The Los Angeles Times – The Shameful Showboat of a Powerful Press Monopoly May Be For Sale

An Historic Mouthpiece for Downtown Financial Interests, its Monopoly Status Has Led To Unnoticed Corruption in Local Southland Cities, The Tragedy of Bunker Hill, The Chavez Ravine Scandal, Secret Deals, and Suppression of Big Stories. Now in the Hands of Out of State Business Interests, the Local Pols and the Wealthy Elites Want it Back in Their Hands.

by Ed Murray

Dateline: Los Angeles

Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch says the Los Angeles Times may be sold soon to some local wealthy investors. The Tribune Company denied it, but Mr. Murdoch may be right, he knows a lot of important people, and he hears things: the whispers of the high and mighty, the beeping digital sounds of huge amounts of cash flowing into investment accounts, the rustling of papers as they are being readied by high powered lawyers. Mere mortals can’t hear things like that. Only a demi-god, only The Murdoch can detect these things.

Since achieving near monopoly status in the City of Los Angeles in the 1950’s, the Los Angeles Times has used its influence to push the agendas of the City’s wealthiest players, and also to push around poor people, Hispanics, and anyone else who got in their way. The tale of social destruction spans through the last six decades, and it is now an opportune time to explore a little of the sordid history of this once-powerful media giant, now that rumors are floating around that the paper might once again be sold to some interested wealthy elites and brought back under control of the downtown Moguls of Business and Real Estate.

The Destruction of Bunker Hill

Bunker Hill, just west of City Hall, used to be a stronghold of working class people in the 1940’s. The City bigwigs hated the area, they saw it as having a blockade effect, preventing them from expanding westward. They thought that Bunker Hill was, well, too damned big and way too tall. So Mayor Fletcher Bowron and the Los Angeles Times started a campaign to “clear the slums” from Bunker Hill. Having poor and working class people living up there on the Hill was just not right. Why, all those poor folks were literally looking down on the rich Moguls and Real Estate Kings who headquarted out of the L.A. City Hall. What would be next, having some of them run for City Council?

The plan that was eventually put out was to launch the largest “redevelopment” project in the nation. Everything up on that damned hill was to go: The people, the buildings, even the Hill itself was to be cut way down. Millions upon millions were to be spent. It was a tough fight. There were around 10,000 people living up on the Hill, and they did not want to move. Many worked in the downtown area, and were quite happy up there. Things really heated up in the 1952 City elections. Norris Poulson ran for Mayor against incumbent Fletcher Bowren. Looking back on it, both men wanted to say “bye bye” to Bunker Hill, so one wonders what all the fuss was about. Probably over spoils, but who keeps track of that in this City? Not the L.A. Times. In fact, incumbent Fletcher Bowren claimed that the Times wanted to control City government and have their own puppet in the Mayor’s office by supporting rival Norris Poulson. It turns out Bowren was a psychic, as well as a politician.

The owner of the Los Angeles Times in those days was Norman Chandler. He championed the Bunker Hill “slum clearance”, and also pushed for folks to vote for proposition bonds to get the money to do it. The downtown bankers liked that a lot, Bonds are a good business. In 1959 the Bunker Hill Project was approved. The only long-faces were the thousands of ordinary working-class people who were pushed out of their homes and apartments, not to speak of the many businesses, shops, hotels and other commercial entities.

With the coming of the 1960’s the destruction began. It also marked a change in leadership at the Times – Otis Chandler took over. To get the feel of what Bunker Hill was like, here’s a great video of author Jim Dawson, with an illustrated lecture on the Lost Realm of Bunker Hill, which was at Book Soup in 2012. It’s a wonderful history lesson.

And just in case you are wondering, yes, the “redevelopment” project was still chugging along last year, 2015. The Hill is now dotted with massive condo projects, office buildings and other monuments, including the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion (yep, Norman Chandler’s wife), the Disney Music Center, art museums and churches, and super rich guy Eli Broad’s Museum, one of the men whispered about as a possible buyer of the Times. In addition, we have the huge occult Aztec type layout of Grand Park which runs westward from City Hall, and is lined with City and County Offices and Courts. It has more than a symbolic reference to the Aztec pyramid and sacrificial grounds. It’s where the working and poor people sacrifice their hard earned wages to pay the fines and tributaries to the various courts and government buildings. The centerpiece, the Los Angeles City Hall, with its Egyptian style pyramid atop it, was designed by John Austin, a 33rd Degree Mason.

Bait and Switch Tactic Wiped Hispanics out of Chavez Ravine and Built Dodger Stadium.

Another pet project of the Times and Norman Chandler was Chavez Ravine. In the 1940s and 1950s it was home to several thousand working class hispanics and whites. The “slum clearance” slogan was pushed here also during the Bowren regime. Some progressive folks in the Los Angeles Department of Housing had a plan to spend over 100 million dollars to build a series of public housing structures in Chavez Ravine. This was the excuse to move in and buy up the housing from the working class who lived there. The City acquired most of the property on the cheap, promising the folks the grand new public housing they were going to get.

After Poulson took over as Mayor in 1953, the Times and the Elites decided to put an end to the socialist virus called public housing. They accused a few housing department employees of being “reds”, and having communist affiliations. These accusations caused a big uproar and a surge of anti-communist feeling. So in 1957 the City gave a shout out to Walter O’Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, inviting him to come to Los Angeles, where the City would build him a swell ball park. This was a much better solution – who would want some public housing full of Mexicans and communists? A major league baseball team would be so much better, and bring more cash into the pockets of the wealthy moguls, so the bait and switch worked, and on May 8, 1959 an army of County Sheriffs forcefully removed the remaining Hispanic hold-outs and a convoy of bulldozers flattened the houses and quaint farms that had dotted the hillsides in Chavez Ravine. A big win for the Times. A big loss for the 3,800 folks who were pushed out of their homes with nowhere to go.

Here’s a video that tells the truth of this ugly incident. One wag said that maybe the Chavez Ravine operation is what Donald Trump is referring to when he wants to “make America great AGAIN”.

L.A. Times Monopoly

Although the Times did not become the “official” monopoly newspaper in Los Angeles until the Herald-Examiner went out of business in 1989, it was basically the defacto monopoly by the mid 1970s. What happened was a devastating strike hit the Herald in the late 1960s and lasted until 1977, but by this time the Hearst owned paper was in dire straits, with circulation plunging to around 350,000 daily. The Times took full advantage of the Hearld’s woes, and boosted its ad revenue and circulation. With power and money, the paper went on a binge, buying up competition papers in small towns in the early 1990s.

The Times bought the Glendale News-Press and the Burbank Leader, both local Southland papers, and merged them into a once a week couple pages of the Times local editions. They purchased other Southern California papers as well. The effect of this was not only to increase their monopoly on news, but the merged papers carried little more than local puff and news-release type stories. Gone were the good old days free-swinging local papers investigating scandals and keeping their eyes on City Halls and corrupt influences. When the Tribune Company bought both the Times and later the San Diego Union it just made the situation worse. Not only were the reporting staffs cut back for economic reasons, but only the biggest national scandals can barely be covered, the local wrong-doing in City Halls and Redevelopment Agencies across the Southland are hardly ever mentioned.

The Underground Press Bursts Forth

About the time of the Herald strike in the late 1960s a counter-culture revolution developed in the big cities across America. Fueled by the peace movement against the war in Indochina, and a general rejection of the status quo values, the youth and a big chunk of the working class wanted something different, the truth in news reporting for a start. Pot smoking and mind-altering drugs came into general use. This cultural revolution also give birth to an array of alternative newspapers and comix. Most big cities eventually had so-called “underground” newspapers, publishing stories that the young generation really wanted to read, not only in politics, but also music, art, poetry and human psychological exploration. An arts and crafts movement began, packaged food was rejected for fresh, healthy vegetarian fare, and suddenly folks wanted to grow their own food and their own dope.

