Return of the "Mavrick" MEVERICK
A Democrat, probably some sort of spelling elitist, is amused.
The line appeared on screen just as McCain discussed adult literacy, two colleagues say.
Clinton amends 'No way, no how, no McCain-Palin'
Hillary releases a statement at the close of McCain's speech:
“The two party conventions showcased vastly different directions for our country. Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden offered the new ideas and positive change America needs and deserves after eight years of failed Republican leadership. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin did not.
“After listening to all of the speeches this week, I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle-class families, provide quality affordable health care for all Americans, guarantee equal pay for equal work for women, restore our nation's leadership in a complex world or tackle the myriad of challenges our country faces.
“So, to slightly amend my comments from Denver: NO WAY, NO HOW, NO McCAIN-PALIN.”
Showing posts with label Clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clinton. Show all posts
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
National Security is not important to the American Mainstream Media
Chuck Todd from MSNBC warned his colleagues that they would be sorry they missed so much of the DNC Convention while lamenting over the CLINTONS for the first three days of the Convention. The media missed so much and I am very angry you decided to take this programming strategy and MIS-INFORM the AMERICAN PEOPLE, ONCE AGAIN!
I guess it wasn’t enough “RED MEAT” for the media. But let us not forget, the fourth arm of the People’s GOVERNMENT, the Media, and how well they did informing the AMERICAN PEOPLE prior to being MIS LEAD by CHENEY/BUSH into Iraq!
YES! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!
I have my critique of the mainstream media but am more concerned of the continuous EXPLOITATION of the ignorance of Americans and allowing the Bush administration to bring this country to its lowest levels across the board. Domestic and Foreign!
Apparently, the National Security is not important to the American Mainstream Media and it’s responsibility to inform Americans of THE REAL ISSUES!
Wow! Amazing! The only MEDIA outlet that showed the CHAIRMAN of the Foreign Intelligence Committee Speech was C-SPAN.
After all, while banks were robbing the American treasury and its people, we were all exposed to the talking heads, misrepresenting themselves as reporters but bringing in the cash while focusing on Paris & Brittany.
As a matter of fact, the American Mainstream media has continuously exploited the ignorance of the American people and the fact that the education of its people has been fast eroding.
The mainstream media continues to bash government yet they are right there playing the same old game and not INFORMING the AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Now, NBC has refused to allow the T-Bone Pickens advertisement to be aired.
I guess it wasn’t enough “RED MEAT” for the media. But let us not forget, the fourth arm of the People’s GOVERNMENT, the Media, and how well they did informing the AMERICAN PEOPLE prior to being MIS LEAD by CHENEY/BUSH into Iraq!
YES! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!
I have my critique of the mainstream media but am more concerned of the continuous EXPLOITATION of the ignorance of Americans and allowing the Bush administration to bring this country to its lowest levels across the board. Domestic and Foreign!
Apparently, the National Security is not important to the American Mainstream Media and it’s responsibility to inform Americans of THE REAL ISSUES!
Wow! Amazing! The only MEDIA outlet that showed the CHAIRMAN of the Foreign Intelligence Committee Speech was C-SPAN.
After all, while banks were robbing the American treasury and its people, we were all exposed to the talking heads, misrepresenting themselves as reporters but bringing in the cash while focusing on Paris & Brittany.
As a matter of fact, the American Mainstream media has continuously exploited the ignorance of the American people and the fact that the education of its people has been fast eroding.
The mainstream media continues to bash government yet they are right there playing the same old game and not INFORMING the AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Now, NBC has refused to allow the T-Bone Pickens advertisement to be aired.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
“Bush Buy SUVs” program
.....
Now the Federals are fighting dumb with dumber.
The Bush administration has proposed tripling a little-know tax deduction that dermatologists, real estate agents, accountants or business consultants can use to buy the biggest SUVs.
It’s a highly stimulating provision in the administration’s economic stimulus program. The loophole would allow someone who buys an $102,581 Hummer H1 for “business purposes” to deduct $87,135 from his taxes immediately. Seriously. Good deal if you can get it.
In December, The Detroit News first reported that lots of self-employed dentists and lawyers were gettin’ it. The auto industry’s hometown paper also was the first to figure out that the new Bush plan would turn the SUV loophole into a four-car garage in the tax code.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding," said Skip Barnett, a Hummer dealer in Atlanta when the News told him about the Bush tax plan's new SUV subsidy. "That would make a Hummer practically free." Bingo.
In case you were wondering, a businessman who wants to stimulate the economy by buying a Ford Taurus or a BMW convertible can’t get these big tax breaks.
That’s because in the 1980s, Congress put limits on how much small businesses and the self-employed could write-off for fancy cars. But they exempted vehicles that weighed more than 6,000 pounds because they didn’t want to discourage farmers and builders from buying pickup trucks and big vans. SUVs weren’t yet popular with soccer moms and football dads.
So now a chiropractor in Sausalito can buy a top of the line Hummer for that $102,581 and then claim a $75,000 deduction for capital equipment, an $8,274 post-Sep. 11 bonus capital equipment deduction and a first-year depreciation allowance of $3,861. The total deduction: $87,135. Assuming the driver is in the top income bracket, the federal tax savings for buying a Hummer is $33,634.
Bet you feel like a sucker for missing out, don’t you?
The Bush administration certainly thinks we’re suckers when it comes to SUVs.
As the administration’s right-hand writes big deductions for big vehicles into the tax code, the administration’s left-hand is grasping to make these road monsters safer. The country’s top road safety regulator, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently told an auto industry group, “The fatality rate per 100,000 registered SUVs is about three times higher than it is for passenger cars. It doesn’t take a statistician to tell you something is wrong here.”
Runge also said that he wouldn’t let his family ride in rollover prone SUVs “if they were the last vehicles on earth.” That really sent Detroit into a tailspin.
The “Bush Buy SUVs” program also collides with the administration’s recent decision to force car companies to improve the fuel economy of SUVs, pickups and minivans by 7 percent over the next few years.
The bottom line is absurd: the government wants to increase its subsidy for buying vehicles it says are unsafe, gas-guzzling polluters.
That makes about as much sense as asking “What Would Jesus Drive?”
Dick Meyer, a veteran political and investigative producer for CBS News, is Editorial Director of CBSNews.com based in Washington.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/23/opinion/meyer/main537649.shtml
Now the Federals are fighting dumb with dumber.
