"HOOKERGATE," RANDALL L. TOBIAS, & PAUL WOLFOWITZ: THE AMERICAN PROFUMO SCANDAL? (Repost of a June 17th, 2007 article)

Washington D.C.--In e-mails and in our interview, Ms. Palfrey compared her situation as being very much like the "Profumo" scandal, and that it might involve a government official divulging information to a sex worker who was an operative for a foreign intelligence agency (though it should be noted here that many operatives frequently work all sides). It's an incredible assertion, and Palfrey has yet to provide evidence of it. However, this writer tends in that direction as well.

The evidence could very well be in her phone records, and she's currently waiting for a decision on the gag ruling by Federal District Judge Gladys Kessler. She's been correct about the majority of her public assertions so far: just ask Randall L. Tobias. Then, there's Harlan K. Ullman, military strategist and think tank advisor, professor, author, and-then-some. He's refused to talk at all, despite the defendant's attempts to subpoena him. An examination of the Profumo affair is instructive here:

What brought Profumo down even more than his deceit of the [House of] Commons, was the startling revelation that Keeler had also slept with Eugene Ivanov, the naval attache at the Soviet embassy. It was that detail which captured world attention, notably in the United States, where the FBI compiled a detailed report called Operation Bowtie [Ed.-the FOIA link to the files is now dead]. In Britain, Profumo's downfall naturally caused a huge sensation, inflated by the establishment's crude and cruel attempts to find scapegoats for its own embarrassment. As usual, official wrath was turned on those least able to defend themselves. Stephen Ward was prosecuted for living on immoral earnings. On the last day of his trial, he killed himself with an overdose of sleeping tablets. Keeler was also tried and imprisoned on related charges. (Guardian, 04.10.2001)

Tory War Minister John Dennis Profumo slept with Keeler, who slept with a Soviet spy. He might have said things to Keeler that he shouldn't have, and she may have conveyed it (accidentally?) to the Soviet Eugene Ivanov. Do we have a similar scenario here? Were federal investigators looking for something else entirely when they searched Deborah Jeane Palfrey's Vallejo home? What were 12 SWAT-equipped ("assault-rifles and masks," says one source) Howard county police doing at Brandy Britton's (former employee of Palfrey's) home when she was first arrested?

She says the authorities have unfairly singled her out, made up lies, mistreated, stalked and harassed her since Jan. 17, when a team of Howard County officers burst into her quiet suburban home and ransacked the place, breaking her belongings, upsetting her pets and arresting Britton on prostitution charges. “It sounds paranoid, but they did really serious criminal stuff,” Britton says. “They’ve broken into my house 10 or 15 times. They’ve tapped my phones. They put a tail on me and follow me everywhere.” (examiner.com, 10.26.2006)

That sounds like overkill for a woman who was anonymously accused of soliciting sex.What were they looking for? Was it an e-mail or document(s) relating to a scenario much like that between War Minister Profumo and Christine Keeler? Who is the Christine Keeler in this case? Who is/are the Profumo(s)? This leads us to...

Paul Wolfowitz's recent scandal could very well be connected to all of this: was his "girlfriend" really his beau? What is the entire background of Shaha Ali Riza? Could she be a deep cover agent for a Middle Eastern nation? There appears to be some smoke here, and it behooves us to ask the question of whether Wolfowitz compromised himself by uttering national security secrets in the presence of Ali Riza, and maybe others--could this be the real heart of this whole scandal?

Is there a connection between Wolfowitz and Tobias in all of this? Is there a connection between them and their "concerns" over the international sex trade and human trafficking? Gulf state nations like Saudi Arabia are notorious violators of such international agreements, importing sex-slaves from the region, including Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Africa. Read on.

Amazingly, the world press and everyone but the American public knew that Wolfowitz's girlfriend already worked at the World Bank before his appointment, and were reporting it widely:

There is Republican pressure to reform the World Bank so that it becomes more of a facilitator for private-sector involvement and less of a direct intervener. Mr Wolfowitz’s girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, works at the World Bank. Ms Riza, who was born in Tunis and grew up in Saudi Arabia, is an ardent proponent of spreading democratic rights throughout the Arabic world. Her low-key presence in Mr Wolfowitz’s life surprises critics, who assert that he masterminds a Zionist conspiracy from the Pentagon. (The Times, 03.17.2005)

Again, this was even before Wolfowitz was appointed World Bank President. Someone might want to ask Ms. Ali Riza if she's ever worked for the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate under Prince Turki al-Faisal (once Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland). How did Shaha Ali Riza--a British subject at the time--obtain security clearances for the State Department and the Pentagon? Is she a triple-agent? No answers appear to be forthcoming here.

Of course, much of this is connected to late-April of this year, when the Wolfowitz/World Bank scandal broke. Paul Wolfowitz had--and still has--many detractors, but there was an odd "defender": former U.S. Attorney and international law and diplomacy prof at John Hopkins, Ruth Wedgwood. Her own location puts her very close geographically to the death of Brandy Britton, as well as what could be a sprawling web-of-corruption in Baltimore involving prostitution, police corruption at the highest-levels, political warfare, and much more. Where does Wedgwood fit into all of this? On April 17th, 2007, she did something peculiar: she wrote a defense of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz for the L.A. Times called "The Wolfowitz non-story."

The authors of this acrid affair have nakedly forgotten the standards of fairness and due process owed Riza, who is a member of the bank staff association and entitled to its fiduciary protections. And the scandal-mongers have recklessly ignored a written record of bank documents that serves not to condemn but to exculpate Wolfowitz. (L.A. Times, 04.17.2007)

Oddly, a number of the facts she trots-out in the opinion piece tends towards the thesis that Ali Riza has an intelligence background. As we all know now, she was wrong about Wolfowitz on several counts, and hid her credentials as a staunch-supporter and beneficiary of the Bush administration (they appointed her as an Assistant U.S. Attorney) and Wolfowitz.

Wedgwood's article is a smokescreen, and her credibility is in-question. A reply was in-the-offing, and it came to the L.A. Times on April 30th from "Islamic Law expert and photojournalist" Sarah Whalen after angry readers pointed-out Wedgwood's connections to the Bush administration and the embattled World Bank President:

Ordinarily, expert opinions by former assistant U.S. attorneys like Wedgwood count for something. But Wedgwood, sputtered one angered reader, is biased. "For the Times to publish her column without disclosing her close ties to the Bush administration is inexcusable," scolded reader Gerald Shea. ...Wedgwood should address the real legal question facing Wolfowitz and Shaha: How did Shaha, a Libyan national with British citizenship, get her Pentagon and U.S. State Department security clearances? Sidney Blumenthal first raised this issue in his recent Guardian article, "Wolfowitz Sinking Into Endless Scandal." Shaha needed security clearances for her Wolfowitz-engineered "leave of absence" from the World Bank to her consulting job at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) [Ed.-This is the same intel contractor who employs Ron Roughead, found in the phone records of Pamela Martin & Associates. Emphasis added] and later to her State Department job. But she apparently didn't have them. "Who intervened?" Blumenthal asks. (L.A. Times, 04.30.2007)

That's right, who allowed Shaha Ali Riza those security clearances? When we know their name(s), they're going to be leaving office. Perhaps they already have--in-part--in the person of Paul D. Wolfowitz...and possibly Randall L. Tobias. It's important to put your middle-initial in there to at least look and sound prominent. Merely sleeping with a woman does not explain Tobias's immediate departure from the State Department. What generates and motivates these kinds of scandals and the usage of "honey traps"? Usually, overarching national and strategic-aims...

