The Cultural Revolution

Cultural revolutions. In these secular times.

Life in these United States. In these secular times. In stories around the world about sex abuse cases, in the newspaper. About a certain ambivalence to police investigations of sex abuse, where bishops are required by civil law to comply to report abuse themselves. Turning in a priest by an employer, as it were. Because of allegations of sexual abuse. This was the office manager informing on an employee. Bishops from Latin America consider it a sort of Anglo-Saxon delusion, they say, to believe one can always trust the police and the courts. Like in Chile. Or under any military juntas. Or in the former Soviet Bloc. Or in what was called Red China. During the days of “cultural revolution.” Christians in those parts of the world have through experience seen what happens with an uncritical embrace of “mandatory reporter” requirements.

Cultural revolutions. In these secular times. What Europeans call requirements to “denounce.” Like in requirements to have your child vaccinated. Against any virus. But mostly against the human papilloma virus (HPV). The state deciding what was appropriate child care. As if the state was raising the child. That state who would soon be making decisions about what health measures would or would not be paid for–and how much it should cost.

Were these just a sort of Anglo-Saxon delusion to believe one can always trust the police and the courts, or a national health insurance program to replace the one in existence? We can trust everything in a constitutional government? During the days of “cultural revolution.” Like what happened on Wall Street, reaching the crescendo in September 2008? Or like what happen under a military junta. Or in the coming days when China’s financial might affects public policy everywhere.

Some bishops consider it a sort of Anglo-Saxon delusion, they say, to believe one can always trust the police and the courts. Or even an archbishop, who is conducting the investigation. The ones who wanted to get ahead in the church. Were these just a sort of Anglo-Saxon delusion to believe one can always trust the police and the courts, and a pope like John Paul II. Or even a “hope and change” president who had now increased troops in Afghanistan.

Pentagon officials are now projecting some 20,000 active-duty U.S. troops to be stationed in the United States by 2011. There was a change in the law in the United States during the Clinton Administration in 1994, with a U.S. Defense Department Directive (DODD 3025) which allows military commanders to take emergency actions in domestic situations to save lives, prevent suffering or mitigate great property damage. The Clinton administration set up the Joint Task Force-Civil Support in October 1999 as a “homeland defense command.” In 2002 the Pentagon established the U.S. Northern Command, charged with carrying out military operations within the United States. Prior to this, under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the U.S. armed forces had been barred from domestic operations, except in specific, limited circumstances.

In a recent opinion piece, “What We Learned in Oklahoma City,” in the New York Times , Bill Clinton discussed the increasingly vocal Americans who, in the months and years preceding the 1995 bombing of the Federal Building, advocated smaller government and a belief that “the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them.” Clinton wrote, “The bright line [between civic virtue and violence] protects our freedom. It has held for a long time, since President George Washington called out 13,000 troops in response to the Whiskey Rebellion.”

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said that in September 2008 Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout, brought up a worst-case scenario which might even require a declaration of martial law. In a December 2008 report to the U S Army War College, Nathan Freier, a professor at the college, talked about the possibility with economic collapse and loss of legal order, of using Pentagon resources and troops in Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development,” should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

And the Winner Is…………

There has been a dearth of engineering and math majors pouring forth from universities over the past generation, as evident by the number of news article championing various compact disc, books, movies, as the best of the decade. It was the start of the No Child Left Behind generation.

It still takes 365 days to celebrate an anniversary. And the anniversaries are not numerically counted until the second one. Ten years make up a decade, and from my count I thought we had one more year to go!

Newspapers all over the country this week have written of news stories, movies of, books of, compact discs of the decade.

On Human Growth & Those Hormones

Commissioner Bud Selig told a New York Times columnist. “I’m concerned about the pace of the game.

Hypocrisy is a charge leveled when someone fails to live up to the virtuous standards being expounded.

On spectating. On the theatrics of spectating. I attended sports events to watch. More and more there are these spectating participants. Who stood up and blocked my view. And they looked for others in the crowd to do as they did. As if they were participating in what was gonna happen on the next pitch. Orchestrated. Over-managed ritualized standing, watching the Joe Girardis and the Ron Gardenhires over manage. Baseball 2009. Embracing the language of the age, and ritualistic noisemaking. On Fox Television.