Art Kunkin, founder of the L.A. Free Press

Los Angeles became a cultural battleground, and a small fledgling underground called The Los Angeles Free Press, exploded on the streets. The stories were all the things that the Los Angeles Times refused to print or just ignored. In the alternative world view the cops weren’t always so good, the Black Panthers were heroes, pot was almost necessary to deal with the lies of the establishment, and rock n’roll electrified the soul. The Freep, as it was usually referred to, fielded armies of hippies to sell the weekly paper on major corners, supplying the long-haired vendors with some extra money to live on, and greatly increasing the status of the Freep and other undergrounds, like Open City, The Staff, and the Los Angeles Star.

Did all this bother the Times? Sure it did. They had lost a big portion of the young generation as readers. This is the generation that later piled into the internet. The hippies hated the Times, and carried those feelings forward as they aged. The working class never trusted the Times, and the Herald was in a decades long strike on its own road to oblivion, so no support from labor on that front. The effects on the Times was really felt 15 -20 years later as their once loyal readership finally started to age and wane. No fresh blood to replace them, partly because of the memories of the youth of the 1970s. The Times also got caught in a moral vice of its own making. Because it was so opposed to the counter-culture revolution, it missed out on millions of dollars of advertising revenue. A big part of that revolution was the sexual awakening, when “free love” ruled the day. Massage Parlors opened everywhere, many actually nothing more than low level cat houses, but their ads were refused by the Times. The Freep, on the other hand, had a different policy, called the “show me the money” policy, and soon the massage parlor and personal sex ads were fueling the growth of not only the Freep, but many of the undergrounds. The money was enough to sustain the entire movement for years. And the Times never got a dime of it.

The Times Fails to Defend Real Freedom of the Press

Ships restaurant sign in mid-city Los Angeles.

Freedom of the Press had exploded onto the streets of Los Angeles by the early 1970s. Scores of new alternative papers were published and distributed in metal newsracks that were placed on busy corners. Some of the hippy Freep distributors got into newsrack distribution, flogging sexual freedom newspapers like Swing, Saturday Night Swinger, Impulse, His and Hers, and many others. Hemp related and a stunning array of other odd political and religious newspapers appeared out of nowhere. Rolling Stone started its life as a newsrack paper selling for 25 cents. In front of the old Ships Restaurant in Westwood, for instance, there were somewhere around 50 newsracks at one time, making it difficult to even get on the bus at the corner. This was a huge burst of actual freedom of the press, but neither the Herald or the Times liked it one bit. The phalanx of alternative papers were cutting into the big boys, and that had to end.

Cities across the Southland started to pass ordinances, coincidentally all alike, limiting newsracks to only 2 per corner. Many cities demanded that the owner register the newsrack and pay a yearly fee. Since the Herald and the Times held most of the good spots and were thus protected they had no interest in joining any lawsuits to defend freedom of the press and fight these laws. Many of the newsrack dealers in fact suspected that the Times was somehow pushing these laws, using its power and influence behind the scenes with various city officials, something never proven. Times and Herald newsrack dealers put many of their racks on private property locations, where the sometimes controversial, and often randy alternatives could not go. Denny’s and Bob’s Big Boy coming to mind. These ordinances killed freedom of the press as far as newspapers go. Yes, you can PRINT a newspaper, but you can’t realistically DISTRIBUTE it, thus nullifying true freedom of the press as far as distributed newspapers go. The Times failed to protect and fight for that freedom, a shameful stance that may someday come back to bite them.

Times Secret Loans to Control Newspaper Market

A little known episode in 1998 sheds light on how the Times has striven to keep control of the Los Angeles newspaper market. When the Daily News came up for sale, the Times was afraid that the Orange Counter Register would buy it and give the Times some tough competition that it didn’t want. Really, just how much “conservative” news can there be? It would have been like Cheech and Chong fighting over a doobie, whoever wins, the doobie goes up in smoke.

So the Times did the only thing that true gentlemen of the wealthy elite always do, they financed another media group to buy the Daily News on the condition that they wouldn’t give the Times a lot of grief. A secret $50 million dollar loan helped the other group buy the paper, and to make sure the new owners didn’t get too full of themselves and think they could move in on the Times main territory, the Times got an option to buy the Daily News, as reported by Editor and Publisher and by the Times itself in a special edition published years later when snoopy accountants found out about it.

Things have since become even stranger, when the Orange County Register filed for bankruptcy late last year. The same company also owns the Riverside Press Telegram. So here comes the Tribune, now owner of the Times and San Diego Union, offering a 3 million dollar loan at zero interest rate to the company that owns the Register and Press-Telegram. This would give them a crack at buying the two papers out of bankruptcy, and thus increase their monopoly over all of Southern California. If that works out, the Tribune will own the Times, the San Diego Union, The Riverside Press-Telegram and the Orange County Register. Any beginning psychic can see more layoffs, consolidated printing, consolidated news, and immense power over the entire Southland. Oh, and the big hurt on real freedom of the press.

The Dawn of a New Monopoly?

If this big business deal plays out in favor of the Tribune Co., then they could really ask a high price for the group if they indeed want to sell. On the other hand, maybe the money losing papers will drag the whole mass of their Empire down the drain, including all the local newspapers they also own. The Dawn of a New Monopoly or the Black Hole of all Southland Newspapers? Only the Times will tell.

edmurray1955@aol.com

Flint, Mi ex-Dictator Fails to Show at Congressional Hearing on Drinking Water Contamination

Congress to U.S. Marshals: “Hunt Him Down!”

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

Congress: When You Are Invited to Testify You ARE Going to Show Up!

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Democrats to Committee Chair Chaffetz: We want Gov. Rick Snyder Subpoened to Testify.

Gov. Snyder: “I’m very sorry that this happened”

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Rep. Daniel Kildee – 5th District including Flint: “Let’s be clear about one thing – Every decision that was made for the City of Flint was made by a State Appointed Emergency Administrator.”

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Congress to EPA: We want UNREDACTED documents. Subpeona issued for Susan Hedman, former Administrator for EPA Region 5.

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Stay tuned for more…..Watch the hearings on CSPAN3 – click here.

9000 Children Poisoned!

Senate Leaders Rush to Aid Flint, Michigan as Thousands of Children May Suffer Permanent Injury From Lead Poisoning.

It’s Even Dangerous to Shower! You Can’t Shower with Bottled Water.

by Uncle Paulie

Dateline: Washington, D.C.

Sen. Stabenow wants to aid Flint Michigan

U.S. Senate Leaders are rushing to aid Flint, Michigan by providing matching funds to the State of Michigan to replace contaminated lead pipes and repair the drinking water system. Sen. Debbie Stabenow called the area “beyond a Superfund Site”, referring to Environmental Clean-up sites that are considered the most dangerous. She further said that over 9,000 children under the age of 6 were exposed to lead poisoning. This is probably the worst case of mass poisoning of children in the history of America.

Watch the full announcement from the U.S. Senate here on C-Span2 video:

The problem arose after the Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, took over the City of Flint and appointed a “regulator”, an un-elected “dictator” to run the City, called an “emergency manager”. This man, Darnell Earley, switched the water supply from safe Detroit water to the polluted Flint River. This caused corrosion in the old pipes and lead then leached out into the water, causing mass poisoning. (Anyone around here old enough to remember what happened in Ancient Rome? We guess nobody in charge in Flint, MI remembers, or has ever read a book about it. History repeats when education fails.)

