Former IMF Economist: Major Banks to Fail, Expect Consolidation in Big I-Banks

Integrity Bank Becomes 10th U.S. Failure This Year

By Alison Vekshin and Ari Levy

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Integrity Bank of Alpharetta, Georgia, was closed by U.S. regulators today, the 10th bank to collapse this year amid a surge in soured real-estate loans stemming from the worst housing slump since the Great Depression.

Integrity Bank, with $1.1 billion in assets and $974 million in deposits, was shuttered by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Regions Financial Corp., Alabama's biggest bank, will assume all deposits from Integrity, which was run by Integrity Bancshares Inc. The failed bank's five offices will open on Sept. 2 as branches of Regions, the FDIC said.

``Depositors will continue to be insured with Regions Bank so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance,'' the FDIC said.

Banks are being closed at the fastest pace in 14 years as financial companies report more than $505 billion in writedowns and credit losses since 2007. California lender IndyMac Bancorp Inc., which had $32 billion in assets, was closed July 11 in the third-largest bank seizure, contributing to a 14 percent drop in the U.S. deposit insurance fund that had $45.2 billion at the end of the in the second quarter.

Regions will buy about $34.4 million in assets and will pay the FDIC a premium of 1.01 percent to assume the failed bank's deposits, the FDIC said. The FDIC estimates the cost of the Integrity failure to its deposit-insurance fund will be $250 million to $300 million.

Told to Raise Capital

Integrity was ordered by federal and state regulators in May to present a capital-raising plan within 60 days. At the time, the company had been trying without success for at least eight months to raise $40 million after loans to residential and commercial developers were hurt by the collapse of the real estate market.

``Banks must meet certain regulatory minimums to ensure safety and soundness,'' Georgia bank commissioner Rob Braswell said in a telephone interview. ``When those minimums are not able to be met and solvency is in jeopardy, we have no choice but to close the institution and to place it into receivership.''

Integrity Bancshares, which sold for more than $14 a share in January 2007, closed today at 4 cents in over-the-counter trading.

The FDIC insures deposits of up to $100,000 per depositor per bank, and up to $250,000 for some retirement accounts at 8,451 institutions with $13.3 trillion in assets.

`Problem' Banks

The FDIC this week said 117 banks are classified as ``problem'' in the second quarter, a 30 percent jump from the first quarter. The agency doesn't identify ``problem'' lenders.

``More banks will come on the list as credit problems worsen,'' FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said at an Aug. 26 Washington news conference.

The credit market turmoil may topple some of the nation's biggest banks, Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said in Singapore Aug. 19.

``Like any shrinking industries, we are going to see the exit of some major players,'' Rogoff told Bloomberg, declining to name the banks he expects to fail. ``We're really going to see a consolidation even among the major investment banks.''

Before today's action, the FDIC had closed 36 banks since October 2000, according to a list at fdic.gov. The U.S. shut 11 banks in 2002, the highest in the period. In 1994 the government had closed a dozen institutions by the end of August.

U.S. regulators this year also closed Columbian Bank and Trust of Topeka, Kansas, on Aug. 22; First Priority Bank of Bradenton, Florida, on Aug. 1; Reno-based First National Bank of Nevada and Newport Beach, California-based First Heritage Bank in July; Staples, Minnesota-based First Integrity Bank and ANB Financial in Bentonville, Arkansas, in May; Hume Bank in Hume, Missouri, in March; and Douglass National Bank in Kansas City, Missouri, in January.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alison Vekshin in Washington at avekshin@bloomberg.net; Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: August 29, 2008 18:17 EDT

Police State Denver

Chris Matthews calls 9/11 Hero "Conspiracy Theorist"

Chris Matthew's profound lack of intelligence, logic and reasoning in the clip below is astonishing.

Chris says he won't interview William Rodriguez. Why?



William Rodriguez personally saved 15 people on 9/11. As the only holder of the north tower master key, he unlocked emergency doors potentially saving hundreds of people. He climbed the stairs with rescue workers, unlocking elevators. He went all the way up to the 39th floor of the north tower until he was told everyone must leave.

As the towers collapsed, he was in the lobby trying to help someone in a wheelchair. When the building started to fall, he dove underneath a firetruck and was one of the only survivors.

William Rodriguez has been invited to the White House five times. He's been honored by President Bush for his heroism. The Republican party originally had their sites on him to run for political office since he could garner Latino votes.

Everything was perfect until he started asking questions about 9/11. Namely, what was the explosion in the basement prior to the plane hitting? How was a man burning with his skin melting off at the bottom of the building when the plane hit the top?

I don't know what the truth is, only that the family members' questions have not been answered and that tens of thousands of rescue workers are dying due to the lies of the Bush Administration and Christie Todd Whitman.

In the Chris Matthews video, a person asks him what he thinks of the CNN and BBC predictions of the WTC7 collapse. Matthews says he's unaware of it and said he wouldn't interview William Rodriguez because he's a "conspiracy theorist".

Later a guy claiming to have worked at CNN said that CNN did not say WTC7 collapsed before it did. Everyone clapped.

At the end, Matthews made a cheap remark saying that no one there was crazy except the guy who asked about 9/11. Everyone clapped again.

Too bad for America that Chris Matthews is actually the crazy one -- full of arrogance, myopic to the brim and unwilling to honor 9/11 heroes and family members with the truth.

Matthews' was unaware of the BBC and CNN WTC7 prediction videos (inept, lazy, incompetent?) and then he essentially praises the TV-producer who also was pontificating on topics he's ignorant about.

No one, not NIST, FEMA or any government scientist has been able to explain how WTC7 collapsed. Nearly 7 years after the fact, NIST still has not released their final report on WTC7.



Here's a local FOX station interviewing Rodriguez:



CNN's Aaron Brown: "Building 7, in the WTC complex, is on fire and has either collapsed, or is collapsing". Aaron Brown literally turns around and notices that WTC7 is still standing.



Unfortunately, BBC reporters aren't as familiar with Manhattan as Aaron Brown.



I really don't get it. Bush lied about everything he's touched but on 9/11 he told the truth. Sure. He definitely seems like he's telling the truth.

John McCain [SHOULD BE] Facing Felony Charges for Violating the Logan Act

Apparently the President of Georgia has been paying John McCain for months via a lobbyist. McCain's chief foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, has received hundreds of thousands from the President of Georgia.

And McCain's declaration back in April that Russia was undermining Georgia's sovereignty gave the President of Georgia a false sense of security. Now he probably wants his money back.

This seems like US Ambassador April Glaspie telling Saddam that oh we don't care if you invade Kuwait right before we declared war on him.

The McCain campaign says Randy Scheunermann hasn't taken a dime from Georgia since May 15th, 2008 but between January 1, 2008 and May 15, 2008 Georgia paid him $290,000 for lobbying.

