A Tapestry of Corruption: FBI Director James Comey and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson and Russia.

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson Meets with Vladimir Putin 2012
Tillerson was awarded Russian Order of Friendship Medal
(Photo by premier.gov.ru) 

The Order of Friendship Medal
Russian Federation

This is a complex tapestry of intertwined political corruption in the United States and in the Russian Federation.  So let's follow the chain of facts and see where they lead us. It is now known that the Russians were hacking into some of the voting data for the Presidential Election of the USA this past November. What was done by the Russians with the data is not known for sure. FBI Director James Comey knew about the Russian corruption and hacking, but he kept it secret.  Apparently US Senate leader Mitch McConnell also knew of the Russian hacking. Prior to the November voting, not one reporter in any news media anywhere mentioned that FBI Director James Comey was a lawyer for the failed US Senate republican investigation into Hillary Clinton's real estate legal work in Arkansas 1996 known as the Whitewater Committee. Nothing unethical or illegal was found by the Committee after thousands of hours and millions of dollars of failed investigation just like the recent waste of money on the Benghazi murders. So FBI Director James Comey was "investigating" Hillary Clinton for more than twenty years. But FBI Director James Comey took the risk of committing a criminal violation of the Hatch Act when he went public with the old/new/Weiner emails.  So all you reporters out there, answer me this. Who got to FBI Director James Comey and with what? It looks like FBI Director James Comey may even be a mole for the Republican National Committee.  

Now look at the Republican nominee for Secretary of State, Rex W. Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil the biggest American oil company. In 2012 Tillerson travelled to Moscow for a meet with Valdimir Putin, now the Russian President for his third term. The Russian connection is important because of Putin's family business in Russian oil and gas companies like Gazprom and Rosneft.  One thing to note here is the non-profit Putin Consulting Ltd. founded by Roman Putin, Vladimir's cousin and like his dear Uncle, once a KGB agent. Putin Consulting Ltd. promises businesses "special protection" while operating in Russia. Western investors do need advice navigating the sometimes arcane Russian business rules and practices. Even though it is non-profit, Putin Consulting Ltd. through Roman Putin owns an island in the Bahamas, vineyards in Napa Valley, California, other properties in Russia, a villa in London, UK, and a US$90 million yacht in Monaco. Vladimir Putin's personal wealth is unknown for sure, but has been estimated at US$ 40 billion. Even though his personal worth is less than Putin's, Tillerson as Exxon Mobil CEO controls about US$400 billion in assets.

Only on news shows this morning have reporters mentioned that in 2013 Tillerson returned to Russia and he was awarded the Russian Order of Friendship Medal by Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that another historic person who got a Medal like that was a Cold War mole, George Blake (born George Behar November 11, 1922), the former British spy who worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. Blake was discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison. Somehow Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966 and safely fled to Russia, then the USSR. Another winner of note was Milorad Dodik, President of the Serbian Republic. In March 2016, Dodik named a student dormitory in Pale in honor of the wartime Serb leader Radovan Karadžić. The event took place only a few days before Karadžić was convicted for genocide, other war crimes and sex slavery by International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.  

Only this morning have reporters mentioned that the actual reason for Russia getting in the middle of our election may be the economic sanctions we have in place because of Putin's Crimean take-over and Putin's invasion and continuing military operations in the Eastern Ukraine. If Putin can get those sanctions lifted then he and Tillerson can go forward on at least two separate deals with Tillerson and Exxon Mobil for drilling in the Russian Arctic and Exxon Neftegas Limited gas wells on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East.  

Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that FBI Director James Comey wrote a sympathetic senior thesis paper on televangelist Jerry Falwell. Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that maybe FBI Director James Comey was infused with Scalia law at the University of Chicago, the fountainhead for both trickle down justice and trickle down economics.  Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that FBI Director James Comey was on the Board of Directors for HSBC Holdings PLC until July 2013. HSBC was founded in Hong Kong in 1865 to service the British opium trade. Not one reporter in any news media anywhere has mentioned that until early 2013 HSBC Holdings was under investigation for money laundering for drug smuggling operations in Mexico and aiding countries like Iran and Sudan and North Korea to evade economic sanctions. HSBC was simply carrying on the highly profitable traditions of their founders.