Calls for the F.B.I. to Arrest Governor Snyder

Political activist and filmmaker Michael Moore has called for the immediate arrest of Governor Rick Snyder for this crime. You can read his paper on his web site, Click Here.

This is one of the greatest tragedies of the decade, and it will have on-going effects for years to come.

2015 Scoundrel Of The Year

Sen. John McCain Wins Hands Down For One of the Snarkiest Secret Deals Ever Done – A Land Swap Giving Away 160 Billion Dollars Worth of Copper to Foreign Corporations

Sneaking the Land-Swap Deal With Resolution Copper (Owned by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton Both Foreign Corporations) Into the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015 Because the Swap Bill Could Not Pass Through Congress On It’s Own. The Land Swap Gives Away One of the World’s Largest Copper and Gold Deposits That Has Been Protected Since 1955 When President Eisenhower Removed the 3,025 Acres on Oak Flat From Mining Forever. The Land Has Special Meaning to the Arizona Native Americans, and Pulling This Dirty Deal is a Stain on America. Shame on You John McCain.

America’s Forgotten Cold War Hero: Bobby Fischer

Dateline: Reykjavik, Iceland

On The Eighth Anniversary of His Death, Remember How Fischer Destroyed the Soviet Chess Empire and His Single Handed Victory Over Soviet Culture

By Ed Murray

His Reward From the American Government: Jailed, Choked, Kept Naked in Cell, Persecuted By President George H.W. Bush, Indicted By Grand Jury for Playing Chess, All His Possessions Stolen and Auctioned Off, U.S. Visa Pulled, Jailed in Japan, Vilified By The Obnoxious Media and Became A Man Without A Country Pursued by American Authorities Around the World. One of the Most Disgraceful Stories of American History Ever Perpetrated on one of its Own True Heroes.

His Single-Handed Victory Against the Soviet Chess Colossus Was a Staggering Loss to the Soviets.

The Cold War, 1972. The Americans and the Soviets were pretty much at a standstill. Neither side could risk a major military adventure that could escalate into mutual atomic destruction. Vietnam was winding down, ending in a loss for the Americans. Things were looking bleak, with a cultural revolution in the United States. In fact, cultural warfare was the only battleground left to fight in. Capitalism vs Socialism was a deadlock. The Soviets had launched an athletic offensive. They also ruled the cultural intellect with their mighty chess empire. Then along came a lone American, a young man who grew up in poverty, was socially inept for the most part, and had no real support from the institutions in his own country. He, alone, clawed his way to the top and challenged the Soviets in mid 1972 for the title of World Chess Champion in Reykjavik, Iceland. The lone kid from Brooklyn beat the Russian Boris Spassky and the entire Soviet apparatus. He cracked their psyche, and basically humiliated them, accomplishing something that no one had thought possible. The Soviet cultural colossus was shown to be vulnerable, and to be defeated after the decades of effort that they had put into it meant a staggering psychological loss. Bobby Fischer had become America’s hero, and the Cold War took a turn against the Soviets.

To get some idea of the tremendous task that faced Fischer, here’s a few quotes from the time of his victory:

Burt Hochberg, writing in one of the leading chess magazines put it this way: ” By fulfilling his lifelong ambition, Bobby Fischer has made History. His struggle to reach his goal was strewn with obstacles. He had to overcome the apathy of his countrymen while talented Soviet players have been conscientiously trained, financially aided, and hero -worshipped by the citizenry. The political power wielded by the Soviets in various chess bodies seemed aimed to frustrate Bobby at every turn. In the match itself, Bobby’s solitary preparation was pitted against a massive, concerted effort by the high-powered Soviet chess hierarchy.

Yet he won. And this is only the beginning!”

Chess master Kasparov remarked, “Fischer fits ideologically into the context of the Cold War era: a lone American genius challenges the Soviet chess machine and defeats it”.

Dutch grandmaster Jan Timmen calls Fischer’s victory “the story of a lonely hero who overcomes an entire empire”.

Fischer’s sister observed, “Bobby did all this in a country almost totally without a chess culture. It was as if an Eskimo had cleared a tennis court in the snow and gone on to win the world championship”.

David Friedman, in Best Ever Sports Talk: “The top Soviet players were provided with
state stipends and worked together in an organized fashion in order to maximize the chance that one of their number would always retain the world title; the Soviet Union could not compete with the West
economically, scientifically or in many other ways but chess and Olympic sports were two areas that the Soviets sought to dominate in order to “prove” the superiority of communism over capitalism. It is
no exaggeration to say that one lone American genius, by virtue of his talent, willpower and tenacity, overcame the collective efforts of the Soviets and wrested the World Championship from them after they controlled it for a quarter century.”

His win had also led to a chess boom in the United States. The U.S. Chess Federation had about 5,000 members. At the end of 1972, after Fischer beat Soviet Boris Spassky, membership had swelled to over 70,000. Suddenly, intellectual pursuits were back in style. America’s normal promotion of militarism and athletics took a back-seat when it’s youth took up chess.

Fischer a Member of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God in Pasadena, California

About the time of his ascendancy to the top of the chess world, Fischer was noted to having joined a Pasadena religious group called the Worldwide Church of God. Their somewhat controversial leader was Herbert W. Armstrong, who generally preached a version of British Israelism,, that the British people and some other Europeans were the true Israelites, not the Jews, and therefore they were the ones chosen and blessed by God. Among other things, Armstrong started Ambassador College and built the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, both great achievements.

Bobby Fischer was a high-profile member of the Church. He also was a big donor, giving over $100,000 to the Church at that time (1970s) according to an interview with Church leader Stanley Rader published in the Wordwide News in 1979. Because of his celebrity, Fischer was given an apartment on Church property and was often cared for by Church officials. He didn’t drive, so the Church often provided him with a car and a driver. The “chauffeur” told me that he was designated to take Bobby around, mainly on shopping trips. “Bobby was pretty eccentric, and because he grew up alone without much supervision from his mother, and with no father around, he was short on social mores and interactions with others. He didn’t mean anything about it, that’s just the way he was.”

Taking Bobby on a shopping trip for some new threads in Beverly Hills, the chauffeur shook his head, “He kind of rampaged in and out of these exclusive men’s shops, trying on things, making a big mess, and then on to the next store. He kept me busy, as I had to follow after him and apologize to the annoyed shopkeepers.”

“One time I was driving Bobby back to Pasadena from some event. It was night-time and I was going up the 110 freeway. Bobby was asleep in the back seat. Suddenly, I looked down at the gas gauge and saw that it was on empty, so I pulled off at the next off ramp, and as I sailed down the ramp I ran out of gas. I could see a gas station at the bottom and was able to make the light and barely pull in. Bobby woke up just at that moment and wanted to know what was wrong. ‘Just stopping for gas’ I said. I was really sweating, if I had run out of gas on the freeway with Bobby in the back seat I would have been fired as well as humiliated by everyone.”

Contrary to rumors, Bobby was fond of his mother, Regina. She didn’t drive either, so when Bobby was in Pasadena, he would send for her and being somewhat thrifty buy her a ticket on a Greyhound Bus. A long trip for mom, coming from the East Coast. The chauffeur would pick her up at the bus depot..

