Delve into the Inferno of The Last Circle

 

Danny Casalaro's Investigation Into The Octopus and the Promis Software Scandal  by Cheri Seymour

 

 

 

Ripped from  A Chilling HeadlineMurder Story:

July 2, 2010

Why has a Self-Confessed Mass Murder Mafia Hit Man Been Freed to Prey Again on Society?  From an Indio CA courtroom 7/2/2010 * A mustread Jimmy Hughes bone-chilling confession : 

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.elsalvador.com/vertice/2003/060703/cronica.html&ei=exIuTI3fOYvrnQfz9e34Aw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.elsalvador.com/vertice/2003/060703/cronica.html%26hl%3Den

Before he met his God, James "Jimmy" Hughes was a self-confessed former mafia hit-man with multiple murders under his belt.  In this photo he points to the crowd where his family and friends are as he leaves the courtroom a free man after the case against him was dismissed on Thursday at Riverside Superior Court in Indio. Hughes was arrested in September 2009 for the 1981 triple homicide known as the "Octopus Murders." Rachel Begley, daughter of murder victim Ralph Arthur Boger, is consoled by famed attorney Robin Sax after the case against James "Jimmy" Hughes was dismissed on Thursday in Riverside Superior Court. Begley left the courtroom in tears, but said she isn't done fighting. "It's not the end, definitely not the end," she said.

Hughes — the only person ever charged in connection with the shooting deaths of former Cabazon Band of Mission Indians tribal leader Fred Alvarez; his girlfriend, Patricia Castro; and friend Ralph Boger — was  set to be released from the Riverside County Jail in Indio on July 1st.

Victim's daughter says she's come too far to give up on 'Octopus Murders' case

Begley has investigated her father's death  for years, and investigators have credited her with uncovering new evidence in the case, known as the "Octopus Murders" because some believe the killings are connected to tribal dealings and government agencies.

"How many people must die or suffer at the hands of James Hughes before he is brought to justice?" Begley asked in a statement delivered in court.

"He is literally getting away with murder if he is released today."

But Wells granted prosecutors' request to drop the case and Hughes was released from the Indio jail on the day of the hearing, July 1. Putting poison on top of poison, that date was the anniversary of the triple homicide 29 years ago.

The nagging question is: who is the so-called justice system protecting by letting this self-confessed (and his confession is chilling) mass murder go? 

Begley's Daughter Seeks Justice for her father - click here to see shocking admission of killer

Rachel Begley's is but one of the crime stories detailed in the book The Last Circle by Cheri Seymour.

To understand the complexity of this case, one must delve into the inferno of  The Last Circle, a meticulous investigation into one of the most organized and disturbing criminal enterprises that ever scorched America.

Because of the notoriety of the Octopus murders, The Last Circle has been an Internet sensation for 14 years, since 1996. To clear up any confusion to the reader, the author Cheri Seymour  used a pseudonym, Carol Marshall, on the Internet version.   http://www.lycaeum.org/books/books/last_circle/0.htm   She did not place TLC on the Internet, this was done by someone at Cornell University who got a hold of the manuscript. The Internet version contains only 15 unedited, unpolished chapters, whereas the completed BOOK contains 25 chapters.  The last 10 chapters are by far the most provocative.

Investigative reporter Cheri Seymour devoted the last 18 years following the trail of the notorious Octopus murders, probing the behind the headlines dynamic of a maze that encompassed multiple covert operations, involving  corrupt politicians NSC, CIA and DOJ officials, Wackenhut, Music Corporation of America, Iran Contra, organized crime figures, intelligence agents,  drug trafficking, arm sales,  high tech money laundering, and multiple deaths including former Cabazon Band of Mission Indians tribal leader Fred Alvarez; his girlfriend, Patricia Castro; and friend Ralph Boger by self-confessed Mafia hit man Jimmy Hughes as well as the death of Washington D.C. investigative journalist Danny Casalaro, and many more.

Through law enforcement agencies as far ranging as the FBI, U.S. Customs, police and sheriff's departments, and even the RCMP National Security Division, Seymour learned that the official head of the Octopus crime ring resided in the United States DOJ, cemented together by Reagan's out-of-control presidential administration, its slimy tentacles supported by a cabal of "old boy" mega-wealthy cronies, literally true believers whose faith dictated that the end always justifies the means.

 

These under-the-radar billionaires give corruption a new depth of despair as  they defecated all over the Constitution, back-doored the intelligence community, and barnstormed new trails into drug cartels and organized crime, while simultaneously growing new tentacles into every facet of criminal enterprise. No amount of thievery or chicanery was too low for them as they plowed their way into high-tech software (PROMIS) for use in money laundering and espionage; illegal drug and arms trafficking in Latin America, and fierce exploitation of sovereign Indian nations. Welcome to the criminal abyss.

