The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it’s become an economic suicide pact. And we’re here to challenge it. On Earth Day, visit http://freemarketamerica.org/

If I Wanted America to Fail.

Alleged fraud at JP Morgan.  Who could have guessed?

Source

A federal class action lawsuit is making some strong allegations against JPMorgan Chase, claiming the  lender routinely fabricates documents to deceive bankruptcy judges into believing Chase is the beneficiary in bankruptcy cases, and goes so far as to Photoshop documents to “create the illusion” of standing “in tens of thousands of bankruptcy cases.”

According to the JPMorgan Chase bankruptcy fraud class action lawsuit, “Chase is engaged in the business practice of deceiving bankruptcy judges, Chapter 7 trustees, Chapter 11 trustees, Chapter 13 trustees, the Office of the United States Trustee, creditors, creditor attorneys, debtors in possession, debtors and debtors attorneys as to Chase’s status as a secured creditor in tens of thousands of bankruptcy cases filed nationwide.”

Among the numerous allegations in the Chase bankruptcy fraud class action lawsuit, Chase is alleged to have:

1. engaged in perjury, fraud and intentional misrepresentation by manufacturing a chain of title transfer evidence in order to falsely prove it stands in thousands of bankruptcy matters; and

2. used manufactured evidence to deceive the bankruptcy court and other bankruptcy players as to the identity of the true beneficiary or creditor of Class Members’ non-negotiable promissory notes (MLNs).

A copy of the Chase Bankruptcy Fraud Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.

The case is Ernest Michael Bakenie v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., Case No. SACV12-0060 JVS (MLGx), U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

CONTINUED at Top Class Actions.

Many experts have said that the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) are not only draconian, but that they fail to address the root problem.

A former intellectual property law school professor points out:

[SOPA and PIPA] aim to curb online copyright piracy … but end up using a sledgehammer, when a fine scalpel is instead needed.

***

As reported by Forbes, the Atlantic Monthly and others, coders are already developing work-arounds to SOPA and PIPA. For example, a developer using the alias “Tamer Rizk” launched DeSopa, an add-on for the popular Firefox browser that would allow users to visit sites blocked by the proposed copyright protection measures proposed under SOPA. So not only these bills are not only draconian, but they won’t work.

Jay McDaniel – a plaintiff’s attorney for content providers fighting torrent–based copyright infringement – agrees, and  proposes a better alternative:

There is a simple solution to the dilemma of digital piracy, however, one that will cost the government nothing, that will protect free speech and that will ultimately bring an end to a practice that is undermining the viability of our cultural industries. More importantly, it will enable Congress to avoid polluting legitimate free speech issues with behavior that is neither protected by the Constitution nor lawful.

Simply let copyright holders exercise the right to efficiently discover the identity of infringers. Copyright law as it presently exists with its substantial civil remedies will take care of the rest of the problem.

***

The answer is simple. Congress should overrule two decisions that held that copyright owners could not use the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to subpoena the identities of infringers directly from cable internet service providers. These two decisions, Recording Indus. Ass’n of America v. Verizon Internet Servs., Inc., 351 F.3d 1299 (D.C. Cir. 2003) and In re Charter Communications, Inc., 393 F.3d 771 (8th Cir. 2005), have made it extremely difficult for copyright owners to find and prosecute civil claims against the wide-spread piracy that occurs on peer-to-peer networks.

Both cases involved attempts by copyright owners to use a provision in the DMCA that allows the owners to issue takedown notices to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and to also obtain a subpoena to learn the identity of the infringer. The Verizon and Charter Communications courts held that the takedown notice-subpoena provisions did not apply to claims seeking to discover the identity of Internet account holders.

It was a strained reading of the statute to begin with, and it has led to a morass of litigation and discovery disputes in which there are conflicting jurisdictional and venue decisions on a nearly daily basis. More significantly these decisions closed the courthouse doors to any copyright holder that cannot demonstrate widespread copying sufficient to justify bringing a large “John Doe” action just to find out who the culprits are. Moreover, in a relatively small number of cases, hostile district judges are unwilling to let the cases go forward in any reasonably economic manner.

***

Copyright holders know that their works are being pirated. They know where they are being pirated and how they are being pirated. But they simply cannot get to the pirates. If Congress were to overrule these decisions, the problem would disappear as the people who break the law would find themselves facing the serious consequences of a civil infringement suit. The infringers would pay for the remedy through statutory fee shifting.

