Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Following a Wave of Banker Suicides, 3 Former Barclays Bankers Now Charged in LIBOR Scandal                    http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/02/18/following-wave-banker-suicides-3-former-barclays-bankers-now-charged-libor-scandal/#more-25212

Fiat Money
Three former Barclays bank employees have now been charged with “conspiracy to defraud” in the continuing Libor scandal, bringing the total to 13 people charged in America and the U.K. It has been reported that three ex-ICAP brokers are next on the list for helping traders manipulate interest rates.
Three former Barclays bankers have been charged “in connection with the manipulation of Libor interest rates, the Serious Fraud Office said.
The SFO alleges the three – Peter Charles Johnson, Jonathan James Mathew and Stylianos Contogoulas – “conspired to defraud between 1 June 2005 and 31 August 2007″.
They will appear at Westminster Magistrates court at a date to be confirmed. (source)
Libor is an interbank benchmark used to set the interest rates on trillions in loans all over the world. The investigation into Libor’s deliberate manipulation began in 2008, and it has come to light that traders at various banks all over the world have benefited financially from turning in false interest rate reports since.
Thus far, Barclays and other mega banks including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland have been forced to pay billions in regard to rigging interest rates.
The Wall Street Journal is also reporting that authorities in the United States, United Kingdom and EU are currently investigating a group of traders from various banks for manipulating Euribor, the euro interbank interest rate, as well.
The news comes on the heels of a rash of banker suicides.
Jan. 26, 2014
William Broeksmit, 58-year-old retired Deutsche Bank senior manager with close ties to co-chief exec. Anshu Jain, was found hanging dead at his home in London. It was reported as an apparent suicide. Police quickly declared that Broeksmit’s death was not suspicious.
Jan. 28, 2014
Two days later Gabriel Magee, 39, reportedly leapt to his death from the 33rd story of JP Morgan’s European headquarters in London sometime around 8 a.m. Magee was the bank’s VP in CIB Technology. His death was also quickly ruled “non-suspicious”. There was no indication Magee was going to kill himself at all. In fact, Magee’s girlfriend had received an email from him the night before saying he was finishing up work and would be home soon.
The London Coroner’s Office is set to hold a formal inquest into Magee’s death, but not until May 15th.
Jan. 29, 2014
Chief Economist at Russell Investments, 50-year-old Mike Dueker, was reported missing on Jan. 29. He was found dead off the side of a highway leading to Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington. A Pierce County detective said he may have jumped over a four-foot fence and fallen some 40-to-50 feet down an embankment in another apparent suicide. Although the detective maintained Dueker was having trouble at work, a Russell spokeswoman said Dueker was in good standing.
Dueker, a prior assistant VP and research economist for the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, had worked at Russell for five years, during which time he developed a business-cycle index that forecast economic performance.
Feb. 3, 2014
Ryan Crane, a 37-year-old JP Morgan trading exec., was found dead in his Stamford, Connecticut home. He was an executive director, a rank above vice president, in the bank’s Americas Program Trading group. Cause of death is awaiting determination via toxicology report.
Feb. 4, 2014
57-year-old Richard Talley, former investment banker at Drexel Burnham Lambert and founder of Centennial, Colorado-based American Title Services, was found dead in his garage with eight nail gun wounds to his torso and head. They were reportedly “self-inflicted”. His company was under investigation at the time of his death.
Just last month, JP Morgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, admitted wrongdoing and was fined $461 million for willfully violating the Bank Secrecy Act in relation to Bernie Madoff’s multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. “When JPMorgan suspected Mr. Madoff’s fraud, it focused on its own investment exposure and saved itself approximately $250 million. If it had given the same attention to its anti-money laundering responsibilities, it could have saved itself $2 billion, and potentially saved thousands of other fraud victims untold misery and loss,” stated Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery.
JP Morgan also owns over 60% of the total notional of all US gold derivatives ($108.2 billion).
While all these instances could be entirely unrelated in any way, others are wondering if the heat intensifying in the Libor scandal, the hint at other major interest rate scandals, and the rash of recent banker suicides is suggesting a bigger global financial implosion to come.

Contributed by Melissa Melton of The Daily Sheeple.

The strange purchase date and price of Sandy Hook homes                  http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/02/14/strange-purchase-date-price-sandy-hook-homes/

real estate sold signSome of those in the blogosphere who maintain or at the very least suspect that the official story of the Dec. 14, 2012 Sandy Hook massacre isn’t true, have raised the matter of the rather strange sale date and price of the homes of some of the victims. See, for example, this discussion on a Godlike Productions chat forum.
Their hypothesis goes something like this:
If the massacre, wholly or in part, were a contrived conspiracy — for example, a drill (or a drill that went very bad) — then the major participants or “players” in the elaborate charade would have to be paid off in some way or another.
Indeed, a year ago, in February 2013, I had noticed the same thing — that some of the homes of Sandy Hook victims all had an odd sale/purchase date of 12/25/2009, and an equally odd sale/purchase price of $0.
I had found that information on the website of Vision Government Solutions (VGS), a company that calls itself “a leading supplier of land parcel management software technology and services to local government organizations, enabling efficient assessment, billing, collections, mapping, and permitting.” One of the services provided by VGS is an online database of residential properties in nine states in the northeastern and eastern U.S., one of which is the state of Connecticut. If you know the address of a home in, say, Newtown, CT, you can look up the property’s value, present owner(s), and price history on VGS’s database.
At the time, in February of last year, puzzled by those strange 12/25/2009 sale date and $0 sale price of Newtown homes, I had sent this email to VGS:
Date: 02/05/13 01:43 PM
Subject: Feedback from the Newtown, CT page
Hello, While browsing real estate properties using this database, I noticed a number of homes have the same “date of sale” of 12/25/2009, and a “sale price” of 0 (zero). Please be so kind as to explain. How can a home be sold or purchased for $0?
Thank you,
Dr. _____
This was the response I received:
Feb. 5, 2013
Thank you for your inquiry Dr ____. In most instances of a sale price of $0 the reason would be because of a family sale where the house ownership is simply transferred. [In other words, no money actually changed hands.] The other reason for that to happen would be a town entering a parcel into their database for the first time they must puta first owner and a sale price. Often times they will put $0 as a filler price. The sale date of 12/25/2009 would be the same thing.
Kind Regards,
Chase Moltedo
Customer Support Representative
Vision Government Solutions
44 Bearfoot Road
Northboro, MA 01532
In addition to emailing VGS, I had also called the Assessor’s Office at Newtown, CT, and left a voice mail asking the same question about the 12/25/2009 sale date and $0 sale price.
An administrative assistant at the Assessor’s Office, Andrea Santillo, promptly returned my phone call. She said that the Newtown city government recently had switched to a new computer system and had not been able to enter the property data for all Newtown homes. So the computer used the 12/25/2009 and $0 as, respectively, a “filler” default sale date and price.
Ms. Santillo’s explanation seemed plausible, and so I did not pursue the matter any further. But that doesn’t mean I’d forgotten about it.
Flash forward a year. I decided to revisit this matter, and went back to VGS’s database. Lo and behold, the strange sale date and price are still there.
So I undertook a systematic investigation into the properties of every Sandy Hook (SH) victim, as well as those of certain non-victims, such as Gene Rosen, who had a prominent media presence in the days immediately after the massacre. What follows is my report on my findings, beginning with my methodology.