The Bush administration has proposed tripling a little-know tax deduction that dermatologists, real estate agents, accountants or business consultants can use to buy the biggest SUVs.
It’s a highly stimulating provision in the administration’s economic stimulus program. The loophole would allow someone who buys an $102,581 Hummer H1 for “business purposes” to deduct $87,135 from his taxes immediately. Seriously. Good deal if you can get it.
In December, The Detroit News first reported that lots of self-employed dentists and lawyers were gettin’ it. The auto industry’s hometown paper also was the first to figure out that the new Bush plan would turn the SUV loophole into a four-car garage in the tax code.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding," said Skip Barnett, a Hummer dealer in Atlanta when the News told him about the Bush tax plan's new SUV subsidy. "That would make a Hummer practically free." Bingo.
In case you were wondering, a businessman who wants to stimulate the economy by buying a Ford Taurus or a BMW convertible can’t get these big tax breaks.
That’s because in the 1980s, Congress put limits on how much small businesses and the self-employed could write-off for fancy cars. But they exempted vehicles that weighed more than 6,000 pounds because they didn’t want to discourage farmers and builders from buying pickup trucks and big vans. SUVs weren’t yet popular with soccer moms and football dads.
So now a chiropractor in Sausalito can buy a top of the line Hummer for that $102,581 and then claim a $75,000 deduction for capital equipment, an $8,274 post-Sep. 11 bonus capital equipment deduction and a first-year depreciation allowance of $3,861. The total deduction: $87,135. Assuming the driver is in the top income bracket, the federal tax savings for buying a Hummer is $33,634.
Bet you feel like a sucker for missing out, don’t you?
The Bush administration certainly thinks we’re suckers when it comes to SUVs.
As the administration’s right-hand writes big deductions for big vehicles into the tax code, the administration’s left-hand is grasping to make these road monsters safer. The country’s top road safety regulator, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently told an auto industry group, “The fatality rate per 100,000 registered SUVs is about three times higher than it is for passenger cars. It doesn’t take a statistician to tell you something is wrong here.”
Runge also said that he wouldn’t let his family ride in rollover prone SUVs “if they were the last vehicles on earth.” That really sent Detroit into a tailspin.
The “Bush Buy SUVs” program also collides with the administration’s recent decision to force car companies to improve the fuel economy of SUVs, pickups and minivans by 7 percent over the next few years.
The bottom line is absurd: the government wants to increase its subsidy for buying vehicles it says are unsafe, gas-guzzling polluters.
That makes about as much sense as asking “What Would Jesus Drive?”
Dick Meyer, a veteran political and investigative producer for CBS News, is Editorial Director of CBSNews.com based in Washington.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/23/opinion/meyer/main537649.shtml
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Where is Paris, Brittany, or Hannah Montana?
isn't this is what is important in this country and for the news organizations?
probably , becuawe most of these "NEWS" people do not know anything about real issues that effect this country and will continue to do so!
So, Keep on keeping us STUPID!!!!!
What is our ranking in the United States for education? Yes, let's continue to speak about all the REAL ISSUES,,,,,,Like Lou Dobbs, talking about a fence at the border?
Does he really understand that the "FENCE" is OLD NEWS? ANY TECHNOLOGY in the country LOU? Or are you IGNORANT on what other countries are doing for border patrol that has a record of actually stopping illegal immigration.
Lou Dobbs should be concerned with who is going to clean up his daughter's equestrian riding stable's stalls!
On and on and on.....................
His entire show, and that is waht most of the media is, all show, no real SUBSTANCE, and all opinion....NO SOLUTIONS or NO FACTS!!!
JUST HIS OPINION>>>>>ANY THOUGHTS BIG MONEY MAN?
Bowling One, Health Care Zero
By Elizabeth Edwards
The New York Times
Sunday 27 April 2008
Chapel Hill, N.C. - For the last month, news media attention was focused on Pennsylvania and its Democratic primary. Given the gargantuan effort, what did we learn?
Well, the rancor of the campaign was covered. The amount of money spent was covered. But in Pennsylvania, as in the rest of the country this political season, the information about the candidates' priorities, policies and principles - information that voters will need to choose the next president - too often did not make the cut. After having spent more than a year on the campaign trail with my husband, John Edwards, I'm not surprised.
Why? Here's my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country's inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.
It is not a new phenomenon. In 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings - an important if painful part of our history - were televised, but by only one network, ABC. NBC and CBS covered a few minutes, snippets on the evening news, but continued to broadcast soap operas in order, I suspect, not to invite complaints from those whose days centered on the drama of "The Guiding Light."
The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.
Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden's health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama's bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.
What's more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. Just to be clear: I'm not talking about my husband. I'm referring to other worthy Democratic contenders. Few people even had the chance to find out about Joe Biden's health care plan before he was literally forced from the race by the news blackout that depressed his poll numbers, which in turn depressed his fund-raising.
And it's not as if people didn't want this information. In focus groups that I attended or followed after debates, Joe Biden would regularly be the object of praise and interest: "I want to know more about Senator Biden," participants would say.
But it was not to be. Indeed, the Biden campaign was covered more for its missteps than anything else. Chris Dodd, also a serious candidate with a distinguished record, received much the same treatment. I suspect that there was more coverage of the burglary at his campaign office in Hartford than of any other single event during his run other than his entering and leaving the campaign.
Who is responsible for the veil of silence over Senator Biden? Or Senator Dodd? Or Gov. Tom Vilsack? Or Senator Sam Brownback on the Republican side?
The decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate. Articles purporting to be news spent thousands upon thousands of words contemplating whether he would enter the race, to the point that before he even entered, he was running second in the national polls for the Republican nomination. Second place! And he had not done or said anything that would allow anyone to conclude he was a serious candidate. A major weekly news magazine put Mr. Thompson on its cover, asking - honestly! - whether the absence of a serious campaign and commitment to raising money or getting his policies out was itself a strategy.
I'm not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates' ideas and proposals.
Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride. And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn't fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities.
News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates "sells," we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve.
And the future of news is not bright. Indeed, we've heard that CBS may cut its news division, and media consolidation is leading to one-size-fits-all journalism. The state of political campaigning is no better: without a press to push them, candidates whose proposals are not workable avoid the tough questions. All of this leaves voters uncertain about what approach makes the most sense for them. Worse still, it gives us permission to ignore issues and concentrate on things that don't matter. (Look, the press doesn't even think there is a difference!)
