[cia-drugs] Fwd: McCain and "Media" Lobbies / Alcalde & Fay / Conrad Black + Richard Perle
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wed, 5 Mar 2008 11:34 am Subject: McCain and "Media" Lobbies / Alcalde & Fay / Conrad Black + Richard Perle Did Iseman and McCain Enable Conrad Black to Commit Fraud with CanWest? By: emptywheel http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/02/21/iseman-and-mccain-enable-conrad-black-to-commit-fraud-with-canwest/ February 21, 2008 11:21 am On July 31, 2000, Alcalde & Fay--and their lobbyist Vicki Iseman--terminated their lobbying activities for CanWest, a big Canadian media company. That day, CanWest had achieved the goal Alcalde & Fay had been assisting with: the acquisition of much of Conrad Black's media empire in Canada. Iseman and her colleagues had been lobbying the FCC, the House of Representatives, and the Senate (including John McCain, with whom McCain's advisors believed Iseman had an inappropriate relationship at the time) to win approval for the foreign purchase of American broadcast companies--that is, Conrad Black's properties, which were headquartered in Chicago. Iseman's role in the deal is significant for a couple of reasons. First, the deal greatly contributed to the consolidation of media in Canada: In the largest media deal in Canadian history, CanWest Global Communications, a company that started 20 years ago with a North Dakota television station, is to pay $2.36 billion for dominant dailies in 8 of Canada's 10 provinces. Mr. Black is to gain a seat on the CanWest board and is to become the second-largest shareholder, after the family of the company founder, Israel H. Asper. ''The borders are gone, we have to grow,'' Mr. Asper, Global's chairman, told a news conference in Toronto today, comparing his acquisition to Tribune Media's recent purchase of The Los Angeles Times. ''We don't intend to be one of the corpses lying beside the information highway.'' Mr. Black said in a statement that his company, Hollinger International, ''believes this intimate association with a highly successful telecaster built by an entrepreneurial spirit compatible with Hollinger is the best possible assurance of the strength of the newspaper franchises.'' Like Conrad Black before them, the family running CanWest exerts a great deal of editorial control--going so far as to distribute corporate editorials to be run in all their properties. CanWest set off the media furor in December [2001, a year after the purchase] with its a decision to require all of its daily newspapers to run corporate editorials produced in its Winnipeg head office. Initially, the company sent out one editorial weekly, but said this would increase to three times a week. The company also said locally-written material should not contradict the party line handed down in corporate editorials. Ownership and management have clashed with journalists and columnists who’ve cringed under the new controls. More interesting still, the deal lay at the core of the charges (and conviction) of Conrad Black for fraud. CanWest paid $60 million to Black and other Hollinger executives that they hid as non-compete agreements. Canwest purchased the newspapers for $3.5-billion in a deal that also included $80-million in non-compete payments. Black, Atkinson and Boultbee pocketed $60-million in fees from the sale - money the U.S. prosecutors are alleging should have gone to Hollinger International. Now, there is absolutely no reason to believe that McCain and Iseman had anything to do with the fraudulent aspect of this deal--or that they even knew about it. Many of Hollinger's board members testified they had no clue about the fraud, so there's almost no way CanWest's lobbyist knew about it. Iseman simply helped make sure the deal got the regulatory approval it needed in the US. As with my post on the ties between Stolen Honor and Iseman's lobbying of McCain, I'm not so interested in the deals themselves--I'm interested in the folks bankrolling the Iseman-McCain relationship. And as with the Sinclair and the Paxson lobbying, what Iseman was working to accomplish was the consolidation--and with it, the politicization--of the media. There's no evidence the people behind the deals are the same. But the ultimate goal of their lobbying does appear to be the same. Responses chrisc February 21st, 2008 at 11:44 am Computer Sciences Corp might be interesting too. They have been raking in a lot of homeland security contracts. Some of their major projects for 2007 CSC is on the Verizon Business team that won GSA’s Networx Universal contract. CSC is providing Verizon with network design support and
[cia-drugs] The Queen of Kansas
http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/victor-lazlo/2008/mar/04/the-queen-of-kansas/ The Queen of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has been making a name for herself on the national stage recently, fueling rumors that she is destine for bigger arenas than Topeka, Kansas. Gov. Sebelius is on the short list to be Barak Obama’s Vice Presidential running mate as he gets closer to securing the nomination. Gov. Sebelius has been actively campaigning for Obama on network political talk shows and campaign stops which helped Obama coast over Clinton in the Kansas caucus and Midwestern states. In January Gov. Sebelius was bestowed the honor of delivering the Democratic response to President Bush’s last State of the Union Address, which was viewed by millions of people across the world. She has also been making constant headlines with her historic battle against coal plants being built in western Kansas. Currently the Democratic Governor has