May 29, 2006

Several items of possible interest:

As many of your readers know, there was a so-called ‘Correspondent’s Roast’ of the President held recently here in D.C. Satirist Stephen Colbert headlined this and as usual, dished out his dry satire on the Bush Administration. The interesting part of this, according to one of my old media friends who was present, initially, Bush didn’t have a clue he was being made fun of and was joining in the laughter and clapping that greeted Colbert’s sallies. Then, my friend said, an aide leaned over and whispered to him and from his immediate change of expression, it was obvious he was informed that he was being panned.and to stop smirking and applauding the insults.

My informant told me that it became so embarrassing that people near Bush tried to be dead-panned and made it a point not to look at him or be too enthusiastic in their applause. The President, now aware of the truth of the matter, was grimly angry, his face twitching and his eyes glaring more than usual. Colbert was not nasty like Imus was when he took Clinton on but very funny and my informant told me he thoroughly enjoyed Bush’s obvious anger and frustration.

It has now been decreed that TV films of the roast are not to be played on television, at the specific request (read order) of the President. Bootleg copies are out there and are a howl.

Poor Bush is becoming aware that he is almost universally (28% in White House opinion polls as of May 20) hated and he is taking his frustration and fury out on everyone around him.

And this leads me to the second bit of comments. Bush does not like Congress. Bush does not like anyone who ever, ever criticized him or thwarts his designs.

Congress compelled him to scrap the Dubai Ports deal which would have made him, personally, a great deal of money. To add insult to injury, senior Congressional Republicans have been begging him to clean up his act before November, something he flatly refuses to do, just to spite them.

Their importunings have motivated him to encourage that sycophantic and disgusting toady, Gonzales the AG, to raid a Congressman’s office during an investigation, something that has both sides of the aisle in a rage, which Bush thought was a good idea because the Congressman was both black and a Democrat and Bush hates both.

Bush loves to frustrate and block people, a negative, childish form of anger, but then starts to quiver with fear when he realizes he has gone too far and gets Bad People after him.

Frankly, George Senior should have slapped the shit out of him when he did this as a child. Spare the rod and spoil the child as it were.

If, and probably when, his Republicans lose control of the Senate and House, no one knows what Bush will do. He is someone who was spoiled as a child, is petulant and demanding, vengeful and generally a man without any character whatsoever.

If he is blocked by Congress in any of his ultra-right schemes, God knows what sort of malicious revenge he will concoct. Someone at the Pentagon said Friday that they were concerned lest Bush tried to declare martial law (a terrorist jaywalking attack in Ft. Lauderdale? People misspelling his name on public lavatory walls?) and punish everyone else in the country.

If gas prices go where we expect them to and if the toll of the dead in Iraq continues to mount, he may well have to double the White House guard, which is already the largest in Presidential history. I doubt if the SS people here have told Bush about the mountains of hate mail and serious physical threats that are pouring into the White House these days. The roof, by the way, has more anti-aircraft defenses than the Battleship Missouri. This is supposed to be a big secret but there are no big secrets here inside the Beltway anymore.

And when the SS detail gets wind of an off-course private plane near the White House, Bush runs down to the basement, three steps at a time, and hides in the bomb cellar. What a glorious military leader we have here! No wonder he won’t go to any kind of a military funeral , marking one of his sacrifices on the alter of his shriveled vanity. He’s afraid some parent will yell bad things at him, in front of the cameras, and hurt his delicate feelings.

May 25, 2006

I think most intelligent Americans realize that the Bush people are raging nuts, bent on establishing a theocracy-based neo-fascistic reign in America. Bush’s pet beaner, Gonzales the suck-ass AG, says anything his boss does is legal, including torture, illegal wiretapping, false imprisonment, gross theft and misappropriation and many, many other patently illegal actions.

Bush puts gross incompetents, like Chertoff and Bolton, into office behind Congress’ backs, tries to stuff the courts with right wing nuts and certainly holds all of Congress, including fellow Republicans (Bush is a neo nazi, not a Republican) in great contempt and has stated, in writing, that he will not enforce their laws. Now we have the disgusting spectacle of a Bush-ordered FBI invasion of Congressional offices (a Democratic target naturally) looking for proof of theft and corruption.

Wouldn’t it be more productive for the FBI, seeking evidence of misfeasance and theft, to search Cheney’s offices instead? That man, with a 15% national approval rating, has looted so much money through his connections with the Halliburton complex that could easily to buy Mexico and loot its Vera Cruz oil fields.

Bush has lost, is not losing but has lost, both sides of the aisles in the Senate and the House and a sudden revolt is not to be ruled out. The rebellious Congressmen, and women, had best be careful because the Gonzales people have spies planted amongst aides in Congress and they all snitch on a regular basis to dear Alberto, he of the damp back, is known here to run sniveling to his Lord and Master in the Oval Office., bearing lists of treasonable Republican and despicable, Negro-loving liberals on the other side of the aisles.. The time has come, the Walrus said, to remove all of these thieving, walking garbage bags from office. Sooner rather than later!

May 21, 2006

Let me start this off with a howlingly funny story. It’s funny because it is so bloody stupid. One of my alphabet agency contacts was telling me of a renewed scam to better enable the knuckle-draggers to spy on everyone. What they do is this: Put together an encryption or scrambling system that purports to be “unbreakable ” so as to allow the possessors to carry on “absolutely secret” telephone or computer conversations. The obedient press then runs a rigged, government-written story, (shades of the Lincoln Group!) to the effect that this brilliant system simply cannot be broken and that the company selling it is going to be seriously investigated by the government for building a system that they cannot break.