I was lucky enough for a time to have a front-row seat in this campaign - to see all this, to get my information firsthand. But most Americans are not so lucky. As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina, I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president.
If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie "Network" but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can - as voters - do ours.
--------
Elizabeth Edwards, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the author of "Saving Graces."
probably , becuawe most of these "NEWS" people do not know anything about real issues that effect this country and will continue to do so!
So, Keep on keeping us STUPID!!!!!
What is our ranking in the United States for education? Yes, let's continue to speak about all the REAL ISSUES,,,,,,Like Lou Dobbs, talking about a fence at the border?
Does he really understand that the "FENCE" is OLD NEWS? ANY TECHNOLOGY in the country LOU? Or are you IGNORANT on what other countries are doing for border patrol that has a record of actually stopping illegal immigration.
Lou Dobbs should be concerned with who is going to clean up his daughter's equestrian riding stable's stalls!
On and on and on.....................
His entire show, and that is waht most of the media is, all show, no real SUBSTANCE, and all opinion....NO SOLUTIONS or NO FACTS!!!
JUST HIS OPINION>>>>>ANY THOUGHTS BIG MONEY MAN?
Bowling One, Health Care Zero
By Elizabeth Edwards
The New York Times
Sunday 27 April 2008
Chapel Hill, N.C. - For the last month, news media attention was focused on Pennsylvania and its Democratic primary. Given the gargantuan effort, what did we learn?
Well, the rancor of the campaign was covered. The amount of money spent was covered. But in Pennsylvania, as in the rest of the country this political season, the information about the candidates' priorities, policies and principles - information that voters will need to choose the next president - too often did not make the cut. After having spent more than a year on the campaign trail with my husband, John Edwards, I'm not surprised.
Why? Here's my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country's inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.
It is not a new phenomenon. In 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings - an important if painful part of our history - were televised, but by only one network, ABC. NBC and CBS covered a few minutes, snippets on the evening news, but continued to broadcast soap operas in order, I suspect, not to invite complaints from those whose days centered on the drama of "The Guiding Light."
The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.
Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden's health care plan? Anything at all? But let me guess, you know Barack Obama's bowling score. We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.
What's more, the news media cut candidates like Joe Biden out of the process even before they got started. Just to be clear: I'm not talking about my husband. I'm referring to other worthy Democratic contenders. Few people even had the chance to find out about Joe Biden's health care plan before he was literally forced from the race by the news blackout that depressed his poll numbers, which in turn depressed his fund-raising.
And it's not as if people didn't want this information. In focus groups that I attended or followed after debates, Joe Biden would regularly be the object of praise and interest: "I want to know more about Senator Biden," participants would say.
But it was not to be. Indeed, the Biden campaign was covered more for its missteps than anything else. Chris Dodd, also a serious candidate with a distinguished record, received much the same treatment. I suspect that there was more coverage of the burglary at his campaign office in Hartford than of any other single event during his run other than his entering and leaving the campaign.
Who is responsible for the veil of silence over Senator Biden? Or Senator Dodd? Or Gov. Tom Vilsack? Or Senator Sam Brownback on the Republican side?
The decision was probably made by the same people who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate. Articles purporting to be news spent thousands upon thousands of words contemplating whether he would enter the race, to the point that before he even entered, he was running second in the national polls for the Republican nomination. Second place! And he had not done or said anything that would allow anyone to conclude he was a serious candidate. A major weekly news magazine put Mr. Thompson on its cover, asking - honestly! - whether the absence of a serious campaign and commitment to raising money or getting his policies out was itself a strategy.
I'm not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates' ideas and proposals.
Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride. And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn't fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities.
News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates "sells," we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve.
And the future of news is not bright. Indeed, we've heard that CBS may cut its news division, and media consolidation is leading to one-size-fits-all journalism. The state of political campaigning is no better: without a press to push them, candidates whose proposals are not workable avoid the tough questions. All of this leaves voters uncertain about what approach makes the most sense for them. Worse still, it gives us permission to ignore issues and concentrate on things that don't matter. (Look, the press doesn't even think there is a difference!)
I was lucky enough for a time to have a front-row seat in this campaign - to see all this, to get my information firsthand. But most Americans are not so lucky. As we move the contest to my home state, North Carolina, I want my neighbors to know as much as they possibly can about what these men and this woman would do as president.
If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it. Not by screaming out our windows as in the movie "Network" but by talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. Do your job, so we can - as voters - do ours.
--------
Elizabeth Edwards, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the author of "Saving Graces."
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Let's look at Private Investment Firms "....fictitious stock trading sheets were created "
Let's take a look at the creation of "Private Invstement Firms"...unregulated, not secured, ......not insured......
Former Hedge Fund Principal Pleads Guilty In $195 Million Fraud
April 21, 2008 in Securities Fraud by Dave Westheimer | No comments
John B. Kim, also known as Jung Bae Kim, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a single count of wire fraud in connection with the collapse of hedge funds operated by KL Group LLC, originally in California and later in Palm Beach County, Florida. His plea was entered before US District Court Judge Kenneth Ryskamp in West Palm Beach. John Kim, his brother Yung Kim and Won Sok Lee were indicted in January 2007 on 35 counts alleging a massive investment fraud scheme which caused investor losses of $195 million. In his plea, John Kim admitted misrepresenting unprofitable funds as successful, sending out false account statements and counterfeiting clearing firm statements. In the specific count covered by the guilty plea,
Kim admitted that in February, 2005, fictitious stock trading sheets were created that purported to show a one-day profit of $22 million in a stock known as RIMM, the company that manufacturers the “Blackberry” device. The RIMM trade, however, never took place, and the fictitious stock trading sheets were used to fool investors concerning the profitability of trades being conducted by the KL Hedge Funds.
John Kim faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. Sentencing is set for July 17. Yung Kim pleaded guilty to fraud charges in July and is awaiting sentencing; Lee is still at large (South Florida Business Journal, DOJ).