Methodology

1. From media accounts, I made a list of the names of all SH victims, including:
  • The 20 school children who were killed, as well as the names of their parents.
  • The 6 adults who were killed at SHES.
  • Nancy Lanza, mother of alleged shooter Adam Lanza.
2. To that list, I added 6 more people who are not victims but had played significant roles in the aftermath of the massacre. They are:
  • Gene Rosen, who live next to SHES and gave many TV interviews.
  • Laura and Nick Phelps, parents of unharmed SHES students who gave media interviews and who bear a striking resemblance to professional “crisis actors” Jennifer Greenberg Sexton and Richard Sexton. (See “Remarkable resemblance of Sandy Hook victims and professional crisis actors“)
  • The three members of Newtown’s governing body, the Board of Selectmen: Elin Patricia Llodra, William Rodgers, and James Gaston Sr. (Newtown does not have a mayor.)
3. Using two people search enginesEmail Finder and Spokeo, of which I am a paid member, I found the addresses of the people on the list.
4. I then looked up the price history of those addresses on four websites:
  • Vision Government Solutions.
  • Trulia, a real estate website.
  • Zillow, a real estate website. (Neither Trulia nor Zillow gives the names of property owners.)
  • Connecticut Town Clerks Portal, a website of land records — including Newtown’s — which allows only those who have paid a fee to search its records. Interestingly, after I had paid for a 24-hour access to the site, I got this message about Newtown: “The mortgages, liens and probate certificates of the town of Newtown are not available online at this time.” 

FINDINGS

HOMES WITH STRANGE SALE DATE (12/25/2009) AND PRICE ($0):

1. Brian, 38, & Shannon Engel (parents of child victim Olivia Engel, 6):
   84 Berkshire Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner of Record: Brian Engel & Shannon Merlino
Ownership history:
  •    Sold to Brian Engel & Shannon Merlino on 12/25/2009 for $0
  •    Sold to Brian Engel & Shannon Merlino on 6/25/2004 for $272,00
  •    Sold to Constance Chimileski on 1/20/2004 for $0
2. Robert Gay, 54, & Michele Hartman, 41 (parents of child victim Josephine Gay, 7):
    10 Nighthawk Lane, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner of Record: Robert E. Gay & Michelle Hartman
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Stephen & Gail Sonne on 1/16/2013 for $678,500
  • Sold to Robert & Michele Gay on 12/25/2009 for $0
  • Sold to Robert & Michele Gay on 3/7/2006 for $933,000
  • Sold to Elite Builders Group LLC on 10/28/2004 for $300,000
Trulia’s price history on this property: 1/16/2013 $678,500; 3/7/2006 $933,000″.
3. Nicole & Ian Hockley (parents of Dylan Hockley, 6):
Rented 39 Yogananda Street, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owners are Elizabeth and Kenneth Pheasey who bought the house on12/25/2009 for $0.
Trulia’s price history: 4/30/2004 $725,000; 12/11/1998 $403,200; 8/17/1998 $105,500.
4. John Hsu & Donna Arnold, 46 (parents of Madeleine Hsu, 6):
Curiously, Spokeo says both Hsu and Arnold are “single”
    35 Narragansett Trl, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner of Record: Long-Fong Hsu & Donna Arnold
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Long-Fong Hsu & Donna Arnold on 7/16/2010 for $455,000
  • Sold to Cherie Bragg & Michael Mastriano on 4/7/2009 for $0
  • Sold to Cherie Bragg-Cebry on 6/15/2007 for $628,000
  • Sold to Lawrence T. Card on 3/18/2003 for $487,000
5. Matthew, 41, & Jennifer Hubbard (parents of Catherine Hubbard, 6):
    10 Walker Hill Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner of Record: Kevin Casey & Priscilla Wright
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Kevin Casey & Priscilla Wright on 7/24/2012 for $365,000
  • Sold to Matthew & Jennifer Hubbard on 12/25/2009 for $0
  • Sold to Matthew & Jennifer Hubbard on 8/1/2005 for $435,000
  • Trulia has only these sale dates: 7/24/2012 $365,000; 8/1/2005 $435,000
6. Stephen, 49, & Rebecca Kowalski (parents of Chase Kowalski, 7):
Note: The Kowalskis had fashioned a very interesting charity poster to memorialize their dead son. See “Illuminati eye symbol in Sandy Hook charity poster“.
    6 Bennetts Bridge Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner: Stephen Kowalski
Ownership history: Sold to Stephen Kowalski on 12/25/2009 for $0
Trulia has only one sale date: 2/24/1994 $170,500
7. Scarlett Lewis (parent of Jesse Lewis, 6):
    6 Great Ring Road, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner: Newtown Forest Association Inc
Ownership history: Purchased by Newtown Forest Association Inc. on12/25/2009  for $0.
Trulia has 2 sale dates: 8/17/1998 $260,000; 8/1/1995 $225,000
8. James S. Greene & Nelba Marquez-Greene (parents of Ana Marquez-Greene, 6):
    29 Buttonball Dr, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner of Record: James S. Greene & Nelba Marquez Greene
Ownership history:
  • Sold to James S. Greene Jr & Nelba Marquez Greene on 8/16/2012 for $0
  • Sold to James S. Greene Jr on 8/3/2012 for $277,000
  • Sold to Deborah A. Makl & David George Makl on 12/25/2009 for $0
Trulia has 2 sale dates: 8/3/2012 $277,000; 9/27/2001 $95,000.
9. Christopher & Lynn Zapf McDonnell (parents of Grace McDonnell, 7):
    4 Bresson Farm Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482-1566
VGS says Owner of record: Christopher & Lynn Zapf McDonnell
Ownership history: Sold to Christopher & Lynn Zapf McDonnell on12/25/2009 for $0.
Zillow has one sale date for this property: 3/24/2000 $453,000
10. Anne Marie Murphy, 52:
(Strangely, both Email Finder and Spokeo think Anne Marie Murphy is still alive, age 53)
    37 Great Ring Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482-1638
VGS says Owner of Record is Ann Marie Murphy
Ownership history: Sold to Ann Marie Murphy on 12/25/2009 for $0.
Trulia has only 1 sale date: 9/4/1998 $291,000
11. Robbie & Alissa Parker (parents of Emilie Parker, 6):
      13 Country Squire Rd., Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says owner of record: Robert & Alissa Parker
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Robert & Alissa Parker on 4/2/2012 for $359,900
  • Sold to Robert & Linda Spolar on 12/25/2009 for $0
12. Dean A., 42, & Tricia L. Pinto (parents of Jack Pinto, 6):
      4 Cobblers Mill Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482-1458
VGS says Owner of Record: Dean A. & Tricia L. Pinto
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Dean & Tricia Pinto on 12/25/2009 for $0
  • Sold to Dean & Tricia Pinto on 7/29/2005 for $607,000
  • Sold to Carl & Gail Coken on 12/11/2003 for $519,000
13. Veronique, 46, & Lenny Pozner (parents of Noah Pozner, 6):
(Curiously, Noah’s dad, Lenny, was not at his son’s open-casket funeral.)
      3 Kale Davis Rd. Sandy Hook, CT 06482-1537
VGS says Owner of Record: Veronique Pozner
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Veronique Pozner on 3/17/2009 for $0
  • Sold to Leonard & Veronique Pozner on 6/20/2005 for $470,000
14. Jeffrey W., 42, & Sandra Previdi (parents of Caroline Previdi, 6):
      44 Grand Pl, Newtown, CT 06470
VGS says Owner of Record: Eugene & Helen Previdi (Jeff’s parents)
Ownership history: Sold to Helen J. & Eugene A. Previdi Jr on 12/25/2009 for $0.
There is no Trulia price history on this property.
15. Jennifer Hensel & Jeremy Richman (parent of Avielle Richman, 6):
      41 Berkshire Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS Ownership history:
  • Sold to Jennifer & Jeremy Richman on 4/21/2011 for $560,000
  • Sold to from MaryJane Wheble on 12/25/2009 for $0
Trulia has 2 sale dates: 4/21/2011 $560,000; 8/19/1999 $360,000
16. Mary Sherlach, 56:
       33 Vintage Rd, Trumbull, CT 06611
VGS says Owner of Record: William D. and Mary J. Sherlach
Ownership history: Sold to William D. & Mary J. Sherlach on 4/30/93 for $0.
Trulia has 1 sale date: 4/30/1993 $307,000.
17. Benjamin, 40, & Cheyenne Wyatt (parents of Allison Wyatt, 6):
      83 Berkshire Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482-1427
VGS says Owner of Record: Benjamin & Cheyanne Wyatt
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Benjamin & Cheyanne Wyatt on 12/25/2009 for $0
  • Sold to Benjamin & Cheyanne Wyatt on 7/1/04 for $461,000
Trulia’s price history: sold 6/26/1998 $275,000; sold 12/27/1994 $242,500
18. Nicholas (“Nick”) & Laura Phelps:
       15 Walnut Trl, Sandy Hook, CT 06482-1148
VGS says owner of record: Zhiwen Ma & Weiyan Xia
Ownership history: Sold to Zhiwen Ma & Weiyan Xia on 12/25/09 for $0
Trulia’s price history: 2/5/2002 $337,500; 6/5/2001 $329,000; 8/24/1999 $247,300; 3/26/1999 $40,000
19. Eugene (“Gene”) Rosen:
       22 Riverside Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner Name: Eugene E. & Marilyn Rosen
Ownership history: Sold to Eugene E. & Marilyn Rosen on 12/25/2009 for $0
Trulia no price history on this property.
Zillow says “historical transaction data is not available for this home.”
20. E. (Elin) Patricia Llodra, 70:
Llodra is the First Selectman and head of Newtown’s 3-member Board of Selectmen who supervise the administration of the town. Like the other two board members (#21 and #22 below), Llodra was elected to a 2-year term (12/1/2011 to 12/1/2013), which means the three were in charge of Newtown at the time of the Sandy Hook massacre. All three were recently reelected to another 2-year term (12/1/2013 to 12/1/2015).
A year ago, when I looked up Ellin P. Llodra on people search engines, her address was listed as 90 Riverside Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482.
VGS a year ago and today says Owner of Record: Robert M. & Ellin P. Llodra
Ownership history: Sold to Robert M. & Ellin P. Llodra on 12/25/2009 for $0.
Trulia has no price history on this property.
But when I look up Ellin Llodra on people search today, her address is listed as 3 Primrose St., Newtown, CT 06470, which is the address of the Newtown Municipal Center, and is owned by the Town of Newtown, with a sale date of12/25/2009 and a sale price of $0.
21. William Rodgers (2nd member of Newtown’s Board of Selectmen):
      208 Hattertown Rd, Newtown, CT 06470
VGS says Owners: William & Moira Rodgers
Ownership history: Sold to William & Moira Rodgers on 12/25/2009 for $0
Trulia’s price history: 4/22/1992 $362,000
22. James Gaston Sr. (3rd member of Newtown’s Board of Selectmen):
      18 Main St., Newtown, CT 06470
VGS says Owner: Stephanie A. Gaston
Ownership history: Sold to Stephanie A. Gaston on 12/25/2009 for $0
Trulia’s price history: 10/2/1992 $262,500

