Will a DOJ Indictment of GOP Daddy Whorebucks Sheldon Adelson be The October Surprise?

In a recent development in the ongoing lawsuit against Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp,  for the wrongful discharge of Steven Jacobs, onetime President of Adelson's Macau casinos, it was revealed that Adelson's attorneys may have lied repeatedly to various authorities in China-Macau and in the United States.  The lies, which were probably criminal acts, covered up even more serious criminal violations in both countries. Adelson's attorneys presently are trying to put their best face forward lie their asses off to Nevada District Judge Elizabeth Gonzales:

On June 28, Judge Gonzalez convened a hearing on the matter. 

“Mr. Peek, I’ve got a question,” she began, addressing the Holland & Hart lawyer who had read Jacobs’ emails on Kostrinsky’s laptop. 

“Why didn’t somebody tell me 11 months ago or so that the Macau Data Privacy Protection Act wasn’t going to be an issue because somehow the document had already gotten to the U.S. and geez, it was by mistake.” 

Brad Brian, a lawyer for Las Vegas Sands’ Macau subsidiary Sands China Ltd., told the judge that the transfer of Jacobs’ files was “in error, it shouldn’t have happened.” It was only in late May, after months of talks with Las Vegas Sands lawyers, that Macau agreed the documents at issue, which were already in the United States, could be turned over to the Nevada court, Brian said. 

Gonzalez reminded the lawyers that she had been told for months that it was not possible to negotiate directly with Macau authorities on their privacy concerns. “Nobody thought to say, ‘Gosh, Judge, we’re already talking to them because we screwed up and took this information we weren’t supposed to and we’re trying to see what we’re supposed to do now?’” 

“In hindsight, if you could roll the clock back, there’s no doubt that it would have been better to advise the court of that,” said Brian, whose firm Munger, Tolles & Olson was brought into the case earlier this year and was not involved in the initial decisions on the Macau documents. 

In a court filing, Las Vegas Sands lawyers detailed other instances in which the company transferred data from Macau to the United States without review by local authorities. These included five other company employees whose records might be needed for the federal investigation and data that was used by another outside law firm working for the company. 

Two months after Jacobs’ attorneys delivered selected documents copied from his laptop to federal investigators, he reported a burglary at his Florida home. 

According to a police report, Jacobs told investigators that someone had stolen a computer hard drive from its hiding place inside a coffee maker. Jacobs said other files were missing from a plastic crate near the door of his apartment. 

Jacobs told the police nothing else was taken. 

The coffee maker was sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for DNA testing. 

The case remains unsolved.

That the Federal government has an intense interest in Adelson's Macau activities was revealed in a report compiled by the University of California and PBS's Frontline program, back on July 16th:

Federal investigators are looking at whether the payments violate the statute because of Alves’ government and political roles in Macau, people familiar with the inquiry said. Investigators were also said to be separately examining whether the company made any other payments to officials. An email by Alves to a senior company official, disclosed by The Wall Street Journal, quotes him as saying “someone high ranking in Beijing” had offered to resolve two vexing issues — a lawsuit by a Taiwanese businessman and Las Vegas Sands’ request for permission to sell luxury apartments in Macau. Another email from Alves said the problems could be solved for a payment of $300 million. There is no evidence the offer was accepted. Both issues remain unresolved. 

According to the documents, Alves met with local politicians and officials on behalf of Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands, to discuss several issues that complicated the company’s efforts to raise cash in 2008 and 2009. 

Soon after Alves said he would apply what he termed “pressure” on local planning officials, the company prevailed on a key request, gaining permission to sell off billions of dollars of its real estate holdings in Macau. 

Las Vegas Sands denies any wrongdoing. But it has told investors that it is under criminal investigation for possible violations of the U.S. anti-bribery law. Adelson declined to respond to detailed questions, including whether he was aware of the concerns about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act when he directed payment of the bill from Alves’ law firm. 

The documents depict Adelson as a hands-on manager, overseeing details of the company’s foray into Macau, which is now the world’s gambling capital.

Adelson was put on prominent display in the US media this past week, as he was depicted as a top organizer of Mitt Romney's appearances in Israel, particularly at the Monday morning fundraiser at Jerusalem's King David Hotel.  As I wrote about that event a couple of days before it occurred:

Nobody in Jerusalem is going to be stoning and booing Romney on his way to or from the King David. While he’s there, he will probably shake hands or even hug a billionaire under investigation for allegedly bribing Chinese officials in Macau by both the State of Nevada and the U.S. Justice Department, and a smarmy thug who was part of an espionage ring that stole nuclear devices and other nuclear bomb materials from the United States late in the last century.

and:

Obama’s campaign will not counter Romney’s secret King David fundraiser with a press release or campaign ad that messages “Romney Follows London Gaffs with Fundraiser at Hotel Zionists Bombed to Kill Brits and Meets with Macau Crime Boss and Former Spy Against the USA.”   

None of that will be brought up.

It is not allowed.

Sure enough, none of the MSM stories about Romney at the King David alluded to the 1946 bombing, to the ongoing investigation(s) of Adelson for serious crimes, or to Netanyahu's past as a member of an espionage ring that stole U.S. nuclear secrets and materials.

But.....

What would be the result of the indictment and arrest of the GOP's Daddy Whorebucks in September or October?  If the Justice Department presented the case carefully and honestly, it might actually influence not only the presidential election, but possibly several close House and a few close Senate races.

What do you think?

Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald on the Last Episode of the Alyona Show on RT TV

Alyona Minkovsky is moving on to the new HuffPo niche, HuffPostLive on August 13th, so this is part of the last episode of her show.

 I've written more about Alyona Minkovsky than any other Alaska blogger.

 I've written more about Glenn Greenwald than any other Alaska blogger.

 The same with Jane Hamsher, who is a dear friend, for whom I've written hundreds of articles at the blog she started in 2005, firedoglake. Hate to see the Alyona Show go, and would have preferred to see her go to Current TV instead of HuffPo. Maybe Current TV has other plans in the works.

Obama Sets Olympic and World Records - In Whistleblocking

Romney's Sunday Speech in Jerusalem

Massive Anti-Nuclear Demonstration Today Forges Ring Around Japanese Parliament

Romney Not Done Insulting the British - Next Up: King David Hotel Fundraiser - Updated

[Update - Sunday 10:39 am PDT:  Romney has again changed his mind.  The press will be allowed into the King David Hotel fundraiser:

Mitt Romney's campaign has reversed a decision to not allow the media into a fundraiser here Monday morning, bowing to reporters' demand that they be allowed to record the Republican's address to some of his top donors.]

Speculation over why GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has excluded reporters from his Jerusalem King David Hotel fundraiser is perhaps beside the point.  Nobody in the American press is going to center a story around the event upon the fact that this hotel was the scene of an awful act of terrorism, perpetrated upon the British in July, 1946:

On the morning of the 22nd of July 1946 a party of between 15 and 20 Jews, dressed as an Arabs entered the King David Hotel. The hotel housed the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine and Transjordan. The terrorists were able to enter the building without arousing too much attention because part of the building was still being used as a hotel and other people frequented it. The Jews pretended to be an Arab working party. Having unloading from their lorry several milk churns filled with 225 kilogram's of explosive, they placed them in the basement of the wing of the hotel occupied by the Secretariat. 

A British officer standing nearby, one Major Mackintosh, became suspicious of this group of Arabs and began to ask questions, but was suddenly gunned down by a member of the Jewish gang and subsequently died. A policeman stationed at the tradesman's entrance suffered a similar fate when he challenged the Jewish terrorists. Both victims were unarmed. A gun battle soon began between the terrorist and guards during which time the Jews ignited the fuse and bolted from the building as the alarm was given. As they ran several were shot and wounded by guards, but most managed to make good their escape. There was no time to evacuate the building and the charge exploded with devastating effect. Many were killed instantly as the whole wing of the building collapsed about them, others were trapped and many more injured. 

Rescue work started straight way as soldiers and police began to pull away the rubble in the hope of finding survivors. Members of the Royal Engineers were hurried to the scene with heavy lifting equipment, but they had difficulty reaching the King David Hotel because of Jewish road blocks. The Royal Engineers were stoned and booed as they tried to make their way to the scene of the bombing.

Nobody in Jerusalem is going to be stoning and booing Romney on his way to or from the King David. While he's there, he will probably shake hands or even hug a billionaire under investigation for allegedly bribing Chinese officials in Macau by both the State of Nevada and the U.S. Justice Department, and a smarmy thug who was part of an espionage ring that stole nuclear devices and other nuclear bomb materials from the United States late in the last century. 

Although Romney relented, reporters were pissed about Romney's campaign breaking a supposed promise to not exclude them from this event.  But they won't be allowed by their editors to write about how corrupt Sheldon Adelson and Benjamin Netanyahu are, or how dangerous Romney's conduct in this case actually is.  Case in point:

Romney’s campaign announced Saturday that it would block the news media from covering the event, which will be held at the King David Hotel. The campaign’s decision to close the fundraiser to the press violates the ground rules it negotiated with news organizations in April, when Romney wrapped up the Republican nomination and began opening some of his finance events to the news media. 

Under the agreement, a pool of wire, print and television reporters can cover every Romney fundraiser held in public venues, including hotels and country clubs. The campaign does not allow media coverage of fundraisers held in private residences. 

Campaign spokesman Rick Gorka declined to explain the campaign’s decision to violate protocol with the Jerusalem event. Pressed repeatedly by reporters to offer an explanation, Gorka said only that the fundraiser was “closed press.” 

“That’s all I’ve got for you — it’s closed press,” Gorka said.

Obama's campaign will not counter Romney's secret King David fundraiser with a press release or campaign ad that messages "Romney Follows London Gaffs with Fundraiser at Hotel Zionists Bombed to Kill Brits and Meets with Macau Crime Boss and Former Spy Against the USA."  None of that will be brought up.

It is not allowed.

Juan Cole lists ten reasons why Romney's Israel visit is "distasteful."  He brings up the inappropriate venue of the King David, especially after Romney's London visit.

I find it even more distasteful that our media refuses to give this campaign visit context.

Some Food for Thought Re OWS and the Banksters

Thoughts on Shell Oil's Arctic Oil Spill Containment Barge, the Arctic Challenger

Above is a drawing I made thirty years ago today.