Bobby Fischer Tortured by Pasadena Police

The late 1970s and early 1980s were not kind to the Wordwide Church of God or to Bobby Fischer. On January 3, 1979 the California Attorney General sent armed deputies to seize the Pasadena H.Q. of the Church. This came about from a split in the Church, between Herbert W. Armstrong and his son Garner Ted Armstrong, and others, who reported financial mis-deeds to the Attorney General. At the time, the Church had assets of 100 million dollars. Stanley Rader, a Church leader and close to Herbert, led the fight against the Attorney General, and eventually beat him back in Court, but a lot of PR damage had been done, and the Church never fully recovered. Herbert Armstrong died in 1986 at the ripe old age of 93. Stanley Radar retired in 1981.

Meanwhile, in May of 1981 Bobby Fischer was arrested walking down the street in broad daylight in Pasadena. The charge was bank robbery, an absurd charge as Fischer was very wealthy at the time. It was and still is common for cops to stop people who didn’t “look right” to them, using any phony excuse they could think up. Were the cops in Pasadena just stupid or were orders sent from the top to hassle the Worldwide Church of God’s number one celebrity? Bobby published a pamphlet about this event in 1982, called “I Was Tortured in The Pasadena Jailhouse!” This is now a somewhat rare booklet, selling on the internet at times for over $300. The good news is that has been posted on a web site for all to read. It is a horrifying story, but not an unusual event, even after nearly 30 years of so-called advancement of our civilization, we see nation-wide on-going crimes and murders of civilians by cops. It seems that every day there is some new video footage of a citizen being unlawfully killed. So going back to 1981, before video cameras and cell phones, a lot of police misconduct was unreported. The fact that Fischer had the money to print a booklet on the event and distribute it, is something that most citizens would not be able to do.

Fischer charges in his booklet, that he was abused, choked, thrown into a cell naked, denied food and water, denied a phone call, and more. You can read if for yourself, click here. It is a very sad commentary on the Pasadena Police Department. Fischer’s story is totally believable. Pasadena is a very wealthy community, sometimes called Beverly Hills North. The main job of the Police is to protect the elites and wealthy people and businesses. Homeless people are not treated well. There is no parking anywhere on any street in Pasadena after 10pm at night. So was Fischer just mistaken for a homeless guy? It seems unlikely, and the attitude and statements of the cops would make one think that orders came down from someone high up in the City Government.

But what a thing to do! This was America’s hero, the World Chess Champion. The guy who single-handedly turned the Cold War in our favor. Unfortunately, this was not all that Fischer was to suffer from an ungrateful and at times criminal government.

Persecuted For Playing A Chess Game in Yugoslavia

In 1992 Fischer went to Yugoslavia to play in the World Chess Champion Tournament, billed as the Revenge Match of the Century where he again beat Soviet champion Boris Spassky. Bobby won this, despite a long time away from the tournament circuit, once again an unbelievable feat. Unfortunately, this was a time that the United States and its neo-con government, along with NATO was starting to break up the country of Yugoslavia, using a process of “regime change” that continues to this day, especially in the middle east. U.S. President George H.W. Bush retaliated against Fischer by putting out an “Executive Order” No. 12810 on June 5, 1992, prohibiting transactions with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. This led to a Grand Jury Indictment against Bobby, and for over the next decade he was a man without a country. He was threatened with imprisonment if he returned to America, and U.S. authorities attempted to seize his passport and confiscate his money. This was his “thank you” for his part in winning the Cold War against the Soviets, beating them not once, but twice.

Robbed of His Lifetime Collection of Memorabilia

On January 14, 1999 Bobby Fisher called a radio station in the Philippine Islands where he vented his anger on a number of things, primarily that he had lost all of his memorabilia that was stored in a Bekins Storage Company facility in Pasadena, California. He claimed he had paid thousands of dollars to keep his personal items safe, but his agent, Bob Ellsworth, who he called a “secret Jew” had failed to pay the storage rent and his stuff was auctioned off. His collection comprised of rare books, magazines, and even records of his winning chess games, as well as personal books signed to Fischer by former President Richard Nixon.

Fischer, angry that all his personal effects had been sold off by Bekins Storage in Pasadena, because of an oversight in payment by Fischer’s agent Bob Ellsworth, to whom he had been giving $5,000 per year to take of those matters, blamed Jews, not only for the loss of his stuff, but for various business deals that he felt ended up swindling him. Unable to come to the U.S. to get his belongings, or confront the alleged theft of monies owed to him, his only outlet was a radio program on a station in the Philippines, which no one in the West listened to or even knew existed. Years later, tapes of these broadcasts surfaced on the Internet. Meanwhile, about all Bobby could do was to stew about it, occasionally calling this radio program to vent his anger. You can read the transcript of the radio show Click Here, but be aware that Fischer uses explicit language and his rant contains wild charges against “the Jews”. You can google search more of his rants, in one call right after the attacks on the World Trade Center, he made some heavy anti-American statements that were in extremely bad taste, considering how many innocent folks died as a result. To many who have heard these rants, Fischer comes across at this time as completely unhinged.

His agent, Bob Ellsworth claimed that he went to the auction and used his own money to personally buy back 80 percent of the material, all of the best stuff, to pay for his mistake in not making Bobby’s payment to Bekins. He further claimed he later delivered the material back to Fischer in Hungary, yet Fischer seemed to have a disconnect, and still continued to talk about the loss of his memorabilia.

Why Was Bobby So Angry with the Jews?

But why all the anger at “the Jews”? Bobby’s mother Regina was said to be Jewish. It is now almost a certainty that his real father was Paul Nemenyi, a brilliant physicist, who was also Jewish, and fled Europe and the Nazis to the U.S. Many of his friends throughout his life were Jewish. By this time, had he been pushed over the edge mentally? All his accomplishments ignored, all his memorabilia stolen, his indictment and persecution by Bush and the U.S. government, now a man without a country, all this must have affected him. And what was the source of his rage against Jews? Was it subconscious anger at his father, who was rarely around? When he was growing up, did his mother tell him who his real father was? Or was that only a part of it? And how could such a brilliant man blame everything bad that happened to him on “Jews”, when a majority of his real trouble was caused by George H.W. Bush, certainly not a Jew, but a self-proclaimed Christian?

A glimpse of it could be from his years spent in Pasadena, California, and the Los Angeles area. This is all speculative, of course, but may lead to some understanding. Start with Bobby’s immense ego. His brilliant accomplishments in the world of chess, and the feedback given to him served to balloon his ego. Statements that he made, and statements from his friends lean to this. Every once in a while, we hear of some famous person who secretly worships Hitler because of the power he held. This fascination in complete power is represented by Hitler, although the facts of the German Third Reich show that Hitler was not nearly as powerful as outsiders thought. But image is everything.

In Pasadena, Bobby supposedly had a picture of Adolf Hitler over his bed. He attended the Worldwide Church of God, whose British-Israelite message excluded some Jews as the “chosen” people, and said that white Britons and other European folks were the true descendants of the ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and hence God’s special, chosen ones. He was reading anti-Jewish pamphlets like “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion“. How strongly did these things affect him, along with his own self-imposed isolated living habits that started when he was a child in Brooklyn? Did he turn even more inward, carrying this angst that slowly built up whenever someone who was Jewish did him wrong, and ignoring the outside world and the good things his many Jewish friends did to help him along the way? His few really close friends describe him as being a simple man, and a very kind person. But his high I.Q. would point to a much more complicated person. What was going on inside the Fischer skull? Even the mighty Soviets were baffled. Unless Bobby left a manuscript somewhere that explains his behavior, we will probably never know the root cause of this and the hurtful things he said about Jews, including many of his former friends who did a lot to help him during his rough times.