a 64% approval rating in the traditionally conservative state of Kansas. However, Gov. Sebelius’ most telling sign that she is heading for bigger things might be her invitation and attendance at the 2007 meeting of the notorious Bilderberg Group in Istanbul, Turkey. The Bilderberg Group is a collection of the world’s most elite and powerful people who secretly meet once a year among tremendous mystery and security. The conferences attendees are sworn to secrecy and are under strict instructions to not divulge what goes on at the conference to outside sources. The Bilderberg Group was officially formed in 1954, primarily by the powerful banking families of the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, along with royal Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. The group annually includes around 130 guests who consist of Europe and America’s most wealthy and noble elite from politics, royalty, business, banking, education, media, and the military. Notable Bilderberg attendees include David Rockefeller, Rothschild Family Banking, George Soros, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Prince Charles, Al Gore, Colin Powell, Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Perle, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Alan Greenspan, Rupert Murdoch, as well as the CEO’s of mega corporations and financial institutions such as Deutsche Bank, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, The Federal Reserve Banks, IBM, Goldman Sachs, Siemens AG, Google, Eli Lilly, etc. The overall goal of the Bilderberg Group is to bring about a one-world government and global financial system, under the political body of UN style government and the central banking systems of the Rockefellers and Rothschilds. David Rockefeller described the group’s goals in 1991 as the Chairman of the Bilderbergs, "We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. ... It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity." The Bilderberg Group is credited with conceiving and establishing the European Union as the centerpiece of their global government plan. Like their purely American brother, The Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergs are devoted to the rapid spread of globalization through the government and economy, with themselves positioned at the top to control the wealth of the world. One central idea in this group is that of rejecting national sovereignty in favor of multi-national non-democratic institutions, such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank, European Union, and the emerging North American Union. The Bilderbergs, along with the CFR, have been making gradual process toward a one-world government since the end of WWII. In America, globalization has already rapidly changed the economic and political landscape through treaties such as NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), which are intent on forming a North American community of government and economy. Bilderberg Group founders Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and the Rockefellers were notoriously involved in eugenics and had ties to the Nazi Party. Prince Bernhard was a member of the elite SS. Since his death, his daughter, Queen Betrix has taken his place. Award winning investigative journalist Daniel Estulin claims that the elite inner circle of the Bilderberg Group still advocates aspects of modern eugenics and has the end goal of eventually reducing the world‘s population by 80%, as called for by the 1974 UN Assessment on Biodiversity. So what exactly is Governor Sebelius doing meeting with the ultra elite of the world, and what good d
[cia-drugs] Fwd: [ctrl] Senator Tom Harkin: Marijuana Makes People Sell Their Children
-Original Message- From: Alamaine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: CTRL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 11:01 am Subject: [ctrl] Senator Tom Harkin: Marijuana Makes People Sell Their Children marijuana and the child slave trade Senator Tom Harkin: Marijuana Makes People Sell Their Children http://wonkette.com/363265/senator-tom-harkin-marijuana-makes-people-sell-their-children It's 2008, and that teenager drug marijuana is still raping our children. But why does that have to be illegal? According to The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), some person wrote to Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin "asking him to justify why medicinal cannabis is still illegal" after the American College of Physicians recommended it shouldn't be. It merited a hilarious reply from Harkin, which noted many of pot's notorious doom scenarios: "the small child whose parents are so addicted to illegal drugs that they sell everything including perhaps their own children to obtain a fix." Harkin knows the routine: smoke up, eat gyro, play Legend of Zelda, sell children to pirates for more pot, repeat. The full, horrifying letter, after the jump. Dear : Thank you for contacting me. I am always glad to hear from you. I do not believe the answer in solving this country's problem of drug abuse and the violence associated with drug trafficking is to make drugs legal. I have seen too much of the ill effects of these illegal drugs on our nation's young people, as well as this country's law enforcement officers, to believe the solution is to make these drugs more readily available by legalizing them. Marijuana is often the drug singled out for legalization. However, marijuana is not the recreational drug that many believe it to be. In a study completed by the Drug Abuse Warning Network, the number of marijuana related emergencies has nearly reached the