It was drawn in Chatham Strait in Southeast Alaska, as the Crowley Maritime tugboat Sea Giant towed the Arctic Challenger from Elliot Bay in Seattle to Prudhoe Bay.  At the time, I was working as a deck hand on the Sea Giant.  Below is a drawing I made then of the Sea Giant.

The Arctic Challenger was built in 1977, to perform as an icebreaking barge during the Sealift operations that saw the construction of the Prudhoe Bay oil production facilities and infrastructure.  Crowley Maritime's history page notes:

In the late 1970s Crowley added to its fleet the Arctic Challenger, a 310-by-105-foot icebreaker barge

The Arctic Challenger could haul freight, but its main purpose was to plow through the ice between Wainwright and Prudhoe Bay, should ice conditions warrant that.

Near the bow there was a tall tower from which the "Ice Captain" was supposed to be able to spot leads in the ice, along with the help of spotter aircraft.  In the stern there were two notches.  They were designed to fit the bows of two 7,000 HP-class Crowley tugs.

Although the Arctic Challenger was not needed as an icebreaker in 1982, it had been tried in that role earlier, and was found to be poorly designed.  It didn't draw a lot of water - 4.1 feet empty - so, after having been broken by the bows,  ice would creep along underneath the hull and ultimately foul the props and rudders of the propelling tugs.  Not good when you're 3,000 miles from Seattle.

Crew members of towing tugs had been injured over the five years since the barge's completion, and it was not considered to be a "good luck" barge in fleet scuttlebutt. It never really found a niche after the Sealifts were over.  It languished, being shuttled from Seattle to the Gulf of Mexico to Coos Bay, Oregon, where it stayed for a long time.

A 2008 blog entry by an Oregon blogger erroneously stated that the Arctic Challenger was "being scrapped out."  I think the boat then being scrapped was an old Bering Sea trawler of the same name, but the blog entry gave a good picture of the barge:

KTOO radio recently published a photo that may be confusing or inaccurate.  It shows a vessel which is not the Arctic Challenger overshadowing a barge which may be the Arctic Challenger under reconstruction in Bellingham, Washington:

The Arctic Challenger is what Shell Oil claims will be their Arctic oil spill response unit.  They are not joking.  

Here is an artist's conception of what it might look like if and when they finish revamping this loser dockside queen:

Essentially, what you see here is a storage shed with really thick walls at the waterline.  It has never been powered, and none of the new articles about construction delays mention it as being anything more than a barge.  So, as an oil spill response vehicle, it is useless unless configured with its tugboat power.  

Unless the problems associated with the hull shape have been addressed, what we will probably see when Shell Oil inevitably spills oil in the Chukchi or Beaufort Seas will be a crew urged on by their bosses to go faster, cramming ice under the barge and into the power sources of the tug, fouling and bending the running gear.  

Unless the problems associated with the hull shape have been addressed, the vessel should not be certified by the Coast Guard for Shell's contemplated use.

I don't think any of the reporters who have covered the Arctic Challenger have looked very closely at the hulk's history, or interviewed anyone who has ever worked the rig in any of its previous incarnations.

The Garden is FINALLY Blooming

It was a hard June and early July for our vegetable garden.  The greenhouse did better.  But summer has finally warmed enough and given it adequate sun.  It is still far behind last year, but the crops that generally do well in Alaska are now coming into fullness.

Above - basil in the greenhouse.

Below -Fava beans:

Ripening fennel.  It is getting to be four feet tall:

Spearmint:

Broccoli:

Flowering dill:

Lettuce - the lettuce crop has been huge - giving a lot away:

Turnagain Arm Bore Tide

This was taken Sunday evening, on our way down from Wasilla to Kenai.  It was at a turnout between Indian Valley and Bird Creek.

The rest of the week was taken up with fishing - we did quite well, processing about 300 pounds of fish, writing music, gardening and teaching at Eagle River College.

Back to Fishing on the Kenai River

Kelly catching some z's while we're waiting for the fishing to improve

Kelly Walters, my son Alex and I dipnetted on the Kenai River last Wednesday.  It was slow, except for a 40-minute period in the mid-afternoon.  We're headed back down to catch some more.

Re-post from 3 & 1/2 Years Ago: Two Rivers - The Kenai and the Yukon

[When I wrote this article I was wondering "If the shit hits the fan on the Kenai, something might finally be done on the trawler bycatch issue?"  


The shit HAS hit the fan on the Kenai.  I was there to watch part of it unfold Wednesday:  


The gillnetters had been outside the river for days, with an emergency opener for them thrown in, under pressure from the Parnell administration.  Inside the river, thousands of Alaskans who come to the river's confluence with destiny were there, with their contraptions.


The contraptions vary from hoop-on-a-stick flim-flams bought Costco or Three Bears to fine dipnet poles guaranteed by their makers.  


People waded out in wetsuits, with fins, to hang over the edge of the offshore shelf.  If they caught a fish, they backpedalled, dragging their fish and net behind.  


On the river itself, hundreds of small boats, skiffs and rafts drifted up and down the river with the ebb and flow.  There were a lot of boats.