 

The Last Circle, whose title refers to Dante's Inferno, educates and inspires because it proves beyond a shadow of doubt, that one person, dedicated and determined, can make a difference in bringing to justice high-level criminals, no matter what their supposed stature in society.  That author is Cheri Seymour, a woman without parallel, in a crime story without parallel.

The Last Circle is due to be released at Barnes & Noble bookstores in September 2010.   See The Last Circle website for further details:  http://www.ark-roundtable.com/book.html

 

 This is one of Jimmy Hughes' confessions (excerpt): 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   

	A Hit Man  with a New Mission Jimmy Hughes, Honduras

 

After a six-year hitch in the military, I became a professional hit man for the Mafia. I collected money, hurt a lot of people and saw a lot of blood. I know what it's like to cut the throat of a man, see a man die, or throw a man in the trunk of a car and take him to his death. I did many horrible things. I allowed myself to do whatever was necessary.

One day I had a contract on a man. They had paid me a lot of money to kill this person. I travelled over many states, and walked into the man's house one day, pulled out my pistol, and put a bullet in everybody's head.

There were many people there that day because he was having a party. As I stood there with the gun in my hand, I suddenly realized that all those people were dead. They had died instantly. I had been paid to kill one man, but had killed half a dozen people. The rest had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time ---"  http://www.fgbmfivoice.com/stories/996hughes.htm

 

 

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America’s Nazi Secret by John Loftus

An Insider's History of How the US  DOJ Obstructed Congress By Investigations into Famous American Families Who Funded Hitler, Stalin and Arab terrorists

:  

 

Despite government censorship, the original version of this book, The Belarus Secret, was the Knopf Nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in History, and earned 60 Minutesan Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. Thirty years later, this final manuscript hasnot been submitted for government review. All the censored items, and more, much more, are revealed for the first time. A third of modern history has been classified, until now.

The Nuremburg trials were fixed.  The US Justice Department did it. Some of America's most influential families funded Hitler. Ambitious lawyers in Washington covered it up under a cloak of national security.  The Justice Department brought Nazis into America by the thousands to be trained as cold war spies. 

The Attorney General personally sponsored some of the worst war criminals for immigration to the USA, including the chief of the Ukrainian security service, Mykola Lebed.  His troops murdered tens of thousands of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews, including Simon Wiesenthal's mother. 

In 1985, the Justice Department pawned this Ukrainian mass murderer off to Congress as an innocent leader of the Anti-Nazi resistance. Almost everything the Justice Department has ever told Congress about Nazis in America has been a conscious and deliberate lie. The hunt for Nazi war criminals has been a mere public relations effort to placate Jews and WWII veterans.

It gets worse.  

For sixty years, the US Department of Justice has remained the legal shield of the Arab-Nazi network, known as the Muslim Brotherhood. America is the only major nation still refusing to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist group. Thirty years ago Justice Department Attorney John Loftus read the Top Secret Files and was ordered into silence under threat of imprisonment. Now the declassification clock has run down. Loftus says it is time for Justice to face the jury about where the Arab-Nazi connection went wrong and who is really to blame for 9/11.

 

 

America's Nazi Secret: An Insider's History of How the United States Department of Justice Obstructed Congress By Blocking Congressional Investigations into Famous American Families Who Funded Hitler, Stalin and Arab terrorists; Lying to Congress, the GAO and the CIA about the Postwar Immigration of Eastern European Nazi War Criminals to the US; and Concealing from the 9/11 Investigators the role of the Arab Nazi War Criminals in Recruiting Modern Middle Eastern Terrorist Groups.

 

 

-----

 

John Loftus is a former US government prosecutor, a former Army intelligence officer, and the author of numerous books, including The Belarus Secret; The Secret War Against the Jews; Unholy Trinity: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets;and Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks.

Loftus is the author of seven books, three of which were made into films, two were international best sellers, and one was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History. His just published work, America's Nazi Secret, is an expose of the U.S. Justice Department's role in hiding Nazi war criminals from Congressional investigations, including the Ukrainian Nazi chief whose troops murdered Simon Wiesenthal's mother.

In his latest book, Loftus also reveals how the U.S. State Department used Arab Nazis to recruit the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, but then became the recruiters of the modern Jihadist terrorist movement.