HOMES WITH “NORMAL” SALE DATES AND PRICES:

1. Joel, 43, & JoAnn Bacon (parents of child victim Charlotte Bacon, 6):
12 Lyrical Ln, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
Owner of Record: Joel Bacon, JoAnn Bacon
Ownership History:
  •     Sold to Joel & JoAnn Bacon on 8/20/2007 for $387,500
  •     Sold to Jeffrey & Lisa Fox on 9/13/2004 for 350,000
2. Mark, 49 & Jacqueline Barden (parents of child victim Daniel Barden, 7):
35 Paugussett Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
Owner: Mark & Jacqueline Barden
  • Sold to Mark & Jacqueline Barden on 10/19/2007 for $450,000
  • Sold to Catherine Austermann on 4/7/2004 for $452,500
3. Dawn L. Hochsprung (aka Dawn A. Lafferty), 48:
Spokeo says Dawn L Hochsprung is “in a relationship” w/ George Hochsprung, 71; lives at 11 Upper Cmns, Woodbury, CT 06798. VGS does not list Woodbury, CT on its online database. Trulia says 11 Upper Commons is a condo that was sold on Sept. 22, 2003 for $136,000.
Email Finder has a George Hochsprung, 71, at 4 Heather Ct, Woodbury, CT 06798. Trulia says 4 Heather Ct is a condo that was sold on Aug. 20, 2012 for $223,500.
4. Mark A., 43, & Cynthia Radley Mattioli, 42 (parents of James Mattioli, 6):
67 Great Ring Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner of Record: Mark & Cynthia Mattioli
Ownership History: Sold to Mark & Cynthia Mattioli on 8/3/07 for $585,000
4. Richard, 36, & Krista Rekos, 36 (parents of Jessica Rekos, 6):
5 Sweetbriar Ln, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says Owner of Record: Richard S. and Krista A. Rekos
Ownership history: Sold to Richard & Krista Rekos on 6/23/2010 530,000
5. Lauren Rousseau, 30:
Email Finder has a Lauren Gabrielle Rousseau, age 31
Address: 1 Osborne St, Danbury, CT 06810-5917
VGS says Owner of Record: Teresa B. Rousseau
Ownership history: Sold to Teresa B. Rousseau, age 63, on 6/15/1994 for $0
Trulia has no price history on this property.
6. Victoria Soto, 27:
Email Finder has a Victoria A. Soto, age 29, at 191 Sherman Ave # 1, Meriden, CT 06450-3353; and 126 Spring St, Meriden, CT 06451-5433. Meriden is 32.5mi (35 mins.) to the east of Newtown. SH school is now relocated to Monroe, CT, 6 mi south of Newtown.
7. David & Francine Wheeler (parents of Benjamin Wheeler, 6):
10 Lakeview Terrace, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says owners are David & Francine Wheeler
Ownership history:
  • Sold to David & Francine Wheeler on 7/27/2007 for $365,000
  • Sold to Michael Bloxam on 1/9/2004 for $162,500
Trulia has 3 sale dates: 1/9/2004 $162,500; 5/1/2000 $145,950; 9/2/1994 $85,000
8. Nancy J. Lanza, 52:
36 Yogananda St, Sandy Hook, CT 06482
VGS says owner is Nancy J. Lanza
Ownership history:
  • Sold to Estate of Nancy J. Lanza on 2/1/2013 for $0
  • Sold to Nancy Lanza on 2/8/2011 for $0
Trulia price history: 7/23/1998 $405,900; 7/30/1997 $99,500

