Friday, January 27, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
PBGC/Romney and Bain
http://www.actuarialoutpost.com/wiki/index.php/Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation
Excerpt:
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
From Actuarial Outpost Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation". Wikipedia content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (or PBGC) is an independent agency of the United States government that was created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private defined benefit pension plans, provide timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits, and keep pension insurance premiums at the lowest level necessary to carry out its operations. Subject to other statutory limitations, the PBGC insurance program pays pension benefits up to the maximum guaranteed benefit set by law to participants who retire at age 65. The benefits payable to insured retirees who start their benefits at ages other than 65, or who elect survivor coverage, are adjusted to be equivalent in value.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/business/company-news-armco-to-sell-worldwide-grinding-for-113-million.html
Excerpt:
COMPANY NEWS; ARMCO TO SELL WORLDWIDE GRINDING FOR $113 MILLION
Published: October 02, 1993
Armco Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., agreed yesterday to sell its Worldwide Grinding Systems assets for $113 million and will take a $205 million charge in the third quarter to cover losses associated with the unit. Worldwide Grinding, based in Kansas City, Mo., will be sold for $80 million to Bain Capital, a Boston investment firm. Additionally, Armco said it had sold its 50 percent interest in several of Worldwide Grinding's wire-drawing mills to Leggett & Platt Inc. of Carthage, Mo., for $33 million.
Worldwide Grinding, with 1992 revenue of $440.4 million, manufactures grinding balls, rods, castings, high-carbon wires and process control systems for the mining industry. Armco, which has lost a combined $766.4 million in the last two years, is selling businesses to concentrate on specialty-steel production.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/06/399117/romney-bain-federal-bailout/?mobile=nc
Excerpt:
Romney's Tax Cut For Millionaires Is Double The Size Of Bush's
By
Travis Waldron on Jan 6, 2012 at 10:56 am
A Missouri steel company in which former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) Bain Capital was the majority shareholder went bankrupt, laid off more than 750 workers, and had to turn to the federal government for a bailout of its pension funds in 2001, according to a special report from Reuters.
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0312.html
Excerpt:
UKRINVEST was used by former president Leonid Kuchma, who in turn hired PCO Worldwide to ‘sell’ Ukraine in the US. Interestingly the chief ‘advisor’ to PCO is a certain Kempton B. Jenkins (and a former executive vice-president of Armco, Armand Hammer’s oil corporation).
In 1970, he [Jenkins] was responsible for liaison with the Congress in administrations of republican presidents Nixon and Ford. Now he heads the US-Ukraine Business Council.
As a representative of APCO, Jenkins is a member of the board of directors of American International Law Institute. His name also appears in the list of board of directors of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
(See www2.pravda.com.ua/en/archive/?20121-3-new
Kempton’s history points to his involvement with US intelligence
http://www.uidaho.edu/class/borah/archives/1960s
Excerpt:
1963 *Seventeenth Annual Lecture, April 26, 1963
Theme: Soviet Foreign Policy
Committee Chair: Robert E. Hosack, Political Science
Kempton B. Jenkins, "Soviet Policy -- Myth & Reality."
Emil Kroher, "How History is Taught in Germany Today." (Supplemental lecture on March 25)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/218071/bears-close-watch-frank-j-gaffney-jr
Excerpt:
June 28, 2006 7:12 A.M.
Bears a Close Watch
China knows our next Treasury secretary well.
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
Archive Latest RSS Send
inShare.0Print
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Deciding whether to permit the export to the PRC of sensitive technology with ominous military applications;
Responding to continuing Chinese trade abuses and infringements on intellectual property rights; and
Evaluating how to end China’s unhelpfulness on such matters as the growing threat from North Korea and Iran — whether by offering it more “carrots” in the form of “grand bargains,” or by penalizing it including through U.S.-led efforts to encourage systemic political change in Beijing.
It is unimaginable that during the Cold War any president would appoint — let alone that a majority of senators would vote to confirm — a man like Armand Hammer as secretary of the Treasury. Now President Bush has nominated his Chinese counterpart and, all other things being equal, Henry Paulson will have the votes to be confirmed.
Since Communist China’s interests and those of the United States are likely to diverge ever more sharply in the years ahead, the very least that should be required of Paulson is that he recuse himself from involvement in matters of interest to the PRC. Unfortunately, as the foregoing list suggests, since China’s interests and activities figure so prominently in the Treasury portfolio, such a recusal would reduce the job to a part-time one.
In the absence of such a recusal, however, Paulson’s China-related work at Treasury will require an extraordinary level of transparency and accountability by members of Congress, the media, and the American public. We must be assured he is working for us in this job, not for Communist China as he did so successfully in the last one.
– Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy, the lead author of War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World, and a contributor to National Review Online.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
Excerpt:
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the mid 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, the Californian government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/growing-wealth-widens-distance-between-lawmakers-and-constituents/2011/12/05/gIQAR7D6IP_print.html
Excerpt:
Back to previous page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Growing wealth widens distance between lawmakers and constituents
By Peter Whoriskey, Published: December 26
BUTLER, Pa. — One day after his shift at the steel mill, Gary Myers drove home in his 10-year-old Pontiac and told his wife he was going to run for Congress.
The odds were long. At 34, Myers was the shift foreman at the “hot mill” of the Armco plant here. He had no political experience and little or no money, and he was a Republican in a district that tilted Democratic.
But standing in the dining room, still in his work clothes, he said he felt voters deserved a better choice.
Three years later, he won.
When Myers entered Congress, in 1975, it wasn’t nearly so unusual for a person with few assets besides a home to win and serve in Congress. Though lawmakers on Capitol Hill have long been more prosperous than other Americans, others of that time included a barber, a pipe fitter and a house painter. A handful had even organized into what was called the “Blue Collar Caucus.”
But the financial gap between Americans and their representatives in Congress has widened considerably since then, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by The Washington Post.
Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home equity.
Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.
The comparisons exclude home equity because it is not included in congressional reporting, and 1984 was chosen because it is the earliest year for which consistent wealth statistics are available.
The growing disparity between the representatives and the represented means that there is a greater distance between the economic experience of Americans and those of lawmakers.
“My mother and I used to joke we were like the Beverly Hillbillies when we rolled into McLean, and we really were,” said Michele Myers, the congressman’s daughter, now 46. “My dad was driving this awful lime-green Ford Maverick, and I bought my clothes at Kmart.”
Today, this area of Pennsylvania just north of Pittsburgh is represented in Congress by another Republican, Mike Kelly, a wealthy car dealer elected for the first time in 2010. Kelly, as it happens, grew up just a few houses down the street from the Myers family, in a larger brick home.
Kelly’s dad owned the local Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Butler, and Kelly, an affable former football recruit to Notre Dame, had worked there since he was a kid. Three years after graduating from college, he married Victoria Phillips, an heir to the Phillips oil fortune. He eventually bought and took control of the family car business, and today, the net worth of Kelly and his wife runs in the millions of dollars, according to financial disclosure forms.
Both men refer to their personal life experiences in explaining their political outlook.
Myers, the son of a bricklayer, had worked his way through college to a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and he looked at issues of work and security at least partly through the lens of his own experience. For example, he bucked other Republicans to vote to raise the minimum wage and favored expanding a program to aid workers affected by foreign imports. He said he understood the need for what was then called “the safety net.”
“It would be hard to argue that the work in the steel mill didn’t give me a different perspective,” said Myers, now 74 and retired in Florida. “I think everybody’s history has an impact on them.”
Kelly, on the other hand, focuses on the hard work he and his family have done to build the dealership. He thinks that the government should be run more like a business, and that laws must be fair to people who strive and succeed. He opposes the estate tax, the inheritance tax levied on the wealthy, because, among other things, he feels he has been overtaxed already. He says unemployment checks make some less willing to go back to work. And asked about tax breaks for oil companies, he notes that when corporations profit, people with pensions and portfolios do, too.
Moreover, he favors the budget plan advanced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which seeks to eliminate tax loopholes and lowers the income tax on the highest earners from 35 percent to 25 percent.
In explaining his outlook, Kelly often refers to his father. One of nine kids who started the car business almost from scratch, his father was skeptical of the ideas for social programs and education that his son brought home from college in the late 1960s.
“He’d say, ‘Oh, I love your ideas, I love your ideas,’ ” Kelly recalled. “But he’d say, ‘You know why it’s a great country, don’t you? We worked our a---- off. That’s why it’s a great country.’ ”
High cost of campaigning
The growing financial comfort of Congress relative to most Americans is consistent with the general trends in the United States toward inequality of wealth: Members of Congress have long been wealthier than average Americans, and in recent decades the wealth of the wealthiest Americans has outpaced that of the average.
In 1984, the 90th percentile of U.S. families had holdings worth six times the median family’s; by 2009, the 90th percentile was worth 12 times the median family, according to the University of Michigan study, a longitudinal panel survey. These figures include home equity.
This growing inequality, not surprisingly, is seen in Congress. Not only has the median wealth increased, but the proportion of representatives who have little besides a home has shrunk. In 1984, one in five House members had zero or negative net worth excluding home equity, according to the disclosures; by 2009, that number had dropped to one in 12.
Another possible reason for the growing wealth of Congress is that running a campaign has become much, much more expensive, making it more likely that wealthy people, who can donate substantially to their own campaigns, gain office.
Since 1976, the average amount spent by winning House candidates quadrupled in inflation-adjusted dollars, to $1.4 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.
For example, Myers’s first winning campaign, in 1974, cost $33,000, according to federal election records. That’s about $146,000 in current dollars, or one-tenth the current average. To make do, his wife held coffee klatches and improvised brochures with markers and index cards.
“Each one had different colors and designs my mom made — and they’d hand them out at stores,” recalled Myers’s son, Mark. “I don’t want to disparage my parents, but it was kind of like they were running for student council.”
By contrast, when Kelly ran for the first time in 2010, he spent $1.2 million on his election, financing $380,000 of it himself, according to campaign records.
Finally, while congressional pay is a frequent object of controversy, it is unlikely to have been one of the reasons for the growing disparity between representatives and their constituents. In inflation-adjusted dollars, Myers earned $215,000 in 1977; today, a member of Congress earns $174,000.
Political polarization
About a decade ago, academics studying the effect of income inequality on politics noticed a striking fact: The growth of income inequality has tracked very closely with measures of political polarization, which has been gauged using the average difference between the liberal/conservative scores for Republican and Democratic members of the House. The scores come from a database widely used by academics.
“The proximity of these trends is uncanny,” researchers Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal wrote in a a 2003 paper. “Remarkably, the trends of economic inequality and elite political polarization have moved almost in tandem for the past half-century.”
Exactly why this should be is a matter of ongoing research. Likewise, it is probably impossible to pinpoint the effects that the growing wealth gap may have on members of Congress — too many different factors, including party affiliation and district leanings, come to bear when a member of Congress casts a vote.
But a person’s financial circumstances certainly affect a person’s political outlook. For example, people identified as lower or middle class have been more likely to see income inequality as a problem and to favor redistribution of income, according to figures from the General Social Survey.
Moreover, there is at least some research that shows that members of Congress bring their life experiences to bear when they vote. Members of Congress with a higher proportion of daughters, for example, are more likely to take liberal positions on women’s issues, according to a 2006 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Ebonya Washington.
A representative’s occupation before being elected influences how liberal or conservative he or she is in voting, according to an analysis of more than 50 years of congressional votes by Duke University professor Nick Carnes.
In order from most conservative to most liberal: farm owners; businesspeople such as bankers or insurance executives; private-sector professionals such as doctors, engineers and architects; lawyers; service-based professionals such as teachers and social workers; politicians; and blue-collar workers, according to the analysis, which is being published in Legislative Studies Quarterly.
Carnes said that while party affiliation is the strongest determinant of voting records, “the differences between legislators of different occupational backgrounds are pretty striking. People tend to bring the worldview that comes with their occupation with them into office,” he said.
‘Kill more than you eat’
Kelly begins the story of the car dealership with his father, who started out in the auto business as a “parts picker” in a warehouse. Getting paid by the part, he donned roller skates to bump up his productivity.
Eventually his father saved enough to buy a dealership here and soon the family was building a new showroom themselves on a farm just outside town. Mike Kelly, as the oldest, was in charge of feeding the animals.
“Each of the boys was in charge of some area of the dealership,” recalled Pat Collins, who worked for a year at the dealership in the ’70s. She is now the director of the Butler County Historical Society. “That was Mike’s life — the cars. The Kellys had the dealership, but those kids were not put above anybody else. They worked.”
