Bank of America should still worry about Wikileaks...

I've been reading more than a few of the Stratfor emails that were published by Wikileaks beginning February 27th, and in going through them I noticed something of minor interest. In fact, it's something everyone expected. One of the earliest batches of the 5 million emails from the private intelligence firm contains a couple of client lists. I was pretty excited--it's not a big deal in itself--and immediately wondered "Is BoA in there somewhere?" and in fact they were, right up at the top of a client list, prioritized.

This isn't news of course--we know about this association between Stratfor and BoA from the December hacks by the Anonymous group and other sources. While the private intelligence firm hasn't confirmed it in the past it seems that BoA did contract Stratfor to investigate and disrupt Wikileaks. Five million emails is a lot of correspondence, so we shall see how deep the association goes, maybe eve evidence of criminal activities.

Assange has said that there are approximately 4,000 internal emails about or related to Wikileaks out of the entire batch.  Karl Domscheit-Berg destroyed the 5GB BoA file on an unknown date (this is assuming he did since his stories vary), but we might learn far more about the biggest American bank just yet. The Stratfor files seem to amount to 65GB, mentioned in an earlier post on here, without a key. This could get interesting.

Postscript: When you look in the internal emails at how Stratfor was also sponging one set of clients for inside information, then selling it to another set of clients ("Robbing Peter to pay Paul"), what you have is an intelligence/information brokering version of a Ponzi scheme. Boy, are they in trouble.

Is Wikileaks under serious online attack lately?

At 2:06 PM EST, this was posted on Wikileaks' Twitter account: "Please bittorrent Wikileaks Insurance release 2012-02-22 (65GB) wlstorage.net/torrent/wikile…

A comment below it from a French Twitter member ("m4de") states: "torrent file is offline..."

The link is code, computer language. Have fun.

 02-23-2012 Addendum: I've been told that the link now contains the 65GB file without a key. What did I download within the first six hours the above Twitter post (w. link) was up? This must be a backup archive. There doesn't seem to be any definitive answer here. The main site's been under cyberattack for some time. 65 GB sounds like everything from the Wikileaks site, the State Dept. cable inclusive.

An interesting analog in the age of digital hacking

Ed.--A recent spate of cyberattacks on Google's Gmail system (originating in China) reminded me of a some similar techniques employed against Deborah Jeane Palfrey (the DC Madam), perhaps by the United States Government or non-governmental actors--contractors of one variety or another. The Chinese attacks ensnared several hundred individuals, some of them high level American government officials, presumably some working for the State Department.

Some whose Gmail accounts were breached were American military personnel as well as a few Chinese dissidents, perhaps included as a diversion or as overlap from other hacking operations originating from the same actors. Whoever they were, they were looking for specific types of people doing specific types of work for the U.S. Government; specific individuals were targeted for hacking.

Do no evil?

Google routinely cooperates with the America national security state, so it's no surprise that they've been targeted by other nations using third party actors to provide a kind of plausible deniability. In the case of the recent attack on Google, it's safe to assume that the encouragement of non-governmental actors was formulated to prevent accountability being directed at the regime in Beijing, a fair assumption. Does the U.S. do this? Certainly--one could argue that we pioneered its use--and some of this echoes the very real world attacks on American soil on September 11, 2001, ushering in a newer form of mercenary where attacks by one state against another are done indirectly by proxy, "non-governmental" agents.

21st Century Brigands?

This is perhaps going to be the Golden Age of the mercenary, with further tech-enhancements.

Mercenary hackers aren't new, but the scale of their activities is growing rapidly. Information warfare itself is an old tactic of political entities, and nation states like the United States or even Turkey are engaged in it all of the time.

...Google said Wednesday that personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists, had been exposed. Google traced the origin of the attacks to Jinan, China, the home city of a military vocational school whose computers were linked to a more sophisticated assault 17 months ago on Google's systems." ... ("US says no... ," AP, June 2, 2011)

Most modern nation states are engaging in it at some stage, but like the use of drones in recent conflicts, it remains unofficial policy, often mislabeled as "conspiracy." Cyberwarfare isn't new, but the widening scope of its use by state and "rogue" (using the term without any value judgment) actors is.

