, the CIA assassination of Armas (who was following through on the expropriation of UFCO property.) Payments by UFCO to Dulles and the Eisenhower people via his Library listed (total $500,000)

-cont.-

Prosecution of NSA Whistleblower Collapses

June 10, 2011

by Scott Horton

Harper’s

The Obama Administration’s highly touted effort to prosecute Thomas A. Drake, a former senior National Security Agency official, for violations of the Espionage Act due to his disclosure of pervasive fraud, waste, and abuse connected with a $1-billion surveillance-technology contract has collapsed in a federal court in Baltimore. In a plea-bargain arrangement, Drake agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of misuse of a government computer, while prosecutors agreed not to push for jail time. The Espionage Act charges that formed the core of the prosecution are being withdrawn.

Drake, the winner of this year’s Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling, for the exact actions that led to his prosecution, allegedly disclosed to the Baltimore Sun’s Siobhan Gorman evidence of gross corruption and ineptitude in the management of the “Trailblazer” data management contract by the NSA. Gorman’s articles on this subject, which contributed to the unraveling of the NSA’s Bush-authorized program of warrantless domestic surveillance, won her the prestigious Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award for Washington correspondence.

The Drake prosecution is one of five cases in which a U.S. government has invoked the Espionage Act to punish whistleblowers. The Nixon Administration set the precedent when it went after Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo in 1971, an effort that failed when the courts concluded that the federal government had engaged in seriously abusive conduct, including numerous criminal acts, in pursuing the case. A more recent prosecution, the Bush Administration’s efforts against two former AIPAC employees, fell apart in the face of a federal judge who was skeptical about the use of the Espionage Act in such circumstances. In the Drake case, Judge Richard D. Bennett similarly ruled that the prosecution would have to share evidence concerning the supposedly classified programs with the defense and the jury, which led the prosecution to drop the charges.

Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, told the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer that the prosecution was “almost obligatory” (even though it was only the fifth such prosecution in history) because “you don’t get to break the law and disclose classified information just because you want to.” He added, “Politics should play no role in it whatsoever.”

In fact, every administration in modern history has been plagued by leakers and whistleblowers, but only two (those of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush) have chosen to deal with them in the heavy-handed way that Breuer has advocated. Sometimes leaks are politically motivated—coming from disloyal civil servants who want to see the administration wounded or compromised politically. But at least as frequently, leaks are motivated by concerns about lawless conduct, abuse, fraud and waste. The leaker understands that internal complaints regularly fall on deaf ears and that congressional oversight is often weak or politically undermined. He likely feels that only the public attention that follows exposure in the media will yield results. Drake’s motives are unambiguous. He has a strong record of public service, has received important awards, and is widely viewed as a patriotic, conscientious whistleblower whose actions embarrassed political figures but did not harm national security.

Breuer’s remarks and the Justice Department’s management of the case therefore raise some serious questions. In point of fact, confidential and classified information is leaked every day inside the Beltway, and it rarely has legal repercussion. The truth is that criminal investigations and prosecutions follow almost solely for political reasons. When Barack Obama’s closest intimates disclose highly classified information regarding military operations in Afghanistan to Bob Woodward, for publication in Obama’s Wars, or when John O. Brennan dangles tantalizing morsels before the media about Anwar al-Awlaki and the White House’s decision to authorize the use of lethal force against him, these disclosures, though unauthorized, serve a momentary political purpose of the government, and are thus immune from any thought of prosecution. The same can be said of the leaks of Alberto Gonzales, Richard Shelby, Pete Hoeckstra, and Dick Cheney.

By contrast, Drake’s disclosures embarrassed senior figures at the NSA. Similarly, those of ex-CIA agent Jeffrey A. Sterling disclosed a wildly inept CIA caper in Iran. It was predictable that senior figures in each agency would press for prosecutions, claiming national security concerns as their rationale even as experienced and astute observers see instead a skillful effort at political damage control.

The Justice Department’s use of the Espionage Act to menace legitimate whistleblowers raises troubling questions about its ability to make reasoned prosecutorial judgments in this area. Its actions reveal contempt for whistleblowers and the statutes Congress enacted to protect them, and a posture of servility towards the government’s national security apparatus. The department’s failure to investigate fraud and abuse in this sector, and its decision to lavish precious resources on the persecution of those who spotlight corruption suggests that its clientism has supplanted its fidelity to the Constitution and laws.