The Final Years

For a time his final years were spent in exile in Japan. He married a Japanese woman who was a chess champion of Japan. However, his U.S. passport was revoked and he was imprisoned in Japan, and threatened with deportation back to the United States. His chess friends intervened, and in March, 2005 he was granted full citizenship in Iceland. He moved to Reykjavik, the scene of his victory over Spassky, and moved into the same building as his friend Gardar Sverrisson. Iceland was loyal to Fischer – he had put the country on the map during the chess match, and they were happy to give him sanctuary. This is where he spent his final years. When he died, as his request, he was quietly buried in a local church, with only a few people present. It was so quiet that even the pastor of the church did not know about it, until after he was buried.

There was a big legal struggle for his estate. Bobby’s sister, Joan, had married Russsell Targ, who is familiar to many as a “Remote Viewer” and co-founder of the Stanford Research Center, an intelligence operation to investigate paranormal and parapsychology for military and intel purposes. How much did Bobby know about his brother-in-law’s operations? At any rate, Bobby’s wife, Targ’s sons, and a woman in the Philippines all laid claim to Bobby’s millions. The woman from the Philippines claimed Bobby was the father of her daughter, so the authorities dug up Bobby and took DNA samples, which proved he was not the father. Targ’s sons lost and got stuck with a large legal bill. The Japanese wife was the winner.

Since then, Bobby’s friend Gardar Sverrisson has written a book called Bobby Fischer’s Final Years, which is only published presently in Icelandic. We hope to see it in English at some future time.

The Final Words

“Look what I have done for the U.S., Nobody has single-handedly done more for the U.S. than me. When I won the world championship, in 1972, the United States had an image of, you know, a football country, a baseball country, but nobody thought of it as an intellectual country. I turned all that around single-handedly, right? But I was useful then because there was the Cold War, right? But now I’m not useful anymore. You see, the Cold War is over and now they want to wipe me out, steal everything I have, and put me in prison.”

Rest In Peace Bobby Fisher, America’s Forgotten Cold War Hero.

edmurray1955@aol.com

RIP Bobby Fischer, died January 17, 2008. America’s Forgotten Cold War Hero.

Emergency Proclamation Explained By Governor’s Office

The Nuts and Bolts of the State of Emergency

Dateline: Sacramento

SACRAMENTO – Given the prolonged and continuing duration of the Aliso Canyon gas leak and at the request of residents and local officials, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today issued a proclamation that declares the situation an emergency and details the administration’s ongoing efforts to help stop the leak. The order also directs further action to protect public health and safety, ensure accountability and strengthen oversight of gas storage facilities.

Earlier this week, Governor Brown met with Porter Ranch residents and toured the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility, including the site of the leak and one of the relief wells.

Today’s proclamation builds on months of regulatory and oversight actions from seven state agencies mobilized to protect public health, oversee Southern California Gas Company’s actions to stop the leak, track methane emissions, ensure worker safety, safeguard energy reliability and address any other problems stemming from the leak. Actions include:

– The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services established an incident command structure, including a physical post on-site at Aliso Canyon to better coordinate the local, state and federal response and information sharing and is maintaining a public webpage to provide real-time information regarding the state’s multi-agency response and air quality monitoring.

– The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources is investigating the leak and overseeing Southern California Gas Company’s efforts to stop it, including issuing emergency orders in November and December directing Southern California Gas Company to halt gas injections into the storage facility, immediately work on alternatives to stop the leak and provide testing results, data, daily briefings and a written plan and schedule for sealing the well. The Division also established a panel of experts from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Sandia National Laboratory to provide independent monitoring and technical expertise and review Southern California Gas Company data and information reported to the Division.

– The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is reviewing air quality measurements, evaluating public health concerns from the gas leak and assisting other state agencies in determining whether additional actions are needed beyond those already required by local public health agencies.

– The California Public Utilities Commission is investigating the gas leak to determine its cause and any possible violations and is collecting information about the costs of responding to and fixing the leak. The Commission and Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources also directed Southern California Gas Company to retain and pay for an independent, third party to perform a technical analysis of the well failure and its cause and share the results with regulators and the public.

– The California Air Resources Board is measuring the leak rate and estimating total methane emissions over the duration of the leak and is using ground-level monitoring, specially-equipped airplanes, and satellite information to provide updates of emissions.

– The Division of Occupational Safety and Health is ensuring on-site worker safety at Aliso Canyon.

– The California Energy Commission is coordinating with California Public Utilities Commission to maintain energy reliability during this incident.

Last month, the Governor sent a letter to the CEO of Southern California Gas stating that the company’s response has been “insufficient” and must be sped up, while noting that state agencies’ multiple ongoing investigations will be coordinated with the California Attorney General’s Office.

Today’s proclamation implements the following key orders:

– Stopping the Leak: All necessary and viable actions will be taken to ensure Southern California Gas Company: maximizes daily withdrawals of natural gas from the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility for use or storage elsewhere; captures leaking gas and odorants while relief wells are being completed; and identifies how it will stop the gas leak if relief wells fail to seal the leaking well, or if the existing leak worsens.

– Protecting Public Health and Safety: The state will: continue its prohibition against Southern California Gas Company injecting any gas into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility until a comprehensive review of the safety of the storage wells and the air quality of the surrounding community utilizing independent experts is completed; expand its real-time monitoring of emissions in the community; convene an independent panel of scientific and medical experts to review public health concerns; and take all actions necessary to ensure the continued reliability of natural gas and electricity supplies in the coming months.

– Ensuring Accountability: The California Public Utilities Commission will ensure that Southern California Gas Company covers costs related to the natural gas leak and its response, while protecting ratepayers; and the state will develop a program to fully mitigate the leak’s emissions of methane funded by the Southern California Gas Company.

– Strengthening Oversight: The state will promulgate emergency regulations for gas storage facility operators throughout the state, requiring: at least daily inspection of gas storage well heads using gas leak detection technology such as infrared imaging; ongoing verification of the mechanical integrity of all gas storage wells; ongoing measurement of annular gas pressure or annular gas flow within wells; regular testing of all safety valves used in wells; minimum and maximum pressure limits for each gas storage facility in the state; a comprehensive risk management plan for each facility that evaluates and prepares for risks, including corrosion potential of pipes and equipment. Additionally, the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission will submit to the Governor’s Office a report that assesses the long-term viability of natural gas storage facilities in California.

Under today’s declaration, and at the direction of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, all state agencies will utilize state personnel, equipment, and facilities to ensure a continuous and thorough state response to this incident. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services will also provide frequent and timely updates to residents affected by the natural gas leak and the appropriate local officials, including convening community meetings in the coming weeks.

posted by Uncle Paulie

unclepaulie@rocketmail.com

State of Emergency Declared in Los Angeles County

Governor Brown Finally Acts But Over 2 Months Have Passed

Here is the Complete Text of the Declaration

PROCLAMATION OF A STATE OF EMERGENCY

WHEREAS on October 23, 2015, a natural gas leak was discovered at a well within the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage Facility in Los Angeles County, and Southern California Gas Company’s attempts to stop the leak have not yet been successful; and

WHEREAS many residents in the nearby community have reported adverse physical symptoms as a result of the natural gas leak, and the continuing emissions from this leak have resulted in the relocation of thousands of people, including many schoolchildren; and

WHEREAS major amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, have been emitted into the atmosphere; and

WHEREAS the Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources issued an emergency order on December 10, 2015 prohibiting injection of natural gas into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility until further authorized; and

WHEREAS seven state agencies are mobilized to protect public health, oversee Southern California Gas Company’s actions to stop the leak, track methane emissions, ensure worker safety, safeguard energy reliability, and address any other problems stemming from the leak; and

WHEREAS the California Public Utilities Commission and the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources–working closely with federal, state and local authorities including the California Attorney General and the Los Angeles City Attorney–have instituted investigations of this natural gas leak and have ordered an independent, third-party analysis of the cause of the leak; and

NOW, THEREFORE, given the prolonged and continuing duration of this natural gas leak and the request by residents and local officials for a declaration of emergency, I, EDMUND G. BROWN JR., Governor of the State of California, in accordance with the authority vested in me by the State Constitution and statutes, including the California Emergency Services Act, HEREBY PROCLAIM A STATE OF EMERGENCY to exist in Los Angeles County due to this natural gas leak.