Saudi Arabia has been concerned about the status of the several break-away Republics in Central Asia which are primarily Muslim. They also provide pipeline routes and sources of oil and natural gas. The aims of all of this--employing someone like Shaha Ali Riza in deep cover--would be to ascertain what the State Department's and the Pentagon's planning on these regions would entail. Whether he knew it or not, Paul Wolfowitz might have allowed a spy for MI6/MI1c/SIS/the Saudi Intelligence Directorate/etc. to have extraordinary access and clearance within these institutions. This could be some of that context:

At the same time, members of the ruling dynasty, including the directors of several big oil companies and high-ranking officers of the General Intelligence Service, were pursuing clearly practical aims. They viewed Central Asia as part of a larger region, stretching from Pakistan in the South, to the Russian Caucasus in the North. Besides the diffusion of their influence over the local Muslims, and the competition with Turkey and Iran, the Saudis were interested in participating in a greater number of regional projects for the mining and transporting of energy resources.

Not having the possibility of neutralizing the competition with the Eurasian states in the oil and gas markets, Riyadh relied on getting a share of the income from their future profits. It was with this purpose in mind that Delta Oil Company developed its activity in Afghanistan; Gulf Star company and Dallah al-Baraka Group did the same in Kazakhstan; and the Caucasian Investment Bank was established for developing work in the Caucasus (with the help of the commercial structures belonging to the Saudi billionaire, Adnan Khashoggi). Pakistani partners were actively helping the Saudis to attain their goals. (axisglobe.com, 11.30.2005)

Is this a segment of "hookergate's" genesis? Sources are telling me that it could be. Was Shaha Ali Riza a sex worker? Did she have connections to these channels? "On December 11th, 2006, then-ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal left his post "after 15 months." ('Saudi Ambassador Abruptly Resigns, Leaves Washington." (Washington Post, 12.12.2006) Is there a connection? More later.

The Guardian on the Profumo affair (2001): http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicspast/story/0,9061,471383,00.html

The Washington Post on the suicide of Brandy Britton (and a curious admission on their part),01.30.2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012900654.html

The Times on Shaha Ali Riza, March 17, 2005: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article429379.ece

"Complete 911 Timeline": http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline

The L.A. Times' "Wedgwood piece," 04.17.2007: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-wedgwood17apr17,1,4026819.story

and the reply: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-whalen30apr30,0,364571.story?coll=la-opinion-center

"UNDER THE SIGN OF ANDIJAN-Saudi Intelligence Versus the Pentagon: http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=506

Ed Norris: He won't talk (and neither will Rawstory)

WWW--It would behoove Ms. Alexandrovna and associates to publish her findings from Rawstory's twelve hours of interviews with the former Baltimore Police Commissioner (search this blog under his name for previous articles). You don't conduct that many "sittings" if the interviewee says nothing of value.

But let's be fair: If it's nothing, just a lot of self-serving garbage, fine, don't run it. If it is significant, then let it be part of the public record. Palfrey has communicated to this author that Norris has been trying to get his side of his predicament out to the press for awhile. He does have his own radio and television shows, after all.

Norris clearing the air might clarify areas of Deborah Jeane Palfrey's own predicament (she's parted-ways this week with her court appointed criminal representation, Preston Burton, over "irreconcilable differences" [Ed., 08.28.2008--Like the fact that she was probably suicidal.]). I'm unaware of anyone else who has gotten Edward T. Norris to talk as much as Rawstory. I'm assuming that they there were ostensibly about his own plea deal and the events surrounding his own legal predicament.

At some point, they hit-a-bump in some a priori assumptions, and had to scuttle the story. [Ed., 08.28.2008--Alexandrovna explained to me in an angry e-mail that Palfrey and her civil attorney had failed to meet her as planned by a prior-agreement. She also mentioned things that could be construed as a violation of a confidentiality agreement.] There is also another possibility that could run parallel with the aforementioned issues--that Rawstory cannot release the materials under a confidentiality agreement. There might also be fears on-his-part of government retaliation regarding his original plea deal. Was Palfrey part of this deal? She has made comments that it might, but has also mentioned that Norris would deny any involvement with her.
Where does Ed Norris fit-in in the saga of "Hookergate"? Does he fit-in at all, or is he just a red-herring? This writer would like to know, and he's sure that the public would too. Where does Norris fit-in with the murder of assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan Luna? Does he at all? Ms. Palfrey has contended there might be a connection between all-three. Do the interviews with Norris support any of this? Again, it's like a dialogue with the Sphinx.

What did Ed Norris say in those interviews? Surely, a journalist and their associates would not spend that much time if he hadn't said something important initially in the first hours of their conversations. The interviews should be turned-over to author Bill Keisling, and other interested researchers, it could be a motherlode of information. Of course, Mr. Norris could just start talking to other journalists, so it's on him as well.

If there's nothing in them, allay our fears, and be forthcoming about it. There was a time when this writer really felt Rawstory was doing their best--and they may be doing so regardless of my suspicions--but they've raised some flags. It could just be journalistic method on-their-part, or it could be something insignificant. My hope is that it's something insignificant, and perhaps Mr. Norris needs to contact Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to clarify things. There could be a lot her concerning the Bush Justice Department and so many other transgressions that they've commited in the name of upholding the law.

Former U.S. attorney Thomas DiBiagio might have to be subpoenaed as well, since he was involved in the prosecution of Mr. Norris. He was also acting U.S. attorney when one of his assistant U.S. attorneys--Jonathan Luna--was murdered. DiBiagio was also the first U.S. attorney fired by the Bush administration, since the number is really nine, not eight, as misreported by much of the mainstream media.

It's not hard to fathom why a defendant wouldn't be forthcoming about all the details of their case, regardless of their guilt or innocence. What's disappointing is that many in the press began with a presumption of guilt as soon as this story broke in October of 2006--just weeks-away from the U.S. attorney firings. We should be looking to see if there is any connection here with all of this.

Ask Ed: http://www.ednorris.com/

Ask Larisa: http://www.rawstory.com/ , then ask yourself.

Instant Gratification's Next-Step: More Flavor

Your Tongue (My Ire)--A dear friend and I were shopping in the suburbs of Cincinnati recently and went to this great place called "Jungle Jim's," a truly international grocery store, and it has everything. But walk around any supermarket, and you'll see flavored items for nearly everything--including things to eat and drink that don't need them. Additionally flavored Vanilla creamers! What's next? I'm waiting for "flavored-flavoring with added-flavor."

Are these the people who never grew-up enough to eat vegetables? The instructions will be simple: "Place your head in the microwave and time it for five-minutes. Press start." America's 30% (90 million drooling-assholes can be very-very wrong, most of their lives) that would support any president like George W. Bush will comply, saving us all a lot of future trouble. Nobody said evolution (or journalism) was friendly or fair...

HIDE YOUR GEORGE WALLACES: ARTHUR BREMER IS BEING RELEASED IN DECEMBER

Travis Bickle: Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up. --From Paul Schrader's screenplay to Martin Scorsese's 1976 film, "Taxi Driver." (imdb)

Baltimore, Maryland--At 57-years-old, it's unlikely that Arthur Bremer is going to be a threat to many, and certainly not George Wallace, the late segregationist governor and politician from Alabama. When Bremer belatedly shot Wallace at a campaign appearance for his bid for the presidency on May 15th, 1972, it was considered a real shock, and a reflection of the chaos of the times.