But its ability to salvage a misdemeanor plea from the collapsed Drake case also demonstrates the tremendous power that it wields—a power sufficient to compel an innocent and righteous man to plead guilty to a charge of which he is obviously innocent. The judge should reject the plea bargain and dismiss the case. And the Justice Department should take this as an opportunity to reassess its failed strategies in the troubled area where civil liberties and national security interests converge.

The cold hard cash counter-revolution

June 10, 2011

by Pepe Escobar

Asia Times

The counter-revolution, paraphrasing the late, great soul jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron, will not be televised; it will float downstream flush with hard cash. Take Egypt. The House of Saud has just given Supreme Military Council leader Field Marshall Tantawi US$4 billion in cold hard cash – although not even the Sphinx knows for sure how much power Tantawi, 75, deposed tyrant Hosni Mubarak’s former minister of defense, really wields.

Washington extended Cairo $1 billion in “debt forgiveness” and another $1 billion in loan guarantees. Not much – compared to what Washington extends to Israel, but still a signal. And then theInternational Monetary Fund extended an extra $3 billion in loans. The “new” Egypt will start to do business already bound in unforgiving chains.

This goes a long way to explain how the “opening” of Rafah – the border with Gaza – was not really an opening. The quota of free-moving Gazans is a maximum of 400 a day; and no less than 5,000 Gazans remain blacklisted. So essentially the gulag situation remains similar to Mubarak-sanctioned levels.

This also goes a long way to explain why now you see it/now you don’t tentative Egyptian presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei is now on an overdrive charm offensive on Saudi media – singing the praises of King Abdullah while performing the contortionism of ignoring frenetic Saudi support for Mubarak until (and beyond) the last minute.

Cash is king

In Yemen, the House of Saud is – what else – buying Yemeni tribes with cold hard cash, in the name of “stability in the region”. Even though it is living up to its reputation of prime asylum for fleeing Arab dictators, the House of Saud officially is in favor of President Abdullah Saleh stepping down in the name of “less bloodshed and less unpredictability”.

The House of Saud insists – no irony intended – Saleh is being hosted for “humanitarian motives”. Officially, the House of Saud also abhors a “power vacuum”. Said vacuum nonetheless remains quite persistent, now coupled with fears of “rising chaos”. Washington, meanwhile, scans the horizon frantically trying to spot any dronable al-Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula (AQAP) “targets”.

If Saleh ships himself back to Yemen that could only happen because the House of Saud said so. So we have a situation where Saleh’s son Ali is commanding the elite Republican Guard – from inside the presidential palace – and his four cousins are also in control of key military units. The current “acting” leader, Vice President Abdu-Rabo Mansur Hadi, is a figurehead.

Saudi Arabia seems to condone, for now, this theoretically vacuum-cleaned power arrangement. As for the wide-ranging Yemeni protest movement, their only shot now would be to force Hadi to hang on, push for a transitional government, and try to quell the counter-revolution, directed by Saleh’s family, with people power. If that’s the case, the House of Saud will brutally – and directly – step in.

In Bahrain, the House of Saud explicitly supports the National Human Rights Organization; no wonder, its head was appointed by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa last year, so the organization must support the ruling dynasty – yet not as much as the Saudi masters. Bahrain’s really independent human-rights organizations, meanwhile, have had their leading activists arrested and facing military trials.

And just like a thief in the dead of night, who sneaked into Washington to be received at the White House by US President Barack Obama this past Tuesday? No one else than Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman al-Khalifa.

There was no press conference. There were no pictures. It’s like this conversation would self-destruct in five seconds – but it did take place, between a drone-heavy Nobel Peace Prize and the head of the military of a Persian Gulf American satrapy which is busy toppling its own people. No amount of rhetoric will alter the math: Washington fully backs outright repression all across the Persian Gulf – to the extreme delight of the House of Saud.

He is heavy, he’s no brother

Then there’s the Muslim Brotherhood question – essential in the context of the carefully orchestrated US/Saudi counter-revolution.

The Muslim Brotherhood is being instrumentalized by the House of Saud all across the board, from Syria to Egypt. In Egypt, the reactionary old guard Brotherhood is working very close with the Military Council; “rewards” for good behavior by both Washington and Riyadh should be in the works.