Former Hedge Fund Principal Pleads Guilty In $195 Million Fraud
April 21, 2008 in Securities Fraud by Dave Westheimer | No comments
John B. Kim, also known as Jung Bae Kim, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a single count of wire fraud in connection with the collapse of hedge funds operated by KL Group LLC, originally in California and later in Palm Beach County, Florida. His plea was entered before US District Court Judge Kenneth Ryskamp in West Palm Beach. John Kim, his brother Yung Kim and Won Sok Lee were indicted in January 2007 on 35 counts alleging a massive investment fraud scheme which caused investor losses of $195 million. In his plea, John Kim admitted misrepresenting unprofitable funds as successful, sending out false account statements and counterfeiting clearing firm statements. In the specific count covered by the guilty plea,
Kim admitted that in February, 2005, fictitious stock trading sheets were created that purported to show a one-day profit of $22 million in a stock known as RIMM, the company that manufacturers the “Blackberry” device. The RIMM trade, however, never took place, and the fictitious stock trading sheets were used to fool investors concerning the profitability of trades being conducted by the KL Hedge Funds.
John Kim faces a maximum of 20 years in prison. Sentencing is set for July 17. Yung Kim pleaded guilty to fraud charges in July and is awaiting sentencing; Lee is still at large (South Florida Business Journal, DOJ).
Friday, January 18, 2008
Recession , War Crimes, Health Care......
YOU, connect the dots.
Go to americanhealthcarefraud.blog to see more whree Rainwater REALLY got his money.
Betting on the coming storm: Sovereign Deed's bankroller sees disaster ahead
by: Ed Brayton
Sunday (12/09) at 23:01 PM
The article notes that Rainwater has been spending the bulk of his time researching peak oil theory and reading survivalist literature about the inevitability of economic collapse that will cause society to fracture:
And while Rainwater says he doesn't think that Kuntsler's worst-case scenario is likely to come true, he does believe that his dystopic prediction is closer to reality than most of us would like to believe and he's been buying copies of this book and handing them out in his circle of business associates. The key to all of this is the collapse of the oil market, which Rainwater considers inevitable, and the resulting societal strife:
PMC's such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, founded by Rainwater's partner in Sovereign Deed, Barrett Moore, have become notorious for trigger-happy behavior in Iraq. At home, the PMC entrepreneurs tout themselves as security for insecure America.
In pitching the Pellston project to state and local officials, the leaders of Sovereign Deed have outlined a business plan that clearly seeks to capitalize on this future dystopia. Retired Brig. Gen. Richard Mills, vice president of Sovereign Deed, told a town hall meeting that the company planned to offer disaster survival aid to the wealthy through a "country club style of membership." For an initial charge of $50,000 and a $15,000 annual fee, Sovereign Deed will come to the aid of their members in the event of a disaster, natural or societal.
They plan to use the Pellston airport as their base of operations, dispatching teams of armed men, mostly former members of the U.S. military's Special Forces, which Mills used to command, to protect the property of their members, to distribute survival rations and, if necessary, to evacuate them from a dangerous situation. At that town hall meeting, Mills was asked by a local resident about the ethics of providing such protections only for those wealthy enough to afford it when it is the government's responsibility to protect all Americans during such disasters.
"Every individual is responsible for preparing and supporting themselves," he said. The government cannot be everywhere all the time."
The person who asked the question, noting that this answer did not address his question about the ethics of selling heightened protection to the rich and leaving those who can't afford it to fend for themselves, tried to ask a follow-up question but was cut off by a local official who said it was not an appropriate forum for debate. That suggests this is not an issue that neither Sovereign Deed nor their local government advocates feels comfortable addressing. Rainwater, on the other hand, speaks in almost mystical terms about his ability to grasp the magnitude of the inevitable collapses that inevitably convinced him to finance this new company:
"This is going to get a little religious. I ask why I was blessed with this insightfulness. Everyone who has achieved something, scientists, ballplayers, thinks they were given their talent for a reason. Why me? Was I given this insightfulness at this particular time? Or was I just given this insightfulness?" He pauses. "I just want people to look out. 'Cause it could be bad."
Now, it seems, Rainwater doesn't just want them to watch out; he also wants them to pay him to bring the biggest umbrella to combat the coming storm.
Requests for an interview with Richard Rainwater for this story were unanswered.
Go to americanhealthcarefraud.blog to see more whree Rainwater REALLY got his money.
Betting on the coming storm: Sovereign Deed's bankroller sees disaster ahead
by: Ed Brayton
Sunday (12/09) at 23:01 PM
The article notes that Rainwater has been spending the bulk of his time researching peak oil theory and reading survivalist literature about the inevitability of economic collapse that will cause society to fracture:
And while Rainwater says he doesn't think that Kuntsler's worst-case scenario is likely to come true, he does believe that his dystopic prediction is closer to reality than most of us would like to believe and he's been buying copies of this book and handing them out in his circle of business associates. The key to all of this is the collapse of the oil market, which Rainwater considers inevitable, and the resulting societal strife:
PMC's such as Blackwater and Triple Canopy, founded by Rainwater's partner in Sovereign Deed, Barrett Moore, have become notorious for trigger-happy behavior in Iraq. At home, the PMC entrepreneurs tout themselves as security for insecure America.
In pitching the Pellston project to state and local officials, the leaders of Sovereign Deed have outlined a business plan that clearly seeks to capitalize on this future dystopia. Retired Brig. Gen. Richard Mills, vice president of Sovereign Deed, told a town hall meeting that the company planned to offer disaster survival aid to the wealthy through a "country club style of membership." For an initial charge of $50,000 and a $15,000 annual fee, Sovereign Deed will come to the aid of their members in the event of a disaster, natural or societal.
They plan to use the Pellston airport as their base of operations, dispatching teams of armed men, mostly former members of the U.S. military's Special Forces, which Mills used to command, to protect the property of their members, to distribute survival rations and, if necessary, to evacuate them from a dangerous situation. At that town hall meeting, Mills was asked by a local resident about the ethics of providing such protections only for those wealthy enough to afford it when it is the government's responsibility to protect all Americans during such disasters.
"Every individual is responsible for preparing and supporting themselves," he said. The government cannot be everywhere all the time."
The person who asked the question, noting that this answer did not address his question about the ethics of selling heightened protection to the rich and leaving those who can't afford it to fend for themselves, tried to ask a follow-up question but was cut off by a local official who said it was not an appropriate forum for debate. That suggests this is not an issue that neither Sovereign Deed nor their local government advocates feels comfortable addressing. Rainwater, on the other hand, speaks in almost mystical terms about his ability to grasp the magnitude of the inevitable collapses that inevitably convinced him to finance this new company:
"This is going to get a little religious. I ask why I was blessed with this insightfulness. Everyone who has achieved something, scientists, ballplayers, thinks they were given their talent for a reason. Why me? Was I given this insightfulness at this particular time? Or was I just given this insightfulness?" He pauses. "I just want people to look out. 'Cause it could be bad."
