We want to remind our US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE and our new to US immigrant citizens. While global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS Knights of MALTA Tribe of Judah were waging CONTINUOUS wars fueling massive civil unrest/civil wars in Latin America and Southeast Asia our US national media was shouting DEMOCRACY NOW------as Clinton/Obama were waging CONTINUOUS wars for those same global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS----US media was shouting DEMOCRACY NOW. Meanwhile in US those few decades of ROBBER BARON sacking and looting of America and creating rigged and fraudulent US elections ---just so American DEMOCRACY WAS KILLED-----suddenly US media shout RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA. CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA sacking and looting civilized societies in continuous wars at the same time they were sacking and looting America all while shouting DEMOCRACY NOW-----WE ARE CHRISTIANS.....all while working for the FOREIGN SOVEREIGNTY OF MALTA----KNIGHTS OF MALTA.
REAL left social progressive capitalists keep educating about the fact of US elections being made rigged and fraudulent by BUSH/CLINTON political machines that pushed EVERY REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE politician out of our people's DEMOCRATIC PARTY -----installing FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1% NEO-LIBERALS----because these same BUSH/CLINTON political machines will install far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST candidates MOVING FORWARD. That is global corporate fascist HITLER, STALIN, MAO.......an unofficial poll of 99% WE THE PEOPLE and our new to US immigrants states very loudly-----WE DO NOT WANT GLOBAL MILITARY JUNTA RULE IN AMERICA.
2000 E-Voting Fraud
Friday, 24 October 2003, 11:18 am
Article: Alastair Thompson
The Diebold Memos' Smoking Gun
Volusia County Memos Disclose Election 2000 Vote Fraud
By Alastair Thompson
"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22
Yes. Something very strange happened in Volusia County on election night November 2000, the night that first Gore won Florida, then Bush, and then as everybody can so well remember there was a tie.
Something strange indeed. But what exactly? In the above report ( click for full version), written days after the election, hotshot Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank goes on to attribute the strange 16,022 negative vote tally from Volusia's precinct 216 to an apparently innocent cause.
"…. faulty 'memory cards' in the machines caused the 16,000-vote disappearance on election night. The glitch was soon fixed," he wrote.
But thanks to recent investigations into Black Box Voting by Washington State writer Bev Harris we now know this explanation is not correct. In fact it is not even in the ballpark.
According to recently discovered internal Diebold Election Systems memos, Global Election Systems' (which was later purchased by Diebold) own technical staff were also stumped by the events in Volusia County/
In Chapter 11 of her new book "Black Box Voting In the 21st Century" released early today in .PDF format at Blackboxvoting.com and here at Scoop Ms Harris observes.
"If you strip away the partisan rancor over the 2000 election, you are left with the undeniable fact that a presidential candidate conceded the election to his opponent based on [results from] a second card that mysteriously appears, subtracts 16,022 votes, then just as mysteriously disappears."Working in parallel with Ms Harris Scoop has also been inquiring into the events on election night in Volusia county. Much of the material that follows is similar to that which appears in Chapter 11 of her book.
The starting point in this shocking discovery about election 2000 came in a series of internal Diebold ES technical support memos.
The following is an abbreviated version of the exchange concerning the peculiar events in Volusia county. For the purposes of research the exchange is included in full as an Appendix to this report (APPENDIX TWO). The discussion took place in early 2001 as an audit was underway in Volusia county into the events.
**********(NOTE: The names below each extract link to the full text of the emails in the appendices below.)
I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb".Lana Hires – Volusia County Florida - January 17, 2001 8:07 AM
My understanding is that the card was not corrupt after (or before) upload. They fixed the problem by clearing the precinct and re-uploading the same card. So neither of these explainations washes. That's not to say I have any idea what actually happened, its just not either of those…
The problem is its going to be very hard to collect enough data to really know what happened. The card isn't corrupt so we can't post-mortem it (its not mort).
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – January 18, 2001 1:41 PM
- the negative numbers on media display occurred when Lana attempted to reupload a card or duplicate card. Sophia and Tab may be able to shed some light here, keeping in mind that the boogie man may me reading our mail. Do we know how this could occur?
John McLaurin - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 15:44:50
The problem precinct had two memcory cards uploaded. The second one is the one I believe caused the problem. They were uploaded on the same port approx. 1 hour apart. As far as I know there should only have been one memory card uploaded. I asked you to check this out when the problem first occured but have not heard back as to whether this is true.
When the precinct was cleared and re-uploaded (only one memory card as far as I know) everything was fine.
…
Given that we transfer data in ascii form not binary and given the way the data was 'invalid' the error could not have occured during transmission. Therefore the error could only occur in one of four ways:
…
[4.] There is always the possiblity that the 'second memory card' or 'second upload' came from an un-authorised source.
Tab Iredale - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 13:31
If this problem is to be properly answered we need to determine where the 'second' memory card is or whether it even exists. Heh. Second shooter theory. All we need now is a grassy knoll.
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – 18 Jan 2001 16:42:50
I will be visiting with Lana on Monday and will ascertain the particulars related to the second memory card. One concern I’ve had all along is “if” we are getting the full story from Lana.
I’ll be back in touch and thanks for all of y’alls (that’s southern for all of you) help.
John McLaurin – Diebold ES - Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:56:06
**********Unfortunately whether or not John McLaurin got to the bottom of the mystery of Volusia County is something the memos cannot tell us.
Searches of the Diebold memos database find a single followup memo from McLaurin about the Checksum Errors experienced in Volusia, but nothing on the mysterious 16,022 negative vote count.
Which leaves us where exactly?
What we know from the memos can be summarised as follows:
- Two memory cards were uploaded from Volusia Couny's precinct 216, the second one was loaded sometime close to 2am in the morning. It automatically replaced the first card's results and reduced Gore's total by 16,022 votes and added several thousand votes to Bush plus a variety of minor candidates;
- Both memory cards loaded into the system clean and without errors, indicating (contrary to the official line) that they were not faulty;
- After the error was noticed the original card was reloaded and the mistake was rectified;
- The error was introduced in such a way that the total number of votes remained unchanged (again something that could not happen by chance.);
- According to the technical boffins, the chance of the memory card being corrupted and still passing the checksum error test are less than 60,000 to 1;
- The technical managers at Diebold Election Systems considered it a reasonable possibility that the second card was part of deliberate conspiracy to rig the election results.
In her book Bev Harris explains the issue of whether the card was a chance fault or a deliberate example of tampering"
"A memory card is like floppy disk. If you have worked with computers for any length of time you will know that a disk can go bad. When it does, which of the following is most likely? In an Excel spreadsheet that you saved on a "bad disk," might it read a column of numbers correct the first time: "1005, 2109, 3000, 450…" but the second time, replace the numbers like this: "1005, 2109, -16022, 450…" Or is it more likely that the "bad disk" will…fail to read the file at all, crash your computer, give you an error message, or make weird humming and whirring noises."source: page 239, Chapter 11, "Black Box Voting in the 21st Century"
However officially, as we learned earlier, the explanation given publicly - and accepted without demur by the media - for the strange events in Volusia county is that there was simply a "faulty memory card".
The "faulty memory card" explanation is also included in a CBS News Network investigation into the Election 2000 debacle.
And it is here that we find a considerable amount of information about just how significant the Volusia County events were on election night.
The first thing we learn from CBS's investigation into the events of election night is that according to the Voter News Service (VNS) exit polls for Florida Al Gore should have won comfortably.
7:00 PM: The vast majority of Florida polls close. CBS News decides not to project a winner in the Florida Presidential race at poll closing, even though the best estimate, based upon exit-poll interviews from the 45 survey precincts, shows Gore leading Bush by 6.6 points. The Decision Desk decides to wait for some actual votes from sample precincts to confirm the exit-poll results.7:40 PM: The VNS computation shows a "call" status in the Florida Presidential race. This status means that statistically Gore is leading, but the Decision Team needs to check more data.
Source
VNS eventually officially called the Florida race to Gore at 7.52pm, notwithstanding comments early in the vote count from George Bush that he was confident he would win both Florida and Pennsylvannia (comments which were never fully explained).
With the benefit of hindsight we think we now know that the VNS data was wrong. That is certainly what the CBS inquiry found.
In the report attached below there are a range of explanations for this given [click here to view], none of them adequately explain the magnitude of the error however.
Most of the news networks followed the VNS call giving Florida to Gore. And by 8.02pm all networks had announced Gore as the winner in Florida. And it wasn't till 9pm that some doubts about this call started to emerge.
First up a significant error - attributed to a typing mistake - was found in the VNS data at 9.07pm. This led to closer examination of the rest of the data and the incoming returns. By around 10pm the Florida calls to Gore were all officially withdrawn. This is recorded in the CBS report as follows:
9:54 PM: The CBS News Decision Desk recommends that the call in Florida for Gore be withdrawn. CBS is in a local cutaway at 9:54 PM (the seven minutes at the end of the hour when local stations broadcast their own election results), and so CBS does not withdraw the call until 10:00 PM.10:16 PM: VNS retracts its Florida call for Gore.
- Source
The CBS timeline then jumps forward four hours to 2am EST.
By now an apparently substantial lead of 29,000 votes has opened up in favour of George Bush.
2:09 AM: VNS adds Volusia County's erroneous numbers to its tabulated vote. With 171 out of 172 precincts in the county reporting, Gore's vote drops by more than 10,000 while Bush's rises by almost the same amount. This 20,000-vote change in one county increases Bush's VNS statewide lead to more than 51,000 votes. - Source
What the news networks, and the Al Gore, camp do not realise at this point in the evening is that over 24,000 of votes that make up this significant lead are attributable to two Diebold Election Systems computer errors.
First there are the 16,022 votes stolen from Gore in Volusia county by the "faulty memory card". Meanwhile over in Brevard County another error - also involving Global Elections System (the predecessor of Diebold) equipment is responsible for a further 4000 votes being lopped off the Gore total.
And it is also worth noting that nobody knows whether the Brevard and Volusia county errors were the only ones in play at this time. These errors were both big ones. They were noticed and corrected on the night. How many smaller vote subtractions could have taken place on the night? Theoretically hundreds. As Dana Milbank's Washington Post report shows it was only because someone noticed the error in Volusia that it was corrected and remarkably the software itself contains no automatic system for rejecting negative vote totals being reported by precincts, events which by definition can only be nefarious and wrong.
At 2am another VNS error came into play. VNS's estimates of the outstanding votes underestimated those that remained to be counted by half, around 180,000. The two errors combined led news executives at CBS to conclude that Bush's final winning margin in Florida would be around 30,000 votes. At this stage Bush had a lead of around 50,000 votes and late reporting precincts were expected to pare this back as many of them were in Democrat leaning counties.
At 2.16am Fox and NBC called the race to Bush, unaware that the Volusia error had now been discovered. Over at Associated Press – the news service that Network News controllers do not read - the margin to Bush had by now fallen to 30,000 after correcting the Volusia error.
At 2.17am and 2.20am the remaining two major networks CBS and ABC called the race to Bush. Their decision continued to be bolstered by the VNS data stream - which even at 2.47am - was still recording a margin to Bush of close to 50,000 votes.
Remarkably it was not till 2.51am that VNS fixed the Volusia error in its data.
Meanwhile with all the networks showing the race for the White House won by Bush, the pressure is mounting on Gore to concede.
In the book, “Too Close to Call” by journalist Jeffrey Toobin, the author gives a behind-the-scenes account of how Gore reacted when the television networks concluded that Bush had taken Florida.
“Al Gore happened to be in the staff room on the seventh floor when the votes spiked up in Bush’s favor. Dressed casually, the vice president was watching television while lying on the floor, with his chin propped up in his hands. As a result of the Volusia votes, Fox News called Florida—and the presidency—for Bush at 2:16 a.m. CBS and NBC followed suit a minute later and ABC came in at 2:20 a.m.,” Toobin wrote in his book.
"Following the news reports, Gore was silent and absorbed the news. A moment later he told members of his campaign that he was ready to concede the election to Bush, which he did several minutes later over the telephone."Unwilling to take the television networks reports at face value, one of Gore’s campaign staffers did a little investigating and discovered that the networks erred in stating that 50,000 votes from Volusia county were cast for Bush. Turns out that Gore was ahead by 13,000 votes in Volusia and trailing Bush by 6,000 votes overall. Something was wrong in Volusia it would be revealed later.
One of Gore’s campaign advisers then checked Florida’s law on recounts. The nearly dead heat between Bush and Gore in Florida and the fact that Gore was ahead in Volusia County meant a mandatory recount. It was time to rescind Gore’s concession to Bush and scrutinize the ballots. Gore was traveling in a motorcade en route to deliver a concession speech to his supporters. His staff stopped him. At this point, the margin between Bush and Gore was down to 2,000 votes. A recount was all but certain."
Gore called Bush and Gore’s staff surrounded the vice president to listen in on what would become a historic conversation at 2:30 a.m.
“Circumstances have changed dramatically since I first called you,” Gore said to Bush, Toobin wrote. “The state of Florida is too close to call.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Bush asked according to Toobin. “Let me make sure that I understand. You’re calling back to retract that concession?” Gore sensed an annoyance in Bush’s tone and shot back “you don’t have to be snippy about it."
Toobin says Bush then told Gore that his “little brother”, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, had assured him that he won the state of Florida and for that matter the presidency of the United States.
“Let me explain something,” Toobin quoted Gore as saying in his response to Bush. “Your little brother is not the ultimate authority on this.”
“You do what you have to do,” Bush said and hung up the phone on Gore. When Gore turned around to face his staff they exploded in cheers.
It is not till 3.10am that the CBS news controllers notice the huge difference between their numbers and those of AP which by now show the margin to Bush at under 10,000.
We also know, thanks to the CBS inquiry report, that by around 3.40am the Gore camp had decided not to concede. Gore Campaign Chairman William Daley rang CBS News President Andrew Heyward in the control room and asked him whether CBS would be reversing its call soon.
CBS's Andrew Heyward waited another 15-20 minutes after the phone call before ordering CBS to officially withdraw the call to Bush. And by 4.05am all the other networks had also withdrawn the call.
By 4.10am the reported Bush lead in the race had dropped to 1800 votes, and thereabouts it remained until the first recount - albeit the Florida Secretary of State's office website reported the race to Gore on the day after the vote.
And it is there that the narrative in this tale ends and the analysis starts.
In its internal conclusions about these events the CBS inquiry team found the two Diebold County level errors, Volusia and Brevard, were conclusive in their networks decision to call the race to Bush.
" The mistakes, both of which originated with the counties, were critical, since there were only about 3 percent of the state's precincts outstanding at this time. They incorrectly increased Bush's lead in the tabulated vote from about 27,000 to more than 51,000. Had it not been for these errors, the CBS News call for Bush at 2:17:52 AM would not have been made."- source
You do not get much clearer than that.
The record already shows that events of election night 2000 turned on the errors in the Volusia and Brevard vote counts. Both of which occurred on Global Election Systems (now Diebold) equipment.
Of course we now know Al Gore did not concede.
But had he done so would that have altered what followed? Would there have been the hanging-chad phenomena, the lawsuits over recounts and the recriminations?
DID ANYONE HEAR ABOUT ALL THOSE BALLOT CARD VNS FAULTY ERRORS WHILE ALL FOCUS WAS ON HANGING CHADS?
Most of what is contained in the preceding analysis is well trodden territory. Everybody knows that the TV networks screwed up big time on election night, and the issue of bias at those networks has also been well traversed.
What has not been discussed, or even conceived of till now, is that the events that occurred between around midnight and 4am might have been the result not of mistakes but of organised voting fraud.
Yet that is precisely what Talbot Iredale and Ken Clark's memos confirm is a distinct possibility, in fact, reading between the lines they suggest it is the most likely possibility.
Consider this:
How plausible is it that an error such as this - of such magnitude, with no apparent physical explanation, and in one of the few counties still receiving incoming results that late in the night – was really the simple result of a "faulty memory card"?
We also now know, again thanks to the work of Black Box Voting investigators like Washington State's Bev Harris and California's Jim March, that the Diebold vote tallying programme used in several Florida counties, GEMS, is easily hackable, both by outsiders and by insiders.