level of cocaine related emergencies. As this statistic indicates, marijuana use often has fatal consequences. I was deeply troubled when I learned of another recent study which found that nearly one-third of all eighth graders had tried marijuana. As the father of two daughters, it greatly disturbs me that children are exposed to drugs at such a young age. I am concerned that legalization of this drug will only increase the number of children who gain access to its harmful effects. The victims of the drug war are many - the small child whose parents are so addicted to illegal drugs that they sell everything including perhaps their own children to obtain a fix; the police officer's family which must now learn to cope with the loss of their loved one as a result of a violent drug bust gone awry. These are the people I think of when I say that drugs pose a significant threat to the security of this nation. In addition to helping to double federal funds for Iowa's anti-drug programs, I am an active supporter of the Smoother Sailing Programs in the Des Moines public schools. This program is designed to help children cope with the violence, confusion and trauma associated with the abuse of drugs in our society. Legalizing drugs is equivalent to declaring surrender in the war on drugs. However we may differ in tactics, I am hopeful that we can work together to fight drugs in our communities and to make Iowa drug free. Again, thanks for sharing your views with me. Please don't hesitate to let me know how you feel on any issue that concerns you. Sincerely, Tom Harkin United States Senator -- Alamaine, IVe Grand Forks, ND, US of A ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) "Being ignorant is not such a shame as being unwilling to learn." - Poor Richard's Almanack, 1758 (Benjamin Franklin) ~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == ctrl is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, ctrl gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. ctrl gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. There are two list running, [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] has unlimited posting and is more for discussion. [EMAIL PROTECTED] is more for informational exchange and has limited posting abilities. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Le
[cia-drugs] Fwd: Rudolph Diesel and Hemp oil
-Original Message- From: luxefaire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 7:13 am Subject: Rudolph Diesel and Hemp oil Rudolph Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, designed the diesel to operate on Hemp oil. The Hemp tree produces four times more oxygen than a tree, thereby solving the greenhouse effect, produces no toxic exhaust, only Co-2 and water. The plants use carbon dioxide, Co-2 to make oxygen. IT is estimated that less than 20 million acres of farmland would supply Americas fuel requirements annually. It costs just pennies to refine Hemp oil into Hemp fuel. Smog devices would no longer be needed on engines. To pump and go, all that is necessary is a simple computer mapping change on fuel injected cars and trucks, and a small carburetor jet change for older models and we would be set to operate an efficient, nontoxic and inexpensive alternate energy source. Do your own research and you will find this message to be quite factual as well. -- How DID True Hemp ( Cannabis sativa, sub-species sativa ) disappear from American family-hemp-farms? Starting in the late 1920's, forest-products, cotton, oil, petrochemical, steel, and perhaps even aluminum industries feared COMPETITION from a very innovative new technology; the HEMP DECORTICATOR. HEMP DECORTICATORS were just becoming commercially-available on True Hemp farms. This key technology would have allowed family farmers to create a carbohydrate economy to replace what is now a system dominated by hydrocarbons (oil, coal, and natural-gas). In fact, in the February, 1938 edition of Popular Mechanics, hemp was heralded as a 'New Billion Dollar Crop'. Exactly what caused the demise of True Hemp commodity farming? Well, in 1917 George W. Schlicten pulled off a sort of Eli-Whitney-cotton-gin stunt, only way betterhe patented the HEMP DECORTICATOR; a farm-machine that mechanically seperates the fiber in the True Hemp stalk. This labor-saving device was just barely beginning to kick some centralized-polluting-corporate-butt in the late 1920's. Coincidentally, this is exactly when a deliberate smear campaign was launched (by print, newsreel, and radio) to discredit what was THEN a very new and mysterious word: marijuana. A negative image was assigned to that now-dreaded M-word. Non-drug, True Hemp simply had to be stopped (if you were a wealthy industrialist, that is) Although the indica sub-species may or may not compete with patented, synthetic, man-made-chemicals that can be centrally controlled by pharmaceutical corporations, I do believe that sativa sub-species-non-drug-True-Hemp commodity COMPETITION is what very big business actually stopped (by clever deception). Gary Thomas Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material by Lyster Hoxie Dewey and Jason L. Merrill Creator Dewey, Lyster Hoxie, 1865-1944 Creator Merrill, Jason L. Title Hemp Hurds as Paper-Making Material United States Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 404 Language English EText-No. 17855 Release?Date 2006-02-25 Copyright Status Not copyrighted in the United States. If you live elsewhere check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook. Base?Directory /files/17855/ Download this ebook for free Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation