February 25, 2005 - It is called Bayard Foreign Marketing, LLC. Its address is in Portland, Oregon. It doesn’t seem to have an office. It is unclear what it is that the company markets or who owns it. It doesn’t have an office. It doesn’t have employees. It does have one tangible asset – a Gulfstream executive jet wearing N379P on its tail. Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC bought the jet last November. No body seems to know just who owns Bayard Foreign Marketing LLC.

But there is plenty known about the jet with N379P emblazoned on its tail. In November 2001 two Egyptian nationals, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zery were plucked off the street, hustled aboard the jet at Bromma Airport, flown to Cairo and turned over to Egyptian intelligence authorities. Six months after 911 a Yemeni microbiology at Karachi University, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed was put aboard that plane by Pakistani security forces. No one seems to know where Gulfstream N379P went to; just that it took off from Karachi with Mohammed aboard.....click here for entire article.

February 24, 2005 - There is a material difference between the tape recordings that became the stake through Richard Nixon’s political heart and the Bush tapes that seem to confirm the substance abuse rumors that have swirled around the President’s campaigns. The Nixon tapes were made at the then President’s direction as he went about the people’s business. The Nixon tapes were produced by the White House on equipment that belonged to the government. They belonged to the public and it is ironic that the man whose disdain for the rule of law was preserved in them felt restrained by the law and did not destroy them before they were played and finally complied with the Court’s order to reveal them. It is equally ironic that the man whose conversations led to his downfall was fully aware that his incriminating words were being recorded and yet spoke candidly.....click here for entire article.

February 20, 2005 - Rafiq Harari, the Billionaire former Prime Minister of Lebanon and his family have much in common with the Bin Laden clan. The Elder Bin Laden emigrated from Yemen with his family. He found his way to Riyadh; into the construction business; into favor with the Saudi Royal favor and made a fortune building what the Saudi’s wanted built. With that foundation the Bin Laden clan built an international financial empire while one son built a more clandestine one.

Harari was born in Sidon and emigrated from Lebanon at an early age. He, too, found his way to Riyadh; into the construction business; into favor with the Saudi Royal favor and made a fortune building what the Saudi’s wanted built supplanting the Bin Ladens in the royal favor. He, too, parlayed the fortune he made in Saudi Arabia into an international financial empire. He became a Trustee of Boston University; Premier of his native Lebanon and leader of the Anti-Syrian opposition in his native country. All the while he retained his ties with the Saudi royal family, his Saudi citizenship, and his Saudi construction company. When he was killed in Beirut a shadowy group connected to Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda claimed credit tying the assassination to Harari’s Saudi connections.....click here for entire article.

February 19, 2005 - It’s a riches to rags story. Jimmy/Jeff Guckert/Gannon started life as a $1,200 a weekend - $200 an hour entrepreneur. In 1999 he took his business to the internet merchandising his services as a travel companion, workout partner, event companion, tour guide, and bodyguard using the sobriquet “Bulldog”. Reaching his special target audience he wrote, “GET WHAT YOU WANT, WHEN YOU WANT IT. Does your job keep you busy? No time to find the right guy? Need to be discrete? Don’t want to take too many chances to find someone who can keep your secret? Looking for masculine, mature, energetic and intelligent companionship? Can’t find all that in one person?” There was a link to 43 explicit photographs of Jimmy Jeff displaying his wares. His website, USMCPT.com came down in May 2003 a little after Jimmy Jeff started his new career in journalism breaking in as a White House Correspondent. Though it was taken down it was preserved in a web.archive.org cache. Jimmy Jeff also advertised his business elsewhere. Web.archive.com caught those too. Here is an example:

http://web.archive.org/web/20011103134331/http://www.malecorps.com/x/usmcpt
.....click here for entire article.

Last month we learned that Secretary Rumsfeld has created his own intelligence and covert operations agency within the Defense Department. Today we learn that the FBI is dramatically increasing its own foreign intelligence operation by expanding the number of legal attachés assigned to our embassies abroad. The current FBI budget request includes some $11.4 million to beef up the existing attaché posts in 52 nations and open a new seven agent post in Tashkent. In addition the budget request asks for money to hire 500 new intelligence analysts for the FBI....click here for entire article.

February 11, 2005 - In her opening statement in the confirmation hearings for her appointment as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senators, “The time for diplomacy is now.” Nobody disagreed with her statement. The time for diplomacy is always now but sometimes “now” quickly becomes “too late” when “now” is late in coming. It also quickly becomes too late when one side of a controversy refuses to recognize what another English speaking practitioner of statecraft said. “Jaw, Jaw, Jaw is always better than War, War, War.”

Yesterday the North Korean government announced that it possessed nuclear weapons. That came as no surprise to the Bush Administration. In April 2003 the North Koreans quietly told US negotiators that it had the bomb and would either test one or sell a weapon or two if the US did not come to the table in bi-lateral talks. The Bush administration reaction was to stay the course it had set, refuse bi-lateral discussions and to keep the threat under wraps. That may have been the time for diplomacy but that time is gone....click here for entire article.

February 10, 2005 - There are three seemingly unrelated news stories getting a high level of attention this morning. The first is seemingly the most ominous. North Korea announced publicly that it had manufactured nuclear weapons. Buried down in the lower paragraphs of the story is the information that during the course of the six-sided talks last year North Korea had told US negotiators that they had built at least one nuclear weapon. That information was withheld by the Bush Administration; withheld from the Congress; and withheld from the American people.

