Crime Families in Politics

Yes, yes, it is ALWAYS about the money … OUR money by the way -- our Light the retardant energy has purloined and possessed since the chiming in of Time. Why are we so resistant to believing what EVERY avatar, saint and wise person has admonished our feeble brains and well-worn souls about? Why are we so afraid to call these “people” to task for stealing our Light?!

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Yes, we are all guilty of denying our true essence.
Genetically programmed we are, believing that we are as weak and as ineffectual as these usurpers continually remind us. Can you imagine a God-being, infilled with the vast unimaginable, so willingly joining-in and embracing our child-like awe and adoration of these various crime family figures who control our government and our lives?

Can you imagine God-beings framing arguments over appropriate torture techniques and choosing which of the lesser of evils is most appropriate? Can you hear the celestial orchestras tuning-up for a performance of these usurpers’ new mantra, "Let us do evil so that good may come!!" Yes, God Almighty, Let’s do evil so that good may come!!”

When we look at most of our political, religious and banking leaders, are we seeing public servants, or dons, hit-men, bagmen and numbers-runners? We have long ago tossed away our lying eyes to fend off the pangs of having to see our own dissonance. Of having to admit that we have placed our Light, and the Light of our grandchildren in the hands of these usurpers.

Yes, we should be as glib as Capt. Renaud -- "... shocked, I tell you, shocked that there's gambling going on here!" But fear is our mentor now, and the Light has gone out from us. And, as pointed out, how many times can we stomach seeing the same old BCCI crowd two-facing their way to yet another round of sucking the Light from our very marrow?

Back in the good ole days of Bush I, the system was working quite well for the Crime Families Extraordinaire (CFEs). For example, Bush I sent Saddam billions in U.S.-backed "agricultural credits" through BNL, an Italian bank tied up with BCCI -- the international "financial consortium" that was actually "one of the largest criminal enterprises in history," according to the U.S. Senate. As we all know, BCCI laundered money and financed arms dealing, terrorism, smuggling and prostitution, while corrupting government officials worldwide with bribes and extortion. Senator John Kerry, btw, led inquiries into the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), which broke open a tangled web that included organized crime, international terrorists, and members of both the Bush family and the Bin Laden family.

There are many (ad nausea) examples of the various international crime families utilizing the services of BCCI et al. A BCCI offshoot bank had bailed out one of Bush Junior's many business failures with $25 million in cash. That deal had been brokered by mysterious Arkansas tycoon Jackson Stephens, one of the Bush family's biggest campaign contributors. Curiously enough, Stephens was also a top money(bag)man for another leading politician: Bill Clinton. When Clinton took office, he obligingly deep-sixed the continuing probes into BCCI, Iraqgate and Iran-Contra.

So what's changed?! Not much. They CFEs (Crime Families Extraordinaire) unabashedly work both sides of the street (‘K’ St.). Only the store-fronts have changed. Meanwhile, while waiting for our next assignment from the Liars and the Lie, we Americans, anxiously await the hoped-for presidential candidate announcement from, perhaps a retired Professional Wrestler, or some other contemporary hero figure !! Arnold is on the outs. It’s NASCAR or Professional Wrestling as I see it. How 'bout the “Rock” for prez?!

PUT OPTIONS & 9/11

Between August 26 and September 11, 2001, a group of speculators, identified by the American Securities and Exchange Commission as Israeli citizens, sold "short" a list of 38 stocks that could reasonably be expected to fall in value as a result of the pending attacks. These speculators operated out of the Toronto, Canada and Frankfurt, Germany, stock exchanges and their profits were specifically stated to be "in the millions of dollars."

Short selling of stocks involves the opportunity to gain large profits by passing shares to a friendly third party, then buying them back when the price falls. Historically, if this precedes a traumatic event, it is an indication of foreknowledge. It is widely known that the CIA uses the Promis software to routinely monitor stock trades as a possible warning sign of a terrorist attack or suspicious economic behavior. A week after the Sept.11 attacks, the London Times reported that the CIA had asked regulators for the Financial Services Authority in London to investigate the suspicious sales of millions of shares of stock just prior to the terrorist acts. It was hoped the business paper trail might lead to the terrorists.

Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a clandestine but official effort to resolve the market manipulations There has been a great deal of talk about insider trading of American stocks by certain Israeli groups both in Canada and Germany between August 26 and the Sept.11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Lynne Howard, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), stated that information about who made the trades was available immediately. "We would have been aware of any unusual activity right away. It would have been triggered by any unusual volume. There is an automated system called 'blue sheeting,' or the CBOE Market Surveillance System, that everyone in the business knows about. It provides information on the trades - the name and even the Social Security number on an account - and these surveillance systems are set up specifically to look into insider trading. The system would look at the volume, and then a real person would take over and review it, going back in time and looking at other unusual activity."

Howard continued, "The system is so smart that even if there is a news event that triggers a market event it can go back in time, and even the parameters can be changed depending on what is being looked at. It's a very clever system and it is instantaneous. Even with the system, though, we have very experienced and savvy staff in our market-regulations area who are always looking for things that might be unusual. They're trained to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Even if it's offshore, it might take a little longer, but all offshore accounts have to go through U.S. member firms - members of the CBOE - and it is easily and quickly identifiable who made the trades. The member firm who made the trades has to have identifiable information about the client under the 'Know Your Customer' regulations (and we share all information with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)"

Given all of this, at a minimum the CBOE and government regulators who are conducting the secret investigations have known for some time who made the options puts on a total of 38 stocks that might reasonably be anticipated to have a sharp drop in value because of an attack similar to the 9/11 episode. The silence from the investigating camps could mean several things: Either terrorists are responsible for the puts on the listed stocks or others besides terrorists had foreknowledge of the attack and used this knowledge to reap a nice financial harvest from the tragedy.

Adam Hamilton of Zeal LLC, a North Dakota-based private consulting company that publishes research on markets worldwide, stated that "I heard that $22 million in profits was made on these put options..."

Federal investigators are continuing to be so closed-mouthed about these stock trades, and it is clear that a much wider net has been cast, apparently looking for bigger international fish involved in dubious financial activity relating to the 9/11 attacks on the world stock markets.

Just a month after the attacks the SEC sent out a list of stocks to various securities firms around the world looking for information. The list includes stocks of American, United, Continental, Northwest, Southwest and US Airways airlines, as well as Martin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp., AIG, American Express Corp, American International Group, AMR Corporation, Axa SA, Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Corp, Bank One Corp, Cigna Group, CNA Financial, Carnival Corp, Chubb Group, John Hancock Financial Services, Hercules Inc, L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc., LTV Corporation, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., MetLife, Progressive Corp., General Motors, Raytheon, W.R. Grace, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., Lone Star Technologies, American Express, the Citigroup Inc. ,Royal & Sun Alliance, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Vornado Reality Trust, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Co., XL Capital Ltd., and Bear Stearns.

The Times said market regulators in Germany, Japan and the US all had received information concerning the short selling of insurance, airlines and arms companies stock, all of which fell sharply in the wake of the attacks. City of London broker and analyst Richard Crossley noted that someone sold shares in unusually large quantities beginning three weeks before the assault on the WTC and Pentagon.

He said he took this as evidence that someone had insider foreknowledge of the attacks. "What is more awful than he should aim a stiletto blow at the heart of Western financial markets?" he added. "But to profit from it? Words fail me."

The US Government also admitted it was investigating short selling, which evinced a compellingly strong foreknowledge of the coming Arab attack. There was unusually heavy trading in airline and insurance stocks several days before Sept.11, which essentially bet on a drop in the worth of the stocks.

It was reported by the Interdisciplinary Center, a counter-terrorism think tank involving former Israeli intelligence officers, that insiders made nearly $16 million profit by short selling shares in American and United Airlines, the two airlines that suffered hijacking, and the investment firm of Morgan Stanley, which occupied 22 floors of the WTC.

Apparently none of the suspicious transactions could be traced to bin Laden because this news item quietly dropped from sight, leaving many people wondering if it tracked back to American firms or intelligence agencies.

Most of these transactions were handled primarily by Deutsche Bank-A.B.Brown, a firm which until 1998 was chaired by A. B."Buzzy" Krongard, who later became executive director of the CIA.

Government investigators have maintained a diplomatic silence about a Department of Justice (DOJ) probe of possible profiteering by interested parties with advance knowledge of the attack.