Clearly this won’t translate as an endorsement of ElBaradei – whose appeal is towards disenfranchised young people, liberals, a few leftists and a smatter of progressive Islamists who defected from the “traditional” Muslim Brotherhood.

As for the even more reactionary Salafis, they are now getting into Facebook groups, in a public relations offensive to try to improve their dreadful image and sort of mingle with “other intellectual and political currents”.

Saudi media meanwhile is awash with their own public relations extolling the merits of the kingdom and denigrating the “corruption of the ruling family and its cronies” in selected Arab republics such as Syria and Libya. According to the official platform of the Gulf Counter-Revolution Club, also known as Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), all Arab monarchies are as virtuous as virgins in paradise.

As the cold hard cash counter-revolution goes on, the future of the great 2011 Arab revolt looks grimmer and grimmer. It all depends on how forcefully the Tahrir Square spirit will keep the Military Council in Egypt in check. And how progressive forces in Egypt, Yemen and beyond find ways to counterpunch the relentless impact of the House of Saud oil wealth.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). Share this page

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TwitterMexico drugs war: Corruption grows on US border

June 10, 2011

BBC News

Mexican drug cartels are increasingly targeting American border guards and customs agents with bribes and sexual favours, a US security official says.

Charles Edwards of the US Department of Homeland Security told a Senate committee the cartels were using what he called systematic corruption to smuggle drugs and migrants into the US.

He said the cartels were also seeking tip-offs about police investigations.

Another official said 127 US agents had been arrested or tried since 2004.

Alan Bersin, the US customs and border protection commissioner, said Mexico’s offensive against the cartels combined with the rise in the hiring of border agents in recent years has multiplied the risks of corruption.

Mr Edwards named the Zetas cartel as being involved increasingly in systematic corruption.

It came in the form of monetary bribes, sexual favours and other methods to encourage border agents to assist drug traffickers, those involved in smuggling undocumented immigrants, or to ignore their activity, he said.

U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes

June 8, 2011
by Mark Mazetti
New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.

The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.

On Friday, American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived.

The recent operations come after a nearly year-long pause in American airstrikes, which were halted amid concerns that poor intelligence had led to bungled missions and civilian deaths that were undercutting the goals of the secret campaign.

Officials in Washington said that the American and Saudi spy services had been receiving more information — from electronic eavesdropping and informants — about the possible locations of militants. But, they added, the outbreak of the wider conflict in Yemen created a new risk: that one faction might feed information to the Americans that could trigger air strikes against a rival group.

A senior Pentagon official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that using force against militants in Yemen was further complicated by the fact that Qaeda operatives have mingled with other rebels and antigovernment militants, making it harder for the United States to attack without the appearance of picking sides.

The American campaign in Yemen is led by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, and is closely coordinated with the Central Intelligence Agency. Teams of American military and intelligence operatives have a command post in Sana, the Yemeni capital, to track intelligence about militants in Yemen and plot future strikes.

Concerned that support for the campaign could wane if the government of Yemen’s authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, were to fall, the United States ambassador in Yemen has met recently with leaders of the opposition, partly to make the case for continuing American operations. Officials in Washington said that opposition leaders have told the ambassador, Gerald M. Feierstein, that operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula should continue regardless of who wins the power struggle in Sana.

The extent of America’s war in Yemen has been among the Obama administration’s most closely guarded secrets, as officials worried that news of unilateral American operations could undermine Mr. Saleh’s tenuous grip on power. Mr. Saleh authorized American missions in Yemen in 2009, but placed limits on their scope and has said publicly that all military operations had been conducted by his own troops.

Mr. Saleh fled the country last week to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia after rebel shelling of the presidential compound, and more government troops have been brought back to Sana to bolster the government’s defense.

“We’ve seen the regime move its assets away from counterterrorism and toward its own survival,” said Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But as things get more and more chaotic in Yemen, the space for the Americans to operate in gets bigger,” he said.

But Mr. Boucek and others warned of a backlash from the American airstrikes, which over the past two years have killed civilians and Yemeni government officials. The benefits of killing one or two Qaeda-linked militants, he said, could be entirely eroded if airstrikes kill civilians and lead dozens of others to jihad.

Edmund J. Hull, ambassador to Yemen from 2001 to 2004 and the author of “High-Value Target: Countering Al Qaeda in Yemen,” called airstrikes a “necessary tool” but said that the United States had to “avoid collateral casualties or we will turn the tribes against us.”

Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen is believed by the C.I.A. to pose the greatest immediate threat to the United States, more so than even Qaeda’s senior leadership believed to be hiding in Pakistan. The Yemen group has been linked to the attempt to blow up a transatlantic jetliner on Christmas Day 2009 and last year’s plot to blow up cargo planes with bombs hidden inside printer cartridges.

Mr. Harithi, the militant killed on Friday, was an important operational figure in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was believed to be one of those responsible for the group’s ascendance in recent years. According to people in Yemen close to the militant group, Mr. Harithi travelled to Iraq in 2003 and fought alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian operative who led the Qaeda affiliate in Iraq until he was killed in an American strike in 2006. Mr. Harithi returned to Yemen in 2004, those close to the militants said, where he was captured, tried and imprisoned in 2006 but released three years later.

Even as senior administration officials worked behind the scenes with Saudi Arabia for a transitional government to take power in Yemen, a State Department spokesman on Wednesday called on the embattled government in Sana to remain focused on dealing with the rebellion and Qaeda militants.

“With Saleh’s departure for Saudi Arabia, where he continues to receive medical treatment, this isn’t a time for inaction,” said the spokesman, Mark Toner.  “There is a government that remains in place there, and they need to seize the moment and move forward.”

Muhammad al-Ahmadi contributed reporting from Sana, Yemen, and Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane from Washington.

Aggressive Fungal Infection Striking Joplin Victims

June 10, 2011

by Kim Carollo

ABC News

At least eight victims of the tornado in Joplin have become ill with suspected fungal infections, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

Three of those people died, although the Jasper County coroner said so far, only one victim is believed to have died directly as a result of the fungal infection. The other two victims, who died in a neighboring county, endured other injuries or had other medical conditions that could have contributed to their deaths.

Dr. Uwe Schmidt, a specialist in infectious diseases at Freeman Health System in Joplin, said he has treated five patients with an invasive fungal infection known as zygomycosis, which they likely contracted from soil or debris that came into contact with soil.

This diagnosis has not yet been confirmed, however. Samples were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for testing.

Schmidt said the patients were admitted on May 23, and the staff started noticing mold growing out of their wounds one week later.

“These people had multiple severe lacerations and wound infections,” Schmidt said. “Biopsies indicated tissue invasion by a fungus.” In some cases, damage to the tissues is severe.

Fungus Everywhere, but Few People Get Sick

The fungi that cause zygomycosis, also known as mucormycosis, are found in soil almost everywhere.

“Under normal circumstances, they very rarely cause human disease,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “The only people who usually get infected with these fungi are people who are immunocompromised.”

“People with normal immune systems are only at risk with overwhelming exposure or with significant trauma,” said Dr. Michele Morris, clinical chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

The tornado that ripped through Joplin provided the perfect opportunity for the fungi to enter the body through open wounds, Schaffner said.

In some cases, the fungus can spread into the blood and cut off blood supply and then invade the internal organs, but that hasn’t happened to any of Schmidt’s patients yet.

Mucormycosis is also often seen in patients with very severe, uncontrolled diabetes. It can cause infection of the sinuses and brain.

The infection doesn’t spread from person to person and does not invade normal, intact skin.

Morris said treatment generally includes antifungal medications and surgical removal of dead tissue. Keeping wounds very clean is another key component of treatment.

Doctors say it’s very important for people who do have wounds to keep a close eye on them.

“If they have wounds which they suffered during the tornado that aren’t healing and are getting worse with increasing redness, swelling or tissue necrosis, they should be evaluated by a physician and should be biopsied,” said Schmidt.

They also stress there isn’t a need to panic.

“This is not an infection likely to spread through any population,” said Morris.

The Great Title Insurance Fraud

June 8, 2011

by Neil Garfield

One of the main things is that the homeowner is relying upon the title company to do its job and is relying upon the title company’s representation of the status of title. But the title companies maintain that theirs is only a contract that states the risk they are willing to undertake and NOT a representation as to the status of title. As a practical matter, when I brought it up, they conceded that if that position were upheld, the buyer of a piece of property would never know if he/she was really getting title unless they ordered a title abstract or otherwise ordered an extra service from the title company. The title agents do not offer this extra service, You must know about it and ask for it and pay for it.