Fox Sports. The prior owner of the Dodgers. Bigger than life Fox Sports that gave me week in and week out on their local affiliated cable station broadcasters that stole enjoyment from the game. It was like that Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life who owned everything in town. When the Mr. Potters controlled the broadcast rights. With an FTC that just allowed the media to drain credibility with sponsors who equally sponsored politicians through lobby groups. When baseball was just a small part of the problem, only reflecting all off society’s ills. Drugs. Steroid use. Sexual harassment, with the Mets, at ESPN. Those Stanford grads managing the Diamondback to a last place finish. Bud Selig’s New Age Baseball.

Bud Selig and dermatology. His thin Wisconsin skin that was bothered if he spent any time in October in New York. About criticism of umpires versus instant replays. Bud Selig making TV more important each October. What now happened each year with all post season baseball. Making the audience at home more important than the ticket buyer. With a disregard of playing conditions once a game began. Like the scheduling of baseball in November. Bud Selig New Age Baseball.

Fox Sports. During the regular season. Making television so important until no one was watching televised baseball during the regular season. Without regard to the clocks. And those 4 hours games. As if this was the NFL. Fox Sports and their good drones who cover the games, and don’t ask any uncomfortable questions.

TBS. And Chip Caray, never mentioning the incident of Miguel Caberra in the playoff game, of the circumstances of his drinking until 6 a.m. Too inconvenient for everyone. Those MLB partners. The Tigers. And Caberra’s wife. Not explaining how there might not have been a playoff in Minnesota.

TBS. And Chip Caray, making more errors than the umpires. Let’s share the performance enhancement drugs with the broadcaster. And Joe Buck. Whatever happened to likable broadcasters? Honest broadcasters who were not some shills of MLB, TBS, or Fox Sports. People who knew something and were worth listening to discuss baseball. Likable guys. Like Skip Caray. Or Jack Buck? Men not born with silver microphones in their mouths. People who reached the national stage not on their pedigree. But based on talent.

Joe Buck. Where there was melodrama everywhere. And “good at-bats.” Melodrama everywhere, created by your broadcasters. And Joe Buck encouraging those spectating participants in the crowd. To stand and block my view. While he sat in his pressbox. Elevated above it all.

I was a spectator. I knew my role. I had paid to watch. As ticket prices escalated. Thanks to collusion. When the commissioner was now colluding with the Major League Players Association. Every 4 or 5 year. In the basic agreement. When Bud Selig gets his $15 million cut each year. He was good at colluding, as an arbiter had once ruled. And so was Donald Fehr who was just given an $11 million severance package with his retirement. Collusion to increase revenue from the working stiffs who bought baseball tickets. While those artificial drones in the broadcast booths, and journalist still cheerleading the expenditures of dollars on free agents. In publicly financed stadiums. Thirty three years later after free agency began. New stadiums were needed to pay for this system.

Free agency. Because players would talked to the Peter Gammons s and the Murray Chase s who fed Marvin Miller’s New Age Music. All this artificial participation. By stand up guys everywhere. In the stands and in the dugouts. Guys like Scott Boras and all the other stand up cheerleaders in L.A. With the Yankees playing the Angels in the American League Championship Series in Anaheim, did Scott Boras, visible in virtually every center-field camera shot conspicuously standing in the home plate suite, ever sit down? And in Chavez Ravine. But not just in L.A. Give Scott Boras a visible location and maybe more of his clients will sign with the Dodgers, the Angels, or the Yankees. All this endorsed artificiality by Boras and all those stand up cheerleaders in Dodger Stadium.

According to Joe Buck, there should not have been a focus in the attention given in an 10-1 game on umpires and the bad calls. Not in the newspapers. Joe Buck who thought about it, and five minutes later, in an intro of “not to beat a dead horse” umpire discussion, talking about the threat of baseball’s credibility, about replays. Instant replay.

About the threat of the loss of credibility. Joe. Get a mirror. Or listen to yourself tells us what wonderful baseball we were watching in New York, in spite of the rain and cold temperatures. And all these good at-bats that contributed to the perversions of length of game. The game was supposed to be about hits, not walks. When the purpose of the bat was to swing. And not have to listen to Joe Buck drone on and on. Get out of your heated booth and feel the conspicuous rain for 210 minutes. Then tell us of the wonders of a good at-bat. Umpires used to postpone such games because of rain and cold. Maybe you can tell the writers what to write about in those wonderful games 10-1 games when the games take 210 minutes, however hard it was to be consistent in the spotlight so much on one microphone.

