RE: Video "Rocks, plus complete idiot = fun watch!"
"It almost looks just to fake for some reason? why was the camera pointed right there anyway ya know. Just looks fishy."
-Whiteboy, Toledo Motorcycle Forums, Rockslide on the Dragon
"$2-million! That's sounds 10 times too much to clean up a rockslide. 4 months... It ought to take 4 days. All these roads still closed by rockslides, that's bullshit!"
-Overtaxed TN business owner
"They're going to squeeze us out of business. We're paying for it, and we get nothing out of it."
-Dave Ramsey, owner of the 129 Motorcycle Pit Stop, US 129 'Dragon' section partially reopening after rockslide
"On 14 March 2010 US129 had a large landslide several miles north of the Dragon. At the time of the slide, TN was allowing everyone to enjoy the road and set up the road closure sign at mile marker 13. On Weds 17 March 2010, the Government of TN decided to move the barricade to the state line effectively closing The Dragon until the slide is cleaned up. Graham county NC has offered to support the 13 miles of US129 until the road can be reopened, even if only to one lane. TN has refused the offer and has posted two TDOT and two Highway Patrol officers at the two barricades 24 hours a day 7 days a week, for no reason. We need everyone to please contact the local, state and federal representatives, as well as the NC and TN Governors offices, and encourage them to establish a task force to keep the Dragon open. I am sure it would cost less than what they are doing now. Please show your support as the economy of the entire region depends on it."
-Deals Gap Resort, Help Us Save the Dragon, March 2010
"I cant help but think its some sort of State conspiracy, to keep the place closed for a while. TVA wont let them blast because of the dams, so they have to use expansion balloons to drop the rock that needs to come out yet. Was up there last night talking to the guys. Great gig if you can get it for the next 3 months."
-Deals Gap Resort, ETR Forum, Gap to be blocked off 3/18/2010
"Well Gang it is official the TN Governor has closed the Dragon and is unwilling to accept the help of NC for medical and law enforcement. We will probably be forced to close the resort and not sure we will reopen this year. Lots of rumors flying around as to when they will get the mess cleaned up. I have heard 14 week to Aug."
-Deals Gap Resort, Facebook, Friday 19 March 2010
"Comments do make me think it's awful convienant to the budgets of the LEO dept's that have been spending 'more than normal' on enforcement/manpower the last couple of years. Just sayin'. Bad economy, and all, ya know."
-ETR Forum, Gap to be blocked off 3/18/2010
"Here is the story...either the first or second day of the barricade being erected at the state line, 4 or 5 guys on cruiser style motorcycles from Ohio was up in the face of, and bumping chests with the TDOT worker at the state line. They told him something to the effect of 'I'll just kill you and drive around, it makes no difference to me.' So now there is a THP unit at each end."
-Blount County deputy sheriff JD, ETR Forum, Dragon is closed
"Good morning and a happy good friday to everyone. Things contiue to move forward on getting the Dragon reopened by Wen next week. Waiting now for all the paperwork to be signed so the barricade can be moved. Key things to remember: (1) It will not be one way traffic, you have to turn around and come back to the resort. (2) Two way traffic will mean crossing the double yellow puts you at risk as well as other motorcycle riders. Will resault in serious injury or a fatality. (3) THP will patrol ever day until the slide is gone, this is for our protection NOT I say again NOT to write endless tickets and use it as a revinue builder. Easy stuff gang, we can have the Dragon for once without semi traffic on it. No word yet when the road will be open for thru traffic that will be up to the rock slide when they bring it down. But just at $2 million for the winning contract I do not see it as taking long or they will be losing money fast. Now for the rumors, hope I can get them all right lol. No the road is not being removed and turned into part of the cades cove loop. No the tree of shame has not been cut down. No TDOT did not cause the rock slide on purpose. No THP is not tazzing folks for approaching the barricades. That is the ones from this week lol."
-DealsGap.com, April 2, 2010
"Appeasement was the policy of European democracies in the 1930s that aimed to avoid war with the dictatorships of Germany and Italy. It has been described as 'the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous.' The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany between 1937 and 1939. His policies of avoiding war with Germany have been the subject of intense debate for seventy years among academics, politicians and diplomats. The historian's assessment of Chamberlain has ranged from condemnation for allowing Hitler to grow too strong, to the judgment that he had no alternative and acted in Britain's best interests. At the time, these concessions were widely seen as positive, and the Munich Pact among Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy prompted Chamberlain to announce that he had secured 'peace for our time'. The word 'appeasement' has been used as a synonym for weakness and even cowardice since the 1930s, and it is still used in that sense today as a justification for firm, often armed, action in international relations."
-Wikipedia, Appeasement
Dragon Demolition - Workers from Canadian Pacific Blasting and Demolition Ltd are using a method called “air bagging” to remove loose rock from the site of a rock slide on The Dragon. The workers insert air bags into cracks and crevices of loose rock, inflate them and force the loose rock to fall from the slope. TDOT engineers have located another section of unstable rock on the closed section of 129 that will be blasted. Crews with Pacific Blasting plan to “trim-blast” three areas to remove additional rock. Trim blasting is low-impact blasting technique used to break apart loose boulders. Workers drill holes around the targeted rock and insert explosives. The completion date for the project remains July 31 with a $195,000 incentive for early completion by July 1. Meanwhile I40 in NC reopened after being closed for 7 months by $13-million tax increase for rockslide demolition contract.