So our tapestry displays patterns of giant oil companies and giant banking companies. The tapestry is not transparent. The tapestry is woven with very dark threads of corruption. These threads need to be unraveled to see the truth. 

Flag of the Russian Federation

FBI Director, James Comey

Flag of the United States of America

The Rope-A-Dope Debate v1.0

A peaceful protestor is maced by "Law and Order" security 

at event for the Donald in San Jose last May 2016. Photo by CNN.

September 2015, at Trump Tower New York City 

"Law and Order" security beats up a Mexican protestor. Photo by CNN. 

Note the little cliché from last evening's Debate v1.0, "Law and Order!"  Repeat, "Law and Order!"  Repeat again, "Law and Order!"  Clichés are not bad and TV shows and movies often like to use them as titles.  Clichés are hooks for most advertising and for all political speech writers and thereby politicians like the Donald.  During the Debate v1.0 recall, the Donald frowned a bit and faced us all with last election's cliché of fake "gravitas" or more correctly with an extended lower Wall Street pouting lip.  Then he honks, "I have two words for you.  Law and Order.  Law and Order!"

Put aside that the phrase is actually three words.  Let's talk about what the Donald meant to say.  "Order" is the operative word in the phrase.  That's order the old way we had in the civil rights times south and all over America.  Black and brown people and women had their place or they certainly would suffer a dire penalty.  "Law and Order" for our society is at the top of the minds of the people who adore the Donald.  If some deranged soul violates "Law and Order" our police must put them in jail or maybe even simply gunshot murder them.  

Sadly the Donald's "Law and Order" is the law and order of his security guards who beat up protesters in front of his ironclad Bauhaus home base in Manhattan.  Other libertarian republican rallies for the Donald across America often had a violence that reminded me of the deadly concert in Altamont, California 1969 when a guy was stabbed to death by the anything goes security detail provided by Hells Angels, Oakland.  In Debate v1.0, the Donald mentioned the terrible demonstrations and social unrest in his beloved Charlotte, North Carolina.  For the Donald "Law and Order" would certainly prevent such "terrible" civil unrest.  But the Donald made no mention of the reason for the riots in Charlotte.  That a Charlotte cop gunshot lynched a black man had nothing to do with the Donald's "Law and Order."  

  

Sure cops have a tough job and sometimes need to protect themselves from deadly force.  But the good old tea party libertarian anything goes Donald wants police in America to be mostly unregulated.  So one Police union gave him their loving endorsement.  Hey Donald, even if you are a cop you need to obey "Law and Order" just like you say!  But Donald, we have a constitution and the “Rule of Law” that's pretty good at protecting regular people from the abusive forces of tin pot brown shirts and murderous sociopaths.  If we follow the "Rule of Law" rather than "Law and Order" our America would be a much better place. If our police follow “Rule of Law,” we can save thousands of lives from gunshot murder and thousands more from gunshot injury.  We can respect each other, and we can genuinely deal with the corruption of some few of our police.  So Donald and the tea party and the republican party listen up.  We need to follow the better and less violent cliché, "Rule of Law" okay?  In our America please understand that the “Rule of Law” overruled and supplanted the old cliché “Law and Order” back in 1781 when we drove the Redcoats out of our budding nation.  

People raise arms pledging to vote for Trump
March 5, 2016 in Orlando.  Photo from Slate.com.  

“Heil Drumpf”
by the amazing and beloved Carol Leake of New Orleans. 

All Democrats: Beware Turkey!

His Excellency, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Beware Turkey.  

For the coming months until the vote in November the desperate RNC back room spooks are going for the jugular of Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic ticket.  The spooks want a disaster either in the USA or anywhere really.  That way the Donald can use the disaster as proof that the USA is going down the drain.  Think about how they got their icon Ronald Reagan elected.  Reagan or some spook of those days probably cut a deal with the Ayatollah in Iran to not free the hostages until the surrounding media could destroy Jimmy Carter's campaign.  