Now, it seems, Rainwater doesn't just want them to watch out; he also wants them to pay him to bring the biggest umbrella to combat the coming storm.
Requests for an interview with Richard Rainwater for this story were unanswered.
Sovereign Deed , Richard Rainwater....BUSH!!! Oh yea!
Romney, Clinton take Michigan's presidential primary
Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
by: Eartha Jane Melzer
Thursday (01/17) at 12:07 PM
Contractor made millions claiming Army stripes
In December 2003, the founders of Triple Canopy, a private security firm in Baghdad, caught their first big break, signing a contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq. Within four months, Triple Canopy had signed six contracts worth more than $28 million to guard U.S. facilities throughout Iraq.
For the military veterans who founded the company and Barrett H. Moore, who was then Triple Canopy's chief executive officer, these agreements launched the company on the path to what it is today: one of the leading private military contractors, sharing a $1 billion contract with Blackwater USA and DynCorp to guard U.S. personnel in the Middle East.
Moore, 43, a Chicago businessman, now presents himself as a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and business "visionary" who revolutionized the private security market but an Army spokesman said Moore was never an officer and never had intelligence training. Moore, fired by Triple Canopy in 2004, has launched a new private security firm called Sovereign Deed. He has parlayed his Triple Canopy success into political influence, persuading Republican and Democratic state officials to rewrite state law so that Sovereign Deed can receive $10 million in tax abatements and other incentives to establish a "national response center" for its private disaster relief business in northern Michigan.
Continued -
Eartha Jane Melzer :: Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
In promoting Sovereign Deed, Moore has emphasized the military expertise of himself and the company's top officials. On the company's Web site, Moore states that he "served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction (WMD)."
What Moore's Pentagon patrons and political allies in Michigan have not known is the true story of Moore's military service. According to U.S. Army record keepers, Moore never completed his Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in college and was discharged from an inactive branch of the Reserves in 1994 without ever having gone through basic training. Contrary to the claims on Sovereign Deed's Web site, Moore never served as an Army intelligence officer, or in any other branch of the country's armed forces.
Moore's brushes with law enforcement also escape detection. He was convicted of three counts of criminal fraud in Australia in 1992 and served time in prison, according to court records there. An appeals court later reversed Moore's conviction. But in a related criminal trial, Moore acknowledged participating in an "illegal enterprise" to smuggle cars from Chicago to Melbourne and admitted fabricating documents as part of the operation.
Moore did not return phone calls requesting comment.
Moore's story is another chapter in the remarkable emergence of private military contractors (PMCs) since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Caught shorthanded after the U.S. invasion in 2003, American authorities scrambled to find protection for U.S. facilities and personnel with few procedures for vetting the contractors' background or controlling their activities. As PMCs like Triple Canopy and Blackwater USA grew, their armed employees became embroiled in unprovoked shooting incidents and the killing of Iraqi civilians, and Congress and the State Department launched investigations that are still ongoing.
As the Barrett Moore story illustrates, the rise of the PMCs came at the expense of accountability. When Michigan Messenger reconstructed his career, the returning war zone entrepreneur who boasted to Michigan residents and politicians of an Army Intelligence career turns out to have more experience as a used car salesman.
Selling Military Expertise
According to interviews and public records, Barrett Holloway Moore, 43, is a creative businessman whose audacious style has won admirers and alienated former business partners.
In 1995, he made headlines in Chicago when he successfully proposed marriage to lawyer Mary Szews by hiring a helicopter to wave a banner outside the window of her office on the 73rd story of the Sears Tower. Last year, Moore registered more trademarks with government on behalf of Sovereign Deed than all but five U.S. corporations.
Moore has been sued for fraud three times since 2005, according to court records. One of the lawsuits has been settled, one went to arbitration with unknown results, and a third is still pending in Illinois state court.
Moore and his associates at Sovereign Deed have emphasized military experience as a key feature of the company. The firm's spokesman in northern Michigan is retired Brigadier General Richard Mills, a former deputy commanding general for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
In community meetings about Sovereign Deed's plans in November, Mills received hearty applause when he was introduced as a 30-year military veteran. He said he was proud to associate with veterans whom he called "the most magnificent of people."
In a phone interview Mills said that Moore was among the people who brought military experience to Sovereign Deed, adding he knew people who had served with him. He declined to provide any names.
But a spokesman for the National Personnel Records Service in St. Louis, which maintains records on all armed service personnel, said the NPRS has no record of Moore's service. Another search by the Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., determined that Moore never completed his college ROTC training at DePauw University in Indiana in 1985-86, had never gone into basic training or been on active duty or had intelligence responsibilities.
In response to questions from Michigan Messenger, a Sovereign Deed official stressed the accusation, if true, was quite serious.
"Stating that one has falsified military service goes to the very core of pride, honor, and integrity of those who have served," wrote Glenn Collins, the chief operating officer of Sovereign Deed, in an email.
Collins provided three documents that he said supported Moore's claims to have served in U.S. Army Intelligence.
The first document Sovereign Deed provided was a letter, dated Sept. 11, 1985, from Col. Nicholas Fritsch who served as the lieutenant commander of the 476th Military Intelligence Detachment in Indianapolis. As a member of ROTC, Moore served in the unit under Fritsch's command.
"Cadet Moore is one of the most impressive service members with whom I have served throughout my career," Fritsch wrote in recommending Moore for commission as a military intelligence officer." "…[He] has shown the personal traits and skills of a natural leader."
In a telephone interview with Michigan Messenger, Fritsch, now retired and living in Florida, recalled Moore as "a high school all-star type, … good looking, … smart, possibly athletic, a person of tremendous capability."
Fritsch said that Moore's claim of Army intelligence service was "making a mountain out of a mole hill."
"At the level of Moore's service he would have no first-line connection to high-ranking intelligence," Fritsch said. He added that he thought public boasting about intelligence work was inappropriate because it could compromise security.
The second document provided by Sovereign Deed was a May 1986 letter notifying Moore of his transfer to a U.S. Army Reserve unit until his expected graduation later in the year. The third document was an honorable discharge certificate dated April 21, 1994. Moore's rank at the time of discharge was blacked out on the copy of the document provided by Sovereign Deed.