We caught a few.  It was fun and challenging.


Although the Kenai River is under intense pressure to produce hundreds of thousands of salmon for commercial, subsistence, personal uses and sports fishers, the reasons for such a low Chinook return this year are not known.  I suspect that offshore trawl bycatch wastage is the major culprit, that cannot be proven.  As long as non-White, mostly Alaska Native fishers were hurt by low Chinook returns, GOP governors Palin and Parnell didn't fret that much.  But now that mostly White fishers on the Kernai and Copper and a few other rivers can't catch Kings, something may finally be done.


We will see.]

Two Rivers - The Kenai and the Yukon

Alaska's Kenai River is 82 miles long. The river's volume output averages about 6,000 cubic feet per second. The combination of location, salmon abundance and natural beauty combine to make the Kenai River Alaska's most popular sports fishing destination.

The river is so important that the salmon fisheries of both lower Cook Inlet, of which the Kenai is a part, and upper Cook Inlet, are managed primarily in relation to how Kenai River sustainability and use can best be accommodated.

This Kenai River-centric fishery management history is one of the main reasons the salmon fisheries of upper Cook Inlet have slowly withered over the past generation or so. Kenai and Soldotna-based politicians and businesses have benefitted from the Kenai River-centric fish management and business paradigm.

Alaska's national congressional delegation, and such past governors as Tony Knowles, Bill Sheffield and Frank Murkowski have all supported this model, at the expense of the upper Cook Inlet's salmon stock sustainability.

The Kenai River's two Sockeye salmon runs are well-known, as are the river's Rainbow trout and Coho salmon runs. But the Kenai River Kings are one of Alaska's most famous fish. Only a few streams in Alaska boast larger average return weights than the Kenai. Those streams are quite small, though. About 65,000 King Salmon return to the Kenai River each year, making the return there the third largest among Alaska rivers.

The Copper River, with its annual commercial catch of around 40,000 Kings, and total return of around 70,000 or more, is the second biggest river in Alaska for Kings. 

By far, the river with the largest return population of salmon has historically been the 2,300 mile-long Yukon River. But that has changed dramatically over the past decade or so. A river that recently saw returning King salmon populations in the hundreds of thousands, will most likely be closed this year.

Sadly, it has been reported, that already in 2009, by-catch of Yukon River-bound Chinook (King) salmon in the Bering Sea already (in February!) has surpassed what will be the allowable catch of the entire Yukon River subsistence and commercial fisheries:

Already in 2009, bycatch numbers are climbing, according to reports from crew members out West, for salmon and halibut.

Imagine how Alaskans would react if, year after year, a Seattle-based, partially foreign-owned fleet came into the bottom of Cook Inlet, and dragged up over 75% of the salmon coming into Cook Inlet. Imagine if this fleet wasn't even there to fish salmon. Imagine if the crewmen either brought these Anchor, Kasilof, Kenai, Susitna and Deshka River-bound King salmon back to Seattle to go to the Salvation Army, or - if they needed all the space in the hold left, for more Pollock - threw the valuable Kings overboard while the observers aboard their ships were kept out of sight.

That is what has been happening in the Bering Sea for decades. It has gotten to the point that the Seattle-based trawlers are taking so much of the Yukon, Kuskokwim and other river-bound salmon in their by-catch, that there might well not even be a Yukon River season in 2009. Or 2010. Or - ever again.

Could this happen to the Kenai River? Not likely. If the salmon runs on the Kenai will die, it will be from other kinds of greed and hyper-development. We've seen how much resistance some user groups of the river and property along the river have taken to sound policies and initiatives designed to improve salmon habitat.

Why, then, are rivers closer to the Bering Sea being allowed to wither away, allowing communities that have survived, even thrived there for twice or three times as long as there has been an English language, to die? Or to be relocated to Palinesque strategic hamlets, to be called "Cluster Villages," where kids would be trained to perform for tourists.

No doubt, one of the song-and-dance routines would be about the salmon that used to come up the river. You can go watch Native American songs and dances like that already, down on the Klamath, Columbia, Snake and Fraser Rivers.

I'm not sure whether the Yukon and Kuskokwim cultures are being allowed to die almost as fast as Gaza more because they are non-White, or because they are out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

images:

Upper Kenai River
Sen. Lisa Murkowski with trophy King
Abandoned gillnetter near Nunam Iqua
riverside housing development near Kenai

Subhankar Banerjee: Looming Deadline Creates Window for Protests to Stop Shell’s Arctic Drilling

Bain Must Now Produce Its CEO from 1999 to 2002

Will the real CEO please step forward

--- by Teddy Partridge

If, as claimed by both Bain and Mitt Romney (separately, ha-ha) he was not, as attested in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Chief Executive Officer, the President, the Chairman of the Board, the managing director and the sole stockholder, then who was? Bain (and Romney) must produce this shy, disinclined-to-sign person who allowed someone to sign in his stead for three years while, in fact, he was in charge.

What kind of businessman permits the founder and sole stockholder to sign all the federal papers that he himself should sign, for three years? Who is this chimera who would be CEO, except thatMitt Romney retained that role, in appearances at least, while traveling from Utah to Boston for Board meetings and company business? If Romney had nothing to do with the business while “saving” the Olympics, as he claims, who was the steward of the business he left behind?

