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Sunday, October 26, 2014

John Fund - Pimping the Vote


The Three Pimpeteers



by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster


It is ironic that John Fund claims some kind of victory by pointing out a highly marginal way of stealing a few votes via the unusual opportunity of finding unused ballots. In his recent article, James O’Keefe Strikes Again, the back slapping was thick and gleeful.

James O'Keefe, again, scored a media event in these last days before the coming election. This time he was not dressed up in his pimp dudes, but he should have been.  

The election would have to extraordinarily close for this kind of voter fraud to matter. Argument like these are like blaming the national debt on shop lifting by senior citizens. It happens, but it is rare.

The Big Game is being run by the Number Two Man on Fund's own speed dial, Karl Rove. Stealing Elections was essential if the Number One Man on Fund's speed dial in the same period, Dick Cheney, of Halliburton, was to win and so become even richer. The three are linked by common interests as well as a solid and long term friendship. They scratch each other's backs, as the expression goes.

When John beats up a woman, or otherwise misbehaves, they are there for him.

Fund, having made himself a kind of a 'reputation' for pimping the idea of Voter Fraud lays it on thick and cheesy in his article.

The other side, located in Colorado, make themselves look pathetic because a NeoCon had to give them this exciting idea – and these twits golly gosh, gee'd all over James O'Keefe instead of showing him the door.

Franklin’s state director, Meredith Hicks, told O’Keefe that committing voter fraud using unused ballots was perfectly okay. “That’s not even lying or stealing, if someone throws out the ballot. If you want to fill it out you should do it,” she told O’Keefe on tape.

Note: Cheating is always wrong. It destroys trust in the integrity of the entire electoral process and is repulsive in anyone.

That said, can't you see this woman rooting round in people's trash cans looking for those ballots? How would you know when they would appear? Many of these ballots will end up in the trash, but only after election day. “Oh. Never mind, that was yesterday.” Others will be used as grocery lists, book marks, made into paper airplanes and other purposes for which they were not intended. Some will also be used for voting.

Really, it makes you cringe.

There is a magnitude of difference between this level of electoral dishonesty and the Big Game. That is where the real money is and this article is evidence John Fund is still Pimping for the same folks who profited by murdering a million and a half Iraqis, killing off babies doomed by the effects of DU to short and horrible lives, and other war crimes galore. Remember Bush and his administration's excitement over 'rendering' people?

You can't say Fund is not consistent. So are No. One SpeedDial and No. Two SpeedDial.

To get the money you have to win the election and if you are Dick Cheney or George Bush you can't win unless you cheat.

Rove is not into retail, he is all about Whole Selling out America with Ballot Fraud via cool electronics. He has made millions this way. Cheney, No. Two SpeedDial, made billions.

Fund and Friends are all Pimps. They should dress the role.

Friday, September 12, 2014

No. 114 – September 11, 2014 – What Happened to World Peace?

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 
 

As the memorials for September 11, 2001 end it is time to remember the potential for peace which existed in the days following.

The world grieved with us.

Ordinary people around the globe reacted with outpourings of sympathy, protesting these acts of terrorism. World leaders immediately responded, condemning the murders and offering support. Among these leaders was Vladimir Putin. Russia's president urged "the entire international community should unite in the struggle against terrorism," also saying the attacks were "a blatant challenge to humanity."

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi called the attacks "horrifying" telling Muslims that "irrespective of the conflict with America it is a human duty to show sympathy with the American people." Mohammed Khatami, president of Iran, expressed, "deep regret and sympathy with the victims." Yasser Arafat, Palestinian president, denounced the attacks. Appearing stunned, he repeated how, "unbelievable" they were.

Saddam Hussein expressed sympathy for those who died.

North Korea also offered its sympathy to Americans.

Few people demonstrated anything but sympathy for America. Prayers and vigils by people of most faiths took place as across the world tens of thousands came out to protest the attacks.

So, who planned the attacks?

Osama bin Laden adamantly denied involvement in the 9/11 attacks in an interview by Ummat, a Pakistani daily, published in Karachi on September 28, 2001 He expressed his views on the loss of life, saying, “Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people.”

Osama went on to say, “They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usamah and Taleban and then this incident happened.” Speculating who was to blame, he advised looking, “within the US system,” or for those responsible, or for persons who seeking conflict between Islam and Christianity. Finally, he suggested involvement by American intelligence agencies. 
 
Terror, Obama said, “is the most dreaded weapon in modern age and the Western media is mercilessly using it against its own people.”
 
According to the CIA 15 of the 19 hijackers had Saudi citizenship, 2 United Arab Emirates, 1, Egyptian and 1 Lebanese. 
 
No plan to invade Saudi Arabia was suggested by Bush. 
 
Afghanistan was not involved in 9/11, yet we invaded them. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein expressed his willingness to leave Iraq, if paid. But we invaded. Millions died. 
 
These wars were policy built on lies. Find those who benefited and you have all the answers.


Sunday, August 31, 2014

Saddam Hussein and 9/11 The unexpected connection

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 
 

September 11, 2001 began as a perfect day in New York City. The first taste of autumn was in the air. It felt like a wonderful time to be alive.

Then, everything changed.

In those endless hours after the first plane hit, we waited to find out if those we loved had survived. People around the world were praying for us and for America.