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT:

1. All agencies of state government shall utilize all necessary state personnel, equipment, and facilities to ensure a continuous and thorough response to this incident, as directed by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the State Emergency Plan.

2. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, in exercising its responsibility to coordinate relevant state agencies, shall provide frequent and timely updates to residents affected by the natural gas leak and the appropriate local officials, including convening community meetings.

STOPPING THE LEAK

3. The California Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission shall take all actions necessary to ensure that Southern California Gas Company maximizes daily withdrawals of natural gas from the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility for use or storage elsewhere.

4. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources shall direct Southern California Gas Company to take any and all viable and safe actions to capture leaking gas and odorants while relief wells are being completed.

5. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources shall require Southern California Gas Company to identify how it will stop the gas leak if pumping materials through relief wells fails to close the leaking well, or if the existing leak worsens.

6. The Division shall take necessary steps to ensure that the proposals identified by Southern California Gas Company pursuant to Directives 4 and 5 are evaluated by the panel of subject matter experts the Division has convened from the Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Laboratories to evaluate Southern California Gas Company’s actions.

PROTECTING PUBLIC SAFETY

7. The Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources shall continue its prohibition against Southern California Gas Company injecting any gas into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility until a comprehensive review, utilizing independent experts, of the safety of the storage wells and the air quality of the surrounding community is completed.

8. The California Air Resources Board, in coordination with other agencies, shall expand its real-time monitoring of emissions in the community and continue providing frequent, publicly accessible updates on local air quality.

9. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment shall convene an independent panel of scientific and medical experts to review public health concerns stemming from the gas leak and evaluate whether additional measures are needed to protect public health beyond those already put in place.

10. The California Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission, in coordination with the California Independent System Operator, shall take all actions necessary to ensure the continued reliability of natural gas and electricity supplies in the coming months during the moratorium on gas injections into the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.

ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY

11. The California Public Utilities Commission shall ensure that Southern California Gas Company cover costs related to the natural gas leak and its response, while protecting ratepayers.

12. The California Air Resources Board, in consultation with appropriate state agencies, shall develop a program to fully mitigate the leak’s emissions of methane by March 31, 2016. This mitigation program shall be funded by the Southern California Gas Company, be limited to projects in California, and prioritize projects that reduce short-lived climate pollutants.

STRENGTHENING OVERSIGHT OF GAS STORAGE FACILITIES

13. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources shall promulgate emergency regulations requiring gas storage facility operators throughout the state to comply with the following new safety and reliability measures:

a. Require at least a daily inspection of gas storage well heads, using gas leak detection technology such as infrared imaging.
b. Require ongoing verification of the mechanical integrity of all gas storage wells.
c. Require ongoing measurement of annular gas pressure or annular gas flow within wells.
d. Require regular testing of all safety valves used in wells.
e. Establish minimum and maximum pressure limits for each gas storage facility in the state.
f. Require each storage facility to establish a comprehensive risk management plan that evaluates and prepares for risks at each facility, including corrosion potential of pipes and equipment.

14. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission shall submit to the Governor’s Office a report that assesses the long-term viability of natural gas storage facilities in California. The report should address operational safety and potential health risks, methane emissions, supply reliability for gas and electricity demand in California, and the role of storage facilities and natural gas infrastructure in the State’s long-term greenhouse gas reduction strategies. This report shall be submitted within six months after the completion of the investigation of the cause of the natural gas well leak in the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.

I FURTHER DIRECT that as soon as hereafter possible, this proclamation be filed in the Office of the Secretary of State and that widespread publicity and notice be given of this proclamation.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 6th day of January 2016.

__________________________
EDMUND G. BROWN JR.
Governor of California

ATTEST:

__________________________
ALEX PADILLA
Secretary of State

posted by Uncle Paulie

unclepaulie@rocketmail.com

M.I.A. – Where Is Jerry Brown?

Porter Ranch Needs Disaster Declaration by Governor

Dateline: Porter Ranch

Embed from Getty Images

The growing concern over the massive leak of methane gas and other harmful chemicals at the Aliso Canyon facility of the Southern California Gas Company has become urgent. The methane, leaking since at least late October of 2015 constitutes a dire threat to global warning, pumping an estimated 55,000 kilos of methane into the atmosphere every hour.

Calls for Governor Brown to declare a State of Emergency have gone silent. Recently, at a mass-meeting of residents at a Porter Ranch church, Attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr publicly called for Gov. Brown to declare a State of Emergency in the area, and begin evacuations of the population until the dangerous leak is stopped.

Kennedy to Gas Company: “We’re Going to Have a Fist-Fight”

Embed

from Getty Images

Kathleen Brown, the Gov's Sister — Kathleen Brown, the Gov’s Sister

Kennedy, with other attorneys, are in the process of filing lawsuits against the Gas Company. He challenged Gov. Brown, a fellow Democrat, to come out of hiding and declare the area a disaster. He questioned that Brown’s continued silence could be because he takes a lot of money from the oil and gas industry? Or is it because his sister, Kathleen Brown, sits on the Board of Sempra Energy, the parent company to the Gas Company? Kennedy and others want the entire Aliso facility shut down for safety concerns.

Gas Stored Deep Below the Earth

This call for the complete shut-down of the gas injection facility could have far reaching implications. The Gas Company uses a geologic formation deep beneath the earth to store the gas, where it is injected under tremendous pressure and compressed so that a lot of gas can be stored there. There is usually something like 85 billion cubic feet of gas pumped into the formation. From there, pipelines carry the gas all over Southern California, from Bakersfield to San Diego, where the population depends on gas for heating, hot water, and cooking. Closing the facility without some form of replacement, could be life-threatening or at the least life-changing for millions of Californians. The magic of turning on your stove to heat up your dinner, or take a hot shower, or be warm on a cold night would be gone.

Situation Goes Back to World War 2

The use of these underground geologic caves and domes goes back to the days of World War 2. The United States War Department used these formations to store gas to keep it below the surface in case of air attacks from the Japanese Empire. After the war, the U.S. War Department “transferred” their rights to the Gas Company for the dome under Playa Vista. The problem is that it was never legally and full permitted and processed by relevant authorities on the State level, meaning that since the war, all this has been basically illegal, or at best in a “grey area” of legality. These geologic formations were places that oil had been pumped out, leaving a sort of empty cavern that the War Department and then the Gas Company thought would be fine for the storage of natural gas. There are many problematic questions about this that have never been answered.

The first question is regarding these caverns. It was long assumed and propagandized to the public that oil comes from the decay of dead dinosaurs. Some oil companies, like the old Sinclair Oil Company actually used replicas of dinosaurs in their advertising. New theories, however, claim that the creation of oil is “abiotic”, and is continuous, a result of various chemicals and minerals deep in the earth that are continuously going through a process under tremendous heat and pressure that is creating oil and gas. This would explain why some oil wells that are “worked out”, suddenly become active again. If this theory is indeed true, then new oil would be seeping back into the old wells. As we know, some of the chemicals in oil are extremely hazardous to human health.

