Blog Bits
May 15th, 2008 at 3:58 pm by David FarrarStephen Franks has ordered a book: Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. I must borrow it after he gets it!
Jeanette Fitzsimons blogs, asking whether the wheels are falling off the ETS. She addresses the issue of the so called thermal moratorium and how Genesis, an SEO, is using a loophole to get around this.
Whale Oil has photos of more potential EFA breaches. Russell Fairbrother’s caravan certainly looks like an advertisement with statements about proud to support interest free loans, nuclear free NZ.
Blair Mulholland asks whether it is worse to have a swastika on your roof, or preventing someone from doing it. While I think Councils go way overboard with their controls on what you can do on your house, I think there is a property rights argument that there should be some restrictions. Put it like this. If you buy your place for $500,000 and someone buys the house either side of you and covers them in swastikas, or even paintings of men’s penises, then your house value will drop significantly as there won’t be many buyers. Note in this case the swastika was the Hindu one, not the Nazi one.
The Visible Hand in Economics looks at the case for and againgst a tax free threshold.
Jordan Carter looks at the travails of Gordon Brown in the UK.
Tags: Blair Mulholland, Electoral Finance Act, ETS, Gordon Brown, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Jordan Carter, property rights, Russell Fairbrother, Stephen Franks, Visible Hand in Economics, Whale Oil
May 15th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
“I think there is a property rights argument that there should be some restrictions. Put it like this. If you buy your place for $500,000 and someone buys the house either side of you and covers them in swastikas, or even paintings of men’s penises, then your house value will drop significantly as there won’t be many buyers.”
This is totally preposterous DPF.
And why would you assume that such behaviour might result in a drop in market value. And when was their ever a “property right” to ensure maximum market value for a piece of land. Even in your scenario the owner of the two properties each side might be prepared to purchase the middle section since all three together are worth more than the cost of each individual section.
At any rate none of this bears any resemblance to anything done by Mr Gupta. This is the worst sort of beat up – bordering on the busy body when the neighbours should be getting to know each other and the Council should be keeping its beck out of it
The fact is that there is no recognised property right to be free from offence caused by religious symbols of others.
[DPF: The point, that you miss, is that what is displayed on one property can affect another property. What if you had young kids at your house, and the next door neighbour painted closeups of female vaginas all over their house. Don't you think you have some rights in that circumstance?
Now don't get me wrong. I think any regulations should be minimal and only apply if something is very very prominent and very very offensive. But do I say there is an absolute 100.0000% right to put whatever you like up - well no. Just as I would say if you buy a two story house with some nice sun, and the next door neighbour wants to build a 15 story apartment block next to you which will block every view you have, then you should have some rights]
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
“Winning By Intimidation”- Robert J Ringer. The only self improvement book I’ve ever read. Must get around to reading “Looking Out For Number one”, another of his best sellers one day.
http://www.robertringer.com/archives/vs183.htm
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Further to the article on the Franks book Nudge, here’s another good article by Robert Ringer- pertinent to a lot of what has been discussed on Kiwiblog this week.
http://www.robertringer.com/archives/vs166.htm
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
KiwiStargazer has got a nice post on the conflicting values in the swastika case.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Post missing there- for those who don’t know of Robert Ringer, he’s a best selling author and most well known for writing “Looking After Number One” and “Winning By Intimidation”, a couple of the best books I’ve ever read. Kind of similar genre to Nudge.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
“I really hate that cross the fundys next door have painted on their roof. It is infringing my property rights. They should take it down.”
Can anyone see this argument really flying?
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Even in the case of sunlight, views, etc, a property owner does not have an absolute right to these aspects if it unduly affects the property rights of other property owners. For example if a property owner has a lovely view of Rangitoto via an empty lot across the road it would be obscene if that owner could block any development on the other lot. When Wellington’s District Plan was first prepared in the early 1990′s, Telecom tried to have its microwave ‘view shafts’ maintained and were quite rightfully told where to stick it. Similarly when some Thorndon residents wanted to prevent building of residences on a former bowling green (if they wanted to keep the green they should have joined up, learned to play bowls and helped keep the club viable).
In the 19th century, balancing of conflicting rights was left to the courts, but this was effectively supplanted by the introduction of town planning. It is unfair in many cases to say that Councils have ridiculous rules, the rules in District Plans are there to balance conflicting property rights between neighbours and between private owners and public spaces. Some residents have asked councils for example that every building permit or resource consent application concerning neighbours be referred to them so they have an opportunity to object. I am not sure that Councils should acede to such requests even if thy are prepared to (except of course where a District Plan application has to be ‘notified’). There can be much tension and bitterness when he Council is called upon to adudicate between conflicting rights when considering applications.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
DPF: “The point, that you miss, is that what is displayed on one property can affect another property. What if you had young kids at your house, and the next door neighbour painted closeups of female vaginas all over their house. Don’t you think you have some rights in that circumstance”
Yes a millionaire row will have an impact on my ex state house on the same street. So what? That has always been the case. But this isn’t a “property right” – what recognised right do I have over the other properties?
You might be thinking of obscenity laws – but these aren’t “property rights” and what constitutes an obscenity changes over time.
There are a number of rights under the tort of nuisance, but none that I know of deal with religious symbols causing offense while trying to enjoy my property.
I am searching through my Hinde, McMorland & Sim to find a “property right” to be free from offense caused from other’s religious symbols.