In fact, the “unbreakable system” has a built-in trapdoor that you could drive a Mack truck through and the various agencies have this, believe it. When they encounter a scrambled message or conversation using this compromised system, the “unbreakable system” alerts them and since they have the means at hand to look into it, the recorders start in working. This is in the same category as “Internet II” which, my informant advised me, is almost entirely controlled by the domestic counter intelligence people and enables them instant access to all the user’s messages.

Suggestion? Anything that looks too good to be true…is. If it isn’t a criminal con job, it’s a bumbling government sting. The con jobs are usually much more clever and this one is as obvious as a turd on a bed sheet.

And now on to more entertainment.

In light of the current disputes with Iran over their atomic program and obvious hostility towards the United States, perhaps some background information might be in order.

On September 3, 1951, James Jesus Angleton, a senior CIA official, accompanied by two other CIA personages, went to New York City to meet with a certain J.R. Porter, head secretary for the Anglo Iranian Oil Company. He was due to arrive on the Cunarder “Britannic” at eleven AM on that date, so they took two suites at the Plaza under the usual fake names and then went out on a Customs boat to meet the liner in quarantine.

J.R. Porter had a special piece of baggage for Angleton . He was traveling with a man named Schick, formerly a member of the German Gestapo (The CIA employed many former Gestapo and SD officials, especially one Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo who worked with Colonel James Critchfield, head of the CIA-controlled Gehlen Organization.. Mr. Schick was then living in Peru for health reasons.

It was a warm day, slightly overcast, as they came up on the boat and went up the ladder.

Porter, a stout man with a red face, waited for them on the deck with his luggage. Credentials were shown to the Immigration people and off they went, scrambling down the ladders and the Porter bag stuck into a sling.

The group went back to the Cunard docks on 52nd Street and then, by limousine, to the Plaza.

This all was part of Operation Ajax, the overthrow of Persian prime minister (Mohammed, ed.) Mossadegh who had come to power, was considered to be a dangerous populist and was threatening the stranglehold the AIOC had on the Persian oilfields.

American and British interests were livid and of course, as always, the CIA rushed to assist their moneyed friends.

Porter, at the suggestion of MI 6, came to the United States with a bag stuffed full of large denomination American bills. One million dollars to be more exact.

This was the price his company was prepared to pay to the CIA for murdering their new enemy, Mossadegh.

The CIA wanted their paid man, the Shah installed as they owned him down to the shoelaces but Mossadegh proved to be .a clever populist politician and very popular. The AOIC and the British government wanted him dead but the CIA did not.

There was much friendly conversation with Porter, a nice luncheon served by room service and then, after a few more drinks (Porter did like his liquor) they got down to business.

With dramatic flourishes, he opened his large leather suitcase and dumped out the money, a million US dollars in large denomination bills, on the coffee table.

The CIA, via Angleton (Dulles was in Europe at the time) made many solemn promises to remove Mossadegh. By assassination, as was the specialty of the CIA There was much shaking of hands and so on and the CIA people put the money back into the suitcase and left Porter in the suite with a wheeled cart full of bottles and an ice bucket.

Source: Papers of J.R. Porter, former Secretary to the Anglo-Iranian Oil, Angleton files courtesy of R.T. Crowley, Deputy Director of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations and Angleton’s assistant. Ed

This was the beginning of the CIA’s active interest in the Middle East oil situation, an interest that only deepened over the years and had disastrous results, results that are with the United States today. Later, the Anglo-Iranian Oil company merged with British Petroleum and this merger pushed BP into a new dimension and is possibly the high point in the history of the company which was first registered in 1909 under the name Anglo-Persian Oil. The merger of BP and Amoco created one of the strongest energy and petrochemical companies in the world, with a market capitalization of $110 billion and interests in more than 70 countries world wide.

But the company's origins go back to 1901, when a wealthy Englishman, William Knox D'Arcy, ventured into the Iranian desert to search for oil. For seven years, Mr D'Arcy battled with difficult terrain, an uncertain political situation and rising costs. But in 1908 the venture found oil in southwest Persia. One year later, Anglo-Persian Oil was formed. However, by then most of the company was owned by the Burmah Oil company.

Shortly before World War I, Anglo-Persian managed to find a new backer - and good customer. After lengthy negotiations, the oilmen promised Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, secure supplies of oil.

In exchange the British government injected £2m of new capital into the company, acquired a controlling interest and became de-facto the hidden power behind the oil company. The years between the wars were an era of expansion, with exploration in Canada, South America, Africa, Papua and Europe. In 1935 the company was renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

1951 was a crucial year in the company's history. Iran decided to nationalize the company's assets, which back then were the UK's largest single investment overseas. Three years later the conflict was resolved - in the same year that the company was renamed British Petroleum Company.

The Iranian crisis had convinced BP that it had to broaden its activities. In the following years the company started explorations in other Middle East countries, like Kuwait, Libya and Iraq.

Mossadegh eventually was ousted by a CIA-organized mob action (identical with a badly failed one they launched against Venezuela chief Chavez) and replaced by the CIA’s-backed Shah. Eventually, he too was ousted by a religious/populist coup d’etat, the American Embassy was taken over by fundamentalists and many highly compromising CIA documents taken. From the safes, read and passed around the international community.

Anti-western attitudes in Iran made business there more than difficult and so the oil companies began to look elsewhere to replenish the rapidly decreasing world oil.