[See… Bev Harris's " Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program " for details and Jim March's "DIEBOLD'S VOTE-TALLY SOFTWARE- Security Review Instructions"for a kit to demonstrate the hack on your own computer.]We do not know what would have happened had a full state-wide recount been undertaken as the efforts to have one were blocked in the courts.
Would they have discovered other counties where unusual events like those discovered in Brevard and Volusia counties?
Is it possible that the original VNS exit polling data was closer to correct than conventional wisdom suggests?
Is it possible that less egregious vote stealing took place in counties all over Florida?
Add into the mix the blatant roll scrubbing in Florida discovered by Greg Palast and exposed in his best-selling book "The Best Democracy Money can buy" and you have a recipe of reasons to reopen a full scale inquiry into the Florida debacle.
Perhaps more importantly. With paper-less touchscreen voting systems in place in many Florida counties come November 2004, should such events occur again, there will be no record with which to conduct a recount.
And the other big mystery of course is this: if someone did try to rig the election returns in Florida in 2000, who was it?
******* STORY ENDS *******Alastair Thompson is an award winning New Zealand investigative journalist and the Co-Editor of Scoop.co.nz.
This report draws heavily from the work of Bev Harris in her new book "Black Box Voting in the 21st Century". California based investigative reporter Jason Leopold also contributed to this report.
_______________________________________________
The FBI today seems very interested in US election fraud with ROBERT MUELLER taking the lead. Mueller is a 33rd degree KNIGHTS OF MALTA installed by far-right wing global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS----BUSH. This installation occurred just as ROBBER BARON global banking frauds were about to SOAR. So, here in US we have both US ELECTION FRAUDS and massive global banking/global corporation/systemic government corruption all growing during MUELLER era FBI.
We see articles telling us that in 2008 MUELLER and FBI got serious investigating subprime mortgage frauds we all know we going crazy in 2004. We all know subprime mortgage frauds soared during OBAMA era yet we will not hear about this until the coming economic crash/economic collapse.
'Robert S. Mueller, III, September 4, 2001- September 4, 2013
Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Portrait
Robert Mueller was nominated by President George W. Bush and became the sixth Director of the FBI on September 4, 2001.
Born in New York City, Mr. Mueller grew up outside of Philadelphia. He graduated from Princeton University in 1966 and later earned a master’s degree in International Relations at New York University'.
The BUSH family----HW Bush were central in 1970s-80s SAVINGS AND LOAN FRAUD-----George Bush was central in today's banking frauds----Clinton era deregulated banks just so all this ROBBER BARON FRAUD could occur. When a JUSTICE official is appointed by the ROBBER BARON----we do not get JUSTICE.
As US 99% WE THE PEOPLE shouted these few decades of massive and systemic ROBBER BARON frauds and government corruptions---MUELLER'S FBI just didn't seem to SEE, HEAR, OR SPEAK.
SO, TODAY IT IS MUELLER TELLING US THERE IS REAL DATA THAT RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA INTERFERED IN US ELECTIONS WHILE SAYING NOTHING ABOUT GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS ----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA AND THESE FEW DECADES OF US ELECTION FRAUDS ESPECIALLY 2016 US ELECTIONS.
Market News
May 16, 2008 / 3:20 PM / 10 years ago
FBI: 200 agents working on mortgage fraud probe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI has more than 200 agents and 33 task forces addressing mortgage fraud, has more than 1,300 cases under investigation and has targeted 19 large companies, FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Friday.
“Clearly, in the last couple of years, we have seen a substantial increase in mortgage fraud cases, and my anticipation is that we will continue to see that increase,” he told a question-and-answer session after addressing the National Press Club.
Mueller said there are 19 cases the FBI is investigating of large corporations that may have contributed to the mortgage fraud crisis. He did not identify any of the companies, and the number is the same as the one he gave last month.
FBI officials have said the investigation of the large companies has focused on possible crimes such as accounting fraud, insider trading and deceptive sales practices.
Mueller said the FBI has dealt with similar situations in the past, including the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1990s and the corporate fraud scandals early in the decade that included Enron Corp and WorldCom Inc.
“My expectation is that we will continue to address mortgage fraud cases in the same way we’ve addressed other ... financial crimes in the past,” he said.
Asked if one company would emerge as the criminal emblem symbolizing the mortgage fraud crisis, Mueller said it was too early to say.
“We would have to look at those cases, if and when charges are brought down the road, to get a better handle on an answer to that question,” he said.
______________________________________________
MUELLER'S FBI has been illegitimate these few decades of ROBBER BARON CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE lost confidence in all US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT agencies as they were dismantled and filled with global banking 5% freemason/Greek players. Global banking 1% wants WW3-------it wants CIVIL UNREST CIVIL WAR in US and Canada-----AND it wants to FLIP THE EARTH'S ECONOMIC WORLD FROM WESTERN HEMISPHERE TO EASTERN HEMISPHERE----ergo, Mueller creating FAKE NEWS---FAKE DATA over RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA. Every nation in the world has leadership who spy and disrupt politics and economies -----for thousands of years. So, no doubt Putin and Russia were on the web doing something as were hundreds of other nations. RUSSIA was not responsible for these few decades of ROBBER BARON FRAUDS---including US ELECTIONS. RUSSIA is today not responsible for these same US election frauds controlled by GLOBAL BANKING 1% CLINTON/BUSH POLITICAL MACHINES. MUELLER and the FBI seem unable to make THAT CONNECTION.
It's very simple to stop US election frauds which started to soar with ELECTRONIC BALLOT BOXES-----remove our local US BOARDS OF ELECTION from electronic ballot boxes and return to paper ballots AND have REAL 99% WE THE PEOPLE as monitors---NOT global banking 5% freemason/Greek players black, white, and brown players PRETENDING to care about FREE ELECTIONS.
No US election system is tied to these STATE AND LOCAL BOARDS OF ELECTION frauds then Maryland and Baltimore. No RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA tied to these few decades of election rigging and fraud in Maryland and Baltimore---and yet, MUELLER and his FBI just haven't been able to SEE, HEAR, SPEAK of that US election fraud.
Someone please tell MUELLER that global banking 1% stealing a hundred trillion dollars from AMERICAN public assets of 99% of people's pockets during his FBI terms still need to be recovered----and we would appreciate his attention to US ELECTION FRAUDS by state and local CLINTON/BUSH political machines!
What does Robert Mueller's team tell us about the Russia investigation?
Seasoned lawyers with a depth of experience that includes the investigations into Watergate, Enron and the bombings of the US embassies in east Africa won’t be intimidated by the intense spotlight, experts say
Julian Borger in Washington
Thu 15 Jun 2017 14.47 EDT
Even before the special counsel’s inquiry has begun in earnest into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the team Robert Mueller is building provides clues about which way the investigation is heading.
One is a veteran of the Watergate investigation, and Donald Trump – like Richard Nixon – was reported on Wednesday to now be under investigation for obstruction of justice. Other team members have specialities that could point toward where Mueller is looking after taking over control of the investigation from the FBI: money laundering, financial fraud and Russian organised crime.
Donald Trump has been reported to be contemplating the dismissal of Mueller, who was appointed by the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, on 17 May just over a week after the president sacked the FBI director, James Comey. Witness interviews have yet to begin, and the special counsel headquarters are still being established in an office block on Washington’s D Street, but Trump used Twitter early on Thursday morning to denounce the investigation – or perhaps the attendant media coverage – as “the single greatest witch hunt in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people”.
The tweet and similar attacks launched by surrogates in recent days suggest Trump’s strategy will be to assail the integrity of the investigators from the onset.
Even in the highly partisan climate in the US, that will be an uphill struggle. Mueller is a Republican, a marine awarded a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in Vietnam when his unit was ambushed by the Viet Cong in 1969. He was appointed FBI director in 2001, took office a week before the September 11 attacks and was generally acclaimed for his service. When Barack Obama took office, he asked Mueller to serve an extra two years beyond the normal 10.
A succession of senior Republicans leapt to Mueller’s defence on Thursday and warned Trump against any attempt to get rid of him. Rosenstein, who has the power to sack Mueller, told the Senate that without “good cause” he would not consider it and “it would not matter to me what anybody said”.
Three members of the team he has hired so far have been reported to have made election donations to Democrats, a fact that has become another avenue of attack for Trump supporters. But one of the three also made donations to Republicans, and the proportion of Democratic supporters is not significantly out of line with the general population.
It is the specialities of Mueller’s team that is more likely to be a serious concern to the Trump camp, since they point to a wide-ranging inquiry that will look into all aspects of Trump’s complex links to Russia.
Mogilevich associates are reported to have owned condos in Trump Tower in New York, and the father of Trump’s business partner in the Trump Soho hotel, Felix Sater, was a Mogilevich lieutenant.
Vladimir Putin is known to use oligarchs and organised crime bosses as instruments of Kremlin influence abroad.
“This pick really shows that Mueller recognises that Russian organised crime and sophisticated financial transactions involving them are going to be right at the centre and Page is definitely a leading expert there,” said Scott Horton, a US lawyer with experience of working in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Another sign that the Mueller team will take a “follow the money” approach is the recruitment of Andrew Weissmann, an organised crime expert who oversaw lengthy cases in the US district court for the eastern district of New York focused on the city’s mafia families and their infiltration of Wall Street.
Weissmann formerly led the FBI’s fraud unit and the taskforce that unpicked the complex financial dealings of Enron, after the giant energy corporation collapsed in December 2001. It was the most complex white collar crime investigation in FBI history and led to the convictions of the firm’s top management.
“What is striking to me is that his team is a counter-intelligence team and is a money fraud, banking, laundering-type team. Andrew Weissman did the Enron cases, which is all about following the money trail,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the homeland security department.
Another legal heavyweight Mueller has recruited is Michael Dreeben, a former deputy solicitor general who has argued more than 100 cases before the US supreme court. Rosenzweig described him on the Lawfare blog as “quite possibly the best criminal appellate lawyer in America” and said he represented even worse news for Trump last week than Comey’s damning testimony.
Mueller has brought with him three members of his law firm, WilmerHale, who have justice department and law enforcement backgrounds. One of them is James Quarles, who was part of the Watergate taskforce and focus on irregularities in GOP campaign finance.
Another WilmerHale lawyer is a former FBI agent, Aaron Zebley, a cybersecurity specialist who, according to Wired magazine, was part of the bureau’s I-49 counter-terrorism unit, which helped track down the bombers who blew up the US embassies in east Africa in 1998. He worked as a counsel at the justice department’s national security division before following Mueller to WilmerHale.
The third member of the WilmerHale trio is Jeannie Rhee, who was deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration and is an expert on the intersection of criminal law and government.
“This is a team with wide expertise that is really top notch,” said Karen Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University. “These are people who have a number of competencies who have dealt with fraud and corruption and who know government well. All of them know obstruction of justice and many have worked with Mueller and with each other before.”
As for the hostile scrutiny the special counsel team is likely to endure as the investigation gets going, Greenberg predicted they were equal to it.
“These are seasoned attorneys,” she said. “They have faced challenges out there before dealing with corporate corruption ... starting with Mueller, who came into office days before 9/11. They have been through things every bit as stressful and tough as this.”
Those on both sides hoping for a swift resolution to the investigation may be disappointed: special counsel investigations can take years before coming to any conclusions. If Mueller did find evidence of potential criminal charges, a sitting president is unlikely to be indicted, so the ball would be passed to Congress for a possible impeachment – extremely unlikely while Republicans continue to control both houses.
__________________________________________
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY is tops in pushing global neo-liberal corporate charters killing our US public schools. Here we see FORDHAM UNIVERSITY all about PP3-----GLOBAL CORPORATION AND GLOBAL BANKING BEING PARTNERED WITH OUR US GOVERNMENT KILLING ALL THAT IS 'PUBLIC'.
“This is a team with wide expertise that is really top notch,” said Karen Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University'.
So, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY does not seem to worried about those ROBBER BARON few decades of sacking and looting America of hundred trillion dollars in wealth---they are too busy pushing global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS in MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE----US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES FILLED WITH GLOBAL FACTORIES.
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY IS A FREEMASONRY INSTITUTION---NOT RELIGIOUS.
MUELLER graduates from global hedge fund PRINCETON working in INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS----assigned FBI leadership by BUSH---then CLINTON and OBAMA.
Corporate and Foundation Relations
President's Council Corporate Relations
The Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations works closely with the members of the President’s Council to establish strategic partnerships with corporations. Our goal is to create mutually beneficial relationships between the business community and the University. Through these partnerships, we match Fordham's resources to a company's strategic needs and objectives. President’s Council members support Fordham’s Corporate Relations ambitious goals by:
Serving as executive door-openers to cultivate relationships in targeted industries
Supporting Corporate Relations efforts in philanthropic giving opportunities and recruitment activities
Creating opportunities for executive engagement, such as on-campus guest speaking and executive shadowing
Connecting Fordham to other corporate leaders who are not graduates of our institution for similar engagement
"From hosting CEO breakfasts, to creating internship opportunities for Fordham students at Bernstein, to guest lecturing on campus, my participation in the Corporate Relations efforts at Fordham has been a win-win-win-win —good for Fordham, rewarding for the students, beneficial to Bernstein, and personally enjoyable for me. I encourage you to consider the ways in which you can participate and advance Fordham's mission through Corporate Relations."
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We discuss often how global banking 1% are OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA----TRIBE OF JUDAH-------here in US that is GOLDMAN SACHS meets JP MORGAN------the two global banks behind almost all of ROBBER BARON few decades sacking and looting our US public sector and 99% of WE THE PEOPLE'S pockets.
This is why here in Baltimore we have these two global banking OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS institutions telling our 99% of Baltimore citizens that what is MOVING FORWARD making US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES of our US cities and counties----that have a goal of filling those US zones with GLOBAL FACTORIES bringing global labor pool 99% to these zones as SLAVE LABOR------is a MAJOR COUP.
So, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY which created US ACADEMIC DATA AND MEDIA saying MUELLER AND FBI were a CRACK TEAM OF INVESTIGATORS somehow not able to SEE, HEAR, OR SPEAK about those global banking 5% freemason/Greek players having systematically FLEECED AMERICA working to bring it to COLONIAL STATUS------ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1%.
'Fordham University, the Bronx ~ The Jesuit University of New York';
“It’s a major coup to have a bank as strong as Goldman Sachs investing in Baltimore,” said Karyl Leggio, a professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland. “It’s an affirmation for the work being done to revitalize Baltimore.”
This is why in Baltimore ALL our FAKE LABOR AND JUSTICE organizations are tied to global banking BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION filled with global banking 5% freemason/Greek players PRETENDING to be helping our 99% of Baltimore citizens and our local communities and economy.
NO US CITY HAS MORE ELECTION RIGGING AND FRAUD THEN BALTIMORE, MD USA.
This global corporate campus FOOTPRINT will be used as EMINENT DOMAIN to expand this campus to GLOBAL FACTORIES the size of US cities. This is the process taking US to FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES----to GLOBAL FACTORIES that enslave and devastate our environment---and these are the global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS' institutions pushing all this---NONE OF THEM RELIGIOUS/CHRISTIAN/JEWISH.
Goldman Sachs invests $233 million in Port Covington
Goldman Sachs plans to invest $233 million to remake Port Covington with Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s development firm, becoming a joint owner of hundreds of acres along the Patapsco River slated to become a $5.5 billion mix of offices, housing, shops and restaurants.
Lorraine MirabellaContact Reporter
The Baltimore Sun
Goldman Sachs plans to invest $233 million to join Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s development firm in remaking Port Covington, becoming a joint owner of hundreds of acres along the Patapsco River slated to become a $5.5 billion mix of offices, housing, shops and restaurants.
The global investment banking company will join Plank’s Sagamore Development Co. in a joint venture that will own and develop a 235-acre waterfront parcel south of Interstate 95, Sagamore announced Wednesday. The site is next to 50 acres on which Baltimore-based Under Armour is building a new world headquarters.
