Scams Away: The Boom Is Falling
In an incredible display of arrogance, George Bush said that
HE (not the White House, but HE) will no longer tolerate second-guessing on
the subject of the growing questions of what did the Bush Administration
know and when did it know it regarding threatened terrorist attacks against
the United States prior to 9-11. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld then came
out with a press release from the Department of Defense, stating that "those
who ask questions could face government charges."
The Bush Administration publicly stated that there is one congressional
investigation ongoing into this matter, and they will not allow any further
congressional investigations to be formed. Nor will they answer any further
questions by the media on this subject.
This all happened when Fox News and MSNBC began to leak out some FBI
documents, which our inside source had told us about a long time ago. This
source actually knew the people who had been dealing with the major media
outlets. They were FBI documents including a memorandum, which indicated
that the warnings the White House had prior to 9-11 were in fact more
substantial than what the White House let on.
The White House has admitted that it did have vague and nebulous
warnings of a potential terrorist attack, led by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda
group. But it had numerous such warnings, and as presidential press
spokesman Ari Fleischer said, how many times can you cry wolf before people
won't listen to you anymore?
The White House also claimed that none of the information they had gotten
from the FBI and the CIA was in substantive enough detail to put together
any defensive plan of action.
As it turns out, there was a key FBI memorandum, which never went up
the chain of command. It was written by an agent in Phoenix, in which he
specifically mentioned that Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda group may use
hijacked aircraft in a terrorist attack against a CIA building or other
principal federal offices in Washington. The FBI also believed that
potential commercial targets included the World Trade Center and the Sears
Tower in Chicago. This document, for some reason, never went up the chain of
command.
The Bush Administration is trying to claim that they weren't aware of
it. Their attitude is that they didn't know that terrorists were going to
hijack aircraft and use them as missiles, and there is no real way to defend
against that.
However, what has since come out of the Department of Defense is that they
took the threats more seriously and did upgrade White House, Pentagon, CIA
and Capital building anti-aircraft security capability. But they did nothing
to attempt to protect any commercial assets.
The FBI documents in question weren't actually leaked.
Originally they were simply sold -- for cash money to a major news outlet.
This news outlet then simply sat on the documents apparently waiting
until they believed the time was right. They tried to get other media
outlets interested in it, and they couldn't. This goes back to August of
2001. The problem was that they couldn't get the other networks interested
in it, and the other networks were frankly frightened. They couldn't get any
Democrats in Congress interested in it either because the Democrats were
also frightened of raising the subject.
Fox then had to wait for others to catch up to them, a common game in
the media. (I played it the same way before.) Sometimes one media outlet or
one newspaper has to wait for the rest of the world to catch up to where it
is. This is very common in the media particularly when it comes to exposing
government misdeeds.
All the newspapers played this game after Iran-Contra.
They'd get a hold of something hot. They'd spread it around a little bit.
But other media outlets, investigative organization, and congressional
committees were still too far behind the eight ball to want to get up to
speed that quickly. There would be still too many missing gaps. It's not
uncommon in the media business to sit on documents for months or even, in
some cases, years. It's often done by individual investigative reporters
themselves. They'll sit on information they have - just waiting because they
don't want to stick their necks out too far.
John Crudele, a political investigative reporter for the NY Post, and
Rodney Bowers, a political reporter for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, were
probably the two best players of this game. They used to call it "Texas
Hold-'em."- like the poker game. They would talk to everyone they knew, all
the other political investigative reporters. They would tell them this is
what we've got, then everyone else would start looking into it, and
gradually they would get caught up to the lead guy. Then they would actually
collaborate on the story.
(By the way, John Crudele recently wrote a great story on the missing
half a trillion dollars from the US Treasury called "$1/2 Trillion Federal
Deficit for Fiscal 2000,")
The Bush Administration is now circling the wagons. Imagine the
arrogance of Rumsfeld to say that those who ask any further questions may
face government charges. Rumsfeld said -- Look at the homeland security act,
the so-called USA Patriot Act, which very few people have read all the way
through to the fine print.