Again, the CIA stepped into the situation and one of their projects, that was to have terrible consequences, was to back Saddam Hussein’s war against Iran in the hopes that he could wrest control of the Iranian oil fields from the religious leaders and once again draw Iran into the American business and political orbit.

When Soviet Russia collapsed and another CIA-friendly personage, Boris Yeltsin, was put into power in Moscow, he decided to “privatize” the huge Russian oil reserves. A group of professional crooks, called the oligarchy, using American money (World Bank and IMF funds) bought out these holdings and then graciously permitted the international oil community to purchase huge blocs of their new stock.

BP Amoco, which was battling Tyumen, an important center for the gas and oil industries in Russia. for control of a Russian oil field known as Chernogorneft. BP believed Tyumen had used improper tactics to acquire Chernogorneft at a bankruptcy auction for $180 million, even though it was potentially worth far more, and BP had an ownership claim of its own. BP hoped that Ex-Im rejection of the loan would give it bargaining leverage against Tyumen. Joining BP in its lobbying campaign was global financier George Soros, who had also invested in the oil field, and the powerhouse lobbying firm, Patton Boggs.

Before the deal, BP boasted a turnover of £43.5bn ($71bn), had 56,450 employees world wide and produced 1.25m barrels oil per day.

Unfortunately for their plans, Yeltsin was replaced by Vladimir Putin who was not in the CIA’s pocket, and by definition, not influenced by the bribe money of international oil cartels. Putin moved to oust the oligarchs and re-nationalize Russian oil and gas, much to the fury of those who had invested billions of unrecoverable dollars. This, naturally, explains the growing hostility towards Putin on the part of the Bush Administration, a hostility fueled by a livid oil cartel shrieking over its lost billions.

From this sketchy, but accurate, analysis, it should be obvious why modern Iran and Vladimir Putin view the United States in general and the CIA in specific as proven enemies. In its slavish devotion to the oil cartels, the United States is now reaping the rewards of their failures and when gas gets to $10 a gallon at the pump, we will all know whom to thank. By that time, however, with our economy in shambles, those who fostered the collapse by their stupidity and greed will be safely out of the country, living on their proceeds in such places as Costa Rica (where Bush owns a large tica or coffee plantation) or other countries with lax banking and, more important, even laxer extradition laws.

May 18, 2006

The notorious Lincoln Group, which is an unofficial organ of the Department of Defense and was created solely to plant official lies in both foreign and domestic media outlets, is not the only “non-official” agency used by the Bush Administration for close observation and eventual control of the American public. The United States is crammed full of “think tanks,” “research institutes,” “credit information agencies,” “medical data bases,” and on an on, all euphemisms for gathers of information on the American public, businesses whose secrets can be mined and given, or sold, to other Administration-supporting businesses worthy of government rewards, information on all US/overseas banking and money transfers, diplomatic communications foreign governments and businesses, individuals and organizations that are termed as being “hostile, or potentially hostile, to government entities and/or individuals.”

In the aggregate, these organizations can, and certainly do, supply information on any citizen of the United States and many foreign ones, especially those in foreign governments and business. Although you will never see their names connected with such activities, saving on internet blogs, there certainly exists, and I have had access to, thick rosters of such organizations, their leadership, their abilities to gather specific information in specific areas and contact points inside each and every entity, as well as payment rates for the acquisition of information. None of these companies exist as charities after all.

I should note that nearly all of these organization, without fail, are staffed with former, and sometimes current, individuals with a background in government investigative activities like the FBI, the NSA, the CIA and the many intrusive and secret branched of the Department of Defense’s Domestic Surveillance systems. Because of this, the government can tap into a huge mine of personal, business and economic data on any American citizen that they wish. Not even minor children are exempt from this universal pool. School and medical records are at their fingertips as are juvenile records, (supposedly sealed by the courts but in fact open at will to these paid spies) school records, work and bank account activities., divorce records, local credit bureau files, your complete medical records, samples of your DNA, anonymous accusations contained in local and federal investigative files (allegations that have never been substantiated) any and all credit information to include travel or purchases of any kind, any and all bank records, both corporate and personal, to include the presence of safe deposit boxes, saving accounts and complete records of all deposits and withdrawals (to include copies of checks) and a legion of other material that most people think is private. Think again. In Bush’s America, there is no such thing as privacy.

We have seen how telephone system giants, SBC, Verizon and ATT willingly, even eagerly, supplied the NSA (whose former head at the time of this, General Hayden, now wants to run the CIA) any and all telephone records of their subscribers. Note that it was not necessary for Hayden’s people to obtain warrants for this, as the law requires them to do. When the firestorm began over the wholesale spying by the NSA, that organization’s spokesman said "Given the nature of the work we do, it would be irresponsible to comment on actual or alleged operational issues; therefore, we have no information to provide. However, it is important to note that NSA takes its legal responsibilities seriously and operates within the law." They most certainly do not as should be obvious to anyone not a practicing Republican.

These huge telecommunications firms volunteered to supply this material. In the world of the internet and computers, the giant AOL similarly volunteered to permit government agents entry to their facilities for the sole purpose of spying on their subscribers. Only Google in the computer world and Qwest in the telephone world refused to cooperate in the absence of proper legal permission. This Hayden would not provide because he was working under specific Presidential orders and did not feel the necessity of obeying well-established Federal law.

It might be instructive to many Americans to learn more about this invasive Gestapo/KGB behavior and at the end of this study, we have some interesting news that will hearten the victims and depress the oppressors.