TO DO THE PROPERTY SEARCHES ON VGS YOURSELF:

  1. Go to Vision Government Solutions’ website: http://www.vgsi.com/vision/Applications/ParcelData/Home.aspx
  2. Click “Connecticut” on left side of page. This will take you to:
  3. Online Database for the cities of Connecticut:http://www.vgsi.com/vision/Applications/ParcelData/CT/Home.aspx
  4. Scroll down until you see “Newtown.” Click “Newtown”.
  5. This will take you to the Assessors Online Database for Newtown, CT: http://data.visionappraisal.com/NewtownCT/DEFAULT.asp
  6. Click the box “Enter Online Database”.
  7. You’ll be taken to the “Property Assessment Search / Newtown CT” page: http://data.visionappraisal.com/NewtownCT/search.asp
  8. Type in the number and street name, then click “Search”.

TO CONCLUDE:

The homes of 15 of the 20 Sandy Hook child victims, 1-2 of the 7 adult victims, and all 6 of the Sandy Hook adult non-victims (the Phelps, Gene Rosen, the three Selectmen) have the mysterious sale date and $0 sale price.
At the very least, that is interesting. The three Selectmen are especially interesting because if the hypothesis is that the massacre was a contrived event, then Newtown’s highest governing body would have to be “in the know.”
Your guess is as good as mine as to what all those strange 12/25/2009 sale dates and $0 sale price mean. I’d appreciate input from readers of this blog who are in the real estate business and can shed some light of what the odd sale date and sale price mean.
For the links to all the posts we’ve done on Sandy Hook, go to our “Sandy Hook Massacre” page.
~Eowyn
Dr. Eowyn is the Editor of Fellowship of the Minds.

Paranoid Government Views American Citizenry as Enemies

Anthony Freda Art
John W. Whitehead
Activist Post

Relationships are fragile things, none more so than the relationship between a citizen and his government. Unfortunately for the American people, the contract entered into more than 200 years ago has been reduced to little more than a marriage of convenience and fiscal duty, marked by distrust, lying, infidelity, hostility, disillusion, paranoia and domestic abuse on the part of the government officials entrusted with ensuring the citizenry’s safety and happiness.

Don’t believe me? Start paying attention to how you and your fellow citizens are treated by government officials—the ones whose salaries you are paying–and then focus in on how the government is spending your hard-earned tax dollars. Pay particular attention to the heavily armed officers in tactical gear, the surveillance cameras, the drones, the roving VIPR squads, the cops who shoot first and ask questions later, the military drills in small towns, the military equipment being funneled to small-town police departments, and the massive ammunition purchases by domestic agencies such as the Postal Service, the Department of Education, the IRS and the Social Security Administration.

While this hyper-militarization of the government is being sold to the public as a means of preventing terrorism and maintaining national security, it is little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In fact, as I document in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, what we are dealing with is a police state disguised as a benevolent democracy, a run-away government hyped up on its own power and afraid of its citizenry, whose policies are dictated more by paranoia than need. Unfortunately, “we the people” have become so trusting, so gullible, so easily distracted, so out-of-touch and so sure that our government will always do the right thing by us that we are ignoring the warning signs all around us, or at least failing to recognize them as potential red flags and opportunities to ask questions, demand answers, and hold our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law. Perhaps the more pressing question that needs to be asked right now is this: have we become the enemies of our own government?



To start with, the massive ammunition purchases by various federal agencies begs the question: why do domestic agencies having nothing to do with national defense, such as the Postal Service, the Department of Education, the IRS and the Social Security Administration (SSA), need mass quantities of ammunition and weaponry?

It was recently revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans on purchasing 75.1 million rounds of ammunition in 2014. In the past two years, the DHS purchased “1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with 7,000 fully-automatic 5.56x45mm NATO ‘personal defense weapons’ plus a huge stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines.” They also received over 2,500 Mine-Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles, which they have begun passing around to local police departments across the country.

We should not jump to conclusions, but we should be asking questions and demanding answers. After all, these ammo purchases are not taking place in a vacuum. They are occurring alongside a number of other troubling government activities that should have every American asking: what exactly is the government preparing for?

For example, in February 2014, the TSA awarded a contract to City Chemical LLC for $21,000 worth of potassium chlorate, a chemical compound often used in explosives. On January 10, 2014, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) made a statement enlisting the service of contractors who could “supply medical biohazard disposal capabilities and 40 yard dumpsters to 1,000 tent hospitals across the United States; all required on 24-48 hour notice.” This coincides with other medical requests seeking massive amounts of supplies, such as “31,000,000 flu vaccinations,” “100,000 each of winter shirts and pants and the same for summer” and other goods and services requests as well like tarps, manufactured housing units, and beverages.

Taken as isolated events, these requests may not seem suspect, but throw into the mix a variety of military-police training exercises which are occurring across the country, ostensibly to “train” first responders to deal with emergency situations and social unrest, and together they paint a more alarming picture.

In Richland, South Carolina, for example, U.S. army special forces participated in joint and secretive exercises and training with local deputies. The public was blocked from obtaining any information about the drills, other than that they might be loud and should not cause alarm. Documents obtained recently by the website MediaTrackers indicate that the Ohio National Guard conducted a training drill last year which involved responding to an imaginary terrorist threat in which “school officials plotted to use chemical, biological and radiological agents against members of the community.” The alleged terrorists were also portrayed as gun rights advocates. The Ohio National Guard has also conducted a training exercise involving a fictional left-wing environmental terrorist group.

When one considers the growing list of opinions and activities which may make a federal agent or government official think you’re a terrorist, or sympathetic to terrorist activities—advocating states’ rights, believing the state to be unnecessary or undesirable, “conspiracy theorizing,” concern about alleged FEMA camps, opposition to war, organizing for “economic justice,” frustration with “mainstream ideologies,” opposition to abortion, opposition to globalization, and, ironically, ammunition stockpiling—it becomes that much harder to answer “no” when asked “have we become the enemies of our own government?”

At the end of the day, we are left with more questions than answers and the deepening concern that these covert programs are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a tendency on the part of the government to view the American citizenry as enemy #1.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He is the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State and The Change Manifesto.
                       

TIDBIT ADDENDUM: THAT SEVENTH BANKER… YOU’LL NEVER GUESS HIS SURNAME…

TIDBIT UPDATE: That seventh banker who apparently committed suicide at JP Morgan’s Hong Kong branch is another program trader, surnamed…. wait for it… Li:
Man Leaps to His Death at JP Morgan’s Headquarters
                                        

TIDBIT: MAKE THAT SEVEN…

This just in: you can make that seven bankers… this time a banker, again with JP Morgan, leaping to his death in Hong Kong:
Another JP Morgan Banker Leaps to his Death

Does The Trail Of Dead Bankers Lead Somewhere?

image source
Michael Snyder
Activist Post

What are we to make of this sudden rash of banker suicides? Does this trail of dead bankers lead somewhere? Or could it be just a coincidence that so many bankers have died in such close proximity? I will be perfectly honest and admit that I do not know what is going on. But there are some common themes that seem to link at least some of these deaths together.

