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" Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions." Hal Turner Records show feds used ultra-right radio host for years
Sunday, November 29, 2009Last updated: Sunday November 29, 2009, 9:21 AM
BY MIKE KELLY AND PETER J. SAMPSON
The Record
STAFF WRITERS
They called him "Valhalla."
But it was more than a nickname.
For more than five years, Hal Turner of North Bergen lived a double life.
The public knew him as an ultra-right-wing radio talk show host and Internet blogger with an audience of neo-Nazis and white supremacists attracted to his scorched-earth racism and bare-knuckles bashing of public figures. But to the FBI, and its expanding domestic counter-terror intelligence operations in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Turner was "Valhalla" — his code name as an informant who spied on his own controversial followers.
Turner's clandestine past was confirmed this past summer when he was jailed on charges that he made threats on his blog against three federal judges in Chicago. In court after his arrest, federal prosecutors acknowledged Turner's FBI ties but downplayed his importance and even described him as "unproductive."
But an investigation by The Record — based on government documents, e-mails, court records and almost 20 hours of jailhouse interviews with Turner — shows that federal authorities made frequent use of Turner in its battle against domestic terrorism.
As Turner took to his radio show and blog to say that those who opposed his extremist views deserve to die, he received thousands of dollars from the FBI to report on such groups as the Aryan Nations and the white supremacist National Alliance, and even a member of the Blue Eyed Devils skinhead punk band. Later, he was sent undercover to Brazil where he reported a plot to send non-military supplies to anti-American Iraqi resistance fighters. Sometimes he signed "Valhalla" on his FBI payment receipts instead of his own name.
His dual life of shock jock and informant offers a window into the murky realm of domestic intelligence in the years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks — in particular, the difficult choices for the FBI in penetrating controversial fringe groups with equally controversial informants.
In interviews, conducted before Turner was released on bail, he said the FBI coached him to make racist, anti-Semitic and other threatening statements and now he feels double-crossed by the bureau after his arrest. The documents reviewed by The Record, however, show repeated instances of federal agents admonishing Turner for his extremism.
Federal prosecutors in Newark and Chicago declined to respond to Turner's claims, as did FBI officials. "We do not comment on matters before the courts and will not address Mr. Turner's allegations in the press," said the FBI's Weysan Dun, who runs the bureau's Newark field office.
Turner's "Valhalla" life will likely be on display this week when he is scheduled to go on trial for his alleged blog threats against three federal appeals court judges in Chicago who upheld a law banning handguns. The trial, originally set for Chicago, was switched to Brooklyn, with a judge flying in from Louisiana.
The trial may have its share of political intrigue. Turner's defense attorney, Michael Orozco, said he plans to subpoena Governor-elect Chris Christie to testify about whether he advised the FBI about Turner while Christie was U.S. attorney in Newark. On Friday, Orozco filed a motion to dismiss the case, accusing the government of "outrageous conduct."
But the center of the court battle will likely be the story of Hal Turner and his FBI connections, which began in 2003 with the Newark-based Joint Terrorism Task Force, and continued on and off until this year.
Rumors of Turner's FBI work surfaced two years ago after unknown Internet hackers electronically broke into his Web site and found e-mails between Turner and an FBI agent. Turner never acknowledged his FBI role until after his arrest in June — and then with a mix of anger and chagrin.
"Imagine my surprise," he wrote in one of several letters from jail to The Record, "when agents from the very FBI that trained and paid me came to my house to arrest me."
In a memo only two years earlier, the FBI said Turner "has proven highly reliable and is in a unique position to provide vital information on multiple subversive domestic organizations." The memo went on to say that Turner's "statistical accomplishments include over 100 subjects identified, over 10 acts of violence prevented and multiple subjects arrested."
"I was not some street snitch," Turner said in one of several lengthy interviews at the Hudson County Jail, where he was kept until the terms of his bail were worked out in October — terms that prevented him from talking to reporters after his release. "I was a deep undercover intelligence operative."
Misgivings on both sides
Whatever his role, one thing is clear: The relationship between Turner and the FBI often was rocky, with both sides cutting ties several times.
In March 2005, Turner abruptly quit. In a letter to his FBI handlers, he cited a "complete failure" by the agency "to achieve the goals for which I began the relationship," the "dismal lack of arrests," the failure to track down a "threat to kill me and my family" and "exploitation" by the FBI "to interfere with content of my Internet Web site."
By June, however, Turner was again on the FBI payroll. The FBI, meanwhile, harbored its own doubts about Turner.
Five days after Turner's March 2005 letter, an internal FBI memo summarized rising concerns that his rhetoric was too controversial and possibly dangerous.
"Is he a big mouth? Yes," the memo said. "Does he say really deplorable things? Yes. Is he a physical threat to anyone? I don't think so."
Records show the FBI continued this kind of questioning throughout its connection to Turner — valuing his ties to right-wing hate groups, but also worrying that his audience might follow up on his violence rhetoric.
In a July 2007 memo, Turner's primary FBI handler, Special Agent Stephen Haug, wrote that Turner "will continue to be admonished in the strongest possible terms and on a periodic basis about his rhetoric and the potential of it inciting acts of violence."
Haug went on to say that Turner would be "instructed to utilize his celebrity status to insure he continues to remind those who follow his rhetoric that such rhetoric is not intended to incite violence."
"In balance," Haug wrote, "this source's value outweighs the discomfort associated with source's rhetoric. Source's unique access provides important intelligence which, if lost, would be irreplaceable."
Turner, meanwhile, often tried to assure the FBI that his shock jock rhetoric was not serious. "The audience loves the rip-roaring radio psycho," he wrote in one e-mail to the FBI. "They literally throw money at it. Just be confident that the personality you hear (or hear about) on radio is not real life. I have zero intention of doing anything stupid."
Nonetheless, Turner's statements were closely watched.
In February 2008, in the midst of the presidential primary season, Turner attracted the attention of federal officials when he turned against then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
"I'm starting to come to the realization that it may be up to a sole person, acting alone, to make certain this guy is never allowed to hold the most powerful office in the world," Turner wrote on his Web site. He later removed the statement.
But later that year, court records show that he contacted federal authorities to say that he had heard of a possible assassination plot by white supremacists against the president-elect.
"I didn't like Barack Obama," Turner explained in an interview. "But he won the election."
Seven months after the possible threat to Obama, Turner was in FBI handcuffs — for allegedly threatening the Chicago judges.
"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed," Turner wrote on his blog on June 2. "Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty."
Turner also posted photos of the judges, their work phone numbers and office addresses as well as a map of the courthouse that pointed out "anti-truck bomb barriers."
"The word 'deserve' is just an opinion," Turner later told The Record. As for posting the photos of the judges, he added: "I can't tell you to this day how sorry I am."
Even if he wins his federal case, Turner's legal problems will not be over. In June, Connecticut authorities charged Turner with inciting violence against state officials who supported a proposed state law to give Roman Catholic parishioners greater control over church finances.
In each case, Turner contends his words are protected as free speech under the First Amendment. Turner's attorney, Orozco, adds that other federal prosecutors routinely ignored his outlandish statements. "He has made other controversial remarks about judges, none of which have ever been prosecuted," wrote Orozco in a legal brief.
"I never intended for anybody to feel threatened," Turner said.
Longing to be heard
Whatever his intentions, it remains unclear who the real Hal Turner is.
A fraud? A serious threat to homeland security? A white supremacist? A loyal citizen trying to help the FBI? A radio showman trying to build an audience — and income — with shocking statements?
After he was arrested by FBI agents in June, Turner was sent on a journey that took him to jails in Newark, Oklahoma and Chicago — often in solitary confinement. By late September, he was transferred back to New Jersey and sent to the Hudson County Jail in Kearny. In all, he spent 119 days behind bars.
In the interviews at the Hudson County Jail, Turner offered many glimpses of his personality and motivation.
"My country needed me," he said when asked why he accepted the FBI's offer in June 2003 to become an informant. "I'm a loyal, patriotic decent American citizen."
But why did he say — or hint — that some judges and other officials should be killed? Turner blames the FBI, saying that while agents never said he could threaten judges, they coached him on the limits of what he could say. As a result, Turner said he felt he had wide latitude.
"I was given specific instructions," he said. "Here, I am in prison, betrayed."
In one of his more controversial statements, Turner gloated over the murder of the husband and mother of a federal judge in Chicago in 2005. But Turner described his rhetoric as fake, arguing he hoped it "would solidify my anti-government credentials" among ultra-right-wing groups he was spying on.
As for hanging out with neo-Nazis and skinheads, Turner said, "That's not me. It never has been."
Raised in Ridgefield Park, the 47-year-old Turner labored more than a decade in a variety of positions with several moving-van companies. In 1988, while working for a moving company in Atlanta, Turner was arrested on a drug possession charge. In interviews, he said he had a cocaine addiction at the time and checked into a rehab program.
By the early 1990s, Turner moved to North Bergen and worked as a real estate agent. Within a few years, however, he began to dabble in politics, trying to beef up the Republican Party in overwhelmingly Democratic Hudson County. He also was a campaign manager in New Jersey for Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.
Politics seemed to offer Turner something he never realized he had — a voice and a need to speak out on hot topics. Now, however, several close associates question whether that voice is authentic or just the work of someone looking for the limelight.
In 1997, when Ramapo College Finance Professor Murray Sabrin ran for governor on a libertarian platform, he hired Turner to manage his campaign. Turner was a frequent caller on WABC's popular talk radio shows with Bob Grant and Sean Hannity — "Hal from North Bergen," as he came to be known.
Turner surely had a conservative flair, especially on such issues as abortion and immigration. But Sabrin noticed a complete shift after Turner started his own talk radio show. In particular, Sabrin, who is Jewish, found some of Turner's remarks to be anti-Semitic.
"People have a public face and a private face," said Sabrin. "Everything that he is doing now is a complete 180-degree shift. It's totally opposite from what I knew. I don't know where this is coming from. I certainly wouldn't have tolerated it."
For several years, the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based civil rights group, has regularly monitored Turner's radio broadcasts and blog. Indeed, the center was one of the first organizations to raise questions that Turner might be an FBI informant.
Hearing now that Turner admits to being an informant, the center's director of research, Heidi Beirich, was especially critical of the FBI. "We've never seen anything like this with informants. It's essentially idiotic on the part of the FBI. Anybody who spent two seconds looking at Hal Turner's Web site would know he is a wild hare," she said.
Indeed, Turner's own recounting of his life with the FBI does not always mirror what records show he did.
Turner, for example, says the FBI asked him to participate in a mission to plug leaks of information inside the Department of Justice to a variety of groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti Defamation League. Turner also says the FBI asked him to specifically criticize such African-American leaders as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
"I was supposed to be a counterbalance to Sharpton," Turner said.
Officially, the FBI declined comment on those unproven stories by Turner. The documents bear no trace of those operations.
Expedition to Brazil
Unofficially, FBI and other federal officials expressed a mix of dismay and outright anger when told of Turner's claims of being coached to make provocative statements.
"Absurd," said one. Another added: "And pigs will fly beginning with the next full moon. It never happened."
During interviews with The Record, Turner was at times unclear on some details. FBI records indicate, for example, that he did not become an informant until June 2003; Turner originally said he was recruited by federal agents in 2002, but later said he was mistaken.
Along with Haug of the FBI, his other regular contact was Leonard Nerbetski, a New Jersey State Police detective assigned to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Requests to interview Haug and Nerbetski were turned town by the FBI and by the state police.
In an early communication, Turner reported to the FBI about a meeting in Elmwood Park by the National Alliance. A few months after that, FBI records show that Turner was reaching out to several national leaders of the alliance.
FBI memos indicate that the bureau had appropriated as much as $100,000 for Turner's work as an informant.
"It was good money," said Turner, who would not say how much he was ultimately paid by the FBI.
Turner said he was earning about $15,000 a month from his suddenly popular radio show and blog.
As 2004 wore on, Turner found himself reporting to the FBI about a possible theft of evidence in a Bergen County drug case and about an attempt to set up a chapter of the Aryan Nations in northern New Jersey.
A year later, with the FBI paying for his visa and passport renewal, Turner embarked on his most ambitious mission — to confer with a wealthy white supremacist in Brazil who was considering making a $1 million donation to his American counterparts.
While in Brazil, Turner also reported meeting a World War II German Luftwaffe flying ace and linking up with a representative of the Brazilian Arab Society, who discussed a plan to ship $10 million in consumer goods to anti-American Iraqi resistance fighters.
After Turner returned to New Jersey, the records show that the FBI investigated the Arab Society representative and even reached out to U.S. officials in Brazil for help in monitoring his activities. But it's not clear if the $10 million shipment was attempted.
The $1 million donation also never materialized, records show. The Brazilian benefactor backed out of the deal when an American white supremacist did not accompany Turner on the trip.
Records indicate the FBI wanted Turner to return to Brazil to spy on white-supremacist training there. But Turner never went. While in Brazil, Turner said, he carried a gun for protection, which was not authorized by the FBI.
Only a few weeks after returning to the United States from Brazil, Turner again found controversy. In a radio broadcast, he targeted African-Americans.
"A full day of violence against blacks would be a really nice thing," he said.
Turner went on to call for "lynchings, church burnings, drive-by shootings and bombings to put these subhuman animals back in their place," according to a report complied by the Anti-Defamation League.
The episode illustrates the complicated relationship between the FBI and Turner. Despite Turner's racist radio rhetoric, the FBI also valued his undercover work — and was apparently willing to take a risk with him again — and pay him, too.
For example, a July 2005 memo by the FBI said Turner had been paid $10,365 in the previous fiscal year and that he "provided information which continues to be highly accurate and sensitive."
Turner continued to reach out intermittently to the FBI — with tips including a possible KKK murder plot — until June 2, 2009, the day he posted the alleged threats on his blog about the Chicago judges.
In an e-mail that day to the FBI, Turner says he has heard reports that agents had interviewed skinheads and others about him.
"Am I unapproachable?" Turner asked in the e-mail. "Geez, I'd think by now I would have proved myself. It's not like I'm gonna go postal or anything."
Three weeks later, Turner was arrested.
Four months after that, Turner, unshaven and wearing frayed green prison garb and fumbling with a loose tooth, sat in an interview room at the Hudson County Jail and pondered his journey — from shock jock to FBI informant to inmate charged with a serious federal crime.
"I can't believe this is happening to me," he said.
E-mail: kellym@northjersey.com and sampson@northjersey.com