From home in California I prayed for my daughter, Morgan, who was to have been in the Twin Towers that morning. Later, I learned the trip planned for her to replace her fiance's bank card had not happened because they quarreled. After their squabble John Fund went off in a huff to his office in the Wall Street Journal. He returned late in the day, covered with white dust, accompanied by two security guards who had walked with him across the bridge to Jersey City.

My relief when Morgan answered her phone brought me to tears.

In the first shock and grief following 9/11 millions around the world opened their hearts to America. It seemed as if the long ached for peace, bringing humanity together, was within our grasp.

The next week, touched by the memory of fear and hope I wrote this poem.

No. 20 - Crimson Blossoms Sheer and Rend  

Crimson Roses rent the sky; bringing down the autumn sun.
            Fracturing the pillared towers;
  Sudden death writ red as flowers. 

My mind arrested; could not accept, the changes sudden that deformed
            The world I knew was shattered there,
inside an autumn newly born.    
            
The scenes surreal, the tears, the shock; the frantic search for those we love.  
            Trembled tones and dust choked eyes.
            The fall of towers from the sky. 

Deforming shock of memories, rescinding trends of history.  
            From grief surrendered; steel bent scope.
            Was reborn an edge for hope.  

Our courage spent as offered gift; lives to save mean more than risk.  
            A shroud of dust had cloaked the sky
           A cloak of courage, death denied.  

A thousand little moments bled, in mind made journey, our griefs unsaid.  
            As human actions moved our minds.
            Ears heard echoes of the divine. 

Erupting roses burned our eyes, remaking worlds we will not see. 
Recasting all our best beliefs;
replacing them with soul seared grief.  

Transforming death; unbending love; our undeflected will to hope.
            These the gifts that roses brought
revealing need for truer scope. 



We all felt the potential for coming together, I think. But time taught us how differently a small group of people viewed 9/11.

That outpouring of compassion from across the globe was transformed into the wet dream of NeoCon greed. Afghanistan was invaded. Harsh voices urged more violence based on what we now know were lies. The bipartisan trust according the White House was used with calloused disregard of the truth. Further events were manufactured to keep us in fear.

And the political operatives, masquerading as media, were accorded heady powers as the rush for death and profits began.

John Fund, whose speed dial's first two numbers are Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, was doubtless briefed on the exciting opportunity 9/11 presented for carrying out the war against Iraq. Invading Iraq was in the plan when George W. Bush lied his way into the White House in 2000.

For Fund, 9/11 and its aftermath included the opportunity to evade charges of domestic violence. For Karl Rove and company, everything is political.

The next year and a half were surreal. It was as if the shock of falling towers continued as a psychic barrage. It was a time which changed me and my personal world, forever.


Part II
Why Saddam Hussein Had to Die

In November, 2002 I was asked, Is Qusay something like E-Bay?” The query came from my daughter, Morgan. She and I are now estranged.

That November, Morgan was in hiding with a sympathetic family in Georgia, following an attempt on her life by John Fund, her former lover.

Although Fund was employed at the Wall Street Journal as a journalist, serving on their Editorial Board from 1995 - 2001, his real job was as a political operative. By the late 90s he was working for what would become the Bush Administration. His long career in the field of disinformation began with the Koch brothers in 1979. At the time he was claiming to be a Libertarian. He also claimed he had run for office. Both of these were lies according to Justin Raimondo in his article, John Fund vs. the Truth, published in Antiwar. Com April 27, 2006.   

Lying to the public, manufacturing evidence, and destroying lives, was standard practice for the NeoCons in control of the Bush White House. Viewing themselves as possessing the right to rule they were following the political philosophy of Leo Strauss.

John came into his association with them already trained. As an operative, John Fund inserted fabricated information into public consciousness. I can say this with authority because he kept in touch with me, feeding me lies which included both Democrats and their political enemies within the Republican Party.

Protecting Fund was important to the NeoCon White House. Protecting their constructed scenario for the War in Iraq being sold to the public, was essential.

In the years leading up to the opening of the War in Iraq ordinary Americans still believed those in control of their government understood their obligation to act only on the facts and act justly. We were wrong.

This narrative uses one story, a minor one, involving one woman without a conscience, Morgan Pillsbury Gell, to illustrate the ruthlessness and lack of human values at the core of the Bush Administration. These policies continued with Obama without change.

The Personal is also Political - Demanding Proof

Morgan was a manipulator and a liar, and my entire family knew this from the time she was still in her teens. But we did not know about psychopathy – then.

Morgan came by the condition, which can be inherited, through my first husband, Richard Lee Barteaux, a psychopath who was supported by his wealthy parents all of his life. Richard died of severe cirrhosis of the liver in 1983.

I left him after six months and never saw him again for good and sufficient reasons.

I began to demand Morgan provide evidence for events too incredible to believe in 1999. She and I were no longer speaking when she called me from her apartment in Jersey City to tell me she was broke and starving. She said she had been in a relationship with John Fund for nearly a year.

Having asked John Fund, who I had known politically since 1979, about the relationship the previous March, I told her she was lying. John claimed to know her only casually, having fed her cat for her once.