The second story is that of the hitherto suppressed portion of the 911 Commission report. The classified full report and the redacted version were deposited with the National Archives last Friday and are just now getting attention. You will recall that in the immediate aftermath of the Twin Tower Attacks the Administration said that no one could have predicted that terrorist would use airliners as bombs. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was the primary Bush spokesman using that line. The redacted version of the 911 Report indicates that between April and September 2001 the FAA sent at least 52 security warnings to the nations Airlines and Airports; that several pointed to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden; and at least one of which issued in the spring of 2001 stressed that if the terrorists intention was for a suicide attack causing a spectacular explosion then a domestic hijacking would be their preferred method. The Bush Administration took five months reviewing that report before letting it see at least the partial light of day. It was finally released after the campaign; after the election; and after the President had taken his oath of office for the second time....click here for entire article.

The suit cites as an example the manipulation of pricing by The Pharmacia Corp. for its breast cancer drug Adriamycin. The company, now acquired by Pfizer, told the State of Illinois Medicaid system that the average wholesale price for the drug was $241.36 a month. The Illinois Medicaid system reimbursed Pharmacia based on that figure. In fact the company was selling the drug to others at as little as $38.43 a month. About 1.8 million Illinois citizens are covered by the Medicaid system which covers prescription drugs. 19 other States are pursuing similar action. Getting a handle on pharmaceutical price manipulation is on top of the list of issues for the National Association of Attorneys General....click here for entire article.

February 7, 2005 - Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld took to the airways yesterday to add to the record of their predictions with respect to Iraq. Both told us that America need not fear that the overwhelming majority held by the Shi`ite religious parties in the assembly that will write the Constitution for the new Iraq. They both promised us that there would not be an Iraqi Islamic Republic on the Iranian model. That possibility should not be a concern, they both said. It was the same Dick Cheney who told us in 2003 that our troops would be greeted with flowers and dancing in the streets. It was the same Donald Rumsfeld who knew exactly where Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction were located and promised us that we would only have 20-30,000 troops on duty in Iraq by March 2004. The implicit message was, “Trust us, this time we are right.”....click here for entire article.

February 6, 2005 - From Theodore Roosevelt’s Square Deal at the beginning to the Clinton Administration’s troubled tenure at the end, America’s Twentieth Century was characterized by its growing acceptance of the idea that whatever the crisis and whatever the challenge Americans are in it together. Name the problem – and the solution was to use the unity of the American people harnessing its government to resolve the problems of our society by acting together. That philosophy brought us through two world wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights crisis. That philosophy brought us protection from monopolistic economic power; from unsafe and unhealthy food and quack medicines; from the ravages of pandemic disease; and from the social disease of unequal access to the economic tools of living in a modern society....click here for entire article.

February 05, 2005 - The Ming Report http://www.mingreport.com made its debut on February 9, 2002. That first essay was titled THE AXIS OF AVARICE – Tales of Enron. We wrote:

“McLane Layton, Administrative Assistant to Senator Don Nickles R-OK; Drue Pearce, former GOP Alaska State Senator; Joe Garcia, a former Florida energy regulator all have something in common. They all made George Bush's short list for nomination to the Federal Energy Commission. Something else. According to Kevin McCoy writing in the February 7 edition of USA Today each of them were interviewed by Enron Executives as part of the Whitehouse vetting process. None of them were appointed to the $130,000 a year position....click here for entire article.

February 4, 2005 - According to the prevailing predictions – the way the wind is blowing today – the Social Security System starts showing an annual deficit in 13 years. That is, in 2018 the system will start paying out more in benefits than it takes in from payroll taxes. The wolf is at the door, according to the practitioners of the dismal science. What do we do to chase the wolf away? Let’s ask the President.

The President says that we must act now and act boldly. Instead of watching the Social Security Trust Fund drip away through a leaky faucet we need to open the tap so that 1/6th of the payroll taxes now running into the trust fund reservoir runs right out to Wall Street in a steady stream to fund what he used to call Private Investment Accounts. Through the magic of compound interest, etc., etc., the depletion of the reservoir will be staved off and the wolf will slink away from the door....click here for entire article.

February 3, 2005 - In language strikingly reminiscent of that which we heard during spring of 2002 the President is ratcheting up the rhetoric in the continuing conflict with Iran over its nuclear program. He hopes for a diplomatic solution, he says, but won’t rule out a military strike. Other administration officials hint that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is a possibility and Rumsfeld says that the US should reactivate its development of a burrowing nuclear bomb to target Iran’s nuclear facilities. One political wag said that President Bush is revising his Iraq policy – substituting an N for the Q.

There is a material difference in the two cases however. Iran does have an active nuclear development program which it refuses to give up. Iran does have intermediate and short range ballistic missiles and has deployed them. Iran does have a well equipped and trained army. Iran makes no secret of its long term support for and influence over the Hezbollah terrorist organization – the genesis of the Iran-Contra scandal where President Reagan swapped arms for Hezbollah hostages held in Lebanon....click here for entire article.

February 1, 2005 - Senator Hatch says that Alberto Gonzales is being made a scapegoat for a few renegade soldiers who mistreated prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Has Orrin just awakened from a 6 month nap? Obviously he hasn’t listened to the news or read a newspaper since Abu Ghraib was impressed on the national conscience. Revelation of the widespread use of torture wherever enemy combatants are held seems to have eluded him as he considers this nomination as he repeats the now thoroughly discredited “few renegade soldiers” excuse. Judge Gonzales is not being made a scapegoat. He is being recognized for his accomplishment as one of the primary architects and defenders of the policies that made the abuses possible at Abu Ghraib, Camp Delta, Bagram Air Base and a dozen other locations....click here for entire article.