MIKE KELLEY OF "THE RECORD" SHOULD GET A PULITZER PRIZE FOR JOURNALISM FOR HIS COVERAGE OF HAL TURNER AND HIS FEDERAL PERSECUTION, I MEAN, PROSECUTION. I USED TO LISTEN TO HAL'S SHOW ON SHORTWAVE AND HELL YES, IT WAS PROVACATIVE, RACIST AND ANTI-SEMITIC BUT IT WAS ALSO FUNNY AS HELL. HIS WEBSITE BROKE A LOT OF CUTTING EDGE NEWS AND HE HAD INSIDE SOURCES THAT CAUSED EMBARRASMENT TO PUBLIC AND MILITARY OFFICIALS. HAL WAS A ONE MAN INTEL SOURCE, WHO IS SORELY MISSED. ALL THE TIME I LISTENED TO HIS SHOW, HOWEVER, I NEVER HEARD HIM DIRECT PEOPLE TO ACT USING VIOLENCE EVEN THOUGH HE HAD STRONG OPINIONS OF WHAT "SHOULD" BE DONE. NOW IT LOOKS LIKE HE WAS AN FBI ASSETT WHO HANDED HIS COMPUTER RECORDS OVER TO THE FBI, TAPES OF ALL HIS SHOWS AND THE CALL LOGS TO HIS PHONE LINES. SO IF YOU CALLED HAL, ACCESSED HIS WEBSITE, POSTED COMMENTS ON HALOSCAN AT HIS WEBSITE THEN THE FBI PROBABLY HAS YOUR NUMBER. DON'T WORRY THOUGH IF YOUR NOT PLANNING TO COMMIT VIOLENCE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT OR ANY PERSON BECAUSE THIS IS STILL AMERICA AND YOU STILL HAVE THE FIRST AMMENDMENT AND THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH.

Traditionally, an agent provocateur (plural: agents provocateurs, French for "inciting agent(s)") is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act. More generally, the term may refer to a person or group that seeks to discredit or harm another by provoking them to commit a wrong or rash action.

An agent provocateur may be a police officer or a secret agent of police who encourages suspects to carry out a crime under conditions where evidence can be obtained; or who suggests the commission of a crime to another, in hopes they will go along with the suggestion and be convicted of the crime.
A political organization or government may use agents provocateurs against political opponents. The provocateurs try to incite the opponent to counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster public disdain—or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent (see Red-baiting).
Historically, labor spies, hired to infiltrate, monitor, disrupt, or subvert union activities, have used agent provocateur tactics.
Agent provocateur activities raise ethical and legal issues. In common law jurisdictions, the legal concept of entrapment may apply if the main impetus for the crime was the provocateur.

In the United States, the COINTELPRO program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had FBI agents pose as political radicals to disrupt the activities of radical political groups in the U.S., such as the Black Panthers, Ku Klux Klan, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
New York City police officers were accused of acting as agents provocateurs during protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.[1]
Denver police officers were also found to have used undercover detectives to instigate violence against police during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This ultimately resulted in the accidental use of chemical agents against their own men.

Notorious were the activities of agents provocateurs against revolutionaries in Imperial Russia. Yevno Azef is an example of such an agent provocateur.
It is alleged by British Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake that the Metropolitan Police made use of agents provocateurs during the G20 Protests in London

Three protesters in Montebello, Canada during the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America were caught acting as police provocateurs on August 20, 2007, by Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada. The entire incident was filmed and posted on YouTube before being picked up by mainstream media. The video [4] shows three masked men, one of whom was armed with a large rock, being confronted by peaceful protesters. After the men breached the police line, they were brought to the ground, handcuffed, and taken away. Photographs revealed that their boot-tread matched that of the arresting officers. Although they at first denied that the individuals in question were agents provocateurs, the Sûreté du Québec issued a news release on August 23 admitting that the three protesters were, in fact, police officers. SEE ALSO-

Entrapment
Sting operation
Informant
Grant Bristow
False flag terrorist actions
Security culture
Black Bloc
COINTELPRO

Hal Turner

Harold Charles "Hal" Turner is an American white nationalist and white supremacist from North Bergen, New Jersey. He was arrested in June 2009 for threats which he allegedly made against politicians, and he is currently jailed without bail. Turner has a history of making threats, though he has helped FBI agents with their investigations of right-wing terrorists. Prior to Turner's arrest, his program, The Hal Turner Show, was a webcast from his home once a week, and it depended on listener donations.
Turner promotes antisemitism (including the rounding up and killing of Jews),[1] he opposes the existence of the state of Israel[1] and he denies the Holocaust.[2]