On April 17th, 2008, while Scheunermann was McCain's chief foreign policy advisor, McCain spoke with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and called out Russia.

Statement By John McCain After Talking With Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili

"I spoke today by phone with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili about Russia's moves to undermine Georgian sovereignty over two secessionist regions. Moscow has announced that it will establish governmental links directly with Abkhazia and South Ossetia without the approval of the legitimate Georgian government. Such a move is in violation of international law and deserves strong condemnation by all countries committed to the rule of law. No country -- not even Russia -- has recognized the claims of Abkhaz and South Ossetian leaders to independence. Yet through its latest moves, Russia is furthering its policy of de facto annexation that undermines security and stability in the region. Unfortunately, Russia's leaders have chosen a course of confrontation rather than cooperation.

"Some argued against providing a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Georgia at the recent NATO summit in Bucharest because it might anger Russia. While there was no consensus for MAP for Georgia, Russia chose to act provocatively nevertheless. We must not allow Russia to believe it has a free hand to engage in policies that undermine Georgian sovereignty. Georgia has acted with restraint in its response and should continue to do so. I hope that European leaders, along with international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations, will join in strongly condemning Russia's move."

Waiting for someone to make McCain's new campaign song based on Katy Perry's, called "I started a war -- and I liked it!"

Jerome Corsi vs Barack Obama

Unfit for Publication is laughable. For example, it boldly says "Brought to you by: Bush/Cheney Attack Machine" on the first page.

But on page 34, Obama's campaign makes ad hominem attacks against Corsi, under the headline "Consider the Source" stating that Corsi believes Bush is leading us to a North American Union and that elements of the Bush Admin were somehow responsible for 9/11. Yes -- this sounds like a Bush/Cheney supporter.

Keep in mind, Jerome Corsi has a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University. Thus, if his ideas are a bit bold perhaps we should fault Harvard?

I believe Corsi is afraid that Obama is the dream of the Fabian/collectivist personified and the future of their global ruleset.

However, Corsi is flawed in Obama Nation. I don't understand his point, other than to make Obama into some type of radical communist. He links Obama to Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, and attempts to suggest some dangerous element to this.

I personally think Alinksy is great and he was praised in The New American which is published by JBS, the main proponents of Corsi's theories on North American Integration.

Corsi's motivation is likely profit and the fear that Obama is worse than McCain (who Corsi also hates) because Obama will rapidly advance Bela Balassa's Theory of Economic Integration, otherwise known as David Rockefeller/Henry Kissinger's Establishment Policy implemented via the CFR and the FED.

I do not believe Obama and the Obama campaign when they say there they see no evidence of Balass's six steps to economic integration.

Obama is a Constitutional Attorney, he wants to eliminate income tax on seniors over 65 making less than 50k and he's critical of NAFTA (Balassa's 2nd step).

I think -- and hope that perhaps Obama is a radical, that maybe he is aware of military Keynesianism, economic integration and the open conspiracy (HG Wells).

Obama is brilliant. He may be misguided. Or perhaps he's a sleeper cell of true lasting change. Maybe's he's a silent radical, a cloaked revolutionary who is saying what he must and meeting who he may so he will be the next President.

And then once he is, he'll attack the Establishment policy of debasing the currency to further economic growth. He'll audit the FED, then repeal the FED, shut down the IRS and launch the Justice Department's investigation of the CFR.

The open conspiracy is alluring, with the promise to end war, to end suffering and bring about world peace. Obama has to be aware that collectivism is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and infringes on the foundation of the US Constitution.

Obama certainly has read about World Bank Advisor and Johns Hopkins Professor, Bela Balassa's six steps to economic integration.

This has been a "foundational plank" to US foreign policy since WWII. The CFR Director for North American Integration is Dr. Robert Pastor, who has written laws and consulted Presidents, known as the "father of the North American Union". (You can watch him on CNN's Lou Dobbs advocating a customs union via the SPP.)

1. Preferential trading area (GATT, etc)
2. Free trade area (NAFTA, etc)
3. Customs union (EU)
4. Common market
5. Economic and monetary union (ECB)
6. Complete economic integration (Europe's Treaty of Lisbon, failed)

US Attorney General: "But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime."

But not every law, or even any federal law, is Constitutionally legally.

A true violation of the law is when you infringe on another individual's natural rights.

Thus, the true criminal here is Attorney General Mukasey who refuses to prosecute Monica Goodling et al for violating the natural rights of several individuals, yet the federal government continues to prosecute people like Tommy Chong who violated no individual's natural rights.

What they are paid to do, they do themselves and when their colleagues in government violate an individual's natural rights, they ignore it. They are the criminals, not us.

The Young Turks on the Anthrax "Terrorist" / "Criminal"

The Young Turks on the Anthrax "Terrorist" / "Criminal", Dr. Bruce Ivins.

John McCain's Empire - Video of War

John McCain's Empire - Video of War

Pat Buchanan: "He will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

Criminal Cop Charged for Punching Teenager 13 Times in the Face and then Tasering Him [video]

Cop Punches 18 Year old 13 Times in Face than Tasers Him

RAWSTORY - GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. — An 18-year-old was punched in the face 13 times by a deputy police officer, whose dashboard video camera caught the incident on tape, WYFF Channel 4 News reported.

The video shows undercover Deputy Brian Tollison pulling over a truck driven by a drug suspect and beating the teenage driver while what appears to be a back-up deputy held down him down.

Once back-up deputies arrived, 18-year-old Jeremy Rucker was pulled out of the truck and tasered and kicked while lying prone on the ground.

Sheriff Steve Loftis fired Tollison, who also faces criminal charges for the incident, which took place May 15.

"The fact that Deputy Tollison took his closed fist and struck the suspect in the face 13 times in my opinion was excessive," Loftis said.

The other deputies involved have not been charged.

The Greenville County Sheriff’s Department said that Rucker had fled from police and resisted arrest, but had "calmed down" when Tollison started hitting him.

Rucker’s attorney, Karl Allen, said his client was sitting in his truck talking on his phone when the undercover deputies approached him.

"Then they have the audacity, to treat this man as if he’s a piece of meat and Taser him with electrical jolts to his body and then, that’s not enough," Allen said. "They kick three times to the torso."

Police charged Rucker with drug possession and resisting arrest, though drugs were not found on him until he was taken into custody.

Rucker’s beating is one of several recent examples of police brutality.

Police tasered an injured teen from Ozark, Missouri up to 19 times after he fell from a highway overpass in late July.

The 16-year-old had broken his back and heel when the officers began tasering him.

In another bizarre instance of police violence, a 66-year-old minister was tasered and beaten by hospital security guards for what he claims was a joke.

In that incident, hospital security cameras caught five officers kicking Rev. Al Poisson on the ground for at least five minutes.