The Palfrey defense was under surveillance, period, it's inarguable and I bore witness to it directly. Some will say that it was for legitimate purposes of the enforcement of the law, but how then would any defendant get a fair trial under such scrutiny? What's arguable is who it might have been which one could speculate on endlessly with such a muddied trail. That's how it goes with hacking and cyberattacks, but with enough persistence and even some luck the origins of a hit can sometimes be uncovered. The key is to erase as much of a trail leading to the originator of the attack as possible and it's not rocket science, but not so prevalent or as easy in the stone age days of the Internent back in the fall of 1998 when the madam's account was hacked.

Even at the time what they did wasn't especially sophisticated, but the average Internet user wouldn't have known how to do the breach and what followed from it.

Just shy of ten years later I had a productive exchange with a former attorney of the DC Madam's about the breaching of the her email account:

Jeane and I searched and searched and finally traced the insertion of a email forwarding address in her earthlink account to a Yahoo.uk email address. When I took it up with yahoo.uk, they had no answer how anyone had hacked into Jeane's account and could not identify the owner of the yahoo.uk email account as it was to a string of fictious email accounts. (Correspondence with the Editor, August 2008)

This was to be expected whether it was a state actor or not. It's a very good possibility that this was a former client of Pamela Martin & Associates, but that could just as well mean the arrow points to the state as well as contractors.

What raised a few flags this week for me came from this passage in an AP article on the recent breaches in Google's Gmail infrastructure that compromised some of the personal email accounts of a few high level American officials.

The modus operandi is similar if not identical to the breaches in the DC Madam's Sprynet email account back in 1998:

...While Google said last year's attack was aimed at its corporate infrastructure, the latest incident appears to have relied on tricking email users into revealing passwords, based on Google's description in its blog post.

It said the perpetrators changed the victims' email forwarding settings, presumably secretly sending the victims' personal emails to other recipients. ... ("Google reveals... ," Reuters, June 2, 2011 )

The final sentence is exactly what happened to the DC Madam's email account sometime in October 1998.

It's almost become a cliche that intelligence agencies (and similar institutions and groups) can and have used primitive forms of hacking as a cover for the activities against various actionable targets. Perhaps one day we'll find through declassifications that a government contractor created all of those phony email accounts when Palfrey began to become a "person of interest" to whoever hacked her account and changed her forwarding settings, intercepting all of her emails going in and out (I know from experience as I was receiving bouncebacks once the phony account had been closed). Most likely, she was beginning to become a liability to a privileged former client...but the truth of the case is elusive as ever.

"US says no official email hacked; FBI on case," AP, June 2, 2011): http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20110602/39b5ae26-4471-4ea8-b6c5-afbde96ef979

"Google reveals Gmail hacking, says likely from China," Reuters, June 2, 2011: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_google

Songs from the Site Meter: All roads lead to San Diego III - The Return of the Return of Qualcomm...

San Diego, Cal-i-forn-ia--I have no idea why they're back. It couldn't be over an ethics investigation into them since Congress is so hopelessly corrupt right now, so maybe they were bored. Check the label "Qualcomm" for more and for contextual links. There's a very weird connection that I stumbled upon to the DC Madam scandal thanks to them and others coming around. Oh sure, they were just coming around the mountain to read my satire, all in my head, look into the mirror and repeat after me...

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From September 9, 2009...

This one's very interesting and had me perplexed until I realized that Qualcomm and SAIC are frequently mentioned in the same breath as government contractors.

Here's the score: SAIC has been around before reading about the DC Madam scandal and what I've been posting and writing, and now Qualcomm's doing likewise, snooping around. The other commonality? San Diego, that point-of-intersection that kept cropping-up again and again during the scandal and in my own research into it. San Diego was also where Jeffrey A. Taylor served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1995-1999, possibly where he became familiar with other players involved in the DC Madam scandal. People like Brent R. Wilkes, convicted briber of former California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now sitting in the federal pen where the majority of politicians in America belong.