Since the subject of clandestine private and public espionage on American citizens is now of great interest, I am making an in-depth study of how this is done and, most especially, by whom. The cooperation of three large telephone companies and at least two major computer servers has been mentioned before, and will be mentioned in detail again, but now we will look at what are called “Data Miners,” or firms that collect all manner of information on Americans and then give, or in many cases, sell it to government agencies that cannot, by law, collect such information themselves.

In the United States today, the top collector and disseminator of highly personal information to include DNA data, is called ChoicePoint. This company, as of May 1, 2006, has amassed over 17 billion files on American citizens. This entity was formed in 1997, is based in Alpharetta, Georgia and its stated purpose is to provide what its corporate site states are "Identification and credential verification services". It obtains and sells to more than 50,000 businesses the personal information of consumers, including their names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, employment information, and credit histories. ChoicePoint employs 4,600 persons at its 52 locations within 26 states. ChoicePoint maintains a database of names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit reports, and other sensitive information. And its stated intention is to build a database of DNA samples from every person in the United States which ChoicePoint then will link to all the other personal information files Its chief operating officers are: Derek V. Smith, CEO,Douglas C. Curling, President/COO, Steven W. Surbaugh, CFO, J. Michael de Janes, Gen. Counsel and David T. Lee, Exec. VP

ChoicePoint is the most important provider of DNA info to the FBI. Its DNA laboratory aided in the identification of victims of the WTC attacks, and data supplied by ChoicePoint was used in the Beltway Snipers investigation. Choicepoint also assisted the Transportation Security Administration in investigating 112,278 applicants. The US Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children credit the corporation with assisting in the return of ~800 missing children . It also contracts with over 7,500 state and local government agencies, including law enforcement and has complete files on the voting records of all Americans. In 2002, ChoicePoint generated earnings of ~200 million USD on revenue of ~791 million USD. In total, ChoicePoint has received over one billion dollars from its cooperation with U.S. governmental agencies.

Its rise to the position of being the formost possessor and disseminator of billions of files on Americans voting, health, criminal, ownership of property and banking information has not always been without problems

Consumer data broker ChoicePoint, Inc., which last year acknowledged that the personal financial records of more than 163,000 consumers in its database had been compromised, had to pay $10 million in civil penalties and $5 million in consumer redress to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that its security and record-handling procedures violated consumers’ privacy rights and federal laws. The settlement required ChoicePoint to implement new procedures to ensure that it provides consumer reports only to legitimate businesses for lawful purposes, to establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program, and to obtain audits by an independent third-party security professional every other year until 2026.

The FTC alleged that ChoicePoint did not have reasonable procedures to screen prospective subscribers, and turned over consumers’ sensitive personal information to subscribers whose applications raised obvious “red flags.” Indeed, the FTC alleged that ChoicePoint approved as customers, individuals who lied about their credentials and used commercial mail drops as business addresses. In addition, ChoicePoint applicants reportedly used fax machines at public commercial locations to send multiple applications for purportedly separate companies.

According to the FTC, ChoicePoint failed to tighten its application approval procedures or monitor subscribers even after receiving subpoenas from law enforcement authorities alerting it to fraudulent activity going back to 2001.

The FTC charged that ChoicePoint violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by furnishing consumer reports – credit histories – to subscribers who did not have a permissible purpose to obtain them, and by failing to maintain reasonable procedures to verify both their identities and how they intended to use the information.

The agency also charged that ChoicePoint violated the FTC Act by making false and misleading statements about its privacy policies. ChoicePoint had publicized privacy principles that address the confidentiality and security of personal information it collects and maintains with statements such as, “ChoicePoint allows access to your consumer reports only by those authorized under the FCRA . . . ” and “Every ChoicePoint customer must successfully complete a rigorous credentialing process. ChoicePoint does not distribute information to the general public and monitors the use of its public record information to ensure appropriate use.”

The stipulated final judgment and order required ChoicePoint to pay $10 million in civil penalties – the largest civil penalty in FTC history – and to provide $5 million for consumer redress. It barred the company from furnishing consumer reports to people who do not have a permissible purpose to receive them and requires the company to establish and maintain reasonable procedures to ensure that consumer reports are provided only to those with a permissible purpose. U.S. government agencies are considered to be ones with a permissible purpose. ChoicePoint is now required to verify the identity of businesses that apply to receive consumer reports, including making site visits to certain business premises and auditing subscribers’ use of consumer reports.

The order requires ChoicePoint to establish, implement, and maintain a comprehensive information security program designed to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of the personal information it collects from or about consumers. It also requires ChoicePoint to obtain, every two years for the next 20 years, an audit from a qualified, independent, third-party professional to ensure that its security program meets the standards of the order. ChoicePoint will be subject to standard record-keeping and reporting provisions to allow the FTC to monitor compliance. Finally, the settlement bars future violations of the FCRA and the FTC Act.

And, among other similar problems, ChoicePoint was fired by the Illinois State Police because the company had supplied faked DNA results on Illinois rape cases In January 2000, Pennsylvania terminated its contract with ChoicePoint after alleging that the firm had illegally sold citizens' personal information.