 |
"It's great that NC biker businesses worked the system to make it work, and the Dragon will open early on the NC side. It's great that TDOT cleared the Dragon within 24 hours, and is spending the money to prevent future rockslides. But the past Police State on the Dragon has spooked even diehard lovers of Big Brother. LIHOP or MIHOP -- Let It Happen 'On Purpose' then take advantage to shut out those pesky bikers, or Make It Happen On Purpose for profit? Nobody said TDOT bombed the rockslide. But contractors are paid $2-million incentive for 'silent controlled demolition' on the Dragon. A poll showed 80% of Americans would commit murder if it paid $1-million, and 50-million babies have been murdered in USA since 1993, when US Supreme Court legalized genocide with Roe v Wade. USA is not populated with moral crusaders. 'In Greed We Trust' is the national motto. The owners of Dragon demolition bidder Phillips and Jordan in Knoxville were previously sent to prison for conspiracy to bid-rig highway contracts in NC. A govt whistleblower in Knoxville was shotgunned as he exited his front door, while testifying against corruption of $1-billion/year in TDOT highway contracts (he reportedly survived by wearing a bullet-resistant vest). Hundreds of firefighters in Tennessee and USA have been arrested for arson of millions of acres, to get paid overtime (homicides get bonus points). Insurance investigators in TN say they are never allowed to investigate arson, 'because that's how you get killed'. Even the current Blount County sheriff brags he can arson your house and kill your family, that he 'won't pay somebody to do it, he'll do it himself,' according to court order by the 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals (Nuchols v Berrong). A former FBI agent/former chief of police found his home arsoned during his civil investigation of Blount County state senator Carl 'Coca' Koella (pronounced 'cola'), alleged to be the crack cocaine kingpin of TN. Koella was arrested for the hit-and-run homicide of a sportbike tourist in Blount County, covered up by THP, BCSO and KPD in a conspiracy to protect Governor Don Sundquist, according to the FBI agent's investigation. TN legislature even renamed Pellissippi Parkway in Koella's honor, after Koella pled guilty to murder and paid a $1.5-million wrongful death settlement, and a Tennessee legislator told the American Motorcycle Association that bikers are not welcome in TN. The Blount County state senator who replaced the late Koella, Bill Clabough, sponsored the bill for the Senator Carl Koela Memorial Highway, and is running the Foothills Land Conservancy Corporation's 10,000-acre landgrab on the Dragon, presumably for a VIP resort, like its 5,000-acre tax-exempt gated resort North of Foothills Parkway, for local politicians and billionaires. ALCOA Corp had its executive resort and private golf course on the Dragon, surrounded by Calderwood lake, then bulldozed it and built a max-security airfield with hangers and refueling facilities, perfect for a new gated VIP resort by Nature Conservancy Corporation on the Dragon (bikers not welcome). In the light of a towering inferno back in December 2000, while holding my rescued computer and the only court file on Koella, I was personally threatened by a supervisor of Knoxville Fire Dept: 'We have a jail cell with your name on it if you continue to say that word arson,' when I tried to give him photos taken that day of a government-contractor arsonist with a flame in his hand setting fire to start the towering inferno next door to my downtown penthouse on Gay Street. Years later a credit check from FreeCreditReport.com proved a secret insurance policy was paid out in my name from that arson, without any payment to me. Cashing secret insurance claims without paying the named policy holder is a common racket by mafia insurance companies, Knoxville Codes Enforcement employees, bankers, lawyers and judges, as proven by Knoxville business owner and racer Richard Cadmus, in his $300,000 jury verdict in US District Court. Cadmus won that case pro se without a lawyer, after his lawyer quit in terror on the courthouse steps on the day of trial. Phillips & Jordan, Inc, the TN/NC contractor bidding on the Dragon rockslide contract ran the 'cleanup' coverup demolition of World Trade Center 'after' the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to hide evidence of explosive controlled demolition by 1,000s of bombs and Thermite. Two other Knoxville companies were also paid the bulk of that $3-billion contract to 'demolish' WTC, Controlled Demolition Inc (which bombed 7,000 govt buildings) and Browning Ferris Industries (BFI, which had dozens of contractors convicted under the RICO Act for membership in the Gambino and Genovese Mafias in NY City, according to A&E TV Investigative Report's Modern Mobs), with WTC steel melted in Knoxville and Commie China. WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein begged his insurance company to allow him to bomb WTC7 on 9/11/2001 for $500-million profit by insurance fraud, and admitted on PBS TV that he and the government intentionally detonated 100s of bombs to demolish WTC7 in an explosive controlled demolition on 9/11. During the trial for bombing the World Trade Center in 1993 that killed 6 people, FBI agents admitted on 100 hours of audiotape that FBI paid it's 'informant' provocateur Emad Salem $1-million, gave him the bomb, refused to allow him to substitute fake explosives, ordered him to detonate the bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center that killed 6 people, then gave him immunity to testify against a blind Muslim patsy priest. You can listen to the secret telephone tape recordings of FBI ordering the bombing for yourself. A retired FBI agent is now chief of police of Knoxville PD, home of Phillips and Jordan. Did Phillips and Jordan orchestrate the rockslide for a $2.5-million payday, then somebody at TDOT balked? KPD contracted with Redflex to sue 75,000 annual redlight camera tickets in Knoxville that sends 90% of ticket tax to Australia (now Commie China), then Reflex was fired for 'suspected bribery and contract fraud' during the trial of accused redlight camera sniper Clifford Clark. The prosecution of Clark was dismissed the week Clark's lawyer subpoened a former Knox County deputy to testify that a current Knox deputy confessed to shooting a redlight camera, possibly in cahoots with Reflex to bill the taxpayers $77,000 per 50-cent bullet. BTW, my job for the Federal govt was targeting US nukes at US troops in West Germany, and nuking active US Air Force bases in highly populated areas via simultaneous controlled demolition of a dozen nuclear bombs. This is a routine 'wargame' for 100s of US soldiers every day. Have you read Pentagon's Operation Northwoods, declassified in 2000? It's mandatory reading for every citizen and govt employee. If Google scares you because CIA and NSA run it, try StartPage.com for anonymous websurfing and proxy servers. An additional 9/11 link is Knoxville mayor Victor 'Victoria' Ashe being George W. Bush's college roommate, fellow cheerleader and alleged gay lover at all-male Yale University and its Skull and Bones Senior Secret Society. After 9/11, Bush promoted his childhood buddy Ashe to ambassador of Poland, to get him out of the country during Kitty Kelly's vetted biography, The Family, discussing Bush Jr's alleged homosexuality. Bush and Ashe are members of the homosexual nudist compound for ritual human sacrifice to a 50-foot-tall idol of Satan at Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio, California, along with the owners of Knoxville News Sentinel, Mr. Scripps and Mr. Howard. KNS and wBIR previously reported on a forced highway closures and evacuation of 30,000 residents in Knox and Blount Counties under martial law, after a US Army train allegedly crashed causing a spill of deadly fumes. However, official an news photo showed liquid sulfuric acid smoke rising from open hopper cars rather than from the crushed tanker cars carrying the acid. It's strange how WBIR got a camera crew to video a driver crashing into the rockslide on 129, with police refusing to install warning cones nor park in the road as a visible warning. Normally BCSO and THP park in the middle of 129 in blind corners just to sue traffic tickets for bikers. TDOT got a heavy loader to the rockslide 'within 1 hour', when it takes Rural Metro up to 4 hours to rescue or kill bikers on the Dragon thanks to an 'unlimited response time' in its contract with Blount County Municipal Corporation. That's exactly what happens when somebody wants to destroy evidence of premeditated controlled demolition, as these same TN contractors did after 9/11. Currently Blount County Municipal Corporation is bankrupt and over $250-million in debt with a $46-million balloon payment due in 2011...which is motive for extorting bribes from govt contractors and kickbacks on million-dollar govt contracts. Desperate people do desperate things. With all this circumstantial evidence, it's impossible to give the Govt the benefit of plausible deniability."
-John Lee, executive producer and host of Pirate News TV & Radio Show, webmaster for DealsGapDragon.com, 2 April 2010
“I’ll burn your house down, set your dog on fire and there won’t be a member of your family left, do you understand me? I won’t hire it done, I will do it myself! Do you understand me?”