“He used to sweep up the garage, wash cars for his dad,” said Art Bernardi, Kelly’s old football coach at Butler High School, where Kelly excelled. “I’m sure he had a lot more than the average guy. But he doesn’t live a fancy life. He acts like someone who works at the mill or whatever.”
In 1973, Kelly married Victoria Phillips, an heir to the oil fortune. Kelly’s financial disclosure forms show that among her holdings is stock in Phillips Resources Inc., which is valued at between $5 million and $25 million and which generated more than $100,000 annually in dividends.
Four years out of college in 1974, Mike and Victoria were able to buy a home for $50,000, roughly twice the median value of homes in Pennsylvania at the time, a large, stately house close to downtown.
In 1997, Kelly bought his dad’s business from him, taking out a $1.6 million mortgage to pay for it.
When discussing his wealth and how it came to him, Kelly, who was called “Millionaire Mike” during the 2010 campaign, grows animated.
“The way my dad taught me was pretty basic: You have to kill more than you eat. You gotta wake up every day before anyone else, you better get to work, and you better stay later than everybody else,” he said. “I’m a rich guy because I’ve worked hard. I gotta work every fricking day. Listen, nobody gives it to you. I compete. I’m not the only guy selling hot dogs at the ballpark, okay?”
His life at the car dealership influences much of his political outlook:
●On unemployment. Asked how long the government should pay jobless benefits, Kelly suggests that checks from the government keep some of the unemployed from returning to work. He interviews some of the jobless for openings at the dealership.
“They say, ‘When are you looking to hire somebody?’ I say, ‘Right now — that’s why we have an ad in the paper.’ They say, ‘Well, I still have about six weeks left on my unemployment. Will you still be looking for somebody then?’ ”
Kelly shrugs.
“I think that in a way we have made it harder for people to make a decision to move forward,” he said.
●On the estate tax, which he would like to repeal. “The death tax doesn’t make sense to me. I would like to think that after I’ve worked all my life I could pass something on and not have to worry about a government that already overtaxed me my whole life taking it one day.”
●On Washington, the wealthy, and the private sector: “Let’s stop railing against the really wealthy because I got to tell you something, as a guy who has had to pay his own way his whole life, I am greatly offended by the idea that somehow someone in Washington knows how to spend my money better than I do,” Kelly said during emotional remarks during a committee markup in June that attracted lots of attention through YouTube.
Kelly has been critical of the bank bailouts, too. But he declined to say whether he favored the government’s $50 billion bailout of General Motors, which benefited his auto dealership. Had GM gone out of business, it would have deprived Kelly of cars to sell at his Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership, reducing his inventory to Hyundais, Kias and used cars. The government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, which offered financial incentives for consumers to trade in old cars, also helped Kelly sell $2.9 million worth of cars.
As the automaker neared the brink of collapse in December 2008, didn’t he hope the government would offer a lifeline?
“I thought about making my payroll every two weeks,” he said.
From poverty to Congress
In the “hot mill” at the Armco steel plant, Myers supervised about 25 steelworkers, the members of an independent union. The operation transformed slabs of steel in ovens heated to about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit into coils, for later processing. He considered himself neither a worker nor a part of executive management. He was a shift foreman with engineering responsibilities, and each day he wore a work shirt, jeans and work boots.
He had grown up poor. His father, a bricklayer, had a drinking problem, he said, and his mother, a schoolteacher, largely raised Myers and his three siblings. At 9, Myers recalls working at his grandfather’s nine-table restaurant, washing dishes for 10 cents an hour. As a teenager, he started a business mowing lawns and eventually set his eyes on getting one of the co-op jobs at the steel mill, which allowed him to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
That day in the dining room, he had explained to his wife that voters deserved better representation because neither “the Democrats or Republicans are putting up good options for us.”
Besides, he had tried to talk his brother into running, and he wouldn’t do it.He recognized that his run for Congress might seem presumptuous.
“When it started getting around and the fellas down at work heard about it, I thought people might say stuff — you know, down there you stub your toe and they ridicule you,” Myers said. “I suppose some people probably thought, ‘What’s that Myers think he’s doing?’ But no one said anything. I was very grateful.”
He didn’t know much about running a campaign, and it was largely improvised by his wife, Elaine. She organized small gatherings and offered him tips on public speaking — when she noticed people’s feet started shuffling, she flashed him a sign to move on to another subject.
For fundraising, he turned to the president of a local plant who had connections to some of the money in the area.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we have a fundraiser at Elwood Country Club?’ ” recalled Robert Barensfeld, then president of the Elwood City Forge, a local plant, who became his finance chairman. “He thought it was the greatest idea since free beer.”
But while Myers accepted individual contributions, he shunned money from businesses and lobbying groups. Barensfeld said “it was against his principle.” Some of his volunteers thought he should take it, but Myers told them he didn’t want to get elected simply because he had more money.
He lost his first election but was encouraged by the narrow margin of defeat. He ran again in 1974 and won. On the day after his election, a Pittsburgh television station asked him to come be a guest on a news show. Myers told them he couldn’t come because he had worn out both of the family cars during the campaign. The station agreed to send a car for him.
In Washington, Myers in most ways hewed to the Republican line: He voted at times to hold down the government’s debt, for example, and voted against raising Social Security taxes.
But like Kelly, he brought to bear his life experiences.
As might be expected of an engineer, Myers had a scientific cast of mind, according to his staffers at the time, demanding research and numbers to inform his views. But with the steel mills in his district struggling, he was also keenly aware of the problems facing thousands of workers. On issues relating directly to workers, Myers sometimes broke with the party majority.
He supported, for example, a hike in the minimum wage, then $2.30 an hour. He supported an amendment expanding a program that extends unemployment and other benefits to workers adversely affected by trade. He voted for a $4 billion boost to a public works jobs program pushed by President Jimmy Carter.
“I think he realized that good people sometimes fall on hard times,” said James Kunder, who as a young Harvard graduate just out of the Marines worked as an aide to Myers in the ’70s. “He wouldn’t have been elected from that district at that time if he didn’t exude some of that spirit.”
Today, amid the debates on tax rates on the wealthy, he suggests raising the marginal income tax rate on the very highest incomes to 45 percent.
Myers also broke with Republicans on issues relating to business influence in politics, voting to require lobbying groups to disclose mass mailings and proposing an amendment that would force businesses to disclose when former members of the House lobbied on the House floor.
“He clearly saw that money could adversely affect politics,” said Jim Turner, another former aide, then recently out of Yale Divinity School.
Near the beginning of his second term, Myers stunned his staff and many in his district by announcing that he would not run for a third term, which it appeared he could have easily earned. He said he wanted to spend more time with his kids. He returned to the mill, taking a pay cut from the $57,500 that members of Congress then earned. Back in Butler, he coached his son’s baseball team and helped start a soccer program at the high school.
Today, when asked about the effect of wealth on members of Congress, Myers is characteristically detached.
“I guess I could see where someone who made a lot from personal risk-taking and business initiative could have a different outlook. Even if people come with biases, I’m not sure they’re evil biases. I don’t have any problem with someone who has a lot of money. But I don’t have any doubt that my perspective was different from someone who had more money.”
Excerpt:
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
From Actuarial Outpost Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pension_Benefit_Guaranty_Corporation". Wikipedia content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (or PBGC) is an independent agency of the United States government that was created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private defined benefit pension plans, provide timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits, and keep pension insurance premiums at the lowest level necessary to carry out its operations. Subject to other statutory limitations, the PBGC insurance program pays pension benefits up to the maximum guaranteed benefit set by law to participants who retire at age 65. The benefits payable to insured retirees who start their benefits at ages other than 65, or who elect survivor coverage, are adjusted to be equivalent in value.
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/business/company-news-armco-to-sell-worldwide-grinding-for-113-million.html
Excerpt:
COMPANY NEWS; ARMCO TO SELL WORLDWIDE GRINDING FOR $113 MILLION
Published: October 02, 1993
Armco Inc. of Parsippany, N.J., agreed yesterday to sell its Worldwide Grinding Systems assets for $113 million and will take a $205 million charge in the third quarter to cover losses associated with the unit. Worldwide Grinding, based in Kansas City, Mo., will be sold for $80 million to Bain Capital, a Boston investment firm. Additionally, Armco said it had sold its 50 percent interest in several of Worldwide Grinding's wire-drawing mills to Leggett & Platt Inc. of Carthage, Mo., for $33 million.
Worldwide Grinding, with 1992 revenue of $440.4 million, manufactures grinding balls, rods, castings, high-carbon wires and process control systems for the mining industry. Armco, which has lost a combined $766.4 million in the last two years, is selling businesses to concentrate on specialty-steel production.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/06/399117/romney-bain-federal-bailout/?mobile=nc
Excerpt:
Romney's Tax Cut For Millionaires Is Double The Size Of Bush's
By
Travis Waldron on Jan 6, 2012 at 10:56 am
A Missouri steel company in which former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) Bain Capital was the majority shareholder went bankrupt, laid off more than 750 workers, and had to turn to the federal government for a bailout of its pension funds in 2001, according to a special report from Reuters.
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0312.html
Excerpt:
UKRINVEST was used by former president Leonid Kuchma, who in turn hired PCO Worldwide to ‘sell’ Ukraine in the US. Interestingly the chief ‘advisor’ to PCO is a certain Kempton B. Jenkins (and a former executive vice-president of Armco, Armand Hammer’s oil corporation).
In 1970, he [Jenkins] was responsible for liaison with the Congress in administrations of republican presidents Nixon and Ford. Now he heads the US-Ukraine Business Council.
As a representative of APCO, Jenkins is a member of the board of directors of American International Law Institute. His name also appears in the list of board of directors of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
(See www2.pravda.com.ua/en/archive/?20121-3-new
Kempton’s history points to his involvement with US intelligence
http://www.uidaho.edu/class/borah/archives/1960s
Excerpt:
1963 *Seventeenth Annual Lecture, April 26, 1963
Theme: Soviet Foreign Policy
Committee Chair: Robert E. Hosack, Political Science
Kempton B. Jenkins, "Soviet Policy -- Myth & Reality."
Emil Kroher, "How History is Taught in Germany Today." (Supplemental lecture on March 25)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/218071/bears-close-watch-frank-j-gaffney-jr
Excerpt:
June 28, 2006 7:12 A.M.
Bears a Close Watch
China knows our next Treasury secretary well.
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
Archive Latest RSS Send
inShare.0Print
Comments 0
Deciding whether to permit the export to the PRC of sensitive technology with ominous military applications;
Responding to continuing Chinese trade abuses and infringements on intellectual property rights; and
Evaluating how to end China’s unhelpfulness on such matters as the growing threat from North Korea and Iran — whether by offering it more “carrots” in the form of “grand bargains,” or by penalizing it including through U.S.-led efforts to encourage systemic political change in Beijing.
It is unimaginable that during the Cold War any president would appoint — let alone that a majority of senators would vote to confirm — a man like Armand Hammer as secretary of the Treasury. Now President Bush has nominated his Chinese counterpart and, all other things being equal, Henry Paulson will have the votes to be confirmed.
Since Communist China’s interests and those of the United States are likely to diverge ever more sharply in the years ahead, the very least that should be required of Paulson is that he recuse himself from involvement in matters of interest to the PRC. Unfortunately, as the foregoing list suggests, since China’s interests and activities figure so prominently in the Treasury portfolio, such a recusal would reduce the job to a part-time one.
In the absence of such a recusal, however, Paulson’s China-related work at Treasury will require an extraordinary level of transparency and accountability by members of Congress, the media, and the American public. We must be assured he is working for us in this job, not for Communist China as he did so successfully in the last one.
– Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy, the lead author of War Footing: Ten Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World, and a contributor to National Review Online.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
Excerpt:
Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the mid 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, the Californian government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/growing-wealth-widens-distance-between-lawmakers-and-constituents/2011/12/05/gIQAR7D6IP_print.html
Excerpt:
Back to previous page
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Growing wealth widens distance between lawmakers and constituents
By Peter Whoriskey, Published: December 26
BUTLER, Pa. — One day after his shift at the steel mill, Gary Myers drove home in his 10-year-old Pontiac and told his wife he was going to run for Congress.
The odds were long. At 34, Myers was the shift foreman at the “hot mill” of the Armco plant here. He had no political experience and little or no money, and he was a Republican in a district that tilted Democratic.
But standing in the dining room, still in his work clothes, he said he felt voters deserved a better choice.