Like Diebold, the voting machine company, ChoicePoint has been, and is, staunchly Republican, and as a case in point, they became heavily involved in Florida politics, being especially aggressive in the 2000 Presidential campaign. Earlier, in 1998 the state of Florida signed a 4 million dollar contract with Database Technologies (DBT Online), which later was merged into ChoicePoint, for the purposes of providing a central voter file listing those barred from voting. As of 2002, Florida was the only state that hired a private firm for these purposes. Prior to contracting with Database Technologies, Florida contracted with a smaller operator for 5,700 dollars per year. The state of Florida contracted with DBT in November 1998, following the controversial Miami mayoral race of 1997. The 1998 contracting process involved no bidding and was worth 2,317,800 dollars.

ChoicePoint has been criticized for knowingly using inaccurate data, and for racial discrimination. Allegations include listing voters as felons for alleged crimes said to have been committed several years in the future. In addition, people who had been convicted of a felony in a different state and had their rights restored by said state, were not allowed to vote despite the restoration of their rights. (One should note Schlenther v. Florida Department of State [June 1998] which ruled that Florida could not prevent a man convicted of a felony in Connecticut, where his civil rights had not been lost, from exercising his civil rights elsewhere) Furthermore, it is argued that people were listed as felons based on a coincidence of names, despite other data (such as date of birth) which showed that the criminal record did not apply to the voter in question

This firm cooperated with Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, in a conspiracy of voter fraud, involving the central voter file, during the US Presidential Election of 2000. The allegations charge that 57,700 people (15% of the list), primarily Democrats of African-American and Hispanic descent, were incorrectly listed as felons and thus barred from voting

ChoicePoint Vice President Martin Fagan has admitted that at least 8,000 names were incorrectly listed in this fashion when the company passed on a list given by the state of Texas, these 8,000 names were removed prior to the election. Fagan has described the error as a "minor glitch". ChoicePoint, as a matter of policy, does not verify the accuracy of its data and argues that it is the user's responsibility to verify accuracy.

There appears to be an antidote to all of this intense governmental spying, and data compilation and storage, on its generally completely innocent citizens. Unfortunately, is would seem that the cure is worse than the disease.

There have been persistant and growing rumors inside the Beltway, mostly in the technical set, that about two and a half years ago, one, or several, young computer experts concocted what is called a Trojan Horse. The only such thing I knew such a thing about was written up by Homer but it appears that this is a computer program that oblitrates it host when instructed to do so. As I understand this particular virus, again from rumor, it is so disguised that it is not detectable by any known scanning system, including the super-sophisticated ones used by certain very secret agencies like the NSA. When the device is triggered, in all probability by a series of words and/or numbers, a timer built into the system is activated and then on a predetermined day and time, it is activated and completely obliterates the host computer’s harddrive. Any and all data, programs, files, commands and systems in the stricken computer vanish into Never-Never land and cannot be rertreived. Also, backup discs and other systems are subject to destruction if they are reactivated on a computer system that might have undetectable remains of the virus and are subject to total or partial obliteration.

When I heard this, I thought it was some kind of a nut story, so beloved by the dimwitted bloggers but I asked a number of genuine computer experts and all, without exception, advised me that this was an entirely valid scenario; that such a disguised virus could not only be implanted into a computer but would automatically infect any other computer system that had interfaced with the infected one. Given the lapse of time since this was apparently started, there is, I have been told, no reason why it could not infect every computer system, internet server, and personal computer in the world, ranging from the harmless home computer to the massive NSA and international banking systems. The prognosis? If it happened, systems would crash into oblivion in the order in which they had been infected. Since the world runs on computers, the chaos would be awful to contemplate and it would, two experts told me, take between three to five years to rebuild the systems again.

The costs, in lost records, vanished financial information and saved data would immense; obliterated operating systems, criminal, civil and intelligence records And completely terminal.

My own computer is a laptop that has never been, and never will be, connected to the Internet so everything could crash but my data would still be intact, unless, of course, I connected with an infected Internet.

This is a very possible scenario but one of my sources said he doubted if anyone would launch this on an unsuspecting world for the same reason governments have been reluctant to start atomic wars or spread deadly diseases….this can all return from whence it came and there would be no way to prevent this from happening. Let us hope that the person or persons who started this either died without passing his trigger information on (in which case the virus would remain permanently dormant) or has found Jesus somewhere and decided against it. On the other hand, if the constructors of this monster still are functionig and for some reason develop a sociopathic fury at some massive entity like AOL or the NSA, we could all be in for a return to the computer Stone Age.

May 15, 2006

The very private high-level GOP polls show that the President’s approval rating has, as of May 15th, 2006, sunk to 29% and public approval for Republican Congressional incumbents has fallen to 32%! Can this be blamed on the universal NSA phone surveillance, approved by Bush and recently revealed in all its glory? No, the polls say that this descent into blessed darkness is due to an accumulation of things:

· the outrageous and very obvious vote stealing by the Bush people in Florida in 2000,

· the deliberate WMD (and other very serious) lies,

· the official torture policies both in Iraqi concentration camps and in the CIA’s exporting of hapless victims to foreign countries to be tortured,

· the perceived utter corruption on the part of Republicans at top levels to include White House staffers, senior CIA officials and Republican members of Congress,

· Bush’s utter lack of perceived concern for the Katrina disaster,

· the endless and mindless war in Iraq,

· the rapidly escalating gasoline prices,

· the massive and incredible Halliburton ongoing scandals,

· the lunatic arrogance of both Cheney and Rumsfeld and their utter contempt for the opinions of the American public,

· constant threats to invade Iran, regardless of the havoc it would wreak on oil prices, the American military and the American public,

· a total lack of timely or effective response to the illegal Mexican immigration and the physical threats to the structure of government by millions of felonious illegal aliens, and about which Bush has clearly proven himself to be totally incapable of doing anything,

· contempt for, and suspicion of, the growing and potentially dangerous shift in attitudes of the American public for Bush’s utter disregard for the laws he is legally pledged to uphold.,

· the Bush Administration’s slavish obedience to the wishes of the state of Israel, even if those wishes are clearly not in this country’s interests..