Who ran Bain?

For that matter, where are the Board minutes supporting Ed Gillespie’s claim that Romney ‘retroactively retired‘ in 2002, effective 1999? Board minutes must support this contention, right? And they also must support all Romney’s other contradictory contentions regarding his tenure, I would imagine. For instance, the purchase of the abortion-profiteer company that burned up dead babies: that profitable enterprise’s absorption into the Bain borg must be approved somewhere. The Board must have approved Romney’s request for a part-time leave of absence. Whose signatures are on those papers? Was the Board vote unanimous approving these actions by Romney?

If Bain wants their man Mitt in the White House, if Wall Street has decided the non-prosecutorial bent of Team Obama isn’t fealty enough, if the Masters of the Universe want one of their own in the Oval, they can produce these documents and clarify everything.

We’re waiting.

Citizen Journalists Becoming More Important

Romney Is Toast. Who Will the GOP Pick in Tampa

They will probably pick Gen. Petraeus.


The column that convinced me that Romney is toast was this one by Marcy Wheeler.  The comments pound one nail after another into Romney's hopes.


Watch for people trying to corner Steve Schmidt on the timing of his comments on Sheldon Adelson's Gingrich hit against Romney back in the runup to the South Carolina primary.  It won't happen, but would be a clincher.


Meanwhile, in what real progressives might hope was the real world...

Warning to Sen. Mark Begich: Stay Away from Trevor McCabe

lessless

Back in the early 1990s, when I was working for halfway house mogul Bill Weimer, as Director of Anchorage's Cordova Center, and then as Bill's Executive Assistant, he started toying with the ideas of partnering with Jerry Ward and Bill Allen.  At the time, Ward was some sort of a hatchet man for Gov. Wally Hickel.  Allen was seeing enormous expansion of his business, Veco, which had just become very big due to its role in the Exxon Valdez spill cleanup.

I had known Ward since my assistant at the Whittier Harbor in the late 70s had worked on Ward's wife Margaret's Anchorage Assembly campaign, and from reading articles about Ward, or meeting him at fundraisers.  He struck me  as the sleaziest Alaska politician I had ever met, and utterly untrustworthy.

I had also met Allen at fundraisers, and had had a disagreeable encounter with him at the huge Spring 1990 auction of surplus material left over from the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup.  From the encounter, I had the same feeling about Allen as about Ward:  Utterly untrustworthy.

Now, this past week, we see Sen. Mark Begich's name surfacing with that of a guy, who if anything, may be even less trustworthy than Jerry Ward or Bill Allen.

Trevor McCabe.

Senator Mark Begich toured Seward’s industrial area port and harbor on July 5 to discuss a multi-million dollar expansion that would support the Coastal Villages Fishing Fleet and Arctic resource exploration. Seward is the northernmost ice-free port in the United States.
 
Joining him were Seward Vice Mayor Jean Bardarson, councilwomen Vanta Shafer and Christy Terry, city manager Jim Hunt, assistant city manager Ron Long, and port director Louis Bencardino, in addition to the COO of Coastal Villages Trevor McCabe and Alaska Railroad director of real estate Jim Kubitz.
 
After the tour, Begich will return to Washington to secure funding for the port expansion and the infrastructure needed to support oil and gas companies.

Just before the 4th of July weekend, Sen. Begich had been out in Bethel for a "fisheries roundtable:

Attendence [sic]  included Quyana, US Senator Mark Begich, Alaska Sen. Lyman Hoffman, Alaska Rep. Bob Herron, AVCP, Tanana Chiefs Conference, village tribal representatives, staff from Sen. Lisa Murkowski

I suspect McCabe was either at the conference, or had somebody from his part of the CDQ "community" there for him.

Soon after the Bethel and Seward trips, Begich, evaluating the severe shortage of commercial and subsistence fish coming into the Yukon and Kuskokwim river systems, requested that Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell request Federal disaster aid for people impacted there:

Following up on his fishery roundtable discussion in Bethel last week with local leaders and fishery managers, U.S. Sen. Begich has sent a letter to Gov. Sean Parnell, asking the Governor to declare a fisheries disaster in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

A state disaster declaration is required before federal assistance can be sought to help those impacted by the record low Chinook and other salmon runs this year.

On June 28, the Association of Village Council Presidents asked Sen. Begich, the entire Congressional delegation, state leaders, and the Obama Administration to pursue a disaster declaration for the region.

In the summer of 2009, the Alaska Congressional delegation requested a federal disaster declaration for the Yukon River Chinook salmon fishery after complete fishery failures in 2008 and 2009.
The federal disaster declaration was made in January 2010. Federal disaster aid can result in loans and grants for those impacted by such a disaster.

Just this weekend, Gov. Parnell acceded:

In a year full of disappointing news for both sport and commercial fishermen, Gov. Sean Parnell on Saturday sent a letter to acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank, requesting a disaster declaration in the wake of particularly dismal 2011 and 2012 Chinook salmon runs on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers.