At that moment, John called her. Putting me on hold, Morgan took his call, recording it. Calling me back she said, “Just listen.” What I heard was a stunning indictment of any claim by John Fund to honesty. At the very time he an I were talking Morgan was in Los Angeles aborting his child.

This would become known as the Weasel Search Tape for the website which originally hosted both tape and article, published in 2001.

Although I told Morgan, in the strongest possible terms, she should walk away from the relationship and return to college, she refused the offer. Instead she asked me to help her find a job in New York. I agreed to assist her.

During the year I paid for an apartment in New York Morgan spent far more time with Fund than looking for a job. She later told me he was living at the apartment with her about half the time.

At the beginning of 2001 it was clear Morgan had no interest in working for a living and I ended my assistance to her. With the plane ticket I provided she returned to New York from California. Occasionally, I heard from her but her focus continued to be her relationship with Fund.

On May 2, 2001, Morgan called to tell me she had just heard from John, who had phoned her, dead drunk. The reason for celebration was the end of the Blumenthal - Drudge suit for libeling Blumenthal as a wife abuser.

This event seemed to mark a change in their relationship. Soon, he asked her to move in with him.

Sex, Lies, and the Tape

But there were complications. Morgan had provided interviews about her relationship with Fund to John Connolly of Vanity Fair. She had also provided Connolly with the 1999 recording, now known as the Weasel Search Tape.

If you read through the characteristics of psychopathy, according to Dr. Robert Hare, Morgan's actions, and those of the NeoCons make chilling sense.

The beatings started after Connolly's article,Sex, Lies, and the Tape,” was published, September 4, 2001.

Morgan, born July 5, 1967, was then 34 years old. Later I learned, psychopaths court disaster because they enjoy living on the edge. This behavior was in evidence all of her life.

While the trauma of 9/11 was playing out, with its grief, anguish, and shock, most Americans, being emotionally normal, still trusted their government. The NeoCons in the White House used this opportunity for carrying out plans already made for war. Instead of using the tragic events to enact peace, they invaded Afghanistan, and continued their plan to invade Iraq.

In parallel with these events, Morgan and John were spiraling down to violence. John would batter Morgan multiple times. I heard this happening on the phone, as did Eric Buchanan, the husband of the couple who later hid her in Georgia.

Although what Eric and I heard was offered as evidence many times, we were ignored.

Part III
Domestic Violence is a Crime

Listening to what was transpiring through the phone that day nauseated and sickened me. That first time I still did not believe Morgan, who had told me about the beatings a few days earlier. That changed after this first incident.

It started with Morgan's voice dropping and growing unsteady as the sound of the door opening came through the phone. She left the phone on, probably putting it down. Then John began talking. He accused her of breaking 'the rules,' talking to other people and repeating a bewildering list of requirements she was to follow to retain his trust.

His voice began rising. It sounded like he was beginning to snarl, like he was an animal preparing to attack. Even more frightening, Morgan sounded like a little girl, her voice growing shaky and rising in pitch.

I heard something crash, like it was knocked over. This was followed by the sound of a hand hitting flesh. Morgan cried out but I could not understand her words. John, however started laughing, a deep, maniacal sound that made me shudder. I could not stop listening, but my hands were shaking and I had to use both of them to hold on to the phone.

It went on for a long time. Blow following blow, each accompanied by her little girl voice, begging him to stop. Finally, I heard him ask what she had made for dinner. From Morgan, there was no sound.

I hung up and called the Jersey City Police. It was not long before I had the number memorized. I began to learn how events are manufactured and altered beyond recognition. John knew a lot of people in politics.

The police and the authorities in New York and New Jersey knew these incidents had been heard both by myself and by Eric Buchanan. Neither of us were ever called or mentioned in their reports. We offered statements. Neither of us was allowed to give one in the months, and years, which followed.

Criminal Minds – Political Lies

I vacillated between rage at how Morgan was being treated and wondering if she deserved it, as everyone else in the family believed. My third daughter, Ayn, told me, “We should let John solve the problem for us.” She meant Morgan. But even though Morgan was a liar she was still, then, my child. I could not turn my back on her.

Those screams and the sound of John's maniacal voice still haunt me today, even knowing she has no conscience or empathy for others.

I had felt as if the blows were landing on my own body.

In late January Morgan finally listened to my pleas and agreed to move to an apartment in New York, for which I paid.

A few days later she called and told me John had found her and moved it. It felt as if my stomach had dropped out. I was dizzy and nauseated. To say it was surreal understates the case. I could not believe she had permitted it.

But she began sending me scans of John's mail, which he would leave there on the floor, for instance, the letter to him from Fidelity Investments, dated January 25, 2002. John is also a habitual liar, then claiming Morgan was out of his life.

In March I flew in to see some plays with a friend, calling Morgan from the taxicab a few blocks away. When Morgan answered the phone I could hear John talking in the background. When I arrived Morgan was bloody and he was gone.

I insisted she file a police report, as any normal person would do. I hoped the police in Manhattan would be different. Initially, they were. But what I did not know, because she did not tell me, was that John had been promised help by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. He had apparently found her so he could extort the proof in the form of the notarized statement. She did this because John offered to pay her. I was stunned to learn she would lie for money without blinking.

I had never imagined domestic violence would be viewed as a political issue and handled accordingly. I was wrong.