Top Democrats I have spoken with suffer from mixed emotions. They are elated that the Republicans have pissed in their shoes but appalled at the terrible economic and social damage their opponents have wreaked on their country. One Democrat said to me today that, ‘It will take a decade to reverse the damage that these people have done. They have so polarized the American people that it will take forever to restore confidence in any form of government, be it under Democratic or Republican control….No more wars for religion…’

Remember these issues in November.

May 11, 2006

’When thieves fall out,’ as the saying goes,’ honest men prosper.’ With the obvious ongoing destruction of the CIA by the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis of evil, many of the older and experienced agents are leaving the agency before it is taken over by the Department of Defense and run the way Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld wish it to be run…as a fully-controlled arm of Republican and White House ideological and political policy. These demoralized and totally disillusioned staffers are leaking like a rotten garden hose and talking to outsiders as never before. There was always the occasional slip of information at cocktail parties between acquaintances but now it is like a veritable circus parade, complete with brass bands and clowns and reams and reams of formerly highly classified and explosive documents.. Also, many inside the Pentagon are also disillusioned, and occasionally deeply alarmed, at the courses being set for them by the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis of evil. They have discoursed loudly and at length about what many of them call ‘the new American Gestapo.’

The man who heads this Pentagon drive is one Dr. Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon’s de facto intelligence head and Rumsfeld’s most trusted aide. Cambone keeps a low profile and is very careful to avoid any kind of publicity. Stephen Cambone is 54 years old, a native of Highland New York and as Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Overseas (and Domestic) has a staff of 145 full time employees and over 100 so-called “Defense Contractors” including the notorious Lincoln Group of paid propagandists known inside the Pentagon as the ‘Goebbels Brigade.’ His office's responsibilities include domestic counter intelligence, (i.e., spying at will on any American with a telephone, fax or computer,) long-range threat planning and budgeting for new technologies.

Dr. Cambone graduated from Catholic University in 1973 with a B.A. degree in Political Science, from the Claremont Graduate School in 1977 with an M.A. degree in Political Science, and from the Claremont Graduate School in 1982 with a Ph.D. in Political Science. His numerous awards include the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Service in 1993 and the Employee of the Year Award with SRS Technologies (Washington Operations) in 1988.

Cambone draws much of his influence from the close working relationship he has developed with Mr. Rumsfeld, beginning in the late 1990's when Mr. Cambone served as staff director for independent commissions on space and ballistic missile threats that Mr. Rumsfeld headed when both men were out of government. Dr. Cambone was the Staff Director for the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization from July 2000 to January 2001. He was the Director of Research at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University (INNS/NDU) from August 1998 to July 2000. Before that he was the Staff Director for the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States from January 1998 to July 1998; a Senior Fellow in Political-Military Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) from 1993 to 1998; the Director for Strategic Defense Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1990 to 1993; the Deputy Director, Strategic Analysis, SRS Technologies (Washington Operations) from 1986 to 1990; and a Staff Member in the Office of the Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1982 to 1986.

Under previous Administrations, the Pentagon has always been a large and serious presence in the American intelligence community, in the main because it controlled agencies with multibillion-dollar budgets like the National Security Agency and National Reconnaissance Office that are responsible for eavesdropping and communications satellites. The Pentagon, under Rumsfeld’s orders and with the President and Vice President’s active cooperation and support, is now branching out into HUMINT or human intelligence. The first step in achieving superiority is to downgrade, discredit and eventually replace the civilian CIA. The appointment of an Air Force General to head the CIA is the second to final step in this process. The final step will be the official integration of the CIA, and its files, into the Pentagon’s intelligence network, a network that will not only control all aspects of foreign intelligence but, more important, domestic surveillance and control as well.

Because he is seen as a highly abrasive, ruthless hatchet man and subservient toady of Rumsfeld and Cheney, Cambone is detested inside the Pentagon, both by senior military personnel and civilian staff. He has pushed repeated and open violations of the Geneva Convention, which infuriates the professional military who claim, with justification, that this could end up being used against American military personnel, and has strongly supported the concept of a U.S. military presence inside the United States that would be trained in dealing with outbreaks of public anti-government activity and has produced studies calling for the institution of a Pentagon-controlled data base on “any and all elements, individual or associations” that could pose a threat to “internal security in the United States” at any given time. He has supported the NSA (a branch of the Pentagon in its illegal telephone, fax and computer tapping that has been in progress for <>eleven years<>. Information gleaned from these universal observation programs are added to the Pentagon’s data bank on potential “anti-Establishment elements” which consist of anti-war, anti-draft, anti-Bush, anti-military organizations to include any “so-called peace groups”

The ‘No-Fly List” is a product of this program and as of May 1, 2006, runs to 23,451 Americans who are now forbidden to fly by commercial aircraft inside the United States and whose names are immediately reported to the Pentagon upon their application for tickets. The bulk of the names are not associated with foreign terrorism but are certainly considered by the Cambone people to be “potential enemies of the State” and as such, kept under constant surveillance. In the past, such surveillance has been the province of the F.B.I. but the Pentagon has taken over control of this and runs it for itself, without liaison with the Bureau.