Private enforcement litigation would replace the need for government oversight of our Internet habits, and those who break the law would fund the system. Digital piracy, in its present form, would quickly come to a halt for the same reason that we don’t shoplift copies of DVDs from Walmart. It’s too easy to get caught and the penalties are too severe.

As Harvard law school professor Lawrence Tribe correctly points out to Congress:

[SOPA] creates confusion and underscores the need to go back to the drawing board and craft a new measure that works as a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer to address the governmental interests that SOPA purports to advance.

Many Copyright Lawyers Oppose SOPA

Indeed, many of the nation’s top copyright lawyers oppose SOPA and PIPA, including:

1. Marvin Ammori, Affiliate Scholar, Center for Internet & Society, Stanford Law School
2. Brook K. Baker, Northeastern University School of Law
3. Stewart Baker, former NSA General Counsel and Head of Cyber Policy for DHS
4. Derek E. Bambauer, Brooklyn Law School
5. Margreth Barrett, Hastings College of Law University of California-San Francisco
6. Mark Bartholomew, University at Buffalo Law School
7. Ann M. Bartow, Pace Law School
8. Marsha Baum, University of New Mexico School of Law
9. Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School
10. Oren Bracha, University of Texas School of Law
11. Annemarie Bridy, University of Idaho College of Law
12. Chris Bronk, Rice University
13. Dan L. Burk, University of California-Irvine School of Law
14. Irene Calboli, Marquette University School of Law
15. Adam Candeub, Michigan State University College of Law
16. Michael Carrier, Rutgers Law School – Camden
17. Michael W. Carroll, Washington College of Law American University
18. Brian W. Carver, School of Information University of California-Berkeley
19. Anupam Chander, University of California-Davis School of Law
20. Andrew Chin, University of North Carolina School of Law
21. Ralph D. Clifford, University of Massachusetts School of Law
22. Julie E. Cohen, Georgetown University Law Center
23. G. Marcus Cole, Stanford Law School
24. Kevin Collins, Washington University-St. Louis School of Law
25. Danielle M. Conway, University of Hawai’i Richardson School of Law
26. Dennis S. Corgill, St. Thomas University School of Law
27. Christopher A. Cotropia, University of Richmond School of Law
28. Thomas Cotter, University of Minnesota School of Law
29. Julie Cromer Young, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
30. Ben Depoorter, Hastings College of Law University of California – San Francisco
31. Eric B. Easton, University of Baltimore School of Law
32. Anthony Falzone Director, Fair Use Project Stanford Law School
33. Nita Farahany, Vanderbilt Law School
34. Thomas G. Field, Jr., University of New Hampshire School of Law
35. Sean Flynn, Washington College of Law American University
36. Brett M. Frischmann, Cardozo Law School Yeshiva University
37. Jeanne C. Fromer, Fordham Law School
38. William T. Gallagher, Golden Gate University School of Law
39. Laura N. Gasaway, University of North Carolina School of Law
40. Deborah Gerhardt, University of North Carolina School of Law
41. Llew Gibbons, University of Toledo College of Law
42. Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University School of Law
43. Marc Greenberg, Golden Gate University School of Law
44. James Grimmelman, New York Law School
45. Leah Chan Grinvald, St. Louis University School of Law
46. Richard Gruner, John Marshall Law School
47. Robert A. Heverly, Albany Law School Union University
48. Laura A. Heymann, Marshall-Wythe School of Law College of William & Mary
49. Herbert Hovenkamp, University of Iowa College of Law
50. Dan Hunter, New York Law School
51. David R. Johnson, New York Law School
52. Faye E. Jones, Florida State University College of Law
53. Amy Kapczynski, University of California-Berkeley Law School
54. Dennis S. Karjala, Arizona State University College of Law
55. Anne Klinefelter, University of North Carolina College of Law
56. Mary LaFrance, William Boyd Law School University of Nevada – Las Vegas
57. Amy L. Landers, McGeorge Law School University of the Pacific
58. Mark Lemley, Stanford Law School
59. Lawrence Lessig, Harvard Law School
60. David S. Levine, Elon University School of Law
61. Yvette Joy Liebesman, St. Louis University School of Law
62. Peter Linzer, University of Houston Law Center
63. Lydia Pallas Loren, Lewis & Clark Law School
64. Michael J. Madison, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
65. Gregory P. Magarian, Washington University-St. Louis School of Law
66. Phil Malone, Harvard Law School
67. Christian E. Mammen, Hastings College of Law University of California-San Francisco
68. Jonathan Masur, University of Chicago Law School
69. Andrea Matwyshyn, Wharton School of Business University of Pennsylvania
70. J. Thomas McCarthy, University of San Francisco School of Law
71. Aleecia M. McDonald, Stanford University
72. William McGeveran, University of Minnesota Law School
73. Stephen McJohn, Suffolk University Law School
74. Mark P. McKenna, Notre Dame Law School
75. Hiram Melendez-Juarbe, University of Puerto Rico School of Law
76. Viva Moffat, University of Denver College of Law
77. Ira Nathenson, St. Thomas University School of Law
78. Tyler T. Ochoa, Santa Clara University School of Law
79. David S. Olson, Boston College Law School
80. Barak Y. Orbach, University of Arizona College of Law
81. Kristen Osenga, University of Richmond School of Law
82. Frank Pasquale, Seton Hall Law School
83. Aaron Perzanowski, Wayne State University Law School
84. Malla Pollack Co-author, Callman on Trademarks, Unfair Competition, and Monopolies
85. David G. Post, Temple University School of Law
86. Connie Davis Powell, Baylor University School of Law
87. Margaret Jane Radin, University of Michigan Law School
88. Glenn Reynolds, University of Tennessee Law School
89. David A. Rice, Roger Williams University School of Law
90. Neil Richards, Washington University-St. Louis School of Law
91. Michael Risch, Villanova Law School
92. Betsy Rosenblatt, Whittier Law School
93. Matthew Sag, Loyola University-Chicago School of Law
94. Pamela Samuelson, University of California-Berkeley Law School
95. Sharon K. Sandeen, Hamline University School of Law
96. Jason M. Schultz, UC Berkeley Law School
97. Jeremy Sheff, St. John’s University School of Law
98. Jessica Silbey, Suffolk University Law School
99. Brenda M. Simon, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
100. David E. Sorkin, John Marshall Law School
101. Christopher Jon Sprigman, University of Virginia School of Law
102. Katherine J. Strandburg, NYU Law School
103. Madhavi Sunder, University of California-Davis School of Law
104. Rebecca Tushnet, Georgetown University Law Center
105. Deborah Tussey, Oklahoma City University School of Law
106. Barbara van Schewick, Stanford Law School
107. Eugene Volokh, UCLA School of Law
108. Sarah K. Wiant, William & Mary Law School
109. Darryl C. Wilson, Stetson University College of Law
110. Jane K. Winn, University of Washington School of Law
111. Peter K. Yu, Drake University Law School
112. Tim Zick, William & Mary Law