Loftus once held some of the highest security clearances in the U.S. and NATO. His 60 Minutes segment won the Emmy Award for outstanding investigative journalism. A documentary film based largely on his research, American Secrets, will be released in theaters in 2011. He has frequently appeared as an intelligence expert on national television networks and has served as a consultant for Congress, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

A Florida resident, Loftus served as the first Irish Catholic president of the Florida Holocaust Museum. He has been president of the International Intelligence Summit and co-host of the world's first Secular Islam Summit. He currently hosts his own weeknight radio show, The Loftus Report, broadcast live from WSNR in New York and on the Internet on talklinecommunications.com.

He has appeared regularly as a media commentator on ABC National Radio and Fox News.

21-2336

 

 

 

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CIA Gone Wild

H. P. Albarelli's True Thriller:  A Terrible Mistake - The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments. A Runaway Best Seller

by Ilene Proctor

 

The CIA Used People as Innocent Human Guinea Pigs in LSD Experiments?   And Worse.

 

Taking on the CIA is not for the faint of heart.  It takes toughness, tenacity, and an undisputed moral compass. It's those core values that compelled Hank  Albarelli Jr. to spend ten years uncovering  the  dark truths in his formidable expose:  A Terrible Mistake - The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold WarExperiments.

 

This book reveals a rogue government agency whose defining characteristic is dirty, scorched-earth policies carried out at any cost.  It brings to light of day important new information from the 1950's heyday of Olson's work, delving into military and CIA Cold War experimentation, information which Olson's death was intended to bury.   Unwitting citizens were the subjects of mind-control experiments which lead to the development of techniques   still employed today at Black Sites around the world. Among the details revealed are efforts to weaponize LSD for battlefield use and unconscionable tests on innocent civilians, including children.

 

Albarelli takes the mystery out of the darkest corners in CIA's history – and he relates the story with character, with conviction, and with the blinders off.  This is a riveting read, his text, defiantly disturbing, his writing style passionately grounded in reality; the whole, mesmerizingly capable of big, smacking, rhetorical home runs.   

 

The scenes in his book are filled with characters deep into intrigue, their identity always in flux, like floating human jello.  And yet these people, some, we discover, still in power, have the ability to tear somebody in two like they were a slice of bread. The conclusions of his detective work fit together like sword and scabbard.  The book reads like fiction, yet we are reminded over and over again that we are dealing with long-denied truths.

 

The hard dirty facts of the CIA's history come alive as you obsessively turn the pages. You're riveted as heexplores 1950's Military and CIA Cold War Scientific and Medical experimentation in the fields of Mind Control, Psychological Operations, Interrogation, Torture, Psycho-Weaponry, Chemical and Biological Assassination .

 

Albarelli has racked 10  years of rough mileage researching this book, culling over 100,000 pages of classified documents, his track record cratered with deliberate potholes created by the Manhattan district attorney's office, which was also investigating the case, was nothing less than an exercise in squaring off with subterfuge.

 

I won't reveal the mystery Albarelli solves, i.e., who killed Frank Olson and why, but the long build-up describing the various covert operations of the intelligence agencies, well-documented in the book, builds to a startling pay-off.

 

Albarelli  gives his readers so much juicy information, a veritable tsunami of exposed secrets and incrementing evidence. He details a myriad of CIA drug experiments and exposes a large number of previously anonymous physicians and business officials who contracted with the agency. The experiments resulted in the deaths of a number of people,permanently destroying the minds of others and sending many more seeking medical help.

 

The human faces of evil come alive. We become acquainted with             some of the Agency's creepiest characters including: Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, head of the notorious MKULTRA program, whose mind control techniques included extensive use of LSD; the evil psychiatrist Dr. Harold Abramson; various Corsican mafia kingpins; and the ultimate spy, Pierre Lafitte who  was not only ignominiously  descended from the famous pirate captain, Jean Lafitte, he was also a paid CIA assassin, who just happened to be working as a bellman at the Statler Hotel the night Olson plunged to his death on a  November night in 1953.

 

Frank Olson's short descent from respected biochemist to an obituary footnote didn't take long.  But, there are no statute-of-limitations on murder.

 

What did Dr. Olson, a CIA scientist himself, do to deserve such a violent demise?  After having been previously dosed with LSD, Olson crashed through a closed and shaded 10th story window of the Hotel Statler on 7th Ave in Manhattan. It was called a suicide. In the 1970's Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld succeeded in blocking his family's request for a new investigation into his death. Later, the Bush administration   pushed for the legalization of some of the very torture techniques they had so successfully protected in the 1970's.

 

Whose secrets were being protected?

 

Hank Albarelli's chiller of a thriller  "A Terrible Mistake, the Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments", a 900+ page volume based on over 100,000 pages of documents and interviews show how Frank Olson was actually murdered. 