An attempt on Morgan's life took place in late April, 2002. Someone with a key turned the first lock. Morgan, who was talking to me on the phone as she stood in the tiny kitchen next to the entry door, threw the deadbolt. I immediately told her to call security. The camera showed a man's back leaving the building. The Manhattan police refused to investigate.

The search began for someplace where she would be safe. Morgan left New York as if she was headed to spend a weekend in the Hamptons, her other possessions shipped, one box at a time, ahead of her.

Desperately Seeking Help

During the time we were desperately looking for help Sidney Blumenthal had ignored our pleas for assistance. The police and DA's office were refusing to follow the law in the case of domestic violence filed by Morgan against John Fund on February 19, 2002.

It was Fund who had come up with the idea for Matt Drudge to libel Blumenthal as a wife beater. Instead of helping, Blumenthal tried to persuade Morgan to supply material for his book, “Clinton's War.“ The request was made via this email, dated June 22, 2002. Morgan refused and was very angry with his dismissal of a real case of domestic violence and the attempt on her life.

She was even angrier a short time later. Blumenthal, she discovered, had stolen the information he had requested from her computer, using a keylogger. She had found the Keylogger and traced its origin.

Morgan returned the favor. Soon, she was reading the never ending revisions of Sidney's book and his emails.

When Morgan left New York I stopped having nightmares about flying in to view her body. During this time, the ramp up to the invasion of Iraq was mounting.

The Ramp Up to War

In September of 2002, along with the rest of Americans, I listened as the claims for Weapons of Mass Destruction began, were debunked, and then began again, reaching the level of hysteria. In October, the National Intelligence Estimate became available. It was all remote, horrible, but without immediate impact on us. I thought.

Morgan had never kept up on unfolding events for anything but what immediately interested her. However, what interested her had changed somewhat, beginning in early summer, 2002 due to events in her own life. By November she had been monitoring traffic to and from the computer owned by Sidney Blumenthal for six months.

Later, I realized what must have been happening in the background, out of sight.

Part IV
Saddam Considers His Options

Having considered his options, Saddam Hussein, whose career had started as an operative for the CIA, offered to leave Iraq, if he was paid. He could have had no illusions about what happen if Iraq was invaded. But he probably believed the powers set against him would be happy to lower their transaction costs for getting access of Iraqi oil. He was wrong, too.

The Bush agenda had assigned a role for Saddam. He was to be the villein in the drama, now launched. Therefore, his continued presence was essential. Bush wanted him dead, and dead he was going to be, the facts not withstanding. How much this would cost in money, lives and suffering, was not an issue.

But someone had to keep Saddam in place and this could not be anyone associated with the Bush Administration. So, in late 2002 Bill and Hillary Clinton, aided by Sidney Blumenthal, undertook the job via emails which flowed through the Blumenthal computer.

Reassured, Saddam Hussein stayed in Iraq.

Morgan was still reading Sidney's emails in between baking cookies in the middle of the night and trips with Mrs. Buchanan to Walmart.

When Morgan sent me the first email involving Saddam Hussein I had a friend, expert in computers, ascertain where the email sent to Blumenthal originated. The answer came back, the Emirates, likely Baghdad.

I knew perfectly well it was illegal for the Clintons, now private citizens, to manipulate policy. I still could not imagine a presidency which routinely manipulated events for their own profit as anything but treason. I also could not imagine this kind of cooperation between Bush and Clinton, given what the NeoCons had done to Bill during the Monica Lewinsky Debacle.

I knew it was my duty to inform authorities, which I did.

In the mean time, Morgan and Eric had managed to get a keylogger on Qusay's computer by using a subject line which read, “Women without Veils.”

Morgan was watching on March 20, 2003 at about 02:30 UTC, or about 90 minutes after the lapse of the U.S. 48-hour deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq ended. According to The Pentagon, 36 Tomahawk missiles and two F-117 launched GBU-27 bombs were used in this assault.

The targets were high-level Iraqi governmental officials, including Saddam Hussein himself, and were based on intelligence which led the U.S. government to believe it knew his movements. Civilian buildings were also hit.

On May 29, 2003, it was claimed the Bunker never existed, but the computer was definitely hit. Morgan told me about watching as the ping moved to CIA headquarters in Virginia, calling me immediately afterward.

I had told Morgan the Clintons and Blumenthal would be charged with treason. When this did not happen I realized I had failed to understand the NeoCons running the Bush Administration.

We would now become targets ourselves. This began April 1, 2003. See the John Fund site /Time Line & Evidence. Scroll down to April Fool's Day, 2003.

We knew too much. Our credibility needed to be destroyed. With Morgan, this was not hard to do. Even I, her mother, did not believe her without hard proof. With me this was somewhat more difficult.

I had been active in politics and organizations for years.

Overtly, they ignored me. The DA's office refused to take a statement from me regarding John Fund's battery of Morgan.

Knowing most people are ignorant of the law they secured what they needed to put paid to Morgan's credibility.

In the spring of 2003 John Fund received from Green Hills Software, Inc., the corporation for which my former husband was Senior Vice President, an uncertified deposition Morgan had given in early 2001. This went up on a website he and his girl friend, Gail Herriot put up on June 21st . The site came down soon after May 17th 2014, shortly after I published an article pointing out the deposition was illegally obtained and used.