In Parnell's letter, he tells Blank that "the cause of these declines is undetermined and could include a variety of factors including ocean survival or other unknown factors." He says that commercial fishing on the Yukon River fishery was restricted in 2011, and the state doesn't expect to open the fishery to commercial use at all in 2012.

He said that subsistence harvests are also likely to be reduced.

Conflict has already arisen between subsistence fishermen and authorities in Southwest Alaska, as a fishing ban on king salmon was defied and troopers began to seize fish and nets from fishermen along the Kuskokwim River. Many residents of small villages lining the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers -- accessible only by boat or air -- rely on their subsistence fishing quotas to put food on the table during the leaner winter months.

In late June, the run of kings counted on the Yukon River was more than 55,000 below the historical average of 75,000.

And, late last week, Trevor McCabe's name came back up, in a strangely coercive petition he forced Alaska Native fishers along the river to sign, in exchange for 100 fathoms of new, smaller-sized web for their subsistence nets.

Here's the document he forced people to sign to get the web.  According to the Alaska Journal of Commerce, McCabe wrote it himself:

McCabe's letter so incensed the Alaska Journal of Commerce, they editorialized about it this weekend:

Something stinks in Southwest Alaska.

By now you’ve probably heard about the weak king salmon runs around the state causing widespread closures to subsistence, sport and commercial fishermen.

You also may have heard about the “Kuskokwim Rebellion” on June 20 when fishermen took to the waters in defiance of an extended subsistence closure by setting their nets at the end of the original seven-day period agreed upon in the preseason.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game enforcement seized 1,800 pounds of fish and 21 nets, and when it did allow fishing it required six-inch mesh gear that isn’t widely possessed in the region.

Into this desperate need stepped Coastal Villages Region Fund, the Community Development Quota group for the Kuskokwim region. CDQ groups are six tax-exempt organizations in Western Alaska representing 65 villages that receive 10 percent of the Bering Sea fishing quotas annually, including pollock, crab and halibut.

Coastal Villages handed out 100 legal nets a week after the Rebellion at the request of the Association of Village Council Presidents, which includes all 20 CVRF communities and the 56 federally recognized tribes in the Kuskokwim region.

But the nets were far from free.

In order to receive a net from CVRF, fishermen had to sign an “acceptance statement” acknowledging the nets were being provided at the request of AVCP and paid for by revenue from the pollock fishery where bycatch of king and chum salmon has caused controversy for decades.

The one-page statement included two paragraphs on salmon bycatch in the pollock fishery, including the claim that “the best available science shows that the pollock fishery is not a significant contributor to our salmon problems.”

This statement authored by CVRF Chief Operations Officer and former pollock industry lobbyist Trevor McCabe is at best misleading, and forcing fishermen to sign it amid a disastrously weak king salmon run with their lives on the line is contemptible.

It isn't just contemptible.  It is disgustingly racist.

Stay away from this guy, McCabe, Sen. Begich.

Don't touch any of his ideas or promises with a ten-foot pole.

Some feel the FBI isn't done with him in regards to Ben Stevens, or with the Seward SeaLife Center real estate scam he profited from.

Sen. Begich and his staff seem to have some creative ideas about Seward port expansion and how that might tie into creating a combination of industrial and educational infrastructure there that would allow Alaskans to create the Arctic support fleet of the future, in our own state.  I've talked about this with him, urging him to get familiar with the Turku Finland model.

Involving a slimeball like Trevor McCabe in any of this is not a good idea, Mark.  He's like Jerry Ward and Bill Allen, all wrapped into one greasy, sleazy package.

Mel Green Catches Alaska's Biggest Tax Cheat - Jerry Prevo

Mel Green with me at the 2009 Prop. 64 battle

Richard Mauer's story in Sunday's Anchorage Daily News gives credit where it is due in this, perhaps the unravelling of the biggest religious-based tax scam in the history of Alaska:

[On August 29, 2011] Before Superior Court Judge Frank Pfiffner accepted Allen Prevo's motion to seal the court file, an advocate for Anchorage gay, lesbian and transgender rights, Melissa Green, obtained some of the documents and wrote about the case on her blog, BentAlaska. Prevo has long been opposed to gay rights legislation and was active against the April gay rights ballot measure.

Mel's August 29, 2011 post at BentAlaska, and later at Henkimaa, opened the door.  Soon, the Anchorage Daily News took the matter seriously:

The Daily News successfully sued to open the divorce file and published a story about the church properties Jan. 15.

 One can only wonder that had we been left only with Mel Green's research, and no followup by the ADN,  whether the Anchorage tax assessor would have investigated the fraud.  We may never know.

Mauer writes today:

McGee said he asked the Baptist Temple to provide every document in its files concerning property ownership. His staff also reviewed personnel files for promises made to Baptist Temple employees regarding their homes.

The church turned over a 2001 sales agreement for Cobaugh for his six-room, 1,824-square-foot home on Sunflower Street, which he still occupies. With the statute of limitations allowing the city to only go back to 2006, the unpaid tax bill for that property is $25,804.

Taxes from 2006 on Allen Prevo's home total $35,483.

The city investigators found two other pastors, Clary and the Rev. Tony Smith, had oral agreements with similar terms. McGee said because Clary and Smith could not use those agreements to force the Baptist Temple to hand over the deeds when the homes were paid for, he determined that those properties were correctly exempt from taxes.