Three years later, he won.
When Myers entered Congress, in 1975, it wasn’t nearly so unusual for a person with few assets besides a home to win and serve in Congress. Though lawmakers on Capitol Hill have long been more prosperous than other Americans, others of that time included a barber, a pipe fitter and a house painter. A handful had even organized into what was called the “Blue Collar Caucus.”
But the financial gap between Americans and their representatives in Congress has widened considerably since then, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by The Washington Post.
Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home equity.
Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.
The comparisons exclude home equity because it is not included in congressional reporting, and 1984 was chosen because it is the earliest year for which consistent wealth statistics are available.
The growing disparity between the representatives and the represented means that there is a greater distance between the economic experience of Americans and those of lawmakers.
“My mother and I used to joke we were like the Beverly Hillbillies when we rolled into McLean, and we really were,” said Michele Myers, the congressman’s daughter, now 46. “My dad was driving this awful lime-green Ford Maverick, and I bought my clothes at Kmart.”
Today, this area of Pennsylvania just north of Pittsburgh is represented in Congress by another Republican, Mike Kelly, a wealthy car dealer elected for the first time in 2010. Kelly, as it happens, grew up just a few houses down the street from the Myers family, in a larger brick home.
Kelly’s dad owned the local Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Butler, and Kelly, an affable former football recruit to Notre Dame, had worked there since he was a kid. Three years after graduating from college, he married Victoria Phillips, an heir to the Phillips oil fortune. He eventually bought and took control of the family car business, and today, the net worth of Kelly and his wife runs in the millions of dollars, according to financial disclosure forms.
Both men refer to their personal life experiences in explaining their political outlook.
Myers, the son of a bricklayer, had worked his way through college to a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and he looked at issues of work and security at least partly through the lens of his own experience. For example, he bucked other Republicans to vote to raise the minimum wage and favored expanding a program to aid workers affected by foreign imports. He said he understood the need for what was then called “the safety net.”
“It would be hard to argue that the work in the steel mill didn’t give me a different perspective,” said Myers, now 74 and retired in Florida. “I think everybody’s history has an impact on them.”
Kelly, on the other hand, focuses on the hard work he and his family have done to build the dealership. He thinks that the government should be run more like a business, and that laws must be fair to people who strive and succeed. He opposes the estate tax, the inheritance tax levied on the wealthy, because, among other things, he feels he has been overtaxed already. He says unemployment checks make some less willing to go back to work. And asked about tax breaks for oil companies, he notes that when corporations profit, people with pensions and portfolios do, too.
Moreover, he favors the budget plan advanced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), which seeks to eliminate tax loopholes and lowers the income tax on the highest earners from 35 percent to 25 percent.
In explaining his outlook, Kelly often refers to his father. One of nine kids who started the car business almost from scratch, his father was skeptical of the ideas for social programs and education that his son brought home from college in the late 1960s.
“He’d say, ‘Oh, I love your ideas, I love your ideas,’ ” Kelly recalled. “But he’d say, ‘You know why it’s a great country, don’t you? We worked our a---- off. That’s why it’s a great country.’ ”
High cost of campaigning
The growing financial comfort of Congress relative to most Americans is consistent with the general trends in the United States toward inequality of wealth: Members of Congress have long been wealthier than average Americans, and in recent decades the wealth of the wealthiest Americans has outpaced that of the average.
In 1984, the 90th percentile of U.S. families had holdings worth six times the median family’s; by 2009, the 90th percentile was worth 12 times the median family, according to the University of Michigan study, a longitudinal panel survey. These figures include home equity.
This growing inequality, not surprisingly, is seen in Congress. Not only has the median wealth increased, but the proportion of representatives who have little besides a home has shrunk. In 1984, one in five House members had zero or negative net worth excluding home equity, according to the disclosures; by 2009, that number had dropped to one in 12.
Another possible reason for the growing wealth of Congress is that running a campaign has become much, much more expensive, making it more likely that wealthy people, who can donate substantially to their own campaigns, gain office.
Since 1976, the average amount spent by winning House candidates quadrupled in inflation-adjusted dollars, to $1.4 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.
For example, Myers’s first winning campaign, in 1974, cost $33,000, according to federal election records. That’s about $146,000 in current dollars, or one-tenth the current average. To make do, his wife held coffee klatches and improvised brochures with markers and index cards.
“Each one had different colors and designs my mom made — and they’d hand them out at stores,” recalled Myers’s son, Mark. “I don’t want to disparage my parents, but it was kind of like they were running for student council.”
By contrast, when Kelly ran for the first time in 2010, he spent $1.2 million on his election, financing $380,000 of it himself, according to campaign records.
Finally, while congressional pay is a frequent object of controversy, it is unlikely to have been one of the reasons for the growing disparity between representatives and their constituents. In inflation-adjusted dollars, Myers earned $215,000 in 1977; today, a member of Congress earns $174,000.
Political polarization
About a decade ago, academics studying the effect of income inequality on politics noticed a striking fact: The growth of income inequality has tracked very closely with measures of political polarization, which has been gauged using the average difference between the liberal/conservative scores for Republican and Democratic members of the House. The scores come from a database widely used by academics.
“The proximity of these trends is uncanny,” researchers Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal wrote in a a 2003 paper. “Remarkably, the trends of economic inequality and elite political polarization have moved almost in tandem for the past half-century.”
Exactly why this should be is a matter of ongoing research. Likewise, it is probably impossible to pinpoint the effects that the growing wealth gap may have on members of Congress — too many different factors, including party affiliation and district leanings, come to bear when a member of Congress casts a vote.
But a person’s financial circumstances certainly affect a person’s political outlook. For example, people identified as lower or middle class have been more likely to see income inequality as a problem and to favor redistribution of income, according to figures from the General Social Survey.
Moreover, there is at least some research that shows that members of Congress bring their life experiences to bear when they vote. Members of Congress with a higher proportion of daughters, for example, are more likely to take liberal positions on women’s issues, according to a 2006 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research by Ebonya Washington.
A representative’s occupation before being elected influences how liberal or conservative he or she is in voting, according to an analysis of more than 50 years of congressional votes by Duke University professor Nick Carnes.
In order from most conservative to most liberal: farm owners; businesspeople such as bankers or insurance executives; private-sector professionals such as doctors, engineers and architects; lawyers; service-based professionals such as teachers and social workers; politicians; and blue-collar workers, according to the analysis, which is being published in Legislative Studies Quarterly.
Carnes said that while party affiliation is the strongest determinant of voting records, “the differences between legislators of different occupational backgrounds are pretty striking. People tend to bring the worldview that comes with their occupation with them into office,” he said.
‘Kill more than you eat’
Kelly begins the story of the car dealership with his father, who started out in the auto business as a “parts picker” in a warehouse. Getting paid by the part, he donned roller skates to bump up his productivity.
Eventually his father saved enough to buy a dealership here and soon the family was building a new showroom themselves on a farm just outside town. Mike Kelly, as the oldest, was in charge of feeding the animals.
“Each of the boys was in charge of some area of the dealership,” recalled Pat Collins, who worked for a year at the dealership in the ’70s. She is now the director of the Butler County Historical Society. “That was Mike’s life — the cars. The Kellys had the dealership, but those kids were not put above anybody else. They worked.”
“He used to sweep up the garage, wash cars for his dad,” said Art Bernardi, Kelly’s old football coach at Butler High School, where Kelly excelled. “I’m sure he had a lot more than the average guy. But he doesn’t live a fancy life. He acts like someone who works at the mill or whatever.”
In 1973, Kelly married Victoria Phillips, an heir to the oil fortune. Kelly’s financial disclosure forms show that among her holdings is stock in Phillips Resources Inc., which is valued at between $5 million and $25 million and which generated more than $100,000 annually in dividends.
Four years out of college in 1974, Mike and Victoria were able to buy a home for $50,000, roughly twice the median value of homes in Pennsylvania at the time, a large, stately house close to downtown.
In 1997, Kelly bought his dad’s business from him, taking out a $1.6 million mortgage to pay for it.
When discussing his wealth and how it came to him, Kelly, who was called “Millionaire Mike” during the 2010 campaign, grows animated.
“The way my dad taught me was pretty basic: You have to kill more than you eat. You gotta wake up every day before anyone else, you better get to work, and you better stay later than everybody else,” he said. “I’m a rich guy because I’ve worked hard. I gotta work every fricking day. Listen, nobody gives it to you. I compete. I’m not the only guy selling hot dogs at the ballpark, okay?”
His life at the car dealership influences much of his political outlook:
●On unemployment. Asked how long the government should pay jobless benefits, Kelly suggests that checks from the government keep some of the unemployed from returning to work. He interviews some of the jobless for openings at the dealership.
“They say, ‘When are you looking to hire somebody?’ I say, ‘Right now — that’s why we have an ad in the paper.’ They say, ‘Well, I still have about six weeks left on my unemployment. Will you still be looking for somebody then?’ ”
Kelly shrugs.
“I think that in a way we have made it harder for people to make a decision to move forward,” he said.
●On the estate tax, which he would like to repeal. “The death tax doesn’t make sense to me. I would like to think that after I’ve worked all my life I could pass something on and not have to worry about a government that already overtaxed me my whole life taking it one day.”
●On Washington, the wealthy, and the private sector: “Let’s stop railing against the really wealthy because I got to tell you something, as a guy who has had to pay his own way his whole life, I am greatly offended by the idea that somehow someone in Washington knows how to spend my money better than I do,” Kelly said during emotional remarks during a committee markup in June that attracted lots of attention through YouTube.
Kelly has been critical of the bank bailouts, too. But he declined to say whether he favored the government’s $50 billion bailout of General Motors, which benefited his auto dealership. Had GM gone out of business, it would have deprived Kelly of cars to sell at his Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership, reducing his inventory to Hyundais, Kias and used cars. The government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, which offered financial incentives for consumers to trade in old cars, also helped Kelly sell $2.9 million worth of cars.
As the automaker neared the brink of collapse in December 2008, didn’t he hope the government would offer a lifeline?
“I thought about making my payroll every two weeks,” he said.
From poverty to Congress
In the “hot mill” at the Armco steel plant, Myers supervised about 25 steelworkers, the members of an independent union. The operation transformed slabs of steel in ovens heated to about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit into coils, for later processing. He considered himself neither a worker nor a part of executive management. He was a shift foreman with engineering responsibilities, and each day he wore a work shirt, jeans and work boots.
He had grown up poor. His father, a bricklayer, had a drinking problem, he said, and his mother, a schoolteacher, largely raised Myers and his three siblings. At 9, Myers recalls working at his grandfather’s nine-table restaurant, washing dishes for 10 cents an hour. As a teenager, he started a business mowing lawns and eventually set his eyes on getting one of the co-op jobs at the steel mill, which allowed him to earn a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati.
That day in the dining room, he had explained to his wife that voters deserved better representation because neither “the Democrats or Republicans are putting up good options for us.”
Besides, he had tried to talk his brother into running, and he wouldn’t do it.He recognized that his run for Congress might seem presumptuous.
“When it started getting around and the fellas down at work heard about it, I thought people might say stuff — you know, down there you stub your toe and they ridicule you,” Myers said. “I suppose some people probably thought, ‘What’s that Myers think he’s doing?’ But no one said anything. I was very grateful.”
He didn’t know much about running a campaign, and it was largely improvised by his wife, Elaine. She organized small gatherings and offered him tips on public speaking — when she noticed people’s feet started shuffling, she flashed him a sign to move on to another subject.
For fundraising, he turned to the president of a local plant who had connections to some of the money in the area.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we have a fundraiser at Elwood Country Club?’ ” recalled Robert Barensfeld, then president of the Elwood City Forge, a local plant, who became his finance chairman. “He thought it was the greatest idea since free beer.”
But while Myers accepted individual contributions, he shunned money from businesses and lobbying groups. Barensfeld said “it was against his principle.” Some of his volunteers thought he should take it, but Myers told them he didn’t want to get elected simply because he had more money.
He lost his first election but was encouraged by the narrow margin of defeat. He ran again in 1974 and won. On the day after his election, a Pittsburgh television station asked him to come be a guest on a news show. Myers told them he couldn’t come because he had worn out both of the family cars during the campaign. The station agreed to send a car for him.
In Washington, Myers in most ways hewed to the Republican line: He voted at times to hold down the government’s debt, for example, and voted against raising Social Security taxes.
But like Kelly, he brought to bear his life experiences.