 

Why? The CIA was hell-bent on perfecting mind control techniques, including the creation of a "truth drug," for use in interrogation of captured enemy operatives and to root out "the enemies within".

 

Beginning in the 1940s  Project BLUEBIRD began. These experiments were used on American citizens held captive in mental hospitals, without informed consent. The CIA also birthed synthetic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, used in Project MKULTRA  using human beings as guinea pigs with LSD and hypnosis.

 

A TERRIBLE MISTAKE reads like a roadmap to the drug culture of the 1960s and beyond.   This investigation of unprecedented depth, including numerous first hand interviews, links yesteryear's electric KoolAid with today's "shock doctrine."

 

In 1995, when Albarelli began to seriously investigate the strange death of Dr. Olson, 42,  little did he suspect  his investigations  would span over 10 years and take him down the rabbit hole of history into the CIA's deep involvement with drugs.  Encountering fierce opposition from varied and surprising forces, he persisted, learning for himself the harsh lessons one gains in the pursuit of truth.

 

The seemingly unrelated mysteries of Dr. Olson's strange "suicide" in New York City in 1953 and the bizarre hallucinogenic outbreak in a small French village in August 1951 have independently provoked and perplexed serious investigators as related in countless accounts on the Internet and televised news features and documentaries for decades. While Olson's death has long been suspect, little was offered in the way of real evidence, which  now smacks of a classic government cover up which for years went undetected in the innocence of pre Vietnam 1950's America. Now,  Olson's death can be definitively ruled a murder and the French outbreak explained as a sloppy  military maneuver which resulted in the  callous disregard  of hundreds of innocent unwitting lives, some of whom took their own lives as an escape from the horror, others were doomed to a subsequent lifetime of insanity.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/24/818682/-A-Terrible-Mistake:-

 

 

The shocks never stop.

In late 1953 a high-ranking official of the Sandoz Chemical Company meeting with a CIA official made a startling revelation, that the 1951 so-called ergot outbreak in the French town of Pont St. Esprit was actually the result of a planned and secret biochemical experiment which resulted in the deaths of five people and also caused 300 people to seek medical care or to be placed in insane asylums for treatment. At the outset of Albarelli's investigation, the outbreak was but a minor footnote in the bizarre history of LSD, but over time, fueled by the receipt of several never-before viewed CIA and White House documents it became amply apparent that the two events were inextricably connected.

*

The cursed bread of Pont-Saint-Esprit 50 years ago has turned out to have been a CIA mind control experiment.

It happened in 1951, a quiet little village in France become struck with a sudden wave of hallucinations and insanity. It had been believed for some time that the incident was caused by accidental bread poisoning but an investigative journalist now believes that it had actually been an intentional experiment conducted by the CIA during the cold war.

 

Today in the French News, was the startling announcement that the French Government is demanding explanations from the United States for a mysterious outbreak of mass insanity in the South Eastern Village of Pont-Saint-Esprit that occurred almost 60 years ago. 500 hundred people were affected and there were 5 deaths. The implications could have long range effects on Franco-American relations.

Motives behind Olson's killing reveal the identities of the men who committed the act.  Ties, hitherto unknown link Lee Harvey Oswald establishing for instance that young Oswald was seen by some of these same CIA mind control doctors in New York City, where so much of this experimentation took place, when he was only 13 years old and the murder of JFK, as well as to the infamous French Connection drug case.

The dynamics of state-sponsored assassination, the  alliance in the 1950s and 1960s between the CIA and organized crime in America become startlingly clear.

The Artichoke Project, MK/ULTRA, MK/NAOMI, MK/DECOY and QK/HILLTOP  are no longer dusty, frightening symbols of the past. Many of these Cold War programs served as the basis and templates for those controversial rendition and interrogation techniques employed by the Army and CIA today. Albarelli  includes 42 pages of photographs and supporting documents from the files of The Agency for those in doubt.

This information has eluded two congressional hearings in the 1970's and, another requested investigation by Olson's family, was also blocked in 1975 by Cheney and Rumsfield. Once you start reading. A Terrible Mistake,   it becomes painfully clear why such determined attempts were made to keep this information from the public.

Can the truth change this perception? If the truth can heal, then this book is a prescription for accountability. Make no mistake; this book will sear reader's souls.  It is a must-read for anyone who believes that following our constitution must be mandatory for the pursuit of good government and our democracy is not for sale for the highest bidder or the too-clever-for-words machinations of the CIA.

 

The story has done a full revolution around the planet! From France to UK, then from Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Russia to Australia and Brazil...What's next?