For further background on the internet copyright bills, see:

• The Tide Is Turning Against SOPA … And We Might Actually Succeed In Stopping It

• SOPA Is “Unconstitutional”, Would “Criminalize” the Internet … Modeled On China

• Job Creators, Internet Architects and Security Experts Hate SOPA

• Sopa Would DESTROY Jobs and the Economy … So Why are Unions Supporting It?

• Hypocrite Alert: SOPA Supporters Encouraged People to Use File-Sharing Software for Pirating Copyrighted Material

Top national security lawyers in the Obama administration say U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida.

The lawyers were asked at a national security conference Thursday about the CIA killing of Anwar al-Alwaki, a U.S. citizen and leading al-Qaida figure. He died in a Sept. 30 U.S. drone strike in the mountains of Yemen.

The government lawyers – CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson – did not directly address the al-Alwaki case. But they said U.S. citizens don’t have immunity when they’re at war with the United States.

Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, are equipped to make decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.

Source: AP.

*Taken from Big Government.

Dave Weigel of Slate reports that Crown/Random House, publisher of The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, has released the following statement on allegations that Joe McGinniss’s book is a literary hoax:

Joe McGinniss’s book The Rogue is based on the author’s extensive on-the-ground reporting in Alaska, as well as in-depth interviews he conducted with approximately 200 people who have known Governor Palin at different stages of her life and career. After a thorough and careful examination of the book, including probing discussions with the author about his sources, we are confident that the reporting it contains is solid, reliable, and well-substantiated.

Yet McGinniss revealed in an e-mail in January 2011 that Random House lawyers had informed him–after all of that “extensive-on-the-ground reporting in Alaska, as well as in-depth interviews”–that his manuscript contained nothing beyond “tawdry gossip,” and that his most “salacious stories” lacked “factual evidence.”