The records confirm that Moore participated in the ROTC program as an undergraduate but provide no evidence of active duty intelligence work. Collins did not respond to a request to share additional records.
Moore's intelligence work is not part of the public record, Collins stated in his e-mail. "Mr. Moore worked for various agencies during his military service such that his records are kept outside of the NPRS," he wrote.
"I hear that all the time," replied Master Sergeant Keith O'Donnell, a spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command. O'Donnell said he checked the Army's classified holdings and protected data bases that log the educational records of enlisted and commissioned personnel. Moore's record shows none of the training that would be required of an Army Intelligence officer, he said.
O'Donnell pointed out that service personnel are retired at their highest rank, and Moore was discharged from the Reserves as a grade of Sergeant (E5), meaning he was never an officer.
"He never went anywhere with a military career," O'Donnell said.
'A tissue of lies and deception'
Moore did not go into the military after graduating from college, according to fraternity brothers and former business associates. They say Moore moved to Australia after graduation from DePauw in December 1986. By March 1988 he was working as an equity options trader at a bank in Sydney and moonlighting for a company called Eurotek that imported and resold used cars.
Court records show that the Australian customs service raided Eurotek's office in May 1989, seizing five cars and documents that showed Moore had kept two sets of records, one of which systematically undervalued the imported cars.
In February 1992 Moore was indicted and convicted of deceptively obtaining over $300,000 in connection with the used car business, according to court records (PDF). He was sentenced to a 16-month prison term. He was released after serving a portion of his sentence. In 1993 he testified against his former Eurotek associate in a related criminal trial in Sydney.
The judge in the second case described Moore as a key figure in the enterprise, which procured used Rolls Royces and Porsches in the Chicago area and shipped them to Australia with fraudulent documentation of their value. The cars were then resold at a profit. While accepting some of Moore's testimony, Judge J. Byrne said Moore was "a man who had so enshrouded himself in a tissue of lies and deception as to be a witness whose credit is of little value."
Byrne ruled that Moore's associate, an Indonesian man named Hiran Jayakody, was "the moving spirit" behind Eurtotek. Jayakody was ordered to pay a fine of approximately $1 million. At the date of Moore's discharge from the U.S. Army Reserves in April 1994, he was still fighting legal charges in Australia.
In December 1994, Moore's 1992 conviction was reversed. Though Moore had admitted that he acted to defraud Australian customs agency, the Eurotek trial raised doubts about the evidence used to convict him and his conviction was struck from the record.
In 1995, Moore enrolled in the University of Chicago business school. He received his master's of business administration in 1997, according to school records. A year later he filed for bankruptcy in Chicago, declaring that he was $2.7 million in debt and his two companies, Advanced Mittworks, Inc. and Knight International, were insolvent.
In a biography submitted last year to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in support of his bid for state tax incentives, Moore stated that Knight International included two companies and that "each was sold upon reaching revenue in the $50M range."
'Best Business Practices'
Moore was operating a software company in Chicago in the summer of 2002 when he first made contact with the men behind Triple Canopy. According to a court filing submitted by Moore's attorneys in the pending Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore entered e-mail discussions with Matthew Mann, a former Delta Force veteran, about establishing a private security firm. Mann is listed on the Triple Canopy Web site as a co-founder of the company with a Special Forces veteran named Tom Fortis. Mann and Fortis declined to be interviewed for this article.
The company was founded in Chicago in 2003, according to its Web site. Moore was involved with the company by July 2003 when he applied to register trademarks for "Triple Canopy Group" and 90 other related names with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
After Triple Canopy started winning contracts in Iraq in late 2003, Moore presented himself as a leader in the burgeoning industry of private military contractors. In February 2004, he represented the company at a $995-a-seat business forum held at the National Press Club in Washington. He recommended that firms looking to do business in Iraq should find a local partner.
"You are in a position to mentor them and help them with perhaps best business practices from your country or your world, and at the same time, you're in a position to try to offer a series of services or products that don't exist in Iraq," Moore said.
In March 2004, Moore donated $2,000 to George Bush's re-election committee and identified himself as the CEO of Triple Canopy, according to federal election records.
Less than a month later, he was fired by Triple Canopy's board of directors. In a lawsuit filed in May 2004, the company charged him with fraud, with raiding the company treasury for his own profit, and seizing control of the company's Web addresses and communications infrastructure as a bargaining chip in negotiations of a severance package.
Moore denied the charges, saying he used company funds for business expenses with the knowledge of his colleagues. The lawsuit was settled out of court in September 2005. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but according to bank records filed in the Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore received a $6 million payment in March 2006 identified as "Triple Canopy settlement."
Why did Moore's legal problems in Australia, his bankruptcy and his apparent misrepresentation of his military background not surface when it came to gaining millions of dollars in security contracts with the U.S. government?
One reason, according to the Office of Defense Trade Controls (ODTC), is that officers of companies applying for Iraq contracts need only swear that they have not been convicted of violations of the U.S. defense export laws.
"We might want to look at changing that," said Dave Trimble, chief of ODTC's compliance and registration division. "We have broad authority to take any derogatory information into account."
Where the PMC industry is going
Moore's latest venture in northern Michigan has won official support while stirring local opposition.
Moore's colleagues say he is eager to commercialize the market for privatized disaster response. Rick Johnson, the former speaker of the Michigan Legislature who now serves as Sovereign Deed's lobbyist, said Moore is "taking the industry where it needs to go next."
A community group calling itself We Don't Need Sovereign Deed says the company's claims of economic benefits are unsupported and that the idea of privatizing disaster response is undemocratic.
Moore's proposal to establish an operational center in the town of Pellston has been endorsed by a bipartisan cast of state officials. Earlier this year, Democratic state Sen. Gary MacDowell and Republican state Sen. Jason Allen drafted a bill to grant tax abatements to encourage Sovereign Deed to locate on 700 acres of municipal property adjacent to an airport. The state Legislature unanimously approved the bill, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Opponents have asked questions about a proposed long-term lease of 700 acres of municipal property and the construction of a hangar to accommodate army cargo planes in Sovereign Deed operations. Elected officials in Pellston have declined to answer the questions, citing confidentiality agreements with the firm.
"Moore's smart," said resident Tim Boyko. "He set it up so people cannot question, and it's like these local officials' brains short out when they get around retired generals and homeland security-type people."
Credit: Photo of Barrett H. Moore courtesy of DePauw University archives.
Catch the rest of Michigan Messenger's coverage of Sovereign Deed at this link.