As for Jerry Prevo himself, he said in an interview with the Daily News on Dec. 28 that he wasn't building any personal equity in his home on Baxter Road near the Baptist Temple. His housing agreement with the church allows him and his wife to remain there for life but doesn't provide for a transfer to his name, he said.

But that statement was called into question by a notarized document that city investigators found in the Baptist Temple files dated Jan. 31, 2012, a month after the interview with the Daily News, that purported to document the termination of a sales agreement with Prevo six years earlier.

The document was signed by Floyd Damron, chairman of the church's governing Board of Deacons. The note, written "To Whom It May Concern," said that the Baptist Temple and Jerry Prevo had in fact entered into an installment sales agreement in 1994. The note said the agreement "was terminated" Dec. 24, 2005.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/07/14/2542644/assessor-church-owes-city61000.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/07/14/2542644/assessor-church-owes-city61000.html#storylink=cpy

The amount the city might have collected but for the statute of limitations is far larger than the $61,000.00 they will collect.  The tax assessor will not pursue a penalty, interest or other charges:

The ruling will require the church to pay current taxes and six years of back taxes on each of the houses, the most he could levy under the statute of limitations, McGee said. He will not attempt to collect interest or penalties because the taxes were never billed and therefore weren't technically delinquent. He found no evidence that the church or any of its officials committed tax fraud, only that they misinterpreted the law, he said.

McGee is being quite charitable.  Back in August 2011, when Green's investigation started this ball rolling, I wrote:

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/07/14/2542644/assessor-church-owes-city61000.html#storylink=cpy

Frankly, in my opinion, looking at how this tax evasion and cheating scam is structured, we should not be calling the Anchorage tax assessment people, we should be calling the white collar crimes units at the Anchorage Police and the office of special prosecutions at the Alaska Department of Law.  

Whoever structured this scam knew it was a scam, and should be indicted and prosecuted.  The ABT should lose their hallowed tax exempt status.

Nothing that came out as a result of the ADN lawsuit, or in the information that is emerging from McGee's office changes my mind on this.  

Good job, Richard Mauer.

Excellent job, Mel Green!

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2012/07/14/2542644/assessor-church-owes-city61000.html#storylink=cpy

Model simulations on the long-term dispersal of Cesium 137 released into the Pacific Ocean off Fukushima

Four scientists from the Humboldt Institute in Kiel Germany and the NOAA research labs on Lake Washington in Seattle, have published their findings here. Below is a video explanation of their findings.

The Levy Commission Report and the Eradication of Palestine

On Monday, the Israeli government announced that the commission, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levi, and charged with responding to the 2005 Sasson Report (on the government of Israel’s complicity in West Bank settlement expansion), had issued its findings.  Here’s Adam Horowitz writing about it on Monday:

Earlier this year Benjamin Netanyahu formed an Israeli government panel to judge on the legality of the settlements. The panel was headed by former Supreme Court justice Edmond Levy and was intended to respond to the 2005 Sasson Report on government complicity with the settlement project (and possibly head off an impending UN study into the settlements). Today, the “Levy Committee” issued its findings and among other things declared that Israel is not an occupying force in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

From Haaretz:

With regard to Israel’s legal status in the West Bank, the Levy Committee declared that Israel is not an occupying power. The panel arrived at that conclusion after considering two conflicting legal approaches on the question.

The first approach, presented by elements generally identified with the left, holds that Judea and Samaria are “occupied territories” under international law, ever since they were captured from the Jordanian kingdom in 1967.

According to this approach, as a military occupier, Israel is subject to international restrictions governing occupation, first and foremost the Hague Regulations with regard to the laws and customs of ground warfare, and the Fourth Geneva Convention with regard to protecting civilian populations in times of war.

Under these covenants, an occupier must manage the area and maintain order while taking care of its security needs and the needs of the civilian population until the occupation ends. There is a prohibition against damaging private property, and the occupier is also banned from moving any of its own population to settle in the occupied area.

The committee also heard conflicting legal opinions, submitted by elements identified with the right, such as the Regavim movement and the Binyamin Regional Council. They presented the position that because Judea and Samaria were never a legitimate part of any Arab state, including Jordan, Israel is not an occupying power.

As such, the conventions dealing with management of occupied territories and their populations are not relevant to Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria.

With regard to the Geneva Convention and its Section 49, which forbids an occupier from transferring any of its population to settle in the occupied area, the right-wing groups argued that this section was formulated after World War II and was aimed at preventing the forced transfer of populations, a situation that isn’t relevant to Judea and Samaria.

Members of the panel accepted the legal opinion presented by the right. They explained that the generally accepted concept of occupation relates to short periods in which territory is captured from a sovereign state until the dispute between the two sides is resolved. But Judea and Samaria have been under Israeli control for decades, and it is impossible to foresee a time when Israel will relinquish these territories, if ever.

Late Tuesday, the Israeli government provided an English language translation of the eight-page report. It has been reprinted at this link.

The report does not contain the word “Palestine.”  It consistently refers to the Occupied West Bank as “Judea and Samaria.”  Nor does the report specifically mention Palestinian people.

