Bad Deeds for 2-13-2012

While Digging Up 1,235 Acres For His Golf Course in Scotland, Donald Trump Says Wind Farms Are ‘Destroying’ Scotland – After starting construction on a 1,235 acre coastal golf course on rural land in Scotland that will feature two golf courses, 950 houses and a luxury hotel, Trump is now complaining that the Scottish Minister is “hell-bent on destroying Scotland’s coastline” with offshore wind projects. Trump’s letter comes after a multi-year battle with local landowners who don’t want to be forced from their property to make way for the golf course. In one case, Trump built a fence around a local homeowner’s property he deemed “ugly” and then billed him for half the costs!

A Sample of More Bad Deeds From Charles and David Koch – The FBI caught Koch Industries pilfering oil from the Osage reservation – a theft personally ordered by Charles Koch according to hidden wire recordings of Koch Industry executives. The Justice Department prepared racketeering and felony theft charges against Koch Industries, but these were dropped, and charged FBI agent Richard Elroy, after political pressure was brought by Koch-funded Senator Bob Dole.

The US Senate Special Committee on Investigations concluded that, “Koch Oil is the most dramatic example of an oil company stealing by deliberate mismeasurement and fraudulent reporting.” Committee member Senator Dennis DeConcini of Arizona stated that the Koch’s personally threatened him to prevent an investigation into the theft and dropping of criminal charges. Koch’s oil company paid the Indians $25 million to settle their civil claim.

llegal Koch Industries campaign contributions in 1994 brought a Republican majority to power in Congress. Before Citizens United, Koch Industries, via a cut-out called Triad Inc. which in turn used a front called, ‘Coalition for Our Children’s Future’ and ran $25 million in smear ads last minute against Democratic Congressional candidates before the 1998 vote. The smears, the hidden source of funds, and the size of the campaign spending were then new, shocking — and effective in wiping out Koch’s political opponents. Britain’s Guardian disclosed that the Koch’s avoided prosecution, according to US Senate investigators, through their political connection to Senator Trent Lott.

This January in California, the Koch Brothers have set out to buy the White House, having pledged 100 million dollars in now unlimited campaign funds (thanks to the Citizens United ruling) to defeat President Obama.

Scandal Involving Fox News Owner Widens – As dozens of investigators and high-powered lawyers converge on Rupert Murdoch’s News International in the phone hacking scandal, attention has focused on the printout of an e-mail excavated three months ago from a sealed carton left behind in an empty company office. Addressed to Mr. Murdoch’s son James, it contained explosive information about the scale of phone hacking at The News of the World tabloid — information James Murdoch says he failed to take in because he did not read the whole e-mail chain.
The e-mail returned to cause trouble for News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of News Corporation. The scandal appeared to be widening on Saturday, as senior journalists at News Corporation’s Sun tabloid were arrested.

Embroiled in three separate police operations, a parliamentary investigation, a judicial inquiry and a flurry of civil suits with potentially hundreds more waiting in the wings, News Corporation has begun to provide information that suggests a broader sweep of hacking activity at News International than was suspected even recently and more widespread knowledge within the company of past efforts to cover it up.

Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector [a Republican] Secretively Purging Voter Rolls – The Harris County tax assessor-collector [a Republican] has re-created the equivalent of a regressive poll tax by maximizing the time and travel costs of voting. He forces most voters in Harris County to reapply over and over. He then decides whether to allow a citizen to remain on the registration rolls by a secretive purging operation that, even after the lawsuits by the mentioned in the Jan. 30 article, remains largely obscured from public scrutiny. No increase in the voter rolls for this dynamic and growing community is the result.

The Tax Office suspends or cancels voter registrations based on something like a credit check. The office calls it a live check; it sends personal identification information into a so-called “fusion center” and, from there, to where nobody will say. In any case, the unreliable information returned from various sources is used to disqualify or misdirect voters. This is not subject to audit and barely subject to appeal. You the voter just show up at the polls to discover when it is too late to do anything about it that you are not qualified to vote. Just making a simple change of address is difficult and risks cancellation. Voter registration in Harris County is really a lifetime reregistration process costing millions their right to vote and the county millions of dollars.

Regards,

Jim