 

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/cia-used-lsd-to-make-french-lose-the-loaf-2095194.html

Publisher: TrineDay   November 2009    $34.94 USD   $38.95 Canada

H.P. Albarelli Jr.

H.P. Albarelli Jr. is an investigative reporter and writer who lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida. Other articles he has written about Frank Olson's death, as well as about the post-9/11 anthrax investigation, biological warfare, and other subjects, appear on the World Net Daily web site. Other writings by Albarelli may be found in WITNESS, a literary journal, and Tampa's alternative newspaper, The Weekly Planet. A graduate of Antioch Law School, Albarelli has worked as a researcher, scriptwriter, and technical consultant on several television documentaries including A&E's recent Investigative Report on Frank Olson produced by London's Principal Films. In 1977-80, Albarelli worked in the White House under the Carter Administration and then later served on the Senior Policy Staff for the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. Albarelli is a former board member of the London-based Transnational Information Centre and has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. His novel THE HEAP was published in 2005. Albarelli's book, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder Of Frank Olson And The CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments, was published in 2010.

 

The CIA And African Americans

The CIA's MKULTRA program went out of its way to target and select African-Americans as experimental subjects. Certain Agency documents make incredibly racist statements about minority groups. Indeed, there is ample evidence that the CIA and Federal Bureau of Narcotics went out of their collective way to target African American neighborhoods with the sale of illicit drugs for funding black ops. This continues today, but nobody wants to speak about it.

It's no coincidence that so many African American men are in federal prisons and that prisons are such a viable private industry today: this was and is all part of the plan, but it is so much easier to ignore it, until it touches you or your family.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258801/Was-idyllic-French-village-driven-crazy-LSD-secret-American-mind-experiment.html

 

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Face of Defense: Soldier Makes History in Graduate Program

By Christine Creenan-Jones
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences

BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 5, 2014 - Five years ago, Army Sgt. Julie Bytnar was leading a very different life. She was a homemaker living in the Chicago suburbs while her husband, Bill, earned most of the family's income.

Army Sgt. Julie Bytnar is the first enlisted service member to be accepted into a graduate education program at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. DoD photo by Thomas Balfour  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

Then, without warning, Bill became very ill after a rare blood-clotting disorder ravaged his body. Over time, his condition deteriorated, and he could no longer work. Their bills began piling up, with no reprieve in sight.

Desperate to keep hope alive, Bytnar enlisted in the military so she could take care of her husband and young children.

"Although I was eligible for a commission based on my education and work experience, the lead time would have been much longer, and I needed a career right away," she said. "So I enlisted in 2009 at 38 years old and have been learning about the Army from the bottom up ever since."

Swift indoctrination

Although her uniformed career has been short, Bytnar's military indoctrination was the swift, no-holds-barred kind. After proving herself at garrison duty assignments as a lead health care specialist, Julie deployed to Afghanistan in 2011.

"It was an intense experience," she said. "I provided a lot of hands-on care to wounded service members and local Afghans, treating everything from minor to life threatening injuries."

Bytnar said her experience in Afghanistan also changed her career focus. Instead of simply providing care, she said, she began thinking about the bigger picture and wondering how she could prevent injuries from happening in the first place. Her curiosity eventually led her to the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences here, where she broke ground as the first enlisted service member to be accepted into a graduate-level program.

"Even though I was hopeful, I was still very surprised when I got my acceptance letter from USU," she said. "Now I'm working toward a Master of Public Health [degree]. I already have a few classes under my belt. They were challenging, but I feel confident I'll survive the program. I want to prove to myself and everyone else that I can do this."

Looking to the future

Although she is still uncertain about her future after graduation, she said, she has a science background and a fondness for research that's pulling her toward a specialization in epidemiology.

It's a difficult track in a rigorous program on a campus full of military officers. Still, her determination is tenacious.

"The past few years have been tough, but I'm more confident now than ever before," Bytnar said. "I made it through basic training with a bunch of soldiers in their late teens and early 20s. I've gone on dismounted patrols in a war zone and treated some pretty grievous injuries. Now I'm at USU. I feel like there isn't a whole lot I can't do."

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The Milky Way and the Northern Lights dwarfed Thoroughfare...

09/05/2014 10:41 AM EDT

The Milky Way and the Northern Lights dwarfed Thoroughfare Mountain (Denali National Park) last night in a grand display. 

Photo by Daniel A. Leifheit

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DATA: MapLight Launches Federal Lobbying Database

 

 

September 5, 2014 - MapLight is pleased to announce the launch of its new federal lobbying database. MapLight's searchable dataset on federal lobbying is made freely available through both a Web interface and a CSV downloadable format, and provides timely information on unions, companies, and organizations that are lobbying the federal government. It includes information on how much money is being spent, which firms are being hired, which issues are being lobbied on, who is being lobbied, and more.