As ticket prices escalated. The threat of baseball’s credibility. When Commissioner Bud Selig told a New York Times columnist. “I’m concerned about the pace of the game.” With instant replays which would add to the length of game. Other than making TV and Fox Sports even more important. Those fans at home more important than anyone in the park. People in the park who paid to conspicuously watch everything except the instant replays. Or what those spectating participants did not obstruct.

Bud Selig’s New Age Baseball. And Selig’s concern about “the pace of the game.” Hey Bud, what about the length of the season?

In the Wake of the Aquino Death

Cory Aquino died this week.

There had been a revolution in the Philippines after her husband who was the opposition leader had been killed.

In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. No one knew how long it might last. Marcos effectively exiled and deported Benito Aquino, probably the most popular politician in the country. In 1983, following a kidney transplant, with access to the president curtailed by physical health issues, Imelda Marcos and Chief of Staff General Fabian Ver limited access to the president. Imelda Marcos was said to have flown to New York in May 1983 to convey that Benito Aquino would never again set foot on Philippine soil. There was total chaos as no one knew what was happening, and how the Filipinos might regain control of their country.

Benito Aquino swore to return and, in August 1983 he did, amidst the medical and political crisis. Aquino was assassinated on the tarmac of the airport as his plane landed, by one of the aircraft guards. The guard then committed suicide. Though it was widely believed that Imelda Marcos pursued the elimination of the opposition leader, the chief of staff Ver was tried for the assassination and received a not guilty verdict. The day of the verdict, Cory Aquino announced her candidacy for president, as the EDSA ‘People Power’ revolution removed the Marcos dictatorship and restored democracy in the Philippines in 1986.

The majority of the young people in the Philippines today immediately give an adjective of their Congress men and women. Corrupt is the adjective. Filipino history provides the basis for these feelings, for what occurred bother before Cory Aqunino’s election and history subsequent to her time in office.

The strength of a democracy is judged by the safety extended to journalists pursuing their stories. Th Philippines ranks next to Russia with pursuit of justice when either an opposition leader or a journalist is killed.

Those Domestic Situations

The New York Times reports today that the Bush administration in 2002 considered sending U.S. troops into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb to arrest a group of terror suspects in what would have been a nearly unprecedented use of military power.

According to U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said that as U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September 2008, he brought up that that the crisis might even require a declaration of martial law, as a worst-case scenario.

The Associated Press notes that dispatching troops into the streets is virtually unheard of. “The Constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.”

A 1994 U.S. Defense Department Directive (DODD 3025) allegedly allows military commanders to take emergency actions in domestic situations to save lives, prevent suffering or mitigate great property damage. The Clinton administration had set up the Joint Task Force-Civil Support in October 1999 as a “homeland defense command.”

In 2002 the Pentagon established the U.S. Northern Command, charged with carrying out military operations within the United States. Prior to this, under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the U.S. armed forces had been barred from domestic operations, except in specific, limited circumstances.

So that Associated Press note about “dispatching troops into the streets as virtually unheard of” is a historic note. It is a mistake to say the “constitution and various laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.”

Pentagon officials at one point to end 2008 were projecting some 20,000 active-duty U.S. troops to be stationed in the United States by 2011.

Those Arizona Diamondbacks

The wife of Senator John McCain did have some tangential relationship to news on the passing of Max Dunlap in prison. Cindy McCain was the daughter of a Budweiser distributor in Arizona who had, according to an investigation in 1976 following the death of reporter Don Bolles, acquired his business from mob connections. And if not for the mob connections of his in-laws family, the Henselys, John McCain would never have been the senator from Arizona. Professional journalists sent a contingent force to complete the investigation begun by Don Bolles.

In 1993, Max Dunlap was convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder for arranging the killing of Don Bolles. Bolles’ brother wrote the book What Color Is Your Parachute? Max Dunlap, 81, was serving a life sentence for the car-bomb in a parking lot of a Phoenix hotel of an Arizona Republic reporter Bolles who at the time had gone to meet a tipster as he was investigating land fraud and organized crime. A bomb made of dynamite planted under the car was detonated by remote control. There is a blockbuster movie in the story if anyone ever gets funding to put a production company together.