Tags: Sovereign Deed, Jason Allen, security, privatization of disaster response, private security company, MI Disaster Capitalism, (All Tags)
Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
by: Eartha Jane Melzer
Thursday (01/17) at 12:07 PM
Contractor made millions claiming Army stripes
In December 2003, the founders of Triple Canopy, a private security firm in Baghdad, caught their first big break, signing a contract with the Coalition Provisional Authority governing Iraq. Within four months, Triple Canopy had signed six contracts worth more than $28 million to guard U.S. facilities throughout Iraq.
For the military veterans who founded the company and Barrett H. Moore, who was then Triple Canopy's chief executive officer, these agreements launched the company on the path to what it is today: one of the leading private military contractors, sharing a $1 billion contract with Blackwater USA and DynCorp to guard U.S. personnel in the Middle East.
Moore, 43, a Chicago businessman, now presents himself as a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer and business "visionary" who revolutionized the private security market but an Army spokesman said Moore was never an officer and never had intelligence training. Moore, fired by Triple Canopy in 2004, has launched a new private security firm called Sovereign Deed. He has parlayed his Triple Canopy success into political influence, persuading Republican and Democratic state officials to rewrite state law so that Sovereign Deed can receive $10 million in tax abatements and other incentives to establish a "national response center" for its private disaster relief business in northern Michigan.
Continued -
Eartha Jane Melzer :: Sovereign Deed CEO lied about military service, records show
In promoting Sovereign Deed, Moore has emphasized the military expertise of himself and the company's top officials. On the company's Web site, Moore states that he "served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction (WMD)."
What Moore's Pentagon patrons and political allies in Michigan have not known is the true story of Moore's military service. According to U.S. Army record keepers, Moore never completed his Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in college and was discharged from an inactive branch of the Reserves in 1994 without ever having gone through basic training. Contrary to the claims on Sovereign Deed's Web site, Moore never served as an Army intelligence officer, or in any other branch of the country's armed forces.
Moore's brushes with law enforcement also escape detection. He was convicted of three counts of criminal fraud in Australia in 1992 and served time in prison, according to court records there. An appeals court later reversed Moore's conviction. But in a related criminal trial, Moore acknowledged participating in an "illegal enterprise" to smuggle cars from Chicago to Melbourne and admitted fabricating documents as part of the operation.
Moore did not return phone calls requesting comment.
Moore's story is another chapter in the remarkable emergence of private military contractors (PMCs) since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Caught shorthanded after the U.S. invasion in 2003, American authorities scrambled to find protection for U.S. facilities and personnel with few procedures for vetting the contractors' background or controlling their activities. As PMCs like Triple Canopy and Blackwater USA grew, their armed employees became embroiled in unprovoked shooting incidents and the killing of Iraqi civilians, and Congress and the State Department launched investigations that are still ongoing.
As the Barrett Moore story illustrates, the rise of the PMCs came at the expense of accountability. When Michigan Messenger reconstructed his career, the returning war zone entrepreneur who boasted to Michigan residents and politicians of an Army Intelligence career turns out to have more experience as a used car salesman.
Selling Military Expertise
According to interviews and public records, Barrett Holloway Moore, 43, is a creative businessman whose audacious style has won admirers and alienated former business partners.
In 1995, he made headlines in Chicago when he successfully proposed marriage to lawyer Mary Szews by hiring a helicopter to wave a banner outside the window of her office on the 73rd story of the Sears Tower. Last year, Moore registered more trademarks with government on behalf of Sovereign Deed than all but five U.S. corporations.
Moore has been sued for fraud three times since 2005, according to court records. One of the lawsuits has been settled, one went to arbitration with unknown results, and a third is still pending in Illinois state court.
Moore and his associates at Sovereign Deed have emphasized military experience as a key feature of the company. The firm's spokesman in northern Michigan is retired Brigadier General Richard Mills, a former deputy commanding general for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
In community meetings about Sovereign Deed's plans in November, Mills received hearty applause when he was introduced as a 30-year military veteran. He said he was proud to associate with veterans whom he called "the most magnificent of people."
In a phone interview Mills said that Moore was among the people who brought military experience to Sovereign Deed, adding he knew people who had served with him. He declined to provide any names.
But a spokesman for the National Personnel Records Service in St. Louis, which maintains records on all armed service personnel, said the NPRS has no record of Moore's service. Another search by the Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va., determined that Moore never completed his college ROTC training at DePauw University in Indiana in 1985-86, had never gone into basic training or been on active duty or had intelligence responsibilities.
In response to questions from Michigan Messenger, a Sovereign Deed official stressed the accusation, if true, was quite serious.
"Stating that one has falsified military service goes to the very core of pride, honor, and integrity of those who have served," wrote Glenn Collins, the chief operating officer of Sovereign Deed, in an email.
Collins provided three documents that he said supported Moore's claims to have served in U.S. Army Intelligence.
The first document Sovereign Deed provided was a letter, dated Sept. 11, 1985, from Col. Nicholas Fritsch who served as the lieutenant commander of the 476th Military Intelligence Detachment in Indianapolis. As a member of ROTC, Moore served in the unit under Fritsch's command.
"Cadet Moore is one of the most impressive service members with whom I have served throughout my career," Fritsch wrote in recommending Moore for commission as a military intelligence officer." "…[He] has shown the personal traits and skills of a natural leader."
In a telephone interview with Michigan Messenger, Fritsch, now retired and living in Florida, recalled Moore as "a high school all-star type, … good looking, … smart, possibly athletic, a person of tremendous capability."
Fritsch said that Moore's claim of Army intelligence service was "making a mountain out of a mole hill."
"At the level of Moore's service he would have no first-line connection to high-ranking intelligence," Fritsch said. He added that he thought public boasting about intelligence work was inappropriate because it could compromise security.
The second document provided by Sovereign Deed was a May 1986 letter notifying Moore of his transfer to a U.S. Army Reserve unit until his expected graduation later in the year. The third document was an honorable discharge certificate dated April 21, 1994. Moore's rank at the time of discharge was blacked out on the copy of the document provided by Sovereign Deed.
The records confirm that Moore participated in the ROTC program as an undergraduate but provide no evidence of active duty intelligence work. Collins did not respond to a request to share additional records.
Moore's intelligence work is not part of the public record, Collins stated in his e-mail. "Mr. Moore worked for various agencies during his military service such that his records are kept outside of the NPRS," he wrote.