Yes, the spooks and spin weenies have worked very hard for the Donald over the past year.  They consider the Donald is the new Ronald.  This sounds stupid, but we all know the tea party spooks don't care what we think.  They just want the spin about "crooked and incompetent" Hillary Clinton to continue on and on and on until November.  

So what sordid stuff is out there that can give the republicans what they really, really want?  It looks like the most fertile ground is in Turkey and lies with the regime of His Excellency, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.  Erdoğan is literally locking up all the opposition because of a failed coup d'état.  Generally the tea party faithful don’t care a whit about some dictatorship in Asia’s problems.  But Turkey under Erdoğan is sliding more and more down the slope of hatred for America.  His Excellency could transform into the iconic Mullah without the turban but spouting "Death to America!"  The tea party faithful don’t really worry about that hatred either.  

But within Islamic Law Turkey is one really big and exciting potential media typhoon.  On US and NATO bases in Turkey are literally dozens of atomic weapons.  Erdoğan may decide he needs the weapons to secure his regime.  The resulting media storm would get those red state soldiers and god warriors out to the polls for another giant win for the Donald.  

Beware.  This could happen.

Brexit: What would David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve and Henry VIII say?

David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve in 1982
Photo by Jean-Claude Deutsch

The photo above shows David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve in Tony Scott's "The Hunger" movie. She played an immortal vampire who wanted only blood from the handsome British man who carried a brutal torch for la belle dame sans merci.  The next fall, David released his anthem for youth and romance, "Modern Love."  The song foresees the angst of the Brexit vote.  

...

Puts my trust in God and Man 

   (Chorus)  God and Man 

No confessions! 

   (Chorus)  God and Man 

No religion 

   (Chorus)  God and Man 

Don't believe In Modern Love 

It's not really work 

It's just the power to charm 

I'm still standing in the wind 

But I never wave bye bye 

But I try, I try 

Never gonna fall for 

   (Chorus)  Modern Love 

... 

With deep sadness we know the brilliant and aware David Bowie is gone now.  But we can say without doubt that both David and Catherine would be on the Remain side of the question.  With their extraordinary artistry and planetary good looks they became international in a stratospheric sense.  

Now let's look at Henry.  Yes, for god and man, Henry VIII would have ordered the UK to vote to Exit.  It is helpful to consider the entire Brexit movement as retro Henry without any actual beheadings.  Please recall that Henry got all astir because the Pope in Rome wouldn’t grant him a divorce.  In retort, Henry decided to start his own church and told the Pope to back off.  The English people loved that ancient stiff upper lip.  You can almost hear his resolve, "Hey Pope, you can't push me or my brilliant people around!"  Henry also invaded France, and he was a paranoid and dictatorial type who ordered quick execution for any suspected traitors just like he beheaded those wives.  

A sturdy confident portrait of Henry VIII 
by the workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger ≈ 1497

Now let’s all remember one of my favorite English Pop groups from 1965, Herman’s Hermits.  Long before The Knack, long before Abba, and long, long before Brittny Spears the Hermits got the number one slot in Billboard with their cover of a 1910 piece of doggerel called “I’m Henry VIII, I Am.”   It was a snarky takedown of Henry and his doomed wives.  Some of the old band are still touring around as recently as last year.  

Now that Brexit leader Boris Johnson has decisively won the Exit, this former Mayor of London will certainly run for Prime Minister to replace David Cameron.  So you heard it her first, this is certainly going to be Boris Johnson’s Campaign anthem!  Here’s the basic lyrics, to be expressed with the same blustery confidence of the Brexit leader, Boris Johnson.  Recite the song to yourself using your best East London mouthings.  

...

I’m 'Enery the Eighth, I am, 'Enery the Eighth I am, I am! 

I got married to the widow next door! 

She's been married seven times before! 