-Blount County TN sheriff James Berrong, United Stated Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, Nuchols v. Berrong, No. 04-5645, July 11, 2005
"You have worked for an organization for years. One day your boss calls you in. He tells you he has a tape of a conversation where his wife, suspicious about his extracurricular activities, asked you to confirm her suspicions. He tells you that: “your ass is fired, you get out of here”. He then tells you: 'I’ll burn your house down, set your dog on fire and there won’t be a member of your family left, do you understand me?' Then he adds 'I won’t hire it done, I will do it myself! Do you understand me?' Would you feel that your rights have been violated? This is the scary picture painted in a recent lawsuit ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of appeals. These threats were not made by some Mafia thug. They were allegedly made by Blount County Sheriff, James Berrong. Incredibly, the Court of Appeals concluded Berrong’s threats did not rise to a constitutional violation because the threats did not 'shock the conscience'. We do not know about the Appeals Court Judges, but these threats surely shock consciences of most of our citizens – especially when the come from the top law enforcement officer in Blount County. The department is already facing multiple $1,000,000+ lawsuits alleging serious mistreatment of citizens – including a local physician. The lack of professionalism at the top of our Sheriff’s Department seems to have the county careening toward disaster. Our greatest concern is that this court decision will encourage even more threats and intimidation of citizens by the Blount County Sheriff’s Department. Be careful out there – especially of the top dogs in our Sheriff’s department."
-Jim Folts, Will Court decision mean more threats from the Sheriff?, Folts elected to Blount County Commission in 2010
"The County debt has nearly doubled since 2003, to just under one quarter BILLION dollars. The County debt per person is one of the highest in East Tennessee. Even worse, the County’s debt is made up of a toxic mix of variable rate bonds and swaps (the kind that billionaire, Warren Buffett, called weapons of financial mass destruction). The county has done the equivalent of taking out a variable rate mortgage, with a huge balloon payment due in two years, and using a credit card to make the monthly payments. I will work to straighten out this mess, before it sends your taxes soaring."
-Jim Folts, director of Citizens for Better Government, elected to Blount County Commission in 2010, JimFolts.com
Tennessee Auditors Arrive - 48 Blount Sheriff cars missing - "The state auditor arrived in the County a few weeks ago. The auditor was able to find only 239 vehicles. What happened to the other 48 vehicles? But the Sheriff wants the taxpayers to support a tax increase, so that he can have even more money to spend next year. Does this make sense to you?"
"The next Blount County Democrats monthly First Friday Luncheon is April 2, 2010. We have a terrific speaker with an important topic which should be of interest to all tax payers or future tax payers in Blount County. Jim Folts will speak on the Blount County Debt Mess. The Blount County debt has doubled to nearly one quarter BILLION dollars since 2003. Blount County has the highest debt per person in East Tennessee. A $46 million balloon payment on this debt must be made next year. Half of all the debt is in variable rate bond / swap deals - more than double the level the State Comptroller considers prudent. The $96 million of [credit default 'derivative' Ponzi] swaps held by the County are costing the taxpayers than $2.1 million per year. All the County's variable rate bond/swap deals 'blew up' in the financial crisis, costing millions of taxpayer dollars in fees, for financial Band-Aids. The County has paid large fees to a company that does not even have its own phone number or place of business."
-BlountTalk.com, Jim Folts Speaks on The Blount County Debt Mess, April 2, 2010
"You all have probably heard about how arcane financial tools, called derivatives, have brought our national and world economy to the brink of destruction. Warren Buffett captured the essence of the problem when he called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction”. Did you also know that our County Finance Director, David Bennett, has been playing the financial derivatives game with our hard earned taxpayer money? Lately, some of these county bond transactions have been “blowing-up” in Wall Street parlance. This is likely to cost Blount taxpayers millions of dollars before the mess is cleaned up. Of course, Bennett had help in creating this mess, from a fellow by the name of Joe Ayres. The NY Times recently ran a front page article on how Ayres firm sold these risky instruments to unsuspecting counties and municipalities in Tennessee." Conflicts of interest seem to abound in these deals. Joe Ayres of Cumberland Securities represents himself to the County Commission as a “bond advisor”. The New York Times pointed out that Ayres has another job, Managing Director of Morgan Keegan. In that role, he often collects hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees on the risky transactions he is recommending to the Commission. After he gets those fees, another of his organizations TN-LOANS collects fees on the bonds, every year, for the life of the bond. Finally, Regions Financial (aka Regions Bank and major recipient of TARP bailout funds), who owns these entities, often ends up as the bond trustee and collects even more fees. This is all a little like asking a Chrysler salesman what kind of car you should buy, what price you ought to pay, and what the interest rate should be on your loan."
-Citizens for Better Government, Blount County’s “financial weapons of mass destruction”
"Wasn’t one of this country’s founding principles a distrust of government? The Mayor implied a TBI investigation of the PBA was underway. A female reporter checked it out and said in her article that there was no such investigation. The Mayor fired off a letter to the publisher saying: “If (the female reporter) worked for me, I certainly would take her to the woodshed.” She left the paper shortly after that event. What does this say about our future? Our County General Fund expenditures, driven by runaway Sheriff’s spending, are growing at 2.5 times the sum of population growth plus inflation, while expenditures for our schools and roads are barely keeping up. The Sheriff has a fleet of approximately 250 cars to support less than 150 employees who could possibly need one. Yet, each year we spend nearly $1 million on new Sheriff vehicles. He is spending hundreds of thousands on a Police Academy. Yet, he wants a $2 million budget increase this year. What does this say about our future? A comparison with similar counties in Tennessee shows that we are spending 15 to 25% more, as much as $10 million, in our General Fund. The county paid hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the appraisal for an auto racetrack we didn’t need. More recently, the county sold Highway Dept. land in a transaction that was based on a four year old appraisal and may have left more than a million dollars on the table. Yet we are being asked to support a wheel tax. Our Circuit Court clerk and our Sheriff spent thousands of dollars of our money for bogus diplomas. The result? The Sheriff promotes one of the bogus university ‘students’ to train our new police officers. You can’t make this stuff up! The Commission voted funds to put a Sheriff’s School Resource Officer in every school. The Sheriff, in violation of the law, used those funds for other activities, including such necessities as bogus diplomas, diving lessons and trips to resorts. Now the Sheriff is reportedly telling the Commission they have to vote another $400,000 to re-institute the SRO program. Our Circuit Court Clerk hires his son to work for him. An underage girl is entrusted to him in his role as a Magistrate. His son allegedly intimidates the underage girl with the words: “you owe me”. His son is arrested and charged with sexual offenses, but no mention is made of possible case fixing. The mayor says: ”I don’t think there are any liabilities on the county’s part”. One month later, the mayor uses $45,000 of taxpayer money to pay off the girl’s civil claim against the Circuit Court Clerk’s son and the County. After more than a year we still do not know whether the county was properly paid for Sheriff’s vehicles that have disappeared from the books over the last ten years. One of the many Assistant Deputy Chiefs of the Sheriff’s department writes a letter telling citizens group leader she does “not have a clue” and calling her a “vampire”. When a Commissioner requests information on behalf of a citizen, the same Sheriff’s official writes another letter calling the Commissioner “stupid” and “a coward”. The information requested uncovered the misuse of funds for bogus diplomas. Who wrote the letter? None other than the Asst. Deputy Chief of Professional Standards. A citizens group leaves information flyers in the proper place before a Commission meeting. A Sheriff’s Deputy grabs the material and throws it in a trash can with the comment: “this material don’t need to be here”. When asked why he threw the flyers away, the Deputy responded: “because I wanted to and because I can”. The Sheriff takes no disciplinary action. Our Mayor says: “I have no desire to turn Blount County into a retirement mecca”. “They move here and start complaining.” Aren’t retired people the least demanding on our infrastructure? They don’t have children in schools, they don’t clog up our jails, and they don’t commute on our roads. What does this say about our future? A frail 77 year old man, spoke at several Commission meetings questioning the number and whereabouts of Sheriff’s vehicles. After one meeting he was greeted in the hall by the Sheriff and told to be in the Sheriff’s office the next morning at 10:00. He did not comply. During another meeting the Sheriff waved him into the hall and threatened to sue him if he continued to ask questions about vehicles. As he drove home he was followed by an unmarked, black car. The car pulled into his driveway and parked. His wife was panic stricken - convinced that someone had come to kill him. He sat behind his door with a shotgun for four hours until 2:00am, when the car finally left. He suffered a mini-stroke the next day. Since then, he has been called to the courthouse for so-called problems with his deed, and asked to sign an affidavit. His wife accompanied him and was so upset by the proceedings that she just lost it. Now, a whispering campaign has been started, questioning his military service. What does this say about our future? Our Sheriff bought a $17000 phone, and at the very same Budget committee meeting, the Commission was forced to deny a $15000 request for funds to feed 25 needy Seniors for a year. What does that say about our future? I could go on for hours about the attacks on the Children’s Home, the Sister Cities Program, the infamous Nascar track deal and many others – but you get the idea. If you are feeling uneasy about our future, you are getting the message."