On April 9th Dan O'Dowd incorporated the Fallen Heroes Last Wish Foundation with a goal of providing $5,000 each for college to 100 orphans of servicemembers who died in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The site was announced on the April 10.

In return for their assistance Green Hills Software, Inc., began getting defense contracts, eventually becoming a major supplier of software for drones through Green Hills and, eventually, its wholly owned subsidiary, INTEGRITY Global Security. Green Hills President O'Dowd also made sure I did not get the stock due me from my divorce.

This was another “Throw Mama from the Train” deal like the one Dan O'Dowd had made with my former husband, his Senior Vice President, Craig Franklin in late 1997.

Craig had made sure Dan's partner, Glenn Hightower, could not exercise his buy out option by orchestrating a walk out of critical personnel during due diligence. In return, O'Dowd had a new stock option agreement written by an attorney in Los Angeles, Anne Fisher.

The campaign to destroy our credibility and my financial resources picked up steam as Operation Iraqi Freedom continued.

John persuaded Eric Alterman and other ambitious journalists to write hit pieces. Alterman's piece appeared in The Nation on May 15, titled, "Who Framed John Fund?," published in The 
Nation. Herriot wrote an email letter to Gene Gaudette, an editor of the site where the Connolly article is still hosted.

On July 22, 2003 Wendy MacElroy, a struggling writer who called her self a feminist while supplying articles to men's groups explaining why women are as violent as men, traded a hit piece for a continuing gig at Fox News. The article, False Rape Charges Hurt Real Victims.

MacElroy did not bother to call either myself of Morgan. I had known MacElroy personally since the 70s.

Cheney arranged to have me hit with IRS liens. With the public relations extravaganza on the war then building I knew all too well it was unlikely anyone would pay attention or believe me.

For the next eleven I was left caring for a disabled son, 24/7 with no money and no resources. When I say we nearly starved several times I am not exaggerating. I know how ruthless these people are from very personal experience.

But over the next years the learning curves of millions has continued. Our world had changed and so have we. What has not changed is the lack of conscience in those who today hold power.

Today, we have endured the trauma of endless wars,  destroying nations, murdering millions of innocent people. All of this was carried out to profit a small elite who also have further plans for us.

The individuals who orchestrated this reign of terror, controlled by both major political parties, are following the same marching orders now as they did then. For them, there are no rules.

For those of us who empathize, trust, and love, seeing is believing. Those without conscience have no limits.

Today, the reality of psychopathy, those without conscience, is finally sinking in. Theories on the meltdown of the economy now acknowledge the impact of the disordered. Agencies such as the FBI take it into account.

I learned in ways which were immediate and personal. Questions from an entire lifetime were answered when I realized Morgan is a psychopath, too. Understanding how the lack of a conscience alters behavior forced me to see the world through their eyes. It was a frightening moment.

Pieces of an enormous puzzle suddenly fit for me personally, politically, and spiritually.

In their hands 9/11 became not a beacon for peace but a much desired justification for endless war and profits. They have no beliefs. When you hear them use the words and images which touch our hearts and evoke our trust they are feeling only the satisfaction of having fooled us.

Republican, Democrat, there is no difference. We must lose our illusions and move past the barriers constructed to keep us divided.

Saddam was marked for death because he knew too much. Having been part of a previous scam he had to have realized he had finally been scammed himself. The power he thought he held was illusion. The illusion killed him.

He had become more useful as a symbol for evil than as a hired player in their game. The fact he had nothing to do with 9/11 was irrelevant.

Learn to see through the eyes of a psychopath. Understand them, act locally, where we can better observe those around us. At the same time, be aware of what is happening around the world.

Real security is only possible when facts are transparent globally and locally. When this is so we are no longer vulnerable to manufactured illusions. We need this because only then will peace, justice, and a clean and healthy Earth be possible for our children.






Notes: Murdoch's incoming team looked over John Fund's work and let him go, unaware he was not there to write but as a political operative.  He is  is now employed at National Review.
Here is the site I put up which seemed to make him rethink keeping his own site active.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

How the NeoCons 'Managed' Saddam Hussein

Part One of Four

- And Why the Facts Matter


I'm not a journalist and the facts don't matter.” - Rayelan Allen, RMN owner and editor

All politics is personal,” or “the personal is political.” Early feminist sayings

In November of 2002 we had been lied to about Weapons of Mass Destruction, the reason given for invading Iraq, resistance to the war was waning. Standing in the way, though this was not publicly known at the time, was Saddam Hussein, who was very willing to leave Iraq forever – if he was paid.

Paying him off would have been far cheaper than the cost of the war. But it would not have accomplished the real goals.

The real drive for war was oil and the dollar. The details were carried out by a group of people who had no conscience, willing to lie themselves into power and lie, cheat and steal to keep it. Together, they have changed our world, bringing us to the precipice of destruction. These are the acts of individuals who behave in exactly the same way in their personal lives. I know.

The build up to war, constructed by the Bush White House, took place as events in my own life played out in shocking ways but which proved to be highly informative in a horrible way.

The strategies used by those I was forced to deal with personally were the same as those used by the NeoCons who were driving us to war. At the time, I was fighting to protect my daughter, Morgan, from the consequences of her life-long bad behavior and judgment. Later, I realized this was not possible.