Reactions to the report have been fairly predictable, even if its far-reaching conclusions were somewhat surprising.  The Netanyahu government, as of this writing, has not made an official response to the report’s validity.

Writing Monday in The Atlantic on-line, commentator and staunch Zionist Jeffrey Goldberg observed:

What this means, if implemented, is simple: The Israeli government would treat West Bank land as if it were land in Israel proper (pre-1967 Israel). Now, of course, if Israel were to treat the land of the West Bank as part of Israel, it would necessarily follow that it would have to treat the people who live on that land as Israeli citizens, extending them full voting rights, just as it extends citizenship to people who live in Israel proper, regardless of ethnicity. So: The natural consequence of this notion, if it is carried through to law, would be to extend voting rights to the Palestinians of the West Bank. This would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy, but the right-wing in Israel seems more enamored of land-ownership than it does of such antiquated notions as, you know, Zionism.

Of course, you don’t hear too many voices on the right in Israel clamoring to extend full Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians. The right-wing wants the land, but not the people. What the right doesn’t understand is that this arrangement would be a non-starter, for political and moral reasons. Then again, the right doesn’t understand very much, so why would it understand this?

He is right that the Israeli far right “doesn’t understand very much,” at least in terms of acknowledging the presence of 2.4 million Palestinians in “Judea and Samaria.”
Sampling far right reactions to the report in Israel and the US, here are a few of the comments from Israel National News (Arutz Shiva):

It is now time (if not past time) for the Israeli government to fully annex Judea and Samaria as well as to assert full control over ALL JERUSALEM particularly Har Habayit. The Arab anti Semites now in control (and destroying Jewish artifacts) MUST BE THROWN OUT with ALL necessary force (at least as much as they now use on Jews who even appear to be silently praying at Judaism’s holiest site).

and:

The tiny nation is only a small fraction of the size it will be some day soon. Almighty God has promised the Jews that Israel will stretch from the Nile River westward to the Euphrates River. Our God can NOT and will NOT ever break a promise!!!!!!!

and:

Didn’t the San Remo Resolution of 1920 make it not only legal to settle but say that the International community is obliged to help the settling?

Comments at the article on the Levy Commission report on the Christian Broadcasting Network site proclaim:

God said “I will punish them that divide up my land”, this includes the USA. The land of Israel is the only land in the world given to a people directly by God. That is why Satan and his demons are fighting so hard to get it. It goes all the way back to the Creation. It is all so perfectly tied. God is so awesome in His Wisdom.

and – appropriately in hard caps:

ISRAEL, IF GOD CONDEMNS YOU THEN YOU SHOULD WORRY. YOU SHOULD WORRY IF YOU ARE ACTING AGAINST HIS ETERNAL WORD. US CONDEMNING YOU, THERE IS NO REASON TO WORRY. 500 YEARS AGO, THERE WAS NO US. ONLY THE LORD YOUR GOD, HIS WORD AND ISRAEL, HIS PEOPLE. STAND FIRM ISRAEL. THE LORD IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR PROTECTION, NOT THE US. YOU’RE ANSWERABLE AND RESPONSIBLE FIRST TO YOUR LORD GOD, HIS WORD AND SECOND, YOUR PEOPLE. THE OTHERS, COME LAST. BLESSING.

Meanwhile, back in the reality-based world, reactions vary.  The Palestinian Authority views the report dimly:

Officials in Ramallah on Wednesday slammed the Netanyahu government’s plans to accept the conclusion of the Levy Commission report on Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.

“We will not sign any peace agreement if there is a [single]settlement on Palestinian Land,” Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesman Nabil Abu Rodier said.

The Levy report concluded Israel is not an occupying power in Judea and Samaria, and that Jewish communities in the region are therefore legal under international law.

“Israel has no right to be on Palestinian lands,”Rodier said, adding the PA rejected the Levy report in no uncertain terms.

The New York Times slammed the report in a Tuesday editorial:

[T]he commission’s recommendations are bad law, bad policy and bad politics. Most of the world views the West Bank, which was taken by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war, as occupied territory and all Israeli construction there as a violation of international law. The world court ruled this way in 2004. The Fourth Geneva Convention bars occupying powers from settling their own populations in occupied lands. And United Nations Security Council resolution 242, a core of Middle East policy, calls for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

The Times editorial notes further:

If [the Levi Commission report's] conclusions are not firmly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there is likely to be new international anger at Israel. That could divert attention from Iran just when the world is bearing down with sanctions and negotiations to curb Tehran’s nuclear program. It would also draw attention to a dispiriting anomaly: that a state founded as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people is determined to continue ruling 2.5 million Palestinians under an unequal system of laws and rights.

On Wednesday’s Democracy Now, Jonathan Tobin, Senior Online Editor of Commentary magazine, and Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, had a spirited debate on what the report represents, and could bring in its wake:


The issuance of this report will not serve to diminish Palestinian efforts to gain UN recognition, in spite of the report’s content’s seeming eradication of Palestine itself.

It will not deter the new United Nations Human Rights Commission team from gaining information for their report on ongoing human rights violations by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank.

It will probably help gain allies for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, now in its eighth year, and scoring major victories worldwide almost daily.