I think it is wise for government to tread very carefully when trying to regulate the genuine expression of religiosity.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I actually think the local MP, Phil Goff, did quite a good job. Turned up and talked to both the neighbours and go some dialogue going. According to the article I read the Indian born man had no idea of the meaning of the swastika to westerners. Considering the swastika has been around for a very long time, well before Hitler got a hold of it, I’m not surprised, not all of the world cares what goes on in the west.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
And Dressed To The Left spends all afternoon typing up chapter 10 of The God Factor by Ian Wishart…
In a publication entitled The Clinton Body Count: Coincidence Or The Kiss Of Death?, researcher Linda Thompson set out the details of a string of deaths surrounding the President.
“This administration seems to be plagued with an inordinate number of ‘suicides’ plane crashes, one person fatal ‘accidents’ and unexplained deaths,” she wrote in 1994, just a year and a half into Clinton’s first term.
“The following is a summary of the deaths of people who have died, none of them from natural causes, who are connected to Bill Clinton.
“Note: the label of ‘Insider’, ‘NWO’ or ‘Bodyguard’ has been applied to the persons below to delineate the manner in which the person could be considered as connected to Bill Clinton.
“An ‘Insider’ is a person who was personally close to Bill Clinton or his inner circle of close business associates, including Mack McLarty, Webster Hubbell, and Vince Foster.
“A person with the designation ‘NWO’ (New World Order) is a person who was in a position of planning, observing or opposing Clinton’s plans for the use of US troops in UN operations or military operations within the US.
“A ‘Bodyguard’ is someone who has been a personal bodyguard or escort to Bill Clinton during his presidential campaign or since he became President.”
The first deaths highlighted are those of C. Victor Raiser II, the National Finance Co-Chairman of the “Clinton For President” campaign, and his son R. Montgomery Raiser, aged 22.
Victor Raiser had been a Washington lawyer and powerbroker for years, and was described by Clinton press aide Dee Dee Myers as ‘a major player’ in the Clinton organisation.
Linda Thompson says “he and his wife had been friends of the Clintons for ten years. He was the past national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee.”
Raiser and his son were killed when a private plane they were travelling in crashed near Dillingham, Alaska, on July 30, 1992.
“Investigators did not speculate about a cause,” says Thompson, “but weather was believed to be a factor.”
She states “Victor Raiser was chairman of the American Mobile Satellite Corp, a telecommunications development company in Washington, and vice chairman of Mobile Telecommunication Technologies… a paging and voice messaging company. Its main subsidiary in Washington is SkyTel Corp, an international paging company used by federal police agencies such as the FBI.
Raiser was listed as an “Insider”.
Three months later, on September 4, 1992, another “Insider” is found dead. Forty-eight year old Paul Tully was the Democratic National Committee’s political director. Remember, all of this was in the lead-up to the forthcoming 1992 PResidential Elections.
Tully “was found dead in his hotel room… in Little Rock, Arkansas, of unknown causes,” Thompson writes.
Clinton went on to win the election, giving a victory speech on November 3, but the sign language specialist standing beside him was also about to die.
36 year old “Insider” Paula Gober, Clinton’s speech interpreter for the deaf, had accompanied Governor Clinton on most of his major outings, was married and the mother of two children.
She died on December 9, 1992, “from injuries received when her car overturned at a curve on Arkansas 4, east of Monticello… throwing her 33 feet from the vehicle. There were no known witnesses to the accident.”
The next to fall victim to the “curse” was 54 year old “Insider” Jim Wilhite, a close friend and business associate of White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty.
Wilhite suffered major head trauma and died when he slammed into a tree while skiing on vacation in Aspen, Colorado, on December 21, 1992.
The next to die were four senior officers in the US military categorised as “NWO” by Thompson. They were Major-General Jarret J Robertson, the Deputy Commanding General of V Corps, Colonel William J Densberger, Chief of Operations and Plans for V Corps, Colonel Robert J Kelly, the Chief of Intelligence for V Corps and Specialist Gary Rhodes, a helicopter pilot.
V Corps is the US Army’s main combat unit in Europe, and was responsible for providing UN troops for missions in Somalia and Croatia.
“V Corps and 1st Armoured Division figure prominently in the US Bosnia Serbia peacekeeping plan,” writes Thompson, “along with the carrier Roosevelt; eight other persons who were associated with Clinton’s visit to the carrier Roosevelt died within four months of each other in aviation accidents.”
The four men just named, however, died when their Blackhawk helicopter suddenly plummeted out of the sky close to Weisbaden Air Base in Germany and burst into flames as it hit the ground.
Investigators could not determine a cause for the crash. The General and his commanders had been returning from a meeting at the US European Command headquarters in Stuttgart.
They died on February 23, 1993. Conspiracy theorists will note that the main commanders all had middle names beginning with “J”.
Five days later, on February 28, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms launched its first assault on the Branch Davidian commune at Waco, Texas, headed by cult leader David Koresh. During the assault, four ATF agents were killed. Coincidentally, all four had previous served as bodyguards to Bill Clinton. This was the beginning of the long siege that ultimately ended with the Waco massacre.
“My prayers, and I’m sure yours, are still with the families of all four of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who were killed in Waco: Todd McKeehan and Conway Le Bleu of New Orleans, Steve Willis of Houston and Robert Williams from my hometown of Little Rock,” Clinton said in a speech to Treasury employees soon after.
“Three of those four were assigned to my security during the course of the primary or general election.”
The ATF subsequently confirmed that all four had worked with Clinton at some point – three during the campaign and one during his term as Governor.
Linda Thompson claims videotape of the tragedy shows “15 shots were fired from six separate weapons into and out of a room into which three of the four agents had entered through a window.