 

View the database here. Data source: Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives

 

 

Journalists can easily search the database for specific unions, companies, and organizations to determine:

• Which K Street organization(s) they have hired to lobby on specific issues (e.g.,  General Electric for defense issues: Gephardt Group Government, Williams and Jensen, William Ball, Fife Strategies LLC, The Ringo Group LLC)
• How much money they spent on lobbying, broken down by quarter (e.g., National Association of Realtors spent $180 million since 2008;  $23 million in the first two quarters of 2014)

For deeper analysis, journalists can download a spreadsheet (CSV file) containing every filing for a given union, company, or organization since 2008. Additional information contained in the filings includes:

• Who has been lobbied (e.g., U.S. Senate, Securities and Exchange Commission)
• Specific Issues being discussed, from taxation and copyright to specific bills in Congress (e.g., Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act, Dodd-Frank Act implementation)
• Names of individual lobbyists

Use case: If you were working on a piece on net neutrality you could combine CSV files from companies from a specific industry or set of industries-telecom (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile) with cable (Comcast, Time Warner, DirectTV) to uncover trends in specific fields of the data, aggregate totals, and more.

 

Editor's note: If you use MapLight data, please cite us. MapLight is happy to provide additional details to journalists regarding specific lobbying data (specific issues lobbied on, government entities lobbied, and lobbyist names) and to perform custom research inquiries on the data. Please do not hesitate to call us if we can be of assistance.

 

Methodology: MapLight analysis of lobbying disclosure filings from the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. Lobbying totals represent money paid by an organization to each lobbying firm for services on all issues . Organizations report total lobbying expenses as a lump sum, which includes both in-house lobbying expenses and amounts paid to (and reported by) lobbying firms that they employ. MapLight calculates a given organization's in-house lobbying expenses by subtracting the total income reported by the lobbying firms that it employs from the company's total reported expenses. In general, filers may round their spending and expenses to the nearest $10,000, and we treat the designation of "Less than $5,000" as a value of $0. MapLight updates its lobbying database daily to capture amendments. Full reports are due on the 20th day of January, April, July, and October.

  

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Department of Education Image of the Week

 

All 53 contestants of the 2015 Miss America competition stopped at ED's headquarters in Washington, D.C., during their tour of the city to discuss STEM education and careers for young girls and women. (Photo credit: U.S. Department of Education

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BLAME ME

by Michael Douglas Carlin

IT IS ALL EVERYBODY ELSE'S FAULT

The blame game is alive in America. It isn't your fault. None of it. You didn't do anything to deserve this. There are so many to blame. The list is endless. And if you really want to blame someone, then blame me. I did it. Whatever it is that causes you unhappiness, I was the one that made it happen. It was a conspiracy of so many of us that just wanted you to be unhappy, and you are right about not having anything to do with it.

That is not what America really is all about.

America is all about taking responsibility. Standing up and being accountable. Taking matters into your own hands. Working hard to achieve results. Taking whatever circumstances you have today to create a better more prosperous tomorrow.

I was on a radio show throughout the state of Texas. They wanted to begin with some California bashing. I told them not to ever count California out. We have a resiliency that they will see come out over the course of the next several years.

The situation in California may look bleak right now, and we may have questions about how we got here, but we all know that we did this to ourselves. We all share in the responsibility for the failures in California, but, when it turns around, and it will turn around, we will also be able to claim our share of the victory.

Turning California around begins with us all understanding where we are and taking responsibility for ourselves, our families, and our communities. Then, we will all join together to work hard and to make our tomorrows more prosperous.

America always wins; California always wins. Because we win together. Because we take responsibility for our failures and turn them into our successes.

FROM BELOW

God said "Forgive" But, I made them boil up inside

Hold on to their anger and hate denied at the Pearly Gate

God said Turn the other cheek I made them fight back and seek revenge

Blood soaked and drenched, fists clenched tight

I lead them to a life of living hell

All in the know say let it go

But, anger destroys so keep it in

At the Judgment Bar

Blame it all on me

See if they let you in

--

Send us your news story by putting the Headline in the Subject and the Article in the Body of the email by clicking on this link.

© 2014 Michael Douglas Carlin. All Rights Reserved.

What Hangs On Your Wall Says So Much More About You Than You Know…

(This article originally appeared in the September 9th, 2009 edition of the Century City News)

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words. What Are Your Pictures Saying About You?

By Michael Douglas Carlin

Bank of America in Century City has had numerous complaints about the art displayed in the back of the bank. Customers complain to Anthony, the branch manager, about the Bank taking TARP money while at the same time displaying art worth millions of dollars.