CONTINUED..

*Taken from the Washington Post.

Ai Weiwei, one of China’s most prominent artists and an outspoken critic of the communist regime, was taken from Beijing’s airport by security agents Sunday as he was about to board a flight to Hong Kong. Police later raided his studio.

Ai is the most high-profile activist to have been detained in a government crackdown in which dozens of bloggers, human rights lawyers and writers have been swept up.

The arrests seem related to the government’s concern that activists in China want to launch a “jasmine revolution” similar to the popular uprisings roiling autocratic governments in the Middle East and North Africa.

Some of those detained have been accused of “inciting subversion of state power,” a catch-all term used to jail anyone critical of Communist Party rule. Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, faced the same charge and received an 11-year prison sentence.

Since mid-February, when anonymous calls for “jasmine rallies” in China began circulating on the Internet, 26 people have been arrested, 30 have disappeared and are presumed held by security forces, and 200 have been placed under “soft detention,” meaning their movements are restricted, according to a count by the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders on Thursday.

But the arrest of Ai and the others appeared to mark what human rights groups and others called a new and more sinister phase in China’s ongoing, and typically cyclical, repression of dissidents. In the past, such sweeps of activists have preceded major events on the calendar — the 2008 Olympics, major Communist Party meetings or the Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo last December — and have receded once the event ended.

The arrests of bloggers and writers, in particular, on subversion charges suggests a rollback of the limited open space recently allowed for free opinion on the Internet and particularly on popular Twitter-like microblogging sites.

“This is not a crackdown in the classic cycle of tightening and loosening,” said Nicholas Bequelin, Hong-Kong based China researcher for Human Rights Watch. “This is an effort by the government to redraw the lines of permissible expression in China, to restrict the most outspoken advocates of global values.”

Activists such as Ai — an active Twitter user — have been continually pushing the boundaries of what is allowed, while increased connectivity is giving ordinary Chinese people more access to uncensored information and viewpoints.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders, in its Thursday statement, said, “In the context of the democratic uprisings taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, the Chinese government, fearful of its own people, is counting on getting away with staging one of the most repressive campaigns in more than a decade because of the international community’s preoccupation with events elsewhere.”

The outspoken Ai, 53, was the artistic director for the “Bird’s Nest” Olympic Stadium, but he later turned critical of the Games. He has been arrested before: In 2009, in the western city of Chengdu, Ai was beaten so badly that he required surgery to have blood drained from his brain. Late last year, he was stopped at Beijing’s airport from flying to South Korea because authorities feared he might go to Oslo to attend the Nobel ceremony for Liu. Liu is in prison, and his wife, Liu Xia, is under house arrest.

Ai was prevented from having a solo exhibition of his work at a Beijing gallery this year, and in January authorities demolished his newly built Shanghai studio. In March, Ai announced that he was opening a studio in Berlin to escape the restraints on artistic freedom in China.

Police detained Ai on Sunday morning, and his assistants and attorneys said they were concerned that they have not had any communication with him since. After his arrest, police blocked off the streets to his studio and raided it, carting away laptops and the hard drive from the main computer, Ai’s workers said.

They said eight staff members and Ai’s wife, Lu Qing, were taken to the local police station for questioning. Even as night fell, Lu and two staffers were still being held, they said.

Liu Xiaoyuan, a lawyer, said he hoped Ai’s international fame would provide him some protection while in police custody.

Liu also said the arrest appears to be “related to the intense international situation, such as what happened in Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern countries.” But he said it was too early to say whether Ai’s Twitter posts and interview statements about jasmine rallies in China played a part.

On Feb. 24, amid an online campaign for Middle East-style jasmine rallies in major Chinese cities, Ai posted on his Twitter account: “I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!”

Twitter is blocked in China, except for those with a virtual-private-network line or an Internet connection from outside the country. Ai has 72,000 followers.

*Taken from The Telegraph.

Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices.

He claims he has followed all legal requirements to own and operate the website – and that the header of the site clearly states that the content has not been approved by the bank.

On a special section of his blog entitled “Goldman Sachs vs Mike Morgan” he predicts that the fight will probably end up in court.

“It’s just another example of how a bully like Goldman Sachs tries to throw their weight around,” he writes.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Morgan explained how he went through a similar battle with US homebuilder Lennar a few years ago after he set up a website to collect information on what he alleged was shoddy workmanship in its homes. The pair eventually settled out of court.

