Executive Summary: There is strong evidence that Henry “Hank” Paulson (former Goldman-Sachs CEO and, more recently, United States Treasury Secretary) took some initiative in the case of Lehman Brothers (the downfall of which is discussed extensively in Wall Street’s Naked Swindle at RollingStone.com) and rigging the game to the advantage of Goldman Sachs (a direct competitor to Lehman Brothers).

“Really?” he asked, trying to keep the shock out of his voice. Goldman is the buyer?

“Okay. I have to call you back,” Kirk said, nervously ending the conversation, and then almost shouted to Fuld and McDade, “Guys, they don’t have a client!”…

McDade, reasonably, was concerned about sharing information with a direct competitor: How mcuh did they really want to divulge? At the same time, he felt they couldn’t take a stand against a plan that he believed had originated with Paulson…

McDade, turning back to his preparations for the fast-approaching call, made his position clear: “We were told by Hank Paulson to let them in the door. We’re going to let them in the door.”

- How Paulson gave Goldman the Lehman heads-up
by Felix Salmon
2009-10-21

via Rolling Stone

Think Paulson retained some nice stock options from his time as CEO?

Investigators are examining the possibility of other conspirators, “including the possibility that even some of the media outlets may have had some knowledge about this,” Alderden said.

Documents show that a media outlet has agreed to pay money to the Heenes with regards to the balloon incident, Alderden said. He didn’t name the media outlet, but said it was a show that blurs “the line between entertainment and news.” It wasn’t clear whether the deal was signed before or after the alleged hoax, or whether that media outlet was a possible conspirator.

- Sheriff: Boy-in-balloon was hoax, charges expected
by Dan Elliot for The Associated Press
2009-10-18

The boy’s parents are attention-whores who have been on television in the past (and no doubt wish to remain on television indefinitely) and the balloon “mysteriously became untethered”… is anyone surprised that this was a hoax?

You were surprised? I’ve got a few investment opportunities for you…

Remember that post from January, Before the Clock Strikes Twelve..? Yeah, neither did I – until I saw that Wired had managed to interview one someone who is most certainly talking about it: (unless the man’s crazy, he has nothing to gain – and we all have plenty to lose)

Valery Yarynich glances nervously over his shoulder. Clad in a brown leather jacket, the 72-year-old former Soviet colonel is hunkered in the back of the dimly lit Iron Gate restaurant in Washington, DC. It’s March 2009—the Berlin Wall came down two decades ago—but the lean and fit Yarynich is as jumpy as an informant dodging the KGB. He begins to whisper, quietly but firmly.

. . .

“Yes, I agree, a human could decide in the end not to press the button. But that person is a soldier, isolated in an underground bunker, surrounded by evidence that the enemy has just destroyed his homeland and everyone he knows. Sensors have gone off; timers are ticking. There’s a checklist, and soldiers are trained to follow checklists.” [as opposed to a machine which presses its own buttons, ticks off its own checklist]

- Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine
Nicholas Thompson for Wired
2009-09-21

The article concludes as such: Russia has a “dead hand” system. If it works, we’re all nuked. They’re still working on it… and, hopefully, they’re not planning to test.

So that’s what they’re building inside гора Яманта…

… but what the hell are they really building under Tokyo..?

Was this event conspicuously missing from anyone else’s history textbook?

The federal judge assigned to the case was Julius Hoffman (no relation to Abbie – who, along with Jerry, would (un)affectionately nickname him “Julie”) – a particularly conservative seventy-four-year-old Republican millionaire with investments in the defense industry. Judge Hoffman set the scene for the circus that would follow by restricting the defendants’ questions during jury selection – particularly those relating to the Vietnam War – and attempting to jail four lawyers for contempt because they withdrew from the case before the trial begin.

The defendants, meanwhile, recognized that the trial presented a golden opportunity to publicize their views. Their strategy was to offend and disrupt proceedings so that any obtained conviction would not stand on appeal, and – against the backdrop of Judge Hoffman’s obstinate and obvious bias – they (particularly Abbie and Jerry) employed guerilla theatre-like tactics to maximum effect.

- 24th September 1969 – the Chicago Conspiracy Trial Begins
On This Deity
2009-09-24

via Dangerous Minds

We can’t very well live without civilization now, can we?

This is the way our society deals with uncomfortable questions about “official” explanations for the inexplicable – by purging all dissenters, and even anybody who asks a question without necessarily having a ready-made answer. To the stake with them! Burn the heretics! Move along, nothing to see here – and don’t ask questions unless you want to completely marginalize yourself, lose your job, and be subjected to an intensive hate campaign.