Newsday’s Bob Greene at the time made a pitch to the Investigative Reports and Editors board, that at the very least, the project to expose corruption “in a community in which an investigative reporter has been murdered,” would result in the Arizona community and other like communities in reflection on what had happened and hopefully would result in thinking “twice about killing reporters.” Thirty-eight journalists from 28 newspapers and television stations across the country descended on Arizona.

“For all of us – particularly newspapers with high investigative profiles – this is eminently self-serving. As individuals we are buying life insurance on our own reporters. If we accomplish only this, we have succeeded.”

Working under Greene, they set out not to find Bolles’ killer but to finish his work of exposing Arizona’s tangled underworld. This piece reflects the result of that investigation, that touched the family of Cindy McCain.

Prosecutors believed Bolles was targeted because of stories that he had written which upset a liquor wholesaler who was a mentor of Dunlap. Bolles’ car exploded as he backed out and he died 11 days later from those injuries. Max Dunlap was one of three men convicted in his killing. John Adamson, who police said put the bomb on the car, was released from prison in 1996 after serving a 20-year sentence. He died in 2002. James Robison, who was accused of setting off the bomb, was convicted of murder and conspiracy, but his conviction was overturned.

The team-produced series made its debut on March 13, 1977, amid continuing controversy. Among those publishing the series: Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Boston Globe, The Indianapolis Star, and The Denver Post. The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson was the sole newspaper in Arizona to publish the series. Many others carried reports from the Associated Press that began on March 18, five days after the first stories started.

It was said that Arizonan would never be told the true background to any of this by the Arizona media, like the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette, which were started by a guy called Eugene Pullium, at the instigation of Kemper Marley.

James Danforth “Dan” Quayle (born February 4 1947) is an American politician and a former Senator from the state of Indiana. He was the forty-fourth Vice President of the United States under George H. W. Bush (1989–1993). Quayle was born in Indianapolis to Martha Corinne Pulliam and James C. Quayle. He has often been incorrectly referred to as James Danforth Quayle, III. In his memoirs, he points out that his birth name was simply James Danforth Quayle. The name Quayle originates from the Isle of Man. His maternal grandfather, Eugene C. Pulliam, was a wealthy and influential publishing magnate who founded Central Newspapers, Inc., owner of over a dozen major newspapers such as the Arizona Republic and The Indianapolis Star. James C. Quayle moved his family to Arizona in 1955 to run a branch of the family’s publishing empire. While the Quayle family was very wealthy, Dan Quayle was less so; his total net worth by the time of his election in 1988 was less than a million dollars.

McCain’s father-in-law got his start as the top henchman for Kemper Marley, who was for 40 years, until his death in 1990, the undisputed political boss of Arizona, acting as the behind-the-scenes power over both the Republican and Democratic parties. But Marley was more than a politician. He was the Meyer Lansky crime syndicate’s chief Arizona operative front man for the Bronfman family—key players in the Lansky syndicate.

After Prohibition, Lansky-Bronfman associates such as Marley got control of a substantial portion of liquor (and beer) distribution across the country. In fact, Marley’s longtime public relations man, Al Lizanitz, revealed it was the Bronfman family that set Marley up in the alcohol business. However, in 1948, 52 of Marley’s employees (including Jim Hensley, the manager of Marley’s company) were prosecuted for federal liquor violations. Hensley got a 6 month suspended sentence and his brother Eugene went to prison for a year.

The story in Arizona is that Hensley took the fall for Marley in 1948 and Marley paid back Hensley by setting him up in his own beer distribution business. Newsweek implied in an article that Hensley’s company was a “mom and pop” operation that became a big success, but the real story goes to the heart of the history of organized crime. It was the late Tom Renner, Newsday’s mob expert who spent most of his time undercover working “deep and dirty,” on the organized crime background.

Hensley’s sponsor, Marley, was also a major player in gambling, a protégé of Lansky lieutenant Gus Greenbaum who set up in 1941 a national wire for bookmakers. After Lansky ordered a hit on his own longtime partner, “Bugsy” Siegel, who was stealing money from the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas—which was financed in part by loans from an Arizona bank chaired by Marley—Greenbaum turned day-to-day operations of the wire over to Marley while Greenbaum took Siegel’s place in tending to Lansky’s interests in Las Vegas.