She is a psychopath acting on the mistaken belief she can get away with anything. Harming others, or even killing them, was perfectly acceptable to her.

Our internal values determine all parts of our lives and for all parts we are responsible and accountable.

How many people died because of the War in Iraq and the lies told to us? At least a million and a half, though the total is probably higher.

How many people misdirected their life efforts through patriotic fervor incited by people who had intentionally used the symbols and language of honor to defraud us? The number is unbearably high.

How many of us have struggled to understand how this could have happened?

Hold the impact of the war and how this was accomplished in mind as we consider what happened from the time this story began in 1997 until the invasion of Iraq began in the spring of 2003.

The Personal

I first became active in politics during the Goldwater campaign. My goal was to achieve social justice and individual empowerment. While pursing these goals I joined the Libertarian Party in 1974. I managed campaigns, ran for office, did fundraising and organized. I left when it was clear the Kochs had destroyed any potential for effective action in 1988.

I studied the problem of organizations while remaining active. In 1997 I was a Regent for the National Federation of Republican Women and coping with the continuing crises generated by my husband, Craig Franklin. Not filing his taxes, when he owed nothing, was typical of Craig's irresponsible behavior. I wrote this article about what we called, “The Tax Crisis,” in 2008. You're Not Paranoid – The IRS is out to get you.

After I solved the problem Craig decided to leave me and take all the money with him.

Beginning in 1997 Morgan, who had committed the incredibly ugly act of working with Craig to defraud me of millions of dollars during our divorce, had, in October of 1998, started a sexual relationship with an old boy friend of mine, John Fund, then on the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal. She wanted a rich husband and decided he would do.

Always ambitious, she had emerged from her childhood, which had traumatized her entire family, functionally illiterate – and her previous prospect for marital bounty, Eugene Volokh, had flown the coop the month before.

She was actually traveling with my estranged husband, on a tour of New York, London, and Paris, when she and John started their affair. Would she have hesitated if she had known how promiscuous John had become, enabled by the power accrued as a NeoCon operative? Probably not. But she might have played things differently.

John Fund was placed at the WSJ in 1984 by connections who maintained close ties with the people who were already working to put Bush in office by stealing the election in 2000. Positioned as a journalist he is actually a political operative, his first experiences in this coming through the Koch Brothers' attempt to take over the Libertarian Party.

Taking up with your mother's former boy friend, someone you have referred to as 'Uncle John' since you were a child, is scandalous behavior, there is no other word for it. This type of behavior is normal for Morgan.

I had no idea this was going on because I was thousands of miles away caring for my oldest son, Arthur, who had attempted suicide by shooting himself through the brain on March 22, 1998. It would be another year before he would be able to even go to the bathroom himself. My entire focus was on his care.

Morgan and I were not talking because her deviousness and lies had included attempting to persuade me she needed a heart transplant in an attempt to get me to turn off her brother's life support. She called me to ask for his heart. This happened, I later realized, soon after she had been paid $10,000 to do this by my estranged husband, Craig Franklin.

One of the reasons psychopaths get away with so much is our inability to believe the ugliness of their real motives. This is also true in politics.

When John started his liaison with Morgan he expected a job as speechwriter for the Bush administration, still two years in the future. They were already discussing war with Iraq. John would assist, pushing the agenda in the media.

After years of dealing with Morgan I knew not to believe her if she did not offer proof but I had no reason to distrust John. So, in September, 1999, for practically the only time in her life, Morgan told the truth, with proof.

Puzzled at the persistent rumors about a relationship between her and John, I called to ask him. John and I had been chatting regularly for over twenty years. Asked about the relationship he expressed shock. He denied it, saying he had fed her cat for her once or twice. I believed him. He was completely persuasive, giving the impression of absolute openness.

It was the WeaselSearch Tape, recorded by Morgan in September of 1999, which changed my mind.

This is a man who helped lie us into war. His personal ethics match the ones he uses professionally.

One afternoon that September Morgan called me to beg for help. She was broke and about to be evicted from her apartment in Jersey City. John, she said, had forced her to abort his baby the previous March and then dumped her. A heated discussion ensued as I relayed to her my recent conversation with John.

Hearing a call coming in, Morgan put me on hold. It was John. She recorded her conversation with him. You can listen to it on the tape above. A few minutes later I had heard the whole of it.

I was stunned and confronted him on the phone soon afterward. He hung up on me. His cover blown he moved to the next strategy, distancing.

As a result of a fax I sent to the WSJ moments later, the job as a speechwriter for the Bush White House, already being promised, vanished. The fax, I was told, was copied at least five times on its way to his office.

The illusion of family values needed to be retained.

Instead of a job in the White House, which John had earned through his work as an operative for the NeoCons, then coming to power, he was told to write a book about how liberals steal elections. This would provide cover for the electronic hacking about to begin.

Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, would be published September 24, 2004.

The relationship between John and Morgan seemed to stabilize for a while. Fund spent nearly half his time at the apartment I rented in NY at the Rivergate. I was rarely there. John told me he intended to marry Morgan, who he said really loved. I wished them well, glad they had come to some resolution.