“Four of these shots were fired from an overhead helicopter, at least two shots were fired into the room by an agent outside the window, firing an MP5 submachine gun, who also threw in a concussion grenade.
“In the autopsies of these agents, three had virtually identical wounds to the left temple that exited through the rear of the head, execution-style. All four were treated by a ‘private physician’.”
It must have been open season on Clinton’s bodyguards as, a month later, five more were killed.
“Five Navy aviators were killed when their E-2C Hawkeye early warning plane crashed into the Ionian Sea off the coast of Italy on March 26, 1993, after it was ‘waved off’ from landing during its first approach,” Thompson writes.
“The crew had been attempting to return to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. A Navy statement said the Hawkeye crashed for reasons unknown about a mile from the carrier. The statement said the plane had been in international airspace and its crash was ‘not related to any hostile fire from the former Yugoslavia’.”
President Clinton had visited the aircraft carrier two weeks earlier, and the five naval airmen killed had been the President’s escorts during that visit.
Four more men, classified as NWO/Bodyguards, died in mysterious circumstances two months later, on May 19.
The four were Marines attached to the Presidential helicopter squadron, and they were killed when their Blackhawk helicopter went down in a “heavily-wooded area” on the Potomac River, near the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia.
The Marine Corps issued a statement saying the flight, following a maintenance check, had originated at Quantico where the Presidential fleet, Marine Helicopter Squadron 1, is based.
The dead were Staff Sgt. Brian Haney, Marine Sgt. Timothy Sabel, Major William Barkley Jr and Captain Scott Reynolds.
Journalists were barred from the crash site, and the Marines with guns also seized video footage taken by the local fire department.
Brian Haney had been a pilot to both Clinton and his predecessor George Bush.
Whitehouse spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers confirmed to journalists that the same helicopter had ferried President Clinton to his meeting onboard the carrier Roosevelt, and the four Marines killed had escorted Clinton on that flight.
Curiously, the only crew member allegedly assigned to that particular helicopter routinely was Sabel.
The next to die, just a month later on June 22, 1993, was “Insider” Paul Wilcher, aged 49.
Wilcher was a Washington attorney investigating government corruption, as Thompson records:
“The partially decomposed body of Paul Wilcher, a 49 year old investigative lawyer, was found on a toilet in his Capitol Hill apartment on June 22, 1993, in Washington DC. The cause of death was undetermined.
“At the time of his death he was investigating connections between the ‘October Surprise’ conspiracy during the 1980 federal election campaign, drug and gun running out of Mena, Arkansas, and the federal assault on Waco. He had written a 99 page affidavit to Attorney-General Janet Reno three weeks prior to his death.
“He had recently interviewed Gunther Russbacher, who claims to have piloted George Bush to Paris so he could secretly seek to delay the release of 52 American hostages in Iran.
“He had also recently spoken with John Parsons, a producer of syndicated television programmes, about making a documentary of his findings.
“He had also talked with John Vassillos, a disbarred Illinois attorney who represented both Russbacher and another CIA operative, Mike Riconosciuto, who is presently imprisoned. Riconosciuto claims he was involved in a web of underworld, CIA and Department of Justice dealings, including the Inslaw scandal, and gun and drug running out of Mena, Arkansas.”
The allegations of drug and guns have dogged Clinton ever since his election, and link to the Whitewater scandal involving the Clintons’ financial dealings.
Associates of the Clintons were being implicated in the death of Kevin Ives and Don Henry – the two young boys found run over on train tracks adjacent to an Arkansas woodlands airstrip used by the CIA-backed drug runners.
Wilcher was investigating this, and the role of the Arkansas Development Finance Authority in funding drug operations. The ADFA lent money to Webster Hubbell, a partner in the Clintons’ law firm, and the money was used to finance weaponry for the Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Confused? We haven’t even begun. It turns out Wilcher was also investigating the leads provided by murdered journalist Danny Casolar, leads that linked Iran Contra funding, the October Surprise issue, and the theft of a computer programme from a company named INSLAW.
Casolaro told his family that he was about to receive information that would finally crack the story and tie up all these loose ends, but the day after he told them, he was found murdered in a hotel bathtub in Washington DC.
Attorney Paul Wilcher wanted to find out what Casolaro might have discovered, and he claimed to have found links of his own between the Arkansas drug/gun allegations, INSLAW and the deaths of the four ATF agents at Waco.
Wilcher spelled out his concerns in that affidavit to Janet Reno.
“The lives of key participants, other witnesses, and even myself, are now in grave danger as a result of my passing this information on to you. If you let this information fall into the hands of the wrong persons… some or all of those who know the truth… could well be silenced in the very near future.”
Three weeks later he was dead.*
*For the record, I was asked by a major US publishing house after The Paradise Conspiracy was released, to investigate and co-write on three other scandals, including the US Justice Department’s involvement in money laundering. The deal fell through when tapped international phone and fax correspondence reached the US Justice Department, which threatened one of my sources with indefinite incaceration, and allegedly threatened the publishing company. I was informed that if I pursued the matter any further, I wouldn’t live longer than 12 months. The publishing deal, being handled by an agent in New York, would have been worth around $2 million for that one book. Watch this space.
That same month, June 1993, the so-called “Bua Report” on INSLAW was released, rejecting every allegation that the Justice Department had any role in either murder or the theft of the PROMIS programme. Bua then became a Judge.
Notably, the Bua report based its findings on a set of facts opposite to those established in the earlier Court and Congressional hearings.