In 1948 Greenbaum was murdered in a mob “hit” that set off a series of gang wars in Phoenix, but Marley survived and prospered as did his protégé, Jim Hensley, whose fortune through his daughter, Cindy, sponsored McCain’s rise to power.

Jim Hensley, McCain’s father-in-law also dabbled in dog racing and expanded his fortune by selling his track to an individual connected to the Buffalo-based Jacobs family, key Prohibition-era cogs in the Lansky network as distributors for Bronfman liquor. Expanding over the years, buying up racetracks and developing food and drink concessions at sports stadiums, Jacobs enterprises were described as “probably the biggest quasi-legitimate cover for organized crime’s money-laundering in the United States.”

In 1955, James Hensley acquired the Anheuser-Busch distributorship for Arizona.

June 2, 1976 – Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles, one of the founding members of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., was called to meeting in a downtown Phoenix hotel by a source promising him information about land fraud involving organized crime. The source didn’t show up. Bolles left the hotel, got into his car parked outside and turned the key. A powerful bomb ripped through the car, leaving Bolles mortally injured. Bolles, 47, is gravely wounded when six sticks of dynamite are detonated beneath his compact car in the parking lot of the Hotel Clarendon, 401 W. Clarendon Ave. Bolles, who had been lured to the hotel by the promise of a news tip, whispers the name “Adamson” to his rescuers.

Over the next 10 days, doctors amputated both Bolles’ legs and an arm, but could not save him.

His shocked IRE colleagues reacted in a way unprecedented and never copied since. They descended on Arizona for a massive investigation. They set out to find not Bolles’ killer, but the sources of corruption so deep that a reporter could be killed in broad daylight in the middle of town. They were out to show organized crime leaders that killing a journalist would not stop reportage about them; it would increase it 100-fold.

The project was exceedingly controversial and remains so. The New York Times and The Washington Post, giants in the business, chose not to participate. Some journalists, including IRE members, disliked the idea of reporters on a crusade.

June 13, 1976 – Bolles dies. Phoenix Police arrest John Harvey Adamson, racing-dog owner and a former tow-truck operator.

June 16, 1976 – Max Dunlap, a Phoenix contractor, is questioned by Phoenix Police homicide detective Jon Sellers, the lead investigator. Police say Dunlap had been observed delivering cash to Adamson.

Jan. 15, 1977 – In an agreement with prosecutors, Adamson admits planting the remote-control bomb and pleads guilty to second-degree murder. He agrees to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a 20-year, two-month prison sentence. Dunlap and James Robison, a Chandler plumber who allegedly helped Adamson by triggering the bomb, are arrested.

July 6, 1977 – Trial begins for Dunlap and Robison, who are charged with first-degree murder. During the trial, Dunlap’s attorney tries to cast suspicion on Phoenix attorney Neal Roberts, who had dealings with both Adamson and Dunlap, as the real mastermind in the murder plot.

Nov. 6, 1977 – A jury finds Dunlap and Robison guilty primarily on the strength of Adamson’s testimony. They also are found guilty of conspiring to kill then-Arizona Attorney General Bruce Babbitt and advertising man Al Lizanetz, because Babbitt had filed an antitrust lawsuit against the liquor industry in 1975. Adamson testifies that Dunlap wanted the three killed because each had angered Dunlap’s friend, millionaire rancher and liquor wholesaler Kemper Marley Sr., who never is charged in the case. Adamson testified he was hired to kill Bolles by Max Dunlap, a Phoenix contractor and close associate of Marley’s. Marley had extended a $1 million loan to Dunlap, which had not been repaid. Adamson said Dunlap hired him to kill Bolles because Marley was upset over Bolles’ stories.

Jan. 10, 1978 – Dunlap and Robison are sentenced to death.

Feb. 25, 1980 – The Arizona Supreme Court, saying defense lawyers should have been allowed to question Adamson more closely, overturns the convictions of Dunlap and Robison and orders a new trial.

June 2, 1980 – The murder charge against Dunlap is dismissed after Adamson balks at testifying against him again. Adamson had asked prosecutors to grant him certain concessions, but was denied.

June 6, 1980 – The Arizona Attorney General’s Office withdraws Adamson’s 1977 plea bargain and reinstates the original charge of first-degree murder.

June 13, 1980 – The murder charge against Robison is dismissed after Adamson refuses to testify.

Oct. 17, 1980 – In a trial held in Tucson, a jury finds Adamson guilty of first-degree murder.