According to prison officials, Bremer has never shown any remorse for the wounding and crippling of the 'nigger-baiting' scoundrel, but it has to be said that Wallace was forever changed by the experience spiritually. Thanks to Arthur Bremer, we know what it took to stop George Wallace and his calculated appeals to Southern racists: shooting him. However, like most of the assassinations of that period, there are innumerable unanswered questions and problematic facts.

But the AP piece really nails the crux of the case: Bremer refers to Wallace in a 1996 parole hearing as a "segregationist dinosaur," just two years before the wheelchair-bound baiter died in 1998. Unsurprisingly, he was denied parole. What's not in the article, or in the peculiar reasoning of the parole board members in 96' is that Wallace incited many people in the South during the 1950s into the early-1970s to segregationist violence and harassment of Black (and White) civil rights workers.

Like anyone with a pulse, Bremer saw an individual--not a man--who was willing to play with people's lives by inciting people to racist-attacks, taunting, and full-on violence. Not that Wallace was alone, even Richard Nixon got in on the fun. His take on America 11-years-ago is interesting, accurate, and breathtaking:

"Everyone is mean nowadays ... (We've) got teenagers running around with drugs and machine guns, they never heard of me," he said. "They never heard of the public figure in my case, and they couldn't care less. I was in prison when they were born. The country kind of went to hell in the last 24 years." (AP, 08.23.2007)

Indeed, America has truly gone to hell, even since the time of Bremer's statements.

There is ample evidence to suggest that a rollback of Black Americans' right to vote was intentionally impaired by forces like Wallace in the national elections of 2000, 2004, and even 2006 (more people were watching the GOP closely in 2006, so it wasn't as successful). Taking down a cold, calculated segregationist politician appears to be why Bremer shot Wallace--but is there more? Could be. Wallace was the only real threat to Nixon's 1972 reelection ambitions, just as he had been in 1968...along with Bobby Kennedy.

Regardless of what conclusion one makes, the downing of Wallace wouldn't be enough for Nixon, and he would instruct his operatives ("the plumbers") to burglarize Democratic campaigning offices at the Watergate. They were also ordered to bug the phones.

One needs to look at who handled the FBI's investigation into the Wallace shooting, and it's not comforting at all. It was Mark Felt, then assistant FBI director to L. Patrick Gray III
(Hoover having died in early-May of 1972), who handled the investigation, and it was rife with problems and jurisdictional turf-battles between the Bureau and the Secret Service. Wallace believed in the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt that President Nixon was behind it all. Mark Felt and Bob Woodward have confirmed that the Nixon administration was watching Wallace's "every move" in the run-up to the assassination attempt.

He had good reason to believe so, though nobody wants to ask Bremer any of these questions. Such political observers as Gore Vidal suggested in-the-wake of the assassination attempt that Nixon administration official Charles Colson authored Bremer's diary (published in 1973), which is an interesting charge. This would be especially peculiar if true, since screenwriter Paul Schrader based a lot of his script for "Taxi Driver" (1976) on Bremer's diary. He could be right, particularly in light of this exchange between President Nixon and Colson from a later May 15th call:

PRESIDENT NIXON: Is he a left winger, right winger?
COLSON: Well, he's going to be a left winger by the time we get through, I think.
PRESIDENT NIXON: Good. Keep at that, keep at that.

Colson might be able to clarify a lot of this, but he has left an oral history with the National Archives, and is featured prominently in the legendary tapes. What's a little unsettling is the early-coverage of Bremer's trail in that proverbial "run-up" to the shooting of Wallace. Felt provided his protege--Bob Woodward--with the "scoop." Was Woodward too credulous? Does that even have to be asked anymore?

...On May 18, I did a Page One article that said, among other things, "High federal officials who have reviewed investigative reports on the Wallace shooting said yesterday that there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Bremer was a hired killer."

It was rather brazen of me. Though I was technically protecting my source and talked to others besides Felt, I did not do a good job of concealing where the information was coming from. Felt chastised me mildly. But the story that Bremer acted alone and without accomplices was a story that both the White House and the FBI wanted out. (Washington Post, 06.02.2005)

If the stories were accurate, what was so "brazen" about reporting Bremer's days before the shooting? Perhaps he's just referring to the fact that he might have nearly blown Felt's cover as his source inside the FBI as the assistant Director, but Watergate hadn't even happened yet. What's going-on here? Felt was feeding Woodward the information on Bremer, he was pulling-the-strings, not his protege. One might suspect that they both had an overarching agenda that preceded Watergate itself, and that the real story has yet to be told.

One would think the Washington Post's editor is writing in code. Nobody said journalism would be easy...unless you're lazy and incompetent. Then, it's really easy, and we don't have to get into all those ugly confrontations! Why can't we be friends? Indeed, Bob Woodward has taken this to-heart with the current administration. There's good reason to think he's done it several-times before. Aren't American polticians great?

Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here was a man who wouldn't take it any more. Here is a man who stood up to the scum, the shills, the lobbyists, and the DOJ. Here is...a man. The pen is mightier than Arthur Bremer's gun (that's why you buy-off people like Bob Woodward, et. al.).

AP Today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070823/ap_on_re_us/wallace_shooter_release;_ylt=AmdwnJCMIcJkr5oyczl9WCVH2ocA

Bob Woodward's "How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat'," June 2nd, 2005: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/01/AR2005060102124_4.html

"Deep Motive: Felt, Colson & Bremer," by Max Blumenthal (2005): http://www.mysterypollster.com/deepmotive/2005/06/felt_colson_bre.html

Pentagon Ends "TALON" Program: So What?

Washington D.C.--I cannot imagine why Congress's approval ratings are at an historical-low, not-at-all. No, it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the majority spoke in November of 2006 that: they wanted the war ended, that they (we) wanted/want an end to the corruption in Congress and within the Bush administration (meaning an end to the Bush administration entirely), the pork, the run-away spending on illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, an end to warrantless surveillance, and so much more. We didn't vote for this, we voted to end it, but Congress seems intent to self-destruct in every respect. In 2008, it's going to be time to begin obliging them.

But there are other ways: scandals like "Hookergate" can accelerate the demise of the majority of these crooks who currently occupy our government. 30-years-ago, a story like TALON or all the other warrantless surveillance programs under the umbrella-termed "war on terrorism" would have been sufficient in toppling any presidential administration. Because of this, it's time to start grooming those replacement candidates with no connection whatsoever to the political and economic establishment in America. We know who they are--our soldiers, our veterans of this unholy war in the Middle East. They are virtually unassailable, and attacks on their credibility as veterans can be turned-around on the pundits and political provocateurs who have used 9/11 for political capital for too-long.

Into this fray comes the announcement of the ending of the Pentagon's domestic surveillance program TALON ("Threat and Local Observation Notices") on September 16th of this year. The announcement has little significance. Congress just passed legislation that will allow the Bush administration to continue the same activities at the Justice Department under another name. This was done against the will of the public on almost every front, through the "Protect America Act of 2007"--and its supporters must be punished for it politically.

A Pentagon review found that it had included reports on peaceful protesters and anti-war demonstrations which should have been deleted. However, the report by the defence department's inspector general said the Pentagon had acted legally in collecting information on US citizens because the reports were gathered for law enforcement rather than intelligence purposes. Military and defence personnel will still report suspicious activities around military bases, but that information will go onto an FBI database, the Pentagon said. (BBC, 08.22.2007)

You read it right--they never deleted martials they promised to in 2005 when the program (created in 2002) was exposed in a Washington Post blog on December 14th of that year. What's sad is that the bill that could end American democracy doesn't even have a good name. It's dopey, but like the man said, the world will likely end with a whimper, not a bang (the same could be said for our political system and our liberties). The time to make the lives of incumbents a living hell has come, and we might even be forced to call early elections if events in the intervening-months force us to. These people must be confronted and made to explain their votes on such legislation, but within the law. Some have remarked that the GOP is praying for another attack like 9/11--I strongly disagree. It will have been the second time they failed to protect us, and nobody knows what the reaction from the public would be exactly.