Early career
Identifying himself as "Hal from North Bergen", Turner became notable in American conservative circles as a frequent caller to and supporter of WABC radio talk show hosts Bob Grant and Sean Hannity.[3] Turner parlayed this fame into a role as the northern New Jersey coordinator for Patrick J. Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign. He went on to serve as campaign manager for Libertarian Party candidate Murray Sabrin in New Jersey in the 1990s, including a 1997 gubernatorial campaign.[4]
Turner claims he established a friendship with Sean Hannity, on whose program he was a frequent presence.[3] However, when confronted by the New Black Panther Party's Malik Zulu Shabazz in 2008 about his association with Turner (in light of Hannity's scrutiny of Barack Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright), Hannity at first denied knowing Turner, then said he had banned Turner from his radio station. Turner subsequently posted this response on his website: "I was quite disappointed when Sean Hannity at first tried to say he didn't know me. In fact, Sean does know me and we were quite friendly a few years ago."[5][6]
Turner became a talk radio host, joining fellow regular callers Frank from Queens and John from Staten Island to start the program The Right Perspective. Turner left the program in 2002, citing artistic differences. In 2002, Turner became a solo host, purchasing a time slot on shortwave radio station WBCQ, over which he broadcast for approximately four years. On WBCQ on March 22, 2004 he left the show "after harshly criticizing his supporters, listeners, and WBCQ."[7] The show lacked financial support[8] the owner of the station Allan Weiner was Jewish, and Turner had health problems[9][unreliable source?]. This led to the temporary closure of his website and show.[citation needed]
Activism and assault claims
In the 2000 US congress election, Turner sought, but did not receive, the Republican Party nomination for election to the United States Congress from New Jersey's 13th congressional district, losing to Theresa de Leon.[10][11] Turner has identified himself as the "Chairman of the Republican Party of Hudson County, NJ Corp," a group which has no connection to the official Hudson County Republican Party recognized by the state and national party. According to news reports, Hudson County Republican officials have stated that Turner's party is a "paper corporation with little or no membership".[12]
In response to an October 7, 2005 assault against a white student by a black student at Kingston High School, Turner, working with the white nationalist group National Vanguard, organized a rally which he called a "rally against violence".[13] The case resulted in the perpetrator being indicted as an adult with two felony counts: assault and attempted assault.[14][15] He characterized the rally both as "pro-white" and "against violence".[16] The victim's mother chose not to attend the rally.[16] In response, local residents, including political and religious leaders, organized a number of "Unity Rallies" with a tolerance theme.[17] When the rally occurred on November 19, 2005, Turner and the National Vanguard attracted approximately 50 demonstrators, compared to the 100 counter-demonstrators.[18]
On April 12, 2006, Turner had a physical altercation with Jaime Vazquez, a former Jersey City Deputy Mayor and a member of the Jersey City Council, who was the Jersey City Commissioner of Veterans Affairs at the time. The North Bergen Reporter quoted Turner as saying "(t)he illegal immigrants are breaking the law, and people like me should break the law as well by shooting them down." In response, Vazquez picketed with a sign reading "Hal Turner — shoot me! Racists and bigots like you are cowards."[19] Vazquez suffered a back injury and a fractured wrist. Turner and Vazquez later filed criminal charges against each other. On July 16, 2006 North Bergen Municipal Court Judge Joseph Romano found both men to be equally credible and thus neither criminally liable.[20]
Broadcasting and website issues
In 2002, Turner started broadcasting, but quit the show in July 2008 and resumed in April 2009. In August 2008 his website also closed down, though he retained a blog, it was shut down by his host, Google's Blogger, for violations of terms of service.
Anonymous website raid
According to Turner, in December 2006 and January 2007, individuals who identified themselves as Anonymous took Turner's website offline, and cost him thousands of dollars in bandwidth bills. He retaliated by sending a "formal legal notice of criminal activity in violation of several federal laws" by email to 7chan, multacom, and multicom, as well as redirecting his domain to 420chan, causing that site to take a bandwidth hit as well.[21][22] He also sued 4chan, eBaum's World, 7chan, and other websites in court over copyright infringement. He lost his plea for an injunction, however, and failed to receive letters from the court, which caused the lawsuit to lapse.[23]
Informant
Turner was a paid FBI informant for several years, supplying information about right-wing terrorism to federal agents.[24] The original allegations that Turner acted as an informant for the FBI surfaced in 2008 after unidentified hackers claimed on Turner's website's forums that they had read email correspondence between him and an FBI agent, apparently his handler.[25] This led to a discussion on a neo-Nazi website on January 10, 2008, in which Turner revealed he was quitting political work, was ending his radio show and that he was separating "from the 'pro-White' movement".[25] At the time, the FBI declined to comment on the matter and Turner denied being an informant.[25] The Southern Poverty Law Center[26] and the Anti-Defamation League reported on the emails that "a neo-Nazi Website had posted material reportedly found by the hackers, including alleged exchanges between himself and law enforcement agents which indicated that Turner had been providing information to them."[27]
On July 28, 2009 in a Chicago courtroom, Turner's defense lawyer said that Turner worked as a paid informant for the FBI.[28] During an August 11, 2009 hearing prosecutors acknowledged "that Turner has been an FBI informant, paid by the government to spy on radical right-wing organizations."[29]
Threats against judges and political figures
Turner has a history of making threats against various public figures.[30] In 2005, Turner publicized the names of three federal court judges who handled lawsuits involving Matt Hale.[31] Turner posted the judges' names and addresses on his Web site.[31][32]
On December 6, 2006, Turner announced on his website:
"We may have to ASSASSINATE some of the people you elect on Nov. 7! This could be your LAST ELECTION CHANCE, to save this Republic... Sorry to have to be so blunt, but the country is in mortal danger from our present government and our liberty is already near dead because of this government. If you are too stupid to turn things around with your vote, there are people out here like me who are willing to turn things around with guns, force and violence. We hope our method does not become necessary."[33]
Since the announcement was made, Turner has had difficulties finding a host for his website. He alleged that his website has been the target of denial of service attacks, and subsequently filed a pro se lawsuit.[34][35][36]
On April 4, 2008, Turner encouraged violence against Lexington, Massachusetts school superintendent Paul Ash for establishing a new curriculum supporting gays and lesbians. On his website, he stated:
"I advocate parents using FORCE AND VIOLENCE against Superintendent Paul B. Ash as a method of defending the health and safety of school children presently being endangered through his politically-correct indoctrination into deadly, disease-ridden sodomite lifestyles."[37]
He went on to provide Ash's personal information, including his address.[37] Fourteen months later, on June 2, 2009, Turner posted on his blog
"Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed. Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions."
The next day Turner posted information on how to find Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Joseph Bauer.[38]
Arrest
On June 3, 2009, Turner was arrested and charged with inciting injury to two politicians in Connecticut and a state ethics official.[39] The warrant issued was for inciting his website's readers to "take up arms" against the officials.[40] He was arrested in New Jersey and is pending extradition to Connecticut.[41] Turner was subsequently re-arrested on June 24, 2009 at his New Jersey home for making threats against the judges of the United States Court of Appeals in Chicago.[42] Turner was denied bail and FBI officials revealed that they had found 200 rounds of ammunition and 150 hollow-point bullets in Turner’s home.[43][44]
On June 30, 2009, the website for Turner's blog was shut down and replaced with a notice stating that the website has been taken down by Turner's family, directing interested parties to a blog for the Family of Hal Turner, with entries by his mother.[45]
In July the Connecticut case was handed to a division of the state court that handles more serious matters.[46] On July 28 in the Chicago case, Turner pleaded not guilty to threatening to kill three federal appellate judges there and then sought his release from custody, saying he had been an informant for the FBI.[47] The judge gave Turner 10 days "to produce concrete evidence of Turner's help to the FBI or federal marshals."[47] On August 11 Turner was denied bail again. The judge cited the fact that Turner, from his prison cell, recorded and posted on the internet a telephone conversation that included the names of his arresting FBI agents. The Judge said that Turner's act "tells me something about the disposition of Mr. Turner."[48]
He pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer said the defense will use "Turner's background as an FBI informant" and argue he was "trained by the FBI" as "an agent provocateur" to incite people."[49] Subsequently, in late October Turner was freed on $500,000 bond, and was ordered not to use a computer or any device that can access the Internet.[50]

North Bergen blogger Hal Turner subpoenas Chris Christie
Tuesday, December 1, 2009Last updated: Tuesday December 1, 2009, 6:52 PM
BY MIKE KELLY
The Record
STAFF WRITER
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Governor-elect Chris Christie was subpoenaed Tuesday to testify as a defense witness for an ultra-right-wing blogger, shock jock and former FBI operative from North Bergen who is on trial for allegedly threatening the lives of appeals court judges in Chicago.
Hal Turner’s defense attorney, Michael Orozco, said he hopes to question Christie about whether federal prosecutors in Newark made a blanket decision not to file charges against Turner after previous threatening statements on the radio or on his blog.
A spokesman for Christie, who oversaw the federal prosecutors as U.S. Attorney, confirmed he had received the subpoena, but declined comment.
Turner claims the FBI coached him on how far he could go with provocative rhetoric on his radio show and blog and that previous threats were never prosecuted. The FBI and federal prosecutors have declined comment, but documents reviewed by The Record show repeated attempts by the FBI to admonish Turner.
Turner, who broadcast racist and anti-Semitic radio diatribes from his North Bergen condominium to a national audience of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, was charged in June with threatening judges in Chicago who upheld a handgun ban.
The trial, originally set for Chicago, was switched to federal court in Brooklyn – and is being presided over by a judge from Louisiana, District Court Judge Donald Walter.
Of particular interest if Christie testifies is whether federal prosecutors made a decision several years ago to not prosecute Turner for making threats against federal officials. At least one government document reviewed by The Record raises the possibility that Turner may have received a “blanket letter of declination” from federal prosecutors – meaning that he would not be charged for the allegedly threatening rhetoric that was common on his radio program and blog.
“I would like to ask Christie to confirm or deny a blanket letter of declination was ever written,” Orozco said, adding that he expected Christie to challenge the subpoena and perhaps successfully avoid testifying. “It remains to be seen what Christie is going to do.”
Turner’s role as an FBI informant was described in The Record this past Sunday. The article, based on government documents, emails, court records, and lengthy interviews with Turner before a gag order was imposed, showed how Turner routinely supplied the FBI with information on the same neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups that made up his audience.
Beginning in 2003, Turner supplied information to the FBI on such extremist groups as the Aryan Nation, the National Alliance, the Ku Klux Klan and a variety of other neo-Nazi operatives.
But on Tuesday, it remained unclear how the judge might try to limit evidence on Turner’s FBI exploits. After jurors had been dismissed, assistant U.S. Attorney William Hogan, told the judge he would file a motion to limit testimony of an FBI agent.
Walter also denied a request by Orozco to delay the trial, as well as a First Amendment objection to the trial itself.
E-mail: kellym@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/state/120109_North_Bergen_blogger_Hal_Turner_subpoenas_Chris_Christie.html

Saturday, October 29, 2005 10:21 PM
ARMY CALLED IN!
NORTH AFRICAN SAVAGES RIOT IN PARIS
PROTESTING DEATHS OF TWO OTHER SAVAGES WHO WERE ELCTROCUTED TO DEATH WHILE TRYING TO HIDE FROM POLICE IN ELECTRIC SUB-STATION
More than 30 cars burned, cops overwhelmed; seek French Army Troops to quell "civil war."