As might be expected of an engineer, Myers had a scientific cast of mind, according to his staffers at the time, demanding research and numbers to inform his views. But with the steel mills in his district struggling, he was also keenly aware of the problems facing thousands of workers. On issues relating directly to workers, Myers sometimes broke with the party majority.
He supported, for example, a hike in the minimum wage, then $2.30 an hour. He supported an amendment expanding a program that extends unemployment and other benefits to workers adversely affected by trade. He voted for a $4 billion boost to a public works jobs program pushed by President Jimmy Carter.
“I think he realized that good people sometimes fall on hard times,” said James Kunder, who as a young Harvard graduate just out of the Marines worked as an aide to Myers in the ’70s. “He wouldn’t have been elected from that district at that time if he didn’t exude some of that spirit.”
Today, amid the debates on tax rates on the wealthy, he suggests raising the marginal income tax rate on the very highest incomes to 45 percent.
Myers also broke with Republicans on issues relating to business influence in politics, voting to require lobbying groups to disclose mass mailings and proposing an amendment that would force businesses to disclose when former members of the House lobbied on the House floor.
“He clearly saw that money could adversely affect politics,” said Jim Turner, another former aide, then recently out of Yale Divinity School.
Near the beginning of his second term, Myers stunned his staff and many in his district by announcing that he would not run for a third term, which it appeared he could have easily earned. He said he wanted to spend more time with his kids. He returned to the mill, taking a pay cut from the $57,500 that members of Congress then earned. Back in Butler, he coached his son’s baseball team and helped start a soccer program at the high school.
Today, when asked about the effect of wealth on members of Congress, Myers is characteristically detached.
“I guess I could see where someone who made a lot from personal risk-taking and business initiative could have a different outlook. Even if people come with biases, I’m not sure they’re evil biases. I don’t have any problem with someone who has a lot of money. But I don’t have any doubt that my perspective was different from someone who had more money.”
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Stolen hard drives put former Iraq firefighters at risk
Excerpt:
Stolen hard drives put former Iraq firefighters at risk
December 28, 2010 — Ms Sparky
On December 9, Wackenhut Services, LLC (WSLLC) President David W. Foley sent a letter to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and informed them that:
On November 29, 2010, we discovered that certain hard drives shipped from our office in Iraq were stolen in transit to out US offices along with other office equipment. After investigation, on November 30, 2010 we determined, to the best of our knowledge, that the stolen hard drives contained personal information of certain of our past employees. Based on our investigation, we believe that the stolen hard drives contained the following unencrypted personal information of our past employees: (i) first and last names, (ii) social security numbers, (iii) passport numbers, (iv) last known home addresses and (v) date of birth and place of birth.
On December 13, 2010 WSLLC notified each of the affected personnel via the US Postal Service to inform them of the breach. They were offered a one year subscription to ConsumerInfo.com credit monitoring service and some advice on how to best protect their credit.
Open Pit Burning US Military Facilities
Excerpt:
Military Burn Pits and Chronic Health Problems
Defense contractors hired to oversee military waste management are facing a number of burn pit lawsuits. The US military allege that open burn pits, particularly the Balad burn pit, the most notorious of the Iraq burn pits, have resulted in a number of serious side effects due to burn pit exposure.
FREE CASE EVALUATION
Send your Burn Pit claim to a Lawyer who will review your case at NO COST or obligation.Open Pit Burning and US Military
The US Military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan may be suffering chronic, long-term health issues as a result of exposure to toxic fumes from open burn pits. Defense contractors have used burn pits at the majority of US military bases in the Middle East as a method of military waste disposal. All kinds of toxic waste have been incinerated in these open burn pits, including human waste, plastics, hazardous medical waste, lithium batteries, tires, hydraulic fluids and vehicles—often using jet fuel as an accelerant.
Since the beginning of the Iraqi war in 2003, countless service members have developed serious health issues. According to the "Afghanistan and Iraq Report", which was released by the US Government Accountability Office, four burn pits on US bases in Iraq are not meeting standards set in 2009 for burn pit operations.
The report, titled "DOD Should Improve Adherence to Its Guidance on Open Pit Burning and Solid Waste Management", goes on to say that some veterans returning from both conflicts have reported pulmonary and respiratory ailments, among other health concerns, that they attribute to burn pit emissions.
Burn Pit Lawsuits
Current and former members of the military have filed lawsuits in federal court in at least 43 states. The burn pit lawsuits, filed against Department of Defense contractors, claim mismanagement of the burn pit operations at several installations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, which resulted in exposure to harmful and toxic smoke and led to adverse health events.
Burn pit lawsuits have been filed against defense contractors KBR and its former parent company Halliburton, claiming the companies endangered the health of US troops and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by unsafely burning massive amounts of garbage on US bases.
One lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for District of Maryland (David Jobes v. KBR, April 2010) alleges that prolonged exposure to the pits’ smoke, ash, and fumes caused injuries such as chronic illnesses, risk of illnesses and wrongful death. The suit claims that the defendants—KBR Inc., Kellogg, Brown &d Root Services, Kellogg Brown & Root LLP and Halliburton Company-- had a duty to warn US service members and civilians working and living around burn pit fumes about health and safety issues but failed to properly do so.
The suit also claims that Halliburton and KBR received approximately five billion dollars per year in exchange for promising to provide contractually defined services. KBR apparently built the burn pit upwind from soldiers’ living quarters, in violation of the LOGCAP statement of work and Army regulations, which stated that burn pits had to be built downwind of living quarters. Yet the contractors allegedly ignored this guidance.
Open Pit Burning Timeline
2001 onwards: US Military relies on defense contractors in Afghanistan to dispose of its waste by using open burn pits.
2003 onwards: US Military in Iraq are exposed to toxic fumes from burn pits.
2004: KBR uses burn pits in US bases and camps across Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of toxic wastes.
Early 2007: CHPPM and the Air Force Institute for Operational Health conduct a joint assessment of the burn pit at Balad, the largest US base in Iraq and home to about 25,000 U.S. military personnel and several thousand contractors.
December 2007: A draft executive summary (from the above) goes out to military commanders in Iraq, who post it for troops to see. It shows dioxin levels at 51 times acceptable levels, particulate exposure at 50 times acceptable levels, volatile compounds at two times acceptable levels, and cancer risk from exposure to dioxins at two times acceptable levels for people at Balad for a year and at eight times acceptable levels for people at the base for more than a year.
2008: The Military Times reports that the burn pit at Balad may have exposed tens of thousands of troops to cancer-causing dioxins, poisons such as arsenic and carbon monoxide, and hazardous medical waste
April 2009: Lawsuits are filed in state courts on behalf of current and former military personnel, private contractors and families of men who allegedly died because of exposure to the fumes at the Balad Air Force Base burn pit. Attorneys for the plaintiffs are also seeking to file a class action lawsuit.
June 2009: Jill Wilkins of Eustis, the wife of a local soldier who died from a brain tumor after being exposed to smoke from garbage-burning pits in Iraq, joins more than a dozen Florida soldiers in a class action lawsuit against KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton. Burn pit lawsuits have been filed in 16 states, with about 200 plaintiffs.
A lawsuit in Missouri against KBR and Halliburton accuses the companies of poisoning US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan by burning toxic waste.
A proposed class action led by Albert Paul Bittel claims the defendants burned trucks, tires, batteries, metals, biohazard material including animal and human corpses and other toxins. The refuse was burned in open pits using diesel fuel.
Similar allegations are made in state courts in Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, California, Texas, Illinois, Wyoming, North Carolina and Minnesota.
January to March 2010: GAO visits four burn pits in Iraq (one operated by military personnel and three operated by contractor personnel) and determines that none are managed in accordance with CENTCOM's 2009 regulation. It discovers that all four pits burn plastic--a prohibited item that can produce carcinogens when burned.
August 2010: To date, more than 500 war veterans have reported illnesses they blame on exposure to open-pit burning of toxic waste by the military and defense contractors Halliburton and its former subsidiary, KBR.
Still, 251burn pits are in use in Afghanistan and 22 in Iraq.
September 2010: In a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) calls for the declassification of an Army contract with KBR that provides the company financial immunity in cases of its own negligence, and announces legislation to increase Congressional oversight of the war contracting process.
Blumenauer releases a report detailing KBR's history of alleged misconduct in Iraq, including burning toxic chemicals in open pits on US bases.
October 2010: The US Government Accountability Office releases the "Afghanistan and Iraq Report" , claiming that four burn pits on US bases in Iraq are not meeting standards set in 2009 for burn pit operations.
Burn Pit Exposure Legal Help
If you or a loved one has suffered illness or an adverse health event resulting from these circumstances, please click the link below and your complaint will be sent to a lawyer who may evaluate your claim at no cost or obligation.
Please click here for a free evaluation of your Burn Pit case
Last updated on Jun-4-11 BURN PIT ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS
Are Burn Pits to Blame for Respiratory Ailments in the Military?
Fort Campbell, KY: Amongst the various and most obvious hazards faced by military personnel while representing and defending their country overseas is the very air they breathe. To that point, it is alleged that toxins and other substances spewing forth from burn pits is further endangering the health of soldiers [READ MORE]
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Open Pit Burning Linked to Intestinal Problems and More…
San Antonio, TX: Jessie was stationed in Iraq from 2004–2005, nine months of which he spent in Balad, home of the most notorious Open Pit Burning site. "We saw and tasted the smoke day and night, the pit plumes were huge in Balad," he says. Jessie believes his intestinal problems, chronic cough and sleep apnea are directly related to exposure to the open pit burns. And he is just one of thousands of troops with serious medical issues.
[READ MORE]
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California Family Claims City Responsible for Burn Pit Exposure
Hemet, CA: The family of a California boy who suffered burn pit exposure while flying a kite on a beach wants to know if the state and local area properly maintain such fire rings on their beaches, reports the Orange County Register [READ MORE]
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Mother Files Burn Pit Lawsuit Over Son's Injuries
Q&A with Open Pit Burn Attorney Ben Stewart
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Excerpt:
Stolen hard drives put former Iraq firefighters at risk
December 28, 2010 — Ms Sparky
On December 9, Wackenhut Services, LLC (WSLLC) President David W. Foley sent a letter to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office and informed them that:
On November 29, 2010, we discovered that certain hard drives shipped from our office in Iraq were stolen in transit to out US offices along with other office equipment. After investigation, on November 30, 2010 we determined, to the best of our knowledge, that the stolen hard drives contained personal information of certain of our past employees. Based on our investigation, we believe that the stolen hard drives contained the following unencrypted personal information of our past employees: (i) first and last names, (ii) social security numbers, (iii) passport numbers, (iv) last known home addresses and (v) date of birth and place of birth.
On December 13, 2010 WSLLC notified each of the affected personnel via the US Postal Service to inform them of the breach. They were offered a one year subscription to ConsumerInfo.com credit monitoring service and some advice on how to best protect their credit.
Open Pit Burning US Military Facilities
Excerpt:
Military Burn Pits and Chronic Health Problems
Defense contractors hired to oversee military waste management are facing a number of burn pit lawsuits. The US military allege that open burn pits, particularly the Balad burn pit, the most notorious of the Iraq burn pits, have resulted in a number of serious side effects due to burn pit exposure.
FREE CASE EVALUATION
Send your Burn Pit claim to a Lawyer who will review your case at NO COST or obligation.Open Pit Burning and US Military
The US Military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan may be suffering chronic, long-term health issues as a result of exposure to toxic fumes from open burn pits. Defense contractors have used burn pits at the majority of US military bases in the Middle East as a method of military waste disposal. All kinds of toxic waste have been incinerated in these open burn pits, including human waste, plastics, hazardous medical waste, lithium batteries, tires, hydraulic fluids and vehicles—often using jet fuel as an accelerant.
Since the beginning of the Iraqi war in 2003, countless service members have developed serious health issues. According to the "Afghanistan and Iraq Report", which was released by the US Government Accountability Office, four burn pits on US bases in Iraq are not meeting standards set in 2009 for burn pit operations.
The report, titled "DOD Should Improve Adherence to Its Guidance on Open Pit Burning and Solid Waste Management", goes on to say that some veterans returning from both conflicts have reported pulmonary and respiratory ailments, among other health concerns, that they attribute to burn pit emissions.
Burn Pit Lawsuits
Current and former members of the military have filed lawsuits in federal court in at least 43 states. The burn pit lawsuits, filed against Department of Defense contractors, claim mismanagement of the burn pit operations at several installations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, which resulted in exposure to harmful and toxic smoke and led to adverse health events.