Nov. 14, 1980 – Adamson is sentenced to death.

May 9, 1986 – The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturns Adamson’s death sentence, saying that he improperly was condemned to die after a trial judge had ruled that a prison term was appropriate.

Dec. 22, 1988 – Adamson’s death sentence having been reinstated, it is again overturned by the circuit court.

Nov. 27, 1989 – After a renewed investigation by the Attorney General’s Office, led by investigator George Weisz, James Robison, the Chandler plumber is recharged with the murder of Bolles.

June 25, 1990 – Kemper Marley, Sr., 83, dies of cancer in La Jolla, Calif. In 1976 Bolles had written a series of articles exposing organized crime’s involvement in land fraud. Three men were convicted of Bolles’s murder. The three men were connected with Kemper Marley, Sr., an Arizona liquor wholesaler who was reportedly angered by Bolles’s articles and thought they had cost him a seat on the Arizona Racing Commission. Marley was not charged in Bolles’s murder. Mr. Marley, one of Arizona’s wealthiest men, was the son of an early pioneer family cottonseed oil, produce, a liquor distributorship and cattle and sheep ranches. He also had holdings in Sonora, Mexico, and the Imperial Valley of California, and was a founder of the Farmers and Stockmen’s Bank in Phoenix. (Don Bolles. Bolles wrote extensively about Marley’s lucky past. And about how the Hensleys (Marley’s managers) bought Ruidso Downs racing track in New Mexico. He wrote about Eugene Hensley spending five years in federal prison for a skimming scam. And about the Hensleys selling their track to a buyer linked with Emprise Corp. And about Marley’s liquor ties with Emprise … one of Bolles’ final dispatches appeared as Marley was about to become a member of the Arizona Racing Commission – the agency that regulates racetracks, including those run at the time by Emprise … the story dispatched Marley’s appointment. Two months later, a car bomb killed Bolles.)

June 28, 1990 – The U.S. Supreme Court leaves intact the 1988 appeals court ruling overturning Adamson’s death sentence.

Dec. 19, 1990 – Dunlap is recharged with Bolles’ murder. Dunlap and Robison also are charged with conspiring to obstruct a criminal investigation into the slaying. Adamson agrees to testify against the pair in return for the reinstatement of his 1977 plea bargain and 20-year, two-month prison sentence.

Jan. 11, 1993 – Dunlap and Robison are granted separate trials.

March 22, 1993 -An attorney for Dunlap, John Savoy, is sentenced to two years’ probation on perjury conviction for telling a grand jury he didn’t have any records dating from 1977 related to Dunlap. Prosecutors believed some of the records detailed secret cash payments from Dunlap to the girlfriend of James Robison, the Chandler plumber .

April 20, 1993 – Dunlap is found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiring to obstruct the investigation of the case, and is later sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years.

Dec. 17, 1993 – Robison is acquitted, despite admitting under cross-examination that he asked a fellow jail inmate to arrange for the murder of Adamson, the chief witness against him.

July 26, 1995: Robison, having pleaded guilty to soliciting an act of criminal violence for trying to have Adamson killed, is sentenced to five years in federal prison.

Aug. 12, 1996: Adamson is released from prison and goes into the federal Witness Protection Program, which he will voluntarily leave a few years later.

1998: Robison, 76, is released from prison.

Jan. 28, 1999: Phoenix attorney Neal Roberts dies in poverty at the age of 66 of coronary artery disease, cirrhosis and emphysema. His former secretary says Roberts told her he was involved in the Bolles murder at various levels, but investigators say his statements may have been influenced by his heavy drinking and taste for melodrama.

In a subsequent lawsuit against Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc.. an investigative group that was formed after Mr. Bolles’s killing, a jury in Phoenix awarded Kemper Marley, Sr., $15,000 for emotional distress resulting from a news article that was written about the slaying. The same jury found that the article, which linked Mr. Marley to figures in organized crime, had not libeled him and that his privacy had not been invaded.

Mr. Marley was never charged in the case. In 1989, State Attorney General Bob Corbin said new leads indicated that Mr. Marley had no connection to the killing.

http://www.ire.org/history/

Those Milwaukee Bucks

The story over the next 3 years will be about the value of the U S dollar.