The U.S. set the stage for the Afghan (and Pakistan) war eight years ago, when it handed out drug dealing franchises to warlords on Washington's payroll. Now the Americans, acting as Boss of All Bosses, have drawn up hit lists of rival, "Taliban" drug lords. "It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol."
American Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists."
If you’re looking for the chief kingpin in the Afghanistan heroin trade, it’s the United States. The American mission has devolved to a Mafiosi-style arrangement that poisons every military and political alliance entered into by the U.S. and its puppet government in Kabul. It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol, while their rivals are placed on American hit lists, marked for death or capture. As a result, Afghanistan has been transformed into an opium plantation that supplies 90 percent of the world’s heroin.
An article in the current issue of Harper’s magazine explores the inner workings of the drug-infested U.S. occupation, it’s near-total dependence on alliances forged with players in the heroin trade. The story centers on the town of Spin Boldak, on the southeastern border with Pakistan, gateway to the opium fields of Kandahar and Helmand provinces. The chief Afghan drug lord is also the head of the border patrol and the local militia. The author is an undercover U.S.-based journalist who was befriended by the drug lord’s top operatives and met with the U.S. and Canadian officers that collaborate with the drug dealer on a daily basis.
The alliance was forged by American forces during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and has endured and grown ever since. The drug lord, and others like him throughout the country, is not only immune to serious American interference, he has been empowered through U.S. money and arms to consolidate his drug business at the expense of drug-dealing rivals in other tribes, forcing some of them into alliance with the Taliban. On the ground in Pashtun-speaking Afghanistan, the war is largely between armies run by heroin merchants, some aligned with the Americans, others with the Taliban. The Taliban appear to be gaining the upper hand in this Mafiosa gang war, the origins of which are directly rooted in U.S. policy.
"It is a war whose order of battle is largely defined by the drug trade."
Is it any wonder, then, that the United States so often launches air strikes against civilian wedding parties, wiping out the greater part of bride and groom's extended families? America’s drug-dealing allies have been dropping dimes on rival clans and tribes, using the Americans as high-tech muscle in their deadly feuds. Now the Americans and their European occupation partners have institutionalized the rules of gangster warfare with official hit lists of drug dealers to be killed or captured on sight – lists drawn up by other drug lords affiliated with the occupation forces.
This is the "war of necessity" that President Barack Obama has embraced as his own. It is a war whose order of battle is largely defined by the drug trade. Obama's generals call for tens of thousands of new U.S. troops in hopes of lessening their dependency on the militias and police forces currently controlled by American-allied drug dealers. But of course, that will only push America's Afghan partners in the drug trade into the arms of the Taliban, who will cut a better deal. Then the generals were argue that they need even more U.S. troops.
The Americans created this drug-saturated hell, and their occupation is now doomed by it. Unfortunately, they have also doomed millions of Afghans in the process.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to http://www.blackagendareport.com/.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Interfax's Interview
More Interfax’s interviews...
Eradication of opium poppy in Afghanistan has to be done carefully
Question: Mr Placido, what is the situation with drug abuse in the U.S.? What do you think about the situation with drug abuse in Russia?

Answer: This problem affects all countries, and certainly my own. Drug abuse is a major problem in the United States, and it is a major problem globally. There are millions of citizens in the United States who are addicted or abuse drugs, and I know that happens in Russia and other countries around the globe. But besides the addiction and health consequences related to drug trafficking, what we also see is the role of drug trafficking that it plays in undermining respect for the rule of law, undermining regional stability, and the funding from drug trafficking that goes on to cause all kinds of other problems, including financing terrorism, corruption of public officials and public institutions. And so it’s a problem that we share in common in the 21st century. These transnational crime groups have no respect for international borders, they operate with the motive of making profit, and the only way for us to effectively deal with them is through cooperation of law enforcement organizations all around the globe.

Q.: What is the difference between drug trafficking in the United States and in Russia? In what areas do you think Russia and the U.S. can work together on fighting drug trafficking, taking into account that the two countries are facing very different threats, for example, the U.S. has to deal with drug trafficking from Latin America and Russia from Afghanistan?

A.: Well, I think in a way you’ve answered your own question, but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has extensive experience in Latin America. We have very large presence there and have been working for many, many years with governments in places like Mexico, Colombia, Peru and other places. Russia is now facing an increasing problem with cocaine and other drugs from Latin America, and so in our discussions we talked about being able to help Russia based on our experience and our contacts in Latin America. By the same token, most of the police officials in the Central Asian republics were one time or another trained in Russia, and so Russian agencies have much more experience in this area of the world, where we see heroin trafficking organizations supplying heroin to other parts of the world but also the financing from that heroin activity going to organizations like the Taliban or HIG [Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin]. And so it’s very much a cooperative venture and that was the spirit of the discussions is how our two governments can work together against this common problem.

Q.: What kind of agreements have you reached with your Russian counterpart Viktor Ivanov? Do you plan to conduct joint operations against drug trafficking with Russian police?

A.: We already have formal agreements in place – I think I can say this publicly that it’s at the highest levels of both governments: President Medvedev and President Obama have agreed that this is an area in which our two governments can and should cooperate. At the political level, there is very keen interest in authorization to move forward with this. What Director Ivanov and I and our delegation discussed were the specific measures to take those political agreements and translate them into real tangible successes. And so we began today with the formal exchange of information that was provided to the FSKN [Russian Federal Drug Control Service], and they reciprocated and provided information to us, but more importantly, discussions about the possibility of future collaboration in Afghanistan, with opiates from Afghanistan coming to Russia, and collaboration about the cocaine flows from Latin America coming this way as well. I am very encouraged, I think that we are both very satisfied with both the tone and the tenor of the discussions, and I believe that we are well on the way towards changing the dynamics of this relationship, which was good to begin with, but really bring it to a level where we can be even more successful in protecting the people of both countries.

Q.: Can you please specify what kind of collaboration may exist with Russia in Afghanistan, because it’s not a secret that the main problem for Russia is that 90% of heroin comes here from Afghanistan?

A.: I will turn to Mark to address more specifics, but what I can tell you is that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has a sizeable, a large number of personnel assigned to Afghanistan. By early 2010, we will have about 81 people assigned to Afghanistan, which for us is a large number of people, but it is a tiny number, it’s insignificant in the face of the problem that the amount of opium under cultivation and the conversion of that opium to morphine and heroin. It is what we talked about, it was exchange of information and the coordination of law enforcement operations so that we can pass those tactical leads that we developed in working with the Afghans and what the Russians can develop in their investigations here and their liaison relationships with other Central Asian republics, such as Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and other places like that.
To start with, training is one very important issue. We hope to have joint trainings between the U.S. law enforcement and the Russian Federation, and also we have joint operations unpublicized.

Q.: Russia has complained that there has been not constructive enough enforcement on the American side in fighting drug trafficking in Afghanistan. Could you please comment on this? The Russian authorities have several times called on the U.S. and NATO to be more active in fighting heroin production in Afghanistan, but they think their calls have been left unanswered. Can you say anything on this?

A.: Certainly. That was not at all the tone and the tenor of the conversations that we had yesterday with MVD [Russian Interior Ministry] or today with FSKN. But I can tell you that we had very candid and I believe constructive discussions about how best to fight the narcotics trade over there, and one of the issues that was raised revolved around eradication of the opium poppy itself. I think we have explained and come to clear understanding on that it is very complicated in Afghanistan and that we have both narcotics trafficking organizations and insurgency or terrorist organizations, however you choose to characterize it. And the eradication has to be done carefully, in a smart way, so that we don’t solve one problem and create another one by driving people into the arms of the Taliban or other insurgent organizations. And so we’ve been very very active against the people who organize, finance, direct and control this criminal activity. The activities against the farmers who are cultivating the opium poppy have to be more carefully managed so that we don’t eradicate the opium poppy and create a bunch of new terrorists. I think there was receptivity to how complicated the issue is and a sense that we needed to engage collectively to do a better job to promote both of our nations’ interests.

Q.: There were reports that the opium poppy production has increased forty times since the arrival of the U.S. and NATO coalition in Afghanistan. What can you say to this? There have also been reports that some U.S. military in Afghanistan are involved in drug trafficking.

A.: What I can tell you that in the early years when we got engaged in Afghanistan again it is true that for the first two years the cultivation of opium poppy did increase, it actually increased. That’s now leveled off, and I don’t know where the forty times number comes from, but what I can tell you is that opium production, the cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan, is starting to level off, but our focus is really on the people, as I said, who organize, finance, direct and control this activity. What I can tell you is that many of these important narcotics traffickers have been arrested, extradited to the United States, and in some cases already been convicted and sentenced. I would talk about people like Haji Bashir Noorzai, Haji Baz Mohammad, Haji Juma Khan Mohammadhasni, Haji Bajko. These are all major Afghan drug lords, who have been arrested through cooperative efforts of the Afghan government and the United States, and all the individuals I have named have already been extradited to the United States, many of them have already been tried and convicted and sentenced to prison. So we are making great progress on the organizations and the people engaged in this and working very diligently with the government of Afghanistan to target eradication efforts in a way that eliminates the opium crop but does not push these peasant farmers into the arms of the Taliban and other insurgent organizations. I haven’t heard any specific reports about the U.S. military being involved in the opium trade in Afghanistan, but I will tell you that, you know, in the past in Vietnam and other areas it certainly has happened, and I wouldn’t say that it isn’t happening now, but it is a criminal offence for that to happen, I don’t believe it’s widespread in the military at all, and if there are specific instances of it, we prosecute people who violate the narcotics laws irrespective of who they are, what their position is and what their status is. While I am not aware of any significant involvement of U.S. military personnel in the narcotics trade, I can tell you that there have been people prosecuted – military officials – in isolated incidences in other countries on the globe. And it will happen again if we develop information. We have zero tolerance for government officials misusing their positions to engage in criminal activity.

Q.: Do the groups producing heroin in Afghanistan have any links with those in neighboring countries?

A.: The individuals that were extradited to the United States, the ones that I just mentioned, were clearly involved not only in the production of opium and heroin in Afghanistan itself, but in trafficking that heroin into the global markets. It’s precisely why we target that level of people who organize, finance and direct this activity. While there may be thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of people involved in the opium trade in Afghanistan, there’s a much smaller number of people who have the contacts, the lines of credit, the cash to market that heroin in the international arena and move it to places like Russia, the United States, or elsewhere, and it’s specifically those are the people that we believe if you take them off the chessboard, so to speak, that over time, the government of Afghanistan will develop its own law enforcement infrastructure to such an extent that we can reduce what is now a national security threat. That is to say that the drug lords in Afghanistan have grown so powerful that they represent a national security threat to the existence of the Afghan government. The goal is to reduce that to a problem that can be more effectively managed by police organizations.

Q.: What do you think of the level of corruption in Afghanistan? Can this be viewed as one of the main obstacles to combating narcotics there?