Burn pit lawsuits have been filed against defense contractors KBR and its former parent company Halliburton, claiming the companies endangered the health of US troops and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan by unsafely burning massive amounts of garbage on US bases.
One lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for District of Maryland (David Jobes v. KBR, April 2010) alleges that prolonged exposure to the pits’ smoke, ash, and fumes caused injuries such as chronic illnesses, risk of illnesses and wrongful death. The suit claims that the defendants—KBR Inc., Kellogg, Brown &d Root Services, Kellogg Brown & Root LLP and Halliburton Company-- had a duty to warn US service members and civilians working and living around burn pit fumes about health and safety issues but failed to properly do so.
The suit also claims that Halliburton and KBR received approximately five billion dollars per year in exchange for promising to provide contractually defined services. KBR apparently built the burn pit upwind from soldiers’ living quarters, in violation of the LOGCAP statement of work and Army regulations, which stated that burn pits had to be built downwind of living quarters. Yet the contractors allegedly ignored this guidance.
Open Pit Burning Timeline
2001 onwards: US Military relies on defense contractors in Afghanistan to dispose of its waste by using open burn pits.
2003 onwards: US Military in Iraq are exposed to toxic fumes from burn pits.
2004: KBR uses burn pits in US bases and camps across Iraq and Afghanistan to dispose of toxic wastes.
Early 2007: CHPPM and the Air Force Institute for Operational Health conduct a joint assessment of the burn pit at Balad, the largest US base in Iraq and home to about 25,000 U.S. military personnel and several thousand contractors.
December 2007: A draft executive summary (from the above) goes out to military commanders in Iraq, who post it for troops to see. It shows dioxin levels at 51 times acceptable levels, particulate exposure at 50 times acceptable levels, volatile compounds at two times acceptable levels, and cancer risk from exposure to dioxins at two times acceptable levels for people at Balad for a year and at eight times acceptable levels for people at the base for more than a year.
2008: The Military Times reports that the burn pit at Balad may have exposed tens of thousands of troops to cancer-causing dioxins, poisons such as arsenic and carbon monoxide, and hazardous medical waste
April 2009: Lawsuits are filed in state courts on behalf of current and former military personnel, private contractors and families of men who allegedly died because of exposure to the fumes at the Balad Air Force Base burn pit. Attorneys for the plaintiffs are also seeking to file a class action lawsuit.
June 2009: Jill Wilkins of Eustis, the wife of a local soldier who died from a brain tumor after being exposed to smoke from garbage-burning pits in Iraq, joins more than a dozen Florida soldiers in a class action lawsuit against KBR and its former parent company, Halliburton. Burn pit lawsuits have been filed in 16 states, with about 200 plaintiffs.
A lawsuit in Missouri against KBR and Halliburton accuses the companies of poisoning US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan by burning toxic waste.
A proposed class action led by Albert Paul Bittel claims the defendants burned trucks, tires, batteries, metals, biohazard material including animal and human corpses and other toxins. The refuse was burned in open pits using diesel fuel.
Similar allegations are made in state courts in Maryland, Alabama, Georgia, California, Texas, Illinois, Wyoming, North Carolina and Minnesota.
January to March 2010: GAO visits four burn pits in Iraq (one operated by military personnel and three operated by contractor personnel) and determines that none are managed in accordance with CENTCOM's 2009 regulation. It discovers that all four pits burn plastic--a prohibited item that can produce carcinogens when burned.
August 2010: To date, more than 500 war veterans have reported illnesses they blame on exposure to open-pit burning of toxic waste by the military and defense contractors Halliburton and its former subsidiary, KBR.
Still, 251burn pits are in use in Afghanistan and 22 in Iraq.
September 2010: In a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) calls for the declassification of an Army contract with KBR that provides the company financial immunity in cases of its own negligence, and announces legislation to increase Congressional oversight of the war contracting process.
Blumenauer releases a report detailing KBR's history of alleged misconduct in Iraq, including burning toxic chemicals in open pits on US bases.
October 2010: The US Government Accountability Office releases the "Afghanistan and Iraq Report" , claiming that four burn pits on US bases in Iraq are not meeting standards set in 2009 for burn pit operations.
Burn Pit Exposure Legal Help
If you or a loved one has suffered illness or an adverse health event resulting from these circumstances, please click the link below and your complaint will be sent to a lawyer who may evaluate your claim at no cost or obligation.
Please click here for a free evaluation of your Burn Pit case
Last updated on Jun-4-11 BURN PIT ARTICLES AND INTERVIEWS
Are Burn Pits to Blame for Respiratory Ailments in the Military?
Fort Campbell, KY: Amongst the various and most obvious hazards faced by military personnel while representing and defending their country overseas is the very air they breathe. To that point, it is alleged that toxins and other substances spewing forth from burn pits is further endangering the health of soldiers [READ MORE]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open Pit Burning Linked to Intestinal Problems and More…
San Antonio, TX: Jessie was stationed in Iraq from 2004–2005, nine months of which he spent in Balad, home of the most notorious Open Pit Burning site. "We saw and tasted the smoke day and night, the pit plumes were huge in Balad," he says. Jessie believes his intestinal problems, chronic cough and sleep apnea are directly related to exposure to the open pit burns. And he is just one of thousands of troops with serious medical issues.
[READ MORE]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
California Family Claims City Responsible for Burn Pit Exposure
Hemet, CA: The family of a California boy who suffered burn pit exposure while flying a kite on a beach wants to know if the state and local area properly maintain such fire rings on their beaches, reports the Orange County Register [READ MORE]
MORE BURN PIT
Open Pit Burn Exposure Echoes Asbestos Disease
Mother Files Burn Pit Lawsuit Over Son's Injuries
Q&A with Open Pit Burn Attorney Ben Stewart
Death of US Veteran Linked to Burn Pits
[MORE NEWS ARTICLES]
[MORE LAWYER INTERVIEWS]
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_squad
Excerpt:
A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extra-judicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign. These killings are often conducted in ways meant to ensure the secrecy of the killers' identities, so as to avoid accountability.[1][2]
Death squads are often, but not exclusively, associated with the violent political repression under dictatorships, totalitarian states and similar regimes. They typically have the tacit or express support of the state, as a whole or in part (see state terrorism). Death squads may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary group or official government units with members drawn from the military or the police. They may also be organized as vigilante groups.
"Extrajudicial killings" are the illegal killing of leading political, trades union, dissidents, and social figures by either the state government, state authorities like the armed forces and police (as in Liberia under Charles G. Taylor), or criminal outfits such as the Italian Mafia.
Extrajudicial killings and death squads are most common in the Middle East (mostly in Palestinian territories and Iraq),[3][4][5][6][7] Central America,[8][9][10] Afghanistan, Bangladesh,[11] India and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir,[12][13][14][15][16][17] several nations or regions in Equatorial Africa,[18][19][20] Jamaica,[21][22][23] Kosovo,[21][22] many parts of South America,[24][25][26] Uzbekistan[citation needed], parts of Thailand[27][28] and in the Philippines.[28][29][30][31][32][33]
Kevin Lloyd of The Bill and Terry Lloyd of ITN on TV Weekly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YXZOCQ06a4
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/lloy-o16.shtml
EXCERPT:
Britain: Court finds ITN journalist Terry Lloyd murdered by US forces
By Liz Smith
16 October 2006
An Oxfordshire coroner’s court ruled Friday, October 13 that the Independent Television News (ITN) journalist Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by US forces in southern Iraq in March 2003.
At the end of a six-day inquest, Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker told the court, “Having carefully taken into account all the evidence I am satisfied so that I am sure that had this killing taken place under English law it would have constituted an unlawful homicide.... I shall write to the attorney general [Britain’s highest judge] and the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to considering the appropriate steps to bring the persons involved in the incident to justice.”
Walker stressed, “I have no doubt that Mr. Lloyd was killed by a tracer bullet fired from an American gun.”
Shooter, why not look at the people at the top who are in charge of our universities.
The worst of them were educated at our most prestigious
schools!!!
If Prof Jones is looking for verification by his peers through papers, it is because he recognizes that other people will only take him seriously when he does it the old fashioned way. (He's waking folks up and learning as he goes.)
Prof Jones is a teacher and now he's stepped out of that realm to do other things. Why not give him a break?
I was around in the beginning and he was speaking out before he had their approval. He wasn't asking for white papers back then.
He was attacked and had to learn the hard way how to get through to others.
Professor Jones was devastated when BYU rebuked him for speaking out.
When you say real professional journals, what exactly does that mean? Who are the real professionals these days?
Real professional journalists are 'DEAD' now because they were reporting the truth. Daniel Perle???
Would you say Ken Lay was a real professional? What about Henry Kissinger? Louis Gerstner Jr. was CEO at IBM and he was an insider in the education field??? (He's CEO of the Carlyle group now.)
What about Dick Cheney's wife? Isn't she involved in education? (What about Laura Bush, isn't she a librarian?)
Here are a list of some of the journalists that tried to be professional and do their jobs........
Look at all of the people that while doing their jobs died in the line of fire........ and murdered by who??? The elite group that runs the world thinking they are superior.
Brian Quig http://www.apfn.org/apfn/Brian_Quig.htm
What about Gary Webb? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
War with Iraq > Memorial
Journalists killed or missing in Iraq
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KILLED
Steven Vincent, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal correspondent
•American journalist found dead in Basra
Steven Vincent, whose work has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and his female Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint by five men Tuesday evening as they left a currency exchange shop, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.
Vincent's body was discovered on the side of the highway south of Basra later. He had been shot in the head and multiple times in the body, al-Zaidi said.
Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, al-Sharqiya television, of Iraq
•Popular TV presenter killed in Iraq
Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, a popular presenter who had worked for Iraqi state television before the war, was killed by gunmen Oct. 27, 2004 on her way home from work at al-Sharqiya television in Baghdad.
Abdul-Razzaq, mother of a 6-year-old boy and a month-old baby girl, was killed only two months after her husband was murdered. The motive for the killings was not clear.
Karam Hussein, 22, European Pressphoto Agency photographer, of Iraq
Hussein was gunned down Oct. 15, 2004 by four unidentified assailants while leaving his home in Mosul. Before working for Pressphoto, Hussein contributed photographs to the Associated Press.
Dina Hassan, al-Hurriya television correspondent, of Iraq
•Iraqi TV journalist killed in drive-by shooting
Dina Mohamad Hassan, an Iraqi journalist, was gunned down Oct. 14, 2004 in the Baghdad neighborhood of Al-Adhamiya. She worked for Al-Hurriya, a TV station run by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which is headed by a Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani.
Mazen Tomeizi, 26, Al Arabiya TV producer, of Palestine
•U.S. army defends helicopter attack in Baghdad
Witnesses said Tomeizi was killed Sept. 12, 2004 when a U.S. helicopter fired into a crowd of Iraqis cheering around a military vehicle torched during fighting in Haifa street, an area widely known as a stronghold for anti-U.S. insurgents. Reuters cameraman Seif Fouad was wounded in one of the subsequent rocket strikes.
Enzo Baldoni, 56, freelance journalist, of Italy
•Berlusconi condemns reported killing of Italian hostage in Iraq
•Italian journalist held hostage is killed Al-Jazeera says
Baldoni, 56, a part-time journalist whose main job was as an advertising copy writer, went to Iraq for the news magazine Diario. Arab television reported Aug. 26 it received video footage of Baldoni being killed by militants but did not broadcast tape because of gruesome content.
Hussein Osman, translator, of Lebanon
•DNA tests confirm that missing Lebanese translator was killed in firefight early in Iraq invasion
Translator Hussein Osman of Lebanon, had been missing since the shooting incident March 22 in southern Iraq in which Terry Lloyd was killed. DNA tests carried out by British military investigators indicate that remains found at the site of the gunbattle were those of Osman.
Shinsuke Hashida, 61, freelance journalist, of Japan
Hashida, his nephew Kotaro Ogawa, 33, and their Iraqi interpreter were killed May 27 in an attack on the road between Mahmoudiya and Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Hashida, an experienced war correspondent, had intended to bring back to Japan an Iraqi boy who suffered injuries to his eyes in an attack.
Kotaro Ogawa, 33, freelance journalist, of Japan
Ogawa and his uncle had just left the Japanese military base in the town of Samawa, south of Baghdad, and were heading towards the capital when their vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by an armed group. The vehicle caught fired and exploded. Only the driver, who was injured, managed to get out in time.