If drugs continue to be injected which mask symptoms rather than address the disease (medicine in the form of debt destruction), the likelihood of a seismic readjustment increases in kind, writes Todd Harrison, about the dollar. “As governments take on more risk—as they price assets on behalf of the market and transfer debt from private to public—the common denominator, or release valve, becomes the currency.” Asset classes will, as a whole, deflate, and my economic condition measured in greenback will appreciate. And so will my taxes. To pay for it all.

The seeds of discontent have been sowing under the surface for years, with the greenback off 30% since 2002.

With quantitative easing came a concern for flight of capital from the U.S. A position paper was written by the Federal Reserve a few years back, discussing the option of a two-tiered currency, one for U.S. citizens and one for foreigners.

Joining the growing chorus questioning the U.S. dollar’s unofficial position as global reserve currency, in India, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, Suresh Tendulkar, is urging India to diversify its foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars, according to Bloomberg News.

Zeng Peiyan, the head of China Center for International Economic Exchanges and the former Chinese Vice-Premier, in a speech in Beijing on Friday called for a new system to ensure the stability of the major reserve currencies. China Daily reported.

Tensions mounting between the People’s Bank of China’s economic concerns over China’s holdings of dollars, with the earlier call by central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan for the development of a new super-sovereign currency largely taking the place of the dollar, and the Chinese government, with their “diplomatic reasons” for toning down their criticism, said Stephen Gallo, head of market analysis at Schneider Foreign Exchange. The Chinese government is still more happy to play to the tune of the Bernanke-Geithner camp which sees leaning against the wind in order to protect the U.S. dollar as a necessary evil,” Gallo said.

There is a palpable likelihood that the global balance of powers will fragment into 4 primary regions: North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with ramifications which would manifest through social unrest and geopolitical conflict, writes Todd Harrison at Marketwatch.com.

The Summer Driving Season

I am not a sabermatics guy. But….

In Europe, deflation was shown in the 16 nations of the European Union in the reduction of the economies in the the 4th quarter of 2008, down 1.4%. And now down 2.5 percent in the first quarter. Reuters had a piece that according to the French daily Les Echos, the French economy shrank 1.2 percent in the first quarter of 2009 as compared with the previous three months.

It ain’t over. Economics had a way of testing all relationships. Time will tell how the European Union is holding up. The question was not whether politics would turn ugly, but how.

Spring Flooding

After February comes March. In February the attention was on Davos where the spin had been that the current system of capitalism was an American system. Wen Jiabao lashed out at the ‘blind pursuit of profit’ in some countries in what he called the ‘American financial crisis.’ The view from China was that stocks and bonds were an American system. When it collapsed, it was the fault of one nation. ‘There was no effective management of the astronomical salaries of those greedy senior executives.”

Wen Jiabao said that the quality of financial assets must be assured. One of the most profound lessons to be learnt from the ‘American financial crisis’ was the relaxation of the supervision or ‘even no management at all’ of the financial industry.”

And so comes March. The most significant story of the month was out of Beijing:

BEIJING (AP) — China is calling for a new global currency to replace the dominant dollar, showing a growing assertiveness on revamping the world economy ahead of next week’s London summit on the financial crisis. The surprise proposal by Beijing’s central bank governor reflects unease about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and adds to Chinese pressure to overhaul a global financial system dominated by the dollar and Western governments. Both the United States and the European Union brushed off the idea.
The world economic crisis shows the “inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system,” Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in an essay released Monday by the bank. He recommended creating a currency made up a basket of global currencies and controlled by the International Monetary Fund and said it would help “to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability.”

Zhou did not mention the dollar by name. But in an unusual step, the essay was published in both Chinese and English, making clear it was meant for a foreign audience.

China has long been uneasy about relying on the dollar for the bulk of its trade and to store foreign reserves. Premier Wen Jiabao publicly appealed to Washington this month to avoid any response to the crisis that might weaken the dollar and the value of Beijing’s estimated $1 trillion in Treasuries and other U.S. government debt.

The U.S government did change the rules of engagement. And it ain’t over yet. Washington was trying to decide in 2009 who would survive? Who would be saved? First it was companies like AIG, Citibank, while Lehman Brothers vanished. Darwin and Natural Selection. Fear came down to survival. China was apparently not going to let Washington take over the paradigm of geopolitics as had been done on Wall Street.