A.: The simple answer is yes. The United Nations in the last estimate I saw puts the global review from the drug trade at nearly $400 billion a year. That is an enormous sum of money. As I said at the beginning of the interview, in addition to the health-related consequences and addiction, all that money funds regional instability and corruption, and violence, and it undermines respect for the rule of law. I think that’s why police organizations all around the planet, certainly in the United States and Russia, need to work hand-in-hand, because even if a country is not feeling particular effects of addiction, they do face the threat that comes from corruption and from undermining democratic governance and respect for the rule of law, and the weapons and other things that this drug money goes to pay for.

Q.: In your opinion, has the heroin inflow from Afghanistan to Central Asia and Europe increased after Russian border guards withdrew from the Tajik-Afghan border several years ago?

A.: I do not know the answer to that. Intuitively I would say: probably. But our focus on Afghanistan is only recent, and it’s not because of heroin flow to the United States. This may be counter-intuitive, you may not think this initially, but the overwhelming amount of heroin that’s abused in the United States does not come from Afghanistan. Even though Afghanistan is the world’s number one supplier of heroin, most of the heroin abused in the United States comes from Colombia or Mexico. And so our reason for focusing on Afghanistan immediately is primarily because the money from the Afghan opiate trade goes to organizations like the Taliban, and the HIG, and al-Qaeda, and it funds insurgencies and terrorism. And while we are certainly concerned about the flow of heroin into the Central Asian republics and Russia, we’ve only begun to focus on that in earnest over the last several years. So it’s difficult for me to talk about whether the flows have increased or decreased since the Tajik border guards have left.

Q.: Russian citizen Viktor Bout, who was arrested in Thailand with the help of your agency. Will your country insist on Bout’s extradition to the United States?

A.: We have in fact worked with the Royal Thai government and have asked them to appeal on our behalf the lower court’s ruling, asking for the extradition of Viktor Bout to the United States to stand trial in a U.S. court of law. The reason for that is the United State has statute laws which allow us to exercise something that is called extraterritorial jurisdiction. That is a legal tool that allows us to work with other governments and says essentially: if you engage in drug trafficking activity and the intent is to send those drugs to the United States, whether the drugs ever make it to the United States or whether you step foot in the United States, we can charge you in the United States for that drug trafficking activity.
In addition to that, another statute was passed, and it said that if you are a drug trafficking organization and you provide material support to designated terrorist organizations, we will prosecute you as well, and of course that presumes that we can get you arrested some place and that country will extradite you to the United States. Now these are not renditions, we are talking about legal process for somebody to be moved to a U.S. court, and in full public disclosure a trial be held with a judge and a jury, and every word of the evidence has to be presented in public for everybody to see. And the reason that we worked with the Royal Thai government and with many other governments around the world is because we believe we have a concrete case, that we have damning evidence that demonstrates that Viktor Bout was not only involved in the drug trade, but that Viktor Bout was engaged in a scheme to provide weapons to people who intended to kill American citizens in Colombia. And the reason to extradite him to the United States is the people who were going to be killed if this deal had gone through would be Americans.
The allegation is that Viktor Bout operated across international boundaries, that he supplied weapons to armed conflicts all over the globe, and that he believed that he was supplying weapons to a Latin American terrorist organization, the FARC, for the expressed purpose of shooting down American helicopters in Colombia.
It’s part of the judicial process in Thailand. We hope that he will be extradited, and if he is, he will get a fair trial. It’s really that simple. It’s also the very basis on which we find ourselves in Moscow today is to talk at that police-to-police level. There is no political intrigue here, this is law enforcement work.

Q.: Did you discuss Viktor Bout’s case here in Moscow?

A.: Only to the extent that we are going to try to cooperate on a number of cases, we weren’t really fixated on that particular case. I think that’s all. We all recognize that it’s a matter for the courts to decide, and right now this is a matter that is in the hands of the Royal Thai government and their court system.

Q.: Could the U.S. consider legalizing soft drugs, something that has been done in the Netherlands? Perhaps not in the whole country but at least in some states or, for instance, in places like Las Vegas? What is your private opinion?

A.: My private opinion coincides with the official policy of the United States. That is, legalization is not an option that’s on the table. It is not even being discussed in the United States. You will have no doubt seeing in the press discussion about medical marijuana and many other things that are being voted on at the state level. But what we believe is - and I’ve debated in public on this – law enforcement cannot be the sole solution to the problem of drug abuse. We need education, and prevention programs, and treatment for people who are addicted, but what many people don’t realize is that the vast majority of people that go into treatment go into treatment because of law enforcement programs; they’ve been arrested and through drug courts and other things forced into treatment. The primary reason that governments have law enforcement anywhere is to protect the citizens. It’s the number one reason for having government organizations. And the sheer damage, the loss of life, the lack of dignity for human life that is represented in drug trafficking is the main reason why we are in this business. Over time, we’ve got to decrease the demand for drugs as well as decrease the supply. It’s a long-term proposition. But, you know, when people have seriously asked me about decriminalizing, legalizing drugs, the simple response is: do you want the bus driver who takes your children to school addicted to heroin? Do you want the doctor that you go to, you know, to be an addict abusing drugs? I mean the reasons why we control these things, it’s not just because it gives us something to do, it’s because these drugs destroy lives.

Maurice Clemmons, man wanted for questioning, has long criminal history
By Seattle Times staff
Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing of four Lakewood police officers this morning, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health.
Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy prison sentence over the protestations of prosecutors.
"This is the day I've been dreading for a long time," Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' Pulaski County said Sunday night when informed that Clemmons was being sought in connection to the killings.
Clemmons' criminal history includes at least five felony convictions in Arkansas and at least eight felony charges in Washington. The record also stands out for the number of times he has been released from custody despite questions about the danger he posed.
Clemmons had been in jail in Pierce County for the past several months on a pending charge of second-degree rape of a child.
He was released from custody just six days ago, even though he was wanted on a fugitive warrant out of Arkansas and was staring at eight felony charges in all out of Washington state.
Clemmons posted $15,000 with a Chehalis company called Jail Sucks Bail Bonds. The bondsman, in turn, put up $150,000, securing Clemmons' release on the pending child-rape charge.
Clemmons lives in Tacoma, where he has run a landscaping and power-washing business out of his house, according to a police interview with his wife earlier this year.
He was married, but the relationship was tumultuous, with accounts of his unpredictable behavior leading to at least two confrontations with police earlier this year.
During the confrontation in May, Clemmons punched a sheriff's deputy in the face, according to court records. As part of that incident, he was charged with seven counts of assault and malicious mischief.
In another instance, Clemmons was accused of gathering his wife and young relatives around at 3 or 4 in the morning and having them all undress. He told them that families need to "be naked for at least 5 minutes on Sunday," a Pierce County sheriff's report says.
"The whole time Clemmons kept saying things like trust him, the world is going to end soon, and that he was Jesus," the report says.
As part of the child-rape investigation, the sheriff's office interviewed Clemmons' sister in May. She told them that "Maurice is not in his right mind and did not know how he could react when contacted by Law Enforcement," a sheriff's report says.
"She stated that he was saying that the secret service was coming to get him because he had written a letter to the President. She stated his behavior has become unpredictable and erratic. She suspects he is having a mental breakdown," the report says.
Deputies also interviewed other family members. They reported that Clemmons had been saying he could fly and that he expected President Obama to visit to "confirm that he is Messiah in the flesh."
Prosecutors in Pierce County were sufficiently concerned about Clemmons' mental health that they asked to have him evaluated at Western State Hospital. Earlier this month, on Nov. 6, a psychologist concluded that Clemmons was competent to stand trial on the child-rape and other felony charges, according to court records.
Clemmons moved Washington in 2004, after being released from prison in Arkansas, state Department of Corrections records indicate. That would mean he had gone five years or so before landing in serious trouble with authorities here, according to a review of his criminal record.
Clemmons started Sea-Wash Pressure Washing Landscaping with his wife, Nicole Smith, in October 2005. The license for the business expired last month.
Long history of trouble in Arkansas
News accounts out of Arkansas offer a confusing — and, at times, conflicting — description of Clemmons' criminal history and prison time.
In 1990, Clemmons, then 18, was sentenced in Arkansas to 60 years in prison for burglary and theft of property, according to a news account. Newspaper stories describe a series of disturbing incidents involving Clemmons while he was being tried in Arkansas on various charges.
During one trial, Clemmons was shackled in leg irons and seated next to a uniformed officer. The presiding judge ordered the extra security because he felt Clemmons had threatened him, court records show.
Another time, Clemmons hid a hinge in his sock, and was accused of intending to use it as a weapon. Yet another time, Clemmons took a lock from a holding cell, and threw it toward the bailiff. He missed and instead hit Clemmons' mother, who had come to bring him street clothes, according to records and published reports.
On another occasion, Clemmons had reached for a guard's pistol during transport to the courtroom.
When Clemmons received the 60-year sentence, he was already serving 48 years on five felony convictions and facing up to 95 more years on charges of robbery, theft of property and possessing a handgun on school property. Records from Clemmons' sentencing described him as 5-foot-7 and 108 pounds. The crimes were committed when he was 17.
Clemmons served 11 years before being released.
News accounts say Huckabee then commuted Clemmons' sentence, citing Clemmons' young age at the time the crimes were committed.
But Clemmons remained on parole — and soon after landed in trouble again. In March 2001, he was accused of violating his parole by committing aggravated robbery and theft, according to a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazzette.
He was returned to prison on a parole violation. But in what appears to have been a mistake, Clemmons was not actually served with the arrest warrants until leaving prison three years later. As a result, Clemmons' attorney argued that the charges should be dismissed because too much time had passed. Prosecutors dropped the charges.
It appears that Clemmons remained in trouble with Arkansas authorities even after moving away. This year, while Clemmons was living in Washington, a warrant was issued for his arrest, accusing him of being a fugitive from Arkansas.