-Republican speech to Blount County Democrats, BlountTalk.com, Blount County’s Future is in your hands, 2010
"But according to Dave Bennett, assistant county mayor and finance director for Blount County, if officials in other counties and municipalities did not understand the transactions, they should not have approved them. Bennett said he keeps a close eye on interest rates and bond markets and talks to Joseph Ayres, a managing director for Morgan Keegan in Knoxville, weekly. “They are the experts I call.” If one had a full understanding, why would one constantly call “experts”? By 2005, Burry had come to the realization that the Wall Street bond market had lost its mind. It was buying up hundreds of millions of dollars in dicey loans to unqualified buyers who were, in Michael Lewis’ words, “one broken refrigerator away from default.” Burry concluded that the subprime market would collapse in 2007. “He notices for the first time that there are pools, there are mortgage bonds supported by pools of loans, and most of the loans are, what you call negative amortizing interest only loans. Which means that, you, the homeowner, and buyer, you borrow the money, and you not only don’t have to repay your principal, you don’t even have to repay the interest. And if you just don’t pay anything, they just add to your loan,” Lewis explained. Burry figured out that these mortgage-backed securities would become worthless if just a small percentage of the dicey loans went bad and he wanted to bet against the worst of them. He decided that the best way to do it would be to get Wall Street to sell him inexpensive insurance contracts on the securities that would pay off big time if they failed. The contracts were called “credit default swaps.” “He conceives that they are going to invent on Wall Street credit default swaps on subprime mortgages, essentially, insurance contracts on the bonds before they even do. And he helps, he participates in the creation of this instrument,” Lewis explained. "They insured tens of billions of dollars of subprime mortgage loans without even knowing they were doing it," Lewis said. "Goldman Sachs persuaded them to insure these piles of loans without them ever investigating what was in the pile. So, there's an additional level of incompetence. They didn't even know the mistake they were making." Over a period of just a few months in 2005, Goldman Sachs got AIG to insure $20 billion worth of subprime mortgage securities that the ratings agencies had graded AAA. But in fact, Lewis says, the pools contained some of the worst "drek" on the market. "Do you think the big banks like Goldman Sachs played AIG for a patsy?" Kroft asked. Read the NY Times article, is CL Overman the same that used to be City Manager for Alcoa? CL Overman was also the City Administrator for Morristown, before he became Morristown's version of Joe Ayers. He is now Morristown's financial advisor and Morgan Keegan representative, apparently. You know, if you didn't watch the video at the New York Times article on-line, you are really missing a big segment of the story. There IS footage of the Blount County Courthouse, right about the time they imply Morgan Keegan preyed on "unsophisticated small governments". The economy "lost" x amount of trillions of dollars in this "crisis". We've all heard that right? Some of this money was not "lost", it's part of a crime scene. One that starts at Goldman Sachs/Wall Street and extends all the way to your Treasury. Granted, some of the money was never there. Some of the mortgages that "backed" these securities were given to people whom the lenders knew couldn't pay them. In effect, it was a Ponzi scheme. Have you seen any of the Ponzi's doing perp walks? Or is Bernie Madoff the only person who had anything to do with this? Our government has forced each and every one of us replace money that was "lost". The same folks who have been operating the Ponzi scheme, still are, only now their bonuses don't come from their unsustainable pyramid - they're coming from us. Through our tax dollars, we are paying bonuses to people who stole from us. What can be done about it? Not sure. On a state level, guns seem to be the only consumer protection being offered up."
-BlountTalk.com, Credit Default Swaps - The Junk Derivatives Blount Bought, 2010
"The Nature Conservancy has donated 424-plus acres in Blount County along U.S. Highway 129 to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The conservancy exercised an option to the land from ALCOA Inc. under an agreement reached in 2004, said spokeswoman Gina Hancock. 'This transaction is part of a 10,000-acre deal that was struck ... between the conservancy, the federal government and ALCOA Inc.,' she said. 'It's been broken into six transactions over time. The latest piece went to the National Park Service as an addition to the GSMNP. It's a strip of land along U.S. 129,' park spokesman Bob Miller said. 'It will provide for a continuous body of parkland all the way to the shore of Lake Chilhowee, which is definitely preferable to us because it makes law enforcement easier.' The park now owns land on both sides of the roadway. 'There is basically no hunting in that area,' Miller said. 'If there is hunting activity going on there, we know it's poaching.' The new addition also provides a buffer to allow the Park Service to better control non-native plant species making their way into the Park.
'It provides a continuous body of land all the way from the lake into the main body of the Park,' Miller said. The non-profit organization bought the land from ALCOA in August 2008, paying $756,500. A 2004 relicensing agreement allowed ALCOA Power Generating Inc. to continue operation of Chilhowee, Calderwood, Cheoah and Santeetlah dams. In exchange, ALCOA granted The Nature Conservancy permanent conservation easements covering about 5,900 acres and long-term conservation easements on an additional 3,975 acres of land located in Blount and Monroe counties."