We are asked to believe that 19 men, armed with the most basic weapons, somehow managed to elude the biggest, most expensively-accoutered intelligence apparatus in the world — and the intelligence agencies of our allies, to boot. Utilizing nothing but box-cutters and the knowledge gleaned from a few weeks at flight school, these supermen somehow managed to steer those planes into two of the most visible potential terrorist targets in the US, one of which had been successfully targeted by terrorists before. They did this with no help from any foreign intelligence agency, no nation-state in on the plot, and they did it for less than $100,000.

Really?

- 9/11: Our Truth, and Theirs
by Justin Raimondo for AntiWar.com
2009-09-11

How many taxpayer dollars have been wasted prosecuting prosecuting innocent taxpayers..?

… and how is it that the salaries of those responsible have yet to be touched while the taxpayers pick up a $101.7 million dollar bill …

The discovery of secret FBI files that were not handed over during the men’s 1968 state murder trial prompted a state judge in 2001 to overturn the murder convictions of Limone and Salvati. Limone was immediately freed from prison. Salvati had been paroled in 1997. The convictions of Tameleo and Greco were later set aside posthumously.

During oral arguments before the appeals judges in May, lawyers for the Justice Department contended the FBI could not be held liable for malicious prosecution because the four men were prosecuted in state court by state authorities. The appellate court agreed yesterday, saying FBI agents helped the state make its case but did not initiate it.

Nevertheless, the appeals court said Gertner was right to hold the government liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress by covering up evidence that the four men were innocent.

- FBI loses appeal of $101.7 million verdict
by Jonathan Saltzman for the Boston Globe
August 28, 2009

Is it a conspiracy theory to suggest these men were framed by the FBI?
No, it’s simply a matter of fact – a bona fide conspiracy.

Sibel Edmonds has, by all accounts, been wronged by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. By its own admission, the government of the United States of America has allowed her to be fired from a position, spread libel regarding her performance on the job, and – now – shut down any chance she has at remuneration for the actions taken against her.

Edmonds was hired, as a contractor, to work as an interpreter in the translations unit of the FBI on September 20, 2001.

Between December 2001 and March 2002, Edmonds reported to FBI managers various incidents of misconduct and incompetence, involving her supervisor Mike Feghali and others, that she says she observed while employed as a translator. In response, she claims that managers retaliated against her. She escalated her complaints to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General. She was fired on March 22, 2002.

- Sibel Edmonds at Wikipedia

She was fired in retaliation for reporting breaches of ethics and security which she witnessed while working with the FBI: her protected status as a whistle-blower was successfully shot down by the US Department of Justice under the state secrets doctrine (effectively protecting those responsible for the activities which she reported and the resulting cover-up which resulted in her termination).

The District of Columbia Circuit has stated that “[d]ismissal of a suit, and the consequent denial of a forum without giving the plaintiff her day in court . . . is indeed draconian. ‘[D]enial of the forum provided under the Constitution for the resolution of disputes, U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, is a drastic remedy that has rarely been invoked.’” In re United States, 872 F.2d at 477 (quoting Fitzgerald v. Penthouse Int’l, Ltd., 776 F.2d 1236, 1242 (4th Cir. 1985)).

Mindful of the need for virtual unfettered access to the judicial process in a governmental system integrally linked to the rule of law, the Court nonetheless concludes that the government has properly invoked the state secrets privilege . . . Accordingly, because the Court finds that the plaintiff is unable to establish her First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Privacy Act claims without the disclosure of privileged information, nor would the defendants be able to defend against these claims without the same disclosures, the plaintiff’s case must be dismissed, albeit with great consternation, in the interests of national security.

- Sibel Edmonds vs. United States Department of Justice
Civil Action No. 02-1448 (RBW) [PDF]

Moral of the Story: Bemoan the unfairness of it all to mitigate your obvious culpability when enforcing draconian measures.

Consider the allegations which Edmonds has leveled against the malfeasants who denied her justice and withheld the truth regarding this quixotic War On Terror which has cost America its economy, young soldiers, and whatever remaining shreds of credibility it may have had as an honest and just nation:

During my short tenure with the bureau, I came across certain issues and cases that I believed I had to report to higher-ups in the FBI and they consisted of, let’s say, issues within three different broad categories.

One had to do with security breaches, serious security breaches, certain translators who were granted Top Secret clearance, who were internationally blocking certain intelligence from being translated by stamping them as ‘Not Pertinent,’ and also removing high level intelligence from the FBI, and alerting certain targets of investigations.

Another had to do with certain investigations under counter intelligence – counter intelligence – were not being transferred to counter terrorism despite their direct connection and link to certain criminal and terrorist activities against this country, simply because these counter intelligence investigations involved certain semi-legit organizations and, according to the agents I worked for, the State Department basically asked the FBI not to transfer these to counter terrorism, and not to investigate it, because it would touch upon ‘certain diplomatic relations’ and ‘certain sensitive foreign business relations’ of the United States. That was not right. It should not have done considering what we went through in this country on 911.

- Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
interview with Sibel

The most recent revelation:

… certain people in the US were using Bin Laden up to September 11, 2001.

It is important to understand why: the US outsourced terror operations to al Qaeda and the Taliban for many years, promoting the Islamization of Central Asia in an attempt to personally profit off military sales as well as oil and gas concessions.

- Bombshell: Bin Laden worked for US till 9/11

Rupert Murdoch’s credible and upstanding News Corporation (proud owner of such trustworthy outlets as Fox News) seems to have a penchant for “digging deep” to get scandalously-entertaining information:

According to one source with direct knowledge of the Scotland Yard evidence, News of the World journalists were systematically using private investigators who would break the law to obtain information, hacking into thousands of mobile phones and supplying raw material which was then converted into stories that made no reference to their real source.

- Trail of hacking and deceit under nose of Tory PR chief
by Nick Davies for guardian.co.uk

Stealing confidential information for news stories is illegal – basing news stories on entirely confabulated information, on the other hand, is not.

Update 7/11/2009:

Now the shit has hit the fan as more disclosures have surfaced and the English press is full of it. Barely a peep over here. Single column on page 12 of the New York Times. Nothing in the Dirty Diggers papers. And what makes you think the media over here is just one giant collection of scumbags, whether they be right wing or centrist (there’s no left winger papers here.) Thank God for the fucking internet.

- Wizened of oz dodges bullet in US
at AdScam/The Horror!

Thank God, indeed.

A few notable ‘net mentions here in the USA:

• Murdoch press, cellphone hacking, private investigators, celebrities, hoo boy at Wired.com (a property of Condé Nast Publications)
• Tabloid Accused of Hacking Into Private Voicemails of Rich and Famous at ABC News (a property of The Walt Disney Company)

From my August 30th, 2008 post regarding the Bayer CropScience Facility Explosion in Institute, West Virginia:

I rarely read much of the news, though it does lead one to wonder – how often do reporters substitute a quip from a company spokesman/government official/authority figure for factual information?

Conveniently enough, a congressional review of the incident was conducted.

“Bayer engaged in a campaign of secrecy by withholding critical information from local, county, and state emergency responders; by restricting the use of information provided to federal investigators; by undermining news outlets and citizen groups concerned about the dangers posed by Bayer’s activities; and by providing inaccurate and misleading information to the public,” according to an April 21, 2009 staff report (pdf) from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In testimony before Rep. Bart Stupak’s Oversight Subcommittee this week, Bayer CropScience President William B. Buckner admitted that Bayer’s secrecy practices were driven not only by “legitimate security concerns” but also by “a desire to limit negative publicity generally about the company or the Institute facility.” “We concede that our pursuit of [secrecy protection] was motivated, in part, by a desire to prevent that public debate from occurring in the first place,” Mr. Buckner said.

- Secrecy vs. Scientific Integrity at FAS.org
Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

Bayer willfully attempted to obfuscate and confuse the issue with some legal slight of hand; thankfully, they were not entirely successful.

If this incident does not lend to the notion – cynical though it may be – that companies cannot be trusted to set the media’s talking points for their own failures to protect the public interest…

I told you so.

… and what of the Bayer Institute site’s leader, Nick Crosby, and his assertions?

“There’s no danger to human health,” he said. “I can confirm that our monitoring system did not detect anything.”

…

He said people in the area may smell a foul odor, but there are no harmful effects.

- Charleston Daily Mail

People Concerned About Methyl Isocyanate, a grassroots community protest group, has formed in response to concerns that Bayer CropScience’s activities in Institute, West Virginia may lead to a repeat of the 1984 Bhopal disaster.

Taking another page from Machiavelli’s own Public Relations guide, here is an excerpt from an internal Bayer CropScience document (drafted by Ann Green Communications, a contracted public relations firm) which was released over the course of the aforementioned congressional review:

Community Relations Strategy

Our goal with People Concerned About MIC should be to marginalize them. Build the stronger ties with the rest of the Kanawha Valley, keep operations safe, rebuild confidence in emergency response communications, and the activists will become irrelevant. This is especially true in a difficult economy where good jobs mean so much to the area. Interaction with People Concerned should be kept in the public arena where they cannot distort the facts. Treat them civilly so observers will not feel the need to come to their defense. Allow them to seem uncivil. Local citizens have, historically, not supported fanatical, negative activism.

- Community Relations Strategy, Bayer CropScience Institute Plant
as referenced at PeopleConcernedAboutMIC.com

Nearly nine months after the Institute facility’s explosion, long after the media’s initial reporting frenzy has died down (any meaningful questions or revelations deflected by Bayer CropScience’s deceptive practices) the truth regarding this incident is slowly leaking out and, in that respect, perhaps this incident is an exemplary one – the machinations of obfuscation and the PR firm modus operandi are plainly exposed for all their ugliness…

… though a thousand less conspicuous variations occur every day.