“Any system produces winners and losers. If the gap between them gets too great, the losers will organize themselves politically and seek to recast the existing system — within nations and between them.” – Henry Kissinger, in The Economist

The Cost of Freedom

The news from Europe, which is affecting government and basic human rights.

By Jeff White of the Christian Science Monitor
Published: March 20, 2009
Last November, Dmitrijs Smirnovs, a young economics professor in this coastal university town, published an essay in a leading Latvian newspaper warning that the country was heading for a financial collapse to rival Iceland’s collapse. Soon after, the secret police showed up at his home. They held Mr. Smirnovs for two days. The charge: spreading unrest and destabilizing Latvia’s financial and banking system.

Associated Press
Riga Latvia Published: March 19, 2009
RIGA, March 18 (Reuters) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is set to invest about 100 million euros ($130.3 million) for a minority stake in Parex Bank, which Latvia had to nationalise, officials said on Wednesday.
Rescuing Parex, the country’s second-largest bank, after a run on deposits was one of the reasons Latvia had to take a 7.5 billion euro bail-out last year, led by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The government is keen to get the bank back on its feet.
RIGA, March 18 (Reuters) About 300 Latvians marched through the capital on Monday to commemorate countrymen who fought in a Waffen SS unit during World War II, defying a ban by city officials.
Dozens of protesters — mainly ethnic Russians — jeered at the participants as they carried flowers to the base of the Freedom Monument in downtown Riga. Fearing clashes, police had set up barricades to keep the two sides apart at the annual event.
No violence was reported, though police spokeswoman Ieva Reksna authorities said four people were detained for unruly behavior.
Unlike previous years, Riga city officials had prohibited World War II veterans and patriotic organizations from holding demonstrations, fearing they would increase tensions in the crisis-hit Baltic nation. Two months ago, anti-government protesters clashed with police outside Parliament in Latvia’s worst riots since it regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991
By Stephen Castle
Published: March 19, 2009 in IHT

“It is not time to look at more growth measures,” the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, told the Bundestag in Berlin, Reuters reported. “I disagree with this idea completely. The existing measures must work, they must be allowed to develop.”
Her stance underlined the difficulty of persuading European nations to cooperate over spending from the E.U.’s collective budget. Gathering Thursday, the leaders sought to break their deadlock over the €5 billion program, meant to boost energy connections, environmental projects and broadband Internet connections.
Poland was fighting hard to ensure support for the Nabucco pipeline, which, sponsored by the E.U., is designed to reduce reliance on Russian gas by connecting the union to the Caspian region. That was being resisted by Berlin.
More broadly the E.U. hoped to overcome divisions ahead of the G20 summit in London. Britain is sympathetic to U.S. calls for more stimulus but, in a paper circulated.
By Judy Dempsey
Published: March 19, 2009 in IHT
To date, a tangle of Brussels bureaucracy has slowed the release of the funds. But with banks restricting credit across most of Eastern Europe, the European Commission is now, for the first time, allowing advance payments for infrastructure and other projects.
Poland, where the €200 million Mlociny project was funded 50-50 by Warsaw city council and the EU, has many other big projects — from upgrading railway lines to new water treatment plants — that will mean jobs, and also more investment.
There is now incentive to do exactly the opposite — speed them up, noted Sandor Richter, an expert on the region at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.
In a March 11, 2009 interview, the president of Poland challenged the view that Eastern Europe as a whole is heading into a deep recession. Poland again is being buffeted. Industrial output fell at an annual rate of 9 percent in the final quarter of 2008, and the Polish zloty currency has plummeted against the euro in recent months.
This time the company, the biggest manufacturer of plastic films and laminates in Poland, is coping better, according to Tadeusz Nowicki, its chief executive.
In large part, that is because of the fortuitous acquisition of a plant in Germany – inside the euro area – soon after Poland joined the European Union in 2004. That means the company, which employs 800 people over all, earns a fair portion of its revenue in euros, a relatively strong and stable currency.
In Poland, the zloty has fallen in value by 50 percent against the euro. Poland, with almost 40 million people, is the biggest of the new member states. Hungary and Latvia were particularly vulnerable, Hungary because of its high exposure to foreign lending, and Latvia because of its shaky banking system and overextended consumers. When foreign currency financing dried up, the domestic interbank money markets stumbled and currencies came under pressure. Both countries were rescued by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, with a heavy price attached in the form of government spending cuts.