Huckabee, prosecutors go on offensive___They trade jabs over sentencing, pardoning of killers, other thugs___Several prosecutors around the state are upset with Gov. Huckabee for grant- ing clemency to violent criminals, but he is blaming the prosecutors for often not seeking the maximum penalty and keeping felons locked up longer.___Until now, Huckabee has refused to comment on his controversial policy of making violent prisoners eligible for parole– they include murderers, armed robbers and rapists, who often return to a life of crime after they're freed – but in a statement to The Leader this week, he lashed out at prosecutors for not doing more to keep prisoners behind bars – to which Pulaski County Prosecuting Attor-ney Larry Jegley had this response: "That's a load of baloney." ___ "I'm offended as a prosecutor and as a citizen. He can blame the prosecutors, but ultimately he's the man responsible," Jegley says. "He's the only one who can sign on the dotted line. ___ "All he has to do is look in the mirror and say, 'I let (convicted rapist) Wayne DuMond go free who then killed at least once and probably twice.'"___ Jegley says the governor ignores the will of the people when he reduces a life sentence without parole that was handed down by a jury. ___ "He has obviously disregarded the jury's decision. It's a crying shame that a sitting governor would be so insensitive to victims' right and disregard the system," says Jegley, who points to several clemency cases where felons went free and then committed more crimes. ___ In addition, Jegley, Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld and others have accused Huckabee of violating the state Constitution when he commutes sentences without explanation. The Constitution requires the governor to give reasons why he grants clemency to criminals. ___ "He doesn't do it," insists Herzfeld, who recently had a clemency overturned because Huckabee did not explain why he commuted a murderer's life sentence. ___ Here is Huckabee's response to critics: ___ "Have Robert Herzfeld, Larry Jegley and the other prosecuting attorneys prosecuted every crime to the full extent the law allows? In other words, have they in every case pursued the maximum penalties? Did they ever plea bargain? How often? What's the percentage of cases in which they've accepted less than the maximum penalties allowed by law? ___ "My point is this: They used their discretion to decide they would ask for less punishment than the maximum sentences. They exercised their personal judgment. In about 10 percent of the cases before me, I might use my discretion based on recommendations of the Post Prison Transfer Board, the testimony of officials, prison records, etc.," Huckabee told us. ___ "In those cases, I'm doing the same thing Herzfeld, Jegley and others have done – using my judgment. The difference is that we never know about their plea bargains and the thought pro-cesses they used. I have to give public notice, contact all officials and then have a 30-day public comment period. ___ "I'm thinking of trying to get the law changed so prosecutors are required to give notice to all involved, have a 30-day public comment period and seek input prior to a plea bargain or any decision to seek less than the maximum sentences allowed by law," Huckabee says. ___ Prosecutor Jegley is furious with the governor's justification for pardoning killers. ___ "That's pathetic. It's as bogus as any $3 bill out there. Plea bargains are a necessary part of the criminal justice system," Jegley says, but once a sentence is handed down, the governor shouldn't meddle. ___ "Life without parole should mean life without parole," he insists."The governor's use of clemency power in refusing to explain his turning over the will of the people deprives the general public of due process." ___ Herzfeld says, "The governor's statement makes absolutely no sense. It is another example of the governor's disconnection on this issue, and his lame attempts at shifting blame. In the two primary clemency cases I have been working on, the defendants are serving life in prison–that is the maximum penalty possible for first degree murder, the crime for which they were both convicted. ___ "After seven months of fighting the governor to keep murderers behind bars, I am still continually amazed at his actions and words regarding clemency. He just doesn't get it." ___ Jegley cites numerous examples of Huckabee's freeing felons who go on committing more crimes and wind up back in prison. ___ Maurice Clemmons received a 35-year sentence in the early 1990s for armed robbery and theft. His sentence was commuted in May 2000, and he was let out three months later. ___ The following March, Clem-mons committed two armed robberies and other crimes and was sentenced to 10 years. You'd think they'd keep him locked up after that, but no: He was paroled last March and is now wanted for aggravated robbery. ___ If Huckabee decides to set these criminals free, Jegley says, at least "he ought to give an accounting. I can't imagine why in the world they'd want them released from jail. There's a good reason we're afraid of them. The sad truth is that a significant number of people re-offend." ___ The victims' families, Jegley says, "deserve an explanation. I look into people's eyes who've suffered the unspeakable. I believe they deserve justice. ___ "People are paying attention," the prosecutor says. "They don't like it. People ask me, 'Why is he letting criminals out of prison?' I tell them I don't know why. I have no earthly idea how come. Maybe he doesn't know what common folk think." ___ Jegley says although he'll never know why Huckabee is releasing hardened criminals, it often helps if they're assigned to the Governor's Mansion. ___ "If you do a good job raking the governor's leaves," Jegley says, "you can go free."

Ex-con wanted for questioning in Lakewood police slayings
Seattle Times staff
A 37-year-old Tacoma man, Maurice Clemmons, is being sought for questioning in the execution-style shooting of four Lakewood police officers this morning, according to two law-enforcement sources.
Clemmons, who was recently released from jail, has an extensive criminal record in Pierce County and Arkansas, court records show. Clemmons is wanted in Arkansas and faces eight criminal charges in Washington state.
The four officers were killed at about 8:15 a.m. by a scruffy-looking man who walked into a coffee shop and opened fire. The officers — three men and one woman — were found dead by deputies who arrived at Forza Coffee at 11401 Steele St. S., said Pierce County Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.
Troyer said the investigation into the shootings indicate that the gunman "flat-out executed" two of the officers. One officer then stood up, tried to go for the gunman and was shot, Troyer said.
The fourth officer was involved in some kind of struggle with the gunman.
"What happened in there wasn't just a shooting. One of the officers managed to fight his way with the suspect, wrestled him out the door when he was shot and killed," Troyer said.
Before that fourth officer was killed, Troyer said, he apparently managed to fire at the shooter.
Troyer said if the gunman was shot, he could be traveling some distance to get care. Troyer suggested the man may try to visit a medical facility and claim he had suffered an accidental gunshot wound.
The officers who were shot made up one patrol unit, including a sergeant. Their families have been notified, but their identities have not been released.
"It's carnage out front everywhere," Troyer said, describing the front of the coffee shop. "It's like a bad horror movie, it's horrible."
The officers were in uniform, including bulletproof vests, and were working on their laptop computers as they prepared to start their day shifts, Troyer said.
"This was a targeted, selective ambush," Troyer said.
Troyer said there may have been a driver who helped the suspect get away, and police had a description of the possible driver.
The gunman was described as a black man in his 20s or 30s, between 5-feet-7 inches and 5-feet-10-inches, and ran north on Steele Street South after the shooting. He was wearing a black coat over a gray hooded sweat shirt and bluejeans, Troyer said.
Police took a man into custody at a Parkland house nearby after he apparently called 911, claiming to be the shooter. But the man was not linked to the crime, Troyer said.
Dozens of officers were searching the area near the coffee shop, including the parking lot of Evergreen Self Storage. Troyer, carrying an assault rifle, told members of the media, "this is kind of a hot area, so you're kind of on your own."
He urged the reporters not to roam off and assigned three officers to stand near the media.
At least a dozen officers also have surrounded another nearby house. Three cars were parked in the driveway but there was no indication whether anyone was inside the property.
Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna said he has directed his office to help in the investigation, including the Homicide Investigation Tracking System and the unit's criminal investigators. That system includes a central repository for detailed information on violent crimes occurring in Washington and Oregon.
Two coffee-shop employees and several customers are being interviewed by police and considered critical witnesses, Troyer said. "As you can imagine, they are traumatized, they are in shock," said Troyer. No one else was hurt.
Brad Carpenter, CEO of Forza Coffee, met with the two young female baristas after they were interviewed by police and said they were "shaken up." The slain officers were "well-known to our staff," Carpenter, a retired police officer from Oakland and Gig Harbor.
"It's supposed to be a safe haven for everybody," Carpenter said about the coffee shop.
Police seized a white pickup parked in a nearby parking lot and took it away on a flatbed truck. Detectives were preparing search warrants for multiple locations, Troyer said.
The shootings come about a month after the killing of Seattle Police Officer Timothy Brenton, who was targeted for being a police officer when he was gunned down while sitting in his patrol car the night of Oct. 31.
A $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to an arrest in the Lakewood officer's deaths.
Forza Coffee is in a strip mall across the street from McChord Air Force Base and at a crossroads between Parkland and Lakewood, with a mix of residences and industrial businesses.
Immediately after the 911 call came in, police from Lakewood, Tacoma, the Pierce County Sheriff's Department and other jurisdictions raced to the area.
"I have never seen this many scramble to a particular spot, ever," said David Gabrielson, 27, who works as clerk at a gas station near the coffee shop.
Troyer said officers "were self-dispatching from multiple agencies" to help. He also said law enforcement had not received any threats or warnings.
"We don't know if this is related to other shootings around the country or the one in Seattle," Troyer said. "It could be because someone saw this happening around the country and got himself ramped up."
Troyer said a KING-5 TV helicopter was interfering with "tactical operations" of police investigating the shootings, slowing down the search for suspects. The pilot had been asked to leave and refused, but KING apparently called off the helicopter.
Monty Norman, 44, of Lakewood works at a carwash and detailing shop three blocks from the Lakewood Police Department headquarters. Officers come in the shop every day to have their cars cleaned.
"It's just crazy. Just insane. Words can't explain. It's just a bad feeling, We see them [officers] every day. They're really good people," Norman said.
According to the department's Web site, the Lakewood Police Department has 123 staff members including 120 commissioned officers.
In a statement, Gov. Chris Gregoire expressed condolences for the family and co-workers of the slain officers. "I am shocked and horrified at the murder of four police officers this morning in Pierce County. Our police put their lives on the line every day, and tragedies like this remind us of the risks they continually take to keep our communities safe.
"I offer whatever support is needed to the Pierce County Sheriff in their search for the perpetrator of this terrible crime."
Initial research suggests the shooting of four police officers in Lakewood ranks as the worst attack on law enforcement in state history.
Nationally, the worst incident involving law-enforcement casualties is the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Reports from that incident say 60 police officers were killed, though the circumstances differ. Officers and other emergency workers responding to the attacks died in the course of rescue attempts as opposed to direct confrontations with assailants.
In March of this year, four Oakland, Calif., police officers were fatally shot — the worst casualty count in that state since 1970, when four highway patrolmen were killed.
Seattle Times staff reporters Sara Jean Green, Mike Carter, Steve Miletich, Bob Young, Jack Broom, Jennifer Sullivan and Jonathan Martin contributed to this report. Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com. Information from the News Tribune of Tacoma is included in this report.