Some would think (incorrectly) that TALON was ended thanks to public outrage (where was it?) and criticism. But that's not why, it just couldn't be justified anymore, and the Protect America Act of 2007 effectively renders it obsolete anyway. Congress actually gave the Bush administration wider domestic spying-powers than any other Executive, not even FDR under the genuine wartime conditions of WWII. Reuters had this to say this week:

Pentagon ditches controversial security database

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Tuesday it would close a controversial database tracking suspicious activity around U.S. military bases that critics complained had been used to spy on peaceful antiwar activists. Officials decided the TALON program would end on September 17 not in response to public criticism but because the amount and quality of information being gathered had declined, the Pentagon said. (Reuters, 08.22.2007)

Now, break-ins can be done legally by the White House, an administration that has shown nothing but contempt for the rule of law and the constitutional firewalls that have truly protected the rights of the public from their government--at least in-theory. Again, this is thanks to the Protect America Act. The closing of TALON can be viewed as a distraction, another psy-ops program. What all of this means is that programs like the FBI's COINTELPRO (1956-1972) have now become legal and above-ground. Would Nixon have wanted this? You bet, it was his dream.

By now, it should be obvious that the Bush administration couldn't have done it without the aiding-and-abetting of Democratic incumbents, and they all have to be raked over-the-coals for their votes giving the president the ability to invade Iraq those fateful last months in 2002. They all have a lot of explaining left to do, just not representatives like Sen. Patrick Leahy, Dennis Kucinich, and a few others. There are probably 30 politicians worth saving in Congress right now. If we do our jobs as citizens, only this tiny-minority of incumbents will be left in Congress by the Fall of 2010.

For impairing the 800 year tradition of habeas corpus, for allowing the president undue powers in a time that was never close to the danger after Pearl Harbor, and so much more, it's time to make the political process scream. It's time to demand answers from incumbents and candidates (often the same thing). TALON is just one more symptom of a sick political culture, an infected system. But we were reassured by the Pentagon's spokespeople in late-2005 that names were being purged after 90 days, shortly after its existence was broached by whistleblowers. The shadowy role of private contractors in these programs should be investigated--if not by the press, by Congress.

Last year, a Pentagon review found that as many as 260 reports in the database, known as Talon, were improperly collected or kept there. At the time, the Pentagon said that the database included about 13,000 entries, and that fewer than 2 percent either were wrongly added or were not purged later when they were determined not to have involved real threats. (The New York Times, 08.21.2007)

As previously written and reported widely, the Pentagon and the White House cannot be trusted with such matters. What's being misreported is that such surveillance is clearly illegal and unconstitutional, an obvious violation of the Fourth amendment, but legal interpretation these days has reached into realms of the fictive and outlandish. An interesting aspect to all of this that could be related to "Hookergate" is--again--the Ronald Roughead connection. Last year at least, he was known to be working for a government contractor who likely services the CIFA (Counter-Intelligence Field Activity) agency at the Pentagon that ran TALON. This corporation is known as SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), and Roughead might be working at the Mitre corporation as well in similar capacities (see article below this one). It's possible that these institutions provided material support for these dubious programs under a cloak of high-level clearances and the abuse of legitimate secrecy policies.

The December 15th, 2005 Pentagon Statement on TALON: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2005/12/121505.html

Reuters "Politics Summary," 08.22.2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082200517_2.html

The BBC Today on TALON: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6958791.stm

The New York Times, 08.21.2007: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/washington/22terror.html?ref=us

Mitre.org (contractor) visits J-7

J-7--Maybe The Nation's Editor [Ed., 10.09.2008--Or whatever the fuck he is these days besides an apologist for the system.] (David Corn) will get back with me on Ronald Roughead when I've been run into a culvert or a ditch like Karen Silkwood--or when the war's over in the Middle East. The first-part of the last sentence was a joke. The not-so-funny thing is, I just want them to start investigating the leads that I've uncovered. That's it.

It's interesting--and perhaps telling--that established media aren't willing to investigate retired U.S. Army Colonel Ronald Roughead, onetime Defense attache, psy-ops chief in Iraq (for IMN, or the "Iraqi Media Network), brother to CNO Rear Admiral Gary Roughead, and God-knows-what else, but I'm unsuprised.

At least that's where things appear to be, they won't investigate. I've had two near-confirmations on the man behind 703-836-0522 from members of the media, and they're not doing anything about it. Prove me wrong, I would love to be incorrect in the impressions I'm getting here. Right, not news, move-along. It gives a very bad impression, and The Nation isn't alone in this by any means. The L.A. Times has been here. So has The Army Times. Then, there's Inside Edition...but is it really on them? ;0)

It seems nobody seriously wants to challenge unaccountable power or to really end this war in a timely manner--just a lot of ruminating and high-talk (most of it safe and self-serving). What if: America falls, and the same Nuremberg trial excuses get trotted-out ("I was only following orders/I needed a job.").

One could begin to conclude that they're protecting Mr. Roughead from scrutiny, though I wouldn't say that about Mr. Corn. I like, and trust, The Nation. It's almost certain that while Ronald Roughead was calling the number of Pamela Martin & Associates, he held a high-level government security clearance. If this is so--and only those with the same or similar clearances can clarify it--he's been very-very naughty.

And look at who's visiting lately: Mitre corp., yet another communications/internet/systems research/data security contractor for the government, just like SAIC. My guess is that Mr. Roughead has ties (even if tangential) to both corporations, and might even work for both insititutions simultaneously. There are leads that appear pregnant with even more leads. It's all like having the question put to you by the Sphinx. A wrong answer could prove fatal.

What's also potentially troubling is that brother Gary could wield undue influence over the unnamed Naval officer in Palfrey's upcoming-trial as CNO of the entire U.S. Navy. It might be a conflict-of-interest, but that's probably why the prosecution "isn't interested in the clients." Somehow, some way, the unnamed Naval officer has retained her position in the Navy with that branch disregarding the fact that she was moonlighting for Palfrey (it's unknown if she was engaged in prostitution when she was--oops!--caught?). One would assume it would mean immediate dismissal...normally. It wouldn't surprise me if most of the people I've contacted in the media have found similar leads.

Some have confirmed that they have found what I have, but seem reluctant to follow them where they might end. I grant that they have limited resources and have to be cautious for dead-ends. Professionalism or careerism (or somewhere in-between?)? The banality of evil for our times? Work overload? Priorities? You tell me. It all reminds me of the jaded American history professor who told me that the very real conspiracy exposed by Marine Corps General Smedley Butler to overthrow FDR's administration by force "didn't amount to anything because it failed." Such "logic" transcends the cynical, and betrays the TALONS of power. Right, nothing here, move-along...

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Director David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" coming this Fall

The film concerns a Russian mafia lieutenant (Viggo Mortensen) in London who has to "take-care" of an immigrant midwife (Naomi Watts of "Mulholland Drive") who knows too many secrets about his boss, and their entire outfit. It's another crime thriller, and promises to be significantly more violent than the last collaboration between director David Cronenberg and actor Mortensen, "A History of Violence."

The actor lived in Russia for several-weeks to research his role, and boy, does he look the part. The great French actor Vincent Cassel ("Hate" & "Irreversible") will also be starring as the boss's out-of-control son, an antagonist that the Mortensen character will have to contend with.

This is going to be worth hitting the theaters for, a rarity these days. What's interesting to note is, while this was being filmed, the Litvinenko affair was beginning to unfold (and still is). Mr. Cronenberg also gave some comments to the London Free Press (an Ontario paper) this weekend about "Robocop" (1987), a film he didn't want to direct, though he enjoyed Paul Verhoven's take on the screenplay.

At one point, Cronenberg was also slated to direct "Total Recall," also picked-up by Verhoven. Strangely--like "Starship Troopers"--nobody seemed to understand that it was a satire of American culture and militarism at the time, oh well.

What's the terror alert over at Fox News?

Bizarrouniverse--If I was to guess, it would be "ELEVATED!! THE SKY IS FALLING, CHICKEN LITTLE!" Seriously, look at the bottom scroll, and it's ALWAYS elevated. Absurd.

KESSLER RULES AGAINST PALFREY ON SEVERAL MOTIONS, BUT FAVORS RELEASE OF SOME INFORMATION FROM PROSECUTION

Washington D.C.--Just two-days-ago, Judge Gladys Kessler ruled against Deborah Jeane Palfrey's several motions to dismiss racketeering charges (which would have cancelled any chance of a criminal trial) based-on government misconduct and the unconstitutional application of local prostitution laws, as well as a request of more "particulars" in the evidence the prosecution contends it has against her.

Also denied was the contention by the defendant that she was the victim of "selective prosecution"--Kessler stated in the ruling that the defendant "provided no evidence" to this claim. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of escort services operate unmolested in the D.C. area at the writing of this piece. Palfrey's civil attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley had this to say about the rulings:

The limited information that the Judge did order be turned over to Jeane reflects how un-level the playing field is that has been created by the DOJ-controlled Congress that passes any procedural rule DOJ suggests. Here, 11 months after seizing her property, Jeane has yet to receive the names of those who accuse her, let alone the sum and substance of their testimony. (correspondence with the author)

On the same day of the ruling, it appears that the DOJ leaked a tiny-morsel for an over-credulous press to seize-on (they did this in October and December of 2006 by providing http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ affidavits and other edited-samples of e-mail correspondence). This is standard procedure at DOJ, and especially at the FBI. It could very well be their fingerprints in the case, though it appears there is no participation by the Bureau (or that it's submerged).

The prosecution isn't telling anyone anything, not even the defendant. This should concern anyone who values our system of due process, and how it has eroded over time. Now, the appearance of guilt is enough, without the prosecution being required to provide adequate proof before a trial. The fact underscores the true relevance of the case: how awry the federal judicial process has gone in-favor of the government's prosecutorial powers (never mind the phone list).

The recent e-mail(s): somebody at the DOJ leaked these heavily-edited tidbits. What's interesting is that while Jeffrey A. Taylor (D.C.'s U.S. attorney, providing obstruction for contempt charges in another high-profile case) is invoking "secrecy rules" through spokespeople when queried about the identities of Palfrey's accusers, he also allowed the leaking of information meant to damage Palfrey's standing as a defendant. This is highly improper behavior by the prosecution in any case, but that's the climate within our federal justice system, courtesy of an impaired and compromised Congress. For those in the press who don't understand, the foundation of our legal system is "innocent until proven guilty."

Yet, WTOP appears to have taken-the-bait, just as The Smoking Gun did last year. Maybe they all want to believe so badly--a priori--that Ms. Palfrey is guilty, at least at TSG. This is the primary e-mail excerpt, and it echoes the vagueness of the ones published at The Smoking Gun last year: "Why did you do this to me? I never did anything to you." Did what? WTOP alleges it was sent to the former Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld legal secretary, "Jennifer." Another excerpt--again without much solid context--continues with, "It is plain 'foolish' to take a perfectly viable revenue stream (of any kind) and just throw it away, without solid justification." And...?

One might imagine that the prosecution isn't holding many cards--just women who want their liberty back in return for testimony against Ms. Palfrey. So far, that's the appearance from outside the prosecution's tent. They might consider that their cooperating witnesses could turn-on-them if the trial goes south. [Ed.-- Ms. Palfrey informs me that the statements made by "Jennifer's" attorney that his client never engaged in prostitution "...has created a legal opportunity for me to obtain heretofore unattainable information." Perhaps WTOP's Neal Augenstein isn't buying the prosecution's line after all, he and his editor published the comment, or we wouldn't even know about it!]

As we all know, you can get a lot out one-or-two-sentences with no context...unless one wants so badly to believe the worst. That's an a priori assumption, and it could be directed at the members of the federal grand jury, the people who will do the real deciding on this whole affair. But what's especially leading about the WTOP article is the headline: "E-Mails Expose Inner Workings of Palfrey's Escort Service." Do they? They're extremely vague and short-excerpts. The bulk of the article focuses on "Jennifer." Her attorney claims that she's not being pressured by the prosecution to testify, which could be true, but it appears she could be testifying against Palfrey.

If she's not being pressured as a "cooperating witness," it would likely make her one-of-the-few in this case. What should be reported is how little the government has to prove in virtually any case against an American citizen. Jennifer's motives? She could be angry she lost her job at Akin, Gump... , but it's doubtful a credulous press will be asking those questions. Even if they do, there's always an Editor over their shoulder, which we can assume is probably where the headline came from.

The WTOP article from 08.16.2007: http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=25&pid=0&sid=1222089&page=2

Revised 08.19.2007

THE POE TOASTER IS NOT MARK FELT

Baltimore, Maryland--Does anyone really believe this man is the real "Poe toaster"? He might be, but the press is acting too credulous here. This writer grants that his age of 92 fits the timeline--the mysterious visitor to Poe's, Virginia Clemm's, and her mother's grave, reportedly began his cognac toasts to the dead on January 19th of 1949 (on the 100th anniversary of Poe's peculiar death).

This is interesting, since it signifies both Poe's birth and death. I have known of the Poe toaster since 1982, and the story has always been that an older, frail man began his vigils in 1949, but Sam Porpora--a "Poe historian"--is saying he began in 1967. Ostensibly, it was to save a nearby church by bringing in tourists, which sounds dodgy. Does this all sound familiar?

The claim is hard to verify, especially considering by most accounts the so-called “Poe Toaster” has been visiting the grave since 1949. Jeff Jerome, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, said it started in 1949, but he started watching for the mystery man in 1977. “I drove to the cemetery that morning, and lo and behold there were roses and liquor there. I just about collapsed. I couldn’t believe it was still going on,” he said. (The Examiner, 08.15.2007)

Do you think Mr. Porpora ever enjoyed telling his grandchildren there was no Santa? To be polite, it might be added here that old men sometimes claim to be something they are not as the years go by, particularly in taverns. But it all has an air of Mark Felt's self-outing as the legendary "Deep Throat" who informed Bob Woodward on the Watergate break-in at a parking garage.

As we know, Felt was no hero, but a man who had felt spurned by the appointment of Patrick Gray as director of the FBI after the timely death of J. Edgar Hoover in 1972. Seeing the timeline better now?

At 92, you might feel that you never left your mark on the world.

Porpora's claim is very lofty and should be viewed with some suspicion, particularly the aspect where he claims to have begun the practice in 1967. This writer is unaware of any account of the Poe toaster where this year is given as the starting-date. Maybe it is true, maybe it is not, but not one article on this story appears to have any real foundation for the claim, just the man's word.

In recent years, a number of bumbling morons have tried to unmask the stranger, without any luck. Many have been chased out of the Westminster Burying Grounds. Good show. The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore contends that the Poe toaster pre-dates 1967:

Since 1949, on the night of the anniversary of Poe's birth, a mysterious stranger has entered this cemetery and left as tribute a partial bottle of cognac and three roses on Poe's grave. The identity of the stranger, referred to affectionately as the Poe Toaster, is unknown. The significance of cognac is uncertain as it does not feature in Poe's works as would, for example, amontillado. The presumption for the three roses is that it represents the three persons whose remains are beneath the monument: Poe, his mother-in-law (Maria Clemm) and his wife Virginia. Out of respect, no attempt is made to stop or hinder him. Several of the bottles of cognac from prior years are on display in the Baltimore Poe House and Museum. (http://www.eapoe.org/balt/poegrave.htm)

Why 1967? Because he is mistaken in his contention? Or is it that he is just someone else who began another passing of the torch that year? There could be a half-truth here--a mystery--that appropriately extends what is hidden here. Legends die hard. It is unlikely that Mr. Porpora's "confession" will end the Occult nature of this story, nor should it. Life should have some mysteries to it, and sometimes it is a necessary food for the human soul. We do not need to understand everything. The nature of things is to hide their nature.

If thine eye offends thee... : http://www.examiner.com/a-881772~Poe_historian__I_started__toasting__tradition.html

August 16th, 1977: The Day Elvis Died

South Bend, Indiana--It was a really hot day that day. We were all outside playing, dreading the return to school that month. The last year had been extremely violent, especially just walking to Edison grade school. The sky had a real amber-hue to it, and my brother and I were outside in our front-yard playing. I was nine, and he was seven.

We were cute kids, but our neighborhood was an unusually troubled one. Next-door, there lived a woman who was literally insane, a drug-addict (cocaine and pills), a child-abuser, an alcoholic, and she was fucking someone in the prosecutor's office, so when she threw a lawn boulder through one of our living-room windows, there was no recourse whatsoever.

The story of this woman will have to wait for another time, it's so baroque. On that same day in a part of London, the Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones was doing his guitar-parts for "Never Mind the Bollocks," when one of the engineers in the studio stopped-in and told him that Elvis had died (he didn't care). My mother saw Elvis at Notre Dame University's Joyce ACC, where Frank Zappa and everyone else played, on that last tour. She loved it.

Did I say it was hot that fateful day in August of 1977? It was, it really was. We'd already been to the Museum of Natural History in Chicago to see the full-on King Tut exhibit--a once in a lifetime affair--and Star Wars was coming. Punk was already here at CBGB's (good riddance!)and Max's Kansas City (wish it was still around and relevant), but hardly anyone knew what it was in Northern Indiana at that time, nor cared.

It was the salad days of the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Styx (yeccch!), Supertramp (double-yechhh!), Billy Joel, Alan Parsons Project, Steely Dan (back again, still good!), Carol King, Queen, Pink Floyd, James Taylor, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and even Frank Zappa...it was another time altogether from today, but familiar in some ways. Elvis just seemed out-of-place by 1977. It was actually hard to understand his place anymore, and I guess he felt the same. In retrospect, it was a decade literally teeming with cultural innovations, a flipside to today where there are virtually none.

It's funny, but most of the music my brother and I listened to as kids were my mom's old 45s. They were great, and in 1977, music was expensive and scarce compared to now. Obviously, there was no internet, no world wide web. People kinda still lived in a regional sense, in a kind of cultural isolation, and you might never even hear of a cultural movement until it had been over for at least seven years. We had time to let our imaginations run wild, we didn't have to be told what to see, hear, or even think. It was cool. In that sense, we lived in an Edenic paradise that children in the modern world may never experience again (unless order breaks-down as I expect it to, then it might), and our minds were allowed to roam free as a child's should--at least outside of school.

But what was so special about our experiences that day? The crazy, stupid rednecks who lived diagonally to our house at Whitehall Drive: They were the first to have a VCR, but needed to shave their knuckles so as not to alarm us city folks. The father had the personality of a potato chip and worked in a paint-factory. Both parents left guns lying around in their bedroom, including a .44 revolver, which was pointed at me by the son (the youngest). They all definitely looked like inbreeders and could barely talk, let alone read very well, and they worshiped Elvis as a god. I think they were from Kentucky, which was unsurprising, and had a kitsch museum that they called home.

The rednecks had entire photo albums the factory dog father had made, all from before Elvis went into the Army until the seventies. Some were faded-Polaroids, some were from negatives, but most were in color, and most were pretty impressive. I should say here that I love Elvis's earliest recordings with Sam Phillips and the Sun Records label, as well as his early-singles with RCA ("Hound Dog" is still one of the heaviest rock songs ever).

Hey, I even love "Suspicious Minds," a later single from the "fallow years." Never, ever, recite the lyrics to this song to a schizophrenic. Read the lyrics, and you'll know why. Oddly, they could easily describe the King's life at that time, as well as life in America in 1969-70. Or now.

What happened that day? We're sitting outside on the edge of our lawn, right up on the curb. Broken-glass is all over the street in-front our house from Coke (TM) bottles, because we used to break them all the time there. We also used to have water and snowball/iceball fights a lot, but that's for another time, heh-heh. What did we hear that day?

This is what we heard: wailing and screeching--much like that of Muslim or Sicilian women at a funeral--that began emanating from the redneck house. It was really loud, then--all of a sudden, the fat brunette daughter came running-out screaming, and so did the other kids. I never saw the parents' reactions to the death of Elvis, but there wasn't much activity over there for awhile, it was really quiet. I assumed they were all in-mourning. We laughed really hard at the kids as they came outside squealing, it was pretty funny and ridiculous. Again, keep-in-mind that we loved Elvis too.

The reactions were similar throughout the USA that week, it was bizarre, and thus, the Cult of the Dead Elvis was born. Ever since then, I have wished they would all shut-up. For that reason alone, I wish he was alive, and his death at 42 was certainly untimely. If you want a real headstone for rock's demise, one could argue it was the day Elvis died, with some minor-footnotes of relevance afterward.

As a genuine cultural movement, created and played-by ordinary people for other ordinary people, rock has been dead in America ever since. The pockets are all that have ever mattered, not the mainstream. Rock was barely alive then. I miss Elvis. I wish he hadn't died in the state that he was in (Tennessee). "Train arrived, sixteen coaches long, ...Well, that long black train take my baby and gone." My baby's gone. The real Elvis is the lonely Elvis, the ponderous young man who yearned for a better life. How many whites listened to "Worried Man Blues"--the genesis of "Mystery Train"--in those days? It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.

I wish he'd made more of the 68' comeback, fired "the Memphis Mafia," Colonel Parker (really Mephistopheles to Elvis's Faust), and the idiot doctor who was prescribing him those pills that killed him. But that's not how things worked-out, and it's sad. What's sadder is that Elvis proved the American Dream is a lie, that fame is a hell of being constantly bothered, ripped-off, and misunderstood, and that all those rednecks are dreaming of something that never existed for more than a few-years.

Rockabilly rode a wave of Cold War fears, angst, and sexual-repression. It made a struggling redneck trucker a star, and it also ruined his life. On that hot August day--30-years-ago--we had a good laugh at the expense of the neighborhood rednecks--we loved Elvis too, but they made it into something more than it all was: a religion, and that's what it soon became, and what the Cult of the Dead Elvis still is today. Rock is a pathetic outgrowth of the American Dream, and it's a lie. Elvis, RIP (if you can).

At least my brother and I had a good laugh that day. We wouldn't be laughing the next year--in November--when Jonestown hit.

A Spirited Conversation with author William Keisling Part II of II

"It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading some French memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle accidentally poisoned: The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you with impertinent details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bedroom candle-stand, a wax-light of my own making, for the one which I there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the coroner's verdict was, 'Death by the visitation of God.'" --Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Imp of the Perverse,' 1845.

 

The murder of Jonathan P. Luna is a sprawling case involving municipal, federal, and organized crime entities. It also reaches into the politics of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and without Bill Keisling's book, "The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna," we wouldn't know many of the problems with the government's story. Like the night ride of Paul Revere, Jonathan P. Luna is still warning us of the approaching threat...from his grave. We only need listen to hear his warning. He might be telling us where Special Agent Steven Skinner was that night.

Like the horror of a tale by Edgar Allan Poe, the murder was committed with extreme malice and some forethought. Whoever murdered assistant U.S. attorney Jonathan Luna in the first-days of December back in 2003 is still free, running around. A vicious murderer is free. Perhaps they're still murdering others out there as I write this, roaming the streets of Baltimore, and the mafia environs of Pennsylvania. In our second installment of this conversation, Mr. Keisling and I hit on a number of interesting themes related to the murder of Luna, as well as its cultural context.

One needn't wonder why modern horror arose in America when considering such crimes as the immolation of the Dawson family in Baltimore, or the discovery of the mutilated-corpse of Jonathan Luna, face down in a Pennsylvania stream, states-away from his office and home. Central to all of this is the trial of Walter Poindexter and Deon Smith, proprietors of Stash House records, and known heroin dealers. It was known during the trial of the two (on completely unrelated drug charges) by the U.S. attorney's office under Thomas DiBiagio, that Poindexter had likely murdered one Alvin Jones.

Special Agent Steve Skinner surely knew this was a fact, as the crime was drug-related, and required prosecution under federal law. This was Luna's stance, and no deals of immunity or skirting the crime in the trial were acceptable to the assistant U.S. attorney. Where was the "Safe Streets Task Force" when the Dawsons were calling 911? Watching Stash House's Poindexter and Smith, and chasing their informant Warren Grace around. Why weren't the Dawsons' 36 calls forwarded to the federal task force? There are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding all of these events in Baltimore during the period surrounding the murders in Baltimore and Pennsylvania.

Matt Janovic: Does anybody know what the whereabouts of Special Agent Steve Skinner were on the night [and morning] of Luna's murder?

Bill Keisling: I think that's an important question. ...With a murder, you want to know [where everybody was]. Usually, a murder is a very simple crime with people right there, having committed it. You know, for example, a shooting at a Burger King or a dry cleaner's--you want to know who was there, what was everybody's alibi is, and so that's we have to do that with this case. ...

Matt Janovic: So this hasn't been adequately addressed by any investigation?

Bill Keisling: No, and what I'm trying to do is point people's attention to that very question. The family and the public needs to know where everybody was, and it's just unacceptable not to tell us. You know, again, if this was your family member you'd have a right to know where everybody was. ...You know what? We're going to find it out.

Matt Janovic: So, we don't even know where [informant] Warren Grace was that night, do we?

Bill Keisling: Well, a read of the records says that he was being ferried back-and-forth by agent Skinner and [Baltimore PD] Detective Tom Moody of the quote, unquote "Safe Streets Task Force"[to a Philadelphia jail]. And attorney Ravenell--one of the defense attorneys [for Smith & Poindexter]--wanted Skinner and Moody (this is the last day of Luna's life) to be removed from that duty. They wanted U.S. Marshals to be doing it. Where Grace was being kept was the Philadelphia Detention Center, away from Baltimore while he testified. And the presumption is that they were taking him back-and-forth to Philadelphia before-and-after the trial--that is when they weren't taking him for conjugal visits, and God knows what else...to Disneyland to do heroin... So, here you have Luna driving halfway to Philadelphia that night. Draw your own conclusions.

Matt Janovic: I noticed that, that in the [official] timeline his car avoids Philadelphia at some point.

Bill Keisling: It's like it's driving around Philadelphia--somebody doesn't want to be seen. ...Again, draw your own conclusion.

Matt Janovic: One of the things that I found very interesting in your book was that Special Agent Skinner seemed to know quite a bit about Luna's being in trouble, or subdued, on the day of his no-show at the Poindexter/Smith trial...

Bill Keisling: ...And that's a very important point. In the very last chapter of the book, called "No Man, No Problem," the court records of that are the most remarkable things I have ever read. It's [also] one of the best things I've ever written. There are a couple things: here they're saying that Luna didn't want to do this case. He says the plea deal is unlawful"because Poindexter has committed this drug-related murder [of Alvin Jones]. He says it's unlawful--repeatedly. [laughs] There are all-kinds of meetings and everything else.

The two really important things that happen on that day while Luna's laying face-dead in the stream: they're [federal attorneys and the FBI] up in his office trying to get that plea deal pasted together--so that's called a crime scene, they're violating the crime scene. This would be akin to if you or I and people we knew were in an office and one of their people goes missing. They would know, if they're up in the office, fooling around with those records, that they're going to be in trouble. Well, I think the Justice Department is in trouble, they violated that crime scene, and they're pretending not to know what a crime scene is. First point.

The second point is: as you point out, they're mysteriously telling the judge, "Oh, we're concerned about Luna," while they're up in his office doing this stuff. So, on the one-hand, they're pretending not to know that it's a crime scene, while on the other hand they're running around saying, "Oh, we've got to look for him, we're worried about him," when, as you know, the day before, Luna was late. I made the point that he could have been out skylarking, getting a cup of coffee. They're acting in a very strange way.

Matt Janovic: Has Skinner ever explained his behavior and this air of foreknowledge?

Bill Keisling: No, and we need to have congressional and public hearings about that.

Matt Janovic: One person who seemed to be prominent in the book [Midnight Ride] was the court stenographer. He seemed to be more concerned about the facts surrounding Luna's murder than the FBI.

Bill Keisling: Well, he liked Luna! That's the whole point: that everybody liked Luna, except these goons in the FBI. Who then put out this crap--these blatant falsehoods--to destroy his character [after his murder]. In New York City, we just had two policemen murdered in the line of duty, and you don't hear--I don't know of any other case where you have someone in law enforcement go down, and you have people putting-out what a bad guy he was....except in Luna's case.

Matt Janovic: ...Do you think that a part of Baltimore's problems emanate from organized crime domains in Pennsylvania?

Bill Keisling: Oh certainly. Historically, Baltimore was always a pick-up area between New York, Jersey, Philadelphia, and Pa. mobsters. They always have their own home grown stuff, but it was always fought over. One of the things that's documented in the book is where there's Justice Department figures that there are 50-60 thousand heroin addicts within Baltimore, and another 50-60 thousand addicts in the outlying areas. So, you have around 120,000 heroin addicts, and you do the math...that's a billion dollar industry [per-year].

Matt Janovic: It's massive.

Bill Keisling: It's massive, and obviously it's [the] mob, and obviously for it to continue, it's police corruption.

Matt Janovic: Yeah, it couldn't continue any other way.