Some areas of Southern California are still full of working oil fields. The area was, and continues to be, a bonanza of wealth for the oil companies. Thousands of wells were punched into the landscape on the west side of Los Angeles. Venice, the Marina area, even Beverly Hills had hundreds of them. Many of the old ones were not properly capped off, and were just abandoned, or capped with old technology that would be illegal today. This lets oil and gas to percolate through the area, sometimes causing death and destruction.

Poisoned Paradise Documentary Series on This Website

At the top menu bar on this website you can view our 4 part documentary series on the entire history of oil and gas in Southern California, going back to the days of the Spanish colonial period. It covers the drama and the deadly consequences of pumping oil in an urban environment, and how various authorities, including the State of California and the City and County of Los Angeles have turned a blind eye to the problems, and have allowed illegal and non-permitted wells, have approved massive apartment and condo projects without E.I.R. filings, and have put a large part of the population in danger of their lives.

This is Not the First Blow-Out for the Gas Company

In our Documentary series you will see the big Playa Vista blow-out, where a huge flame a hundred feet to two hundred feet high blew from their other injection facility on the West side of Los Angeles. The Playa Vista area has another one of the underground caverns where gas is pressurized, but when things aren’t done right, the blast can be seen for miles. Could the methane leak explode at Porter Ranch? Yes, of course it could. It is so dangerous that the crews cannot work at night because the lights and generators could spark a massive methane explosion. The F.A.A. has already banned any aircraft from flying over the area, due to the potential of an explosion. A video recently posted on youtube shows an infra-red video of the gas leak (methane is odorless and colorless so a regular camera cannot view it). It will shock you to see just how much methane is pouring out, it looks like a volcano of methane. Remember that this has been going on at least since October 25th.

Mandatory Evacuation Now!

Many are now calling for the complete mandatory evacuation of the Porter Ranch area. This is due to several factors. First, of course, is the possibility of a huge methane explosion, that could literally take out a big part of the area. The second problem is from the deadly and dangerous chemicals that are possibly being released along with the methane. A list of cancer-causing chemicals would include benzine, and toluene, and even possibly hydrogen sulfide, which can cause brain-damage and even death. A major worry is that the gas is not just coming up the main pipe, which was sealed at the top. The gas is leaking deep at the 8,000 ft level, and possibly spreading out and coming up from deep below the earth into any area that it can find a path. This could include aquifers and underground water streams, meaning that the water would become poisoned and the gas could travel and pop up somewhere else. This has happened many times before in our recent past. Remember how methane from old oil wells seeped into the basements of department stores in the shopping center at 3rd and Fairfax in the Hollywood area? One spark ignited the methane, which blew up and killed and wounded several people. Methane had seeped under the parking lot and the flames were coming up from cracks in the parking lot. It was like hell was coming to the surface. The schools in Porter Ranch have now been closed by the Los Angeles Board of Education. It took them 2 months, but at least they have done it now. The Gas Company is making a half-hearted effort to voluntarily relocate residents, but the process is flawed because they want you to pay first and then get reimbursed. How about the Gas Company pay hotels or apartments directly? They caused this problem. How can it be expected that a resident, still paying a mortgage on his house, now has to come up with money for a temporary place to live?

Months of Pain Ahead

Nice New Building for the Oil and Gas Folks

This story is far from over. The Gas Company estimates that it will take months for them to fix this one well. And that does not make the public rest easy, since there are over 100 more wells in the field. How many of them are up to code? How many do not have complete concrete casings, and have disintegrating pipes due to the corrosion of chemicals like hydrogen sulfide? They need to fix these wells, at their own expense, not through hiking rates. Sempra Energy just moved into their new snazzy 120 million dollar headquarters building in San Diego. We are so happy for them, making so much money that they can afford such luxury for their executives. Meanwhile, the hard-working middle class folks in Porter Ranch are seeing their businesses, their homes, everything they worked so hard for, going up in a cloud of methane gas. It just ain’t right.

Posted by Uncle Paulie

unclepaulie@rocketmail.com

“Red Eden” Science Fiction Story Becomes Real in Arizona Mining Fight

A Recent Futuristic Story About Native Americans on Mars is Coming True in Arizona

by Ed Murray

Dateline: Hollywood

In this case, it’s Life imitating Art. A recent science fiction graphic novel called Red Eden a Vision of Mars, has become eerily real in the Arizona Oak Flat fight pitting a huge multi-national mining company against a small band of Apache Indians fighting to save their paradise from destruction. First, a look at the graphic novel.

Red Eden was a story idea that Greg Simay had kicking around in his head for years. He envisioned some Native Americans leaving the hellish Earth and going to Mars and terraforming the planet to create a paradise like the one they had previously enjoyed before the arrival and invasion of the Europeans in 18th century America. About 5 or 6 years ago, Simay wrote a screenplay on this idea, but it somehow missed the mark, and went nowhere. He then got together with Hollywood documentary film maker and writer R.J. Johnson to help him move his project along. Johnson, at first thought that maybe a novel would be a good starting point, so a writer was hired. This didn’t work out, but then it was suggested that maybe a graphic novel would be a better vehicle to tell Simay’s story. So a team of writers, including Simay, R.J. Johnson, and Mike White, with help from Russell Davis, Steve Stern, and Paul Hunt, crafted an exciting story that tells of Native Americans, using profits from casinos to leverage technology and finally settle and terraform Mars. They created their own paradise and were free of the constrictions they had suffered on Earth.

But then comes the dark cloud of war. Earth is so polluted at the time of this story, 2101, that governments have collapsed, and an evil cabal of criminals have taken over, but things are so bad they have to leave the mess of Earth. They set their sights on Mars, an unspoiled paradise, and the thugs from Earth invade Mars and once again try to take away what the Native Americans have created. The Indians on Mars resist, and are led by a young woman named Takenya, coming of age and living with her grand-parents. She begins having visions, brought on by a spirit guide named Lozen, and leads her people in an epic battle to save her way of life, aided by a strange remnant of ancient peoples…..well, I don’t want to give away any more of the story. It is an e-book only at this point, available from amazon for download. The full color book is 120 pages, and revolves around the idea that history is once again repeating itself, to steal from the Indians what they have built.

Sen. Flake, former Lobby boy for Rio Tinto

In an astounding coincidence, a very similar drama is now being played out in the deserts of Arizona. A multi-national British mining company, Rio Tinto, operating through a subsidiary called Resolution Mining, has been trying for years to get a hold of what is the largest deposit of copper left on earth. The extended value of these deposits have been estimated to be 140 billion dollars. There was a big problem for them: the deposits sit underneath an area of National Park called Oak Flat, and in the 1950s President Eisenhower gave it special protection to preserve this starkly beautiful area with its massive boulders. Mining under or on the area was forbidden forever.

Rio Tinto, is a massive foreign mining company, and has been salivating for years over this area. They have spent lavishly, because the payout is huge. They had lobbyists, one was a guy named Jeff Flake, who worked for a Rio Tinto subsidiary in Africa, mining uranium. They tried to get a “land swap” bill passed for years, trading some land they had bought in Arizona for the copper rich earth under Oak Flat. It didn’t work, and at one point an Arizona representative went to jail for some related shenanigans. But the British don’t give up easily when it comes to pillaging native lands, a pastime they have engaged in for several hundred years. Lobbyist Jeff Flake is now Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. Hmmm…..my golly, how in the world could that happen? Teaming up with Sen. John McCain, in the spring of this year they attached the “land swap” bill as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act, which had to be passed by Congress due to the Obama Administration’s concerns about National Security issues. So McCain and Flake got it done, in what is probably the most underhanded, sneaky, despicable operations in Arizona history, giving away 140 billion dollars of American natural resources to a foreign corporation. No vote on that issue, just a “rider” on another bill. It is an outrage to all America, and especially to the San Carlos Apaches, who count the area as their ancient land.