Former Attorney-General Elliot Richardson, INSLAW’s attorney, smelt the mother of all rats.
“What I have seen of [the report] is remarkable both for its credulity in accepting at face values denials of complicity in wrongdoing against INSLAW, and for its failure to pursue leads making those denials implausible.”
The following month, high profile “Insider” Vince Foster, Clinton’s Whitehouse legal advisor, was also found dead.
On July 21, 1993, a Whitehouse news statement revealed that Foster had “committed suicide in a park outside Washinton”, specifically Fort Marcy Park in the state of Virginia. There was no suicide note, and Foster was found dressed in a suit, holding a gun he didn’t own, dead from a head wound.
His car was not found nearby.
“Foster,” writes Linda Thompson, “originally from Hope, Arkansas, like Clinton, had come to Washington from the Rose lawfirm where Hillary and Bill Clinton were formerley employed, along with Thomas ‘Mack’ McLarty, who is now chief legal counsel in the Whitehouse, and senior Rose lawfirm partner Webster Hubbell, who is now ‘associate’ Attorney-General.
“Foster was among those responsible for initiating a private audit of the Whitehouse Travel Agency, but he had been thwarted in his efforts to enlist an FBI investigation into what was dubbed the ‘Travelgate’ scandal, involving the abrupt firing of seven longtime employees from the Whitehouse travel office and the hiring of a distant cousin of Clinton’s.
“An internal investigation by Whitehouse chief of staff Thomas ‘Mack’ McLarty documented Foster’s involvement in the process, which included contracts with the First Lady on the subject of possible criminal wrongdoing. McLarty was purportedly the last person to speak to Foster before his death.”
Vince Foster was not only the Whitehouse legal advisor, he had also been the Clintons’ financial advisor during his days as Arkansas Governor. With Bill and Hillary Clinton embroiled in alleged scandals involving the Whitewater and Madison banks, Foster could have been a key player. Some reports suggest he had been asked by Hillary Clinton to “reconstruct” bank records so that an illegal slush fund would not be revealed.
“Immediately following Foster’s death, the Whitehouse ordered his death investigated by Park Rangers, rather than the FBI, and ordered that it be investigated ‘as a suicide’. Foster’s briefcase and personal effects were gone through, item by item, at the Whitehouse, as the Park Rangers were kept outside.
“Foster’s personal diary and a box of personal papers ‘disappeared’.”
Foster had reportedly also been having an affair with Hillary Clinton, leading former Clinton aide Larry Nichols to query whether documents that vanished included “personal notes or love letters between Foster and Hillary”.
An investigator looking into Foster’s death was the next to die. Jon Parnell Walker “fell” from an apartment balcony at the top of the Lincoln Towers in Washington. This was a place said to have been a “getaway” for Vince Foster.
Walker was an investigator for the RTC (Resolution Trust Corporation) who was investigating the Whitewater affair and the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan bankruptcy scandal. Walker was attempting to have the investigation moved from Arkansas to Washington at the time of his alleged slip off the top of the Lincoln Towers.
Two more friends of the Clintons met a nasty end in yet another plane crash, outside Dulles Airport, Washington DC, on September 10, 1993.
Stanley Heard and Steve Dickson were both active in the Democratic party, and had been attending a briefing on the Clinton’s health care legislation. The men had flown to Washington in a rented aircraft after Dickson’s own plan suddenly developed mechanical problems. But it was the rented aircraft that crashed – the last transmission was that fire had broken out on board.
The next victim came only a couple of weeks later. 47 year old Jerry Luther PArks had been the head of Bill Clinton’s security team in Little Rock, Arkansas. State police reported parks had been shot “multiple times” while driving in his car near Jacksonville, Arkansas, on September 26 1993. His family said that they had earlier been followed by “persons unknown”. Parks had also compiled a dossier on Clinton’s dangerous sexual liaisons over the previous 10 years, although this disappeared at the same time as the shooting.
Parks’ son, Gary, told Britain’s Sunday Telegraph: “they had my father killed to save Bill Clinton’s political career!” With 9 bullets having been removed from his body, the suicide theory has not yet been applied to this one.
On November 30, the woods of Virginia played host to yet another killing, this time Clinton fundraiser Ed Willey. It was reported as an apparent suicide, although no suicide note was found and there was no apparent motive. Willey’s wife Kathleen worked part time for Hillary Clinton, and had complained of sexual advances from the President on the very day of her husband’s death.
On March 3, 1994, an Arkansas dentist named Ronald Rogers died instantly when his plane exploded in midair. He was en-route to meet news journalist Ambrose Pritchard, who worked in the Washington bureau of the London Daily Telegraph.
Pritchard claims Rogers had contacted him saying he “had news of a sensitive nature” regarding Whitewater.
Pritchard has written articles exposing other matters concerning the Clintons, such as the near-death beating by thugs of attorney Gary Johnson, after Johnson’s apartment security door camera videotaped Bill Clinton visiting girlfriend Jennifer Flowers at an apartment next door. Johnson subsequently contacted The Clinton Chronicles documentary producer Larry Nicholls.
“The thugs repeatedly demanded the surveillance tapes and beat Johnson so severely they left him for dead. He had multiple broken bones and required surgical removal of his spleen,” writes Thompson.
“Rogers’ plane exploded in the air on March 3, 1994, the day before he was to meet with Pritchard,” and only hours before he was due to film a TV interview for The Clinton Chronicles.
The next name on this particular list, attorney Herschel Friday, was also killed when his plane exploded in mid air on March 1, 1994. He was also a fundraiser for Bill Clinton.