Unsurprisingly, Taylor connects the megafirm of Ernst & Young to Qualcomm since many of its founders and past executive partners have gone on to Qualcomm, almost an interlocking-network of the same names. Keep in mind that I discovered these connections very casually, thanks to whomever this reader was. Interestingly, Taylor is going to be doing the same kind of work as the peculiar Sam Deskin at his new job:

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor will join Ernst & Young as the Americas leader of the Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services area, the Blog of the Legal Times reports. Taylor announced his resignation today, effective tomorrow, and will reportedly join Ernst & Young’s Washington, D.C. office next month. (Securities Docket, 05.28.2009)

The question that I have is: why would someone at Qualcomm want to do a search on Montgomery Blair Sibley, Palfrey's former counsel who was fired at the 11th hour by his client? Who exactly persuaded her to do this? My money's on Preston Burton and Federal Judge James Robertson, but that doesn't mean others weren't involved in this.

Say what you want, but I would have loved seeing the circus that would have come out of his defense and would have applauded it. But no, journalists seem to fixate on things like kilts, small offices on K Street, acrimonious divorce proceedings, but nothing to do with the former clients they allowed to get off scot free. Pathetic, but one of numerous reasons why I couldn't care less that the newspapers are dying. Another final question for the day: has Mr. Deskin ever communicated with Jeffrey A. Taylor either personally or professionally? I'd really like to know. Sammala? Jeff? And what of Mr. Burton and his gigantic firm, Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe? Do they all know each other? I wouldn't be surprised...

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Jeffrey A. Taylor: Curiouser and curiouser...

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS178428+28-May-2009+PRN20090528

http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/05/28/us-attorney-jeff-taylor-in-dc-resigns/

http://www.securitiesdocket.com/2009/05/28/us-attorney-jeffrey-taylor-to-join-ernst-young-in-dc/

Qualcomm, meet Ernst & Young, together again and again (and again): http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Qualcomm+Ernst+%26+Young&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&fp=a52f6f39e4c8144b

Songs from the Site Meter: The return of the Sergeant at arms of the Senate over Sen. Kyl and Freemasons!

Site Meter--An interesting search, they must have a new witch-hunt planned to remove all secular humanists from government. ;0) Oh yeah, Qualcomm's back around, this time they Googled the name of this blog, so we're familiar now. Poor bastards have to run Windows on a Mac. Damn you Bill Gates.

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What is the extraordinary nature of the Blagojevich scandal?

"I can't wait to begin to tell my side of the story and to address you guys and, most importantly, the people of Illinois. That's who I'm dying to talk to."--Standing Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Chicago, Illinois--These are truly momentous times, a real threshold moment in American history. The Illinois Supreme Court's rejection of state Attorney General Lisa Madigan's filing to remove standing Governor Rod Blagojevich is a stunning example of a political and economic order on the ropes. It raises the specter of a power-vacuum and the continuation of a vicious Machiavellianism at the heart of American politics. In other words, intrigue.

Is that what's happening in the Blagojevich scandal? It wouldn't surprise anyone except maybe a High School teacher, the last to know what's going on at City Hall.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's case that the Governor attempted to "sell" Barack Obama's senate seat and did so actively in what he's called a "corruption crime spree" looks good on paper, it's convincing, but his outrage over things like how many times and permutations Blagojevich said "fuck" smacks of character attack and over-zealousness. Welcome to Chicago, Pat.

Coming from the Chicago U.S. Attorney, you'd be led to believe that Blagojevich was Rasputin and that his downfall was virtually inevitable based on the evidence he claims to have on him. Fitzgerald made similarly broad claims with the Plame case, winning a minor conviction on I. "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney which was quickly commuted by President Bush. Go team (boo team, you lost, you promised more than you could deliver).

Genson said it would be "frankly illegal" for the committee to base an impeachment recommendation on the criminal complaint against Blagojevich. The complaint doesn't provide full conversations and context, he said, and it can't be cross-examined like a witness.

Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, challenged Genson to have Blagojevich testify.

"If we want the facts, we should have your client here. If you want to get to the facts, let's bring him here, let's ask the questions," Franks said. ("Attorney: Ill. governor won't fill senate vacancy," AP, 12.17.2008)

The federal investigation appears solid on the surface, but did Blagojevich and others close to him really take affirmative steps towards the completion of a crime? Why the rush to judgment? Did they (Blagojevich and others) technically break the law merely by talking about something but not taking any substantial actions towards completion? Is this a case of wishful thinking?

Blagojevich could have a very good case here. His counsel, Ed Genson, has raised some very good points because there's a strong possibility that no substantial steps were taken towards completion of the crime, just a lot of [expletive deleted] talk.

Context is everything in a criminal case (let alone a political one), and we have yet to see it in the release of the wiretaps. What were the comments before-and-after the ones released by the U.S. Attorney's Chicago office? What other evidence is there? Is the investigation near completion? Is the Governor still being wiretapped? What role did informants play in this, like Jess Jackson Jr.? Is Blagojevich's counsel currently being wiretapped? Since the investigation is not currently over, on what legal grounds should anyone claim the right to remove the Governor?

These are just a few of the questions that should be addressed by the prosecution, the GOP, the DNC, the Obama campaign, and Blagojevich's detractors in the Illinois State House and Senate, and within his own office.

These people need to state their case clearly, the onus being on them in our legal system. At this writing, Blagojevich's attorney has announced that the Governor will not name Barack Obama's successor in the senate, answering at least one question in this whole mess.

This chaos and loss of faith in icons of authority and power all reminds one of the last days of Tsarist Russia. I can hardly wait to hear what the Governor has to say in his defense, I'm dying too Rod. Will it include revelations about someone who arouses just as many suspicions of corruption, one Rahm Emanuel?

U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald might discover that Blagojevich and Emanuel share a similar vocabulary, both politically and linguistically. He had better hope he's right, but procedure that gives deference to government investigators and prosecutors could shield him if this is so. Whatever happened to due process?

For Heaven's SAIC: Hey, the site's more searchable!

Site Meter--They're baaaaaaaaaack, and over Ronnie Rocket.

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And (by-way of Congress, as they technically run D.C.)... Domain Name (Unknown) IP Address 164.82.146.# (Government of the District of Columbia) ISP Government of the District of Columbia Location Continent : North America Country : United States (Facts) State : District of Columbia City : Washington Lat/Long : 38.9097, -77.0231 (Map) Language English (U.S.) en-us Operating System Microsoft WinXP Browser Internet Explorer 6.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) Javascript version 1.3 Monitor Resolution : 1280 x 1024 Color Depth : 32 bits Time of Visit Sep 4 2008 12:10:28 am Last Page View Sep 4 2008 12:10:28 am Visit Length 0 seconds Page Views 1 Referring URL http://www.google.co...mell.blogspot.com%2F Search Engine google.com Search Words chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/ Visit Entry Page http://chickasawpick...esmell.blogspot.com/ Visit Exit Page http://chickasawpick...esmell.blogspot.com/ Out Click Time Zone UTC-5:00 Visitor's Time Sep 3 2008 12:10:28 pm Visit Number 40,738

Songs from the Site Meter: The DOJ Returns to Read on D.C. Interim-Appointed US Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor

Washington D.C.--This is interesting, and they did a long read, and from Washington D.C., rather than from Potomac, Maryland as they often do. I'd imagine this is some of the brass reading. Strange, because they've read this article before. I guess they wanted to see if it was still up. Uh, yep.

To Mr. Taylor: if Barack Obama wins the presidential election, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. And get a lawyer, you're probably going to need one...or not.

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Independent congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan being surveilled at Denver DNC convention?

Denver, Colorado--This is being reported primarily at OpEd News (OEN). Cindy Sheehan is claiming to have confronted an individual who claimed to be repairing the phone in her Hotel room. True? I doubt she's lying. Considering that the new FISA revisions recently passed make domestic surveillance of American citizens legal, it wouldn't be much of a surprise.