BOTTOM LINE: Title examiners when presented with specific facts are universally applying the same standards and reaching the same conclusions: a mortgage that does not have the correct legal description, a foreclosure sale that is defective, a table funded loan in which the mortgagee or beneficiary is not the party who was the actual lender and therefore not possessed of an insurable interest.

Hence we have a left-handed statement that completely corroborates what we have been saying on these pages — that the pretenders are just that, pretending to be lenders, and that the original mortgage is a void wild deed that does not in fact create a security interest in the property but instead describes a transaction that occurred between people who were not made party to the signed documents. It is the same as a bad legal description of the property itself.

The documents do not describe the right parties or the right transaction. That leaves a potential obligation hanging out there, but not owed to any of the securitizers unless they can show they loaned the money, they didn’t get paid for it, or that they purchased the loan and didn’t get paid for it.

1. INSURABLE INTEREST (RELATES TO STANDING AND REAL PARTY IN INTEREST): Title insurance only applies if there is an insurable interest. It was universally accepted by the conference (including those who were there to protect the interests of the banks and pretenders), that an insurable interest includes two elements: (a) a recorded instrument naming that party and (b) an economic interest in the property. Thus if we take the position that an insurable interest is based upon law and not just policy, it can be argued that in the absence of an insurable interest, the title company will not issue the policy and the Court should not and may not validate the interest, since it is ipso facto, uninsurable.

2. DUTY TO INQUIRE: As the number of transfer of the “indebtedness” (the note) increases, the duty to inquire increases, and the more nervous the title examiner or transactional lawyer becomes.

3. PRODUCE THE NOTE: Producing the note is universally accepted as law despite some court decisions to the contrary. In Florida and other states the forecloser must produce and tender the original note to the court in order to obtain an order from a Judge to sell the property, and without the note, the forecloser cannot submit a credit bid. So even if the Judge lets the case go through, the sale can be attacked as being no sale (Void, not voidable) because the forecloser did not comply with the requirements of law to establish itself as the creditor.

4. PARTIES IN POSSESSION: Title insurance policies universally have an exception for the rights of the parties in possession. Presumably that means at the time of the transaction. So if the transaction was are financing (which accounts for more than half of all mortgage transactions, the party in possession is the homeowner. The argument can be made that the title carrier made the exception — and that assuming they are experts in title — that exclusion should be used in any litigation of the parties regardless of whether the issue involves the title policy. Thus the homeowner’s rights include multiple affirmative defenses, counterclaims and cross claims which need to be heard in a hearing in which actual evidence is heard which means that actual COMPETENT witnesses must be heard to authenticate any documents proffered into evidence.

5. IDENTITY OF PARTIES: Any situation in which the named insured on the title policy is different than the instrument on record identifying the mortgagee or beneficiary results in an uninsurable interest which can be translated as non-marketable title. Hence the originated loan documents prove that the transaction was a table-funded loan in which the true lender was not disclosed. This means the original documents are fatally defective and cannot be cured without the signature of the borrower or a Court order which would require a hearing in which actual evidence is heard which means that actual COMPETENT witnesses must be heard to authenticate any documents proffered into evidence.

6. CREDIT BID AND CREDITOR: Only a creditor may submit a credit bid. If anyone else bids, the Trustee or clerk usually has no discretion but to issue a certificate of title (deed) which gives clear title to the grantee, which can either be the borrower or someone standing in for the borrower.

7. Title insurance is not a magic bullet. It does not prove the status of title.

8. UNRECORDED INSTRUMENTS AND EXCEPTIONS: Generally unrecorded instruments are not covered by title insurance. In Arizona and other states there is general acceptance of the idea that based upon statute and ATLA standards successors in interest to the debt do not need a new title policy. BY inference this would mean that they are giving credence to the idea that the mortgage follows the note, whether the transfer was recorded or not. But upon questioning the experts who delivered the presentation agreed that as the number of transfers increased the transaction becomes suspicious and that the rule regarding successors was probably meant for single transfers.

9. REGISTRATION AND GOOD STANDING OF CORPORATE ENTITIES: A transfer by a corporation not in good standing in the state or states in which it is required to be registered may not transact business nor bring any judicial proceeding. Mere ownership of property is not considered doing business. But a pattern of conduct of transactions is all that is needed. If the entities (any of them) that are involved in the chain of title are either defunct or in bankruptcy, any assignment, allonge or other instrument is invalid. It can be cured but there are time limits on how long they have before they cure, and it may be that reinstatement may require a name change. After 6 months in Arizona the name of the entity that should have registered is up for grabs which means you can incorporate under that name. What you can do with that name is an interesting proposition that was not discussed.