Rashid Hamid Wali, 38, Al-Jazeera television
•Jazeera newsman killed in clashes in Iraq
Wali, assistant cameraman and fixer for the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, was killed by gunfire May 20 in the Iraqi city of Karbala. The father of six was filming fighting in the southern city of Karbala where U.S. forces are battling to put down a weeks-old rebellion by militiamen loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Waldemar Milewicz, 47, TVP television correspondent, of Poland
•Leading Polish journalist shot dead in Iraq
Gunmen ambushed the Polish TV crew on May 7 south of Baghdad, killing Milewicz – Poland's best-known war reporter – and Mounir Bouamrane, TVP television producer, 36, a dual Algerian-Polish national. It was only the third day in Iraq for the Polish crew.
Asaad Kadhim, U.S.-funded TV station Al-Iraqiya correspondent, of Iraq
Kadhim, a correspondent for the U.S.-funded Al-Iraqiya TV, and his driver, Hussein Saleh, were killed April 19 by gunfire from U.S. forces near a checkpoint close to the Iraqi city of Samara, about 75 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad. Cameraman Jassem Kamel was injured in the shooting.
On April 20, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of operations for coalition forces in Iraq, confirmed that U.S. troops killed the journalist and his driver. According to media reports, Kimmitt said that coalition forces at the checkpoint warned the journalists' vehicle to stop by firing several warning shots. When the vehicle ignored those shots, Kimmitt said, forces fired at the car.
Burhan Mohammed Mazhour, ABC television cameraman, of Iraq
•Iraqi cameraman working for ABC killed
Mazhour was shot in the head while covering clashes in Falluja and taken to a hospital there, where he died shortly afterwards. Witnesses said U.S. troops fired at him. The U.S. military said it had no information about the incident.
Omar Hashim Kamal, Time magazine translator, of Iraq
•Iraqi working for Time magazine dies after attack
Time magazine said Kamal was shot on March 24 in Baghdad and had been in critical condition at an American military hospital in the Iraqi capital. He died March 26. Kamal is survived by a wife and 4-year-old son.
Ali Abdelaziz, Al Arabiya cameraman, of Iraq
Ali Abdelaziz, a cameraman working for Dubai-based satellite television channel Al Arabiya, was shot and killed by U.S. troops on March 18. A second Iraqi journalist, Ali al-Khatib, dies the next day from wounds sustained in the same incident.
Mohammed Farhan, Majeed Rashid, Nadia Shawkat; employees of Diyala TV, of Iraq
Gunmen open fire on a minibus March 18, killing three Iraqi journalists and wounding nine other employees of a coalition-funded TV station in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Safir Nader and Haymin Mohamed Salih, cameramen with Qulan TV;
Abdel Sattar Abdel Karim, freelance photographer for Arabic-language daily Al Ta'akhy;
Ayoub Mohamed and Gharib Mohamed Salih, of Kurdistan TV;
Semko Karim Mohyideen, freelance journalist
Killed on Feb. 1 in twin suicide bombings on offices of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party in Irbil.
Duraid Isa Mohammed, CNN translator-producer, of Iraq
•Two CNN employees killed in Iraq
CNN said in a broadcast that the pair was returning from an assignment Jan. 27, 2004 in a two-car convoy that came under attack. A CNN cameraman in the second car was grazed in the head by a bullet but was safe, the network said. It said correspondent Michael Holmes was also in the car along with three other people but none of them were hurt.
The vehicles were traveling toward the Baghdad suburb of Mahmoudiya when a rust-colored Opel came up behind one car. A gunman, standing through the sunroof, opened fire at the convoy with an AK-47, the network said.
The car with Holmes and wounded cameraman Scott McWhinnie escaped as an armed security adviser who was with them returned fire.
Yasser Khatab, CNN driver, of Iraq
Mazen Dana, 43, Reuters cameraman, of Palestine
•Cameraman's death result of U.S. military flaws, report says
•Soldiers' testimony raises questions over U.S. report
•U.S. says troops followed rules in cameraman's death
• Fellow journalists accuse U.S. soldiers of negligence in shooting of cameraman
Mazen Dana, 43, was shot and killed by U.S. soldiers Aug. 17, 2003 while videotaping near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. The U.S. Army said its soldiers mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Jeremy Little, 27, sound engineer for NBC News, of Australia
•Australian soundman dies from Iraq wounds
Little died July 6, at military hospital in Germany from wounds suffered on June 29 in a grenade attack on a military vehicle in Fallujah.
Richard Wild, 24, freelance cameraman, of Britian
•Young British journalist killed in Baghdad yearned to become war correspondent
Tarek Ayyoub, 35, Al-Jazeera producer and correspondent, of Jordan
•Jazeera TV cameraman killed in Baghdad raid
Jose Couso, 37, Tele 5 cameraman, of Spain
•Spanish judge to probe death of Iraq war cameraman
•Spanish cameraman killed in Baghdad hotel blast
Taras Protsyuk, 35, Reuters cameraman, of the Ukraine
•Reuters cameraman dies in Iraq hotel blast
Christian Liebig, 35, Focus magazine, of Germany
Christian Liebig, journalist for Focus weekly, Germany, April 7, south of Baghdad in a friendly fire incident.
Julio Anguita Parrado, 32, El Mundo reporter, of Spain
Julio Anguita Parrado, reporter for El Mundo, Spain, April 7, south of Baghdad in a friendly fire incident.
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, Kurdish translator for BBC
Killed on April 6 in U.S. aircraft bombing of joint convoy of Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces in northern Iraq.
Michael Kelly, 46, Washington Post columnist
•Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large killed in accident in Iraq
Michael Kelly died April 3 while traveling with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division as it moved across Iraq, according to a statement issued by Atlantic Media. He was the first American journalist to die in the conflict.
Kaveh Golestan, 52, BBC cameraman, of Iran
•BBC journalist killed in northern Iraq
Kaveh Golestan, 52, an Iranian freelance cameraman for the BBC, died instantly April 2 when he stepped on a land mine as he climbed out of his car in the town of Kifrey.
Terry Lloyd, 50, ITV News
•Search shows ITN journalists were attacked from two sides
The British television news network ITN has said it believes its reporter Terry Lloyd was killed March 22 by "friendly fire" from British or American soldiers en route to the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
He was one of a four-man ITV News team came under fire, apparently from coalition forces, outside the city. Iraqi ambulances took a number of dead and injured from the area into the city.
His body is believed to lie in a Basra hospital under Iraqi control.
Lloyd, a seasoned war correspondent who also had covered conflicts in Cambodia and the Balkans, was ITN's longest-serving reporter and was the first ITN correspondent to be killed on assignment in the network's 48-year history, the network said.
"Terry was brave, he was determined and he was safety conscious," said ITN chief executive Stewart Purvis. "He was a lovely guy."
Lloyd was 50, and married with two children.
The whereabouts of Lloyd's colleague, cameraman Fred Nerac, 43, of France, is unknown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Lloyd
EXCERPT:
InvestigationThe Royal Military Police (RMP) carried out an investigation into the incident. Major Kay Roberts, an RMP investigator, testified at the inquest on Terry Lloyd that a videotape of the incident, taken by a cameraman attached to the US unit that killed Terry Lloyd, had been edited before it had been passed on to the British investigation. The RMP forensics expert who examined the tape concluded that about 15 minutes had been removed from the start of the recording. Roberts testified at the inquest that she was sent the tape "some months" after the incident[4] and that the she was told by the US authorities that the footage they handed over was "everything that they had".
The ITN team were driving in two cars both clearly marked as press vehicles. Frédéric Nérac and Hussein Osman were in the car behind Terry Lloyd and Daniel Demoustier. They encountered an Iraqi convoy at the Shatt Al Basra Bridge in Basra, Iraq. Nérac and Osman were taken out of their car and made to get into an Iraqi vehicle. The British investigation into the incident established the convoy was escorting a Baath Party leader to Basra. US forces shot at the Iraqi convoy, killing Osman: Nérac's body has not been recovered, but investigation suggests it is unlikely he could have survived.[5]
Frédéric Nérac's wife Fabienne Mercier-Nérac testified that she had received a letter from US authorities who denied being at the scene when the ITN News team was attacked.
Demoustier and Lloyd, still in the ITN car, were caught in crossfire between the Iraqi Republican Guard and U.S. forces. Lloyd was hit by an Iraqi bullet, an injury from which he could have recovered. He was put into a civilian minibus that had stopped to pick up casualties. Forensic evidence presented at the inquest shows U.S. forces shot at the minibus after it had turned to leave the area, killing Terry Lloyd outright. Demoustier survived.
Paul Moran, 39, Australian Broadcasting Corp. cameraman
Paul Moran, 39, was killed March 22 by an apparent car bomb at a checkpoint near a camp of the al-Qaida-linked militant group Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq. Australian Broadcasting correspondent Eric Campbell suffered minor shrapnel injuries, a network statement said.
Journalists had gone to the checkpoint to interview refugees streaming out of the area that had been attacked. One of the cars coming out with the refugees exploded, according to an account pieced together from witnesses and reporters.
Another civilian and three Peshmergas, or Kurdish soldiers, also were killed. None of their identities were made known immediately.
Moran, who was based in Paris, had worked extensively in the Middle East. He is survived by his wife and baby daughter
MISSING
Fred Nerac, cameraman, 43, of France
•Chirac urges British action over missing cameraman
•Search shows ITN journalists were attacked from two sides
The Foreign Ministry said Frederic Nerac, who works for Britain's Independent Television News, ITN, had been hurt, but it had no information on his condition or current whereabouts.
It was the first information about Nerac since the attack which killed British ITN reporter Terry Lloyd.
The crew had been driving toward the southern city of Basra when they came under fire.
NON-HOSTILE INCIDENT
Mark Fineman, 51, Los Angeles Times correspondent
•L.A. Times correspondent dies of apparent heart attack
Veteran Los Angeles Times correspondent Mark Fineman died Sept. 23 of an apparent heart attack while working in Baghdad. Fineman and fellow Times correspondent Alissa J. Rubin were waiting in the offices of the Iraqi Governing Council for an interview when he complained of chest pains and collapsed. He was rushed to a hospital but doctors could not revive him.
Elizabeth Neuffer, 46, Boston Globe reporter
Elizabeth Neuffer, a reporter for The Boston Globe, died May 8 after the car in which she was a passenger apparently struck a guardrail near the town of Samarra, about halfway between Baghdad and Tikrit. Neuffer's translator, Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami, also died in the accident.
Veronica Cabrera, 28, America TV camerawoman, of Argentine
•Argentine camerawoman dies of injuries in Iraq
Veronica Cabrera, an Argentine free-lance camerawoman, died April 15 of injuries from a car crash outside the Iraqi capital on April 14.
Mario Podesta, 52, America TV correspondent, of Argentine
•Argentinian journalist dies in car crash in Iraq
Mario Podesta, an Argentine TV reporter, was instantly killed in a car crash outside the Iraqi capital on April 14.
David Bloom, 39, NBC correspondent
•NBC News correspondent dies of blood clot
Gaby Rado, 48, Channel 4 TV reporter, of Britain
Gaby Rado, a correspondent for Channel 4 News, Britain, died March 30 after apparently falling from a hotel roof in northern Iraq.
shooter586 wrote:
More of those pesky peer-reviewed artcles in real professional journals.
Maybe we can see if Prof jones can get around to submitting one?
Probably not. He needed to make up his own "journal" so his friends can
rubber stamp the review. We all know how he is about getting his papers
peer-reviewed by real professionals.
http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/00%20WTC%
20Collapse%20-%20What%20did%20&%20Did%20Not%20Cause%20It%20-%20Revised%
206-22-07.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/2hy2s8
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Excerpt:
A death squad is an armed military, police, insurgent, or terrorist squad that conducts extra-judicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a war, insurgency or terror campaign. These killings are often conducted in ways meant to ensure the secrecy of the killers' identities, so as to avoid accountability.[1][2]
Death squads are often, but not exclusively, associated with the violent political repression under dictatorships, totalitarian states and similar regimes. They typically have the tacit or express support of the state, as a whole or in part (see state terrorism). Death squads may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary group or official government units with members drawn from the military or the police. They may also be organized as vigilante groups.
"Extrajudicial killings" are the illegal killing of leading political, trades union, dissidents, and social figures by either the state government, state authorities like the armed forces and police (as in Liberia under Charles G. Taylor), or criminal outfits such as the Italian Mafia.