-Joel Davis, Maryville Daily Times, Smokies gets latest land from ALCOA deal, February 03. 2009
"In what’s being described as the largest land purchase in Blount County since the 1930s, a coalition of families is setting aside the vast majority of about 5,000 acres on and around Chilhowee Mountain to protect it from development. Deeds and documents were recorded Friday on a huge wilderness tract that covers the top of an eight-mile ridgeline known as the Three Sisters, a close-set group of peaks on Chilhowee Mountain northeast of Walland. Two of the three peaks are inside the boundaries of the protected land, said Darrell Akins, CEO of AkinsCrisp Public Strategies, which is representing the group. Purchase price for the property was about $20 million, Akins said, adding that when the federal government bought the land for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1930s, the Three Sisters area was intended to fall within the park boundaries. The land has been owned for many years by New Forestry LLC, which Akins described as a timber trust. The land has not been logged in decades, he said. The Three Sisters can be seen from vantage points along U.S. Highway 321 near Heritage High School. Blount County Mayor Jerry Cunningham said Tuesday that plans for the mountain are 'very fascinating.' 'I think everybody would be pleased that this property will be protected,' he said. The 5,000 acres stretches from the Sevier County line to Highway 321 in an irregular shape. It was purchased by Three Sisters Mountain Investment LLC, whose partners include the Haslam family, of travel center operator Pilot Corp.; Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain founder Sandy Beall; Brad Martin, former CEO of Proffitt’s; the Clayton family, of manufactured housing giant Clayton Homes; and the family of Charlie Hicks, businessman and East Tennessee landowner. The four children of U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander also have a 1 percent stake in the project, but the senator and his wife are not principals in the deal. In a statement, a spokesman for the senator said he is 'delighted with the purchase of nearly 5,000 acres in East Miller’s Cove to protect the view of the Smokies.' The Beall family’s Blackberry Farm will be responsible for managing the development portion of the project under the direction of Walt Lane. 'We believe that the prudent use for the mountains that remain in that area would be only very light-touch development, with an emphasis on land conservation,' Lane said Tuesday. 'We’re serious about that.' Cunningham said only 75 to 125 homes will be developed inside the tract and that the rest of the land will be left undisturbed. In a release, Akins quoted Bill Clabough, executive director of the Foothills Land Conservancy, as saying, 'We can’t thank these folks enough for what they’ve done through the years for preserving and protecting the natural beauty of our region.'”
-Knoxville News Sentinel, Families buying 5,000 acres of land, purchase largest in Blount County since '30s, July 18, 2007
Kill a biker get a highway named for you in TN. Pellissippi Parkway I-140 renamed for convicted hit-and-run killer in Blount County. Photo risking arrest by DealsGapDragon.com
 |
"I've seen a lot of outrageous things happen in politics since I've been working here, but this tops them all. It's the equivalent of issuing a series of O.J. Simpson autographed steak knives. And no, this isn't a joke. Here's the new rule: Kill a biker, get a highway named after you. As a tourist who has spent a lot of family vacation dollars in Sen. Clabough's district, if those signs go up, you'll never see another penny of mine in Knox or Blount counties."
-Greg Harrison, Vice President of Communications for American Motorcyclist Association, American Motorcyclist magazine, "A Monumental Mistake", June 1999
“Please read the enclosure that presents the facts by someone involved in the investigation of this tragic accident. I grew up knowing Sen. Koella for the last 30 years. The bill has been passed and signed. There is NOTHING you can do to change that, and if you choose not to come to Tennessee, we will be better off without you.”
-Senator Bill Clabough, American Motorcyclist Association, American Motorcyclist magazine, Greg Harrison Column: Contemptible, September 1999
"TDOT spokeswoman Yvette Martinez [ex WBIR TV suing Pirate News TV] said today the department's goal is to reopen the section of U.S. Highway 129 in Blount County by July 31. A rockslide prompted its closure March 14. The department said today it will let an emergency contract Monday to clear debris from the two-lane road. TDOT has qualified two contractors to bid for the project: Pacific Blasting Demolition Ltd and Phillips & Jordan, Inc."
-Knoxville News Sentinel, The Dragon to remain closed for weeks, March 25, 2010
"The Tennessee Department of Transportation today awarded Pacific Blasting Demolition Ltd. an emergency contract to begin working to stabilize, remove debris and repair damage caused by a rockslide on U.S. 129/SR-115. The slide, which occurred on March 14, 2010, completely blocked U.S. 129 near the Chilhowee Dam in Blount County, Tennessee. Pacific Blasting Demolition Ltd. submitted the low bid of $1.99 million. Crews with Pacific Blasting are beginning to mobilize equipment and personnel and will begin work on the complex slide removal and stabilization project no later than April 5, 2010. Phillips and Jordan, Inc. was the only other pre-qualified contractor and submitted a bid of $2.65 million. The rockslide project on U.S. 129/SR-115 is estimated to be completed by July 31, 2010. However, TDOT is providing an incentive of $6,500 per day for the contractor to complete work and reopen the roadway before July 31, 2010. If the project is totally complete by July 1, 2010 the contractor will receive the full incentive of $195,000. Failure to complete the project and reopen the roadway by July 31 will result in a disincentive of $6,500 per day until work is completed."
-TDOT, Emergency Contract Awarded for U.S. 129 Rockslide Repairs, 29 March 2010
"Our experience includes involvement in recovery efforts following some of the nation's largest disasters, such as the World Trade Center attack in September of 2001 and Hurricane Katrina."
-Phillips and Jordan, Disaster Recovery
"This report reviews the track record of 12 companies that have received the largest contracts for cleanup and reconstruction work in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Phillips and Jordan Inc. Phillips and Jordan and the Shaw Group each have annual revenues well in excess of $100 million. The fact that these companies have been long-time contractors does not mean that they have unblemished records in their government work. In fact, some of them have continued as contractors
despite repeated violations of federal regulations and other legal problems. For example, Phillips and Jordan and two of its top officers pleaded guilty to federal antitrust violations in connection with state highway projects. Phillips and Jordan Inc., 6621 Wilbanks Road, Knoxville, TN 37912. (865) 688-8342, revenues: $392 million. Phillips and Jordan has been a significant regional construction contractor for decades, and for much of that time has done substantial work for the federal government. P&J continued to receive contracts even after the company (then a unit of Kaneb Services Inc.) and two of its top officers (Phillips and Turner) pleaded guilty in 1981 to two counts of federal antitrust violations in connection with state
highway projects in North Carolina. The charges concerned a conspiracy to submit non-competitive bids. Phillips and Turner were sentenced to 60 days in a federal minimum-security prison, and the company was fined $250,000. (These events became a matter of controversy in North Carolina in 2000, when then Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Easley used a helicopter owned by P&J.) In 1996 P&J brought a civil rights case in federal court against the Secretary of the Florida Department
of Transportation, challenging the validity of a set-aside program for minority contractors for highway
maintenance work. A federal judge agreed with the company that the program violated the equal
protection principle of the 14th Amendment. Phillips & Jordan v. Watts, Northern District of Florida, Tallahassee Division, 13F.Supp. 2nd 1308; 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17150. In 2001 and 2002 P&J played a key role in the clean-up of Ground Zero in New York City after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. This was based on a previous contract the company had with
the Corps for disaster recovery work. In 2003 P&J was asked by the FBI to assist in searching a pond
in Maryland that was thought to contain evidence relating to the anthrax by-mail attacks in 2001.
In 2002 the North Carolina Division of Air Quality assessed a record penalty of $78,932 against P&J
for violations of open-burning regulations at a land-clearing site near Garner."