The Northwest is aghast and alarmed. A gunman walked into a coffee shop Sunday morning and opened fire, killing four Lakewood police officers. The motive is unclear but one thing is certain: No civilized society can allow unabashed murderers to declare open season on the very people hired to protect the community.State Attorney General Rob McKenna referred to the execution-style slayings of one female and three male officers as assassinations. Whatever the term, this brutal act of violence sends shivers through the Puget Sound region.Less than a month ago, another individual drove up to a Seattle police car and opened fire on two officers in a police car, taking the life of Police Officer Timothy Brenton. This has been described as an ideological killing. Brenton was shot because he was a police officer.What on earth is going on? As McKenna said, "This ourtageous act of violence against our brave protectors is a direct assault on the safety of our entire community.''How excruciatingly sad for the police community and the residents of the entire Puget Sound region who rely on police officers for protection.A community grieves and feels an enormous loss. THANK YOU TO THE SEATTLE-TIMES, THEIR REPORTERS ARE WAY AHEAD OF THE TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE ON REPORTING THIS STORY.

LINKS;

Payback Time-

The United States government is financing its more than trillion-dollar-a-year borrowing with i.o.u.’s on terms that seem too good to be true.
But that happy situation, aided by ultralow interest rates, may not last much longer.
Treasury officials now face a trifecta of headaches: a mountain of new debt, a balloon of short-term borrowings that come due in the months ahead, and interest rates that are sure to climb back to normal as soon as the Federal Reserve decides that the emergency has passed.
Even as Treasury officials are racing to lock in today’s low rates by exchanging short-term borrowings for long-term bonds, the government faces a payment shock similar to those that sent legions of overstretched homeowners into default on their mortgages.
With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.
In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The potential for rapidly escalating interest payouts is just one of the wrenching challenges facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means.
The surge in borrowing over the last year or two is widely judged to have been a necessary response to the financial crisis and the deep recession, and there is still a raging debate over how aggressively to bring down deficits over the next few years. But there is little doubt that the United States’ long-term budget crisis is becoming too big to postpone.
Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.
The competing demands could deepen political battles over the size and role of the government, the trade-offs between taxes and spending, the choices between helping older generations versus younger ones, and the bottom-line questions about who should ultimately shoulder the burden.
“The government is on teaser rates,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates lower deficits. “We’re taking out a huge mortgage right now, but we won’t feel the pain until later.”
So far, the demand for Treasury securities from investors and other governments around the world has remained strong enough to hold down the interest rates that the United States must offer to sell them. Indeed, the government paid less interest on its debt this year than in 2008, even though it added almost $2 trillion in debt.
The government’s average interest rate on new borrowing last year fell below 1 percent. For short-term i.o.u.’s like one-month Treasury bills, its average rate was only sixteen-hundredths of a percent.
“All of the auction results have been solid,” said Matthew Rutherford, the Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary in charge of finance operations. “Investor demand has been very broad, and it’s been increasing in the last couple of years.”
The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.
“What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter,” said William H. Gross, managing director of the Pimco Group, the giant bond-management firm. “The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”
The current low rates on the country’s debt were caused by temporary factors that are already beginning to fade. One factor was the economic crisis itself, which caused panicked investors around the world to plow their money into the comparative safety of Treasury bills and notes. Even though the United States was the epicenter of the global crisis, investors viewed Treasury securities as the least dangerous place to park their money.
On top of that, the Fed used almost every tool in its arsenal to push interest rates down even further. It cut the overnight federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend reserves to one another, to almost zero. And to reduce longer-term rates, it bought more than $1.5 trillion worth of Treasury bonds and government-guaranteed securities linked to mortgages.
Those conditions are already beginning to change. Global investors are shifting money into riskier investments like stocks and corporate bonds, and they have been pouring money into fast-growing countries like Brazil and China.
The Fed, meanwhile, is already halting its efforts at tamping down long-term interest rates. Fed officials ended their $300 billion program to buy up Treasury bonds last month, and they have announced plans to stop buying mortgage-backed securities by the end of next March.
Eventually, though probably not until at least mid-2010, the Fed will also start raising its benchmark interest rate back to more historically normal levels.
The United States will not be the only government competing to refinance huge debt. Japan, Germany, Britain and other industrialized countries have even higher government debt loads, measured as a share of their gross domestic product, and they too borrowed heavily to combat the financial crisis and economic downturn. As the global economy recovers and businesses raise capital to finance their growth, all that new government debt is likely to put more upward pressure on interest rates.
Even a small increase in interest rates has a big impact. An increase of one percentage point in the Treasury’s average cost of borrowing would cost American taxpayers an extra $80 billion this year — about equal to the combined budgets of the Department of Energy and the Department of Education.
But that could seem like a relatively modest pinch. Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, estimated that the Treasury’s tab for debt service this year would have been $221 billion higher if it had faced the same interest rates as it did last year.
The White House estimates that the government will have to borrow about $3.5 trillion more over the next three years. On top of that, the Treasury has to refinance, or roll over, a huge amount of short-term debt that was issued during the financial crisis. Treasury officials estimate that about 36 percent of the government’s marketable debt — about $1.6 trillion — is coming due in the months ahead.
To lock in low interest rates in the years ahead, Treasury officials are trying to replace one-month and three-month bills with 10-year and 30-year Treasury securities. That strategy will save taxpayers money in the long run. But it pushes up costs drastically in the short run, because interest rates are higher for long-term debt.
Adding to the pressure, the Fed is set to begin reversing some of the policies it has been using to prop up the economy. Wall Street firms advising the Treasury recently estimated that the Fed’s purchases of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities pushed down long-term interest rates by about one-half of a percentage point. Removing that support could in itself add $40 billion to the government’s annual tab for debt service.
This month, the Treasury Department’s private-sector advisory committee on debt management warned of the risks ahead.
“Inflation, higher interest rate and rollover risk should be the primary concerns,” declared the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, a group of market experts that provide guidance to the government, on Nov. 4.
“Clever debt management strategy,” the group said, “can’t completely substitute for prudent fiscal policy.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 24, 2009 An article on Monday about ballooning debt payments for the federal government misspelled, in some copies, the surname of an economist who noted that the bill for debt service would be even higher were it not for current low interest rates. He is Alan Levenson, not Levinson. And a chart with the continuation of the article misstated, in some editions, the size of debt payments due within a year that are currently paying no more than 1 percent in interest. It is $1.9 trillion, not $2.5 trillion.