SHOCKING: John Edwards Admits Affair with Rielle Hunter, David Rockeller & Henry Kissinger

The Best John Edwards Article: The Edwards' Rockefeller Affair
By: The Builder, August 9, 2008 11:29 AM

Below is John Edwards interview with Nightline where he admits his affair with Rielle Hunter and denies the 'love child' is his.

John Edwards makes an interesting point -- he specifically asked his wife not to appear with him referencing all the other high profile infidelities press 'events'.

It illustrates a key point when a man running for President would decide that now was a great time to cheat. At least he could of waited until he was President or simply covered it up better (e.g. trusted a different woman).

It shows a sense of invincibility and profound arrogance.

But like Bill Clinton, John Edwards is guilty of far worse than infidelity, perjury and lying to the American people.

I don't care why John Edwards was at the Beverly Hilton at 2AM but I do care why he was at the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees in Stresa Italy during June 3-6th 2004.

John Edwards attended Bilderberg 2004 right before John Kerry announced him as the Vice Presidential candidate.

Bilderberg is based on the ideology of David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger. Both men are Fabian socialists, Rockefeller having wrote his 1936 Havard senior thesis on "Fabian Socialism".

The Fabian Society included men such as Bernard Shaw and HG Wells. Wells wrote The Open Conspiracy (1928-1933) and The New World Order (1940). The Fabian party grew into the UK's Labor Party. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton called this the Third Way -- just another name for the Open Conspiracy.

This Open Conspiracy was enabled by Andrew Carnegie's vast wealth and defined by the second President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Nicholas Murray Butler.

According to the original minutes of the Carnegie Foundation, they asked what is the best way to change society? Their answer, is there not a greater way to change society than war?

They then asked, how do we start wars? And they decided that they must infiltrate the State Department. And they did, remarkably so and the result was the leadership of both the new Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the State Department became virtually the same.

This is verified in the Carnegie's archives at Columbia University, the archives of the US House of Representatives (Reece Committee, Hearing pp. 877 et seq.), by Norman Dodd Reece Committee investigator and Rene Wormser Reece Committee General Counsel.

Nicholas Murray Butler served as the Endowment's President from 1925-1945. Alger Hiss served as the third President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1946-1949. This fact is somewhat obscure and removed from the Endowment's history. Hiss also served as Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in 1945.

The reality is they believe war will lead to peace. Through war, we can change society to end starvation, disease and crime. Through war, anything is possible.

The capitalists are the communists. The wealth of billionaires like Andrew Carnegie became directed at advancing collectivism, thus the propaganda-based American Historical Association was founded to shape the world's history in favor of collectivism.

Barack Obama is the ultimate realization of HG Wells' Open Conspiracy. This is the new world order CFR Founder Colonel Edward House wrote about. This is the new world order dream that's been attributed to President Wilson, President Roosevelt and President Bush Sr. See Presidential Studies Quarterly March 2001 - The New World Order in Theory and Practice: The Bush Administration's Worldview in Transition.

Every war in the last 100 years was most likely started by participants of this Open Conspiracy. Bush Sr explicitly endorsed the Open Conspiracy on September 11, 1990 stating:

Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective -- a new world order -- can emerge: a new era -- freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace. An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we've known.

HG Wells, The Open Conspiracy:

THE world is undergoing immense changes. Never before have the conditions of life changed so swiftly and enormously as they have changed for mankind in the last fifty years. We have been carried along - with no means of measuring the increasing swiftness in the succession of events. We are only now beginning to realize the force and strength of the storm of change that has come upon us.

Nicholas Murray Butler, Union League of Philadelphia (11/27/1915):

The old world order changed when this war-storm broke. The old international order passed away as suddenly, as unexpectedly, and as completely as if it had been wiped out by a gigantic flood, by a great tempest, or by a volcanic eruption. The old world order died with the setting of that day's sun and a new world order is being born while I speak, with birth-pangs so terrible that it seems almost incredible that life could come out of such fearful suffering and such overwhelming sorrow.

Rene Wormser, Legal Counsel for the Reece Committee, from Foundations: Their Power and Influence (1958):

"It would be difficult to find a single foundation-supported organization of any substance which has not favored the United Nations or similar global schemes; fantastically heavy foreign aid at the burdensome expense of the taxpayer; meddling in the colonial affairs of other nations; and American military commitments over the globe...the influence of the foundation complex in internationalism has reached far into government, policymaking circles of Congress and State Department."

"When Andrew Carnegie established The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he gave the managers of this fund a difficult task. How were they to go about promoting peace? They seem to have had no very clear idea until Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler . . . got excited about the peril of the Allies in World War I and decided that the best way to establish peace was to help get the United States into the War. To this end he began to use the Endowment funds."

"When the war was ended...Support for the League of Nations gave the Endowment one new outlet for its energies and its funds..."

"[this] leads one to the conclusion that there was, indeed, something in the nature of an actual conspiracy among certain leading educators in the United States to bring about Socialism through the use of our school systems. This movement was heavily financed by leading foundations."

Carroll Quigley, Mentor of Bill Clinton, on the Reece Committee and Rene Wormser, from Tragedy and Hope (1966):

"Chambers, through Alger Hiss, and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations.

The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations with Representative B. Carroll Reece, of Tennessee, as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the "most respected" newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worth while, in terms of votes or campaign contributions.

An interesting report showing the Left-wing associations of the interlocking nexus of tax-exempt foundations was issued in 1954 rather quietly. Four years later, the Reece committee's general counsel, Rene A. Wormser, wrote a shocked, but not shocking, book on the subject called Foundations: Their Power and Influence."

The CFR's own history page confirms that Hiss was working in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) with the CIA and Department of State. However, that is understandable since John Foster Dulles was the Secretary of State and his brother Allen Dulles was the Director of the CIA -

Allen Dulles returned from the wartime OSS to assume a leading role in the Council's business, resuming his law practice at Sullivan and Cromwell for an interim between his secret work in Switzerland and a career at the soon-to-be Central Intelligence Agency.

Dulles was a Republican; working alongside him in the Council was Alger Hiss, a newly elected member sympathetic to the left wing of the Democratic Party, but a protege of the older Dulles brother, John Foster.

Political differences were matched by the egos and vanities contained within the new Harold Pratt House [former Standard Oil company executive]. Armstrong, firmly at the Council's helm, grew uneasy that Chatham House, the Council's British counterpart under the charismatic influence of Arnold Toynbee, might seize the initiative in shaping the record of World War II.

What is John Edwards' worse crime? Making a personal mistake that doesn't effect anyone but his family. Or conspiring with Fabian Socialists like David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger who believe we should depopulate Africa to steal their resources in order to drive our economic growth.

The Open Conspiracy and it's participants are responsible for approximately 170 million deaths as all war was initiated, planned, plotted, financed and exploited by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (and others) in order to first create a League of Nations and then a United Nations.