But then, in December of 2000 Morgan realized he was sneaking into my empty room to call other women, including Federal judge Diane Sykes, late at night. He left emails where Morgan could find them.

I received copies of these from Morgan via email. This one, Fund sent on July 22 this same year, was typical.

Morgan's relationship with John continued, headed for rockier and rockier ground as the number of 'other women' Morgan discovered increased.

Despite this, they moved in together in Jersey City in July of 2001, just days after Morgan had vented to John Connolly of Vanity Fair. From those interviews Connolly wrote an article titled, “Sex, Lies and the Tape.” Over my objections Morgan had given him a copy of the tape she had made in 1999.

The article was published September 4, 2001, along with the tape.

Connolly had arranged for the article to be published in Talk Magazine - but Fund intimidated Tina Brown into canceling the story by having his attorney, John J. Walsh, call and make threats. Walsh later billed for services, producing this letter. Morgan also found a Work Memo later.

Instead, the article was published only online on a site called WeaselSearch, from which it got its name. When the site folded it was hosted on American Politics Journal, where it is today.

What Fund did to stop publication is standard operating procedure for NeoCons. He used this later against me.

But because the article refuted the lies John had continued to tell, a scandal erupted anyway.

Understandably, this event did not contribute to bliss in John and Morgan's relationship but the reasons were far more complex than just one little article.

Morgan called me, outraged. She had refurbished John's apartment at his request and he was refusing to pay her back. When she moved in the utilities had been turned off because of his non-payment and the plumbing did not work. I made her produce the receipts since I still did not trust her. She kept track of payment for cleaning supplies and repairs, which were complete before she told me John was battering her in the later part of September.

The violence, she later said, had begun one evening after an event at the ALEC Conference in New York in early August.

I had hoped the relationship would work out. To say it didn't vastly understates the case.

I did not believe her until I heard it happening over the phone, which happened in late September. When I heard John's demonic glee as he pounded her I felt obligated to take action. As I have said, Morgan lies. Another friend of her's, Eric Buchanan, confirmed he had also heard this taking place on another occasion. Both of us advised Morgan to leave him. She refused.

During this time Carol Divine Molin, a Republican Woman, called me to express concern for Morgan as a battered woman. She told me she counseled women who had been battered.

Then it came out that her motive was reigniting her brief fling with Fund by assisting him with Morgan. The fling had taken place some time earlier, after Fund spoke to a group to which Molin belonged. Liking what she saw, evidently, she took him home with her. Fund's parting words were, by report, “You got to swallow.”

We learned Molin had complained to the management at the Wall Street Journal about how she had been treated the year before.

The beatings continued. Morgan filed police reports in New Jersey.

Morgan became aware John was still lying about their relationship, saying he barely knew her, while she was living with him. At one point she used her cell phone so I could hear him telling these lies to Lloyd Grove from the Washington Post.

Listening to him lie was stunning. Again, I begged her to leave.

After she found even more emails, from a growing list of other women, she agreed. The emails included these between him and Michele Davis, on January 13th and 18th, and this Email, revealing the sexual relationship he had begun with law professor Gail Heriot, also on the 13th of January.

Christine Hall Reis, a new bride, offered the services of herself and her friend, Julie Currie, from Kroll Opposition Research to John on January 21, 2002. Christine had sent an unusual photo of herself to John, which he printed and left on the floor, where Morgan found it.

Morgan moved out of the apartment in Jersey City and into an apartment I rented for her in New York around January 24 - 26, 2002. I breathed a sigh of relief, but it was not over. The craziness escalated.

John found out where Morgan was living and moved in with her. He left a litter of papers there, some of which Morgan scanned and sent me to prove this was happening. This letter from Fidelity Investments is dated January 25, 2002. Morgan picked it up off the floor in her Manhattan apartment after John left it there. Another incident of battery soon took place just moments before I arrived at the apartment. When I walked in I saw Morgan bloodied and bruised.

The New York police report was filed.

John had been told by his two closest friends, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, who occupied adjacent spaces on his speed dial, he needed to provide evidence Morgan had lied. Which she might well have done. But there were witnesses. Buchanan and I had heard beatings take place and were ignored by authorities. Neither of us were ever called though the authorities knew we were witnesses.

Fund received help from some of the other women in his life. A few of these were victims themselves, unaware of what was really happening and are not named. Others, like Gail Heriot, whose relationship with Fund began in a hotel room in December of 2001 or January of 2002, assisted in building the website Fund used to insert lies into public view and wrote letters for him, libeling both Morgan and myself.

Desperate, we sought help from people who were politically at odds with the NeoCons. One of these individuals was Sidney Blumenthal.

It was at this time Blumenthal put a keylogger on Morgan's computer to steal information about Fund. He had refused to help, trying to persuade her it was enough to expose him politically. So Morgan returned the keylogger favor, against my advice.

While she can't write a literate sentence Morgan was a wiz with computers. It was this act which would expose to us the strategy adopted by the Bush White House to ensure the War in Iraq was not stopped in November of 2002.

An attempt to kill Morgan took place in May, 2002. I heard this over the phone as the key turned in the door of her apartment. Morgan threw herself against it and engaged the dead bolt. I believed her. She is not that good an actress.

Then, she went into hiding with a couple in Georgia.