10.CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS: Conflicts of interests apparent on the face of the document or otherwise known to the title examiner create a duty to inquire. Therefore, since the usual pattern is that these documents are created after notice of default and usually after the matter is in litigation and sometimes not until hours or days before a hearing in which the documents need to be produced, the matter is a question of fact that needs to be decided after hearing evidence which requires competent witnesses testifying from personal knowledge.

11.BOARD RESOLUTION REQUIRED: No officer may sign a deed without board resolution. It is possible that estoppel, waiver or apparent authority might apply in the situation where the complaining party is a bona fide third party arms-length purchaser for value.

12. IMPUTATION OF KNOWLEDGE: In Arizona the knowledge of the Trustee is not imputed to the Lender, but there is no reference or prohibition against imputing the knowledge of the Lender to the Trustee. The practice of ALWAYS substituting trustees instead of using the old one is a cover for the fact that the old trustee would probably ask some questions rather than simply follow orders and send the notice of default, notice of sale etc.

Conversations with the Crow

When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert  T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.

Crowley did not listen to them (no one else ever does, either) and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.

Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:

http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm

Here is the seventy seventh  chapter

Conversation No. 77

Date: Tuesday, March 4, 1997

Commenced: 2:30 PM CST

Concluded:

GD: It’s a little late in the day., Robert. Am I OK on my timing?

RTC: Not a problem, Gregory. Lunch is over long ago. I did hear from Bill last night about that material on Hillary.

GD: What about it?

RTC: Oh, it’s all true but it will never get into the papers. Those things never do.

GD: Some of it, the stuff about Bob Treuhaft in Oakland, did. In the Chronicle.

RTC: A fluke. What was your source?
GD: Military collector who was also in the California State Police office in Sacramento. He copied the file and sent it to me.

RTC: Well, they aren’t up for reelection so there’s no point in beating a dead horse. But not a surprise.

GD: I suppose with her background, when they get out of office, the pair of them, she can become the mayor of Skokie or if we have another Democrat president, the ambassador to Israel.

RTC: Sad to say but they’re everywhere you look these days. Back in the reign of Franklin I, they filled the ranks of State and stood right next to the Oval Office. Of course, they pilfered all our secrets and sent them off to Russia. That was their new homeland, after all, and Stalin loved them. Or so they thought. When Bill and I were working on our KGB book, I discovered that Joe hated them and when they managed to kill him with rat poison, was planning a super pogrom in Moscow. No, the regular Russians loathe and fear them and now that Putin is coming up, they are fleeing to Israel like fleas leaving a dead dog. The problem with this, as we know, is that the ranks of Israeli intelligence are now full of fresh blood what with the refusedniks pouring into the country and believe me, Gregory, any scrap of secret information, every secret code, that we mistakenly give to the Israeli government will end up in Moscow about ten seconds after they get it. Multiply Pollard about a hundred times and you’ll see the real picture. I told Jim dozens of times to keep away from the Hebrews but Jim never listened. He was hip deep with the mob but they weren’t trying to sell the dreaded white man down the river like the Jews do. My God, I wouldn’t let them into my department because I know what they’re like but they’ve gotten in the door elsewhere.  Polland was only the tip of a huge iceberg.

GD: None of that comes as a great surprise. They managed to start the Second World War and I agree that they pumped Stalin full of state secrets and you know my connection with the Pollard business. In any other country, they would have taken the little shit out for a very long walk on a very short pier. Well, maybe some patriotic con will get an early parole by sticking a file into his liver.

RTC: One hopes, one hopes. But in a way, I feel sorry for Russia. That was quite a game after Yeltsin got in, let me tell you. Old Boris the drunk was ours, bought and paid for. The drill was for Boris to privatize the Russian natural resources and let our people…our oil people really…get their hands on everything. How did we do it? We located a bunch of street thugs. Drug dealers, whoremongers, porn merchants and especially extortionists, set them up as businessmen, get them funded, let them buy up all  the oil, steel and aluminum former Soviet corporations and then sell the stock off to our companies. The thing is, all of these thugs and murderers, because that’s what they are, are Jewish street bandits, all of them. And they got their co-religionists in the IMF and the World Bank to help them with capital both from us and from Israel. And they did buy up everything at rigged auctions and they did make deals with the big US oil people. You fancy yourself a newspaperman , Gregory? I’ll give you an inside story but I beg you not to use me as a source….