First of all, most of these men were in good health and in their prime working years. Secondly, most of these "suicides" seem to have come out of nowhere and were a total surprise to their families.  Thirdly, three of the dead bankers worked for JP Morgan. Fourthly, several of these individuals were either involved in foreign exchange trading or the trading of derivatives in some way.

So when "a foreign exchange trader" jumped to his death from the top of JP Morgan's Hong Kong headquarters this morning, that definitely raised my eyebrows. These dead bankers are starting to pile up, and something definitely stinks about this whole thing.

What would cause a young man that is making really good money to jump off of a 30 story building?

The following is how the South China Morning Post described the dramatic suicide of 33-year-old Li Jie...
An investment banker at JP Morgan jumped to his death from the roof of the bank's headquarters in Central yesterday.
Witnesses said the man went to the roof of the 30-storey Chater House in the heart of Hong Kong's central business district and, despite attempts to talk him down, jumped to his death.
If this was just an isolated incident, nobody would really take notice.



But this is now the 7th suspicious banker death that we have witnessed in just the past few weeks...
- On January 26, former Deutsche Bank executive Broeksmit was found dead at his South Kensington home after police responded to reports of a man found hanging at a house. According to reports, Broeksmit had “close ties to co-chief executive Anshu Jain.”
- Gabriel Magee, a 39-year-old senior manager at JP Morgan’s European headquarters, jumped 500ft from the top of the bank’s headquarters in central London on January 27, landing on an adjacent 9 story roof.
- Mike Dueker, the chief economist at Russell Investments, fell down a 50 foot embankment in what police are describing as a suicide. He was reported missing on January 29 by friends, who said he had been “having problems at work.”
- Richard Talley, 57, founder of American Title Services in Centennial, Colorado, was also found dead earlier this month after apparently shooting himself with a nail gun.
- 37-year-old JP Morgan executive director Ryan Henry Crane died last week.
- Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, also died last month, although the circumstances surrounding his death are still unknown.
So did all of those men actually kill themselves?

Well, there is reason to believe that at least some of those deaths may not have been suicides after all.

For example, before throwing himself off of JP Morgan's headquarters in London, Gabriel Magee had actually made plans for later that evening...
There was no indication Magee was going to kill himself at all. In fact, Magee’s girlfriend had received an email from him the night before saying he was finishing up work and would be home soon.
And 57-year-old Richard Talley was found "with eight nail gun wounds to his torso and head" in his own garage.

How in the world was he able to accomplish that?

Like I said, something really stinks about all of this.

Meanwhile, things continue to deteriorate financially around the globe.  Just consider some of the things that have happened in the last 48 hours...

-According to the Bangkok Post, people are "stampeding to yank their deposits out of banks" in Thailand right now.

-Venezuela is coming apart at the seams.  Just check out the photos in this article.

-The unemployment rate in South Africa is above 24 percent.

-Ukraine is on the verge of total collapse...
Three weeks of uneasy truce between the Ukrainian government and Western-oriented protesters ended Tuesday with an outburst of violence in which at least three people were killed, prompting a warning from authorities of a crackdown to restore order. Protesters outside the Ukrainian parliament hurled broken bricks and Molotov cocktails at police, who responded with stun grenades and rubber bullets.
-This week we learned that the level of bad loans in Spain has risen to a new all-time high of 13.6 percent.

-China is starting to quietly sell off U.S. debt.  Already, Chinese U.S. Treasury holdings are down to their lowest level in almost a year.

-During the 4th quarter of 2013, U.S. consumer debt rose at the fastest pace since 2007.

-U.S. homebuilder confidence just experienced the largest one month decline ever recorded.

-George Soros has doubled his bet that the S&P 500 is going to crash.  His total bet is now up to about $1,300,000,000.

For many more signs of financial trouble all over the planet, please see my previous article entitled "20 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Starting To Catch Fire".

Could some of these deaths have something to do with this emerging financial crisis?

That is a very good question.

Once again, I will be the first one to admit that I simply do not know why so many bankers are dying.

But one thing is for certain - dead bankers don't talk.

Everyone knows that there is a massive amount of corruption in our banking system.  If the truth about all of this corruption was to ever actually come out and justice was actually served, we would see a huge wave of very important people go to prison.

In addition, it is an open secret that Wall Street has been transformed into the largest casino in the history of the world over the past several decades.  Our big banks have become more reckless than ever, and trillions of dollars are riding on the decisions that are being made every day.  In such an environment, it is expected that you will be loyal to the firm that you work for and that you will keep your mouth shut about the secrets that you know.

In the final analysis, there is really not that much difference between how mobsters operate and how Wall Street operates.

If you cross the line, you may end up paying a very great price.

This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog.  Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog.

Researchers propose a better way to make sense of 'Big Data'

February 18th, 2014 in Other Sciences / Mathematics
Researchers propose a better way to make sense of 'Big Data'
Two researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory challenge the most recent advances in this Big Data analysis, using a classic mathematical concept to tackle the outstanding problems in this field. Mutual information is able to uncover patterns in large lists of numbers, revealing entirely new, unexpected patterns. Credit: extradeda/Shutterstock

Two researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory challenge the most recent advances in this Big Data analysis, using a classic mathematical concept to tackle the outstanding problems in this field. Mutual information is able to uncover patterns in large lists of numbers, revealing entirely new, unexpected patterns. Credit: extradeda/Shutterstock
Big Data is everywhere, and we are constantly told that it holds the answers to almost any problem we want to solve. Companies collect information on how we shop, doctors and insurance companies gather our medical test results, and governments compile logs of our phone calls and emails. In each instance, the hope is that critical insights are hidden deep within massive amounts of information, just waiting to be discovered.
But simply having lots of data is not the same as understanding it. Increasingly, new mathematical tools are needed to extract meaning from enormous data sets. In work published online today, two researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) now challenge the most recent advances in this field, using a classic mathematical concept to tackle the outstanding problems in Big Data analysis.
What does it mean to analyze Big Data? A major goal is to find between seemingly unrelated quantities, such as income and cancer rates. Many of the most common statistical tools are only able to detect patterns if the researcher has some expectation about the relationship between the quantities. Part of the lure of Big Data is that it may reveal entirely new, unexpected patterns. Therefore, scientists and researchers have worked to develop statistical methods that will uncover these novel relationships.
In 2011, a distinguished group of researchers from Harvard University published a highly influential paper in the journal Science that advanced just such a tool. But in a paper published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CSHL Quantitative Biology Fellow Justin Kinney and CSHL Assistant Professor Gurinder "Mickey" Atwal demonstrate that this new tool is critically flawed. "Their statistical tool does not have the mathematical properties that were claimed," says Kinney.
Kinney and Atwal show that the correct tool was hiding in plain sight all along. The solution, they say, is a well known mathematical measure called "mutual information," first described in 1948. It was initially used to quantify the amount of information that could be transmitted electronically through a telephone cable; the concept now underlies the design of the world's telecommunications infrastructure. "What we've found in our work is that this same concept can also be used to find patterns in data," Kinney explains.
Applied to Big Data, mutual information is able to reveal patterns in large lists of numbers. For instance, it can be used to analyze patterns in data sets on the numerous bacterial species that help us digest food. "This particular tool is perfect for finding patterns in studies of the human microbiome, among many other things," Kinney says.
Importantly, mutual information provides a way of identifying all types of patterns within the data without reliance upon any prior assumptions. "Our work shows that mutual information very naturally solves this critical problem in statistics," Kinney says. "This beautiful mathematical concept has the potential to greatly benefit modern data analysis, in biology and in biology and many other important fields.
More information: "Equitability, mutual information, and the maximal information coefficient" appears online in PNAS on February 17, 2014. The authors are: Justin Block Kinney and Gurinder Singh Atwal. The paper can be obtained online at: www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/02/14/1309933111.abstract
Provided by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
"Researchers propose a better way to make sense of 'Big Data'." February 18th, 2014. http://phys.org/news/2014-02-big.html