But would they--whoever "they" are--even need to come into her room to do this? Perhaps we have a case of bugging a room for information gathering purposes. If true, who was he working for? Mrs. Sheehan has been sending this account our in mass-e-mailings:

"As I walked toward my room, I noticed that the door was opened with the security bolt blocking the complete closing of the door. I knew immediately that I had not left the door open, and I double checked to make sure it was the right room because, as a frequent traveler, I have been known to forget my room number, but it was the right room.

I was upset at first thinking that housekeeping had made a mistake and left my room open and I was worried that something might be missing. So I walked into my room and bigger than life, there was a man standing by my desk holding the room phone with a screwdriver in his hand!

I immediately said; "What the hell are you doing? Are you putting a bug on my phone?" He looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and stammered out: "N--no, we are having problems with the phone." I told him to get out of my room because my phone was fine and I called the front desk and the person at the front desk stammered something out about "problems" with some of the phones.

This room was reserved soon after we got to Denver last night because the room we had was inadequate for 3 people. The room was reserved under my campaign manager's name with a CFC debit card. By the time we left for the march, it could have very well been ascertained that I was the one in this room, and the room we did reserve could be bugged, also. I am confident that that's what was happening when I walked in on the "maintenance" man" (Cindy Sheehan Bugged in Denver," OEN, 08.25.2008)

Whatever was really happening, it raises some serious questions. There is the possibility that the GOP's hand is in this cookie jar, potentially to smear the Democratic Party as being behind it. Candidate Sheehan should file a police report at the very least.

Sheehan is currently running against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her own congressional district. Considering all of the political campaign office break-ins last summer, Sheehan's assertions could be correct and troubling.

OEN (read the thread): http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cindy-Sheehan-Bugged-in-De-by-Rob-Kall-080825-412.html

The Jackals Who Drove Jeane Palfrey to Suicide Return to J-7 for a Long Read...

Site Meter--For the AUSAs and USAs (particularly Jeffrey A. Taylor): may this haunt you forever. I know that you have no moral compass, or why would you be in the positions you're in right now as Bush/Gonzales appointees? You and this criminal administration will be remembered forever as the scoundrels you are.

There are no names that would do justice to the animals that you are. Read-up, you're going to be doing a lot of it soon, it's going to be part of the permanent historical record. Readers: copy-away from this site and disseminate (primary materials only, the rest requires permission).

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Postscript, 08.23.2008: Keisling and I were corresponding at this time. Were we under surveillance? Was the Justice Department or other govt. entities reading our e-mails?

Does D.C. Have Her Own Salon Kittys? (Revised version, originally written in June of 2007)

Washington D.C./Nazi Germany--It's highly doubtful that Deborah Jeane Palfrey knew anything about the subterranean activities of some of her associates, but could some of them have been agent provocateurs or spies? Or, with the capabilities of current surveillance technology, would it even be necessary? Could elements within the government and the two major political parties run sexual blackmailing operations under the color of legitimate investigations? Could foreign agencies be using escort services for similar ends? There is smoke.

Time and technology have changed the West's social landscape in substantial respects since 1933-1945 , but some things never change. Generally speaking, only the technology changes. This is another age, and some political tactics never die because they're always going to be useful later-on, and sometimes they get results. Instant communication was once the sole domain of the State, but today, we all have cell phones, pagers, laptop computers, GPS locators, unparalleled surveillance capabilities, and toys like the Blackberry and the new iPhone. Things have changed in the "secret world" as well, though the full-extent of these technological developments are unknown.