Bush further said that anyone who continues to ask questions is acting
"unpatriotically," and that is a hell of a club to wield, particularly over
congressional Democrats -- especially when you have 90% of the people
supporting the "war on terrorism."
Rumsfeld said that anyone asking questions (referring specifically to
congressional committees and the media) could be charged with giving aid and
comfort to the enemy - if they attempt to question the motives of the
administration with regards to its war on terrorism.
Senator Lieberman and Senator Daschle are up in arms about it. The
Senate Democrat Caucus released a statement saying that they had warned the
American people about this problem before -- regarding the USA Patriot Act
and all the ensuing legislation that has since been passed. We tried to warn
the American people before, they said, that the White House gave us the
bum's rush in signing it.
In other words, no one who had voted on the US Patriot Act had
actually read it. The only thing they got was a two or three page compendium
from the White House press office, but nobody was actually given the time to
read this thing.
The White House was able to give them the bum's rush by going to all
members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, and saying, "You'll sign
it, you'll sign it now, you won't take the time to read it, and if you
refuse to sign it, we'll label you as being unpatriotic" - something which
all members of Congress were frightened of.
The Democrats were actually complaining about it. The White House
threatened them to sign the bill (which became the USA Patriot Act) before
they read it. The threat they used was that the White House would label
Congressman so and so or Senator so and so as being "unpatriotic" -- this at
a time when 91% of the American people supported what the president was
doing. They did complain publicly, but they didn't go into a lot of detail.
Senator Lieberman had a constitutional law expert from Columbia
University, who actually read through every word of it, including all the
compendium of legislation that had since been passed.
Lieberman, Daschle and Gephardt wrote in a memorandum just released
that Congress has effectively given the Bush Administration "near
dictatorial powers." Lieberman then made a wise crack saying that, "You
know, given a Bush, near dictatorial power is a recipe for disaster." And I
doubt there would be many who would disagree with that.
The Administration is using a two-pronged attack. One of the prongs is
that if you continue to ask questions you'll be labeled as "unpatriotic."
Anybody in the media who continues to ask questions will lose their White
House access. And if anybody wants to press it, they can potentially be
charged with a criminal act, for giving aid and comfort to the enemy and
questioning the motives and the president's decisions and his tactics in the
war on terrorism.
It is possible to prosecute someone who continues to ask questions in
the tremendous expansion of the War Powers Act of 1947 that the USA Patriot
Act has facilitated. This is where the new concentration of dictatorial
presidential power now lies -- in the newly expanded War Powers Act of 1947.
That's why, in the USA Patriot Act, they did not specifically strengthen the
Sedition Acts (S. 792, US Title Code 18) because they were afraid that it
would cause too much publicity. The Administration got it in through the
back door by dramatically expanding the War Powers Act, which by definition
strengthens the Government's ability to prosecute somebody for sedition.
The accounting mess in the United States also continues to grow. The next
targets are IBM, Baxter International and Lehman Brothers. We are also
hearing about a whole new scheme - not only fudging the numbers, but IBM,
Baxter and many other large publicly traded corporations are committing
scams against their own pension accounts. They are creating fictitious
trading profits, which they then scalp off the top of the pension plan and
add to their bottom line to make their earnings look better.
This is not just marginal. This is an out-and-out fraud - creating
fictitious trades through employee pension accounts. These are trades, which
weren't even actually executed, thus creating fictitious paper profits, then
transferring those fictitious paper profits to the corporate treasury.
Nothing is skimmed because no money was actually created. These are
just numbers for public consumption to bolster the price of the stock. This
is money, which the corporation claims it earned - which it didn't. And who
would sign off on this? Their in-house auditors and in-house pension actuaries.
This also illustrates the growing problem of pension fraud in this
country. The Bush Administration tries to hide behind the US Government's
Pension Guarantee Corp. They try to present this illusion to the American
people - "don't worry about your pensions because we have the Pension
Guarantee Corp." And a lot of people swallow it. What they don't know is
that the Pension Guarantee Corp. has not been funded since 1986.