“Since I went through this with Lennar, I’ve had advice from some of the best intellectual property lawyers, and I know exactly what I can and can’t do. We’re not going to back down from this,” he promises.

Mr Morgan adds that if Goldman manages to shut down his site, he has a number of other domain names registered.

• Speculation is mounting that Goldman Sachs is set to raise several billion dollars via a share sale, possibly next week, in order to pay down a $10bn (£6.8bn) US government loan, as revealed in The Sunday Telegraph last week.

*Taken from the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Written by Edward Stringham.

We have all heard that alcohol in moderation appears to offer health benefits, from reducing the risk of heart attack to even decreasing susceptibility to the common cold. And for the many people who consume alcohol, drinking sometimes has entertainment value, as well.

But here in North Carolina, we have some of the highest beer taxes in the nation and I still cannot buy spirits from private stores. Nationally, we hear from groups such as the American Medical Association that alcohol has many downsides, such as it gets in the way of peoples’ careers. Even Donald Trump says, “I’d like to see the lawyers start going after the alcohol companies, ’cause I think alcohol is a much greater detriment than cigarettes.”

But there’s good news for those who like drinking and want good careers: economic data show that drinkers actually earn significantly more money than non-drinkers.

In an article in the Journal of Labor Research, co-author Bethany Peters and I looked at data on 7,500 people. We held numerous variables, such as education and age, constant in order to isolate the effects of drinking. Roughly 75 percent of adults are drinkers and 25 percent are abstainers. Holding everything else equal, we found that someone who drinks earns 10 percent more on average than someone who does not. We also found that men who reported going to a bar at least once in the last month earn an additional 7 percent. That’s 17 percent more money than people who don’t go out or drink.

Why do drinkers earn more? We believe it’s because drinkers have bigger social networks and that enables them to make more money. If drinkers know more people, they will be more likely to find a better job. In addition, drinkers also may be more likely to get along well with coworkers and clients than the person who likes to stay at home and play video games. That can explain why drinkers who drink in bars tend to earn the most.

This is not to say that everyone should aim to become an alcoholic, because the data also suggest that if you drink too much, your earnings fall. And, of course, all this deals with averages and so there are always exceptions. But the data show that, on average, one has to drink more than 21 drinks per week to start earning as little as a non-drinker.

Such data should give pause to politicians, lobby groups and modern prohibitionists who want to restrict alcohol consumption through higher taxes, lawsuits or other get-tough-on-alcohol campaigns. Not only do such policies reduce drinkers’ fun, but they also may decrease drinkers’ earnings. Rather than viewing alcohol consumption as a vice, we might think about considering drinking as an economically productive activity. So you want to make more money? Oh, waiter.

*Taken from Infowars. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

New documents released under the Freedom of Information Act confirm that the FBI received a phone call the day before the Oklahoma City bombing warning that the attack was imminent, and that the feds tried to reach a deal with bomber Terry Nichols to take the death penalty off the table if he admitted making the call.

The documents were released to Salt Lake City lawyer Jesse Trentadue, who in the course of of a 15 year battle in trying to ascertain why his brother was tortured to death during an FBI interrogation related to the case, has all but proven the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Building was an inside job run by FBI agents who were handling Timothy McVeigh.

“What that indicates to me, there is a record somewhere of that phone call and the FBI needs to explain it,” said Trentadue in an interview with KTOK News. “If the call was from one of their informants with McVeigh, clearly, they had knowledge of the bombing and didn’t stop it.”

The feds’ attempt to make Nichols accept responsibility for the phone call occurred in 2005 after Nichols was visited by an attorney named Michael Selby who claimed he was working for the government and would guarantee Nichols was spared the death penalty if he played ball in covering up FBI foreknowledge and involvement in the bombing plot.

“This was the first I had ever heard of such a telephone call having made made,” said Nichols in an affidavit filed recently in Utah U.S. District court. “And I told Mr. Selby that as well as the fact that I had not made that telephone call.”

Selby also tried to get Nichols to reveal the location of a box of explosives that the FBI failed to find during an initial search of Nichols’ home in 1995.

“He was fearful the FBI would come into possession of it and then no one would ever know who else was involved,” said Trentadue. “And his fears proved true because the FBI apparently found out about the box of explosives hidden in the basement (of the Nichols home) and got the box.”

McVeigh and Nichols’ fingerprints were found on the box, along with the fingerprints of at least two other individuals whose names were redacted by the FBI.