And every one was an 'Enery.  She wouldn't have a Willie nor a Sam! 

I'm her eighth old man named 'Enery, ‘Enery the Eighth, I am! 

...

And because the original song’s copyright has now expired, the Boris’s campaign can use it for free.  

One more thing, in this photo the gorgeous Boris and his normal hairdo calls to mind the Make America Great Again, Donald Trump.  

Can the Boris make England great again?  

The Boris Johnson:  Ready steady go!

Gunshot Murder in Mississippi 1964

From the top, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner Gunshot Murdered in Mississippi June 21, 1964
The FBI finally closed their case today in Washington

Having grown up in the South of Civil Rights times, the hatred of racism was in my face from my earliest memories. 

During the Nixon campaign the GOP was desperate and turned their once grand party into lapdogs for the white racist gunland minority of the Southern States.  That sickness thrives today.  

Gun controls to stop the spread of deadly military weapons would save lives all over America immediately. 

The NRA will pump up any sewerage that sells more deadly weapons into America.  

We the people of the United States are sick and tired of the media playbook by NRA gun fools, and how American murder by gunshot has become so quaint and so everyday. 

Guns are like cigarettes and we need to curtail all guns and ammunition in our nation. 

Guns and ammunition do not have constitutional immunity. 

Guns have no more rights than your blow dryer.  

The NRA constantly lies to America.  The NRA and Wayne LaPierre and Grover Norquist and Tom Selleck aid and abet gunshot murder and injury every hour all over America!  

Opt for life rather than death. 

We are Orlando and we do not forget!  

The Forty-Nine Gunshot Murdered in Orlando

Gunshot Mass Murder in America

The Forty-Nine Gunshot Murdered in Orlando

Try smelling a hundred dollar bill.  That's the smell of the US Congress today!  

That vote against all, or any gun controls in the US Congress is more than shameful or spineless. It is treason to allow gunshot mass murders. 

Here are the names of the Fifty-Six US Senators who voted to allow more gunshot mass murders. 

Hey Mitch McConnell!  Hey all republicans in Congress!  Hey Paul Ryan!  Forty nine men and women were gunshot murdered with a military weapon the other night in Orlando.  

Hey Mitch McConnell!  Hey all republicans in Congress!  Hey Paul Ryan!  As you command with vigor your obstruction, does it ever make you feel uneasy to know you were part of these gunshot murders?  

You aided and abetted the crime of gunshot murder by your inaction on any gun legislation, even the simplest background checks!  

These gunshot murders had little to do with some deranged brain stem religion or some enrapturing god.  The Orlando gunshot murders were carried out by one male psychopath who was able to buy a military assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.  A simple background check could have prevented those forty-nine gunshot murders.  

These gunshot murders were a direct result of you and your people in the US Senate and US House who fear and revere the bags of money of the NRA. 

In 2016 there were 15,093 gunshot deaths. 

Hey Mitch McConnell!  Hey republicans in Congress!  Hey Paul Ryan!  Hey NRA!  There will certainly be even more gunshot murders soon because of you and your treason.  

We are Orlando and we do not forget!  

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Thank you Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl

for the powerful Florida GRFX!

British Labor MP Jo Cox Gunshot Murdered

MP Jo Cox
Represented West Yorkshire, UK

British Labor Party MP Jo Cox was gunshot murdered yesterday.  Jo Cox was married to Brendan Cox.  They had two children aged three and five.  

Rest in Peace and Love, Jo Cox.  

Jo Cox was gunshot murdered by a right wing radical who was partly financed by neo-nazis and the KKK in the USA. 

Gun muppets here in America are no doubt using this crime to show how stringent British gun laws don't work.  

Those American politicians and gun muppets just don't get it.  If these radical right brownshirts start killing politicians like this young woman in the UK, those gun muppet US Senators and Speakers in the US House will be next on the list.  The organization is international.  The neo-nazis and the KKK are rivals of the ISIL gang of terrorists.  The leaders of such terror gangs like to operate in the USA because of the cheap and ready availability of all kinds of weapons.  