As the campaign to sell the fiction of Weapons of Mass Destruction was hammered into accepted fact Morgan was following Sidney via his emails and reading early chapters of his book, Clinton's War. Occasionally she would forward me a copy.

By November war appeared to be inevitable. Then, Morgan called me and asked if U-Day was something like E-Bay. The keylogger had turned up something with more surprises than Blumenthal's book.

Saddam, in communication with Blumenthal, wanted to cut a deal to be paid to leave so war would not be necessary. I had the origin of the email checked out and the expert said it had come from the Emirates and Baghdad was a likely source.

The appointed agents for insuring Saddam would stay put were the Clintons and their old friend, Sidney Blumenthal. This activism on their parts is likely the real source of the largess which flowed into the Clinton coffers, not Hillary's public speaking abilities or investment savvy.

The previous January Fund had forced Morgan to sign a 'confession' saying no abuse had taken place. The documents were dated January 24, 2002, just before she moved out.

Evidently, Fund promised to pay her what he owned her if she signed and, stupidly, she did. Since an accounting of what Fund owed matched what was asked if you add in the outdated checks Morgan found while cleaning, which Fund had given her, it is likely Rove and Cheney decided this was not enough 'proof' to be persuasive.

Eric and I knew the statement was hogwash and would have so testified.

The real campaign to destroy our credibility began in 2003, after Fund's friends realized they had more than one political operation to protect. They needed to protect John, a pivotal political operative, and the truth about Saddam.

So evidence was sought and obtained through trade with those holding it.

Craig, my former husband, was Senior Vice President of Green Hills Software, Inc. He and the company's president, Dan O'Dowd, had made a deal in 1997 to defraud their partners. Dan would have a fake stock option agreement made to deny me a marital share during our divorce and Craig would lead a walk out to keep Glenn Hightower, Dan's partner, from exercising his buy out option when Dan exercised it and made him an offer.

Morgan had supplied a recording of Craig gloating about this and in late 1999 I had filed a law suit. Morgan gave a deposition on February 22, 2001. The suit settled and the deposition was never certified, making it illegal to copy.

Green Hills Software, LLC. exchanged a copy of this deposition for defense contracts. Today, Green Hills Software, Inc. is a billion dollar company heavily into drone technology and supplying the Military Industrial Complex.

The campaign to destroy our credibility began in early 2003.

On January 23, 2003 Fund filed an answer to Morgan's law suit in New York.
On April 1, 2003 Melinda's webmaster received a threatening letter

On April 3, 2003, Dan O'Dowd decided the desperate need for servicemembers was to provide a measly $5,000 for a child's college education. He amount pledged, $100.000, with matching funds up to $250.000. The non-profit was incorporated on the 9th and announced publicly on April 10th. The is an embarrassingly minor contribution for a corporation which made billions from contracts flowing from the military.

On
April 7, 2003 Craig Franklin handed an enveloped copy of Morgan's Deposition to Anne
Fisher, his then girl friend, telling her it contained Morgan's deposition. It was addressed to John Fund.  It was a Green Hills envelope with the postage paid by the company in advance.
On April 8, 2003 RuthlessPeople was down. 

On
May 11, 2003, Mother's Day morning, I wrote an email responding to questions received early that morning from Eric Alterman for an article which would be published on the 15th.

On May 15, 2003 Eric Alterman's hit piece, "
Who Framed John Fund?" was published in The 
Nation.

On
May 16, 2003 Gene Gaudette, Editor of American Politics Journal, received a Letter via email from Gail Heriot, one of Funds many girl friends libeling us.

On June 21, 2003 JohnFund.com, a hit site, appeared online. The site came down sometime after May 19th this year. It can be viewed through the WayBackMachine.

On
July 22, 2003 Wendy MacElroy, who calls herself a feminist but focuses her attack pieces on women, traded a hit piece on Morgan for a gig at Fox News. Wendy, who has known Melinda since the 1970s, failed to call her or Morgan. The article is titled, False Rape Charges Hurt Real Victims.

During this time Melinda received notice from the IRS claiming she owed money. The IRS refused to tell her why since her returns were produced by a CPA and documented all expenses.

Carried out this way, the NeoCon campaign was masked and did not appear to have any relationship with the War in Iraq. It was all 'personal.'

But all parts of our lives reflect our values, which is why trying to separate the two in this was is wrong.

Clearly, everyone else had agendas which had nothing to do with the simple, provable fact John Fund committed domestic violence. This is a crime and should be prosecuted even if the victim has lied previously and is a jerk. 
 
In 2004 I wrote GREED – The NeoConning of America, a lightly fictionalized autobiography framed around my daughter, not myself. I am now reissuing a non-fiction version, which includes “the Bunker in Georgia” Story. That story about Saddam began in Chapter 16 - A Signal from the Bunker, in subsection The Bunker in Georgia.

Saddam also knew too much.

No one read the book, though the reviews were very good.

I wonder what would have happened if I had understood the ruthless lack of conscience these people carry behind smiling, and lying, faces in both their personal and professional lives. What choices would I have made, personal and political?

The next years were given over to stark survival and caring for my son. Since Morgan had drained me of money this was much more difficult. I fought back because I had to, using the only tool I could afford, the truth.

Stay tuned for Part Two - What Happens When You Know Too Much