The fight at present is being carried on by a group of Apache Indians who have called themselves the Apache Stronghold. They have marched across the country, they have been to Washington, D.C., they are trying to get this rotten “land swap” deal overturned. One of the leaders of this group is a young, well spoken teen-aged Apache woman named Naelyn Pike. She travels often with her grandfather, Wendsler Nosie to save the Oak Flat area. This is a stunning coincidence to the Red Eden story, where the young Indian woman Takenya, living with her grandparents, leads the struggle against the thugs from Earth.

Another coincidence is that Takenya, in the story, is guided by Lozen, who was a real Apache woman in the early days of the so-called “Indian Wars”. Lozen was a guide who could foresee certain events and protect her people. The real life counterpoint to Takenya, the young Apache woman, Naelyn Pike, counts her main heroine to be Lozen, the same historical Apache guide. The Red Eden story also has a traitor, you will have to read the book to find out who it is. The real life Oak Flat story also has a “traitor”, Rep. Anne Kirkpatrick, who dressed in “Indian style” clothing when she was running for election, making promises to the Apaches. Now that she is in Congress, things have changed. How much in campaign contributions does she get from the Rio Tinto boys? McCain gets some, a lot in fact, and so does Sen Flake, the former lobbyist for the Corporation.

So the fight goes on, the foreigners, in this case from Briton and Australia, taking our gorgeous land with the connivance of snarky politicians, through a pathetic land swap that will net them billions. Why do they even bother to swap worthless land, why not just give McCain, Flake, and the rest of the Congress some colorful glass beads like their ancestors did? Rio Tinto insults not only the Apaches, but our entire nation. The American voters should be outraged at this, but as for now, the only opposition is a small group of Apache Indians, led by a teen-age young woman and her grandfather, trying to save a beautiful wilderness for all of our future benefit. Stay tuned folks, this real life epic is just beginning.

edmurray1955@aol.com

Did Media Frenzy in Terrorist Case Break California Law?

Dateline: Redlands

Media Mob Storms Into Private Home Revealing Disturbing Questions

by Ed Murray

Embed from Getty Images

As the above images from Getty’s top award-winning photographer Justin Sullivan show the media mob storming the house rented by the Farook family. Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik are the accused shooters who gunned down 36 innocent people in a terror attack in San Bernardino, leaving 14 dead.

On December 4, the property owner, Doyle Miller, 81, decided to have a look inside the premises. He said the FBI was done with their investigation and had turned it back to him, and he was curious to look inside. He had some trouble prying off the boards that had sealed the front door, but no problem, British journalist and Sunday Times (London) editor Toby Harnden lent a hand with a large screwdriver to pry off the offending board, allowing the huge crowd of media vultures to storm the house and rampage through the rooms.

Toby Hardin Prying Open Door — Toby Harnden Prying Open Door

Harnden, interviewed on a Fox News segment, the Greg Gutfeld show, said “I wished I had worn a better shirt” to be photographed in. He claimed that owner Doyle Miller had invited the media inside, a claim that was echoed by others from the other news agencies. He said it is in the public interest to see what was in the house. He also said that “it was an absolute gold mine of information.” But what is the actual legal status, and what right does Mr. Miller have to be in the premises himself, and what legal right did he have to break into the property and let in not only the media, but neighbors and others who just floated in?

What California Law Says

The interesting thing in this case is that some reports are saying that Farook’s mother rented the house. If indeed she signed the rental agreement or lease with Mr. Miller, then she is the tenant and it is her sole authority over it until she moves or is evicted. The police authorities and FBI, of course, in a criminal case, can get a warrant and search the home where the alleged killers lived. They can keep this as a crime scene for some time, and it is astounding they “released” the home back to the owner so soon, after 2 days, especially with the breaking story of the next door neighbor being involved in what is now looking like a terrorist cell. The neighbor, Enrique Marquez, allegedly bought the weapons used in the attack, and had planned other, more sophisticated operations with Farook. Did the Sheriff’s Department get a chance to examine the crime scene carefully? Did the FBI “take over” the whole operation? The FBI left a four page list of evidence that they seized on a table inside the house. At lease one page was published in the press.

Mr. Miller possibly had no legal authority to enter the premises without permission from his tenant, especially since there was no obvious emergency, like a burst pipe or flood. And even if he was just checking on the plumbing or something, what legal right did he have to invite in a mob of about 100 reporters and others, mostly unidentified, into the house? Could this be considered breaking and entering? Or Burglary? Or invasion of privacy? And how about Mr. Harnden, a respected British Journalist, wielding a screwdriver to pry off the door? Mr. Harnden claimed he found some interesting intel in the house, including some phone numbers from a middle eastern country, that he is checking out, pointing out that maybe the FBI search was not so thorough, a disturbing thought in itself. Harnden said he found a notebook with numbers in Dubai and other numbers from the Middle East. Possibly good leads now that it is becoming evident that this was the work of a terrorist cell. On December 19th, Farook’s mother Rafia, with other family members, showed up with a U-haul and loaded all the possessions from the Redlands house and drove off. If there was indeed any evidence left, it may now be gone forever.

Garages of Death

According to reports, Farook was making bombs in his garage at the Redlands house. These situations are dangerous to everyone involved, both to law enforcement and a mob of press members. Remember back to February 8, 1986 in North Hollywood. LAPD was investigating a Hollywood make-up artist named Donnell Morse, for shooting a make-up artist union official. Pipe bombs were found in his garage, and the LAPD Bomb Squad was called. Two veteran experts from the Bomb Squad, Detective Arleigh McCree and officer Ronald Ball, arrived and determined that the bombs were booby-trapped. The area was evacuated, but in attempting to disarm the bombs both McCree and Ball were killed when one of the bombs went off. Det. McCree received an award for heroism, and he was known by many in Los Angeles. He had saved lives on Hollywood Boulevard in another incident where an extremist zionist group had allegedly planted a bomb at an Arab Information Office located in a building facing the busy street. Old time reporters remember Det. McCree, he was a great guy and he was much respected for his work in keeping us safe. The point of this is to illustrate how dangerous these situations can be. Could Farook have planted booby-trapped bombs? Probably not in the house where he lived with his family, but the possibility exists in the secretive garage where he had ammunition and pipe bombs. How soon we forget about the past events that has sadly resulted in the deaths of police officers.

Legal Issues

According to the book “When Someone Dies in California” by Amelia Pohl and California attorney Bruce Feder, there are strict procedures to follow when someone dies. These would include methods of probate, determining the heirs, finding a will, and many legal issues regarding the transfer of the decedents property. Basically, there are rules of estate administration. Depending on various circumstances regarding the death of someone in California, there are legal rules. The Farook family has attorneys who have given press conferences, so it can be assumed that they are taking care of things. But in reading through the book, it still poses the question as to what authority the landlord had to break into the house and let in a mob of press and others to rampage through the house. A friend of mine who is a property manager, said that if someone dies in one of the apartments, it is sealed off by the police. The County Administrator will try to find a will and to find any relatives, but until things are resolved legally, the apartment is sealed off. The landlord cannot go in. The authorities may keep it locked up for months while they investigate the situation. This is for a normal death, not one of the biggest crime scenes in California history, much less that this could be the home for a murderous terrorist cell. It looks like a chain of incredible blunders have been made by FBI, law enforcement, the landlord, the press, and others. Another crazy media circus, where, as the old adage goes, nothing lost save honor for all parties involved.

edmurray1955@aol.com