Extrajudicial killings and death squads are most common in the Middle East (mostly in Palestinian territories and Iraq),[3][4][5][6][7] Central America,[8][9][10] Afghanistan, Bangladesh,[11] India and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir,[12][13][14][15][16][17] several nations or regions in Equatorial Africa,[18][19][20] Jamaica,[21][22][23] Kosovo,[21][22] many parts of South America,[24][25][26] Uzbekistan[citation needed], parts of Thailand[27][28] and in the Philippines.[28][29][30][31][32][33]
Kevin Lloyd of The Bill and Terry Lloyd of ITN on TV Weekly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YXZOCQ06a4
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/lloy-o16.shtml
EXCERPT:
Britain: Court finds ITN journalist Terry Lloyd murdered by US forces
By Liz Smith
16 October 2006
An Oxfordshire coroner’s court ruled Friday, October 13 that the Independent Television News (ITN) journalist Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by US forces in southern Iraq in March 2003.
At the end of a six-day inquest, Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker told the court, “Having carefully taken into account all the evidence I am satisfied so that I am sure that had this killing taken place under English law it would have constituted an unlawful homicide.... I shall write to the attorney general [Britain’s highest judge] and the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to considering the appropriate steps to bring the persons involved in the incident to justice.”
Walker stressed, “I have no doubt that Mr. Lloyd was killed by a tracer bullet fired from an American gun.”
Shooter, why not look at the people at the top who are in charge of our universities.
The worst of them were educated at our most prestigious
schools!!!
If Prof Jones is looking for verification by his peers through papers, it is because he recognizes that other people will only take him seriously when he does it the old fashioned way. (He's waking folks up and learning as he goes.)
Prof Jones is a teacher and now he's stepped out of that realm to do other things. Why not give him a break?
I was around in the beginning and he was speaking out before he had their approval. He wasn't asking for white papers back then.
He was attacked and had to learn the hard way how to get through to others.
Professor Jones was devastated when BYU rebuked him for speaking out.
When you say real professional journals, what exactly does that mean? Who are the real professionals these days?
Real professional journalists are 'DEAD' now because they were reporting the truth. Daniel Perle???
Would you say Ken Lay was a real professional? What about Henry Kissinger? Louis Gerstner Jr. was CEO at IBM and he was an insider in the education field??? (He's CEO of the Carlyle group now.)
What about Dick Cheney's wife? Isn't she involved in education? (What about Laura Bush, isn't she a librarian?)
Here are a list of some of the journalists that tried to be professional and do their jobs........
Look at all of the people that while doing their jobs died in the line of fire........ and murdered by who??? The elite group that runs the world thinking they are superior.
Brian Quig http://www.apfn.org/apfn/Brian_Quig.htm
What about Gary Webb? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
War with Iraq > Memorial
Journalists killed or missing in Iraq
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KILLED
Steven Vincent, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal correspondent
•American journalist found dead in Basra
Steven Vincent, whose work has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and his female Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint by five men Tuesday evening as they left a currency exchange shop, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said.
Vincent's body was discovered on the side of the highway south of Basra later. He had been shot in the head and multiple times in the body, al-Zaidi said.
Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, al-Sharqiya television, of Iraq
•Popular TV presenter killed in Iraq
Liqaa Abdul-Razzaq, a popular presenter who had worked for Iraqi state television before the war, was killed by gunmen Oct. 27, 2004 on her way home from work at al-Sharqiya television in Baghdad.
Abdul-Razzaq, mother of a 6-year-old boy and a month-old baby girl, was killed only two months after her husband was murdered. The motive for the killings was not clear.
Karam Hussein, 22, European Pressphoto Agency photographer, of Iraq
Hussein was gunned down Oct. 15, 2004 by four unidentified assailants while leaving his home in Mosul. Before working for Pressphoto, Hussein contributed photographs to the Associated Press.
Dina Hassan, al-Hurriya television correspondent, of Iraq
•Iraqi TV journalist killed in drive-by shooting
Dina Mohamad Hassan, an Iraqi journalist, was gunned down Oct. 14, 2004 in the Baghdad neighborhood of Al-Adhamiya. She worked for Al-Hurriya, a TV station run by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which is headed by a Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani.
Mazen Tomeizi, 26, Al Arabiya TV producer, of Palestine
•U.S. army defends helicopter attack in Baghdad
Witnesses said Tomeizi was killed Sept. 12, 2004 when a U.S. helicopter fired into a crowd of Iraqis cheering around a military vehicle torched during fighting in Haifa street, an area widely known as a stronghold for anti-U.S. insurgents. Reuters cameraman Seif Fouad was wounded in one of the subsequent rocket strikes.
Enzo Baldoni, 56, freelance journalist, of Italy
•Berlusconi condemns reported killing of Italian hostage in Iraq
•Italian journalist held hostage is killed Al-Jazeera says
Baldoni, 56, a part-time journalist whose main job was as an advertising copy writer, went to Iraq for the news magazine Diario. Arab television reported Aug. 26 it received video footage of Baldoni being killed by militants but did not broadcast tape because of gruesome content.
Hussein Osman, translator, of Lebanon
•DNA tests confirm that missing Lebanese translator was killed in firefight early in Iraq invasion
Translator Hussein Osman of Lebanon, had been missing since the shooting incident March 22 in southern Iraq in which Terry Lloyd was killed. DNA tests carried out by British military investigators indicate that remains found at the site of the gunbattle were those of Osman.
Shinsuke Hashida, 61, freelance journalist, of Japan
Hashida, his nephew Kotaro Ogawa, 33, and their Iraqi interpreter were killed May 27 in an attack on the road between Mahmoudiya and Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Hashida, an experienced war correspondent, had intended to bring back to Japan an Iraqi boy who suffered injuries to his eyes in an attack.
Kotaro Ogawa, 33, freelance journalist, of Japan
Ogawa and his uncle had just left the Japanese military base in the town of Samawa, south of Baghdad, and were heading towards the capital when their vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by an armed group. The vehicle caught fired and exploded. Only the driver, who was injured, managed to get out in time.
Rashid Hamid Wali, 38, Al-Jazeera television
•Jazeera newsman killed in clashes in Iraq
Wali, assistant cameraman and fixer for the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera, was killed by gunfire May 20 in the Iraqi city of Karbala. The father of six was filming fighting in the southern city of Karbala where U.S. forces are battling to put down a weeks-old rebellion by militiamen loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Waldemar Milewicz, 47, TVP television correspondent, of Poland
•Leading Polish journalist shot dead in Iraq
Gunmen ambushed the Polish TV crew on May 7 south of Baghdad, killing Milewicz – Poland's best-known war reporter – and Mounir Bouamrane, TVP television producer, 36, a dual Algerian-Polish national. It was only the third day in Iraq for the Polish crew.
Asaad Kadhim, U.S.-funded TV station Al-Iraqiya correspondent, of Iraq
Kadhim, a correspondent for the U.S.-funded Al-Iraqiya TV, and his driver, Hussein Saleh, were killed April 19 by gunfire from U.S. forces near a checkpoint close to the Iraqi city of Samara, about 75 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad. Cameraman Jassem Kamel was injured in the shooting.
On April 20, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of operations for coalition forces in Iraq, confirmed that U.S. troops killed the journalist and his driver. According to media reports, Kimmitt said that coalition forces at the checkpoint warned the journalists' vehicle to stop by firing several warning shots. When the vehicle ignored those shots, Kimmitt said, forces fired at the car.
Burhan Mohammed Mazhour, ABC television cameraman, of Iraq
•Iraqi cameraman working for ABC killed
Mazhour was shot in the head while covering clashes in Falluja and taken to a hospital there, where he died shortly afterwards. Witnesses said U.S. troops fired at him. The U.S. military said it had no information about the incident.
Omar Hashim Kamal, Time magazine translator, of Iraq
•Iraqi working for Time magazine dies after attack
Time magazine said Kamal was shot on March 24 in Baghdad and had been in critical condition at an American military hospital in the Iraqi capital. He died March 26. Kamal is survived by a wife and 4-year-old son.
Ali Abdelaziz, Al Arabiya cameraman, of Iraq
Ali Abdelaziz, a cameraman working for Dubai-based satellite television channel Al Arabiya, was shot and killed by U.S. troops on March 18. A second Iraqi journalist, Ali al-Khatib, dies the next day from wounds sustained in the same incident.
Mohammed Farhan, Majeed Rashid, Nadia Shawkat; employees of Diyala TV, of Iraq
Gunmen open fire on a minibus March 18, killing three Iraqi journalists and wounding nine other employees of a coalition-funded TV station in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
Safir Nader and Haymin Mohamed Salih, cameramen with Qulan TV;
Abdel Sattar Abdel Karim, freelance photographer for Arabic-language daily Al Ta'akhy;
Ayoub Mohamed and Gharib Mohamed Salih, of Kurdistan TV;
Semko Karim Mohyideen, freelance journalist
Killed on Feb. 1 in twin suicide bombings on offices of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party in Irbil.
Duraid Isa Mohammed, CNN translator-producer, of Iraq
•Two CNN employees killed in Iraq
CNN said in a broadcast that the pair was returning from an assignment Jan. 27, 2004 in a two-car convoy that came under attack. A CNN cameraman in the second car was grazed in the head by a bullet but was safe, the network said. It said correspondent Michael Holmes was also in the car along with three other people but none of them were hurt.
The vehicles were traveling toward the Baghdad suburb of Mahmoudiya when a rust-colored Opel came up behind one car. A gunman, standing through the sunroof, opened fire at the convoy with an AK-47, the network said.
The car with Holmes and wounded cameraman Scott McWhinnie escaped as an armed security adviser who was with them returned fire.
Yasser Khatab, CNN driver, of Iraq
Mazen Dana, 43, Reuters cameraman, of Palestine
•Cameraman's death result of U.S. military flaws, report says
•Soldiers' testimony raises questions over U.S. report
•U.S. says troops followed rules in cameraman's death
• Fellow journalists accuse U.S. soldiers of negligence in shooting of cameraman
Mazen Dana, 43, was shot and killed by U.S. soldiers Aug. 17, 2003 while videotaping near a U.S.-run prison on the outskirts of Baghdad. The U.S. Army said its soldiers mistook his camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Jeremy Little, 27, sound engineer for NBC News, of Australia
•Australian soundman dies from Iraq wounds
Little died July 6, at military hospital in Germany from wounds suffered on June 29 in a grenade attack on a military vehicle in Fallujah.
Richard Wild, 24, freelance cameraman, of Britian
•Young British journalist killed in Baghdad yearned to become war correspondent
Tarek Ayyoub, 35, Al-Jazeera producer and correspondent, of Jordan
•Jazeera TV cameraman killed in Baghdad raid
Jose Couso, 37, Tele 5 cameraman, of Spain
•Spanish judge to probe death of Iraq war cameraman
•Spanish cameraman killed in Baghdad hotel blast
Taras Protsyuk, 35, Reuters cameraman, of the Ukraine
•Reuters cameraman dies in Iraq hotel blast
Christian Liebig, 35, Focus magazine, of Germany
Christian Liebig, journalist for Focus weekly, Germany, April 7, south of Baghdad in a friendly fire incident.
Julio Anguita Parrado, 32, El Mundo reporter, of Spain
Julio Anguita Parrado, reporter for El Mundo, Spain, April 7, south of Baghdad in a friendly fire incident.
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, Kurdish translator for BBC
Killed on April 6 in U.S. aircraft bombing of joint convoy of Kurdish fighters and U.S. Special Forces in northern Iraq.
Michael Kelly, 46, Washington Post columnist
•Atlantic Monthly editor-at-large killed in accident in Iraq
Michael Kelly died April 3 while traveling with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division as it moved across Iraq, according to a statement issued by Atlantic Media. He was the first American journalist to die in the conflict.
Kaveh Golestan, 52, BBC cameraman, of Iran
•BBC journalist killed in northern Iraq
Kaveh Golestan, 52, an Iranian freelance cameraman for the BBC, died instantly April 2 when he stepped on a land mine as he climbed out of his car in the town of Kifrey.
Terry Lloyd, 50, ITV News
•Search shows ITN journalists were attacked from two sides
The British television news network ITN has said it believes its reporter Terry Lloyd was killed March 22 by "friendly fire" from British or American soldiers en route to the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
He was one of a four-man ITV News team came under fire, apparently from coalition forces, outside the city. Iraqi ambulances took a number of dead and injured from the area into the city.
His body is believed to lie in a Basra hospital under Iraqi control.