Too pricy of art might send the wrong message to your customers. Cheap art might also send the wrong message. The fine line that says community might be at your doorstep today. How about art that speaks to your clients and employees about the human condition? How about art that documents what is happening to animals on our planet? How about art that documents the changes that are happening to our MOTHER EARTH?

I grew up in a lighting and grip house in Burbank. My father was a lighting director and I spent many days working with photographers. I have worked with hundreds and I have grown to know the good ones from the bad just by being present at the photographing event. The bad ones often get occasionally lucky with a random shot that gets acclaim. The good ones don’t take pictures…they make pictures. I was never able to put this into words until I heard Colin Finlay tell me this over lunch one day. Taking pictures has the connotation of being a spectator at the event. Making pictures brings the photographer into the fabric of the event as a participant.

I knew there was something different about Colin Finlay and his work when I saw his photos. I have seen literally millions of photos in my lifetime and I recognized that a high percentage of his photos were exceptional if not brilliant. I only came to understand him as a photographer when I actually was present at one photographing event. I arranged for Colin to visit “Star Echo Station” in Culver City. I was introduced to “Star” by Stephen Nemeth at his birthday party a couple of years ago and grew to love the place. This is where animals that have been illegally brought into the country are confiscated and sent.

Star has the ability to care for wild animals and they provide a sanctuary that school children can visit to learn about the plight of endangered species as well as what we all can do to help heal our environment. I phoned ahead and talked to someone there and suggested that we visit to take some photos. I was informed about the rules and the documents that would need to be signed for us to visit. I suggested to them that they look up Colin on the internet. I got the feeling that being able to take photographs there was a common request and that there had been procedures established to minimize the number that actually followed through.

When we arrived they knew who Colin was and all of the procedure went out the window. They were grateful he had showed up to see what they were doing. The conversation was very genuine. Two great institutions were meeting for the first time. They abandoned all protocol and opened the cages of wild animals and allowed us to enter for a photographic experience I will always remember. I personally witnessed Colin transform into a quiet almost silent communicator of animals. The respect that he gave them from the moment he met them seemed to tell them that he was there to help others understand them. He seemed to ask them for their photo and they responded by giving Colin a performance. Each animal was different. I felt like I could almost understand what each animal was saying but I knew that Colin understood. In that moment I came to understand the emotion that each animal feels. I was always taught that human beings were the only life forms that can feel emotion. On that day this myth was forever shattered in my mind. I felt the enormous intelligence of the birds. I felt the longing of the cats for the days when they roamed free. I felt the sorrow that all animals feel at being pushed off of the face of the Earth.

I had heard Colin say that every time he made a photograph he left a little of himself behind and that every time he also took a little of his subject with him. I came to understand just what that meant, that day at Star Echo Station. I came to understand just how Colin got such incredible photographs of the Polar Bears, Grizzlies, Elephants and all other animals that he established this trance like connection with. Keep in mind that in the wild he often gets 15 feet or less away from some of the most dangerous animals. He told me about being less than 12 feet away from a family of Grizzlies. At any moment it could have gone wrong and he could have been killed.

Colin is no stranger to danger. He has documented, through his photos, both sides of the conflict in the Holy land. Colin has also travelled to Darfur, Rwanda, Northern Ireland and many other places documenting conflict. He has faced numerous situations that seemed hopeless with bullets flying but so far has managed to return with some incredible photographs. Colin has seen man’s inhumanity to man first hand. Colin has witnessed outright genocide. His book “Testify” brought awareness of the conflict in the Sudan where the Janjaweed are being hired by the Sudanese Government to drive the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit from their homes and lands, killing the men and brutally raping the women.

I met Colin at Bill Pruitt’s “Men’s Night”. This is a group of Westside men that meet to talk about the issues of the day. That particular night I was with my very good friend Sir Edward and he was sharing the floor with Colin Finlay. Colin spoke first and showed photographs of places Ed had been. Colin captured the images in such a way that evoked a memory response in Ed where he could actually remember the smell he had experienced when he was there. I watched as these men talked about these places…literally dozens of them where they visited hours apart. They talked about details that only someone who had been there would know. The conversation broke down into weeping and an embrace for two warriors who had approached the same issues and places from a different perspective and had drawn the same conclusions. To this day the two men are still very close and will forever share the bond of the inhumanity they witnessed. A part of both of these men was left behind at each place they visited and a part of that place will forever remain with them. Ed brought relief into these dangerous places and Colin photographed them but both men came to understand that we as human beings can’t allow this type of criminal activity to continue and both men are champions of ending it forever.
What you have on your walls says a lot about you…I suggest that you allow a part of Colin Finlay and the places he has documented to speak to your employees and clients that you join with all of us in ending the tragedies that have been allowed to go unchecked – until now.