By this time in 1994, the Paula Jones lawsuit against Clinton for sexual harrassment was gathering momentum. Jones was suing another man besides Clinton: Danny Ferguson, the State Trooper who took her up to Clintons’ room.
Ferguson’s wife Kathy, by now his ex-wife, had been named as a corroborative witness supporting Paula Jones, after telling co-workers that Jones’ allegations were true. On May 11, 1994, Kathy Ferguson was found dead of a gunshot wound. The verdict was suicide.
On June 12, 1994, Kathy’s new boyfriend, Arkansas policeman Bill Shelton, also committed suicide, apparently by shooting himself in the back of the head! He was found draped over Kathy’s grave.
July brought with it the death of 46 year old attorney Stanley Huggins, who had headed an investigation into the failure of the Madison Savings and Loan bank, which was intricately tied in to the Whitewater fiasco. Huggins died of viral pneumonia, allegedly.
I use the word advisedly, because pneumonia can also be a sympton of ricin poisoning, and there are suggestions that ricin was being used to make some of the deaths appear medical, rather than traumatic.
Ricin is derived from the castor oil plant, and is one of the deadliest toxins known to humanity. It has been used by intelligence agencies because it causes known, non-specific illnesses like pneumonia, and it always kills, usually between three and 10 days after ingestion.
In addition, ricin is undetectable during a normal autopsy – it has to be specially tested for. Ricin was the ingredient used to deadly effect in the London “umbrella” assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who was jabbed in the leg with an umbrella tip by a passerby.
Markiv thought nothing more of it, but he died four days later. Forensic experts received a tiny metal pellet from his leg after he died, and inside the pellet was a trace of ricin.
It only requires 1/100th of a gram of ricin to kill, and it can be ingested either orally or through the skin, or even inhaled through an airconditioning system.
The product is so deadly that many amateurs have died as a result of trying to make it.
One of the most chilling deaths is that of Paul Olson, a federal witness in a major FBI investigation into drugs, corruption and politics. After two days of solid interrogation, Olson jumped on a USAir flight on September 8, 1994, but the passenger jet exploded mid-air, killing Paul and 130 others. The FBI later reported a bomb was the likely cause.
The case bears similarities to that of renegade MI6 spy, New Zealander Richard Tomlinson. Tomlinson had already been thrown out of several countries because his plans to write a book about corruption in Britain’s intelligence services had created a diplomatic furore.
He was booked to travel on the SwissAir flight that exploded in the US last year, but changed his plans. As another example of the powers of state surveillance, Tomlinson entered into email correspondence with Howling At The Moon Publishing Ltd in May of this year, in regard to the possibility of publishing his book.
Within days of that correspondence, a British Publishing company associated with Howling At The Moon on the topic was “visited” by British Special Branch police, and warned in no uncertain terms what would happen if they continued to be associated with the project.
At the same time, Swiss police then raided Tomlinson’s home without warning, and served deportation orders on him.
The same month as Olson’s death, a 24 year old named Calvin Walraven was located in his apartment with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. Walraven was a key prosecution witness in a drugs case. The accused in the case was the son of a Clinton associate, US Surgeon-General Jocelyn Elder. Little Rock police ruled the death was suicide.
In October 1994, Alan Whicher, the man heading President Clinton’s Secret Service team, was transferred to the Secret Service office in the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.
Although there have been reports that ATF agents in the building received some prior warning of the Oklahoma bombing on April 19, 1995, if there was a warning it didn’t reach Whicher, who was killed.
The Oklahoma bombing, of course, was allegedly masterminded by right-wing militia groups opposed to the so-called New World Order and Government tracking systems.
And then there’s the case of a mysterious plane crash in Croatia that killed one of Clinton’s Cabinet Ministers, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, in 1996. A converted Boeing 737 jet used by the US Air Force plunged into the side of a mountain.
Too much of a grand conspiracy, you suggest?
Well, if you were to discover that Ron Brown’s son was convicted of charges relating to Whitewater, and that the Secretary himself was due to be charged, would that change your view of conspiracy vs coincidence?
Brown was also a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He died along with 39 others in a plane crash, on the way of Croatia. The plane crash was originally reported to have been caused by bad weather. After independent sources revealed that there was no bad weather, the reports cited pilot error and navigational equipment failure as the cause.
Brown was very close to being indicted over financial fraud following inquiries by Independent Counsel Daniel Pearson. Brown had publicly announced that he was willing to make a deal with the prosecution. Many allegations have come out about Brown’s missing, lost or stolen autopsy records containing x-rays that clearly showed a “bullet hole” in the back of Brown’s head and bullet fragments inside his skull!
Could this also be attributable to “pilot error”?
Also on board the ill-fated jet, Charles Meissner, an Assistant Secretary of Commerce. Meissner, whose wife Doris heads the US Immigration Service and features elsewhere in this book, had helped Democratic fundraiser Johnny Huang get security clearance to work in Commerce. Huang organised a million dollars worth of fundraising for the Democratic National Committee, and appeared at fundraising events with Bill Clinton. It would subsequently transpire that much of the donated money came from questionable sources. He has also been accused of helping associates of the Clintons pay a $100,000 bribe to Webster Hubbell, a former partner with Bill and Hillary in the Rose lawfirm. The money is said to be a payoff for Hubbell’s silence in relation to the Clintons’ role in Whitewater. A warrant was issued for Huang’s arrest, but initially he avoided capture.
On April 27, 1996, former CIA director William Colby, who featured prominently in the Nugan Hand bank scandal in Australia, went on a fishing trip in the woods. He never returned. Colby had become a security consultant upon his retirement, and had been working with other investigators to prove that Clinton aide Vince Foster had been murdered, not committed suicide.
Colby’s body was found May 6. Apparently he had drowned.
Lance Herndon, a prominent entrepreneur and computer specialist, had received a presidential appointment in 1995. His body was found in his mansion on August 6, 1996, where he was apaprently kjilled by a blow to the head. No weapon was found, however, nor was there any sign of forced entry or theft.
On August 25, Neil Moody was killed instantly when his car lost control and veered into a concrete wall. (sound familiar?) Moody was the son of an Arkansas judge who had recently married Lisa Foster – the widow of Vince Foster.
Journalists have speculated Neil Moody found something in his stepmother’s private papers and was threatening to go public with it. He had reportedly contacted the Washington Post. Eyewitnesses say they saw Moody sitting in his car, arguing heatedly with another person, shortley before the crash.
Then, another Commerce Department death. The battered and partially naked body of Barbara Wise was discovered in her locked office at the end of a long weekend. Police ruled death by “natural causes”. Wise worked with Huang.
Huang was eventually arrested and has appeared at hearings into Whitewater. CNN has also reported on his connections to the wealthy Riady family of Indonesia, and his secret employment with the Lippo Group, one of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates and a big financial supporter of the Clintons. In one CNN report investigators suggested Huang may also be charged with spying for China, but this has not happened to date.
Incidentally, James Riady, the son of the Lippo Group’s founder and the man who paid Clinton, made a “red carpet” visit to New Zealand at the invitation of a Government agency in June 1999. His itinerary included meetings with Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and other ministers. Presumably the New Zealand National Party might have been hoping that some of Lippo Group’s campaign donation largesse might rub off on them, prior to this year’s election.
On January 7, 1997, Arkansas lawyer Doug Adams was found in a hospital parking lot with a gunshot through the head. Adams had been representing families swindled out of their savings in the Madison Scandal.
On July 4, 1997, 25 year old former Whitehouse intern Mary Mahoney was murdered while working at the Georgetown Starbucks coffee house. She was said to have had sexual contact with Clinton while working at the Whitehouse, knew Monica Lewinsky had also worked with Johnny Huang. Although Mahoney’s killing appeared on the face of it to be a robbery, no money was taken.
In October 1997 Ronald Miller died of apparent pneumonia. Miller was supplying investigators in the Whitewater case with taped recoreded conversations that revealed massive political campaign donations being disguised, and passed through to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.
The money was being paid by Gene and Norma Lum, who had hired Brown’s son, Michael, to work in their company. The money was laundered to Brown senior through his son’s wages.
The Lums were convicted and jailed.
Because of the strange onset of the pneumonia and its resistance to treatment, doctors at the Oklahoma hospital where Miller died asked the State medical Examiner to run tests. The Examiner refused to disclose what those tests found.
Jim McDougal, another close friend of the Clintons, was convicted on 18 charges relating to fraud, and jailed. He suffered a sudden heart attack on March 8, 1998, and died.
John Lawhon, a 29 year old mechanic, was unlucky enough to discover a box of Whitewater documents in an abandoned vehicle on his yard. He referred them to Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Two weeks later he was killed in a car wreck.
Here’s another death linked to ID surveillance: Charles Miller.
Miller was discovered with a gunshot to the head on his ranch at Little Rock on November 18, 1998. Beside thebody was a .410 gauge shotgun, and discovered in a nearby pond was a Ruger .357 revolver. The Ruger was the weapon he allegedly committed “suicide” with. Exactly how you shoot yourself through the head and then throw your gun in a pond was not explained by Arkansas law enforcement.
Miller’s company, Alltel, had earlier been working on an electronic surveillance computer chip that would make tracking of phone calls, faxes and email even easier for authorities. The project was known as “Clipper”, and had been authorised by the Whitehouse. Bill Clinton introduced the measure only months after being elected President, saying it was wrong that people could use encryption technology or digital cellphones to evade surveillance by law enforcement agencies.
“Despite its benefits,” the Whitehouse announcement began, “new communications technology can also frustrate lawful Government electronic surveillance.
“The US Government has developed a micro-circuit that… will allow the Government to gain access to encrypted information.
“I hereby direct the following action to be taken:”
Clinton’s direct orders were that phone companies had to install the chip in their phone systems, and anyone making encrption devices had to pass their master keys to the US Government so all communications using that device could be monitored.
“The Attorney-General shall make all arrangements with appropriate entities to hold the keys… the Secretary of Commerce [Ron Brown] shall initiate a process to write standards.”
Useful stuff indeed for a man like Bill Clinton, and the Arkansas ‘mafia’ surrounding him.
To accept that the Clinton administration may be murdering its opponents seems difficult initially, so I’ll take you through several belief “hurdles”.
Firstly, why can’t all of these deaths be coincidental?
To answer that, the reader should transfer the same scenario to the New Zealand political scene.
Imagine if 50 or so people connected to Jenny Shipley in some way, either as advisors, political fundraisers or even Cabinet Ministers, were to be killed in the same fashion in New Zealand over a period of only a few years.
Before you say, “hang on, America is a much bigger country”, think again. The size of a nation has no impact on how many people each of us know on a personal basis. There is a limit to how many people we can stay in contact with.
So there’s no reason for Bill Clinton’s circle of friends to be much larger than Shipley’s, although he may of course be a lot more popular.
Statistically, what would you say if plane crashes and midair explosions killed people close to Jenny Shipley on eight separate occasions, including those who were on their way to meet journalists to spill the beans on her activities?
How many people do you know personally who have died in just one plane crash? Do you or any of your friends personally know the victims of eight separate plane crashes?
And then what if ten or so more of her contacts and advisors, including perhaps her chief private secretary, shot themselves in apparent suicides?
And then another 20 dropped dead of either heart attacks, or were killed in one-vehicle car crashes, or no cause of death was established?
If you can’t accept that so many people linked to one person could all die mysteriously in New Zealand, then it’s statistically no more likely that the deaths were only “unfortunate coincidences” in the US.
The second belief hurdle is one of: “If this were true, why wouldn’t the police investigate and arrest those responsible?”
Please note that a number of those killed were law enforcement officers, investigators or lawyers. Despite obvious murders, in some cases, no culprit was ever located. In other cases, local law enforcement was keen to close the case with a “suicide” verdict as soon as possible.
If the person you, as a small county police officer, are investigating is the President of the United States, protected by the Secret Service and the CIA – the latter organisation involved in drug trafficking operations allegedly connected to the Clintons – and you see a growing body count stretching out on the road ahead, what would you do? More significantly, what do you think you’d be able to do?
They write movies about dilemmas like this!
As a point of fact, no charges were ever brought against anyone for drug trafficking in Mena, Arkansas, despite police surveillance operations detailing who was responsible and where the money was being laundered – Bill Clinton’s ADFA. Some former police officers have since stated the cases were derailed because corrupt cops were in on the drug-smuggling as well.
The third hurdle is “what about the news media? Surely Bill Clinton can’t control the entire media. This is just a paranoid conspiracy theory!”
Well, we’re sorry to shatter any illusions. Just as the New Zealand news media have their weak points, Clinton’s hold on the US media was almost total.
When Paula Jones first considered suing Clinton for sexual harrassment, she told her story to a Washington Post investigative journalist. When the paper began to back away from running it, the reporter and Post management had a huge row, resulting in the journalist’s suspension.
Another woman sleeping with Clinton, Sandy Purdue, filmed interviews with NBC, ABC and the Sally Jessy Raphael TV show in the lead-up to the 1992 Presidential elections. None of the interviews ever made it to air.
Instead, an almost absolute media blackout was imposed, and it was left to foreign media like Britain’s Sunday Telegraph to break the big stories about Clinton misconduct.
Some of Clinton’s former sexual partners were subsequently appointed to the Whitehouse Press Corp, working for news media outlets like CBS.
When a tabloid broke the story of Jennifer Flowers’ affair with Clinton, it was CBS 60 minutes that came to his rescue with a “Stand By Your Man” Bill & Hillary interview.
60 Minutes executive producer Don Hewitt admitted the programme was specifically designed, and edited, to ensure Clinton won the New Hamphshire primary.
It is only when a story becomes too big to ignore, like Monica Lewinsky, that the US media have moved against Clinton.
You’ll recall Bill Clinton’s much publicised admission in the past that he had “once” tried marijuana, “but I didn’t inhale”.
What the news media didn’t tell you about was Bill Clinton’s cocaine habit, outlined by former colleague, L D Brown in his new book, Crossfire.
“The Boca Raton Resort had several bars which were first class and full of patrons. With the conference being over, Bill felt a little more at ease in the hotel, not fearing being seen drunk or womanizing by any of the other governors. We met a couple of people in the bar and Bill stepped out for a few minutes, long enough for me to become concerned. As I went to look for him, I first checked the bathroom.
“I called his name but got no answer. Just as I was about to leave, I saw his number 13s protruding from under one of the stalls. ‘Bill, are you okay?’ I asked, knowing there couldn’t be another foot that big in Boca Raton. ‘Yeah, yeah L.D., these damn sinuses are killing me!’ As I retreated to the bar, I realized what was going on. Bill knew that with my prior experiences in drug enforcement I didn’t tolerate illicit drug use – particularly ‘nose candy’.”
PResumably Bill didn’t “inhale” on this occasion either.
How well did Brown know Clinton?
“L.D. Brown started his career in law enforcement as a guard at the notorious Tucker prison in Arkansas. In the Arkansas State Police he was assigned to the security detail of then-Governor Bill Clinton.
“Brown developed a close friendship with Clinton that would last for years. Clinton helped Brown gain admission to the Central Intelligence Agency, where he witnessed cocaine smuggling that led to his breakup with Clinton. After leaving the CIA. and the Arkansas State Police, Brown obtained a Ph.D. degree and now operates a private consulting firm in Little Rock, Arkansas.”
Like the New Zealand media timidity in tackling controversial issues, the US media have given scant coverage to Brown’s book, and he had to publish it himself after a number of publishing companies withdrew from the project.
Remember, when you see Bill Clinton touring New Zealand at the APEC conference, you are looking at the face of a man surrounded by more death, and deeper secrets, than possibly any other President in US history.
The fact that some of these deaths are directly related to computer programmes designed to track all citizens only serves to illustrate why Governments are concentrating so much on this technology.
It is also a truism that serial killing on such a large scale couldn’t take place without this kind of surveillance system.
You may not have anything to hide, but suppose one day you witness a crime or an injustice. In a society without fear, where you knew you could rely on the protection of the police, you would probably come forward and help bring those responsible to justice. But if you don’t act through fear of repercussions, that means that the oppression is affecting you. You may not realise it until that moment, but you have lost your freedom to act in the way that you believe is right.