Such turf wars and internecine squabblings have done more to utterly wreck America’s intelligence and counter intelligence agencies than legions of clandestine penetrations by the KGB, MI6 and the MOSSAD combined.

The real reason for the takeover of the CIA? So that the Bush people can get their hands on the heavily guarded CIA archives out at Anacostia at Bolling AFB. Cheney has said that if his people (read Cambone/Rumsfeld) could get their hands on these precious files, none of the early ones having been computerized, they could blackmail their enemies both foreign and domestic. There is, a Pentagon source told me yesterday, enough hitherto unknown and secret material in the early CIA archives to literally destroy governments and people around the world. Cambone would have control over these archives and God help anyone who has information on them that can be found in the files that would dare to stand in the way of the Bush-Rove-Cheney and Rumsfeld Imperium!

There is also the question of the old Hoover FBI private files and their massive amount of material on Congressmen and other Beltway luminaries. Rove has been able to mute the Democratic opposition (ever wonder why the Demos have been so quiet lately?) by getting access to some of the FBI material and threatening his enemies with exposure.

It is widely believed here that if Rove goes down, he will either blab his head off to avoid prison, keep his mouth shut and get paid off handsomely later (and a promise of being pardoned by a later Republican president) or will threaten to talk if not rescued and have a fatal accident while hunting for snipe in his back yard. Cheney will bag him with a full-choke 20 gauge and claim he thought it was a rabid attacking turtle he put 20 rounds into.

May 8, 2006

The October Surprise issue is still with us. No one in power here in Washington wants to get too close to it but there have been tentative approaches at Very High Levels to the Israelis to “help their friends out.” This would be an act of insanity. Israel is already blackmailing the Bush people over the fact that they personally warned the Bush people, and the DoD, and the CIA, and the State Department of the exact date and targets of the 9/11 attacks. Since the Bush people, especially the evil Rove, wanted it to happen for political reasons, they did nothing. Think of the fun if that became public! My informant tells me that the Israelis are more than capable of setting off an Atomic Firecracker wherever they are asked to and later, they are more than capable of using this knowledge (they apparently clandestinely tape high level staff talks) to get the US to nuke Iran for them. Quid pro quo after all.

And here is some interesting information on Rumsfeld’s war against the United States in general and the CIA in specific.

Since 2002, the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency has run a rapidly-growing and very powerful intelligence-gathering and support unit that has authority to operate clandestinely anywhere in the world, including inside the United States, where it is ordered to go in support of anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism missions. Domestically, this group, the Strategic Support Branch (SSB) of the DIA, is authorized and mandated to spy on “dissident and defeatist” groups and individuals inside the United States. A sub-group is detailed to search the internet for signs of “anti-government and anti-military’ activity and to report and all information obtained on this at once to the Pentagon. Fort Huachuca in Arizona and Rock Island in Illinois are only two of their domestic spy centers, with many more scattered all over the country.

The Strategic Support Branch (SSB) got its name in 2004 after previously operating under a different, highly classified title prior to that. The reason for this secrecy is their domestic spying activities.

The SSB sends serving DIA personnel into the field and recruits agents, specifically in “local American law enforcement agencies, right wing Republican and Evangelical Christian groups” who are to provide intelligence on persons and groups that are “in opposition to American interests both at home and overseas.” They also keep track of deserters (Ft Huachuca), discharged military personnel who might be making public certain U.S. official activities, such as assassinations, torture (still very much ongoing by Bush’s private orders) clandestine killings of “uncooperative” prisoners and much more. While some of this type of work has been carried out by the DIA in the past, the SSB is "more robust in terms of who it operates with and its level of activities."

The SSB was formed "to have as much flexibility as possible" and in response to Rumsfeld's ongoing concerns expressed at the highest levels of the department that the Pentagon did not have the capability to gather intelligence in the field on its own. It is in direct opposition to the CIA (whom Rumsfeld loathes and has been doing his best to undermine and disband) and is headed for a serious clash with the FBI who hitherto has had undisputed control of domestic counter-intelligence.

The SSB currently reports to Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, USA. Director of the DIA, but their policies are set by Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone, one of Rumsfeld's most senior aides and, by the obvious, the orders of Rumsfeld himself.

When SSB teams are deployed in the field, as a practical matter, they report to the combatant commander, (in a military operation). For example, in Iraq, the unit would have been under the supervision of Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, but while engaged in an operation against persons or groups in the Untied States, the unit would report not to the military district command but to one of the SSB regional headquarters.

The SSB has been an effort by Rumsfeld to expand Pentagon intelligence operations at the expense of the CIA, which traditionally has conducted both clandestine and covert intelligence operations One of the more interesting sub-groups of the SSB is the one that keeps a close watch on members of Congress, now concentrating on ‘weak Republicans’ (read sensible Congressmen who are no longer supporting Bush and his loony followers.)

The deployment of SSB teams of DIA personnel into the field in conjunction with special forces has caused some bureaucratic stress. SSB personnel are on these missions to gather intelligence. The SSB has an alliance with another Pentagon money-waster, the notorious ‘Lincoln Group’ which mishandles the reams of stupid propaganda churned out by the Pentagon PR bone heads (who couldn’t get a legitimate job to save their lives). On a more sinister note, the Lincoln Group also is involved with handling Rumsfeld’s domestic political intelligence and is very well known to have subverted a number of U.S. media reporters for the sole purpose of planting pro-Bush propaganda in the American print and TV media.