Sandy Hook: Free Homes and “Big Bucks” Incentives for Leaders and Players 

By James H. Fetzer (with Wolfgang Halbig)
BREAKING NEWS! New Revelations expose the apparently corrupt motives of Newtown authorities and participants in the staged events at Sandy Hook, including free homes and a cut of $27 million (USD) in donations from a sympathetic but gullible public played for saps through the cynical manipulation of their subconscious fears.

Wolfgang
New research on Sandy Hook reveals powerful financial incentives that appear to implicate the highest officials of Newtown in a conspiracy to fabricate the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, which extends to survivors of the “victims” and other participants who played key roles in conveying the impression of a massacre of children at Sandy Hook.
In addition, a new player, Wolfgang Halbig, has emerged who by background, experience and qualifications–as a former Florida State Trooper, former school principal and nationally recognized expert on school safety–has brought a new level of expertise to sorting out the illusion, where he is convinced it was a sham and that no one died at Sandy Hook.
These incentives include real estate transactions, whereby valuable homes were deeded to Newtown’s three Selectmen and to other participants for the sale price of $0 dollars on 25 December 2009, which may be the only real estate transactions on Christmas in the nation day, where they constituted very special and high-value-at-no-cost “Christmas presents”. The “survivors” have already raked in $27 million in donations to split. And now we have a new report that 200 Connecticut State Police are going to be rewarded for essentially “doing nothing”.

This information is so extraordinary that, as a journalist for Veterans Today, I have written to Newtown’s Selectmen, Patricia Llorda, William F.L. Rogers and James Gaston, Sr., to either confirm or deny that they were among the recipients of these extraordinary gifts. I am awaiting their replies. And, for the rest, in their eagerness to cash in on the hoax, they seem to have posted a United Way donation request 3 days early.
Who is Wolfgang Halbig?
A former Florida State Trooper, who spent 36 years as a school administrator (including as assistant principal and principal) and a nationally recognized authority on school safety (who also served as an expert witness in the Columbine shooting case), has an impressive biographical sketch, which I am providing here. He is by far the most highly qualified expert to address the questions raised by the Sandy Hook “event”:

The exceptional interview by Dave Gahary with Wolfgang Halbig has been posted on the America Free Press YouTube channel, where it has been drawing rave reviews and, as they say, has “gone viral”, perhaps especially because he has been threatened with prosecution for raising questions with Connecticut state officials. How could anyone of his credentials be threatened simply for asking questions about Sandy Hook?
David Gahary interviews Wolfgang Halbig
To listen to the interview of Wolfgang Halbig by David Gahary, click
Wolfgang on YouTube here
The fascinating questions that Wolfgang has raised include, “Why were 26 small Christmas Trees behind the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Department on 14 December 2012 and decorated on 15 December 2012?” They do not have, say, 60 or 100 trees because, if they did, it would be obvious that they would be having a Christmas tree sale. But instead we see that they have just 26 small trees all by themselves. That would seem to suggest there was a plan to have 26 “victims” whose deaths were to be observed, but before the event to be commemorated had taken place.
As he wrote of the Sandy Hook Research Group and others, “There are so many of you who have dedicated so much time and effort in seeking the truth which the CT State Police and the Danbury State Attorney refuses to share reminds me of Nazi Germany and East Berlin were many of my family members lived and died. My father spend four years in a Nazi prison camp so I know personally that if you or we ever stop asking questions and stop challenging those in power we the people are no longer free and will no longer be safe.”
Letter to the Newtown Selectmen
It was astonishing to discover that very unusual real estate transactions had taken place on 25 December 2009, where the homes of 15 of the 20 Sandy Hook child victims, 1-2 of the 7 adult victims, and all 6 of the Sandy Hook adult non-victims (the Phelps, Gene Rosen, the three Selectmen) have the mysterious sale date of Christmas Day and $0 sale price. Although not gifted on that same date, even the home of Nancy Lanza, the purported mother of the alleged shooter, Adam Lanza, was bestowed upon her for $0 on 8 February 2011:
Nancy Lanza's home
Nancy Lanza’s home
Altogether, some 35 homes were “gifted” for $0, where the data base for home sales is a matter of public record. These stunning transactions are so extraordinary and potentially explanatory that they are even being featured on YouTube, where I expect that they will now begin to receive the attention they deserve. I decided to write to the three Selectmen of Newtown, all of whom were recipients of this remarkable largess, for their verification. I had originally sent my inquiry to the members of the School Board, but noticed my mistake and corrected it:
From:James Fetzer
Date: Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 1:17 PM
Subject: The strange purchase date and price of Sandy Hook homes
To: Patricia Llorda, William F.L. Rogers and James Gaston, Sr.
Cc: wolfgang halbig
Dear Newtown Selectmen,
This is to forward to you a message intended for you as well as the members of the Newtown School Board, since all of you have an interest in accurate and truthful reporting about Sandy Hook and such events as may have transpired at the elementary school.
I was struck by the recent article in which Selectman Llodra complimented the national press for its “respectful professionalism” in covering the observance of those events. Since I want to make sure I have my facts straight about a story that involves the three of you, I would appreciate having your comments on the article that I have just forwarded to the members of the School Board.
Thanks for a prompt response.
Jim
James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
McKnight Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: James Fetzer
Date: Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 1:17 PM
Subject: The strange purchase date and price of Sandy Hook homes
To: Debbie Leidlein, Laura Roche, Keith Alexander, John Vouros, David Freedman, Michelle Embree Ku, Kathy Hamilton
Cc: wolfgang halbig
Dear Newtown School Board Members,
While we are on the subject, I would like to invite your attention to an extremely disturbing article,
“The Strange Purchase Date and Price of Sandy Hook Homes”,  http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/02/14/strange-purchase-date-price-sandy-hook-homes/
which I hope you can clarify for me because, as a journalist, I want to make sure I have things right. It lists some highly unusual real estate transactions on Christman Day of 2009, including these:
20. E. (Elin) Patricia Llodra, 70:
Llodra is the First Selectman and head of Newtown’s 3-member Board of Selectmen who supervise the administration of the town. Like the other two board members (#21 and #22 below), Llodra was elected to a 2-year term (12/1/2011 to 12/1/2013), which means the three were in charge of Newtown at the time of the Sandy Hook massacre. All three were recently reelected to another 2-year term (12/1/2013 to 12/1/2015).
A year ago, when I looked up Ellin P. Llodra on people search engines, her address was listed as 90 Riverside Rd, Sandy Hook, CT 06482.
VGS a year ago and today says Owner of Record: Robert M. & Ellin P. Llodra Ownership history: Sold to Robert M. & Ellin P. Llodra on 12/25/2009 for $0. Trulia has no price history on this property.
But when I look up Ellin Llodra on people search today, her address is listed as 3 Primrose St., Newtown, CT 06470, which is the address of the Newtown Municipal Center, and is owned by the Town of Newtown, with a sale date of12/25/2009 and a sale price of $0.
21. William Rodgers (2nd member of Newtown’s Board of Selectmen):
208 Hattertown Rd, Newtown, CT 06470 VGS says Owners: William & Moira Rodgers Ownership history: Sold to William & Moira Rodgers on 12/25/2009 for $0 Trulia’s price history: 4/22/1992 $362,000
22. James Gaston Sr. (3rd member of Newtown’s Board of Selectmen):
18 Main St., Newtown, CT 06470 VGS says Owner: Stephanie A. Gaston Ownership history: Sold to Stephanie A. Gaston on 12/25/2009 for $0 Trulia’s price history: 10/2/1992 $262,500
Frankly, I have never heard of anyone completing a real estate transaction on Christmas Day. The author summarizes his conclusions about these very strange transactions as follows:
“The homes of 15 of the 20 Sandy Hook child victims, 1-2 of the 7 adult victims, and all 6 of the Sandy Hook adult non-victims (the Phelps, Gene Rosen, the three Selectmen) have the mysterious sale date and $0 sale price.
“At the very least, that is interesting. The three Selectmen are especially interesting because if the hypothesis is that the massacre was a contrived event, then Newtown’s highest governing body would have to be “in the know.”
“Your guess is as good as mine as to what all those strange 12/25/2009 sale dates and $0 sale price mean. I’d appreciate input from readers of this blog who are in the real estate business and can shed some light of what the odd sale date and sale price mean.”
Since I am providing you with a link to this stunning article, whose contents you can confirm for yourselves, I would like to know if its author has anything wrong; and if his research is accurate, what in the world is going on? Homes in your area are extremely expensive. Why were you, the three selectmen, for example, deeded homes for $0 on 25 December 2009? Please do explain.
I will be publishing more articles about this and I want to make sure that I have my facts straight.
Thanks for a prompt response.
Jim
James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
McKnight Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/
P.S. An interview with Wolfgang Halbig is now up on YouTube. You don’t want to miss it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6roDPt1WYYY&list=UUseEm_OTxRSzs8L_FTFP8Dg
Newtown official thanks media for covering Sandy Hook
Letter to the Newtown School Board
Learning that all three of the Newtown Selectmen, including Patricia Llodra, had received homes for $0 dollars shed light on the whole bizarre Sandy Hook experience, where it became obvious in retrospect that her expression of appreciation to the main stream media for their “respectful professionalism” in covering the observance was really an expression of appreciation for covering up what had actually happened. When Wolfgang wrote to the School Board, therefore, I sent my own follow up:
On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 9:23 AM, James Fetzer <jfetzer@d.umn.edu wrote:
Dear Newtown School Board Members,
As a former Marine Corps officer, retired university professor and especially as a journalist for Veterans Today, who has published several articles about the Sandy Hook event, I would like to have your response to what Wolfgang Halbig has addressed to you. Wolf is a former Florida State Trooper, a former school principal and a nationally recognized expert on school safety. Are you going to respond to his inquiries or will you pretend you never received them?
There are multiple indications that you, the Newtown School Board, have been participating in a cover up of what took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. As we have observed in “Top Ten Reasons: Sandy Hook was an Elaborate Hoax” (with Vivian Lee, Sofia Smallstorm, James Tracy and other members of the Sandy Hook Research Group), the evidence is simply overwhelming that what happened was a carefully staged drill and not an actual shooting.
The questions that Wolfgang has raised are important ones, especially about the event itself but also about the building, which have been reported in articles that have appeared in the press, including “Widespread Haz-Mat Presence Would Have Hampered Sandy Hook Renovations” by John Voket (2 December 2013), which appeared in The Newtown Bee. And of course First Selectman Pat Llorda has been quoted thanking the press for its coverage of the Newtown event.
The questions that Wolfgang has raised about Sandy Hook Elementary School are obvious and elementary. As a journalist who has published and will continue to publish about this event, I want to be sure that I have my facts straight. So be sure to include me in your response to Wolfgang. And if you were not participating in a massive hoax to mislead the American people, inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks for a prompt response.
Jim
James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
McKnight Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/
From: Wolfgang Halbig
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 07:38:20 -0500
To: Debbie Leidlein, Laura Roche, Keith Alexander, John Vouros, David Freedman, Michelle Embree Ku, Kathy Hamilton
Subject: Follow the CT Laws on the Ct Freedom of Information Act and please return phone calls
School Board Chairman and Board Members:
I have spend a lifetime as a Florida State Trooper In Miami, Florida from 1974 through 1977 and then realizing that I’m in the wrong profession.
When you work as a Law Enforcement Officer in Miami, Florida it seems as a lifetime even if it is only 3 years or less.
I was putting people in Jail instead of trying to prevent them from going to jail.
So I became a School Administrator for 36 school years.
I became a National School Safety Consultant after retiring form Education in 1999.
I was appointed by former Gov. Jeb Bush to the Florida Safe Schools Commission and confirmed by the Florida Senate.
I am asking you the Board Members to help me in getting your school superintendent to repsond to my Ct Freedom of Information Requests in a timely manner.
Your Facility Director does not even return phone calls after leaving a polite message.
My requests are simple requests and will not place your school district in any danger whatsoever.