Currently the contingent liability of the Pension Guarantee Corp.
exceeds its current assets by $3.5 trillion. As I've been trying to point
out (Fox News and CNBC have also been reporting on this issue), our nation's
public and private pension system is now shakier than it has ever been
before -- since the tactic was developed during the Reagan/ Bush years of
leveraged buyouts using pension money. This has caused a massive drain in
the nation's public and private pension systems.
We are not talking about individual companies' pension schemes, but
governmental pension schemes as well, like Social Security, where there is
no money. There isn't any money anywhere in these pension schemes.
Steve Forbes, who probably understands that his political days are
over, was also synopsizing the situation the way I did. If George Bush
serves a second term, we will have a nation with a debt to GDP ratio of 236%
and a debt service to budget ratio of 37%. We will also have an aggregate of
$10 trillion, which the Reagan Bush Regime and the Bush II Regime cannot
account for.
This is ten trillion missing dollars, which the Reagan/Bush people and
the Bush Junior People (which are all the same people) cannot account for.
It's money that's "missing" from the Department of Defense, the Treasury
Department, the Education Department, Social Security, Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, etc. The list just goes on and on.
This is ten trillion dollars, which the Reagan Bush/Bush Jr. people
cannot account for. This is money, which will never be accounted for.
It should also be mentioned that the Federal Reserve reports (it's
hard to find this information since you have to go to the Comptroller of the
Currency) describes record outflows of money from the United States. It's
money leaving the country from the so-called "Smart Republican Money Set,"
money that's leaving at record levels. Not only are the "Smart Republican
Money Set" transferring their money out of the country into numbered
offshore accounts, they are now beginning to expatriate themselves.
In the last six months, a record number of American citizens with a
net worth of over $100 million have become expatriates.
They can't use the tax loophole act anymore to avoid capital gains,
but what people don't understand is that when the Clinton Administration,
over bitter Republican opposition, closed the expatriate tax loophole act of
1995, which said you could flee the United States and become a "tax exile"
to avoid paying current capital gains taxes, this included only personal
accounts. It didn't relate to built in capital gains in pension accounts,
trust accounts and corporate accounts - which is where anyone who has any
real money is going to keep their money anyway. In other words, this tax
loophole act that the Democrats like to point to as one of their few
successes is really a very hollow victory.
The Bank of International Settlement (BIS) indicates continued record
conversion of US dollars by US citizens into gold in offshore accounts.
What does the Smart Republican Money know?
They know that it's all going to fall apart and that the Bush
Administration has essentially given up any pretense of prudent fiscal
management. It doesn't care how much deficit it creates.
The Bush Administration will make no effort to pay down the national
debt and will make no effort to refund Social Security despite its pledges
to do so, and it will make no effort to explain $10 trillion of missing
money. The only thing the Bush Administration will do from now until the
time it leaves office (whether it has one term or two terms) is continuously
seek to expand defense spending with all of its rich revenues going to
Republican interests, through contract skimming and offshore shadowy
research groups controlled by Republican interests.
In other words, the Bush Administration will act with reckless abandon
to complete the final phase of their agenda, which, according to George Bush
Sr., is "the continuous consolidation of money and power into higher,
tighter and righter hands."
As of right now, the top 1% of the population controls 63% of the
nation's wealth. That top 1% is 78.3% Republican. If Bush serves two terms
in office, the top 1% will control two-thirds of the nation's wealth and the
Bushonian Agenda would have been effectively completed in terms of creating
a New Ruling Elite.
It should be noted that the majority of the money that the 1% controls
has been earned by some fraudulent activity.
Most of the expatriates (those with a $100 million or more) know the
law and they know where to domicile. A lot of them are going to their
luxurious resort mansions in Guiana. Not as many are going to the Cayman
Islands because the Caymans isn't as tight a domiciliary as it once was. It
used to be that everyone would simply go to their Caribbean retreats, but
now that those retreats are not as tight (either protecting them from
extradition or protecting their money) many now are simply going to their
Swiss chalets. Their money is disbursed in hidden accounts throughout the
world, but Switzerland is still the Haven of Last Resort for Republican
Cabalists.