“Trentadue believes the government was desperate to reach the box before Nichols could make its location known to Homeland Security rather than the FBI. The attorney says it would have shown others were involved as government informants in the bombing conspiracy,” reports KTOK.

“When you look at these documents, that this was being monitored, this search for the box of explosives at the highest levels within the Department of Justice, right up to and include the White House I think, I mean, this wasn’t your local FBI office handling this. This was being run right out of the main justice in Washington D.C,” said Trentadue.

Lawyer Jesse Trentadue has embarked on a fearless campaign to uncover the truth behind his brother’s death, and the evidence that he has gathered in the process clearly indicates that the FBI have been killing witnesses who have direct knowledge of the fact that the Oklahoma City bombing could not have gone ahead without the aid of FBI informants and that the government had prior knowledge of the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah building at least four months in advance.

Trentadue’s evidence points to the factthat federal agents killed his brother because they mistook him for Richard Lee Guthrie, a member of the Midwest Bank Robbery Gang that included McVeigh and had been robbing banks before the attack. Guthrie was found hanging in his cell while in federal custody a day before he was due to give a confessional interview about the Oklahoma City bombing.

Trentadue said he believes Guthrie was John Doe 2, McVeigh’s accomplice in carrying out the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah building and an individual seen by multiple eyewitnesses yet omitted from the official story by the authorities.

Current Obama administration Attorney General nominee Eric Holder was also involved in the cover-up of Trentadue’s brother’s death, sending Department of Justice emails concerning the need to keep a lid on what was dubbed “The Trentadue Mission”.

In February 2007, Trentadue obtained an astounding declaration from Nichols in which he fingered FBI agent Larry Potts as having directed McVeigh in carrying out the attack.

In addition, Nichols’ description of the bomb he helped McVeigh build does not match with official accounts of the device used in the attack, lending further credence to evidence that strongly suggests only bombs planted within the Alfred P. Murrah building, which were initially reported by TV news stations, could have caused the damage inflicted.

Former FBI Terrorist Task Force director Danny Coulson, the man who was in charge of collecting evidence from the Alfred P. Murrah building, has called for a new new grand jury investigation into the bombing in order to identify FBI informants who were involved in the plot.

OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING – THE EVIDENCE

- In early April 1995 a Ryder truck identical to the one used in the bombing was filmed by a pilotduring an overflight of of an area near Camp Gruber-Braggs, Oklahoma. A June 17th, 1997 Washington Post article authenticates the photos as being exactly what they appear to be, photos of a Ryder truck in a clandestine base at Camp Gruber-Braggs. Why were the military in possession of a Ryder truck housed in a remote clandestine army base days before the Alfred P. Murrah bombing?

- In a 1993 letter to his sister, McVeigh claimed that he was approached by military intelligence and had joined an “elite squad of government paid assassins.” McVeigh often contradicted himself and changed his story on a whim to fit in with the latest government version of events. Is the Camp Grafton footage evidence of McVeigh’s enrollment in such a clandestine program?

- Multiple reports of Arabs at the scene assisting McVeigh were ignored and surveillance tapes were withheld under national security. The likely reason for this was the fact that Bush senior and Clinton were responsible for bringing in nearly 1,000 Iraqi soldiers captured by U.S. forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, some of whom were involved in the bombing.

- The FBI claimed McVeigh scouted the Alfred P. Murrah building weeks before the bombing and yet on the morning of the attack he stopped at a local gas station to ask directions, lending credibility to the new claims that he was being controlled by other conspirators and that the target of the bombing had been changed.

- Original reports of two explosions and several failed devices being defused by bomb squads were buried by the establishment as the official explanation that McVeigh acted alone was pushed.Scientific analysis conducted by General Benton K. Partin revealed core columns were blown out from within the building and the extensive damage to the Alfred P. Murrah building was completely inconsistent with the explanation of a single and relatively weak fertilizer truck bomb.

- Many eyewitnesses reported that bomb squads in full Hazmat gear were seen around the building immediately before the blast. Police officer Terence Yeakey, who helped save dozens of victims, was one such witness. Yeakey compiled extensive files on his observations but was later found with his throat and wrists slashed having also been shot in the head after he told friends he was being followed by the authorities.

- Several individuals received prior warning that the bombing was about to take place. Bruce Shaw, who rushed to the Murrah building to find his wife who was employed there with the Federal Credit Union, testified that an ATF agent told him that ATF staff had been warned on their pagers not to come to work that day.