This crap can usually be spotted by its utter inaccuracy and ludicrous stupidity but a number of papers and TV outlets have run it, either because their editors are as stupid as the Lincoln Group people or because someone has told them to do so. So much for unbiased reporting in the American media, not that anyone currently believes anything they say, or usually don’t say. And the nice thing is that the taxpayers pay their huge bill each and every month. In other words, we pay for these chinless wonders to plant bald-faced lies in the national American media reflecting the glory and brilliance of the collapsing Bush regeime while drawing salaries that would be the envy of a drug company’s CEO! We have stacks of material on this Lincoln Group, including names, and we will cover this in a later column.

May 4, 2006

I have been speaking about some kind of an “October Surprise,” i.e. some kind of a spectacular event designed to assist Bush and his Republicans to overcome growing evidence that his party will be obliterated at the November, 2006, mid-term elections. I have seen a number of vague references to something of this sort on various speculative websites but there is certainly strong evidence that such a project is being discussed. When I write articles like this, I always wince because many readers do not read, or understand, my disclaimer which states that although such matters are under discussion at high levels here in Washington, their implementation is by no means a certainty.

As a case in point, the cunningly leaked Pentagon plans for military action against Iran have a basis in fact but their leakage was to frighten Iran into complying with Bush’s orders to cease and desist their atomic programs. In fact, the Pentagon knows it could not logistically support any such action and economists have warned the White House that disruption of Iranian oil production would wreak havoc with the world oil market and push the price of light crude oil up to a minimum of $200 a barrel (it is now closing on $100 a barrel and this will be reflected by sharply increasing pump prices within a month.)

Bush is not a normal man in any sense of the word. He is of limited intellect, certainly out of touch with reality, living in a world of fantasy that he will not leave under any circumstances, stubborn, egomaniacal to a degree and certain that he has a mandate from Almighty God to rule. He has antagonized both sides of the aisle in Congress, tried his best to rule by decree, displayed an appalling lack of concern for human life (both in the casualties continuing to be suffered by young soldiers and, even worse, by the obvious suffering of poor blacks during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina) and has become involved in various money-making schemes that would make the Grant Administration look like pikers.

That having been said, there is more to say on the October Surprise.

Every week, three members of the Israeli Mossad go to the CIA headquarters at Langley and there meet with senior CIA officials. During these weekly meetings, mutual needs, requirements and demands are presented by the Mossad to the CIA. Parenthetically, we should note that Israel flies a number of top CIA officials to have a yearly very expensive vacation in Israel. First class accommodations by El Al airline, 5 star hotel accommodations, expensive gifts and the whole nine yards are part and parcel of this agape.

Israel pressed their neocons to induce the Bush people to invade Iraq because Saddam was considered to be a major enemy. Don’t forget that during Operation Desert Storm, Saddam launched SCUD missiles at Israel which landed on their targets, completely unimpeded by the utterly useless PATRIOT US counter-missiles. This program of getting a befuddled President to pull Israel’s chestnuts out of the fire worked…but only for Israel.

Now, Israel views Iran’s atomic program, coupled with an aggressive President, as another disaster in the making. Rather than launch air attacks against suspected research/weapons sites in Iran, they have been pressing Bush and his people to do this for them.

Although there was eager compliance in the matter of the Iraqi attack, now, there is strong and growing resistance to such adventures not only from Republicans in Congress but from the Pentagon as well.

The U.S. White House has put up another scenario, one which Israel is not happy with but Bush certainly is.

This plan, which has been, and is being, discussed in various highly secret forums, deals with an atomic “incident” somewhere in the United States. The usual targets do not include either Washington or New York because of the immediate damage this would do to our governance and economy. Miami was not on the table because of its large Jewish population.

U.S. military and political advisors have put forward either the PRC or North Korea as targets, something not to the Israeli’s likings as it would not address their enemies in Iran.

An incident on the West Coast could supply the motivation for the U.S. to choose between some kind of an attack on China or North Korea, the latter being primary.

Seattle as a target was ruled out because of the U.S. Navy presence there and San Diego also because it is a vital port for shipments from Asia.

That leaves San Francisco/Oakland as another major target. This used to be a major trade port and U.S. Naval and Army presence was heavy but now that the Presidio, Mare Island, Hunters Point and other bases have closed, damage in this area would not be as great as it might be elsewhere.

Someone I know in the CIA who is slated to be fired and whose friends have already been sacked by the idiot Goss has been discussing all of this with myself and others.

The President wants to leave office, or be allowed to reign forever, as a military hero; the Republicans want to keep their iron grip (now slipping badly) on the levers of national power and the neo cons want to please their masters in Israel. The latter has no problem with any of this but wants Iran knocked out and has no interest whatsoever in giving us a casus belli to attack North Korea.

In the end, nothing may come of all this horrible chatter but it shows, to me and a few of my associates at least, the type of rabid hyenas we have in the pilot’s seat.

The problem with all of this plotting is that some will certainly talk (leaks in Washington at the highest levels are a daily occurrence these days) so the reprise of the game wherein Israeli agents had penetrated the Arab groups that attacked the WTC and Pentagon, knew all about the exact date of the attack and duly notified the Bush people at the highest level. is not possible. In that case, we all had plausible deniability but in this case, someone would blab and that would be the permanent end of Bush and his claque. But remember, while planning for such ruthless atrocities to maintain power is one thing, putting these plans into operation is quite another.

In the end, however it shows very clearly what we are dealing with.