On Salon Kitty:

Although brothels were officially outlawed by the Third Reich, the elite Nazi SS security police had been authorized by Himmler before the war to engage prostitutes in intelligence gathering. The infamous Salon Kitty in Berlin's Giebachstrasse [11] was the brainchild of the Deputy Reichsfuhrer SS, Reinhard Heydrich. The high-class brothel was set up to increase surveillance of foreign diplomats and visitors as well as to gather dossiers on the sexual indiscretions of Nazi party big-wigs and government guests [Ed.-my emphasis]. ... (pp. 241-242) (heretical.com, "Love, Sex and War," by John Costello From Chapter 12: 'Black Propaganda and Sexpionage')

But Nazi Germany was hardly the precedent of this approach--it's ubiquitous throughout human history in various incarnations. The story of Samson and Delilah comes-to-mind. "Honey traps" or "plots" are nothing new, and the examples are common in the secret world. Interestingly, "Operation Kitty" was an overall failure for the Nazis controlling the enterprise. It didn't provide the huge-swath of intelligence that its creator--Reinhard Heydrich of the SS--had wanted, just a lot of compromising smut on NSDAP party officials and lower-rung functionaries.

This was most useful against other "Gauleiters" in the National Socialist hierarchy. Heydrich likely used some of this information, though the extent is unknown. Heydrich was assassinated by Czech partisans in 1943, and had been an architect of the "final solution." Interestingly, it was an "open secret" amongst NSDAP functionaries who frequented Giebachstrasse 11 that all conversations were being recorded!

The Salon Kitty was a German SD (Gestapo) establishment in which, according to German spy chief Walter Schellenberg, "...important visitors from other countries could be 'entertained' in a discreet atmosphere and...offered seductive feminine companionship. In such an atmosphere the most rigid diplomat might be induced to unbend and reveal useful information." Salon Kitty was set up in a large multi-storied apartment structure in a fashionable district of Berlin. Today, it's another kind of shop. It is described in The Schellenberg Memoirs (1956):

["]Double walls were built for the incorporation of microphones. These were connected by automatic transmission to tape recorders which would record every word spoken throughout the house. Three of our department's technical experts, bound by oath, were put in charge of his apparatus. The ostensible owner of the house [Kitty Schmidt] was provided with the necessary domestic and catering staff for the establishment to be able to offer the best service, food, and drink.["] (Spy Tech Agency.com, 12.02.1999)

The brothel's madam--Kitty Schmidt--had no control over the arrangement, and was a virtual captive of the regime, just like everyone else under the rule of NSDAP. It's entirely possible we have an entire network of this sort in North America today, just with different contours. This leads us to the role of sexual blackmail in politics.

There have been quite few "retirements" at the Pentagon under the Bush administration, and under Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense, there was an intense struggle for control of the Pentagon's bureaucracy. Of course, it hasn't been isolated to the DoD under Bush and Cheney. One can safely assume that the officer class of the United States are amply represented in the D.C. Madam's phone records, especially considering the presence of several numbers originating from Annapolis, as well as most of the region surrounding Washington D.C. Hotels adjacent to the Pentagon are also present.

There is a possible analog here from the era of NSDAP. In 1938, Hitler was finalizing his consolidation of power, but there were a few loose ends in the officer corps of the Wehrmacht:

For Hitler, the moment had arrived to clean house, to replace the crusty old generals with younger men eager to serve their Führer and follow orders, regardless of the consequences. The two highest ranking officers in Germany at this time were hold-overs from the days of President Hindenburg; Field Marshal Werner [V]on Blomberg, the Commander in Chief of the German Armed Forces, and General Werner [V]on Fritsch, the Commander in Chief of the Army. These stiff-lipped men with their rigid codes of honor were about to be toppled by that most vile of all things from their point of view, personal scandals involving sex. (historyplace.com, "Hitler Becomes Army Commander," 2001)

For Blomberg, it would involve the fact that the elder Field Marshal married a "former-prostitute," conveniently found in Weimar police records by Herman Goering, the founder of the SD. Himmler also got in on the game. Thanks to this information, on January 25th, Hitler could finally force Blomberg's resignation. Finally, no one would stand in-his-way, and there would be war. For General Werner Von Fritsch, things would be worse than Blomberg's predicament. Much worse.