Bill Keisling: Again, look at the Warren Grace case. You have an informant dealing heroin, and they know it. They catch him with heroin the same day the Dawson house [burned-down].

Matt Janovic: Do you think that that they [the Baltimore FBI and U.S. attorneys office] were concerned about that serendipitous moment?

Bill Keisling: I think it's what I say in the book--normally, this stuff goes on all the time. The Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post are in the tank, nobody cares, so they figure, "Who's going to give-a-hang?" And what happened when the Dawson house burned down is that suddenly a lot of people cared. Luna was left holding the bag, and he couldn't have liked it. He grew up in that sort of an environment, he wanted to help people like that, and instead he sees that he works with people who are dealing heroin that are protecting perpetrators.

Matt Janovic: I can't imagine he would have done nothing about it.

Bill Keisling: I can imagine that there could be U.S. attorneys and assistants who don't care about that sort of thing. But it seems from Luna's victimology, that he would be the one who would be most likely to care about that sort of thing.

Matt Janovic: Right, he had direct experience with it [drug-related crime] in his childhood [in the Bronx].

Bill Keisling: Yeah, and I find it impossible to believe that Jonathan wouldn't care about that. And again, in the book, his friend Dan Rivera says [paraphrase], "Did you stop to think that all the loopy-things he's doing during the trial were intentionally to get the judge to order an investigation of Skinner?" ...

Matt Janovic: During your investigations, were you ever threatened?

Bill Keisling: Ohhhhh, just by family members who wanted me to do other things! ...My mentality has always been that, I 'd really rather write novels and that I'll probably get back to it. I just think that there's a role in society for writers to write about these things, and we have to do it. I've always been afraid of what happens when people don't do this. ...

Matt Janovic: Why do you think the FBI wanted to take-down Stash House records so badly, and allow an informant like Warren Grace to run around terrorizing his neighbors and deal drugs?

Bill Keisling: Well, the book gets into that. The court reporter makes the point that, here they have 100 hours of [surveillance] tape--this isn't 'Gone With the Wind.' ...You need 40 seconds of tape to have somebody taking the drugs and exchanging money for it, case closed. ...Here's what the public should understand: at the very time that the Dawsons were trying to get help (before they burned alive with their kids), the FBI's Safe Streets Task Force was trying to take over a rap music studio. That's what they were busy doing--dealing heroin and trying to take over a rap music studio...

Matt Janovic: But couldn't that have been [U.S. attorney Thomas] Dibiagio's fault?

Bill Keisling: Although he's in-charge, if you get into the history of the FBI, these guys pretty much do what they want. Relations [between the Baltimore U.S. attorneys' office and] with the Bureau weren't all that good. The point is, when the Dawson's home burned down, you have this guy who did it--Darrell Brooks--[and] you have DiBiagio coming-out saying this drug punk's going to be put away forever, but he doesn't mention the drug punks he's responsible for. I think they thought Smith and Poindexter would flip, that the FBI would be controlling Stash House records, and I think it was almost cynical and funny to them that you would have all these young rappers coming in and rapping their crimes into the FBI's microphone.

Matt Janovic: So, would they have just kept running it [Stash House records] as a business, as a front for years and years?

Bill Keisling: That's a good question, and I think the record shows that that's what happens.

Matt Janovic: ...I suppose this is getting into really arcane federal statutues, but what if they ran-a-profit?

Bill Keisling: [agreeing] What if they put-out good records? [laughter all-around]

Matt Janovic: What if they had a hit?

Bill Keisling: [laughing] I don't know Matt! [a hilarious conversation on "mother-approved" pornography ensues, as well as the bizarreness of what government-approved rap might be] ...the whole thing was incompetent: Skinner, Moody, the Safe Streets Task Force, the death of the Dawsons was an atrocity--the public should understand that family burned to death because these guys were dealing heroin, they didn't want to answer the phone, and they were trying to take over a rap music studio. What was going on, and what wasn't going-on?

Matt Janovic: One gets the feeling when reading 'The Midnight Ride of Jonathan Luna," that either not much has changed since Edgar Allan Poe lived there [Baltimore], or that things have come full-circle. Which do think might be the case?

Bill Keisling: Oh, I kinda like your idea that not much has changed. In the Poe case, actually he was found dying just a few-blocks away from that federal courthouse. Now the best guess is that he was a victim of a practice called "cooping" where you would take unsuspecting people and give them liquor and put different clothes on them and march them around to the polling places. The polling place bar where he was found outside of, a week-or-so before (he couldn't have known), but it was charged that that practice was going on there. It was a sheriff's election. I think Edgar Allan Poe might be the most important writer America has produced.

Matt Janovic: Absolutely. I have to ask a question [relating to the case of] Ms. Palfrey. It's interesting that in both cases--that of [former Baltimore Police Commissioner] Ed Norris and Ms. Palfrey, that you have involvement of the IRS, harrassment of said defendent's families, use of "cooperating witnesses" (or "confidential informants")--but in Palfrey's case, FBI investigators are curiously absent. Why do you think that is?

Bill Keisling: I'm sure they're busy doing other things, huh? What I say in [Midnight Ride] is that you don't often see the FBI's fingerprints, they're more like little traces. You know what I mean?

Matt Janovic: Their role can sometimes be submerged.

Bill Keisling: Right. You can see little traces of it, almost like Luna's EZ pass. You see these little clues, and I think that's the way they like it.

Matt Janovic: What do you think is the significance of this new development with Luna's father contacting the Lancaster [Pennsylvania] county coroner?

Bill Keisling: Well I think his father has the right to that, and what happened here was this gadfly went and filed on his own behalf saying he was representing the friends and family, and it gave the courts the excuse to shut everybody out. But that said, I interviewed the undertaker, and I know what the wounds were, and they're pretty horrific. I think that there's disinformation that they put out--suicide, bogus information about Luna's alleged personal life...you put out stuff like that to distract people from what they should be looking at; and what we should be looking at is the Safe Streets Task Force, Skinner and Moody, their handling of Warren Grace, the deaths of the Dawsons--I think that's where we need to be turning our attention.

Now, where it really ties-in with Palfrey is, that in Pennsylvania, in a murder case, you don't release the autopsy report because you want to have information there that only the perpetrator would know about. So, it's a tool for law enforcement to keep certain cards close to the vest, so that you can identify the true perpetrator who would have information about this. That said, what's in-common between this case and Palfrey's is, the Justice Department isn't acting in good faith--as we saw with Vitter and Tobias--they're actually concealing law-breaking with their actions, and that's unacceptable. ...The public can take the truth, the public is smart [enough]. 

Part I:

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2007/07/spirited-conversation-with-author_30.html

End of Part II

Statement of intellectual ownership: All content in this interview (and all content on this site produced by the Editor), and its subsequent part are the intellectual property of Matt Janovic, sole proprietor of this website. Quotations of more than four lines requires written permission from the author.

A contention I still assert is true...

I haven't smoked since college (and Toronto), but: Nobody ever got laid at a party by whipping out a bag of pot in a room full of women. Never. Not ever. It wasn't over the pot if someone did. Never. Ever. Not. Perhaps women sometimes use cocaine as an anti-depressant because they have a different body chemistry than men do, or perhaps they're attracted to using it for the same reasons that "every girl loves a badass," I dunno. I don't care.

I followed Jack Herer for a week in 1990, and I never saw it. I never saw it in college. I never saw it, Sam I am, not even on-the-lam. But my contention is largely true. There it is. Always never (never always). None. Never. Ever. Not.

Superb Jeane Palfrey intervew at Radical Vixen's site!

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