-Philip Mattera, Good Jobs First and Interfaith Worker Justice, Profiles of 12 companies that have received large contracts for cleanup and reconstruction work related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, March 2006
"Following the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attack, Phillips and Jordan, Inc. (P&J) was called to New York by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. P&J was tasked by the Corps as their Advanced Contracting Initiative (ACI) Disaster Debris Management Contractor to serve in a strategic planning and monitoring role. P&J was also tasked with managing the Forensic Recovery/Debris Disposal operation at the Staten Island Landfill where debris from the World Trade Center site was taken. At 11:00 the next morning, September 12th, P&J received a phone call from the Baltimore District office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They told us that our ACI contract might be activated and wanted to know how quickly we could respond with 100-200 dump trucks and 200 torch crews. We called them back a couple of hours later and told them everything was in readiness. ven though it was a terrible site, the P&J team didn’t feel the effort would be insurmountable. They estimated that Ground Zero looked to have about a million cubic yards of debris; we had handled four times that much following Hurricane Andrew. The City didn’t have to look very far for a place to handle the tons of debris that were being removed from Ground Zero. To meet a campaign promise, Mayor Guiliani had recently shut down the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island. Newly capped with a layer of soil, the 2,200 acre landfill was a perfect choice. Phillips and Jordan officially took over management of the Staten Island Landfill Operation on October 2nd. 1,462,000 tons of debris had been received and processed. 209 victims had been positively identified."
-Phillips and Jordan, Disaster Recovery Background
"Fresh Kills is the aptly named landfill on Staten Island, resting ground for over
fifty years to New York City’s highly orchestrated waste disposal. on September 13, 2001, the Mayor of New
York, the NYPD and the FBI announced that it would begin hauling all debris from
the freshly destroyed World Trade Center to Fresh Kills. One of the four grass-
covered trash mounds would now become the world’s largest crime lab. The following is an excerpt from the court testimony of a contracted worker
hired by Taylor Recycling Facility to sift through the rubble of the World Trade
Center: 'In the early months, we identified approximately two thousand bones per day.
I believe we found fewer body parts in the last months because we were
sifting through the debris from the bottom floors of the World Trade Center,
and the people who had been on those floors either escaped or their entire
bodies were crushed, leaving no bones. The firm Phillips and Jordan had been hired to oversee the work at Fresh
Kills. I was constantly told by their supervisors to ‘move the job,’ to run the
conveyor belts faster, and to ‘keep the tonnage up,’ referring to the tons sifted
per hour. One official did not let us drop below a certain quota of tons per
hour; another did nothing but drive around the site all day, checking our progress. Meanwhile, NYPD officers working along the conveyor belts kept telling me
to slow the belts so they could properly sift through the debris.'"
-Dumbo Art Center, Fresh Kills, 2009
"Early Sunday mornings in Vancouver, British Columbia, are normally quiet and peaceful. However, the morning of November 6, 1994 was going to be different. The Pacific Palisades Hotel was a twenty-year old, reinforced concrete building. This Hotel was about to come down a heck of a lot quicker than it had been built. The Pacific Palisades Hotel took one year to design, one year and millions of dollars to build and would take 10 seconds to bring down. Although less than 200 lbs. of dynamite and detonating ("det") cord will be required for the Pacific Palisades building, those charges have to be placed with great precision to be effective. The basic idea is to weaken the columns on one side of the building's lower floors, starting at the bottom and working upward over a period of about ten seconds. Each charge will cut through the concrete of a column and the weight of the structure above will start the collapse. Part of the art of implosion demolition involves slowing the event down in many small, calculated blasts instead of one huge explosion. That is accomplished with time-delay blasting caps that will initiate the dynamite and det cord over a period of several seconds. Explosives come in all sorts of forms--gels, granules, powders, cord, liquids, plastics (in blocks and sheets), and old reliable, stick dynamite. All have properties designed for specific conditions. Huge quantities are used every year, often in urban areas and often without anybody even noticing the detonations."
-Pacific Blasting and Demolition Ltd, Behind the scenes of the Palisades implosion
"Papers filed yesterday by family members of 9/11 victims who want the city to separate tons of debris on Staten Island to search for human remains include a letter in which the city medical examiner says he is almost certain some remains are present in the landfill, and an affidavit from a recycling supervisor who recalls watching debris being carted away to pave roads and fill potholes. The supervisor, Eric Beck, said some finely sifted debris, which could have contained the cremated remains of human victims of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, were carted away to be used for paving and filling while he worked for a private contractor at the Fresh Kills landfill from October 2001 through July 2002, according to the court papers. Mr. Beck, a senior supervisor for Taylor Recycling Facility, which used sophisticated machinery to sift debris, made the assertion in a sworn statement that is part of a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan by family members of 9/11 victims. In other affidavits filed yesterday, former workers in the efforts to recover human remains estimated that about 223,000 tons of debris were not properly sifted, and that that debris could still be found and searched for human remains today. Diane Horning, a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, said yesterday that she was shocked when she learned of Mr. Beck’s assertion from Norman Siegel, one of the lawyers for the families, who filed the new court papers yesterday.
'It’s quite shocking how they have been able to rely on our gullibility to do things that were atrocities,' said Ms. Horning, whose son was killed at the trade center. 'They lied to us and they treated our loved ones as road fill and garbage.' The observation from Mr. Beck comes in one paragraph of his affidavit, in which he states: 'The W.T.C. debris that was sifted by our machines down to ¼-inch was known as fines. I observed the New York City Department of Sanitation taking these fines from the conveyor belts of our machines, loading it onto tractors, and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts.'"
-New York Times, Landfill Has 9/11 Remains, Medical Examiner Wrote, March 24, 2007
"Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who rose to national prominence, was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials. Under the terms of a plea agreement, the prosecution and the defense recommended that Judge Stephen C. Robinson sentence Mr. Kerik to 27 to 33 months in prison. But the judge departed from the sentencing recommendations, giving Mr. Kerik a longer sentence because he said he had betrayed the public’s trust. 'I think it’s fair to say that with great power comes great responsibility and great consequences,' Judge Robinson said. 'I think the damage caused by Mr. Kerik is in some ways immeasurable.' He was a close ally of former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whom he served as a bodyguard and driver. Mr. Giuliani then tapped him for a senior position in the Correction Department, and he went on to become the agency’s commissioner. As testament to his clout, Mr. Kerik had a jail named after him in downtown Manhattan. Mr. Kerik later served as police commissioner, and his performance after the 9/11 attacks turned him into a national figure, earning him the respect of President George W. Bush, who nominated him to lead the Department of Homeland Security. That bid quickly collapsed in scandal, marking the beginning of the end of Mr. Kerik’s career. The case against Mr. Kerik centered on charges that a New Jersey construction company, the Interstate Industrial Corporation, which was suspected of ties to organized crime, had paid for renovations at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Prosecutors said company officials had hoped Mr. Kerik would help them obtain a city license. In June 2006, Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty in State Supreme Court in the Bronx to two misdemeanors tied to the renovation of his apartment. He paid $221,000 in fines and penalties but avoided any jail time. In the more recent federal case, Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty to two counts of tax fraud, one count of making a false statement on a loan application and five counts of making false statements to the federal government while being vetted for senior posts. Judge Robinson ordered him to pay restitution of $187,931 to the Internal Revenue Service."