Sagamore has secured $660 million in public financing for the project — the largest of its kind in city history — and has begun work to transform the once-industrial peninsula. The developers had said they were working to attract an equity investor to accelerate plans.
Marc Weller, co-founder and president of Sagamore, will continue to lead the team planning and carrying out the development, the partners said. Goldman Sachs does not have offices in Baltimore.
“As their joint venture equity partner, we will be involved only with major decisions,” Goldman Sachs spokesman Andrew Williams said. The “Sagamore team is the developer and will manage all aspects of the project.”
City officials and independent analysts said they view the new investment as a significant step in pushing the project forward and casting Baltimore in a favorable light.
“It’s a major coup to have a bank as strong as Goldman Sachs investing in Baltimore,” said Karyl Leggio, a professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland. “It’s an affirmation for the work being done to revitalize Baltimore.”
Goldman Sachs represents the “gold standard” of investment bank involvement in deals, she said. And helping to revitalize the city could have more than financial benefits for the bank — it could pay off in positive community relations and the possibility of new clients, especially among millennials who tend to value companies that emphasize corporate social responsibility.
William Cole IV, president of the Baltimore Development Corp., said the partnership with Goldman Sachs “is a very good sign that the project is getting ready to gear up.”
“This is obviously a huge commitment by a national investor following in a line of a couple of pretty big investments in Baltimore from national investors,” he said. “It’s an indication that people are taking a long, hard look at Baltimore.”
CBRE Global Investors bought a 56 percent stake in the Legg Mason tower in Harbor East in March in a deal that valued the property at nearly $300 million. Two years ago, a group affiliated with J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. in New York paid $121.5 million for the Union Wharf apartments in Fells Point.
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh called the Goldman Sachs investment “significant progress” for the Port Covington project and for the city’s economic development efforts.
“I don’t know if you can imagine my excitement with this $233 million in Port Covington right at the time when we’re trying to attract Amazon and other major companies to Baltimore,” Pugh said.
Gov. Larry Hogan spoke to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Wednesday about the city’s growth potential and the opportunity Port Covington represents for the state and outside investors, a spokesman for the governor said.
“Dynamic projects like Port Covington have the ability to attract this kind of game-changing private investment,” Hogan said in a statement.
Goldman Sachs said its financial commitment is the largest single private equity investment its urban investment group has made. The group has invested more than $5 billion since 2001 in underserved communities in New York, Detroit, New Orleans, Newark, N.J., Camden, N.J., Memphis, Tenn., and other cities. Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg Philanthropies recently made a $10 million commitment to 10,000 Small Businesses in Baltimore.
Tom Geddes, CEO of Plank Industries, said Plank Industries and Goldman Sachs share a common vision for urban economic growth, job creation and local workforce development in the city. Geddes said Sagamore hired a third-party broker to find a partner and was attracted by Goldman Sachs’ community-based “impact investing” around the country.
“This … today represents a major step forward in the Port Covington development,” he said.
Margaret Anadu, managing director of Goldman Sachs’ urban investment group, said the firm views Port Covington as a chance to invest and make a positive impact on the community.
“Our investment vehicle is not solely about financial returns,” she said. “We saw an opportunity to invest in infrastructure and lay the foundation for millions of square feet and dozens of buildings … but benefit Baltimore residents and … set a model around the country for what urban investment can look like to connect people and create jobs.”
Sagamore and Goldman Sachs plan to start work on infrastructure in 12 to 18 months, most of it streets, parks and utilities to prepare for future residential and commercial development.
The community benefits agreements that Sagamore negotiated with city officials and neighborhoods near Port Covington will remain in place under the joint venture. The agreements cover local hiring, workforce development, supplier diversity, affordable housing and funding for education programs, college scholarships, recreation facilities and summer jobs for youth.
Michael Middleton,chairman of the South Baltimore Seven — the group of local neighborhoods around the project — applauded the new investment. The Cherry Hill man said developers have stayed in contact with residents in the group’s communities of Brooklyn, Cherry Hill, Curtis Bay, Lakeland, Mt. Winans, Westport and Port Covington.
“Their genuine commitment to the future of our communities is above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen from a development team,” Middleton said.
OH, REALLY MIDDLETON? WE KNOW BETTER!
The joint venture will not include the parcel south of Cromwell street owned by Under Armour, where the brand has converted a former Sam’s Club store into “Building 37” offices for more than 500 employees. The Sagamore-Goldman team will not redevelop parcels occupied by Nick’s Fish House, Sagamore Spirit Distillery, Rye Street Tavern and City Garage, home of an Under Armour design and manufacturing center, a co-working space and a maker space.
The City Council approved public financing for Port Covington last September after months of controversy. Supporters spoke of the potential job creation and the value of retaining the $4.8 billion Under Armour. Critics called it corporate welfare. Former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake signed legislation authorizing five rounds of bond issues over the next 40 years. Sagamore expects to make a request for a bond issue by the third quarter of next year.
Cole said the investment will have implications for Baltimore beyond the project itself, which city officials view as key to generating jobs and retaining Under Armour as it grows. The project, including the Under Armour campus, could grow to 18 million square feet over more than two decades.
The land includes The Baltimore Sun’s printing plant, which was sold to Sagamore in 2014 by Chicago-based Tribune Media. Tribune Media spun off its newspapers, including The Sun, earlier that year but kept their properties. The Sun has a long-term lease on the building.
Cole said Goldman Sachs’ investment “speaks volumes for what everyone sees as the tremendous potential at Port Covington.”
“When you take a look at the overall plans for Port Covington that Sagamore has put together, including their community outreach and stated goals of making sure there are ample opportunities for Baltimore residents to be employed, I think that’s very attractive to investors,” he said.
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We discussed last week among other public policy ---the capture of our REAL left social progressive environmentalism by far-right wing global banking FAKE GREEN CORPORATION sharing videos of what China's GREAT LEAP FORWARD did to China's environment just as MOVING FORWARD will do to US environment.
We have been forced to listen these few decades to the next round of LIES AND FAKE DATA coming from far-right wing GREEN REVOLUTION----GLOBAL GREEN CORPORATION----including what is being called CLEAN COAL. We already have plenty of data telling us all that is a SCAM----as too CLEAN NATURAL GAS tied to FRACKING---as is GREEN ENERGY GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY platforms filled with BATTERIES BIG AND SMALL.
So, as we listen to US global banking PRETEND they are cleaning up COAL emissions ----we KNOW these US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES will keep using COAL as a major energy source. Remember, it is the same global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA sociopaths having built those FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES overseas now pretending they are trying to mitigate coming environmental devastation MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL FACTORIES in US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
TRUMP is simply MOVING FORWARD these same policies installed by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA because he works for foreign sovereignty of MALTA---KNIGHTS OF MALTA.
'I am Principal at JTC Energy Research Associates, LLC. I hold a B.A. in International Relations from Penn State University, with a minor in Statistical Analysis. I got my M.S. in Homeland Security from San Diego State University, with a focus on Energy Security, and an MBA'
Above we see that global banking 5% freemason/Greek player as US MEDIA -----selling the idea that there is such a thing as CLEAN COAL because global banking 1% are trying to PRETEND the environmental devastation in Asia/China will not happen in MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Feb 14, 2018, 09:02am
The United States As A Clean Coal Leader
Jude Clemente Contributor i
Energy I cover oil, gas, power, LNG markets, linking to human development.
"Carbon capture and storage technologies hold enormous potential to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as we power our economy with domestically produced and secure energy," President Barack Obama
Coal Usage
Reports of coal’s terminal decline are obviously premature: "Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries," The New York Times, July 1, 2017
Now generating 30% of U.S. electricity and 40% of global electricity, the fact is that coal will remain an essential component of the energy systems in the U.S. and around the world. The coal build-out is much higher than what you keep hearing. China and India, of course, remain at the forefront, each getting 65-75% of their power from coal. The might of coal in these still developing giants is simply overwhelming: gas generates less than 5% of power. To illustrate, as I have shown, China's climate plan isn't necessarily to use less coal but to use it differently, to use coal less directly like the U.S. does. But quietly, other large nations are also turning to coal. "Reports of coal’s terminal decline may be exaggerated" from Edenhofer et al. is a must read:
Pakistan and Indonesia, combined having 460 million people, are also turning to coal. With soaring power demand, coal is seen as cheaper, more reliable, more secure, and more established. “Although the costs of renewables have recently fallen, they still can't compete with cheap coal in many parts of the world,” says Jan Steckel, head of the MCC working group Climate and Development. And even the already developed nations, where new energy needs are less, are following suit. South Korea, for instance, has coal for 45% of electricity and this will continue. And despite even having a negative population growth rate, Japan "has launched plans to open 49 new coal-fired power plants in the next decade."
Many of these plants are based on installing state-of-the-art technologies, so they can last decades - especially since once investments for new coal plants are made they are already considered sunk.
U.S. Coal Exports
Coal will retain strong market share in the U.S. but is unlikely to regain its huge dominance seen earlier in the century when it supplied over half of our electricity. The Trump administration has been touting energy dominance and it's forgotten that we have seen bi-partisan support for coal to fit right in. With a BP-reported 252 billion tonnes of proven reserves (381-year supply), President Obama said: "We're the Saudi Arabia of coal."
The Trump administration has proposed an alliance of countries that are rich in coal to promote more coal combustion. The U.S. coal industry has been focusing more on deliveries to a mostly poor and energy-deprived world, generally from our Gulf Coast and through the newly-expanded Panama Canal. In 2017, U.S. coal exports surged 61% from 2016 to nearly 90 million tonnes, with 50 million tonnes coming from the more pricey metallurgical variety that is a staple in steel making. "U.S. coal exports could rise 15% in 2018."
Overall, some 10% of U.S. coal production has been going to exports, helping national coal production to increase 6% last year to around 700 million tonnes. In particular, industrials and utilities in India prefer the heat-intensive coal from West Virginia and surrounding states, with Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and China also importing more. The export surge has also bolstered the revenues of coal-carrying railroads such as CSX, BNSF, and Norfolk Southern, while also increasing business in U.S. ports. U.S. coal is also usually higher quality than coal used in other nations, particularly helping India's problem of low calorific value domestic coal. "The U.S. has the world’s largest endowment of low-cost, high quality coal reserves."
Not just helping our trade balance, exports help U.S. miners retain their jobs and support their families. Miners can make nearly $85,000 per year. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, coal mining jobs slightly increase last year to 51,200 in November from 50,000 in January. Know that U.S. coal usage itself is also quietly being bolstered: the $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan is obviously going to require loads of electricity and steel, two markets where coal still plays a very significant role. Coal has also been helped by the recent shelving of The Clean Power Plan.
U.S. Clean Coal Technologies
So our goal remains the same: help the nation and the world use coal as cleanly as possible. The constant advance of technology is the answer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combating climate change. Thus, we also need to be exporting clean coal technologies.
The centerpiece of which is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), an emerging technology that captures CO2 before it's released into the atmosphere. Without CCS, the International Energy Agency finds that for power generation alone CO2 mitigation costs would increase $2 trillion by 2050.“CCS must be deployed to make deep cuts in CO2 emissions," says the International Energy Agency. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that the absence of CCS would surge carbon mitigation costs by 138% from 2015-2100.
Al Gore himself calls CCS one of the "major building blocks of a solution to the climate crisis."
But highly efficient coal plants are also key, namely the supercritical, ultra-supercritical, and coal gasification technologies that China and India are increasingly turning to reduce coal feed and lower emissions. These are the high-efficiency, low-emissions (HELE) coal solutions advocated by the International Energy Agency's Clean Coal Center: "Realizing Decarbonization Through Efficiency Gains."
The Trump administration seeks to lift restrictions on lending for coal-burning plants in the developing world through the World Bank and other agencies. The emerging economies want to reduce their carbon intensity, so evolving clean coal technologies help them reach their goals. In addition, China has replaced Japan and is increasingly investing in coal-fired power plants abroad, so we have a great chance to counter act China's rising influence in global energy markets.
Finally, U.S. energy and climate policy must be rooted in practicality, not idealism. The reality is that if we don't help nations use coal more efficiently, they could easily revert to less efficient technologies such as subcritical plants because they are cheaper.....and thereby increase emissions. The International Energy Agency has continually warned about this.
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This is what we KNOW. Global banking 1% have done all they can to extract COAL from our mountains by MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL. Here in East that is our APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CHAIN-----out west will be our ROCKY MOUNTAINS/CASCADE MOUNTAINS. US national media is PRETENDING that the coal industry is DYING----when in fact global energy corporations are simply sending in FRACKING for natural gas which will riddle those mountains with all kinds of TUNNELS to assure bringing those mountains down for further COAL EXTRACTION is EASIER.
COAL INDUSTRY is not lost----it is being told to wait until FRACKING devastates mountain integrity.
America has the worlds largest supply of coal
- geocraft.comwww.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Energy.html
America is the "Saudi Arabia" of Coal. Plant fossils of West Virginia are examples of the fossil flora that comprise the vast coal reserves that are typical in the Eastern United States.
Indeed, there is PLENTY OF COAL in them there HILLS. Global banking 1% mining corporations will rip those mountains apart to get to it. They are simply taking it in stages----fracking fills those mountains with tunnels making that mountain look like SWISS CHEESE.
So, our US Appalachia Mountains will look just as that Chinese video of Linfen in SHANXI.
The mountain that lost its top
It's the one environmental crime that no US politician will confront – the destruction of Kentucky's mountains.
Leonard Doyle visits the Appalachian peaks being blasted by Big Coal
Tuesday 20 May 2008 THE INDEPENDENT
The road slicing through the thickly forested hills of eastern Kentucky used to be called the Daniel Boone Parkway. It was named for the controversial American folk hero who fought his way across Indian country to settle a state where many of his descendants still live.
That was before the coal industry began blowing up the Appalachian Mountains as a cheap way of getting at the black stuff below, behaviour decried by the environmental group Appalachian Voices as "one of the greatest human rights and environmental tragedies in America's recent history".
Daniel Boone's road is now the Hal Rogers Parkway, named after one of the Kentucky coal industry's closest friends in Washington, a Republican Congressman of 34 years. It passes through a mountain range older than the Himalayas and is blanketed in broadleaf forests rivalled only by the Amazon basin in its biodiversity.
But the canopy of trees which lines the parkway as it rises from the bluegrass horse country to the mountains is a trompe l'oeil. The lush forest gives way to scraggly trees along the ridge-line, and behind those trees is evidence of unspeakable ecological violence. In a process known as mountaintop removal an upland moonscape is being created, which is incapable of regenerating trees. As far as the eye can see, the land is grey and pockmarked with huge black lakes, filled with toxic coal slurry.
This has come about because of America's insatiable appetite for cheap coal to generate electricity, a process enthusiastically backed by the Bush administration as it tries to displace the consumption of imported oil. And the Democrats are little better. They control Kentucky and neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton have dared to challenge "King Coal" while campaigning.
The devastation being wrought on Appalachia is best appreciated from the air. An organisation called Southwinds offers people an eagle-eye view of the carnage, not readily appreciated from the road. Another way to see what's going on behind the ridge-line is to take a Google Earth virtual tour of an online memorial to the 470 mountains blown up and levelled in recent years.
The act of destroying a million-year-old mountain has several distinct stages. First it is earmarked for removal and the hardwood forest cover, containing over 500 species of tree per acre in this region, is bulldozed away. The trees are typically burnt rather than logged, because mining companies are not in the lumber business. Then topsoil is scraped away and high explosives laid in the sandstone. Thousands of blasts go off across the region every day, blowing up what the mining industry calls "overburden".
The rubble is then tipped into the valleys – more than 7,000 have already been filled – and more than 700 miles of rivers and streams have disappeared under rubble and thousands more soiled with toxic waste.
The process has accelerated wildly under George Bush. His pro-business-at-any-price credo led to the tossing out of strict federal restrictions against dumping mining rubble within 250 feet of a mountain stream. The toxic spoil laden with heavy metals, which results from blowing up mountains, was renamed "fill", enabling the mining companies to use the cheapest method possible of disposing of it. Once the rock is blown up and the coal separated out, the flattened mountaintops can only support a thin cover of grass. Tens of thousands of acres of mountain have been transformed in this way in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.
Deep in the Kentucky woods McKinley Sumner's yapping dachshund was no match for the mine company's bulldozer. It arrived unannounced on Mr Sumner's land earlier this year and was soon snapping off full-grown trees as if they were twigs.
Mr Sumner, in his seventies, recalls putting on his high-top boots "because the copperheads and rattlesnakes were still out" and hotfooting it up the small mountain at the back of his house, to confront the miners by himself.
By the time he had shooed them off what he calls the "Sumner estate", all 93 acres of it, and had obtained a restraining order against the mining company the damage was done. The forest his parents had started homesteading in the 1930s, and which he has worked since he was a boy, had been devastated by the blade of the bulldozer. Trees were piled one on top of the other and all the topsoil had been shoved into the valley below.
With the help of a lawyer from the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center and a social justice organisation called Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Mr Sumner won his court battle and the mining company was ordered to repair the damage to his land. Instead of doing what the court has ordered, the company is trying to break him in other more subtle ways. Mr Sumner's lands have been listed in the local paper every one of the past five weeks as earmarked for "mountaintop removal", something he has never agreed to.
Company executives have put the word out that he is "holding up mining in the area", setting him against the coal mining families in the area. Strange people showed up on his land to remove the markers of a land survey, which cost $6,000, in order to delineate his hillside from a neighbour's, which has been approved for mountaintop removal.
"I feel just awful," Mr Sumner, said. "We live in a democracy and this is not supposed to happen in a democracy. They are taking our rights away from us."
The daughter and sister of miners, Teri Blanton is a self-described anti-coal activist and prime mover of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. As a young single mother she returned to Harlan County from Chicago in search of what she hoped would be a healthier lifestyle for her children. What Ms Blanton could not have known is that the well water her family and community were drinking from was contaminated by the toxic chemical run-off from a mining equipment repair shop.
"They had this great big vat filled with degreasing chemicals which they would dump into the ground every few months," Ms Blanton said. "They even sprayed the gravel roads with the stuff in summer to keep the dust down."
At 29, Ms Blanton developed cancer, which she survived. But many of her friends and neighbours from Harlan County died young, and she has dedicated the past two decades of her life to helping those threatened by coal-mining interests and getting the word out to an uninterested American public about the ecological devastation which is taking place in Appalachia.
"For the last 100 years Kentucky has provided the coal that fuelled America's growth and wealth," she said. "But our wages are low and our schools and hospitals are lousy. This is one of the poorest places in America and I often think that it is deliberately so, so that they can do whatever they want to this polluted community."
The headwaters of several major rivers on America's eastern seaboard rise in the Kentucky Mountain. They should be teeming with steelhead trout at this time of the year, with fishermen working the banks. But the rivers have been dead for much of the past 100 years, and the Kentucky Tourist Authority came up blank when asked to find a fly fishing destination within 50 miles of where the mountaintop removal takes place.
There is plenty of public money being spent promoting the coal industry, including the practice of blowing up mountains. Each year the state gives about $400,000 (£200,000) to groups controlled by the coal industry.
A website describes mountaintop mining as "simply the right thing to do – both for the environment and the local economy – a true win win".
"The environmentalists throw out a lot of negative stuff, like kids are suffering from asthma because they breathe particulate matter from living near coal-fired power plants, or deaths caused on the roads by big coal trucks," says Bill Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association. "We're trying to counteract that."
The message he gives out is that mountaintop removal is actually good for the environment because "what's left is flatter, more useful land on top of the mountain". Teri Blanton laughs off the audacity of the propaganda effort and takes me to see Damon Morgan, at least 80 years old, in yet another part of the mountains.
A veteran of Second World War (he survived Iowa Jima,) Mr Morgan returned to the mountains after a career on the railways. A couple of years ago, he claims, two mining companies, Horizon Resources and International Coal Group, trespassed along one of his property lines. "They have done damage to the land and to my personal property – trees, rock and dirt debris have been pushed on to my property and down the side of the mountain."
But worse was to come and now land he calls his own is threatened with being mined because an estranged relative is challenging his title. "We made the biggest part of our living on that land." he said. "We planted vegetables, and we had apple orchards, and there was a lot of wild huckleberry back up on that mountain ... we picked them. And I've hunted in there, I've dug herbs. And now, that is all gone. It's completely moved away.
"The coal industry is an outlaw industry that does not consider the rights of its neighbours or the rights of the land and environment. The industry is out to make a profit and has no regard for the damages done to the citizens of this country," Mr Morgan said.
He has now been gagged by the courts and but for Teri Blanton his story would remain untold. She takes me to another part of the mountains. Mary Jane and Raleigh Adams, also in their seventies, are fighting Whymore Coal Company. When the Adams family declared that the mining company had violated its lease to cross their land the fight went to court. The ruling went against the Adamses and the court ruling now bars them from walking on their own land.
"We believe we were just run over by the Circuit Judge House and by the coal company lawyers who lied and said that we had said that the lease was valid," said a traumatised Mary Jane Adams. When Raleigh Adams took a picture of the mining taking place on his land and sent it to the local paper he was found to be in contempt.
"We now can't get on our own land, and the mining is going forward without our permission. We are even blocked from stepping on our property even when they aren't working," Mr Adams said. "Who knows what will be left of it when they are finished."
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Below we see WVA global banking 1% pols touting they are ready to go with COAL exports and MARYLAND is revving up PORT OF BALTIMORE to be that COAL EXPORT TERMINAL at the same time Baltimore Mayor RAWLINGS BLAKE is tapped to lead PARIS CLIMATE CHANGE ACCORD talks. At the same time LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS gives WVA Congressional pol MANCHIN points for voting for FAKE GREEN policies.
'Qingyun Sun, associate director of the US-China Energy Center at West Virginia University and a governor's assistant for China affairs in West Virginia, said in an interview that there is plenty of capacity in his state and the US to substantially increase American exports'.
We wanted to share that video of China's SHANXI Provence because MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES will look just like that-----our US Appalachian Mountains will be LINFEN SHANXI-------coal trucks heading for PORT OF BALTIMORE will be lined up for a hundred miles bumper to bumper bringing coal into GREATER BALTIMORE GLOBAL FACTORIES-----of course all that will be OK because these COAL FACTORIES will have CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY.
We shared a video of CLEAN BURNING INCINERATORS being championed by SWEDEN as environmental of course being FAKE GLOBAL GREEN TECHNOLOGY myth-making and propaganda. So, on top of FAKE CLEAN COAL we will have US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES filled with FAKE CLEAN BURNING INCINERATORS.
We will as well watch as APPALACIAN MOUNTAINS---ROCKY MOUNTAINS----CASCADE MOUNTAINS----disappear.
If China wants coal, the US has got coal
By Paul Welitzkin in New York | China Daily USA | Updated: 2018-05-30 13:29
The coal industry and the state of West Virginia have plenty to sell to China if the country wants to increase US imports to help reduce US trade deficits with China.
Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg Tuesday reported that Chinese officials are currently looking at boosting purchases of coal, especially from West Virginia.
In the joint China-US statement released on May 19 in Washington, both countries agreed to take steps to reduce the US trade deficit in goods, with China significantly increasing purchases of US goods, including agricultural and energy products and services.
Qingyun Sun, associate director of the US-China Energy Center at West Virginia University and a governor's assistant for China affairs in West Virginia, said in an interview that there is plenty of capacity in his state and the US to substantially increase American exports.
"Our coal production decreased due to the market shrinking. We have the capacity for steam coal (used in power generation) and metallurgical coal (used in steel making)," Sun said in an interview.
Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, agreed with Sun that there is ample capacity to ramp up exports.
"West Virginia exports more coal than any other state and currently accounts for about half the coal exported from the US," Raney said in an email.
"Right now the majority of our coal is exported to India, Japan, (South) Korea and China," said Sun.
The US exported 97 million short tons (MMst) of coal in 2017, a 61 percent increase over the 2016 level, as exports to Asia more than doubled from 15.7 MMst in 2016 to 32.8 MMst in 2017, including about 3.2 MMst to China, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
"Coal exports in the US are surging in part because China has been shutting down its less efficient coal mines," Marc Scribner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox Business in March.
Sun said coal still represents a major sector in West Virginia's economy. An increase in American coal imports by China would be beneficial to coal-producing states that voted for US President Donald Trump in the 2016 election amid his promises to revive the struggling industry.
_________________________________________
'While there are various definitions of clean coal, the most common one refers to the process of capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emitted by coal burning power plants'.
REAL left environmentalists have SHOUTED at how ridiculous CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY claims are----global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS no more care about killing our North American environment as they did Asian/Chinese. So, now we have the mantra JOBS, JOBS, JOBS-----and our 99% of WE THE PEOPLE working in coal industry think they need to fight for COAL JOBS. Well, that video showing LINFEN, SHANXI-----has REAL left social progressives saying---YOU REALLY WANT THOSE KINDS OF JOBS?
MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES FILLED WITH GLOBAL FACTORIES HAVE NO INTENTION OF BEING 'GREEN' OR 'ENVIRONMENTAL'
Who is global banking 1% ---OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS---KNIGHTS OF MALTA----TRIBE OF JUDAH...you know EMPIRE ALICE saying WE DON'T CARE.
What Donald Trump Didn't Mention About Clean Coal
By Katie Fehrenbacher
October 10, 2016
Near the end of the second presidential debate on Sunday night, the candidates laid out their energy policies in response to an audience member’s question about how they would meet the nation’s energy needs while both minimizing job losses and being environmentally-friendly.
The audience member, Ken Bone, is a coal plant operator in Illinois and became an Internet sensation on Monday.
Republican candidate Donald Trump took the opportunity to predictably attack the Obama administration, saying it has put energy “under siege.” But he also did something more unusual: He touted “clean coal.”
While there are various definitions of clean coal, the most common one refers to the process of capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emitted by coal burning power plants.
Trump said: “We need much more than wind and solar. . . There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for a thousand years in this country.” However, the reality of clean coal is that it hasn’t been done economically at a large scale in the U.S., and there’s been a number of clean coal projects that ended in failure.
____________________________________________
We want to look at our global banking 1% FREEMASON STARS-------and SULFUR SPRINGS does a good job bringing all those global banking FADS together and the moral and ethical issues surrounding MOVING FORWARD although he does not describe MOVING FORWARD ----
The novel is very entertaining-----we want to say the plot centers on global banking ties to DRUG TRADE------and the re-activation of OLD MINES in Arizona as across the nation thought dormant now being brought back because of NEW MINING TECHNOLOGIES----as is MOVING FORWARD in FRACKING and soon COAL EXTRACTION. We were glad to see there were characters that cared about greater society------helping people in need vs characters tied to FAMILY/CLAN being the only people you trust/cared about.
One thing we will ask KENT KRUEGAR who made the heroes caring for greater society CATHOLIC is this-------we KNOW it is OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS CATHOLIC FREEMASONRY pushing FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES hyper-industrialization----and all that will be MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL FACTORIES THE SIZE OF US CITIES here in US. KNIGHTS OF MALTA/TRIBE OF JUDAH are that wicked character MAYOR OF SULFUR SPRINGS-----MARION
No doubt what our US southwest has endured these few decades of ONE WORLD OPEN BORDERS by Bush/Clinton creating economics they KNOW would make GLOBAL DRUG CARTELS explode with US political machines tied to them ---is MOVING FORWARD to the next round of US CITIES deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES building today as here in Baltimore.
August 22, 2017 The Real Book Spy
SULFUR SPRINGS: Five Questions with William Kent Krueger
They say not to judge a book by its cover, but that’s exactly how I first found William Kent Krueger and his Cork O’Connor series. When considering which books to review last year, the cover of Manitou Canyon caught my eye. Intrigued, I investigated further and learned that Canyon was the fifteenth novel in Kent Krueger’s series starring Cork O’Connor, a former cop turned private investigator (and part-time cook at his little burger shack) living in Minnesota.
A huge fan of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series, I’m always on the lookout for similar types of novels and, after bingeing on the O’Connor series last year, I was excited to tear into the new Cork book, Sulfur Springs.
In his latest novel, Cork’s case takes him away from Minnesota and into southern Arizona. Out of his comfort zone, Cork struggles to find Peter, his wife’s adult son, who–after leaving a garbled voicemail stating that people were looking for him because they think he killed someone–has gone missing.
While searching for Peter, Cork finds all kinds of trouble. And it doesn’t take long for him to realize things aren’t quite what they seem.
Whether you’ve been reading William Kent Krueger’s books since the beginning or are looking to jump in, Sulfur Springs is a perfect choice for mystery and crime fans–especially if you like C.J. Box, Ace Atkins, or Craig Johnson.
Ahead of his lengthy book tour, William Kent Krueger took part in our Five Questions segment. Don’t miss his answers below, which include the title of next year’s Cork book, plus the title of the companion novel to Ordinary Grace that he’s currently working on!
TRBS: Sulfur Springs is the 16th Cork O’Connor novel. Did you ever imagine, back when Iron Lake came out in 1998, that this series would still be going strong sixteen books later?
Kent: “Does any author really imagine something like this at the beginning? When I was at work on Iron Lake, I just wanted to write a story that was good enough someone might want to publish it. I realized near the end of the first draft that I was creating relationships too complex to tie up easily at the end. I thought about where I might want all these people to be eventually in their lives, and it seemed to me I might need to write three books to make that happen. After three, it was simply hard to stop. I’m just grateful I have readers who have continued to stay with me all this time.”
TRBS: This book takes Cork away from Minnesota to southern Arizona. How fun was it for you to write a book with Cork in a different state and out of his element?
Kent: “Sulfur Springs is one of my favorite books in the series. Some of that is because I had such fun researching the locations in Arizona. My eyes were opened in so many ways—weather, geology, geography, and social and legal convolutions. The story I’d imagined had to be altered in many respects to stay true to the nature of that region. One of the things I set out to do with the manuscript was to write a story in which Cork is a bit of a fish out of water, away from his beloved Minnesota, trying to figure out the spirit of a place that’s so alien to him. I love writing a strong sense of place, and the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona provided that in spades.”
TRBS: Is there a chance fans might ever see Cork on the big screen? If so, which actor would be your dream casting choice to play him?
Kent: “I’ve been dealing with Hollywood since Iron Lake, the first Cork O’Connor mystery, was published in 1998. We’ve been close several times, but one of the things I know now is that with Hollywood nothing is predictable. Overnight what seems set in stone can simply melt away. I have a good agent out there and I’m always open to the approaches we get, but I never have any expectation. Which is fine. I write because I love the work, not because I thought I’d ever get rich from it or see it on the big screen.
“I used to play the ‘What Actor Is Cork O’Connor?’ game, but I gave up that long ago. The truth is that I’ve given very few hints about what Cork looks like physically, so almost any good actor could play him.”
TRBS: What is your writing process like? Do you write at the same time every day, follow a strict outline, or just sit and make up the story as you go?
Kent: “My alarm goes off at 5:45 AM every day. I get up, get dressed, and go to a coffee shop, where I spend two hours writing. I go home, have breakfast, work out at the YMCA, have lunch, do the business of being an author (all that damn email communication), then go back to the coffee shop for another two hours.
“I used to outline significantly. These days I just try to think the story through as clearly as I can before I sit down to write it. This process usually takes several weeks, or even months, while I’m finishing my current contractual obligation to my publisher. By the end of that imagining process, I know the story—how it begins, how it ends, who did what to whom and why. I like this because in the actual writing I don’t have to think about what happens next. I can concentrate on those elements that I find much more interesting than simple plot. I’m talking about the language itself, the evocation of setting and of place, how best to highlight the themes I want to weave in, the backstory of the adjunct characters, etc. Along the way, I do make changes to what I’d imagined the story to be, but they’re seldom major.”
TRBS: Lastly, now that Sulfur Springs is hitting bookstores, what’s next for you–will you take some time off or start the next book right away?
Kent: “I’m just finishing up the first draft of the next Cork O’Connor novel, which will be titled Desolation Mountain. It’s scheduled for publication in the fall of 2018. Then I return to work on the companion novel to Ordinary Grace. The book will be called This Tender Land, and, God willing, will be published in the fall of 2019.
“I’m never not at work on a story. Writing is my passion. Writing is my life.”
REAL left social progressive capitalists keep educating about the fact of US elections being made rigged and fraudulent by BUSH/CLINTON political machines that pushed EVERY REAL LEFT SOCIAL PROGRESSIVE politician out of our people's DEMOCRATIC PARTY -----installing FAR-RIGHT WING GLOBAL BANKING 1% NEO-LIBERALS----because these same BUSH/CLINTON political machines will install far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXIST candidates MOVING FORWARD. That is global corporate fascist HITLER, STALIN, MAO.......an unofficial poll of 99% WE THE PEOPLE and our new to US immigrants states very loudly-----WE DO NOT WANT GLOBAL MILITARY JUNTA RULE IN AMERICA.
2000 E-Voting Fraud
Friday, 24 October 2003, 11:18 am
Article: Alastair Thompson
The Diebold Memos' Smoking Gun
Volusia County Memos Disclose Election 2000 Vote Fraud
By Alastair Thompson
"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22
Yes. Something very strange happened in Volusia County on election night November 2000, the night that first Gore won Florida, then Bush, and then as everybody can so well remember there was a tie.
Something strange indeed. But what exactly? In the above report ( click for full version), written days after the election, hotshot Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank goes on to attribute the strange 16,022 negative vote tally from Volusia's precinct 216 to an apparently innocent cause.
"…. faulty 'memory cards' in the machines caused the 16,000-vote disappearance on election night. The glitch was soon fixed," he wrote.
But thanks to recent investigations into Black Box Voting by Washington State writer Bev Harris we now know this explanation is not correct. In fact it is not even in the ballpark.
According to recently discovered internal Diebold Election Systems memos, Global Election Systems' (which was later purchased by Diebold) own technical staff were also stumped by the events in Volusia County/
In Chapter 11 of her new book "Black Box Voting In the 21st Century" released early today in .PDF format at Blackboxvoting.com and here at Scoop Ms Harris observes.
"If you strip away the partisan rancor over the 2000 election, you are left with the undeniable fact that a presidential candidate conceded the election to his opponent based on [results from] a second card that mysteriously appears, subtracts 16,022 votes, then just as mysteriously disappears."Working in parallel with Ms Harris Scoop has also been inquiring into the events on election night in Volusia county. Much of the material that follows is similar to that which appears in Chapter 11 of her book.
The starting point in this shocking discovery about election 2000 came in a series of internal Diebold ES technical support memos.
The following is an abbreviated version of the exchange concerning the peculiar events in Volusia county. For the purposes of research the exchange is included in full as an Appendix to this report (APPENDIX TWO). The discussion took place in early 2001 as an audit was underway in Volusia county into the events.
**********(NOTE: The names below each extract link to the full text of the emails in the appendices below.)
I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb".Lana Hires – Volusia County Florida - January 17, 2001 8:07 AM
My understanding is that the card was not corrupt after (or before) upload. They fixed the problem by clearing the precinct and re-uploading the same card. So neither of these explainations washes. That's not to say I have any idea what actually happened, its just not either of those…
The problem is its going to be very hard to collect enough data to really know what happened. The card isn't corrupt so we can't post-mortem it (its not mort).
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – January 18, 2001 1:41 PM
- the negative numbers on media display occurred when Lana attempted to reupload a card or duplicate card. Sophia and Tab may be able to shed some light here, keeping in mind that the boogie man may me reading our mail. Do we know how this could occur?
John McLaurin - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 15:44:50
The problem precinct had two memcory cards uploaded. The second one is the one I believe caused the problem. They were uploaded on the same port approx. 1 hour apart. As far as I know there should only have been one memory card uploaded. I asked you to check this out when the problem first occured but have not heard back as to whether this is true.
When the precinct was cleared and re-uploaded (only one memory card as far as I know) everything was fine.
…
Given that we transfer data in ascii form not binary and given the way the data was 'invalid' the error could not have occured during transmission. Therefore the error could only occur in one of four ways:
…
[4.] There is always the possiblity that the 'second memory card' or 'second upload' came from an un-authorised source.
Tab Iredale - Diebold ES - 18 Jan 2001 13:31
If this problem is to be properly answered we need to determine where the 'second' memory card is or whether it even exists. Heh. Second shooter theory. All we need now is a grassy knoll.
Ken Clark – Diebold ES R&D Manager – 18 Jan 2001 16:42:50
I will be visiting with Lana on Monday and will ascertain the particulars related to the second memory card. One concern I’ve had all along is “if” we are getting the full story from Lana.
I’ll be back in touch and thanks for all of y’alls (that’s southern for all of you) help.
John McLaurin – Diebold ES - Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:56:06
**********Unfortunately whether or not John McLaurin got to the bottom of the mystery of Volusia County is something the memos cannot tell us.
Searches of the Diebold memos database find a single followup memo from McLaurin about the Checksum Errors experienced in Volusia, but nothing on the mysterious 16,022 negative vote count.
Which leaves us where exactly?
What we know from the memos can be summarised as follows:
- Two memory cards were uploaded from Volusia Couny's precinct 216, the second one was loaded sometime close to 2am in the morning. It automatically replaced the first card's results and reduced Gore's total by 16,022 votes and added several thousand votes to Bush plus a variety of minor candidates;
- Both memory cards loaded into the system clean and without errors, indicating (contrary to the official line) that they were not faulty;
- After the error was noticed the original card was reloaded and the mistake was rectified;
- The error was introduced in such a way that the total number of votes remained unchanged (again something that could not happen by chance.);
- According to the technical boffins, the chance of the memory card being corrupted and still passing the checksum error test are less than 60,000 to 1;
- The technical managers at Diebold Election Systems considered it a reasonable possibility that the second card was part of deliberate conspiracy to rig the election results.
In her book Bev Harris explains the issue of whether the card was a chance fault or a deliberate example of tampering"
"A memory card is like floppy disk. If you have worked with computers for any length of time you will know that a disk can go bad. When it does, which of the following is most likely? In an Excel spreadsheet that you saved on a "bad disk," might it read a column of numbers correct the first time: "1005, 2109, 3000, 450…" but the second time, replace the numbers like this: "1005, 2109, -16022, 450…" Or is it more likely that the "bad disk" will…fail to read the file at all, crash your computer, give you an error message, or make weird humming and whirring noises."source: page 239, Chapter 11, "Black Box Voting in the 21st Century"
However officially, as we learned earlier, the explanation given publicly - and accepted without demur by the media - for the strange events in Volusia county is that there was simply a "faulty memory card".
The "faulty memory card" explanation is also included in a CBS News Network investigation into the Election 2000 debacle.
And it is here that we find a considerable amount of information about just how significant the Volusia County events were on election night.
The first thing we learn from CBS's investigation into the events of election night is that according to the Voter News Service (VNS) exit polls for Florida Al Gore should have won comfortably.
7:00 PM: The vast majority of Florida polls close. CBS News decides not to project a winner in the Florida Presidential race at poll closing, even though the best estimate, based upon exit-poll interviews from the 45 survey precincts, shows Gore leading Bush by 6.6 points. The Decision Desk decides to wait for some actual votes from sample precincts to confirm the exit-poll results.7:40 PM: The VNS computation shows a "call" status in the Florida Presidential race. This status means that statistically Gore is leading, but the Decision Team needs to check more data.
Source
VNS eventually officially called the Florida race to Gore at 7.52pm, notwithstanding comments early in the vote count from George Bush that he was confident he would win both Florida and Pennsylvannia (comments which were never fully explained).
With the benefit of hindsight we think we now know that the VNS data was wrong. That is certainly what the CBS inquiry found.
In the report attached below there are a range of explanations for this given [click here to view], none of them adequately explain the magnitude of the error however.
Most of the news networks followed the VNS call giving Florida to Gore. And by 8.02pm all networks had announced Gore as the winner in Florida. And it wasn't till 9pm that some doubts about this call started to emerge.
First up a significant error - attributed to a typing mistake - was found in the VNS data at 9.07pm. This led to closer examination of the rest of the data and the incoming returns. By around 10pm the Florida calls to Gore were all officially withdrawn. This is recorded in the CBS report as follows:
9:54 PM: The CBS News Decision Desk recommends that the call in Florida for Gore be withdrawn. CBS is in a local cutaway at 9:54 PM (the seven minutes at the end of the hour when local stations broadcast their own election results), and so CBS does not withdraw the call until 10:00 PM.10:16 PM: VNS retracts its Florida call for Gore.
- Source
The CBS timeline then jumps forward four hours to 2am EST.
By now an apparently substantial lead of 29,000 votes has opened up in favour of George Bush.
2:09 AM: VNS adds Volusia County's erroneous numbers to its tabulated vote. With 171 out of 172 precincts in the county reporting, Gore's vote drops by more than 10,000 while Bush's rises by almost the same amount. This 20,000-vote change in one county increases Bush's VNS statewide lead to more than 51,000 votes. - Source
What the news networks, and the Al Gore, camp do not realise at this point in the evening is that over 24,000 of votes that make up this significant lead are attributable to two Diebold Election Systems computer errors.
First there are the 16,022 votes stolen from Gore in Volusia county by the "faulty memory card". Meanwhile over in Brevard County another error - also involving Global Elections System (the predecessor of Diebold) equipment is responsible for a further 4000 votes being lopped off the Gore total.
And it is also worth noting that nobody knows whether the Brevard and Volusia county errors were the only ones in play at this time. These errors were both big ones. They were noticed and corrected on the night. How many smaller vote subtractions could have taken place on the night? Theoretically hundreds. As Dana Milbank's Washington Post report shows it was only because someone noticed the error in Volusia that it was corrected and remarkably the software itself contains no automatic system for rejecting negative vote totals being reported by precincts, events which by definition can only be nefarious and wrong.
At 2am another VNS error came into play. VNS's estimates of the outstanding votes underestimated those that remained to be counted by half, around 180,000. The two errors combined led news executives at CBS to conclude that Bush's final winning margin in Florida would be around 30,000 votes. At this stage Bush had a lead of around 50,000 votes and late reporting precincts were expected to pare this back as many of them were in Democrat leaning counties.
At 2.16am Fox and NBC called the race to Bush, unaware that the Volusia error had now been discovered. Over at Associated Press – the news service that Network News controllers do not read - the margin to Bush had by now fallen to 30,000 after correcting the Volusia error.
At 2.17am and 2.20am the remaining two major networks CBS and ABC called the race to Bush. Their decision continued to be bolstered by the VNS data stream - which even at 2.47am - was still recording a margin to Bush of close to 50,000 votes.
Remarkably it was not till 2.51am that VNS fixed the Volusia error in its data.
Meanwhile with all the networks showing the race for the White House won by Bush, the pressure is mounting on Gore to concede.
In the book, “Too Close to Call” by journalist Jeffrey Toobin, the author gives a behind-the-scenes account of how Gore reacted when the television networks concluded that Bush had taken Florida.
“Al Gore happened to be in the staff room on the seventh floor when the votes spiked up in Bush’s favor. Dressed casually, the vice president was watching television while lying on the floor, with his chin propped up in his hands. As a result of the Volusia votes, Fox News called Florida—and the presidency—for Bush at 2:16 a.m. CBS and NBC followed suit a minute later and ABC came in at 2:20 a.m.,” Toobin wrote in his book.
"Following the news reports, Gore was silent and absorbed the news. A moment later he told members of his campaign that he was ready to concede the election to Bush, which he did several minutes later over the telephone."Unwilling to take the television networks reports at face value, one of Gore’s campaign staffers did a little investigating and discovered that the networks erred in stating that 50,000 votes from Volusia county were cast for Bush. Turns out that Gore was ahead by 13,000 votes in Volusia and trailing Bush by 6,000 votes overall. Something was wrong in Volusia it would be revealed later.
One of Gore’s campaign advisers then checked Florida’s law on recounts. The nearly dead heat between Bush and Gore in Florida and the fact that Gore was ahead in Volusia County meant a mandatory recount. It was time to rescind Gore’s concession to Bush and scrutinize the ballots. Gore was traveling in a motorcade en route to deliver a concession speech to his supporters. His staff stopped him. At this point, the margin between Bush and Gore was down to 2,000 votes. A recount was all but certain."
Gore called Bush and Gore’s staff surrounded the vice president to listen in on what would become a historic conversation at 2:30 a.m.
“Circumstances have changed dramatically since I first called you,” Gore said to Bush, Toobin wrote. “The state of Florida is too close to call.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Bush asked according to Toobin. “Let me make sure that I understand. You’re calling back to retract that concession?” Gore sensed an annoyance in Bush’s tone and shot back “you don’t have to be snippy about it."
Toobin says Bush then told Gore that his “little brother”, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, had assured him that he won the state of Florida and for that matter the presidency of the United States.
“Let me explain something,” Toobin quoted Gore as saying in his response to Bush. “Your little brother is not the ultimate authority on this.”
“You do what you have to do,” Bush said and hung up the phone on Gore. When Gore turned around to face his staff they exploded in cheers.
It is not till 3.10am that the CBS news controllers notice the huge difference between their numbers and those of AP which by now show the margin to Bush at under 10,000.
We also know, thanks to the CBS inquiry report, that by around 3.40am the Gore camp had decided not to concede. Gore Campaign Chairman William Daley rang CBS News President Andrew Heyward in the control room and asked him whether CBS would be reversing its call soon.
CBS's Andrew Heyward waited another 15-20 minutes after the phone call before ordering CBS to officially withdraw the call to Bush. And by 4.05am all the other networks had also withdrawn the call.
By 4.10am the reported Bush lead in the race had dropped to 1800 votes, and thereabouts it remained until the first recount - albeit the Florida Secretary of State's office website reported the race to Gore on the day after the vote.
And it is there that the narrative in this tale ends and the analysis starts.
In its internal conclusions about these events the CBS inquiry team found the two Diebold County level errors, Volusia and Brevard, were conclusive in their networks decision to call the race to Bush.
" The mistakes, both of which originated with the counties, were critical, since there were only about 3 percent of the state's precincts outstanding at this time. They incorrectly increased Bush's lead in the tabulated vote from about 27,000 to more than 51,000. Had it not been for these errors, the CBS News call for Bush at 2:17:52 AM would not have been made."- source
You do not get much clearer than that.
The record already shows that events of election night 2000 turned on the errors in the Volusia and Brevard vote counts. Both of which occurred on Global Election Systems (now Diebold) equipment.
Of course we now know Al Gore did not concede.
But had he done so would that have altered what followed? Would there have been the hanging-chad phenomena, the lawsuits over recounts and the recriminations?
DID ANYONE HEAR ABOUT ALL THOSE BALLOT CARD VNS FAULTY ERRORS WHILE ALL FOCUS WAS ON HANGING CHADS?
Most of what is contained in the preceding analysis is well trodden territory. Everybody knows that the TV networks screwed up big time on election night, and the issue of bias at those networks has also been well traversed.
What has not been discussed, or even conceived of till now, is that the events that occurred between around midnight and 4am might have been the result not of mistakes but of organised voting fraud.
Yet that is precisely what Talbot Iredale and Ken Clark's memos confirm is a distinct possibility, in fact, reading between the lines they suggest it is the most likely possibility.
Consider this:
How plausible is it that an error such as this - of such magnitude, with no apparent physical explanation, and in one of the few counties still receiving incoming results that late in the night – was really the simple result of a "faulty memory card"?
We also now know, again thanks to the work of Black Box Voting investigators like Washington State's Bev Harris and California's Jim March, that the Diebold vote tallying programme used in several Florida counties, GEMS, is easily hackable, both by outsiders and by insiders.
[See… Bev Harris's " Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program " for details and Jim March's "DIEBOLD'S VOTE-TALLY SOFTWARE- Security Review Instructions"for a kit to demonstrate the hack on your own computer.]We do not know what would have happened had a full state-wide recount been undertaken as the efforts to have one were blocked in the courts.
Would they have discovered other counties where unusual events like those discovered in Brevard and Volusia counties?
Is it possible that the original VNS exit polling data was closer to correct than conventional wisdom suggests?
Is it possible that less egregious vote stealing took place in counties all over Florida?
Add into the mix the blatant roll scrubbing in Florida discovered by Greg Palast and exposed in his best-selling book "The Best Democracy Money can buy" and you have a recipe of reasons to reopen a full scale inquiry into the Florida debacle.
Perhaps more importantly. With paper-less touchscreen voting systems in place in many Florida counties come November 2004, should such events occur again, there will be no record with which to conduct a recount.
And the other big mystery of course is this: if someone did try to rig the election returns in Florida in 2000, who was it?
******* STORY ENDS *******Alastair Thompson is an award winning New Zealand investigative journalist and the Co-Editor of Scoop.co.nz.
This report draws heavily from the work of Bev Harris in her new book "Black Box Voting in the 21st Century". California based investigative reporter Jason Leopold also contributed to this report.
_______________________________________________
The FBI today seems very interested in US election fraud with ROBERT MUELLER taking the lead. Mueller is a 33rd degree KNIGHTS OF MALTA installed by far-right wing global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS----BUSH. This installation occurred just as ROBBER BARON global banking frauds were about to SOAR. So, here in US we have both US ELECTION FRAUDS and massive global banking/global corporation/systemic government corruption all growing during MUELLER era FBI.
We see articles telling us that in 2008 MUELLER and FBI got serious investigating subprime mortgage frauds we all know we going crazy in 2004. We all know subprime mortgage frauds soared during OBAMA era yet we will not hear about this until the coming economic crash/economic collapse.
'Robert S. Mueller, III, September 4, 2001- September 4, 2013
Director Robert S. Mueller, III, Portrait
Robert Mueller was nominated by President George W. Bush and became the sixth Director of the FBI on September 4, 2001.
Born in New York City, Mr. Mueller grew up outside of Philadelphia. He graduated from Princeton University in 1966 and later earned a master’s degree in International Relations at New York University'.
The BUSH family----HW Bush were central in 1970s-80s SAVINGS AND LOAN FRAUD-----George Bush was central in today's banking frauds----Clinton era deregulated banks just so all this ROBBER BARON FRAUD could occur. When a JUSTICE official is appointed by the ROBBER BARON----we do not get JUSTICE.
As US 99% WE THE PEOPLE shouted these few decades of massive and systemic ROBBER BARON frauds and government corruptions---MUELLER'S FBI just didn't seem to SEE, HEAR, OR SPEAK.
SO, TODAY IT IS MUELLER TELLING US THERE IS REAL DATA THAT RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA INTERFERED IN US ELECTIONS WHILE SAYING NOTHING ABOUT GLOBAL BANKING 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS ----CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA AND THESE FEW DECADES OF US ELECTION FRAUDS ESPECIALLY 2016 US ELECTIONS.
Market News
May 16, 2008 / 3:20 PM / 10 years ago
FBI: 200 agents working on mortgage fraud probe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI has more than 200 agents and 33 task forces addressing mortgage fraud, has more than 1,300 cases under investigation and has targeted 19 large companies, FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Friday.
“Clearly, in the last couple of years, we have seen a substantial increase in mortgage fraud cases, and my anticipation is that we will continue to see that increase,” he told a question-and-answer session after addressing the National Press Club.
Mueller said there are 19 cases the FBI is investigating of large corporations that may have contributed to the mortgage fraud crisis. He did not identify any of the companies, and the number is the same as the one he gave last month.
FBI officials have said the investigation of the large companies has focused on possible crimes such as accounting fraud, insider trading and deceptive sales practices.
Mueller said the FBI has dealt with similar situations in the past, including the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1990s and the corporate fraud scandals early in the decade that included Enron Corp and WorldCom Inc.
“My expectation is that we will continue to address mortgage fraud cases in the same way we’ve addressed other ... financial crimes in the past,” he said.
Asked if one company would emerge as the criminal emblem symbolizing the mortgage fraud crisis, Mueller said it was too early to say.
“We would have to look at those cases, if and when charges are brought down the road, to get a better handle on an answer to that question,” he said.
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MUELLER'S FBI has been illegitimate these few decades of ROBBER BARON CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. US 99% of WE THE PEOPLE lost confidence in all US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT agencies as they were dismantled and filled with global banking 5% freemason/Greek players. Global banking 1% wants WW3-------it wants CIVIL UNREST CIVIL WAR in US and Canada-----AND it wants to FLIP THE EARTH'S ECONOMIC WORLD FROM WESTERN HEMISPHERE TO EASTERN HEMISPHERE----ergo, Mueller creating FAKE NEWS---FAKE DATA over RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA. Every nation in the world has leadership who spy and disrupt politics and economies -----for thousands of years. So, no doubt Putin and Russia were on the web doing something as were hundreds of other nations. RUSSIA was not responsible for these few decades of ROBBER BARON FRAUDS---including US ELECTIONS. RUSSIA is today not responsible for these same US election frauds controlled by GLOBAL BANKING 1% CLINTON/BUSH POLITICAL MACHINES. MUELLER and the FBI seem unable to make THAT CONNECTION.
It's very simple to stop US election frauds which started to soar with ELECTRONIC BALLOT BOXES-----remove our local US BOARDS OF ELECTION from electronic ballot boxes and return to paper ballots AND have REAL 99% WE THE PEOPLE as monitors---NOT global banking 5% freemason/Greek players black, white, and brown players PRETENDING to care about FREE ELECTIONS.
No US election system is tied to these STATE AND LOCAL BOARDS OF ELECTION frauds then Maryland and Baltimore. No RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA tied to these few decades of election rigging and fraud in Maryland and Baltimore---and yet, MUELLER and his FBI just haven't been able to SEE, HEAR, SPEAK of that US election fraud.
Someone please tell MUELLER that global banking 1% stealing a hundred trillion dollars from AMERICAN public assets of 99% of people's pockets during his FBI terms still need to be recovered----and we would appreciate his attention to US ELECTION FRAUDS by state and local CLINTON/BUSH political machines!
What does Robert Mueller's team tell us about the Russia investigation?
Seasoned lawyers with a depth of experience that includes the investigations into Watergate, Enron and the bombings of the US embassies in east Africa won’t be intimidated by the intense spotlight, experts say
Julian Borger in Washington
Thu 15 Jun 2017 14.47 EDT
Even before the special counsel’s inquiry has begun in earnest into links between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the team Robert Mueller is building provides clues about which way the investigation is heading.
One is a veteran of the Watergate investigation, and Donald Trump – like Richard Nixon – was reported on Wednesday to now be under investigation for obstruction of justice. Other team members have specialities that could point toward where Mueller is looking after taking over control of the investigation from the FBI: money laundering, financial fraud and Russian organised crime.
Donald Trump has been reported to be contemplating the dismissal of Mueller, who was appointed by the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, on 17 May just over a week after the president sacked the FBI director, James Comey. Witness interviews have yet to begin, and the special counsel headquarters are still being established in an office block on Washington’s D Street, but Trump used Twitter early on Thursday morning to denounce the investigation – or perhaps the attendant media coverage – as “the single greatest witch hunt in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people”.
The tweet and similar attacks launched by surrogates in recent days suggest Trump’s strategy will be to assail the integrity of the investigators from the onset.
Even in the highly partisan climate in the US, that will be an uphill struggle. Mueller is a Republican, a marine awarded a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in Vietnam when his unit was ambushed by the Viet Cong in 1969. He was appointed FBI director in 2001, took office a week before the September 11 attacks and was generally acclaimed for his service. When Barack Obama took office, he asked Mueller to serve an extra two years beyond the normal 10.
A succession of senior Republicans leapt to Mueller’s defence on Thursday and warned Trump against any attempt to get rid of him. Rosenstein, who has the power to sack Mueller, told the Senate that without “good cause” he would not consider it and “it would not matter to me what anybody said”.
Three members of the team he has hired so far have been reported to have made election donations to Democrats, a fact that has become another avenue of attack for Trump supporters. But one of the three also made donations to Republicans, and the proportion of Democratic supporters is not significantly out of line with the general population.
It is the specialities of Mueller’s team that is more likely to be a serious concern to the Trump camp, since they point to a wide-ranging inquiry that will look into all aspects of Trump’s complex links to Russia.
Mogilevich associates are reported to have owned condos in Trump Tower in New York, and the father of Trump’s business partner in the Trump Soho hotel, Felix Sater, was a Mogilevich lieutenant.
Vladimir Putin is known to use oligarchs and organised crime bosses as instruments of Kremlin influence abroad.
“This pick really shows that Mueller recognises that Russian organised crime and sophisticated financial transactions involving them are going to be right at the centre and Page is definitely a leading expert there,” said Scott Horton, a US lawyer with experience of working in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Another sign that the Mueller team will take a “follow the money” approach is the recruitment of Andrew Weissmann, an organised crime expert who oversaw lengthy cases in the US district court for the eastern district of New York focused on the city’s mafia families and their infiltration of Wall Street.
Weissmann formerly led the FBI’s fraud unit and the taskforce that unpicked the complex financial dealings of Enron, after the giant energy corporation collapsed in December 2001. It was the most complex white collar crime investigation in FBI history and led to the convictions of the firm’s top management.
“What is striking to me is that his team is a counter-intelligence team and is a money fraud, banking, laundering-type team. Andrew Weissman did the Enron cases, which is all about following the money trail,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the homeland security department.
Another legal heavyweight Mueller has recruited is Michael Dreeben, a former deputy solicitor general who has argued more than 100 cases before the US supreme court. Rosenzweig described him on the Lawfare blog as “quite possibly the best criminal appellate lawyer in America” and said he represented even worse news for Trump last week than Comey’s damning testimony.
Mueller has brought with him three members of his law firm, WilmerHale, who have justice department and law enforcement backgrounds. One of them is James Quarles, who was part of the Watergate taskforce and focus on irregularities in GOP campaign finance.
Another WilmerHale lawyer is a former FBI agent, Aaron Zebley, a cybersecurity specialist who, according to Wired magazine, was part of the bureau’s I-49 counter-terrorism unit, which helped track down the bombers who blew up the US embassies in east Africa in 1998. He worked as a counsel at the justice department’s national security division before following Mueller to WilmerHale.
The third member of the WilmerHale trio is Jeannie Rhee, who was deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration and is an expert on the intersection of criminal law and government.
“This is a team with wide expertise that is really top notch,” said Karen Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University. “These are people who have a number of competencies who have dealt with fraud and corruption and who know government well. All of them know obstruction of justice and many have worked with Mueller and with each other before.”
As for the hostile scrutiny the special counsel team is likely to endure as the investigation gets going, Greenberg predicted they were equal to it.
“These are seasoned attorneys,” she said. “They have faced challenges out there before dealing with corporate corruption ... starting with Mueller, who came into office days before 9/11. They have been through things every bit as stressful and tough as this.”
Those on both sides hoping for a swift resolution to the investigation may be disappointed: special counsel investigations can take years before coming to any conclusions. If Mueller did find evidence of potential criminal charges, a sitting president is unlikely to be indicted, so the ball would be passed to Congress for a possible impeachment – extremely unlikely while Republicans continue to control both houses.
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FORDHAM UNIVERSITY is tops in pushing global neo-liberal corporate charters killing our US public schools. Here we see FORDHAM UNIVERSITY all about PP3-----GLOBAL CORPORATION AND GLOBAL BANKING BEING PARTNERED WITH OUR US GOVERNMENT KILLING ALL THAT IS 'PUBLIC'.
“This is a team with wide expertise that is really top notch,” said Karen Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University'.
So, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY does not seem to worried about those ROBBER BARON few decades of sacking and looting America of hundred trillion dollars in wealth---they are too busy pushing global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS in MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE----US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES FILLED WITH GLOBAL FACTORIES.
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY IS A FREEMASONRY INSTITUTION---NOT RELIGIOUS.
MUELLER graduates from global hedge fund PRINCETON working in INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS----assigned FBI leadership by BUSH---then CLINTON and OBAMA.
Corporate and Foundation Relations
President's Council Corporate Relations
The Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations works closely with the members of the President’s Council to establish strategic partnerships with corporations. Our goal is to create mutually beneficial relationships between the business community and the University. Through these partnerships, we match Fordham's resources to a company's strategic needs and objectives. President’s Council members support Fordham’s Corporate Relations ambitious goals by:
Serving as executive door-openers to cultivate relationships in targeted industries
Supporting Corporate Relations efforts in philanthropic giving opportunities and recruitment activities
Creating opportunities for executive engagement, such as on-campus guest speaking and executive shadowing
Connecting Fordham to other corporate leaders who are not graduates of our institution for similar engagement
"From hosting CEO breakfasts, to creating internship opportunities for Fordham students at Bernstein, to guest lecturing on campus, my participation in the Corporate Relations efforts at Fordham has been a win-win-win-win —good for Fordham, rewarding for the students, beneficial to Bernstein, and personally enjoyable for me. I encourage you to consider the ways in which you can participate and advance Fordham's mission through Corporate Relations."
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We discuss often how global banking 1% are OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS KNIGHTS OF MALTA----TRIBE OF JUDAH-------here in US that is GOLDMAN SACHS meets JP MORGAN------the two global banks behind almost all of ROBBER BARON few decades sacking and looting our US public sector and 99% of WE THE PEOPLE'S pockets.
This is why here in Baltimore we have these two global banking OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS institutions telling our 99% of Baltimore citizens that what is MOVING FORWARD making US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES of our US cities and counties----that have a goal of filling those US zones with GLOBAL FACTORIES bringing global labor pool 99% to these zones as SLAVE LABOR------is a MAJOR COUP.
So, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY which created US ACADEMIC DATA AND MEDIA saying MUELLER AND FBI were a CRACK TEAM OF INVESTIGATORS somehow not able to SEE, HEAR, OR SPEAK about those global banking 5% freemason/Greek players having systematically FLEECED AMERICA working to bring it to COLONIAL STATUS------ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE for only the global 1%.
'Fordham University, the Bronx ~ The Jesuit University of New York';
“It’s a major coup to have a bank as strong as Goldman Sachs investing in Baltimore,” said Karyl Leggio, a professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland. “It’s an affirmation for the work being done to revitalize Baltimore.”
This is why in Baltimore ALL our FAKE LABOR AND JUSTICE organizations are tied to global banking BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION filled with global banking 5% freemason/Greek players PRETENDING to be helping our 99% of Baltimore citizens and our local communities and economy.
NO US CITY HAS MORE ELECTION RIGGING AND FRAUD THEN BALTIMORE, MD USA.
This global corporate campus FOOTPRINT will be used as EMINENT DOMAIN to expand this campus to GLOBAL FACTORIES the size of US cities. This is the process taking US to FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES----to GLOBAL FACTORIES that enslave and devastate our environment---and these are the global 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS' institutions pushing all this---NONE OF THEM RELIGIOUS/CHRISTIAN/JEWISH.
Goldman Sachs invests $233 million in Port Covington
Goldman Sachs plans to invest $233 million to remake Port Covington with Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s development firm, becoming a joint owner of hundreds of acres along the Patapsco River slated to become a $5.5 billion mix of offices, housing, shops and restaurants.
Lorraine MirabellaContact Reporter
The Baltimore Sun
Goldman Sachs plans to invest $233 million to join Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s development firm in remaking Port Covington, becoming a joint owner of hundreds of acres along the Patapsco River slated to become a $5.5 billion mix of offices, housing, shops and restaurants.
The global investment banking company will join Plank’s Sagamore Development Co. in a joint venture that will own and develop a 235-acre waterfront parcel south of Interstate 95, Sagamore announced Wednesday. The site is next to 50 acres on which Baltimore-based Under Armour is building a new world headquarters.
Sagamore has secured $660 million in public financing for the project — the largest of its kind in city history — and has begun work to transform the once-industrial peninsula. The developers had said they were working to attract an equity investor to accelerate plans.
Marc Weller, co-founder and president of Sagamore, will continue to lead the team planning and carrying out the development, the partners said. Goldman Sachs does not have offices in Baltimore.
“As their joint venture equity partner, we will be involved only with major decisions,” Goldman Sachs spokesman Andrew Williams said. The “Sagamore team is the developer and will manage all aspects of the project.”
City officials and independent analysts said they view the new investment as a significant step in pushing the project forward and casting Baltimore in a favorable light.
“It’s a major coup to have a bank as strong as Goldman Sachs investing in Baltimore,” said Karyl Leggio, a professor of finance at Loyola University Maryland. “It’s an affirmation for the work being done to revitalize Baltimore.”
Goldman Sachs represents the “gold standard” of investment bank involvement in deals, she said. And helping to revitalize the city could have more than financial benefits for the bank — it could pay off in positive community relations and the possibility of new clients, especially among millennials who tend to value companies that emphasize corporate social responsibility.
William Cole IV, president of the Baltimore Development Corp., said the partnership with Goldman Sachs “is a very good sign that the project is getting ready to gear up.”
“This is obviously a huge commitment by a national investor following in a line of a couple of pretty big investments in Baltimore from national investors,” he said. “It’s an indication that people are taking a long, hard look at Baltimore.”
CBRE Global Investors bought a 56 percent stake in the Legg Mason tower in Harbor East in March in a deal that valued the property at nearly $300 million. Two years ago, a group affiliated with J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. in New York paid $121.5 million for the Union Wharf apartments in Fells Point.
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh called the Goldman Sachs investment “significant progress” for the Port Covington project and for the city’s economic development efforts.
“I don’t know if you can imagine my excitement with this $233 million in Port Covington right at the time when we’re trying to attract Amazon and other major companies to Baltimore,” Pugh said.
Gov. Larry Hogan spoke to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein Wednesday about the city’s growth potential and the opportunity Port Covington represents for the state and outside investors, a spokesman for the governor said.
“Dynamic projects like Port Covington have the ability to attract this kind of game-changing private investment,” Hogan said in a statement.
Goldman Sachs said its financial commitment is the largest single private equity investment its urban investment group has made. The group has invested more than $5 billion since 2001 in underserved communities in New York, Detroit, New Orleans, Newark, N.J., Camden, N.J., Memphis, Tenn., and other cities. Goldman Sachs and Bloomberg Philanthropies recently made a $10 million commitment to 10,000 Small Businesses in Baltimore.
Tom Geddes, CEO of Plank Industries, said Plank Industries and Goldman Sachs share a common vision for urban economic growth, job creation and local workforce development in the city. Geddes said Sagamore hired a third-party broker to find a partner and was attracted by Goldman Sachs’ community-based “impact investing” around the country.
“This … today represents a major step forward in the Port Covington development,” he said.
Margaret Anadu, managing director of Goldman Sachs’ urban investment group, said the firm views Port Covington as a chance to invest and make a positive impact on the community.
“Our investment vehicle is not solely about financial returns,” she said. “We saw an opportunity to invest in infrastructure and lay the foundation for millions of square feet and dozens of buildings … but benefit Baltimore residents and … set a model around the country for what urban investment can look like to connect people and create jobs.”
Sagamore and Goldman Sachs plan to start work on infrastructure in 12 to 18 months, most of it streets, parks and utilities to prepare for future residential and commercial development.
The community benefits agreements that Sagamore negotiated with city officials and neighborhoods near Port Covington will remain in place under the joint venture. The agreements cover local hiring, workforce development, supplier diversity, affordable housing and funding for education programs, college scholarships, recreation facilities and summer jobs for youth.
Michael Middleton,chairman of the South Baltimore Seven — the group of local neighborhoods around the project — applauded the new investment. The Cherry Hill man said developers have stayed in contact with residents in the group’s communities of Brooklyn, Cherry Hill, Curtis Bay, Lakeland, Mt. Winans, Westport and Port Covington.
“Their genuine commitment to the future of our communities is above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen from a development team,” Middleton said.
OH, REALLY MIDDLETON? WE KNOW BETTER!
The joint venture will not include the parcel south of Cromwell street owned by Under Armour, where the brand has converted a former Sam’s Club store into “Building 37” offices for more than 500 employees. The Sagamore-Goldman team will not redevelop parcels occupied by Nick’s Fish House, Sagamore Spirit Distillery, Rye Street Tavern and City Garage, home of an Under Armour design and manufacturing center, a co-working space and a maker space.
The City Council approved public financing for Port Covington last September after months of controversy. Supporters spoke of the potential job creation and the value of retaining the $4.8 billion Under Armour. Critics called it corporate welfare. Former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake signed legislation authorizing five rounds of bond issues over the next 40 years. Sagamore expects to make a request for a bond issue by the third quarter of next year.
Cole said the investment will have implications for Baltimore beyond the project itself, which city officials view as key to generating jobs and retaining Under Armour as it grows. The project, including the Under Armour campus, could grow to 18 million square feet over more than two decades.
The land includes The Baltimore Sun’s printing plant, which was sold to Sagamore in 2014 by Chicago-based Tribune Media. Tribune Media spun off its newspapers, including The Sun, earlier that year but kept their properties. The Sun has a long-term lease on the building.
Cole said Goldman Sachs’ investment “speaks volumes for what everyone sees as the tremendous potential at Port Covington.”
“When you take a look at the overall plans for Port Covington that Sagamore has put together, including their community outreach and stated goals of making sure there are ample opportunities for Baltimore residents to be employed, I think that’s very attractive to investors,” he said.
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We discussed last week among other public policy ---the capture of our REAL left social progressive environmentalism by far-right wing global banking FAKE GREEN CORPORATION sharing videos of what China's GREAT LEAP FORWARD did to China's environment just as MOVING FORWARD will do to US environment.
We have been forced to listen these few decades to the next round of LIES AND FAKE DATA coming from far-right wing GREEN REVOLUTION----GLOBAL GREEN CORPORATION----including what is being called CLEAN COAL. We already have plenty of data telling us all that is a SCAM----as too CLEAN NATURAL GAS tied to FRACKING---as is GREEN ENERGY GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY platforms filled with BATTERIES BIG AND SMALL.
So, as we listen to US global banking PRETEND they are cleaning up COAL emissions ----we KNOW these US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES will keep using COAL as a major energy source. Remember, it is the same global banking 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA sociopaths having built those FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES overseas now pretending they are trying to mitigate coming environmental devastation MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL FACTORIES in US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
TRUMP is simply MOVING FORWARD these same policies installed by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA because he works for foreign sovereignty of MALTA---KNIGHTS OF MALTA.
'I am Principal at JTC Energy Research Associates, LLC. I hold a B.A. in International Relations from Penn State University, with a minor in Statistical Analysis. I got my M.S. in Homeland Security from San Diego State University, with a focus on Energy Security, and an MBA'
Above we see that global banking 5% freemason/Greek player as US MEDIA -----selling the idea that there is such a thing as CLEAN COAL because global banking 1% are trying to PRETEND the environmental devastation in Asia/China will not happen in MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
Feb 14, 2018, 09:02am
The United States As A Clean Coal Leader
Jude Clemente Contributor i
Energy I cover oil, gas, power, LNG markets, linking to human development.
"Carbon capture and storage technologies hold enormous potential to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as we power our economy with domestically produced and secure energy," President Barack Obama
Coal Usage
Reports of coal’s terminal decline are obviously premature: "Over all, 1,600 coal plants are planned or under construction in 62 countries," The New York Times, July 1, 2017
Now generating 30% of U.S. electricity and 40% of global electricity, the fact is that coal will remain an essential component of the energy systems in the U.S. and around the world. The coal build-out is much higher than what you keep hearing. China and India, of course, remain at the forefront, each getting 65-75% of their power from coal. The might of coal in these still developing giants is simply overwhelming: gas generates less than 5% of power. To illustrate, as I have shown, China's climate plan isn't necessarily to use less coal but to use it differently, to use coal less directly like the U.S. does. But quietly, other large nations are also turning to coal. "Reports of coal’s terminal decline may be exaggerated" from Edenhofer et al. is a must read:
Pakistan and Indonesia, combined having 460 million people, are also turning to coal. With soaring power demand, coal is seen as cheaper, more reliable, more secure, and more established. “Although the costs of renewables have recently fallen, they still can't compete with cheap coal in many parts of the world,” says Jan Steckel, head of the MCC working group Climate and Development. And even the already developed nations, where new energy needs are less, are following suit. South Korea, for instance, has coal for 45% of electricity and this will continue. And despite even having a negative population growth rate, Japan "has launched plans to open 49 new coal-fired power plants in the next decade."
Many of these plants are based on installing state-of-the-art technologies, so they can last decades - especially since once investments for new coal plants are made they are already considered sunk.
U.S. Coal Exports
Coal will retain strong market share in the U.S. but is unlikely to regain its huge dominance seen earlier in the century when it supplied over half of our electricity. The Trump administration has been touting energy dominance and it's forgotten that we have seen bi-partisan support for coal to fit right in. With a BP-reported 252 billion tonnes of proven reserves (381-year supply), President Obama said: "We're the Saudi Arabia of coal."
The Trump administration has proposed an alliance of countries that are rich in coal to promote more coal combustion. The U.S. coal industry has been focusing more on deliveries to a mostly poor and energy-deprived world, generally from our Gulf Coast and through the newly-expanded Panama Canal. In 2017, U.S. coal exports surged 61% from 2016 to nearly 90 million tonnes, with 50 million tonnes coming from the more pricey metallurgical variety that is a staple in steel making. "U.S. coal exports could rise 15% in 2018."
Overall, some 10% of U.S. coal production has been going to exports, helping national coal production to increase 6% last year to around 700 million tonnes. In particular, industrials and utilities in India prefer the heat-intensive coal from West Virginia and surrounding states, with Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and China also importing more. The export surge has also bolstered the revenues of coal-carrying railroads such as CSX, BNSF, and Norfolk Southern, while also increasing business in U.S. ports. U.S. coal is also usually higher quality than coal used in other nations, particularly helping India's problem of low calorific value domestic coal. "The U.S. has the world’s largest endowment of low-cost, high quality coal reserves."
Not just helping our trade balance, exports help U.S. miners retain their jobs and support their families. Miners can make nearly $85,000 per year. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, coal mining jobs slightly increase last year to 51,200 in November from 50,000 in January. Know that U.S. coal usage itself is also quietly being bolstered: the $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan is obviously going to require loads of electricity and steel, two markets where coal still plays a very significant role. Coal has also been helped by the recent shelving of The Clean Power Plan.
U.S. Clean Coal Technologies
So our goal remains the same: help the nation and the world use coal as cleanly as possible. The constant advance of technology is the answer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combating climate change. Thus, we also need to be exporting clean coal technologies.
The centerpiece of which is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), an emerging technology that captures CO2 before it's released into the atmosphere. Without CCS, the International Energy Agency finds that for power generation alone CO2 mitigation costs would increase $2 trillion by 2050.“CCS must be deployed to make deep cuts in CO2 emissions," says the International Energy Agency. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that the absence of CCS would surge carbon mitigation costs by 138% from 2015-2100.
Al Gore himself calls CCS one of the "major building blocks of a solution to the climate crisis."
But highly efficient coal plants are also key, namely the supercritical, ultra-supercritical, and coal gasification technologies that China and India are increasingly turning to reduce coal feed and lower emissions. These are the high-efficiency, low-emissions (HELE) coal solutions advocated by the International Energy Agency's Clean Coal Center: "Realizing Decarbonization Through Efficiency Gains."
The Trump administration seeks to lift restrictions on lending for coal-burning plants in the developing world through the World Bank and other agencies. The emerging economies want to reduce their carbon intensity, so evolving clean coal technologies help them reach their goals. In addition, China has replaced Japan and is increasingly investing in coal-fired power plants abroad, so we have a great chance to counter act China's rising influence in global energy markets.
Finally, U.S. energy and climate policy must be rooted in practicality, not idealism. The reality is that if we don't help nations use coal more efficiently, they could easily revert to less efficient technologies such as subcritical plants because they are cheaper.....and thereby increase emissions. The International Energy Agency has continually warned about this.
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This is what we KNOW. Global banking 1% have done all they can to extract COAL from our mountains by MOUNTAIN TOP REMOVAL. Here in East that is our APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CHAIN-----out west will be our ROCKY MOUNTAINS/CASCADE MOUNTAINS. US national media is PRETENDING that the coal industry is DYING----when in fact global energy corporations are simply sending in FRACKING for natural gas which will riddle those mountains with all kinds of TUNNELS to assure bringing those mountains down for further COAL EXTRACTION is EASIER.
COAL INDUSTRY is not lost----it is being told to wait until FRACKING devastates mountain integrity.
America has the worlds largest supply of coal
- geocraft.comwww.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Energy.html
America is the "Saudi Arabia" of Coal. Plant fossils of West Virginia are examples of the fossil flora that comprise the vast coal reserves that are typical in the Eastern United States.
Indeed, there is PLENTY OF COAL in them there HILLS. Global banking 1% mining corporations will rip those mountains apart to get to it. They are simply taking it in stages----fracking fills those mountains with tunnels making that mountain look like SWISS CHEESE.
So, our US Appalachia Mountains will look just as that Chinese video of Linfen in SHANXI.
The mountain that lost its top
It's the one environmental crime that no US politician will confront – the destruction of Kentucky's mountains.
Leonard Doyle visits the Appalachian peaks being blasted by Big Coal
Tuesday 20 May 2008 THE INDEPENDENT
The road slicing through the thickly forested hills of eastern Kentucky used to be called the Daniel Boone Parkway. It was named for the controversial American folk hero who fought his way across Indian country to settle a state where many of his descendants still live.
That was before the coal industry began blowing up the Appalachian Mountains as a cheap way of getting at the black stuff below, behaviour decried by the environmental group Appalachian Voices as "one of the greatest human rights and environmental tragedies in America's recent history".
Daniel Boone's road is now the Hal Rogers Parkway, named after one of the Kentucky coal industry's closest friends in Washington, a Republican Congressman of 34 years. It passes through a mountain range older than the Himalayas and is blanketed in broadleaf forests rivalled only by the Amazon basin in its biodiversity.
But the canopy of trees which lines the parkway as it rises from the bluegrass horse country to the mountains is a trompe l'oeil. The lush forest gives way to scraggly trees along the ridge-line, and behind those trees is evidence of unspeakable ecological violence. In a process known as mountaintop removal an upland moonscape is being created, which is incapable of regenerating trees. As far as the eye can see, the land is grey and pockmarked with huge black lakes, filled with toxic coal slurry.
This has come about because of America's insatiable appetite for cheap coal to generate electricity, a process enthusiastically backed by the Bush administration as it tries to displace the consumption of imported oil. And the Democrats are little better. They control Kentucky and neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton have dared to challenge "King Coal" while campaigning.
The devastation being wrought on Appalachia is best appreciated from the air. An organisation called Southwinds offers people an eagle-eye view of the carnage, not readily appreciated from the road. Another way to see what's going on behind the ridge-line is to take a Google Earth virtual tour of an online memorial to the 470 mountains blown up and levelled in recent years.
The act of destroying a million-year-old mountain has several distinct stages. First it is earmarked for removal and the hardwood forest cover, containing over 500 species of tree per acre in this region, is bulldozed away. The trees are typically burnt rather than logged, because mining companies are not in the lumber business. Then topsoil is scraped away and high explosives laid in the sandstone. Thousands of blasts go off across the region every day, blowing up what the mining industry calls "overburden".
The rubble is then tipped into the valleys – more than 7,000 have already been filled – and more than 700 miles of rivers and streams have disappeared under rubble and thousands more soiled with toxic waste.
The process has accelerated wildly under George Bush. His pro-business-at-any-price credo led to the tossing out of strict federal restrictions against dumping mining rubble within 250 feet of a mountain stream. The toxic spoil laden with heavy metals, which results from blowing up mountains, was renamed "fill", enabling the mining companies to use the cheapest method possible of disposing of it. Once the rock is blown up and the coal separated out, the flattened mountaintops can only support a thin cover of grass. Tens of thousands of acres of mountain have been transformed in this way in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.
Deep in the Kentucky woods McKinley Sumner's yapping dachshund was no match for the mine company's bulldozer. It arrived unannounced on Mr Sumner's land earlier this year and was soon snapping off full-grown trees as if they were twigs.
Mr Sumner, in his seventies, recalls putting on his high-top boots "because the copperheads and rattlesnakes were still out" and hotfooting it up the small mountain at the back of his house, to confront the miners by himself.
By the time he had shooed them off what he calls the "Sumner estate", all 93 acres of it, and had obtained a restraining order against the mining company the damage was done. The forest his parents had started homesteading in the 1930s, and which he has worked since he was a boy, had been devastated by the blade of the bulldozer. Trees were piled one on top of the other and all the topsoil had been shoved into the valley below.
With the help of a lawyer from the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center and a social justice organisation called Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Mr Sumner won his court battle and the mining company was ordered to repair the damage to his land. Instead of doing what the court has ordered, the company is trying to break him in other more subtle ways. Mr Sumner's lands have been listed in the local paper every one of the past five weeks as earmarked for "mountaintop removal", something he has never agreed to.
Company executives have put the word out that he is "holding up mining in the area", setting him against the coal mining families in the area. Strange people showed up on his land to remove the markers of a land survey, which cost $6,000, in order to delineate his hillside from a neighbour's, which has been approved for mountaintop removal.
"I feel just awful," Mr Sumner, said. "We live in a democracy and this is not supposed to happen in a democracy. They are taking our rights away from us."
The daughter and sister of miners, Teri Blanton is a self-described anti-coal activist and prime mover of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. As a young single mother she returned to Harlan County from Chicago in search of what she hoped would be a healthier lifestyle for her children. What Ms Blanton could not have known is that the well water her family and community were drinking from was contaminated by the toxic chemical run-off from a mining equipment repair shop.
"They had this great big vat filled with degreasing chemicals which they would dump into the ground every few months," Ms Blanton said. "They even sprayed the gravel roads with the stuff in summer to keep the dust down."
At 29, Ms Blanton developed cancer, which she survived. But many of her friends and neighbours from Harlan County died young, and she has dedicated the past two decades of her life to helping those threatened by coal-mining interests and getting the word out to an uninterested American public about the ecological devastation which is taking place in Appalachia.
"For the last 100 years Kentucky has provided the coal that fuelled America's growth and wealth," she said. "But our wages are low and our schools and hospitals are lousy. This is one of the poorest places in America and I often think that it is deliberately so, so that they can do whatever they want to this polluted community."
The headwaters of several major rivers on America's eastern seaboard rise in the Kentucky Mountain. They should be teeming with steelhead trout at this time of the year, with fishermen working the banks. But the rivers have been dead for much of the past 100 years, and the Kentucky Tourist Authority came up blank when asked to find a fly fishing destination within 50 miles of where the mountaintop removal takes place.
There is plenty of public money being spent promoting the coal industry, including the practice of blowing up mountains. Each year the state gives about $400,000 (£200,000) to groups controlled by the coal industry.
A website describes mountaintop mining as "simply the right thing to do – both for the environment and the local economy – a true win win".
"The environmentalists throw out a lot of negative stuff, like kids are suffering from asthma because they breathe particulate matter from living near coal-fired power plants, or deaths caused on the roads by big coal trucks," says Bill Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association. "We're trying to counteract that."
The message he gives out is that mountaintop removal is actually good for the environment because "what's left is flatter, more useful land on top of the mountain". Teri Blanton laughs off the audacity of the propaganda effort and takes me to see Damon Morgan, at least 80 years old, in yet another part of the mountains.
A veteran of Second World War (he survived Iowa Jima,) Mr Morgan returned to the mountains after a career on the railways. A couple of years ago, he claims, two mining companies, Horizon Resources and International Coal Group, trespassed along one of his property lines. "They have done damage to the land and to my personal property – trees, rock and dirt debris have been pushed on to my property and down the side of the mountain."
But worse was to come and now land he calls his own is threatened with being mined because an estranged relative is challenging his title. "We made the biggest part of our living on that land." he said. "We planted vegetables, and we had apple orchards, and there was a lot of wild huckleberry back up on that mountain ... we picked them. And I've hunted in there, I've dug herbs. And now, that is all gone. It's completely moved away.
"The coal industry is an outlaw industry that does not consider the rights of its neighbours or the rights of the land and environment. The industry is out to make a profit and has no regard for the damages done to the citizens of this country," Mr Morgan said.
He has now been gagged by the courts and but for Teri Blanton his story would remain untold. She takes me to another part of the mountains. Mary Jane and Raleigh Adams, also in their seventies, are fighting Whymore Coal Company. When the Adams family declared that the mining company had violated its lease to cross their land the fight went to court. The ruling went against the Adamses and the court ruling now bars them from walking on their own land.
"We believe we were just run over by the Circuit Judge House and by the coal company lawyers who lied and said that we had said that the lease was valid," said a traumatised Mary Jane Adams. When Raleigh Adams took a picture of the mining taking place on his land and sent it to the local paper he was found to be in contempt.
"We now can't get on our own land, and the mining is going forward without our permission. We are even blocked from stepping on our property even when they aren't working," Mr Adams said. "Who knows what will be left of it when they are finished."
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Below we see WVA global banking 1% pols touting they are ready to go with COAL exports and MARYLAND is revving up PORT OF BALTIMORE to be that COAL EXPORT TERMINAL at the same time Baltimore Mayor RAWLINGS BLAKE is tapped to lead PARIS CLIMATE CHANGE ACCORD talks. At the same time LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS gives WVA Congressional pol MANCHIN points for voting for FAKE GREEN policies.
'Qingyun Sun, associate director of the US-China Energy Center at West Virginia University and a governor's assistant for China affairs in West Virginia, said in an interview that there is plenty of capacity in his state and the US to substantially increase American exports'.
We wanted to share that video of China's SHANXI Provence because MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES will look just like that-----our US Appalachian Mountains will be LINFEN SHANXI-------coal trucks heading for PORT OF BALTIMORE will be lined up for a hundred miles bumper to bumper bringing coal into GREATER BALTIMORE GLOBAL FACTORIES-----of course all that will be OK because these COAL FACTORIES will have CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY.
We shared a video of CLEAN BURNING INCINERATORS being championed by SWEDEN as environmental of course being FAKE GLOBAL GREEN TECHNOLOGY myth-making and propaganda. So, on top of FAKE CLEAN COAL we will have US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES filled with FAKE CLEAN BURNING INCINERATORS.
We will as well watch as APPALACIAN MOUNTAINS---ROCKY MOUNTAINS----CASCADE MOUNTAINS----disappear.
If China wants coal, the US has got coal
By Paul Welitzkin in New York | China Daily USA | Updated: 2018-05-30 13:29
The coal industry and the state of West Virginia have plenty to sell to China if the country wants to increase US imports to help reduce US trade deficits with China.
Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg Tuesday reported that Chinese officials are currently looking at boosting purchases of coal, especially from West Virginia.
In the joint China-US statement released on May 19 in Washington, both countries agreed to take steps to reduce the US trade deficit in goods, with China significantly increasing purchases of US goods, including agricultural and energy products and services.
Qingyun Sun, associate director of the US-China Energy Center at West Virginia University and a governor's assistant for China affairs in West Virginia, said in an interview that there is plenty of capacity in his state and the US to substantially increase American exports.
"Our coal production decreased due to the market shrinking. We have the capacity for steam coal (used in power generation) and metallurgical coal (used in steel making)," Sun said in an interview.
Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, agreed with Sun that there is ample capacity to ramp up exports.
"West Virginia exports more coal than any other state and currently accounts for about half the coal exported from the US," Raney said in an email.
"Right now the majority of our coal is exported to India, Japan, (South) Korea and China," said Sun.
The US exported 97 million short tons (MMst) of coal in 2017, a 61 percent increase over the 2016 level, as exports to Asia more than doubled from 15.7 MMst in 2016 to 32.8 MMst in 2017, including about 3.2 MMst to China, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
"Coal exports in the US are surging in part because China has been shutting down its less efficient coal mines," Marc Scribner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox Business in March.
Sun said coal still represents a major sector in West Virginia's economy. An increase in American coal imports by China would be beneficial to coal-producing states that voted for US President Donald Trump in the 2016 election amid his promises to revive the struggling industry.
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'While there are various definitions of clean coal, the most common one refers to the process of capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emitted by coal burning power plants'.
REAL left environmentalists have SHOUTED at how ridiculous CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY claims are----global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS no more care about killing our North American environment as they did Asian/Chinese. So, now we have the mantra JOBS, JOBS, JOBS-----and our 99% of WE THE PEOPLE working in coal industry think they need to fight for COAL JOBS. Well, that video showing LINFEN, SHANXI-----has REAL left social progressives saying---YOU REALLY WANT THOSE KINDS OF JOBS?
MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES FILLED WITH GLOBAL FACTORIES HAVE NO INTENTION OF BEING 'GREEN' OR 'ENVIRONMENTAL'
Who is global banking 1% ---OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS---KNIGHTS OF MALTA----TRIBE OF JUDAH...you know EMPIRE ALICE saying WE DON'T CARE.
What Donald Trump Didn't Mention About Clean Coal
By Katie Fehrenbacher
October 10, 2016
Near the end of the second presidential debate on Sunday night, the candidates laid out their energy policies in response to an audience member’s question about how they would meet the nation’s energy needs while both minimizing job losses and being environmentally-friendly.
The audience member, Ken Bone, is a coal plant operator in Illinois and became an Internet sensation on Monday.
Republican candidate Donald Trump took the opportunity to predictably attack the Obama administration, saying it has put energy “under siege.” But he also did something more unusual: He touted “clean coal.”
While there are various definitions of clean coal, the most common one refers to the process of capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emitted by coal burning power plants.
Trump said: “We need much more than wind and solar. . . There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for a thousand years in this country.” However, the reality of clean coal is that it hasn’t been done economically at a large scale in the U.S., and there’s been a number of clean coal projects that ended in failure.
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We want to look at our global banking 1% FREEMASON STARS-------and SULFUR SPRINGS does a good job bringing all those global banking FADS together and the moral and ethical issues surrounding MOVING FORWARD although he does not describe MOVING FORWARD ----
The novel is very entertaining-----we want to say the plot centers on global banking ties to DRUG TRADE------and the re-activation of OLD MINES in Arizona as across the nation thought dormant now being brought back because of NEW MINING TECHNOLOGIES----as is MOVING FORWARD in FRACKING and soon COAL EXTRACTION. We were glad to see there were characters that cared about greater society------helping people in need vs characters tied to FAMILY/CLAN being the only people you trust/cared about.
One thing we will ask KENT KRUEGAR who made the heroes caring for greater society CATHOLIC is this-------we KNOW it is OLD WORLD KINGS AND QUEENS CATHOLIC FREEMASONRY pushing FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES hyper-industrialization----and all that will be MOVING FORWARD GLOBAL FACTORIES THE SIZE OF US CITIES here in US. KNIGHTS OF MALTA/TRIBE OF JUDAH are that wicked character MAYOR OF SULFUR SPRINGS-----MARION
No doubt what our US southwest has endured these few decades of ONE WORLD OPEN BORDERS by Bush/Clinton creating economics they KNOW would make GLOBAL DRUG CARTELS explode with US political machines tied to them ---is MOVING FORWARD to the next round of US CITIES deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES building today as here in Baltimore.
August 22, 2017 The Real Book Spy
SULFUR SPRINGS: Five Questions with William Kent Krueger
They say not to judge a book by its cover, but that’s exactly how I first found William Kent Krueger and his Cork O’Connor series. When considering which books to review last year, the cover of Manitou Canyon caught my eye. Intrigued, I investigated further and learned that Canyon was the fifteenth novel in Kent Krueger’s series starring Cork O’Connor, a former cop turned private investigator (and part-time cook at his little burger shack) living in Minnesota.
A huge fan of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series, I’m always on the lookout for similar types of novels and, after bingeing on the O’Connor series last year, I was excited to tear into the new Cork book, Sulfur Springs.
In his latest novel, Cork’s case takes him away from Minnesota and into southern Arizona. Out of his comfort zone, Cork struggles to find Peter, his wife’s adult son, who–after leaving a garbled voicemail stating that people were looking for him because they think he killed someone–has gone missing.
While searching for Peter, Cork finds all kinds of trouble. And it doesn’t take long for him to realize things aren’t quite what they seem.
Whether you’ve been reading William Kent Krueger’s books since the beginning or are looking to jump in, Sulfur Springs is a perfect choice for mystery and crime fans–especially if you like C.J. Box, Ace Atkins, or Craig Johnson.
Ahead of his lengthy book tour, William Kent Krueger took part in our Five Questions segment. Don’t miss his answers below, which include the title of next year’s Cork book, plus the title of the companion novel to Ordinary Grace that he’s currently working on!
TRBS: Sulfur Springs is the 16th Cork O’Connor novel. Did you ever imagine, back when Iron Lake came out in 1998, that this series would still be going strong sixteen books later?
Kent: “Does any author really imagine something like this at the beginning? When I was at work on Iron Lake, I just wanted to write a story that was good enough someone might want to publish it. I realized near the end of the first draft that I was creating relationships too complex to tie up easily at the end. I thought about where I might want all these people to be eventually in their lives, and it seemed to me I might need to write three books to make that happen. After three, it was simply hard to stop. I’m just grateful I have readers who have continued to stay with me all this time.”
TRBS: This book takes Cork away from Minnesota to southern Arizona. How fun was it for you to write a book with Cork in a different state and out of his element?
Kent: “Sulfur Springs is one of my favorite books in the series. Some of that is because I had such fun researching the locations in Arizona. My eyes were opened in so many ways—weather, geology, geography, and social and legal convolutions. The story I’d imagined had to be altered in many respects to stay true to the nature of that region. One of the things I set out to do with the manuscript was to write a story in which Cork is a bit of a fish out of water, away from his beloved Minnesota, trying to figure out the spirit of a place that’s so alien to him. I love writing a strong sense of place, and the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona provided that in spades.”
TRBS: Is there a chance fans might ever see Cork on the big screen? If so, which actor would be your dream casting choice to play him?
Kent: “I’ve been dealing with Hollywood since Iron Lake, the first Cork O’Connor mystery, was published in 1998. We’ve been close several times, but one of the things I know now is that with Hollywood nothing is predictable. Overnight what seems set in stone can simply melt away. I have a good agent out there and I’m always open to the approaches we get, but I never have any expectation. Which is fine. I write because I love the work, not because I thought I’d ever get rich from it or see it on the big screen.
“I used to play the ‘What Actor Is Cork O’Connor?’ game, but I gave up that long ago. The truth is that I’ve given very few hints about what Cork looks like physically, so almost any good actor could play him.”
TRBS: What is your writing process like? Do you write at the same time every day, follow a strict outline, or just sit and make up the story as you go?
Kent: “My alarm goes off at 5:45 AM every day. I get up, get dressed, and go to a coffee shop, where I spend two hours writing. I go home, have breakfast, work out at the YMCA, have lunch, do the business of being an author (all that damn email communication), then go back to the coffee shop for another two hours.
“I used to outline significantly. These days I just try to think the story through as clearly as I can before I sit down to write it. This process usually takes several weeks, or even months, while I’m finishing my current contractual obligation to my publisher. By the end of that imagining process, I know the story—how it begins, how it ends, who did what to whom and why. I like this because in the actual writing I don’t have to think about what happens next. I can concentrate on those elements that I find much more interesting than simple plot. I’m talking about the language itself, the evocation of setting and of place, how best to highlight the themes I want to weave in, the backstory of the adjunct characters, etc. Along the way, I do make changes to what I’d imagined the story to be, but they’re seldom major.”
TRBS: Lastly, now that Sulfur Springs is hitting bookstores, what’s next for you–will you take some time off or start the next book right away?
Kent: “I’m just finishing up the first draft of the next Cork O’Connor novel, which will be titled Desolation Mountain. It’s scheduled for publication in the fall of 2018. Then I return to work on the companion novel to Ordinary Grace. The book will be called This Tender Land, and, God willing, will be published in the fall of 2019.
“I’m never not at work on a story. Writing is my passion. Writing is my life.”
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