On Sept. 6, 2001, the Thursday before the tragedy, 2,075 put options were made on United Airlines and on Sept. 10, the day before the attacks, 2,282 put options were recorded for American Airlines. Given the prices at the time, this could have yielded speculators between $2 million and $4 million in profit.

The matter still is under investigation and none of the government investigating bodies -including the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and DOJ -are speaking to reporters about insider trading. Even so, suspicion of insider trading to profit from the Sept. 11 attacks is not limited to U.S. regulators. Investigations were initiated in a number of places including Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Spain. As in the United States, all are treating these inquiries as if they were state secrets.

OUR VERY ONE ENABLING ACT ?

Under the US Constitution, the president’s role is to “… take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” The President does not make the laws, Congress has that power. The President does not interpret the laws, that responsibility is the purview of the judiciary. Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense:

“ In America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

The Unitary Executive Doctrine, now fully embraced and exploited by President Bush, conflicts with Paine's principle which is fundamental to our constitutional system. If Bush can ignore or evade laws, then the law is no longer king. It is also relevant to keep in mind that the Colonial Legislature, as well as the people basking in their newly won Independence, wanted to make General George Washington an “Emperor” or President for life. He was the first to discount this, but graciously agreed to be the Republic’s first limited-term President. Washington and his peers carefully constructed a country of laws. If we are to maintain this honored tradition, we need to decide whether a President -- who has determined to ignore or evade the law -- has not acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive to our constitutional government.

Hitler's Enabling Act

On March 23, 1933, the newly elected members of the German Parliament (the Reichstag) met in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin to consider passing Hitler's Enabling Act. It was officially called the “Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.” If passed, it would effectively mean the end of democracy in Germany and establish the legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.

The “distress” had been secretly caused by the Nazis themselves in order to create a crisis atmosphere that would make the law seem necessary to restore order. On February 27, 1933, they had burned the Reichstag building, seat of the German government, causing panic and outrage. The Nazis successfully blamed the fire on the Communists and claimed it marked the beginning of a widespread uprising.

The Act was envisioned as the mechanism to circumvent the Reichstag by granting the chancellor and his cabinet authority to enact legislation without the Reichstag. . .

He also promised an end to unemployment and pledged to promote peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. But in order to do all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.

At Hitler's first post-election Cabinet meeting, the first order of business was to plan how to obtain absolute power in a constitutional way. Hitler decided upon enacting the proposed "enabling act" that would give the cabinet legislative power for four years. The Reichstag Fire Decree had already given the government the power to arrest opposition delegates, and Hitler felt certain that he could convince the Christian Catholic Center to give their support to the act and provide the needed two-thirds majority.

Just before the vote, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag in which he pledged to use restraint. "The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures ...The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one." - Hitler told the Reichstag.

Hitler's speech, which emphasized the importance of Christianity in German culture, was aimed particularly at assuaging the Centre Party's sensibilities. How the Third Reich utilized the Enabling Act burned a black hole in the middle of the 20th Century.


Bush’s Unitary Executive

It is genuine concern that motivates paralleling the Reich’s Enabling Act with the current Unitary Executive Doctrine. Perhaps resonating to the spirit of the Enabling Act, the Bush Administration’s claim that it has the authority to decide what is or is not the law is most manifest in its decision not to apply the Geneva Conventions to certain persons. A 2003 memo on torture written by Department of Defense lawyers stated that “criminal statutes are not read as infringing on the president’s ultimate authority” as commander-in-chief, and prohibitions on torture “must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations.”

White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote in 2002 that the Geneva Conventions were “obsolete” and “quaint” and argued that Bush had the constitutional authority to determine that Geneva did not apply to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Charles Gittings, founder of the Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions, asserts that the President’s decision not to apply Geneva, or to apply it selectively, is a grave breach of the Convention and thus a violation of the War Crimes Act of 1996. “The President has no Constitutional authority to commit crimes,” he said.

It is critical to secure the proper perspective in framing this argument as to the legal efficacy of the Unitary Executive. Simply, is this Doctrine of unilateral executive power consistent with our Constitutional Republic of distinct governmental separations? Can our government remain true to its nature, yet also embrace this doctrine?