It is easy to see why the ID card issue has become such a hot potato, particularly in the US. With more than a hundred thousand Americans believed to be involved in right-wing militia groups, identification of those people is a priority for the FBI and the Secret Service, specifically because – as the Oklahoma bombing showed – they pose a serious threat to the safety of Government personnel.
Revelations like the one that the Secret Service was funding a company to build a complete digitised photo database of American drivers only increase the tension.
In March of this year, more than a quarter of a million Americans fired off email messages and letters in protest at plans for a controversial new Government tracking measure.
Entitled “Know Your Customer” the proposed new legislation would have required banks to verify their customer’s identities, know how they earn their money, and determine their normal pattern of spending. Any deviation from the norm would have required banks to notify enforcement agencies.
Hard to believe? Well, it almost passed into law.
The proposal was put forward by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which regulates the US banking system, as a means of combating money-laundering and crime.
The repercussions of such a proposed law change in New Zealand would be sobering for most people.
As CNN reported in the US, “The nation’s bankers have joined the chorus of people and groups urging Federal banking agencies to withdraw the proposals, warning they could make Americans lose confidence in the banking system and in government.
“The proposal is designed to combat money laundering techniques used by drug traffickers and other criminals to hide illegal profits. Laundering includes the use of wire transfers and bank drafts, as well as ‘smurfing’, the practice of breaking down transactions into smaller amounts that do not have to be reported under banking laws.
“Privacy advocates and bank customers have complained that the rules would transform every bank teller into a cop.”
One Republican senator, Ron Paul, entered the fray, describing the proposed law as “Big Brother banking, and introduced his own legislation to prevent the plan from going ahead.
Ultimately, that senator was successful.
“The American public, bankers and customers, has spoken loud and clear on this issue – they do not want big-government snooping in their bank accounts,” said Rep. Paul. “This is a true victory for our side, those who cherish liberty.
“While we should not recklessly assume the regulators will give up their hopes of ‘Know Your Customer’-style invasions on privacy, they have been dealt a serious blow.”
It may have been dealt a blow in the US, but as you saw earlier in this book, New Zealand banks have secretly worked on exactly this kind of surveillance programme. Ask your bank for the details they hold on you and see where it leads.
Democracy, in the accepted political sense of the word, is taken for granted by citizens in countries where it is allegedly practised. But people forget that democracy is not the norm in the world, nor has it ever been throughout human history.
In fact, democracy as we know it is less than a hundred years old. It is worth remembering that people in power crave more power, and soon develop
anti-democratic tendencies.
[DPF: 10 demerits for off topic and far far far too long]
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Dressed to the left; you need to get out more!
Vote:really you could have summed that up in a couple of paragraphs couldn’t you?
May 15th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Many many Indian soldiers fell in WW11.
Fighting against Fascism.
Surely Mr. Gupta should give them some thought.
Especially since he is living in a country that holds those fallen with such well deserved honour.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Hell, I must try ordering a book to see if that gets me a spot on DPF’s blogbits!
Dressedtotheleft: heard of OCR? Copyright?
Would be interested in KIA’s, Meerkat’s & Chris Diack’s comments on my latest blog on electoral realignment this fall in the USA.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Adam2314
Indian soldiers were at the western front laying railway lines and digging trenches during WWI.
And indeed they fought during WWII while Congress suspended the struggle for Indian independence.
And your point is?
One of the traits of Fascism is that the freedom of religion is restricted – and the State becomes a super busybody.
Merely because I find a Cross or a Star of David, or a Sickle Moon offensive should I be able to claim I have a property right that allows me to insist on its removal from someone else’s property?
There are of course some people who would find all of these symbols offensive in certain circumstances.
When I purchase my property do I purchase the right to subjectively not be offended by the display of religious symbols on the neighbouring properties?
And what government interest is served by attempting to use zoning laws and/or sign by laws against a genuine exercise of religious freedom by a homeowner?
This is really a matter of good neighbourliness as Phil Goff recognised there is no government interest in the matter.
Mr Gupta is far more in the spirit of those men and women who died defending our fundamental freedoms than his critics. Frankly I would have loved my grandfather to have spent time in a POW camp – he many have come back alive. I need no reminder of how offensive Nazism is.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
My point is .
His countrymen fought against fascism. As did my father ( A survivor of Kohima ).
Posting of symbols should not be taken lightly..
Especially when in a country that one obviously is totally ignorant about.
Vote:May 15th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I must read the EFA in detail to determine whether you can drive a van with a URL on that points to a server overseas.
Vote:May 16th, 2008 at 8:03 am
What fascinates me is the ignorance that surrounds the swastica …. if the Indian gentleman got his right then it is not the Nazi version becuase when Hitler picked on one to be his symbol he got it the wrong way around … he was after the good luck charm but got it the wrong way … perhaps why the thousand year Reich only lasted about ten years or so.
Frankly I don’t know which is which but I remember Hitler’s error
So I was amused at that worthy veteran going on about his disgust at a Nazi symbol on the roof, obvioulsy he didn’t know either.
Vote:May 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Heh. Redbaiter recommends ‘Winning by Intimidation’. You’re hardly a salesman for either.
Vote:May 18th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Mr Xue, the chap who left his little daughter alone at an airport and buggered off to the US and hid for 5 months until being captured and arrested …remember him? And the dead wife in the car? He is now pleading innocence in Court, as is his right, but I choke on the fact that taxpayers fund the cost of this vile man’s defence. Yes, I am howling at the moon. Also
Vote:We have only 4 million people but still cannot stomach the remedy to make our Country relatively crime-free. Why? WHY?