So far in 2016 there have been more than 6,153 gunshot deaths including the forty-nine murdered in Orlando.  

Gunshot deaths in the USA as of 06/17/2016
From <www.gunviolencearchive.org>

From Brendan Cox for all of us.

The Trickle Down Jurist™ Is Buried

Antonin Scalia
Visiting University of San Francisco School of Law

Antonin Scalia once said, "Originalism says that when you consult the text, you give it the meaning it had when it was adopted, not some later modern meaning." By that paper thin theory of law, modern gun muppets could only rely on the protection of the 2nd Amendment for black powder muskets of 1787. 

The "Originalist" interpretation arose from the University of Chicago that gave us both Justice Scalia and the master economist Milton Friedman, guru for the upper classes of big money and gigantic corporations. The darling of the Reagan conservatives and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman invented the Trickle Down theory of economics. Basically Trickle Down economics says the wealthy few of a society will let their spare money trickle down to the less lucky. Friedman won a Noble Prize for his efforts, and he spent the rest of his life lecturing on this sure fire theory of wealth.
The one big problem with Trickle Down economics is that it focuses myopically only on money and interest rates and banking for controlling and boosting and trimming the giant economy of the nation. Anyone can see that such a theory ignores humans and their everyday needs like food and healthcare and clothing. Such single-minded economics gave us the breakdown of 2007 and all the banks and the stock brokers who were just too big to fail. The failure and inhumanity of Trickle Down economic theory can be easily seen in the destruction of the once grand American city of Detroit, Michigan. 

Trickle Down jurisprudence allowed the present Michigan Governor to demolish fresh water supplies for the nearby City of Flint. 

Human Rights like money do not really Trickle Down from on high. 

Why did this happen? There is an old Southern expression, "Rich as a Crooked Judge" that applies well here. 

Antonin Scalia and some of the other Justices lived like jet set kings for many, many years. A few months ago the Koch brothers were flying Scalia and Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito around to their places in Vail and in Aspen and even Palm Springs for little meets and greets and schmoozes. The Kochs would also send Scalia on little hunting weekends. 
That Scalia liked to hunt and kill small animals says a lot about his character. So Scalia died down in Texas at Cibolo Creek Ranch as a guest of brave huntsman billionaire Tom Poindexter. All these patrons all had monetary and political interests in decisions to be made by the Court. Just two weeks ago, Scalia was hanging out in Hong Kong on who knows whose tab. 

Yes, living the high life paid for by a potential litigant in your court is grossly unethical. But why not, since the Supreme Court has no formal ethical standards. The Supreme Court may never have any rules because of their very own Citizens United decision, and the resulting fringe benefits from the Koch Koch Klan™ and the like. 

California and New York and most other states have written rules of ethics for all judges. The American Bar Association published a "Model Code of Judicial Conduct." Look it up and read it. Using a phrase from the Trickle Down Jurist Scalia, the Code is not "gobbledygook." You do not have to have legal training to understand the rules. The Code is an ethical template for all American Judges. The Code makes rules of ethics based on the western morality of all Americans. Here's the rules, or canons, of the Code from the ABA pages.

CANON 1 A judge shall uphold and promote the, independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.

CANON 2 A judge shall perform the duties of judicial office impartially, competently, and diligently.

CANON 3 A judge shall conduct the judge’s personal and extrajudicial activities to minimize the risk of conflict with the obligations of judicial office.

CANON 4 A judge or candidate for judicial office shall not engage in political or campaign activity that is inconsistent with the integrity, or impartiality of the judiciary.

©2010 by the American Bar Association. All rights reserved.
The Supreme Court has no such Code. Justice Samuel Alito recently said that the US Senate should not appoint a replacement for Justice Scalia. By making such a public declaration Alito was clearly engaging in political activity. And thereby Alito was in violation of the ABA's Code. See Canon 4 above. But there's no problem for Alito because there's no Code for the members of the Supreme Court to follow.