Judge Samuel Alito, Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, has attested that he believes in the unitary executive. The most recent and blatant presidential intrusions on the law and Constitution (e.g., ignoring the FISA Laws) supply the verse to a very uncomfortable refrain.

Signing Statements

It is clear that the phrase "unitary executive" is a code word for a doctrine that favors the ever-expanding inflation of nearly unlimited executive power. Bush has used the doctrine in his signing statements to quietly expand presidential authority.

President Bush has used presidential signing statements more than any previous president. From President Monroe's administration (1817-25) to the Carter administration (1977-81), the executive branch issued a total of 75 signing statements to protect presidential prerogatives. From Reagan's administration through Clinton's, the total number of signing statements ever issued, by all presidents, rose to a total 322.

In striking contrast to his predecessors, President Bush issued at least 435 signing statements in his first term alone. And, in these statements and in his executive orders, Bush used the term "unitary executive" 95 times. It is important, therefore, to understand what this doctrine means.

According to Dr. Christopher S. Kelley, professor of political science at the Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, the unitary executive doctrine arose as the result of the twin circumstances of Vietnam and Watergate. Kelley asserts that "the faith and trust placed into the presidency was broken as a result of the lies of Vietnam and Watergate," which resulted in a congressional assault on presidential prerogatives.

For example, consider the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which Bush evaded when authorizing the NSA to tap without warrants -- even those issued by the FISA court. FISA was enacted after the fall of Nixon with the precise intention of curbing unchecked executive branch surveillance. (Indeed, Nixon's improper use of domestic surveillance was included in Article 2 paragraph (2) of the impeachment articles against him.)

According to Kelley, these congressional limits on the presidency, in turn, led "some very creative people" in the White House and the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to fight back, in an attempt to foil or blunt these limits. In their view, these laws were legislative attempts to strip the president of his rightful powers.


The unitary executive doctrine arises out of a theory called "departmentalism” or "coordinate construction." According to legal scholars Christopher Yoo, Steven Calabresi, and Anthony Colangelo, the coordinate construction approach "holds that all three branches of the federal government have the power and duty to interpret the Constitution." According to this theory, the president may (and indeed, must) interpret laws, equally as much as the courts.


Bush's Signing Statement for the McCain Anti-Torture Bill

In his most recent signing statement, Bush asserts not only his authority to internally supervise the "unitary executive branch," but also his power as Commander-in-Chief, as the basis for his interpretation of the law -- which observers have noted allows Bush to create a loophole to permit the use of torture when he wants.

Clearly, Bush believes he can ignore the intentions of Congress and by proxy, we the people. Not only that, but by this statement he has revealed his intent to do so, if he so chooses.

On top of this, Bush asserts that the law must be consistent with "constitutional limitations on judicial power." But what about presidential power? Does Bush see any constitutional or statutory limitations on that? And does this mean that Bush will ignore the courts, too, if he chooses - as he attempted, recently, to do in the Padilla case?


Does The Unitary Executive Doctrine Violates the Separation of Powers?

As Findlaw columnist Edward Lazarus recently showed, the President does not have unlimited executive authority, not even as Commander-in-Chief of the military. Our government was purposely created with power split between three branches, not concentrated in one.

Separation of powers, then, is not simply a talisman: It is the foundation of our system. James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers, No. 47, that:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

The most effectual guard which has yet been discovered against the abuse of power, is the division of it. It is indeed our blessing to have a constitution which contains within it a sufficient limitation to the power granted by it, and also a proper division of that power. But no constitution affords any real security to liberty unless it is considered as sacred and preserved inviolate; because that security can only arise from an actual and not from a pretense of limitation and division of power.

Yet it seems that a pseudo limitation and division of power - with real power concentrated solely in the "unitary executive" - is exactly what President Bush seeks. His signing statements make the point quite clearly, and his overt refusal to follow the laws illustrates that point. In Bush's view, there is no actual limitation or division of power; it all resides in the executive.

And for this, we should take pause. History periodically provides the opportunity to reassess past failings with current knowledge. If we yet again repeat the previous inactions and distract ourselves from the gravity of this scenario, we may well be faced with a collective reprobation that future generations will be unable to comprehend or justify.