Local governments fork over billions in fees on investments gone bad.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is struggling to save his city from fiscal calamity. Unemployment is at a record 28 percent and rising, while home prices have plunged 39 percent since 2007. The 66-year-old Bing, a former NBA all-star with the Detroit Pistons who took office 10 months ago, faces a $300 million budget deficit — and few ways to make up the difference.
Against that bleak backdrop, Wall Street is squeezing one of America's weakest cities for every penny it can. A few years ago, Detroit struck a derivatives deal with UBS and other banks that allowed it to save more than $2 million a year in interest on $800 million worth of bonds. But the fine print carried a potentially devastating condition. If the city's credit rating dropped, the banks could opt out of the deal and demand a sizable breakup fee. That's precisely what happened in January: After years of fiscal trouble, Detroit saw its credit rating slashed to junk. Suddenly the sputtering Motor City was on the hook for a $400 million tab.
During late-night strategy sessions, Joseph L. Harris, Detroit's then-chief financial officer, scoured the budget for spare dollars, going so far as to cut expenditures on water and electricity. "I figured the [utility] wouldn't turn out our lights," says Harris. But there wasn't enough cash, and in June the city set up a payment plan with the banks.
Now Detroit must use the revenues from its three casinos — MGM Grand Detroit, Greektown Casino, and MotorCity Casino — to cover a $4.2 million monthly payment to the banks before a single cent can go to schools, transportation, and other critical services. "The economic crisis has forced us to move quickly and redefine what services a city can and should provide," says Bing. "While we face a tough road ahead, I believe we're on the right path." UBS declined to comment.
Detroit isn't suffering alone. Across the nation, local governments and related public entities, already reeling from the recession, face another fiscal crisis: billions of dollars in fees owed to UBS, Goldman Sachs and other financial giants on investment deals gone wrong.
Wall Street promised big, with small printThe seeds of this looming disaster were sown during the credit boom, when Wall Street targeted cities big and small with risky financial products that promised to save them money or boost returns.
Investment bankers sold exotic derivatives designed to help municipalities cut borrowing costs. Banks and insurance companies constructed complicated tax deals that allowed public utilities, transit authorities, and other nonprofit organizations to extract cash immediately from their long-term assets. Private equity firms, pointing to stellar historical gains, persuaded big public pension funds to plow billions of dollars into high-cost investments at the peak of the market.
Many of the transactions shared a striking similarity: provisions that protected the banks from big losses and left the customers on the hook for huge payouts.
Now, as many of those deals sour, Wall Street is ramping up its efforts to collect from Main Street.
"The banks stuffed customers with [questionable investments] and then extorted money from the customers to get rid of them," says Christopher Whalen, managing director at research firm Institutional Risk Analytics.
The New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority, for instance, must pay nearly $1 million a month at least until December 2011 to Goldman Sachs on derivatives deals tied to municipal debt—even though the state retired the debt last year.
The Chicago Transit Authority, having entered into complex arrangements to lease its equipment to outside investors and then lease it back, could face termination fees of $30 million. The investors could collect penalties because American International Group, which backed the arrangement, has seen its credit rating tumble. "These [sorts of deals] are potentially huge liabilities," says Stanford Law School's Joseph Bankman. "Investors aren't going to be settling for chump change." Goldman Sachs declined to comment.
Wall Street charm offensiveThe financial struggles of America's cities and towns stand in stark contrast to Wall Street, where bonuses at some firms are expected to reach record levels in 2009, less than a year after the peak of the financial crisis.
To keep public outrage from reaching a boiling point, banking chiefs are embarking on a charm offensive. Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who recently sparked controversy when he told a Times of London reporter that his firm was "doing God's work," pledged on Nov. 17 to invest $500 million in small businesses and charities. (That amounts to roughly 3 percent of the $16.7 billion Goldman expects to pay its employees this year.)
Politicians have launched their own campaign. Federal lawmakers, troubled by the rising payouts, are trying to limit the damage to municipalities and prevent them from falling prey in the future. Pending legislation in Congress, introduced by Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), would impose a 100 percent tax on termination payments like those in the CTA deals to dissuade banks from going after struggling municipalities. Another proposal would limit the use of derivatives by localities with less than $50 million in assets; lawmakers figure small towns and cities don't have the resources to vet the risks of exotic investments adequately.
Without a federal fix, strapped municipalities like Detroit could be forced to slash vital services even more. The city's public schools, which had been putting off paying textbook suppliers and other vendors, aren't likely to see their funding rise now that banks are taking a bite out of the city's budget. The Royal Oak school district is eliminating after-school music programs and asking parents to pay $100 per child to play sports. "We've had to demolish programs because of the squeeze," says Thomas L. Moline, the district's superintendent.
Detroit's public transportation system is also feeling the pinch. Because of budget restraints, bus routes have been canceled and equipment hasn't been fixed. On a cold day in early November, a group of students stood shivering as they awaited the No. 30 bus. The bus comes only once an hour now, compared with every 45 minutes a year ago. Longtime driver Linda Martin, whose bus broke down five times in the past year, helped organize a demonstration in August. Months later, the 56-year-old grandmother of eight was among 113 transportation workers laid off. "These are hardworking people, juggling three jobs sometimes," she says. "If they lose their income, there's a ripple effect throughout the whole community."
Taking advantage of public entities?Of course, many of the municipal-finance investments blowing up now were fairly standard contracts that clearly spelled out the pitfalls. "Municipalities knew the risks," says James S. Normile, a New York partner at law firm Winston Strawn. "They just didn't think they were going to happen."
But some public entities, lacking the financial expertise, proved to be willing buyers for Wall Street's more dubious ideas.
Consider the plight of Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative. In 2002 a group of attorneys and investment bankers presented the tiny nonprofit utility, indirectly owned by its 800,000 mostly rural customers, with a quick way to earn some money. Hoosier Energy leased a power plant near the Wabash River in Sullivan County, Ind., to John Hancock Financial Services. Hancock then turned around and leased it back. As a result, the utility netted $20 million while Hancock planned to reap tax benefits on the facility. The bankers and lawyers, meanwhile, made $12 million.
The transaction was part of a broader trend: Over the past decade dozens of utilities, transportation agencies, and other public nonprofit entities struck so-called leaseback deals to collect cash on their assets.
Around the same time the Hoosier agreement was finalized, the IRS began cracking down on leaseback deals. The federal agency in a memorandum called them a "sham" that lacked any business purpose beyond tax evasion and amounted to a circular exchange of assets and cash.
Legally speaking, a transaction that merely reaps tax rewards and has no other economic purpose is often considered an abusive tax shelter. Although the IRS hasn't ruled on Hancock's tax breaks, U.S. District Court Judge David F. Hamilton concluded in an opinion last fall that they looked "abusive." Hancock says it believes it's entitled to the tax benefits.
Now Hancock is exploiting a technicality in the 3,000-page pact with Hoosier that could allow the financial firm to wiggle out of the contract and collect a fat fee. Even though Hoosier has continued to make all of its payments, it fell into technical default after Ambac Financial Group, which backed the transaction, suffered a credit-rating downgrade. Having not found a suitable replacement, Hoosier faces a $120 million penalty, a sum that could exhaust its cash and credit lines. "It's a huge challenge for us," says Donna L. Snyder, Hoosier's vice-president for finance. "We're a small not-for-profit."
Hoosier may have to pay up soon. In September the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the utility had to find a new guarantor this year or pay Hancock the money. If the latter happens, residents could face higher electricity rates. Already, Hoosier has hiked rates 3 percent because of the uncertainty of the deal. In the meantime the utility is conserving cash by postponing environmental upgrades to its coal plants and putting off payments to other power companies in the co-op. Says Jonathan Chiel, John Hancock's general counsel: "We've acted reasonably, and we believe no party to the transaction should seek to gain an unfair advantage."
Public transportation systems around the nation could be vulnerable to leaseback blowups. Moody's Investors Service estimates that 25 big municipal transportation authorities entered into deals similar to Hoosier's.
The fallout could be more than just financial. In recent years the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority tied up a third of its subway fleet—almost 300 cars, some 30 years old—in a series of pacts with investors, some of which required keeping the same equipment running until 2014. To avoid violating the terms, the transit authority rejected a 2006 recommendation by the National Transportation Safety Board to replace or retrofit older cars. The NTSB warned at the time that in the event of a crash the old cars posed a higher risk of injury to passengers than newer models. One of the old cars was involved in a wreck in June that killed nine people. A spokeswoman for the transit authority said it lacks the funds to replace the cars.
Teacher pensions take hitEven public institutions that entered into relatively common investments are getting hurt. Many chased risky deals only in the later years of the credit boom and now are paying hefty fees on those underwater assets.
In 2006 the Teacher Retirement System of Texas hired T. Britton Harris IV to overhaul the $100 billion pension fund. The portfolio, one of the 20 largest pension funds, was still recovering from the dot-com bust earlier in the decade. Harris, a veteran of investment firm Bridgewater Associates and the Verizon Communications employee pension plan, told board members: "My approach has never been incrementalist."
True to his word, Harris revamped the pension fund. For years, Texas Teachers had focused on stocks and bonds, relying on in-house managers to invest the money. The new investment officer proposed a huge shift into risky investments that promised better returns, including private equity and real estate. In April 2008—right after the fall of Bear Stearns—Wall Street chiefs flocked to Austin to seal their investment deals with the pension fund. Harris even hosted a dinner at a local steakhouse for Morgan Stanley's John Mack, Lehman Brothers' Richard Fuld, and Laurence Fink of BlackRock. "Being novices, there's a certain level of trust with decision-makers," says Tim Lee, executive director of the Texas Retired Teachers Assn. The pension fund's target stake in alternatives swelled to 29 percent, from 8 percent.
Then the crash came. Texas Teachers recently reported that its new private equity and real estate investments had dropped by 15 percent and 33 percent, respectively, in the first nine months of the year. Among the clunkers: Colony Capital VIII, a fund that invested in the buyout of Station Casinos, a Las Vegas casino operator that later went belly-up, and Neverland Ranch, the estate of the late Michael Jackson. It likely will take a while for the portfolio of alternative investments to recover.
Wall Street, though, will keep collecting its share. Private equity firms and hedge funds typically charge a hefty 1% to 2% fee on the total pool of assets under management even if their strategy loses money. On Texas Teachers' $13.5 billion portfolio, that amount to tens of millions a year. The fund says it remains committed to alternative investments. "We are long-term and very liquid," says Harris. "This should be a time when the investments we make should prove rewarding."
Many of the million-plus educators who rely on the pension fund for their retirement benefits are worried about their financial fate. The fund's obligations exceeded its assets by $22 billion this year. To make up the difference, the fund's board asked Texas legislators this summer to increase contributions both from taxpayers and active teachers, but lawmakers rejected the proposal. That means retired teachers, who haven't seen a cost-of-living increase since 2001, aren't likely to get a bump anytime soon. Says Bill Barnes, a retired school principal from Fort Worth: "The whole question is: Where's the money going to come from?"

By Theo Francis, Ben Levisohn, Christopher Palmeri and Jessica Silver-Greenberg

Up to 1,000 Gambian villagers were abducted by “witch doctors” and forced to drink hallucinogens, an international rights group said on Wednesday.
Amnesty International called on the government of President Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 coup and has claimed he can cure Aids, to halt the campaign and bring those responsible to justice.
Police officers, soldiers and some of the president’s personal security guards accompanied the “witch doctors” in the series of round-ups, witnesses said. In the most recent incident, which took place on March 9, paramilitary police armed with guns and shovels surrounded the village of Sintet before dawn.
Amnesty quoted a witness as saying that security forces vowed “that anyone who tries to escape will be buried six feet under.” The prisoners were then taken to Mr Jammeh’s farm in his native Kanilai, east of the capital.

At the farm, the victims were “forced to drink unknown substances that cause them to hallucinate and behave erratically,” the rights group said in a statement.
“Many are then forced to confess to being a witch. In some cases, they are also severely beaten, almost to the point of death.”
The mysterious liquid prompted serious kidney problems in many of those rounded up, and two people died after being subjected to the ordeal, Amnesty said.
Mr Jammeh has said that he believes witchcraft was behind his aunt’s death earlier this year, and has been inviting “witch doctors” from nearby Guinea to combat witches, the London-based rights group said.
In 2007, Mr Jammeh declared he had discovered a cure for Aids and began treating patients inside the presidential palace, using herbs and incantations. His dictatorial regime has cracked down harshly on critics, especially the press.
On March 8, authorities arrested Halifa Sallah, who has written about the “witch doctors” for the main opposition newspaper, Foroyya. The former presidential candidate has since been charged with sedition and spying, Amnesty said.

Gambian president claims he has a cure for AIDS, an herbal rub and two bananas. Keep in mind that this “genius” is the PRESIDENT! The average IQ in Gambia (a Western African nation) is 68…..That is clinically retarded in most of the Western World!

The President of Gambia has horrified scientists by announcing that he has developed a “miracle cure” for HIV/AIDS.Hundreds of Gambians have lined up to be “cured” by President Yahya Jammeh, who treats his patients by rubbing a mysterious herbal paste into their ribcages and then instructing them to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.The therapy is administered repeatedly over several weeks.According to Mr Jammeh, AIDS sufferers will be cured within “three to thirty days.”The President announced his alleged cure in January to a gathering of perplexed foreign diplomats.“Whatever you do there are bound to be sceptics, but I can tell you my method is foolproof,” he said.“Mine is not an argument, mine is a proof. It is a declaration. I can cure AIDS and I will.”Government radio and TV addresses publicise the treatment, which Jammeh provides for free.

It has the backing of the Gambian Health Ministry.Mr Jammeh refuses to disclose the ingredients of his herbal concoction, saying only that the treatment uses seven plants – “three of which are not from Gambia”.His official website claims that patients have experienced a “marked improvement” in their health as a result of the treatment and scoffs at critics who dispute its efficacy.But in a continent where HIV/AIDS is rife, such claims of miracle cures are alarming the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other health workers.Experts are particularly concerned that Mr Jammeh orders his patients to stop taking anti-retroviral drugs, which will weaken the body’s immune system and render the patient more prone to infection.Antonio Filipe, local head of WHO in Senegal, wanted to put the record straight.“As the World Health Organisation, we would like to state quite clearly the following: so far there is no cure for AIDS,” he said.Africa’s leaders have been extraordinarily slow to address the problem of Aids.Last year, the South African minister of health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, suggested that a diet of garlic, beetroot and lemon juice is more effective than anti-retroviral drugs.The South African government did not provide Aids drugs until a suit by activists forced it to in 2002.Now Gambia’s president is peddling quack remedies for one of the world’s most pernicious diseases.An estimated 20,000 Gambians are living with HIV/AIDS.