I was an Expert witness in the Columbine shooting in 1999 and it causes me to ask the same questions.
I was in the Media Center three days after the shooting and I personally observed the horrific crime scene and I got to see it after they renovated the Media Center for School use again.
The incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School has caused nothing but panic and fear throughout all schools in our country and I believe you have a responsibility as Board Members to tell the truth as to:
Why were NO trauma Helicopters requested that morning when lives could have been saved?
Why No paramedics or EMT’S were allowed into the school building instead they were told to set up Triage?
Who declared all 24 school children and school staff legally dead within the first 11 minutes since only a Doctor can do that not a police officer per CT State Laws?
Two children supposedly died at the hospital which it took over an hour to transport. Why?
Who did the school board contract to remove all Bio-Hazards from the Sandy Hook Elementary School such as 45 to 65 gallons of blood, brain tissues and skull fragments, blood splatter, blood carpet removal etc just as they did at Columbine?
Who was the contractor who installed the security system at sandy Hook Elementary school and the total cost of the project?
Copies of the tri-annual Asbestos inspections that must be conducted by a Certified Inspector from outside the school system and that all parents must be notified of any asbestos, lead or any other dangerous substances that could cause harm to children and school staff on an annual basis.
I have requested those reports from 2002 through current year 2012. Now what is so difficult in providing me with those reports since parents of Sandy Hook should see those every school year?
Please comply.
I am asking you as a former educator and National School Safety Consultant to respond to my Ct Freedom of Information Act requests and return phone calls in a timely manner. You have had Dr. Ron Stephens National School Safety Center speak with you and he will give me a great reference if you check me out.
I will not stop asking as you will see until board members have the courage in sharing the truth.
How can a Lt. from the Newtown Police Department working an off-duty detail on Dec 14, 2012 and hearing that shots are fired at Sandy Hook Elementary School not leave his off duty job to repsond in saving children and school staff lives? He decided to stay until over two and a half hours passed to respond.
How can you [have] allowed that type of response from police in your community. He should be fired and not praised in your meetings?
Please have your school district respond to my requests.
Thanks.
Wolfgang W Halbig
352———
[address]
Sandy Hook School beyond rennovating
Wolfgang’s questions for The Newtown Bee
His letter to The Newtown Bee was so completely appropriate and reasonable that it seemed to me a bit more heat was deserved in this case, so I wrote a sequel in which I raised questions about an event as embarrassing relative to Sandy Hook as Jane Standley’s report of the “collapse” of WTC-7, which was broadcast 27 minutes early. So I asked about its very strange report of a phone call from the principal, Dawn Hochsprung, about the shooting, when she was said to be the first victim:
From: James Fetzer
Date: Sat, Feb 14, 2014 at 9:00 AM
Subject: About Wolfgang Halbig’s inquiries to The Newtown Bee
To: [Newtown Bee Staff]
Cc: wolfgang halbig
Dear Bee Editors and Staff,
As a former Marine Corps officer, retired university professor and especially as a journalist for Veterans Today, who has published several articles about the Sandy Hook event, I would like to have your response to what Wolfgang Halbig has addressed to you. Wolf is a former Florida State Trooper, a former school principal and a nationally recognized expert on school safety. Are you going to respond to his inquiries or pretend you never received them?
There are multiple indications that you, The Newtown Bee, have been participating in a cover up of what took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. As we have observed in “Top Ten Reasons: Sandy Hook was an Elaborate Hoax” (with Vivian Lee, Sofia Smallstorm, James Tracy and other members of the Sandy Hook Research Group), you even published an interview with Dawn Hochsprung after she was officially dead:
Dawn Hochsprung—In an embarrassing fiction, The Newtown Bee reported on 14 December 2013 that Dawn Hochsprung, the Sandy Hook school principal, told the paper that a masked man had entered the school with a rifle and started shooting multiple shots – more than she could count – that went “on and on.” Of course, Dawn Hochsprung was allegedly killed by Adam Lanza and so could not easily have provided this statement. In fact, Dawn was said to have acted heroically, dying while lunging at the gunman—although one wonders who witnessed and reported this act of heroism. On 17 December 2013, The Bee retracted the report and apologized:
An early online report from the scene at the December 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School quoted a woman who identified herself to our reporter as the principal of the school. The woman was not the school’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung, who was killed in the Friday morning attack. The quote was removed from subsequent online versions of the story, but the original story did remain in our online archive for three days before being deleted. We apologize for whatever confusion this may have caused our readers and for any pain or anguish it may have caused the Hochsprung family.
But how in the world could something like that have happened unless someone went off the script? Why in the world would anyone PRETEND TO BE THE PRINCIPAL OF AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND CALL IN TO REPORT A SHOOTING? Surely you can see that your flimsy attempt to explain away an embarrassing gaff by The Newton Bee isn’t going to persuade anyone that you are not complicit in this massive deception and hoax? So be sure to include me in your response to Wolfgang, because I want to have my facts straight. And if you were not participating in a massive hoax to mislead the American people, inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks for a prompt response.
Jim
James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
McKnight Professor Emeritus
University of Minnesota Duluth
http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer
On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Wolfgang Halbig wrote:
Editor and reporters and Hicks:
How can you as a staff sit back in your offices and allow this to happen under your watch?
Your failure in placing every parent on notice before the Sandy Hook School Shooting about the serious high level of lead, asbestos and PCB’s in that school since it was built in 1956 should have been a warning sign long before they decided to tear it down.
Why did your News Paper not warn every parent and school board members of the serious exposures that every child and school staff member is confronted with on a daily basis and NO one warned the parents or school staff?
As you know by CT State and even Federal laws the Sandy Hook Elementary School is required to have a tri-annual Asbestos inspection by an outside certified asbestos inspector.
Those findings must be reported to parents of the children and school staff of Sandy Hook on an annual basis.
The school district must write a letter to very parent informing them of the high level of lead, Asbestos such as asbestos ceiling tiles, asbestos floor tiles and just as you finally reported before tearing down the school of how bad those Asbestos and Haz-Mat conditions where.
Children and school staff are working in classroom with high amounts of lead paint. Have you ever heard of allergies?
You call this a Vanguard School knowing that every child and school staff member who attended was being exposed to high levels of lead, serious Asbestos violations and many other Has-mat conditions such as PCB’s.
Why would any Elementary School parent allow their child to attend that school unless all those conditions were remediated long time ago?
These are serious conditions that a school district ignored and you must have known or maybe just an oversight in letting parents know of how bad those environmental conditions in that school where.
Did the school district on an annual basis write letters to every parent in informing them of these serious Haz-Mat and Asbestos conditions? You should find out because it is the law.
Wolfgang
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So what was Sandy Hook about?
Are the Newtown Selectmen going to move to make real estate records immune from public disclosure, just as the Newtown Clerk moved to keep children’s death certificates out of the public domain? Just how dumb are we supposed to be? As I explained in an earlier article, “Fusion and Fear in America: The Non-Existent Domestic Terrorist Threat”, on the basis of an extensive study by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Intelligence, there appears to be no domestic terrorist threat, which may account for why we are subjected to contrived events, such as Sandy Hook and the Boston bombing:
“Despite reviewing 13 months’ worth of reporting originating from fusion centers from April 1, 2009 to April 30, 2010, the Subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot.”–US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
While this finding appears to be of the greatest importance to the American public, to the best of my knowledge, the mass media has ignored it completely. We know about the 300 or more FEMA camps distributed around the country. We know that Congress has authorized 30,000 drones to conduct surveillance on the American people. We know that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had requisitioned 1.5 billion rounds of .40 calibre hollow-point ammunition, which is not permissible for use in warfare under the Geneva Conventions. And we know that Hitler, like Obama, promoted gun control in the name of “public safety”.
Since DHS does not conduct operations abroad, it must be acquiring that massive stock of ammo for use on us right here in the United States. That much is alarming enough all by itself. What we didn’t know is that DHS is some kind of monstrous joke, that it has been squandering billions of taxpayers’ dollars, and that it has turned up no evidence of any domestic terrorist threat! NONE! The situation is absurd. DHS has no financial oversight and cannot even identify how much it has spent, where there is more than $1 billion difference in its own estimates. So what precisely are we getting for our money?
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the public’s acceptance of Sandy Hook fakery, in spite of a mountain of evidence that proves it, has been the question of motivation: What could possibly have induced so many to have lied so much about a matter of such immense significance, which has been parlayed into greater restrictions on gun control and new “mental health criteria” that entitle your physician to ask you about gun ownership? The answer, alas, should be obvious to everyone: free homes and free money from playing the American people for suckers. Don’t say no one ever told you, because we just did.
Wolfgang Halbig, a former Florida State Trooper with 36 years of experience as a school administrator, is also a nationally recognized authority on school safety and has been threatened for asking questions about Sandy Hook.
Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer, is McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a journalist and editor for Veterans Today.
This article originally appeared at Veterans Today on February 16, 2014. It is republished here with permission.