- The aftermath of the bombing led to the passage of the Omnibus Crime Bill and the demonization of the ‘Patriot Movement’, which was spreading like wildfire as opposition to federal government abuse grew following the events at Ruby Ridge and Waco. The consequences of the Oklahoma City Bombing effectively dismantled the Patriot Movement before the turn of the century.

Political operatives have repeatedly stated that the only thing that will rescue Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House is another OKC-style bombing that Obama can blame on his political enemies.

*Taken from Yahoo News.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Charles Rangel, once one of the most influential House members, was convicted Tuesday on 11 counts of breaking ethics rules and now faces punishment. The veteran New York lawmaker immediately denounced the verdict as unfair.

An ethics panel of eight House peers deliberated over two days before delivering a jarring blow to the 20-term New York Democrat’s career. Rangel was charged with 13 counts of financial and fundraising misconduct.

The conviction also was another setback for Democrats who lost control of the House to the GOP in the midterm elections.

Rangel, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, is not expected to resign. He is 80 years old and remains a dominant political figure in New York’s famed Harlem neighborhood.

He was forced to step down last March as Ways and Means chairman when the House ethics committee, in a separate case, admonished him for taking two Caribbean trips paid for by corporations.

At his one-day trial on Monday, Rangel was reduced to pleading for a postponement — arguing that his lawyers abandoned him after he paid them some $2 million but could afford no more. The panel rejected his request, and Rangel walked out of the proceeding.

Rangel reacted bitterly to the conviction.

“How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room?” Rangel said in a written statement. “I can only hope that the full committee will treat me more fairly, and take into account my entire 40 years of service to the Congress before making any decisions on sanctions.”

He called the panel’s findings “unprecedented” because there was no rebuttal evidence. He complained that the rejection of his appeal for more time violated “the basic constitutional right to counsel.”

Rangel, echoing a statement he made in August in a speech to the House, added, “any failings in my conduct were the result of “good faith mistakes” and were caused by “sloppy and careless recordkeeping, but were not criminal or corrupt.”

New York Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who attended Rangel’s fundraiser in August while campaigning to clean up New York politics, said, “It’s obviously a sad situation to experience.

“It’s important that people have full faith in the integrity in public service, so it’s painful to watch,” Cuomo said Tuesday at a press event near Rochester. “But we’ll see what happens at the end of the process.”

Only last spring, Rangel wielded significant power in the House from his position as the main writer of tax legislation. He was not present Tuesday when the verdict was announced.

The full ethics committee will now conduct a hearing on the appropriate punishment for Rangel, the silver-haired, gravelly-voiced and sartorially flashy veteran of 20 terms in the House.

Possible sanctions include a House vote deploring Rangel’s conduct, a fine and denial of privileges.

The congressional panel, sitting as a jury, found that Rangel had used House stationery and staff to solicit money for a New York college center named after him. It also concluded he solicited donors for the center with interests before the Ways and Means Committee, leaving the impression the money could influence official actions.

He also was found guilty of failing to disclose at least $600,000 in assets and income in a series of inaccurate reports to Congress; using a rent-subsidized New York apartment for a campaign office, when it was designated for residential use; and failure to report to the IRS rental income from a housing unit in a Dominican Republic resort.

The ethics panel split 4-4 on a charge that Rangel violated a ban on gifts because he was to have an office — and storage of his papers — at the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York.

Two counts charging him with misuse of Congress’ free mail privilege were merged into one.

The charges said the solicitation for the Rangel Center targeted foundations and businesses that were seeking official action from the House, or had interests that might be substantially affected by Rangel’s congressional conduct.

However, Rangel was not accused of using his influence to pass or defeat legislation.

During Monday’s trial proceeding, the chief counsel for the House ethics committee, Blake Chisam, told the jury that Rangel could have received permission to solicit nonprofit foundations. However, he could not have used congressional stationery and staff as he was found to have done.

Rangel had previously acknowledged some of the charges, including submission of 10 years’ worth of incomplete and inaccurate annual statements disclosing his assets and income.

He also admitted he initially did not report his rental income from a unit he owned at the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic.

An apartment in Harlem’s Lennox Terrace complex housed the Rangel for Congress and National Leadership PAC political committees, when the lease terms said the unit was designated for living purposes only.

Chisam had told the jury that other tenants were evicted at an increasing rate for violating the same lease terms.