-Sam Dolnick, New York Times, Kerik Is Sentenced in Corruption Case, February 18, 2010
"Mayor Giuliani — a former federal prosecutor who won notice for pursuing the Mafia — had relatives linked to organized crime, including a mobbed-up cousin who was gunned down by FBI agents in 1977, a new book says. Lewis D'Avanzo, a son of the mayor's uncle and a guest at Giuliani's first wedding in 1968, was a 'ruthless and widely feared mob associate' who headed a massive stolen car ring, according to FBI documents and interviews detailed in 'Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph Giuliani,' by Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett. Due in stores next week, the book sketches a largely unflattering portrait of the clan, depicting his father, Harold, as a hothead and the "muscle" behind a brother-in-law's loansharking operation, run out of a Brooklyn bar. Along with cracking heads, it says the mayor's father served time in state prison for a stickup, rarely held an on-the-books job and once was a gunman in a mob shootout in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Barrett eventually looked in the 1934 state prison archives in Albany and discovered a single sheet — a Sing Sing Prison receiving blotter — that listed Harold Giuliani at the top of the page. On the next line, Barrett found the key to the story: Harold Giuliani's alias, Joseph Starrett. Barrett then found all the New York court records under the name Starrett. Initial excerpts of the book appeared in Talk magazine and in this week's Voice; another excerpt was released yesterday. According to the book, Giuliani's cousin Lewis D'Avanzo was known as "Steve the Blond" and listed as armed and dangerous in FBI bulletins. His criminal record included a 10-year federal sentence for the armed hijacking of a truck loaded with $240,000 worth of mercury. The book alleges that he was suspected of taking part in several murders. D'Avanzo was gunned down by the FBI in October 1977, when he tried to run down an agent after being stopped on a warrant that accused him and two associates of transporting 100 stolen luxury cars. Quoting an unnamed friend of D'Avanzo, the book describes a 1962 shootout pitting a local mobster against the mayor's father and Leo D'Avanzo, Lewis D'Avanzo's father. The book says Leo was later sanctioned by mob bosses for shooting at a Mafia member. The book says Leo D'Avanzo, who was known in family circles as a black sheep, ran loansharking and gambling operations out of a Brooklyn bar where Giuliani's father worked as a bartender. In his role as debt collector, his father broke legs, smashed kneecaps, crunched noses, the book says."
-Michael R. Blood, New York Daily News, Rudy's Kin Tied to Mob, July 6, 2000
"Who could have placed explosives in the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings? As a society we are faced with this question due to the growing amount of evidence that explosives were used to bring down all three buildings, and due to the enormous implications of that possibility. The evidence includes the unprecedented nature of what happened that day, the eyewitness testimonies of people present at the site, and the physical evidence demonstrated by photographs and videos. Evidence for explosives is also given through proof by contradiction in that seven years of ever-changing government reports could not provide a non-explosive story for destruction of the WTC buildings. More recently, peer-reviewed scientific papers show that energetic materials were present at the WTC, as indicated by the environmental data and the dust from Ground Zero. The forensic investigation of explosions typically aims to determine who had the means, opportunity and motive to accomplish the explosive event. 9 When that approach is taken with the WTC, we can see that those who had the greatest means and opportunity also had the greatest motive. For example, we’ve seen that certain tenant companies that occupied the WTC towers not only had the opportunity, but they also had the means in terms of access and expertise, to place explosives in the buildings. We also know that the security companies that were responsible for planning and implementing the security plan for the towers, after the 1993 bombing, appeared to have benefited from the attacks. In addition to the actual placement of explosives, those involved would need to cleanup any evidence of explosives remaining at the site. In this final essay of a multi-part series, it will be seen that certain people had the means, opportunity and motive to destroy such evidence at Ground Zero, and that something was being hidden after the buildings fell. These facts will be reviewed in light of the knowledge that the debris was considered highly sensitive and nearly all the steel evidence was quickly destroyed. Additionally, although security at the site was intense, safety management was lax or nonexistent and human concerns took a back seat to the goal of rapidly disposing of the evidence. Other curious facts include that known criminal entities were hired to accomplish the debris removal, and that evidence was stolen from Fresh Kills landfill with the approval and coordination of FBI agents. The US House Committee on Science reported, in March 2002: 'In the month that lapsed between the terrorist attacks and the deployment of the [FEMA] BPAT team, a significant amount of steel debris–including most of the steel from the upper floors–was removed from the rubble pile, cut into smaller sections, and either melted at the recycling plant or shipped out of the U.S. Some of the critical pieces of steel–including the suspension trusses from the top of the towers and the internal support columns–were gone before the first BPAT team member ever reached the site.' What other evidence might have been found and eliminated? Explosive initiators, like those sold by 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman’s company, Special Devices Inc., would have been an important find. 'But in Practical Bomb Scene Investigation, author James T. Thurman explains that — 'Regardless of how efficient the initiator is, all the explosives are never entirely used or destroyed.' Therefore, one might expect to find the remnants of whatever explosive materials were used to bring the buildings down. This might have included components of a thermite demolition device patented in 1996 by Komatsu, a company for which Marsh & McLennan executive (and Kerik’s boss in Iraq) L. Paul Bremer was a board member. One such experienced organization was Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). As mentioned in an earlier essay, SAIC was 'the DOD and Homeland Security contractor that supplied the largest contingent of non-governmental investigators to the NIST WTC investigation. SAIC has extensive links to nanothermites, developing and judging nanothermite research proposals for the military and other military contractors, and developing and formulating nano-thermites directly.' During the five-month cleanup effort, there were unprecedented measures taken to control access to the site. The site was restricted, and photographs were banned, by order of Rudy Giuliani. Despite the high security, a number of people found their way onto the site, and some of them just happened to find themselves in charge of the cleanup operations. An example of this was David H. Griffin, a demolition contractor from North Carolina [D.H Griffin Wrecking 'Explosive and Structural Demolition Services for Commercial, Industrial and Governmental Projects']. Hearing about the attacks, Griffin set off immediately for Manhattan. Apparently, on Friday the 14th he walked directly into the Ground Zero site with little trouble. 'Griffin quickly became known as "Carolina" to then-Mayor Rudolph Guliani, who let Griffin have complete control of the clean-up of the site despite the fact that Griffin had no ties to New York and had never worked there.' But it’s interesting to note that the D.H. Griffin company had worked closely with the US DOE and the Department of Defense, as early as 1994, according to Mr. Griffin. The five construction companies hired other sub-contractors to complete most of the actual debris removal. Most of the sub-contractors hired were suspected of being associated with organized crime. Some sub-contractors were reportedly linked to the Colombo crime family, including Civetta Cousins, and Yonkers Contracting. Others were associated with the Luchese crime family. An interesting sidebar to this story is that, in October 1990, Louis DiBono, an associate of the Gambino crime family, was murdered in the basement levels of the WTC. DiBono claimed to have a contract worth millions of dollars to re-fireproof the WTC buildings. Sammy “The Bull” Gravano was charged with the murder but was apparently acting on the orders of John Gotti, the Gambino boss at the time. DiBono’s body was found three days after he was murdered, in the parking garage of the WTC near where a bomb-laden van would be set-off three years later. After 9/11, a contractor with one of the biggest presences at Ground Zero was Seasons Contracting Corp., owned by Salvatore Carucci, a reputed Luchese associate. AMEC also hired Big Apple Wrecking, owned by Harold Greenberg, a reputed mob associate whose firm was barred from government work because of his convictions in bid-rigging and bribery conspiracies. One of the first firms on the scene was Mazzocchi Wrecking, brought in by the New York City Housing Preservation Department, but then hired by AMEC. A few months after 9/11, the N.J. Division of Gaming Enforcement 'charged that three members of the DeCavalcante crime family worked for Mazzocchi.' 