GD: Never…

RTC: An Israeli owns the Bank of New York and they are using it to launder billions in stolen Jewish Mafia money. I mean money from Russia. Billions. And our people have been helping the Hebes set up Swiss bank accounts. Before that, they used to keep the money under the bed in bags but now they can buy expensive suits, that the tasteless shits wear with tennis shoes, and strut their stuff in international society. I can give you some inside information on this and you could expose some of it. It needs to be done but you’ll never see a word of it in the New York Times or the Post. Why not? Because these organs of truth and light are owned by Jews and Jews never go after their own kind.

GD: I could go to Carto. He would love this.

RTC: Any old port in a story, Gregory. I have names. One of my friends down there gave them to me.

GD: I have good connections with the Swiss. If I could get the names, perhaps I could get the account information.  The Bank of New York?
RTC: Yes. One of the oldest banks in this country. Hamilton founded it. The Jews have it now and more money goes in and out of it than the US Treasury. Kimmel knows about this so do not ever tell him about this conversation or that you are working on this. I can send you my entire file on all of this and you can take it from there. And if you have friends in Switzerland, be sure to look for the black accounts, not the white ones. These greaseballs always have a white account with a few thousand in it and a black one with billions. That way, if an official request is made, say be us, the Swiss can put up a show of resistance and then break down and give us the smaller one. The black accounts.

GD: Sounds good.

RTC: And I can give you the name of at least two Russian intelligence people here who are disguised as newspaper men and you can contact either or both and pass on the information. They would love you, Gregory, and it might lead you to make more friends. You certainly wouldn’t have any in the Jewish camp.

That moron Bronfman, the booze king, has delusions of grandeur, and thinks he is going to push the Swiss around so you can kick him in his flabby ass for me. My God, I hate to deal with these swine, believe me. The biggest pack of thieves, murderers and back stabbers I have ever run into and believe me, I have seen them all. And there’re a lot more bits and pieces I can pull together for you but again, mention none of this to Kimmel and if he ever starts to talk about this, say nothing. Understood?

GD: Is the FBI involved?

RTC: Not that I know but they all suck on the same tit so be careful.

GD: What do you see as the end result of outing them?
RTC: Hopefully, enough publicity to slow them down in this country. They own the press and the banks and dig in like maggots in a side of beef so if the public gets wind of the enormity of their thefts, they can watch them. Ah, but in Russia, the Putin people will love you. Putin, as I understand it, wants to stop this drain on Russian oil and kick the Jews out of power. And, of course, like a good KGB officer that he is, kick the US in the nuts. But, I think uprooting the Hebrews and outing them outweighs a boot in the testes.

GD: Collateral damage.

RTC: How astute, Gregory. Let me tell you, my boy, the whole world would be far better off if some rag head set off an atomic bomb in downtown Tel Aviv during Passover. I know that sounds terrible but from my years of experience, that game would well be worth the candle. I tell you, if we don’t put a stop to their burrowing,  treachery and high treason, those filthy Yids will drag us into a nasty war with the Arabs. I mean it. None of them care a fig about this country. Everything for that miserable habitat of warped trolls and nothing for anyone else. No wonder they have been hated and persecuted for thousands of years. The Romans had a wonderful chance to advance civilization by killing them all off but they missed their opportunity.

GD: The tsars should have chased them all into Siberia and we would have been spared Bolshevism.

RTC: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And now they want to kill off all the Arabs in the Near East and move into their homes. And they would expect us to help them. I tell you that if we don’t get our nose out of Israel’s hairy ass, the Arabs will come after us as well. America has no business over there and Israel is not our friend. America is full of white Christians and Jews hate all Christians and do their best to rape, loot and pillage us, all in the name of greater Israel. Well, not in my lifetime but maybe in yours, Gregory, in yours.

GD: If you send me the papers, I will do my best.

RTC: Expose and derail. They have already looted England and Poland and now they’re raping Russia and we’re next on the menu.  And their creepy Mossad agents are crawling all over this country as well. The FBI knows about this so that’s one of the reasons to keep quiet around Kimmel. You tell him anything hot and juicy and Tom will burn the line to the headquarters. Once they have it, the Jews will have their hands on it in seconds and they can either put a few pounds of cocaine in your car or shoot your crippled mother as a warning. Say nothing and publish.