"I hear that all the time," replied Master Sergeant Keith O'Donnell, a spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command. O'Donnell said he checked the Army's classified holdings and protected data bases that log the educational records of enlisted and commissioned personnel. Moore's record shows none of the training that would be required of an Army Intelligence officer, he said.
O'Donnell pointed out that service personnel are retired at their highest rank, and Moore was discharged from the Reserves as a grade of Sergeant (E5), meaning he was never an officer.
"He never went anywhere with a military career," O'Donnell said.
'A tissue of lies and deception'
Moore did not go into the military after graduating from college, according to fraternity brothers and former business associates. They say Moore moved to Australia after graduation from DePauw in December 1986. By March 1988 he was working as an equity options trader at a bank in Sydney and moonlighting for a company called Eurotek that imported and resold used cars.
Court records show that the Australian customs service raided Eurotek's office in May 1989, seizing five cars and documents that showed Moore had kept two sets of records, one of which systematically undervalued the imported cars.
In February 1992 Moore was indicted and convicted of deceptively obtaining over $300,000 in connection with the used car business, according to court records (PDF). He was sentenced to a 16-month prison term. He was released after serving a portion of his sentence. In 1993 he testified against his former Eurotek associate in a related criminal trial in Sydney.
The judge in the second case described Moore as a key figure in the enterprise, which procured used Rolls Royces and Porsches in the Chicago area and shipped them to Australia with fraudulent documentation of their value. The cars were then resold at a profit. While accepting some of Moore's testimony, Judge J. Byrne said Moore was "a man who had so enshrouded himself in a tissue of lies and deception as to be a witness whose credit is of little value."
Byrne ruled that Moore's associate, an Indonesian man named Hiran Jayakody, was "the moving spirit" behind Eurtotek. Jayakody was ordered to pay a fine of approximately $1 million. At the date of Moore's discharge from the U.S. Army Reserves in April 1994, he was still fighting legal charges in Australia.
In December 1994, Moore's 1992 conviction was reversed. Though Moore had admitted that he acted to defraud Australian customs agency, the Eurotek trial raised doubts about the evidence used to convict him and his conviction was struck from the record.
In 1995, Moore enrolled in the University of Chicago business school. He received his master's of business administration in 1997, according to school records. A year later he filed for bankruptcy in Chicago, declaring that he was $2.7 million in debt and his two companies, Advanced Mittworks, Inc. and Knight International, were insolvent.
In a biography submitted last year to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation in support of his bid for state tax incentives, Moore stated that Knight International included two companies and that "each was sold upon reaching revenue in the $50M range."
'Best Business Practices'
Moore was operating a software company in Chicago in the summer of 2002 when he first made contact with the men behind Triple Canopy. According to a court filing submitted by Moore's attorneys in the pending Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore entered e-mail discussions with Matthew Mann, a former Delta Force veteran, about establishing a private security firm. Mann is listed on the Triple Canopy Web site as a co-founder of the company with a Special Forces veteran named Tom Fortis. Mann and Fortis declined to be interviewed for this article.
The company was founded in Chicago in 2003, according to its Web site. Moore was involved with the company by July 2003 when he applied to register trademarks for "Triple Canopy Group" and 90 other related names with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
After Triple Canopy started winning contracts in Iraq in late 2003, Moore presented himself as a leader in the burgeoning industry of private military contractors. In February 2004, he represented the company at a $995-a-seat business forum held at the National Press Club in Washington. He recommended that firms looking to do business in Iraq should find a local partner.
"You are in a position to mentor them and help them with perhaps best business practices from your country or your world, and at the same time, you're in a position to try to offer a series of services or products that don't exist in Iraq," Moore said.
In March 2004, Moore donated $2,000 to George Bush's re-election committee and identified himself as the CEO of Triple Canopy, according to federal election records.
Less than a month later, he was fired by Triple Canopy's board of directors. In a lawsuit filed in May 2004, the company charged him with fraud, with raiding the company treasury for his own profit, and seizing control of the company's Web addresses and communications infrastructure as a bargaining chip in negotiations of a severance package.
Moore denied the charges, saying he used company funds for business expenses with the knowledge of his colleagues. The lawsuit was settled out of court in September 2005. The terms of the agreement are confidential, but according to bank records filed in the Illinois fraud lawsuit, Moore received a $6 million payment in March 2006 identified as "Triple Canopy settlement."
Why did Moore's legal problems in Australia, his bankruptcy and his apparent misrepresentation of his military background not surface when it came to gaining millions of dollars in security contracts with the U.S. government?
One reason, according to the Office of Defense Trade Controls (ODTC), is that officers of companies applying for Iraq contracts need only swear that they have not been convicted of violations of the U.S. defense export laws.
"We might want to look at changing that," said Dave Trimble, chief of ODTC's compliance and registration division. "We have broad authority to take any derogatory information into account."
Where the PMC industry is going
Moore's latest venture in northern Michigan has won official support while stirring local opposition.
Moore's colleagues say he is eager to commercialize the market for privatized disaster response. Rick Johnson, the former speaker of the Michigan Legislature who now serves as Sovereign Deed's lobbyist, said Moore is "taking the industry where it needs to go next."
A community group calling itself We Don't Need Sovereign Deed says the company's claims of economic benefits are unsupported and that the idea of privatizing disaster response is undemocratic.
Moore's proposal to establish an operational center in the town of Pellston has been endorsed by a bipartisan cast of state officials. Earlier this year, Democratic state Sen. Gary MacDowell and Republican state Sen. Jason Allen drafted a bill to grant tax abatements to encourage Sovereign Deed to locate on 700 acres of municipal property adjacent to an airport. The state Legislature unanimously approved the bill, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Opponents have asked questions about a proposed long-term lease of 700 acres of municipal property and the construction of a hangar to accommodate army cargo planes in Sovereign Deed operations. Elected officials in Pellston have declined to answer the questions, citing confidentiality agreements with the firm.
"Moore's smart," said resident Tim Boyko. "He set it up so people cannot question, and it's like these local officials' brains short out when they get around retired generals and homeland security-type people."
Credit: Photo of Barrett H. Moore courtesy of DePauw University archives.
Catch the rest of Michigan Messenger's coverage of Sovereign Deed at this link.
Tags: Sovereign Deed, Jason Allen, security, privatization of disaster response, private security company, MI Disaster Capitalism, (All Tags)
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