Lloyd, a seasoned war correspondent who also had covered conflicts in Cambodia and the Balkans, was ITN's longest-serving reporter and was the first ITN correspondent to be killed on assignment in the network's 48-year history, the network said.
"Terry was brave, he was determined and he was safety conscious," said ITN chief executive Stewart Purvis. "He was a lovely guy."
Lloyd was 50, and married with two children.
The whereabouts of Lloyd's colleague, cameraman Fred Nerac, 43, of France, is unknown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Lloyd
EXCERPT:
InvestigationThe Royal Military Police (RMP) carried out an investigation into the incident. Major Kay Roberts, an RMP investigator, testified at the inquest on Terry Lloyd that a videotape of the incident, taken by a cameraman attached to the US unit that killed Terry Lloyd, had been edited before it had been passed on to the British investigation. The RMP forensics expert who examined the tape concluded that about 15 minutes had been removed from the start of the recording. Roberts testified at the inquest that she was sent the tape "some months" after the incident[4] and that the she was told by the US authorities that the footage they handed over was "everything that they had".
The ITN team were driving in two cars both clearly marked as press vehicles. Frédéric Nérac and Hussein Osman were in the car behind Terry Lloyd and Daniel Demoustier. They encountered an Iraqi convoy at the Shatt Al Basra Bridge in Basra, Iraq. Nérac and Osman were taken out of their car and made to get into an Iraqi vehicle. The British investigation into the incident established the convoy was escorting a Baath Party leader to Basra. US forces shot at the Iraqi convoy, killing Osman: Nérac's body has not been recovered, but investigation suggests it is unlikely he could have survived.[5]
Frédéric Nérac's wife Fabienne Mercier-Nérac testified that she had received a letter from US authorities who denied being at the scene when the ITN News team was attacked.
Demoustier and Lloyd, still in the ITN car, were caught in crossfire between the Iraqi Republican Guard and U.S. forces. Lloyd was hit by an Iraqi bullet, an injury from which he could have recovered. He was put into a civilian minibus that had stopped to pick up casualties. Forensic evidence presented at the inquest shows U.S. forces shot at the minibus after it had turned to leave the area, killing Terry Lloyd outright. Demoustier survived.
Paul Moran, 39, Australian Broadcasting Corp. cameraman
Paul Moran, 39, was killed March 22 by an apparent car bomb at a checkpoint near a camp of the al-Qaida-linked militant group Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq. Australian Broadcasting correspondent Eric Campbell suffered minor shrapnel injuries, a network statement said.
Journalists had gone to the checkpoint to interview refugees streaming out of the area that had been attacked. One of the cars coming out with the refugees exploded, according to an account pieced together from witnesses and reporters.
Another civilian and three Peshmergas, or Kurdish soldiers, also were killed. None of their identities were made known immediately.
Moran, who was based in Paris, had worked extensively in the Middle East. He is survived by his wife and baby daughter
MISSING
Fred Nerac, cameraman, 43, of France
•Chirac urges British action over missing cameraman
•Search shows ITN journalists were attacked from two sides
The Foreign Ministry said Frederic Nerac, who works for Britain's Independent Television News, ITN, had been hurt, but it had no information on his condition or current whereabouts.
It was the first information about Nerac since the attack which killed British ITN reporter Terry Lloyd.
The crew had been driving toward the southern city of Basra when they came under fire.
NON-HOSTILE INCIDENT
Mark Fineman, 51, Los Angeles Times correspondent
•L.A. Times correspondent dies of apparent heart attack
Veteran Los Angeles Times correspondent Mark Fineman died Sept. 23 of an apparent heart attack while working in Baghdad. Fineman and fellow Times correspondent Alissa J. Rubin were waiting in the offices of the Iraqi Governing Council for an interview when he complained of chest pains and collapsed. He was rushed to a hospital but doctors could not revive him.
Elizabeth Neuffer, 46, Boston Globe reporter
Elizabeth Neuffer, a reporter for The Boston Globe, died May 8 after the car in which she was a passenger apparently struck a guardrail near the town of Samarra, about halfway between Baghdad and Tikrit. Neuffer's translator, Waleed Khalifa Hassan Al-Dulami, also died in the accident.
Veronica Cabrera, 28, America TV camerawoman, of Argentine
•Argentine camerawoman dies of injuries in Iraq
Veronica Cabrera, an Argentine free-lance camerawoman, died April 15 of injuries from a car crash outside the Iraqi capital on April 14.
Mario Podesta, 52, America TV correspondent, of Argentine
•Argentinian journalist dies in car crash in Iraq
Mario Podesta, an Argentine TV reporter, was instantly killed in a car crash outside the Iraqi capital on April 14.
David Bloom, 39, NBC correspondent
•NBC News correspondent dies of blood clot
Gaby Rado, 48, Channel 4 TV reporter, of Britain
Gaby Rado, a correspondent for Channel 4 News, Britain, died March 30 after apparently falling from a hotel roof in northern Iraq.
shooter586
More of those pesky peer-reviewed artcles in real professional journals.
Maybe we can see if Prof jones can get around to submitting one?
Probably not. He needed to make up his own "journal" so his friends can
rubber stamp the review. We all know how he is about getting his papers
peer-reviewed by real professionals.
http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/00%20WTC%
20Collapse%20-%20What%20did%20&%20Did%20Not%20Cause%20It%20-%20Revised%
206-22-07.pdf
or
http://tinyurl.com/2hy2s8
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Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Bare Foot Doctors
Providing detoxification information and survival detox kits to residents and workers in the Gulf Coast region
From the Gulf Stream to the Bloodstream
a Project Gulf Impact video
Please sign the 1 Planet 1 Ocean
Petition to Halt the Use of Chemical Dispersants in the
Gulf of Mexico
Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors
is pleased to announce the following sponsors, who have made generous contributions of their fine products for our Survival Detox Kits to assist families of Gulf Coast fishing communities.
Since the beginning of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe on April 20, 2010, the residents, clean-up workers, and volunteers in the Gulf Coast region have been exposed to dangerous toxins from the millions of gallons of crude oil released into the Gulf of Mexico and from yulf waters and on its shores. Little to nothing has been done by the federal and by state governments to protect the public from exposure to these toxins. In fact, for the most part, they have denied there have ever been health risks from chemical exposure. Independent scientists, however, tell a different story, and people who have been exposed in varying degrees to the toxins continue to have adverse reactions.
Few in the medical field who practice environmental health have come forward to assist people in the most contaminated areas. Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors, a grassroots initiative inspired by the medical writings of Mark Sircus, Ac, OMD, director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA), and by environmental health physicians and toxicologists who have addressed this public health crisis, is publishing information on detoxification and are assembling and distributing Survival Detox Kits with supplies and instructions to assist in counteracting adverse effects of the poisons that have been bombarding our bodies. (See about us to learn more about Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors.)
The protocols included in the Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors Survival Detox Kit—sodium bicarbonate, magnesium sulfate, betonite clay, activated charcoal, nascent iodine, magnesium oil, and vitamin C; superfoods with spirulina; and antioxidant teas and foods—are all natural and beneficial agents to detoxify the body and reinforce the immune system.
Thanks to two major sponsors, Integrated Health and L L Magnetic Clay Baths, Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors is able to assemble 10-day kits at this time at the cost of $25.00 each. If you would like to help families in coastal communities survive the BP crude oil and dispersant catastrophe by providing them, you can donate a full basic Survival Detox Kit, or any amount toward a kit. See the prevention and detoxification section for more information on the protocols of the Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors Survival Detox Kits.
If you would like to volunteer with Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors, or if you represent an organization that would like to join forces to assist with our initiative, please go to the donate/volunteer/network section.
Providing detoxification information and survival detox kits to residents and workers in the Gulf Coast region
From the Gulf Stream to the Bloodstream
a Project Gulf Impact video
Please sign the 1 Planet 1 Ocean
Petition to Halt the Use of Chemical Dispersants in the
Gulf of Mexico
Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors
is pleased to announce the following sponsors, who have made generous contributions of their fine products for our Survival Detox Kits to assist families of Gulf Coast fishing communities.
Since the beginning of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe on April 20, 2010, the residents, clean-up workers, and volunteers in the Gulf Coast region have been exposed to dangerous toxins from the millions of gallons of crude oil released into the Gulf of Mexico and from yulf waters and on its shores. Little to nothing has been done by the federal and by state governments to protect the public from exposure to these toxins. In fact, for the most part, they have denied there have ever been health risks from chemical exposure. Independent scientists, however, tell a different story, and people who have been exposed in varying degrees to the toxins continue to have adverse reactions.
Few in the medical field who practice environmental health have come forward to assist people in the most contaminated areas. Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors, a grassroots initiative inspired by the medical writings of Mark Sircus, Ac, OMD, director of the International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA), and by environmental health physicians and toxicologists who have addressed this public health crisis, is publishing information on detoxification and are assembling and distributing Survival Detox Kits with supplies and instructions to assist in counteracting adverse effects of the poisons that have been bombarding our bodies. (See about us to learn more about Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors.)
The protocols included in the Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors Survival Detox Kit—sodium bicarbonate, magnesium sulfate, betonite clay, activated charcoal, nascent iodine, magnesium oil, and vitamin C; superfoods with spirulina; and antioxidant teas and foods—are all natural and beneficial agents to detoxify the body and reinforce the immune system.
Thanks to two major sponsors, Integrated Health and L L Magnetic Clay Baths, Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors is able to assemble 10-day kits at this time at the cost of $25.00 each. If you would like to help families in coastal communities survive the BP crude oil and dispersant catastrophe by providing them, you can donate a full basic Survival Detox Kit, or any amount toward a kit. See the prevention and detoxification section for more information on the protocols of the Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors Survival Detox Kits.
If you would like to volunteer with Gulf Coast Barefoot Doctors, or if you represent an organization that would like to join forces to assist with our initiative, please go to the donate/volunteer/network section.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
The End or Not the End, That Is the Question
The End Or Not The End, That Is The Question. Message List
Reply | Delete Message #89 of 4800 < Prev | Next >
THE END OR NOT THE END, THAT IS THE QUESTION.
Today I greeted my own grief
It was all consuming without relief.
It woke me up with a start
It made me whimper and clutch my heart.
The hurt inside was hard to bear
But if I had it not I would not care.
The others out there don't understand
The horrors brought upon our land.
The careless thoughts and lack of love
The needless killings and the great white dove.
The plot thickens as the terrors grow
The world shudders as the fires glow.
The moonlight flickers as it did before
But God's tears fall on the earth's torched floor.
When will it stop, where will it end
Will the ones now awake tire of the trend.
Will I sit idly by as the corruption grows
Or raise up like an ocean in it's ebbs and flows?
Do I wonder where it all will stop
Or do I concede and blow my top?
Am I a brainless coward that has no rights
Or do I hit the streets and begin the fights?
They know they are cornered and on my last nerve
And God has spoken and it's Him I serve.
They serve Him too in their evil quest
Till it's said and done there'll be no rest.
The world is alive with the friends of the beast
It'll be that way till the final feast.
The forces are warring as the thunder rolls
The lightening is crackling taking it's own frightening tolls.
The night is aglow with the great white light
But the darkness is coming in the wrath of His might.
In all of this will I lose my mind?
It's a constant horror and it isn't kind.
Reply | Delete Message #89 of 4800 < Prev | Next >
THE END OR NOT THE END, THAT IS THE QUESTION.
Today I greeted my own grief
It was all consuming without relief.
It woke me up with a start
It made me whimper and clutch my heart.
The hurt inside was hard to bear
But if I had it not I would not care.
The others out there don't understand
The horrors brought upon our land.
The careless thoughts and lack of love
The needless killings and the great white dove.
The plot thickens as the terrors grow
The world shudders as the fires glow.
The moonlight flickers as it did before
But God's tears fall on the earth's torched floor.
When will it stop, where will it end
Will the ones now awake tire of the trend.
Will I sit idly by as the corruption grows
Or raise up like an ocean in it's ebbs and flows?
Do I wonder where it all will stop
Or do I concede and blow my top?
Am I a brainless coward that has no rights
Or do I hit the streets and begin the fights?
They know they are cornered and on my last nerve
And God has spoken and it's Him I serve.
They serve Him too in their evil quest
Till it's said and done there'll be no rest.
The world is alive with the friends of the beast
It'll be that way till the final feast.
The forces are warring as the thunder rolls
The lightening is crackling taking it's own frightening tolls.
The night is aglow with the great white light
But the darkness is coming in the wrath of His might.
In all of this will I lose my mind?
It's a constant horror and it isn't kind.
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