78 Other AMEC contractors that were linked to the mob were Peter Scalamandre & Sons, and Breeze National, both linked to the Luchese crime family. AMEC’s lead person on the ground was Vice President Leo DiRubbo, a reputed associate of the Luchese crime family. Rudy Giuliani also had connections to the organized crime, other than just Bernard Kerik. Rudy’s father, Harold Giuliani (alias Joseph Starrett), was a convicted hold-up man who served time in Sing Sing prison, and was later employed as an enforcer for a Mafia loan shark operation. Rudy’s uncle (his mother’s brother), Leo D’Avanzo, ran a loan-sharking and gambling operation with Jimmy Dano, “who was a made man. Additionally, Rudy’s cousin Lewis D’Avanzo 'was a stone cold gangster who was shot to death in 1977 by FBI agents when he tried to run them down with his car.' Another company that was 'all over ground zero' was Laquila Construction, run by mob boss Dino Tomassetti. Primary contractor Tully Construction retained Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI), a company that had been involved in the demolition of the bombed Murrah Building in Oklahoma in 1995. CDI was led by Mark Loizeaux, who later became a major defender of the government’s story about 9/11. Like some other experts with large government contracts, Loizeaux was at first uncertain about what had happened at the WTC, then changed his story, apparently in order to harmonize with the official story. A truly surprising fact is that, at the time of the attacks on 9/11, AMEC had just completed a $258 million refurbishment of Wedge 1 of the Pentagon, which is exactly where AA Flight 77 impacted that building. The report on debris theft concluded that — 'many FBI agents took rubble as souvenirs from Fresh Kills.' An example given was that one Oklahoma City ERT member took 80 pounds of various debris materials, including things like an 'electrical outlet.' More commonly, building pieces were taken, including “red granite building façade.” The claim that these were merely souvenirs seemed unlikely considering the volume of materials stolen, and considering that WTC building 7 was the focus of much of the theft. In fact, pieces of the building 'were stacked in a designated location of the Building 7 inspection area' in order for Secret Service agents to retrieve.' During the cleanup of Ground Zero there were many indications that the public was being deceived. These included the discovery of foreknowledge about the destruction that originated with Rudy Giuliani, his OEM staff, and perhaps the US Secret Service. Additionally, the steel was destroyed in an unprecedented manner and the black boxes were officially reported as not being found when it was clear that they had been. The restrictions on FEMA investigators and on photographers, and the extensive site security are all indications that something was being hidden. Not the least of the indications of deception was the fact that the health of the people working at the site was not considered a major concern, but expedited removal of the debris was of paramount importance. Therefore we have additional reasons to suspect that explosive materials were being hidden or destroyed during the cleanup. Those who were in control of Ground Zero did have the means and opportunity to dispose of any evidence of explosives. The opportunity came in the form of access to the highly secure site, as well as the authority to hire suspected crime syndicate companies to perform the actual cleanup. Theft of evidence by FBI agents at Fresh Kills landfill provides yet more suspicion that remnants of explosive devices were being removed. In addition to removal of evidence-containing debris, evidence could have been eliminated by neutralization of explosives within the pile, through the use of the robotic equipment operated at the site by people like John Blitch of SAIC."
-Kevin Ryan, Site Manager for Environmental Health Laboratories at Underwriters Laboratories, Demolition Access to the WTC Towers: Part Four: – Cleanup; Ryan was fired by UL for publicly questioning the report drafted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on their World Trade Center investigation. Research reports by Kevin Ryan
"I'd make a great terrorist."
-Mark Loizeaux, owner of Controlled Demolition Inc, paid a $3-billion contract to "demolish" the World Trade Center "after" 9/11, bomber of 7,000 government buildings, graduate of the College of Civil Engineering at University of Tennessee Knoxville, BBC's The Third Tower
"The night it all came down I could not stop shivering. It changed the way I viewed a lot of things. For the first time, sitting on Council [with mayor Victor Ashe], I really felt I was in the presence of evil. I had disagreed with people on many occasions and felt strongly about many things, but I never ever had felt something I could describe as the presence of evil. Until that night. There was just darkness. Hopelessness. But never, until Danny's death and the appointment of someone other than his wife, and knowing the orchestration that took place to make it happen, did I realize that I could never again go back to that body without carrying with me my belief that they were capable of the worst possible actions."
—Knoxville city councilmember Carlene Malone, daughter of an NYPD homicide detective, regarding recall ("voter impeachment") in 2001 of mayor Victor Ashe, Metro Pulse, "Malone Alone", December 13, 2001
"It looks like a damn Habitrail with Rocky Top playing in the background. The people who designed it must be frigging brain dead - turning downtown into a theme park mall for Stepford Childs. Call in Disney and hoist the Mouse's Ears. The taxpayers will be paying for this fiasco for generations to come. It will never recover. Knoxville must be the most corrupt city on earth. People worry about the national government, but it's the local government people need to fear. Thanks to the debt from the mayor's downtown renovation schemes, this town will be bankrupt for generations to come. It will never recover."
—City Councilmember Carlene Malone to John Lee of Pirate News TV and DealsGapDragon.com, discussing mayor Victor Ashe's billion-dollar welfare for Scripps-Howard's Universe Knoxville and arson of her 2 cars during Wrecker Commission hearings against Knoxville's Mafia-connected police-run towing and garbage cartels, and before suing Mayor Ashe and his Wrecker-Inspected Beer Board for holding secret meetings in violation of the TN Open Records Act. Scripps lost its billion-dollar welfare check, but its Knoxville News Sentinel got a $20-million TIF grant from the taxslaves of Knoxville, and the newspaper with WBIR TV filed a motion for sanctions and arrest of John Lee for seeking access to that contract in Knox County court. As a result of John Lee's class actions and felony charges filed against police employees and contractors of City of Knoxville Municipal Corporation and its police-run cartheft rackets, an audit by city council proved 100% fraud on all towing contracts, and all 5 towing companies were fired and banned for 5 years.
"This morning, the KnoxViews blog reported that an angry and disruptive Commissioner Greg 'Lumpy' Lambert showed up at the Monday night meeting of the Joint City/County Task Force on Ridge, Slope and Hillside Development and Protection and 'basically took over the meeting.' Lambert became so enraged that at one point he let fly this little gem: 'Pretty soon somebody is gonna bring a gun to the City County Building and shoot all of us and we'll deserve it!' Despite all of this, the Knoxville News Sentinel story about the meeting does not even mention that he was there."
-Charles Maldonado, Metro Pulse, Lumpy Unleashes: County Commissioner Lambert predicts shootings at Ridgetop Task Force meeting, July 14, 2009