And then there's the recent pullout of the Crusader weapons system
scam. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted the contract cancelled
because frankly the Crusader, the 40-ton self-propelled 335 mm. howitzer
system, is ancient technology. None of our armed forces want it, and it's
not easy to get it in theater or to move it around. There are also no
foreign governments that want it.
Carlucci, the Carlyle Group and their subsidiary, the United Defense
Group were simply trying to suck $11 billion out of the US Treasury. This
was Carlucci's personal last-ditch effort to pull off a big scam -- an
antiquated weapons system that would defraud the US taxpayers. After all,
they don't call the Carlyle Group, "Scam R Us," for nothing. Their entire
balance sheet has been built gratis of the US taxpayer.
When will the American taxpayers wake up? It is almost too late, if
Bush is allowed another term in office. The economic damage to our nation's
public purse will be so severe that not even a fiscally prudent government
coming in after Bush will be able to correct the problem because of the
declining economy in the rest of the world.
Bush understands that it's too late. He's just operating with reckless
abandon to suck every penny he can out of the US taxpayer and to consolidate
within that one percent through a variety of scams, artifices, cross
holdings, trust, limited partnerships, etc. the money and power they've
accumulated.
It'll just be Scams Away for them until the end. In our new "War on
Terrorism," it's no longer Bombs Away. It's Scams Away.
And whose fault is this? It is the fault of the American People who
have supported Reagan, Bush and Bush II. Those who support him should
receive their comeuppance.
When you keep scamscateers in power as long as US voters have (aka
Reagan/Bush/Bush Jr.), eventually the bill becomes due.
Coincidentally Pfizer announced that there is a record number of
depressed people in the United States. The number of depressed people in the
United Sates since George Bush Jr. has come to office has increased by 11%.
And that is the reaction to the Bushonian form of government. In other
words, the American people have given up.
As always, the American people, not knowing what to do, being
confused, not understanding what's happening, but understanding that the
nation is slowly being bled dry, simply don't know what to do. They're
fearful of their pensions. They're fearful for their 401K accounts. They
don't know who to vote for. They've heard so many stories, so they simply
take Prozac. The people don't know what else to do.
You know it's bad when not only the people take Prozac, but now those
who cause the people to take Prozac, the scamscateers themselves, are taking
Prozac. Washington, DC is now the Number One metropolitan area for sales of
Prozac.
There's nothing like a good fresh scam. People I know from Washington
(my old chums I knew from the time I was still in government) call me up and
rub it in my face. People call me up and say, "Al, haven't you beat yourself
up enough? You know there's no money in telling the American people the
truth. Come back inside. We've got a great real estate scam here going
against HUD. Everyone's going to make three or four hundred grand. You just
move it into your offshore account. Your name will never even be used."
You don't think that gets tempting? I get my old pals in government
calling me up and saying, "You know your offshore account has had a zero
balance for fifteen years. And that's what you get for trying to tell the
truth. Those who tell the truth must be punished."
And then I'm reminded of the words of George Bush who said, "The truth
will get you broke."
Or I am reminded of the words of Oliver North who said, "The truth is
useless. You can't deposit it in the bank. You can't eat it. It's absolutely
useless."
And anyone who is interested in the truth doesn't have any money.
In Washington, there are no limits now. The covers have been blown
off. There are no restraints anymore. There's not even a pretense. It's just
naked, raw scams against the public purse.
Nobody cares in Washington anymore. It's just grab what you can before it
all comes to an end.
AL MARTIN is America's foremost whistleblower on government fraud and
corruption. A retired US Navy Lt. Commander and former officer in the Office
of Naval Intelligence, he has testified before Congress (the Kerry Committee
and the Alexander Committee) regarding Iran-Contra. Al Martin is the author
of "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider" (2001, National
Liberty Press, $19.95; Toll FREE order line: 1-866-317-1390) He lives at an
undisclosed location, since the criminals named in his book have been
returned to national power and prominence. His column "Behind the Scenes in
the Beltway" is published regularly on Al Martin Raw: Criminal Govt
Conspiracy (http://www.almartinraw.com)
http://www.almartinraw.com/column58.html
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