He would be blackmailed by an obscure account in Gestapo files that he had had an homosexual encounter in an alley in 1935, the same year that Hitler purged the SA (Brown shirts) in the "Night of Long-knives." In short, Fritsch was felled by a "confidential informant." At about that same time, Stalin was using similar methods in purging the Central Committee of the Communist Party, killing his prey outright...because he could.

The irony was, the informant who "outed" Fritsch (the notorious Hans Schmidt--no relation to Kitty) had the wrong man. It was an officer named "Frisch." It didn't matter to the blackmailers and state pimps: Hitler moved swiftly to remove Fritsch anyway. Sixteen other generals would be removed through various methods, but the downing of Blomberg and Fritsch was that crucial beginning of total control over the German Army by NSDAP. Ironically, a number of these generals would be brought back as the war deteriorated...

"Hitler Becomes Army Commander," 2001:
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-army.htm

"Love, Sex and War,":
http://www.heretical.com/costello/12sexspy.html

Spy Tech Agency, December 2nd, 1999:
http://216.87.7.9/Intel%20Bulletin/Intel%20Bulletin%20019991202.htm

The Missing-Thread in Coverage of the Spitzer Scandal

New York City--Soon-to-be former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, has a lot to be proud of and ashamed of. When he was New York State's Attorney General, he was busting many of the same shady lending and mortgage firms who were bailed-out by the fed and J.P. Morgan today. $200 billion was given in-loans to Bank of America (current owner of Countrywide, now under investigation), Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, and all the other sub-prime lenders--namely Bear-Stearns--who have run amok in a regulation-free environment thanks to the Bush administration looking the other way. But then along came state Attorney Generals like Spitzer.

Was the federal bust of Spitzer selective--was it payback for all the busts the former "Sheriff of Wall Street" made? We don't know this yet, but it's a possibility. The timing is very curious: just a few days before the bailout, we get the break in the Spitzer story and his name is thrust into-the-foreground.

What about the other clients identified in the investigation? If they're Republicans, we're not going to find-out anytime soon. Recall that Senator Vitter's presence on wiretaps of a 2001 investigation in New Orleans were suppressed for years by the Bush Justice Department. Then there were all the "mysterious" break-ins during 2007 at the campaign headquarters of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and the offices of Senator Christopher Dodd.

It's a real twilight time. But all that aside, one has to wonder if the newly-appointed Governor Paterson will be initiating any new investigations on Wall Street. Taking-down Spitzer surely had the aim of limiting them, underscoring the stupidity of his actions.

Historians are likely to be stunned at how selective most of the Justice Department investigations were under the Bush administration, and how Congress looked-aside when it was obvious for all to see. Funny how Americans are the last to know their own history. This aspect of the whole story is likely to be neglected into oblivion, down the memory hole, but the questions and suspicions are going to be there, forever. They'll just be classified until all the primary players are dead.

"National Security" will be the tired refrain, which in some respects is accurate: if Americans knew half of what's going-on under the color of authority, they might revolt. With all of the economic-woes created by this unprecedented era of corruption, it's unsurprising that both parties are alright about domestic surveillance--they might need it to survive our wrath when things have gotten so bad from their actions.

But if you look at how the exposure of Republican Senator David Vitter was handled and look at Spitzer's case, the Democratic governor's treatment certainly appears to be selective and blatantly partisan. This is not coming from a fan of the Democratic Party. Not only that, but it should be noted that the Spitzer case has a strange parallel with the blank inaction to impeach the vice president and president for far more heinous crimes. Calls for impeachment from the Republicans was resounding, while we can readily recall the sound of crickets on-their-part when it comes to their own.

Centrally, these would be war crimes, but the scope and depth of the Bush administration's overarching crimes are going to be marveled at for generations. Remember reading about slavery, or the Holocaust? Remember saying to yourself, "Were they stupid? Why did they put-up with that?!" Welcome to why not, your wondering is over. Have fun looking in the mirror tomorrow morning, then write, call, e-mail, and contact your representative and ask them what the hell they actually do there in Washington D.C. Better yet, if you have no ties to the establishment, why not run for office? Do what you do best.