The Century City News is hosting a VIP reception for Mr. Finlay on September 23, 2009 at 6 PM to be held at Cal National Bank on the corner of Avenue of the Stars and Santa Monica Blvd. (1800 AOS). The event is sponsored by The Century City News and Cal National Bank additional sponsorship opportunities are available. I am personally inviting every reader of the Century City News to attend the event. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to meet one of the world’s most active eco-warriors. Meet someone who has actually travelled to the four corners of the world to see with his own eyes what is happening to our planet and hear his message of hope that we can turn it all around before we reach the tipping point. Reach out to your friends from around the city and invite them out to hear first hand accounts of ecological disasters and recovery opportunities.
For more information on Mr. Finlay I refer you to his website at www.colinfinlay.com

Aaron Cohen 2010 Citizen of the Year

(This article originally appeared in the May 10th, 2010 edition of the Century City News)

Aaron Cohen - The Promise of America

By Michael Douglas Carlin

The Promise of America is that no matter what your current station you can take advantage of the opportunities in front of you right now and make your life better through working hard and obtaining an education. Aaron Cohen is not only a believer in this promise but an achiever of this promise. Now we are celebrating Aaron as the 2010 Century City Citizen of the Year, an award given by the prestigious Century City Chamber of Commerce. Aaron is an unprecedented two time recipient of this award. Each award was twenty years apart signifying that Aaron not only made it but he maintained his position in life and within the Century City Business Community. In any other country this would be a story that would become a legend, myth or fable. In America this is a common story about a man that began in the most humble of circumstances and rose to greatness. Common because others have achieved the same result from their hard work and dedication but uncommon because from a purely numbers standpoint this story isn’t repeated near enough in America or the rest of the World.

Aaron began life in Bulgaria and at the age of 10 dealt with Nazi occupation for two years. He took advantage of an opportunity to leave for Palestine. At 15 ½ Aaron did time in a British Jail for protesting against the policy of not letting Holocaust Survivors come to Palestine as outlined in the British White Paper of 1939. Aaron joined the Israeli Underground becoming one of the most elite commandos. They were known as Palmach and they fought against the armies opposed to the formation of Israel. They passed a single machine gun from village to village to give the appearance that their firepower was greater than it actually was. Aaron would volunteer for these dangerous night missions where failure meant certain death. Together with his battlebuddies they defeated the armies of Syria, Sudan, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq to bring the dream of a sovereign nation of Israel into being against all odds. While in Israel he was one of the founders of the Kibbutz Urim. In Israel he met a woman that would change his life forever. He married an American with full intention of settling in Israel but was sent for when she visited home.

He arrived in New York not speaking the language, with no money, no education and no job. But what he did have was a willingness to work hard and to learn. Three days after his arrival he was in school learning English. He worked a factory job during the week, went to school at nights, and worked a second job on the weekends to make ends meet. At the factory he was named a management trainee just prior to the end of the Korean War. When the war was over he was laid off. He vowed that he would never be laid off again. He came to the west coast where he learned how to clean windows and floors.


There are many people from that era that would love to claim that Mary Pickford gave them their start but Aaron was blessed to be able to work for Mary cleaning her house -this lead to other celebrities that needed their homes cleaned and then to Mary’s first commercial building. Aaron landed a contract to clean all of the Hamburger Hamlets and according to his philosophy that all anybody wants to see is a hard working honest guy he landed all of Buckeye Realty’s buildings. He sold his business and stayed on to manage it. Now he hails from ABM the largest maintenance company in the business. The company has expanded their offerings to include security, engineering, and parking to compliment their stranglehold on the maintenance business.

Aaron’s favorite claim to fame is that all three of his kids graduated from the same High-School. Three years to the day after Aaron arrived in the United States he was made a U.S. Citizen. He credits his teachers. One teacher gave him the book he needed to complete the course at a time when Aaron couldn’t afford the book on his own. All of his teachers, and he remembers every single one of them, instilled a deeper appreciation in our Country. In Century City Aaron is known for his patriotism. He regularly leads the Century City Chamber of Commerce Meetings Flag Salute. Then at the end he thunders “AND GOD BLESS AMERICA AND GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS.” Every time Aaron sees any uniformed soldier he stops everything and politely addresses them thanking them for their service. When it comes to the buildings in Century City there isn’t a single one that his sweat hasn’t been left in. Aaron is a proof that the promise of America is still alive.