It is this idea that caused 9/11, regardless of who was responsible. The potential for the attack was created and prior to the attack the theoretical response was drafted. All they had to do was wait and possibly look the other way. It is a Hegelian dialect implemented idealistic Machiavellian dream and 3,000 deaths or 170,000,000 is no consequence to its realization.

John Edwards - Admits Affair, Says He Lied As Presidential Candidate, Claims Child Isn't His

Edwards Admits Sexual Affair; Lied as Presidential Candidate
In ABC News Interview, Edwards Says He Cheated, but Did Not Father Child

By RHONDA SCHWARTZ and BRIAN ROSS
August 8, 2008

John Edwards repeatedly lied during his Presidential campaign about an extramarital affair with a novice filmmaker, the former Senator admitted to ABC News today.

More Photos

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

Edwards said he knew he was not the father based on timing of the baby's birth on February 27, 2008. He said his affair ended too soon for him to have been the father.

A former campaign aide, Andrew Young, has said he was the father of the child.

According to friends of Hunter, Edwards met her at a New York city bar in 2006. His political action committee later paid her $114,000 to produce campaign website documentaries despite her lack of experience.

Edwards said the affair began during the campaign after she was hired. Hunter traveled with Edwards around the country and to Africa.

Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, and others in his family became aware of the affair in 2006.

Edwards made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife's cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter. Elizabeth Edwards has since been diagnosed with an incurable form of the disease.

When the National Enquirer first reported the alleged Edwards-Hunter affair last October 11, Edwards, his campaign staff and Hunter vociferously denounced the report.

"The story is false, it's completely untrue, it's ridiculous," Edwards told reporters then.

He repeated his denials just two weeks ago.

Edwards today admitted the National Enquirer was correct when it reported he had visited Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton last month.

The former Senator said his wife had not known about the meeting.

Since becoming pregnant, Hunter has lived under assumed names in a series of expensive homes in North Carolina and, more recently, in Santa Barbara, California.

Edwards denied paying any money to Hunter to keep her from going public but said it was possible some of his friends or supporters may have made payments without telling him.

He said he would ask questions about any possible arrangement.

Watch the full interview tonight on "Nightline" at 11:35 p.m. ET

Police Raid Mayor's House, Kill Dogs, then Admit Mistake and Refuse to Apologize

Watch the Mayor's wife recount a story of a little girl who was crying and asked her how she could ever trust the cops if they broke in their house and killed their dogs.

Then the Prince Georgia County Police Dept. Inspector General, Mark Spencer, rationalizes and endorses the crime. Mark Spencer says "it's unfortunate" that innocent people were hurt in the raid but says that's why drug dealers use innocent people.

The only criminals in Prince Georgia County are the cops and Mark Spencer, who's failure to investigate such an infringement of civil rights is a clear Constitutional violation.

I bet these fascist collectivists fools would be quick to subdue their malicious and overextended jurisdiction if we passed a Constitutional amendment that said: "Every such officer or person who shall commit a violation of the Constitution shall be deemed guilty of felony, and shall suffer death." (see Coinage Act of 1792)

Prince George's raid prompts call for probe
Berwyn Heights mayor denounces police tactics
By Doug Donovan | Baltimore Sun reporter 8:18 PM EDT, August 7, 2008

When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.

After the raid, Prince George's County police officials who burst into the home of Berwyn Heights' mayor last week seized the same unopened package of marijuana that an undercover officer had delivered an hour earlier.

What police left behind was a house stained with blood and a trail of questions about their conduct. No other evidence of illegal activity was found, and no one was arrested at Mayor Cheye Calvo's home in this small bedroom community near College Park.

This week Prince George's police arrested two men for orchestrating a plot to deliver marijuana to the addresses of unsuspecting recipients -- among them, Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic.

In this undated photo provided by Cheye Calvo,
he and his wife, Trinity Tomsic, walk their Labradors

Yet neither county Police Chief Melvin C. High nor Sheriff Michael A. Jackson have apologized to him, his wife or her mother, Georgia Porter, for the raid that traumatized the family and killed their black Labrador retrievers, Payton and Chase.

Thursday, Calvo called on the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate the raid and other similar actions by Prince George's law enforcement. He said officers burst into his house without knocking or announcing themselves, in violation of the warrant they had.

"Trinity was an innocent and random victim of identity theft. Apparently, so were four or five other county residents whose names and addresses were stolen and used as addresses on drug packages," Calvo said at a news conference outside his house, near a garden of tomatoes and strawberries.

"However, Trinity and our family have not been treated as victims of a crime. Instead, our home was invaded. Our two beloved Labrador retrievers are dead. My mother-in-law and I were tied up for nearly two hours," he said. "We were harmed by the very people who took an oath to protect us."

Berwyn Heights police Chief Patrick A. Murphy appeared with the mayor Thursday and said his agency was never informed of the investigation, despite an existing memorandum of understanding to work together on such operations.

He said not knowing about the raid could have led his officers to fire upon the sheriff's SWAT team because its members were wearing street clothes, masks and carrying weapons as they approached the mayor's house.

"What about the safety of my officers?" Murphy said. If consulted, he added, "We could have gotten the mayor to put the dogs away and consent to a search."

Police officials in Arizona first intercepted the package when a drug-sniffing dog alerted them to the presence of marijuana. It was addressed to Tomsic. An undercover officer in Prince George's delivered the package near 6 p.m. and was told by Calvo's mother-in-law to leave it on the porch, according to Calvo's attorney, Timothy Maloney.

Prince George's County police arrested two men involved in a scheme to transport marijuana. Once packages were dropped off by a deliveryman, a suspect would pick them up -- with the addressee oblivious to the plot. Police seized a half-dozen packages that contained about 417 pounds of marijuana, including the 32 pounds delivered to Tomsic, the Associated Press reported.

Last Tuesday, the mayor arrived home from his full-time job as an executive with SEED Foundation, which establishes urban public charter schools. He took the unopened package inside and placed it on a table near the door. He changed clothes and walked the dogs, waving to the men and women sitting in cars near his home. He did not know they were police.

He returned and went upstairs to get dressed for an event. As he changed clothes, SWAT team members darted across the fenced-in lot. Porter, 50, was cooking artichokes in the kitchen and screamed when she saw the approaching masked men with guns.

The door was kicked in and gunshots rang out, Calvo said. Police killed one dog, Payton -- named for football running back Walter Payton -- even though Porter was standing next to him.

Police have said the dogs "engaged" officers. Calvo confirmed that Payton probably moved toward the door but would have ultimately done nothing more than lick them.

"He was an aggressive licker," said Calvo.

Cheryl Compton, a neighbor, said her two sons, 5-year-old Cody and 7-year-old Ty, played with the mayor's dogs all the time, and that everyone but the Prince George's County police knew where Calvo lived.

"I would have let them stay in a yard by themselves with those dogs," Compton said. "It really upsets me to think that I don't feel safe in my home. If they were to shoot our dog, Amber, I would be outraged."

Chase was shot while running away from sheriff's deputies, Calvo said.

"He was hunted down and shot in the back while he fled," he said. "They didn't deserve to die. They don't deserve to be blamed for their deaths."

Calvo, 37, who has been mayor since 2004, was told to walk backward down the stairs with his hands in the air. He was wearing only boxers and socks. Police handcuffed him and placed him in the living room. His mother-in-law was also cuffed and made to lie on the kitchen floor next to Payton's body.

Police said they were allowed to enter the house without announcing their presence because Porter screamed and because they had a "no-knock" warrant. Calvo and his attorney, Maloney, say that is not true.

When Tomsic arrived home, she said, she thought the house had been robbed and that police had responded with an impressive show of force. But when she saw the blood and learned what had happened to her dogs, she was in shock.

"They were my kids," said Tomsic, 33, an employee with Maryland's Department of Human Resources. "All I could see was the blood and the tissue of the dogs."

Cleaning the blood, which police tracked throughout the house, was the top priority after the police left four hours after the raid, Calvo said.

"The blood was horrendous," Calvo said. "They had tracked it everywhere."

The couple bought the corner lot home nearly three years ago and asked Porter to move from Utah to live with them about 13 months ago. On the front fence, supporters have draped an American flag banner that reads, "Cheye & Trinity We Support You." Dozens of people have written personal messages to the family on the banner.

Robert Kovalchik, a neighbor and Calvo's high school history teacher at Parkdale High School, said he was shocked that county officials had not apologized.

"This smacks of something from Nazi Germany," Kovalchik said.

Calvo said he wants federal officials to examine policies that he said have led Prince George's police officials to serve warrants on wrong addresses and kill family pets before.

In once such case, Prince George's sheriff's deputies executed a warrant on the home of Frank and Pamela Myers of Accokeek in November. The Myers told sheriffs that they had the wrong address as their dog began barking from the yard. The couple asked if they could retrieve their dog, but deputies refused. Minutes later, two shots were fired and the dog was killed, according to a notice of a tort claims filed by attorney Michael J. Winkelman. The Myers were never charged and nothing was seized from their house.

"This has happened before, and without oversight, it will happen again," Calvo said.

doug.donovan@baltsun.com

Gerald Posner: Dr. Ivins has perfect background for "cutout" or "patsy" -- impossible that he acted alone

Investigative reporter Gerald Posner seems convinced that Dr. Bruce Ivins didn't act alone. He summarily dismisses the "mad lone scientist theory" based on numerous microbiologists he's spoken to who have said it'd be nearly impossible for Dr. Ivins to aerosalize the liquid anthrax himself.

Everything in this case points to a specific operation with a specific intent. Nothing suggests a mentally unstable scientist did this or was able to. If he was truly deranged, he likely wouldn't have been as careful with the envelopes as he was.

Instead, the anthrax attack was orchestrated with the precision of a project manager following a Gantt Chart. Not some crazed scientist who a week after 9/11 figures out how to aerosolize anthrax and then start killing people to build support for an anthrax vaccine that the Government owns.

Posner points out that Dr. Ivins has the perfect background for a "cutout" or "patsy". Why would a homicidal maniac be allowed to work in one of the most dangerous bioweapons labs in the US?

It's also important to note that Posner is infamous for debunking every major conspiracy, stating that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the JFK and that James Earl Ray was guilty of murdering Martin Luther King Jr. Posner also accused three Saudi Princes and the Chief of Pakistani Air Force of being connected to Al Qaeda and stating that at least one prince had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

John Edwards with Love Child [photo]

John Edwards with Love Child -- National Enquirer. Sorry John.

The Secret of the Good Lightning

He's a Constitutional attorney.

He wants to eliminate income taxes*.

He's critical of NAFTA.

He plays poker.

He smokes.

And he's going to be the next President of the United States.


* On individuals over 65 making less than $50,000/year.

The Paris Hilton Plan - Limited Overshore Drilling, Tax Incentives for Detroit

Paris Hilton tells John McCain and Barack Obama, "see you at the debate bitches".

Paris Hilton actually illustrates an interesting concept -- let's do both offshore drilling and incentives for new technology.

Theoretically our capitalist system based on fractional reserve banking and fragmented energy supplies has driven innovation which will lead to technological breakthroughs that will eliminate the need for money and oil.

Thus, you could rationalize helping Iraq set up a nationalized oil industry to market their natural resource and use its profits to invest in room temperature superconductor research or other high efficiency energy technologies (e.g. Sterling engines).

The problem with the oil companies and automakers is they'll never allow such technology until they find a way they can create a new market out of it. So we shouldn't give them money or any incentive.

The private sector should form a legitimate consortium of capable individuals to research and develop a true energy revolution based from understanding macroscopic quantum coherence, decoherence free subspace, self induced transparency, super radiance, bioluminescence, Cherenkov radiation, phonons and room temperature superconductors.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

CRIMINAL: Mary Beth Buchanan

Gerald Posner: Who is Jean Carrol Duly and is Dr. Bruce Ivins Innocent?

Thanks to Keith Olbermann. His interview with Gerald Posner covered everything I was thinking. The case against Dr. Bruce Ivins is beyond convenient.

The main question is who is Jean Carrol Duly? Why would a Director of a counseling center misspell "theripist" on the restraining order affidavit? She started to spell psychiatrist with a 'py'. She spells testify wrong and used subpoena in the wrong tense.

As Posner interestingly points out, you can go on the Maryland State website and search "Jean C Duly" and see multiple arrests, including recent DUIs for alcohol and drugs.

It's preposterous to think that Dr. Ivins somehow aerosolized anthrax and a week after 9/11 -- one week, decides to go on a homicidal killing spree. A few weeks later he then changes his strategy to a new complex form and kills more.

All for a anti-anthrax patent he doesn't even own, the US Government does, which has 4 or 5 other names on it. Dr. Ivins isn't even one of the main principles.

Who is Jean Carol Duley?

In terms of pinning a crime on someone, there is no better outcome than suicide. Of course, Dr. Ivins must be guilty -- he killed himself!

Even better, make sure they've been recently committed to a hospital.

5-days after Dr. Ivins theripist filed a complaint for a restraining order alleging Dr. Ivins was a homicidal sociopathatic killer, Dr. Ivins died of an apparent suicide by prescription drugs. As cosmic irony would have it, theripist Jean Carol Duley had previously spoken about the dangerous of prescription drug overdose.

Jean Carol Duly is the program director at Comprehensive Counseling Associates in Frederick, Maryland. She has a a Bachelor of Social Work and CSC - AD.

However, she spelled therapist as 'theripist'. She starts to misspell psychiatrist but crosses out the "py". She spelled testify as 'tetify' and then added an 's' over the 'f'.

Not to mention she hand wrote the affidavit.

If you search the Maryland Court records for a 42 year old Jean Carol Duly, you'll find multiple arrests for DUI the most recent in December 2007, other charges include driving under the influence of drugs, reckless driving and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The government is admitting that the anthrax attacks were an inside job. They want us to believe that a lone scientist a week after 9/11 engaged in a complex criminal conspiracy all by himself.

Naomi Klein & John Cusack Are Unaware of Economic Integration and the Fabian Society

It's interesting how someone could be right about so many things yet ultimately wrong. Naomi Klein and John Cusack talk about the "shock doctrine", the economy and how there's some movement that wants to "obliterate" the New Deal.

It is clear -- the capitalists are actually oligarchs and thus are collectivist in nature. They financed Communism, they've worked with Communists and some of them were/are Communists. Starting with Nicholas Murray Butler and noted Communist Alger Hiss et al this ideology was embraced as the Open Conspiracy and is shared by Fabian socialists such as David Rockefeller.

Their goal is economic integration, as detailed by long time World Bank advisor Bela Balassa in his globalization-defining essay The Theory of Economic Integration (1961).

These steps -- trading agreements, customs unions, monetary unions and supranational states -- are enabled by military Keynesianism, fractional reserve banking and debasement of the currency.

Thus Naomi Klein and John Cusack are fundamentally wrong when they suggest that the evil of the world is due to the free market capitalists and that we need some mixed economic model to fix the problems. Cusack labeled Klein's solution as Keynesianism -- he said in order to provide "social programs" and "checks and balances".

However, money becomes less needed as technology for energy efficiencies advance. Americans spend around 80 cents of each dollar on energy needs.

Once we have room temperature superconductors, your car will no longer need gas, your house will no longer need heat or air conditioning, your carton of milk will no longer need a refrigerator and healthy food with clean water will be abundantly available worldwide.

The only thing preventing this is a group of Fabian socialists who imprison people via fragmented energy sources and the debt-based control of Keynesianism.

Criminal ATF Agents Arrest Army Veteran After His Gun Fires Two Bullets and then Jams -- Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison

Malfunctioning gun sends veteran to prison
Jeff Johnson - OneNewsNow - 7/26/2008 4:20:00

A pro-Second Amendment group is taking the unusual step of asking for financial help for the family of a gun owner caught up in a bizarre prosecution for a malfunctioning firearm.

David Olofson is a U.S. Army veteran, Army Reservist and a gun enthusiast who loaned his personal 20-year-old AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to a neighbor who had expressed an interest in learning to shoot. A semi-automatic weapon fires one bullet each time the trigger is pulled. But – as Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, explains – when the neighbor took the gun to a range, it malfunctioned, firing several rounds with one trigger pull and then jamming.

"Now that, by normal people's thinking is a malfunction. A gun that jams, even after it's fired a small burst, is hardly a controllable firearm. That's a gun that needs fixing," he explains. "But according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF), that is a machine gun -- and they got a jury to buy that."

Olofson was sentenced to 30 months in jail for "transferring a machine gun" to his neighbor. But Pratt says the government got that conviction based on what it did not tell the jury, not based on the facts of the case.

"They didn't tell the jury that their witness, the fellow who had borrowed the gun, had been paid repeatedly by the federal government," says Pratt. "They didn't tell the jury that they had back-dated the second lab test so that it would pre-date the criminal complaint against Mr. Olofson. The first lab test showed that it was a semi-automatic. The second lab test was where they 'proved' that it was an automatic. The judge, at conviction, overlooked the fact that the Supreme Court has defined a gun that behaves like Mr. Olofson's as, 'not a machine gun.'"

Pratt also accuses the BATF of withholding evidence that would have cleared Olofson. Some 20 years ago, the ATF issued a recall of the specific rifle that Olofson owned for malfunctioning in the manner that the Bureau now claims makes the rifle a machine gun. "The problem is, the other copy of the letter, that was sent to the manufacturer, burned up when the factory burned down in 2000," he notes. "So, we weren't able to get a copy of the letter and the BATF just folded their arms and said, 'You can't have it.'"

Published testimony from the BATF firearms examiner who tested Olofson's rifle shows he was originally unable to make the weapon fire as a machine gun and had to try alternative ammunition to recreate the malfunction. ATF examiner Max Kingery also testified at first that the weapon firing in fully-automatic mode was a malfunction, then contradicted himself in later testimony. BATF has refused media requests for comment on the case, saying only that obtaining a conviction proves they were right to prosecute Olofson.

As a result of the discrepancies in the case, Gun Owners of America is not only representing Olofson in his appeal of the conviction, the group is also asking gun owners and other Second Amendment supporters to help Olofson's family while he remains in prison. Olofson's wife is trying to pay their bills and care for their three children without her husband or his income while he fights the conviction. Information on the David Olofson Relief Fund is available on the Gun Owners of America website.

FDIC Liquidity Warning Issued to MetroPacific, Bank Haven, Clarkston State Bank and Hastings State Bank

FDIC warns four US banks over liquidity
By Sarah Mishkin in New York
Published: August 1 2008 23:42

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation revealed on Friday that it had issued warnings to four small US banks that lacked sufficient reserves to cover potential loan losses.

The cease-and-desist orders issued in June said the four banks needed to raise more capital, expand their loss allowances and better oversee and diversify their loan portfolios. A fifth bank was cited for violating consumer protection laws.

Losses on mortages and other loans have helped bring down eight US banks this year, including one small Florida institution on Friday. Last month, Indymac, a California lender with $32bn in assets, became one of the largest banks to go under in US history. It filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection on Friday.

The banks receiving cease-and-desist orders in June were MetroPacific Bank in Irvine, California; Bank Haven in Haven, Kansas; Clarkston State Bank in Clarkston, Michigan; and Hastings State Bank in Hastings, Nebraska.

Non-performing loans in Clarkston State’s portfolio nearly doubled to 4.6 per cent between the close of 2007 and the end of the first quarter of 2008, according to first-quarter earnings report released in April.

Clarkston State’s chief executive, J. Grant Smith, said in a statement accompanying first quarter earnings that ”business conditions remain weak and commercial loan demand is anemic.”

The FDIC instructed the banks to reevaluate their allowances for potential losses. MetroPacific in California was also told to stop issuing credit “for speculative construction and land development purposes.”

The fifth bank – Columbus Bank and Trust in Columbus, Georgia – received a cease-and-desist order because its credit card program violated consumer protection laws.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Another Bites the Dust -- Florida Bank is 8th Failure of This Year

Small Florida bank is 8th U.S. failure this year
Friday August 1, 9:51 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bank regulators closed a small Florida-based bank on Friday, the eighth U.S. bank to fail this year under pressure from a weak economy and a credit crisis precipitated by falling home prices.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said First Priority Bank had $259 million in assets and $227 million in deposits and its failure will cost the federal fund that insures deposits an estimated $72 million.

SunTrust Banks Inc (NYSE:STI - News) has agreed to assume the insured deposits of First Priority, whose six branches will reopen Monday as branches of SunTrust Bank.

Customers can access their money over the weekend by check, teller machine or debit card, the FDIC said.

It is the first bank to fail in Florida since Guaranty National Bank of Tallahassee failed in March 2004, according to the FDIC, which blamed the failure on exposure to the real estate market, predominantly in the construction lending area.

Florida is among several states whose housing markets have seen the sharpest declines.

The biggest bank failure by far this year is IndyMac (Other OTC:IDMC.PK - News), seized on July 11 with $32 billion in assets and $19 billion in deposits as of March, and the third-largest bank insolvency in U.S. history.

The FDIC oversees an industry-funded reserve used to insure up to $100,000 per account and $250,000 per individual retirement account at insured banks.

The agency also has running tally of problem banks that its examiners closely monitor. At the end of first quarter, 90 institutions were on that list.

The FDIC does not name the institutions on the list, which is expected to be updated this month for the second quarter.

(Reporting by John Poirier; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

ABC News: Discussions at the Bohemian Grove in 1930s Led to Nuclear Bomb

This is where the Baseball Commissioner throws the World Series with the CIA Director based on the Mob's choice?



The Cremation of Care, which is like the political Blair Witch -


The greatest part, Care calls them "Fools" and then is burned alive -


Don't ask David Gergen about the Cremation of Care -


Nixon: "The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time . . . It is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine with that San Francisco crowd."

FBI uses GPS chips to turn cell phones into wireless bugs, even if powered off

The FBI is listening to "known members of the Mafia" by using GPS chips to activate microphones in the suspects' cellphones -- even if the phone is turned off. It's been long known that the only way to prevent GPS triangulation is to take the battery out of the cell phone.

Hannity: "If you read the 9/11 report--", Ventura: "I don't believe the 9/11 report", Hannity: "I don't either."

Ventura said he flipped a coin on his decision to run for US Senate.

It's funny how Sean Hannity thinks he knows more about Iraq than Ventura or his friends in the SEAL teams that are there now.

Hannity: "If you read the 9/11 report--"
Ventura: "I don't believe the 9/11 report."

I believe the 9/11 report, but I'm so skeptical of the Bush Administration that I trust people who say 9/11 was an inside job more than those who say "forget it".

Hannity followed with, "I don't either. But I believe one part of it. And the part that said they were at war with us and we were with war with them is the part that I believe."

Ventura said that religious fanatics and corporate America team up "we are on the brink of fascism".



I agree, we were at war with Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). Yousef had so many aliases, his true identity is disputed, most prominently by Bush supporters who try to link Iraq to WTC93. The only known fact is he is of Pakistani descent, from Baluchistan with his uncle KSM. I believe the Government says his true name is Abdul Basit Mahmud Abdul Karim from Kuwait and of Pakistani descent.

Yousef was the mastermind of WTC93 and the spiritual mastermind of 9/11 via terrorist plans such as Operation Bojinka. The US Government says KSM was the mastermind of 9/11.

However, the WTC93 plot was initiated a number of months prior to Yousef coming to the US. It was initiated by FBI informant Emad Salem, through FBI Agents Nancy Floyd and John Anticev.

Agent Floyd says that Salem was braggadocios and embellished his Egyptian military credentials but when he started talking about supporters of the Blind Sheik she started listening.

The FBI instructed Salem to wear a wire and go undercover, which Salem was obviously worried about. He wanted to be paid well and for a while the FBI paid him. The FBI built a bomb, which was supposed to be fake. But at the last moment they decided to build a real bomb with Emad and his ragtag group of Muslims from the Mosque.

When Yousef arrived, the first place he went was to the New Jersey apartment of Musab and Abdul Rahman Yasin. Two brothers, both Iraqi and part of Salem's group along with the incredibly stupid Mohammed Salameh.

Salameh returned to where he rented the Ryder truck to get his deposit back. The FBI had traced the serial number (like OKC) and arrested Salameh. The phone number he used was an unlisted number to the Yasin brother's apartment.

The Washington Post (3/5/93):

The FBI complaint read Thursday night in court said that Salameh had provided a telephone number "in connection with the rental agreement" that was traced to a person named Josie Hadas, at a Jersey City address. A search of the Hadas apartment Thursday afternoon had discovered "among other things, a letter addressed to the defendant, tools and wiring, and manuals concerning antennae, circuitry and electromagnetic devices.

According to some foreign papers, Josie Hadas is a female Israeli Mossad agent.

Adbul Rahman was so forthcoming with the FBI, they let him go even though he had chemical burns from building the bomb. He immediately fled to Iraq and was later imprisoned in Baghdad. The FBI often brought his brother Musab in to try to lure Adbul Rahman back to the US but it never worked. Why they didn't arrest Musab is unknown. Adbul Rahman appeared on 60 Minutes and was believed to be in prison until March 2003. He is the only wanted terrorist in the world for committing an attack on the WTC.

Yousef of course escape and for years committed an incredible array of terrorist attacks before he was finally captured. The ragtag group all went to prison.

After the bombing, Emad rejoined as an informant, set up a new plot this time with a fake bomb, more Muslims went to prison and Emad was paid $1.5 million. He's now in Witness Protection.

How do we know Emad Salem built the bomb under the direction of the FBI and District Attorney's office? Because he recorded the Muslim conspirators AND the FBI agents -- hours and hours which was released in federal court.

Here's a rare Dan Rather CBS News report on it:


A 15 minute audioclip broadcast by WBAI in NYC of Salem's secret FBI recordings. Here's a partial transcript:

Agent John Anticev: But, uh, basically nothing has changed. I'm just telling you for my own sake that nothing, that this isn't a salary, that it's—you know. But you got paid regularly for good information. I mean the expenses were a little bit out of the ordinary and it was really questioned. Don't tell Nancy [Floyd] I told you this.

Emad A. Salem: Well, I have to tell her of course.

Anticev: Well then, if you have to, you have to.

Salem: Yeah, I mean because the lady was being honest and I was being honest and everything was submitted with a receipt and now it's questionable.

Anticev: It's not questionable, it's like a little out of the ordinary.

Salem: Okay. Alright. I don't think it was. If that's what you think guys, fine, but I don't think that because we was start already building the bomb which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising supervision from the Bureau and the D.A. and we was all informed about it and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your confidential informant. What a wonderful, great case!

Anticev: Well.