GD: Good advice. I recall a conversation I once had with a Pole. He said they Poles hated the Germans but one good thing was that Hitler cleaned the Jews out of Poland. Did you know that after the war when the Jewish refugees went back to Poland, the locals used to chase them into barns, lock them in and barbecue them? Last major pogrom in Europe was in Poland in ’46. In fact, Stalin…I mean in ’39 when Hitler went into Poland, about three hundred thousand Polish Jews fled eastwards to find security in the friendly bosom of Mother Russia. Stalin did not want any more Jews so he ordered the border guards, the NKVD, to shoot anyone trying to cross the border. They wiped out the lot of them. And now, of course, the Germans get the blame.

RTC: The older ones still love Stalin. Well, isn’t truth relative, Gregory?

GD: Depends on who wins, doesn’t it?

RTC:Well, I’ll dig out some of the papers on this business and send them off to you. Probably after the next weekend. I can’t get to the post office but I can get my son to do it. I hate to drag him into this but I have no choice here.

GD: Well, if it’s too much trouble to…

RTC: No, not a problem. The is not a damned thing I can do about these assholes but perhaps you can.

GD: I might get it in Carto’s paper but I doubt if anyone else will touch it.

RTC: You will shake up the FBI if you publish but does this bother you?
GD: Why should it?

RTC: DC is so incestuous, Gregory, so involved. Everyone is so self-important.

GD: My impression has been that they want to be important but never will be anything but pointy headed hacks and wannabees. I am sure there are smart people in DC but I have yet to encounter one.

RTC: I know a few but you have a point. Here, we have spent this entire conversation trashing the Jews. God help both of us if someone is tapping our phones.

GD: You’re retired and I am no one so I don’t worry about myself. I suppose what with the collapse of the Soviet Union, all your people are happy.

RTC: Well, James Joyce said that: In moments of happiness, don’t despair, tragedy lurks around the next corner.

GD: Always. Tragedy would be the Jews tricking or forcing us into a war somewhere to help them out. A lot of dead young men, slaughtered Arabs and Tel Aviv rubbing its hands in glee. Or they can do it on their own and invade some place without soldiers around to shoot back and kill fifty children in a Syrian school. Of course these dead toddlers would be proclaimed in the New York Times as a training camp for Arab militants. Of course, out public wouldn’t really care about this. I wonder what would happen if the Arabs blew up one of our day care centers? My God, what a howl that would bring out. Of course we both know that they did it to teach us a lesson for our support of a rogue state. Ah, the Skokie crowd cheers us onwards, over the edge. If that happens they will all run to Toronto which a friend tells me is crawling with them. They even have special lamp posts there.

RTC: The better to hang them on, Gregory.

GD: It might come to that yet, Robert. But enough amusing talk. When you were talking about the take-over of Russian gas and oil and so on, were they successful? I mean your people?

RTC: Oh, yes, they achieved their initial goal. But then the Jews got too greedy and too public with their wealth and I think now, Putin will pull them all down, one by one. And I also think there will eventually be serious problems with America’s banking system. It’s totally corrupt, Gregory, and, like the oil barons of Russia, getting too arrogant. If we were to try to restructure America, we would have to start by reforming the banks and then reestablish the press as independent entities. But to accomplish this, we have to take into consideration that the banks, the media and, to a lesser degree, our intelligence agencies, are firmly in the hands of Jewish interests. These people are not operating for the good of the public but for their own little cliques and more seriously, solely for the interests of Israel. Mark you, Gregory, that miserable dwarf country will drag this powerful country into ruin unless someone puts a stop to it. But, I suppose, it’s the old question of who will bell the cat.

GD: Why not let nature, or time, take its course, Robert? None of what you talk about is new, at least not from a historical point of view. Happened before and will happen again. Watch and wait is what I say.

(Concluded at 3:10 CST)

Dramatis personae:

James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy

James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden, and fatal, “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.

William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.

John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States.

James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organizaed the Cehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.

Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.

Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley.) Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.

Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first, the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organizaion eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.

Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired, lives in Florida, and works for the CIA as an “advisor.”

Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.

Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller  became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.

Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.

Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarian and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.

Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Archives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers specializing in creative writing

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