Justice Clarence Thomas wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas is also a lawyer. For several years, Mrs. Thomas worked for the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove at the Heritage Foundation. Then she decided to start up her very own non-profit, LibertyCentral.org, to extoll the Tea Party, that in turn was a creation of the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove. According to reports Mrs. Thomas has earned almost a million dollars from these organizations over the past decade. By Canon 3 above, Justice Thomas is thereby in violation because his close family member, Mrs. Thomas causes Justice Thomas to be in direct conflict over decisions made that may benefit the Koch Brothers and their Tea Party.
The Citizens Untied decision that allowed unlimited secret money to be used in American elections is only one such example of a conflict benefiting the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove. And that decision reaffirmed the legal concept of any corporation having the same equal rights granted any individual human being by our US Constitution. 
It has been lovingly reported by tea party media muppets that “Antonin Scalia Was a True Wit and the Best Comic on the Supreme Court!” Antonin Scalia and the other male partisans on the Supreme Court were placed there to overthrow Roe v Wade by embedding theocratic law into our legal system.
That cruel plan has not yet played out, and hopefully the passing of the Trickle Down Jurist Scalia will stall the theocracy for another decade or two. 
So our Supreme Court decided there should be no limits on the cash in American politics and that Corporate ephemera are people!
Let's get some written ethical standards for the Supreme Court! 
This story will be told far into the future about those corrupt Trickle Down times of the Supreme Court's five to four majority kowtowing to corporate and religious doctrine.

Once a Family Home in Detroit, Michigan
Now a Victim of Both Trickle Down Economics
and Trickle Down Justice

The War On Drugs

My El Chapo Cap DTLA

Geez, is El Chapo on the NRA board?  When El Chapo was captured he was armed with machine guns and assault rifles and pistols along with thousands of rounds of ammunition.  Was El Chapo invited to speak at the next NRA convention?  Just like El Chapo, the NRA is entwined in the cluster of intrigue and violence of the "War on Drugs" that began in the past century.  

For many decades the NRA has been an essential advocate of the US arming up for the failed "War on Drugs."  The "War on Drugs" was splattered on the world in 1971 by the despotic and racist cabal of the Nixon Kissinger Whitehouse.  Of course, the NRA gets 100% behind anything that sells more guns.  

The "War on Drugs" was part of the Nixon Kissinger propaganda spin to distract the American rubes from their own heinous criminal acts including paying for murder in Southeast Asia and in Chile and Argentina and later in Columbia and El Salvador.  

Just like redneck speed traps in southern towns, the DEA and other federal and local police agencies have quotas to keep the money coming in.  Local cops confiscate everything found in drug arrests including homes and even the silverware in "Drug Houses."  After the conviction the agencies auction off the bounty. 

An additional benefit was how the "War on Drugs" could be used by local law enforcement and judiciary to lock up brown and black people to stop them from voting.  The felony convictions for drug possession for millions of Americans prevented them from voting in elections.  In most Southern and Mid-Western states, to regain voting rights requires a lengthy process and legal fees out of the reach of most poor black or brown people.  

And are we in America not sick of the fear factor of the tea party republicans and their shills?  Again listen to what Gore Vidal said about the "War on Terrorism" that is exactly the same scam as the "War on Drugs:" 

"You can't have a war on terrorism because that's not an actual enemy, it's an abstract.  It's like having a war on dandruff.  That war will be eternal and pointless.  It's idiotic.  It's not a war.  It's a slogan.  It's a lie.  It's advertising, which is the only art form we ever invented in America.  And we use it to sell soap, wars and presidential candidates in the same fashion." 

Money transforms lies into truths.  Thank you tea party libertarian Pay-Per-Vote™ republicans all over America. 

The "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror" are both dire sicknesses caused by ruinous billionaires who don't want to pay their taxes and the criminals they put in positions of power. 

The "War on Drugs" is a war on freedom and human values. 

The abuse of drugs, all and any drug, is an illness. 

It is a horrible illness.  But Illness is not a war.