Salem: And then he put his head in the sand and said "Oh, no, no, that's not true, he is son of a b****." [Deep breath.] Okay. It's built with a different way in another place and that's it.

Anticev: No, don't make any rash decisions. I'm just trying to be as honest with you as I can.

Salem: Of course, I appreciate that.

Anticev: And as far as the payments go, and everything like that, they're there. I guarantee you that they are there.

Anthrax Suspects Reportedly Committs Suicide [video]

Anthrax suspect reportedly commits suicide
By David Edwards, Raw Story

NBC’s Pete Williams reports that a suspect in the 2001 Anthrax attacks has committed suicide.

Pete Williams reported, “This is a dramatic end to a nearly seven-year investigation. The suspect worked at the Army’s biodefense laboratory in Maryland about 40 miles from Washington where he was considered an expert on biohazards like anthrax. His name was Bruce Ivins, a 62-year-old civilian employee. The hospital confirms he died Tuesday and declined to say anything about a report in the “Los Angeles Times” that his death was the result of an overdose of pain killers. His lawyer said that criminal charges were being prepared against him.”

The Los Angeles Times has more details here.

This video is from NBC’s Today Show, broadcast August 1, 2008.

Anthrax Suspect, Facing Charges from FBI for Attacks, Committs Suicide

CASE CLOSED!

Apparent suicide in anthrax case
Bruce E. Ivins, a scientist who helped the FBI investigate the 2001 mail attacks, was about to face charges.
By David Willman
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 1, 2008

A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.

Ivins, whose name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case, played a central role in research to improve anthrax vaccines by preparing anthrax formulations used in experiments on animals.

Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator's office in Washington.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital after ingesting a massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, said a friend and colleague, who declined to be identified out of concern that he would be harassed by the FBI.

The death -- without any mention of suicide -- was announced to Ivins' colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, through a staffwide e-mail.

"People here are pretty shook up about it," said Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman for USAMRIID, who said she was not at liberty to discuss details surrounding the death.

The anthrax mailings killed five people, crippled national mail service, shut down a Senate office building and spread fear of further terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The extraordinary turn of events followed the government's payment in June of a settlement valued at $5.82 million to a former government scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, who was long targeted as the FBI's chief suspect despite a lack of any evidence that he had ever possessed anthrax.

The payout to Hatfill, a highly unusual development that all but exonerated him in the mailings, was an essential step to clear the way for prosecuting Ivins, according to lawyers familiar with the matter.

Federal investigators moved away from Hatfill -- for years the only publicly identified "person of interest" -- and ultimately concluded that Ivins was the culprit after FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III changed leadership of the investigation in late 2006.

The FBI's new top investigators -- Vincent B. Lisi and Edward W. Montooth -- instructed agents to reexamine leads or potential suspects that may have received insufficient attention. Moreover, significant progress was made in analyzing genetic properties of the anthrax powder recovered from letters addressed to two senators.

The renewed efforts led the FBI back to USAMRIID, where agents first questioned scientists in December 2001, a few weeks after the fatal mailings.

By spring of this year, FBI agents were still contacting Ivins' present and former colleagues. At USAMRIID and elsewhere, scientists acquainted with Ivins were asked to sign confidentiality agreements in order to prevent leaks of new investigative details.

Ivins, employed as a civilian at Ft. Detrick, earlier had attracted the attention of Army officials because of anthrax contaminations that Ivins failed to report for five months. In sworn oral and written statements to an Army investigator, Ivins said that he had erred by keeping the episodes secret -- from December 2001 to late April 2002. He said he had swabbed and bleached more than 20 areas that he suspected were contaminated by a sloppy lab technician.

"In retrospect, although my concern for biosafety was honest and my desire to refrain from crying 'Wolf!' . . . was sincere, I should have notified my supervisor ahead of time of my worries about a possible breach in biocontainment," Ivins told the Army. "I thought that quietly and diligently cleaning the dirty desk area would both eliminate any possible [anthrax] contamination as well as prevent unintended anxiety at the institute."

The Army chose not to discipline Ivins regarding his failure to report the contamination. Officials said that penalizing Ivins might discourage other employees from voluntarily reporting accidental spills of "hot" agents.

But Ivins' recollections should have raised serious questions about his veracity and his intentions, according to some of those familiar with the investigation. For instance, although Ivins said that he swabbed areas near and within his personal office, and bleached surfaces to kill any spores, and that some of the swabs tested positive, he was vague about what should have been an essential next step:

Reswabbing to check whether any spores remained.

"I honestly do not recall if follow-up swabs were taken of the area," Ivins said. "I may have done so, but I do not now remember reswabbing."

"That's bull----," said one former senior USAMRIID official. "If there's contamination, you always reswab. And you would remember doing it."

The former official told The Times that Ivins might have hedged regarding reswabbing out of fear that investigators would find more of the spores inside or near his office.

Ivins' statements were contained within a May 2002 Army report on the contamination at USAMRIID and was obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.

Soon after the government's settlement with Hatfill was announced June 27, Ivins began showing signs of serious strain.

One of his longtime colleagues told The Times that Ivins, who was being treated for depression, indicated to a therapist that he was considering suicide.

Soon thereafter, family members and local police officers escorted Ivins from USAMRIID, where his access to sensitive areas was curtailed, the colleague said.

Ivins was committed to a facility in Frederick for treatment of his depression. On July 24, he was released from the facility, operated by Sheppard Pratt Health System. A telephone call that same day by The Times verified that Ivins' government voice mail was still functioning at the bacteriology division of USAMRIID.

The scientist faced forced retirement, planned for September, said his longtime colleague, who described Ivins as emotionally fractured by the federal scrutiny.

"He didn't have any more money to spend on legal fees. He was much more emotionally labile, in terms of sensitivity to things, than most scientists. . . . He was very thin-skinned."

FBI spokeswoman Debra J. Weierman said Thursday that the bureau would not comment on the death of Ivins.

Last week, FBI Director Mueller told CNN that "in some sense, there have been breakthroughs" in the case.

"I'll tell you we made great progress in the investigation," Mueller added.

"And it's in no way dormant."

Ivins, the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist, was born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio, and received undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a doctorate in microbiology, from the University of Cincinnati.

The eldest of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, said he was not surprised by the events that have unfolded.

"He buckled under the pressure from the federal government," Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother.

"I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary" about Bruce Ivins' personality and tendencies, Thomas Ivins said.

"He had in his mind that he was omnipotent."

Ivins' widow declined to be interviewed when reached Thursday at her home in Frederick. The couple raised twins, now 24.

The family's home is 198 miles -- about a 3 1/2 -hour drive -- from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., where anthrax spores were found by investigators.

All of the recovered anthrax letters were postmarked in that vicinity.

david.willman@latimes.com

Willman reported from Los Angeles and Washington. Times researcher Janet Lundblad contributed to this report.