Mitchell’s Firm Worked for Dubai Ruler in Jockey Case (Update1)

(Compiler's note: Well here is certainly most interesting -- must read -- material that I did NOT expect to find. This farm boy reads the sickening material below and concludes that our past and new gov't leaders were clearly involved with supporting slavery and child abuse. Read it and see what conclusions you draw. This also gives insight into how some elements of our new "diplomatic" and "legal" machinery works.)

By Timothy J. Burger

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special Middle East troubleshooter, was chairman of a law firm that was paid about $8 million representing Dubai’s ruler in connection with a child-trafficking lawsuit.

The DLA Piper law firm did legal and lobbying work on the case, which alleged that Dubai’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al- Maktoum and another official used children kidnapped from other countries to ride as jockeys in camel races. The firm lobbied federal agencies, members of the U.S. House and about two dozen Senate offices, including those of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2006 and 2007, according to Justice Department foreign-agent disclosures.

Mitchell, 75, who isn’t a registered lobbyist, didn’t lobby either on this issue or for Dubai generally. DLA Piper partner Bill Minor said in an e-mail that Mitchell, a former Democratic senator from Maine, mainly focused on growth and management at the firm of almost 4,000 attorneys and 65 offices worldwide, and high-profile projects such as an investigation of steroid use in Major League Baseball.

Mitchell’s firm had extensive lobbying clients and offices in the Middle East ranging from the leader of Dubai to a Kuwait construction firm contracting in Iraq. The firm also has offices in Egypt, Oman, Qatar and Abu Dhabi and has an affiliation with a law firm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Mitchell traveled to Dubai and spoke to the press there about the issue.

Suit Thrown Out

The camel-jockey suit was thrown out after the U.S. Justice Department notified a Miami federal judge that it planned to intervene and argue that al-Maktoum was immune from the suit as a foreign leader.

“That he was such a key figure in the firm himself certainly gives the appearance that probably any of the clients that solicited help from the firm may have had a business relationship with him as well,” said Craig Holman, who lobbies for tougher governmental ethics rules for Public Citizen, a Washington-based advocacy group.

In a Jan. 24 telephone interview, Mitchell said he “was generally aware of the case but I had no involvement in it.”

“I visited Dubai. I did not discuss the case with the Sheikh. I had nothing to do with bringing it in,” Mitchell said. “I was merely chairman when it occurred.”

Mitchell’s name heads a list on DLA Piper’s Web site of a team advising clients “on opportunities and risks associated with doing business in Iraq and the Middle East generally.” In addition to legal work, the Web site says DLA Piper has “experience working with relevant decision makers in the United States and the region.”

Dubai Billing

Altogether, DLA Piper billed Dubai-related entities about $9.5 million on this and other issues while Mitchell was chairman from 2005 through the end of 2008.

Other lobbying clients located or primarily interested in the Middle East -- and one focused on Iran -- paid DLA Piper an additional $2.29 million.

Mitchell, who is traveling in the Middle East this week, may need a waiver from Obama’s new policy on ethics and lobbying, which says government officials must wait two years before working on matters “directly and substantially” related to pre-government employers or clients even if they weren’t registered lobbyists, said Stefan Passantino, head of the Washington-based political law group for McKenna Long & Aldridge.

‘Perception Dynamic’

“It is a perception dynamic that has to be managed very carefully,” said Passantino, who helped represent former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during a congressional ethics case.

Asked if he’s going to have to recuse himself from anything at the State Department, Mitchell said, “I haven’t made any judgment on that.”

“I have to wait and see,” Mitchell said. “I will be resigning from the firm and terminating all private business activities.”

White House spokesman Bill Burton referred questions to the State Department, where spokesman Gordon Duguid declined comment and referred questions to Mitchell’s office. A voicemail left at the U.A.E. embassy in Washington wasn’t returned.

Habib Al-Mulla, a Dubai-based lawyer for Sheikh Mohammad, also said Mitchell “played no role in the litigation or efforts that led to the quashing of the lawsuit.” Al-Mulla said the sheikh was satisfied with the outcome of the case.

Mitchell, a former U.S. Senate majority leader and onetime federal judge, was quoted by the Emirates News Agency in January 2007 defending the United Arab Emirates’ efforts to rescue “underage camel jockeys.”

Mitchell led efforts in Northern Ireland that resulted in the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. In 2000 and 2001, he was chairman of a fact-finding panel examining the crisis in the Middle East.

9/11 Commission

In 2002, congressional Democrats tapped Mitchell as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission. Mitchell and Henry Kissinger, then-President George W. Bush’s pick as chairman, quit the commission’s top posts after Congress required members to disclose financial information and suggested Mitchell may have to sever ties to his law firm.

The camel jockey lawsuit in September 2006, a class-action lawsuit filed by Mount Pleasant, South Carolina-based Motley Rice LLC by the children’s parents, accused al-Maktoum and others of enslaving boys from Africa and South Asia who were brought to Dubai as jockeys for camel racing, a popular sport in some parts of the Arab world.

DLA Piper picked up the case two weeks after the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. on behalf of underage camel jockeys. It set up meetings with Biden’s Senate staff on Nov. 29, 2006, followed by a Dec. 15 meeting with Obama’s staff. On Jan. 4, 2007, the firm arranged a meeting with Clinton and other senators and their aides, according to Justice Department Foreign Agent Registration Act filings.

‘Serious Problem’

A February 2005 report on the U.S. State Department Web site says that in the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, “trafficking of young, noncitizen boys employed as camel jockeys continued to be a serious problem, although the Government has pledged to eliminate this practice for boys under the age of 15.” The report cited an estimate by the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International, a Pakistan-based civil rights group, that 5,000 boys were working as camel jockeys.

The U.A.E. introduced the use of robots as riders on the camels and two years ago set up an $8 million fund to compensate former child jockeys. Human rights organizations have condemned the use of children as camel jockeys, saying the boys, mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh and some as young as 4 years old, are abducted, sexually abused and underfed.

‘Remarkable Partnership’

Mitchell was quoted by the state-owned Emirates News Agency in January 2007 as praising the United Arab Emirates and Dubai for a “remarkable partnership with UNICEF to locate, care for and repatriate underage camel jockeys. This program has been justly praised by the international community as a model solution to a serious problem.”

DLA Piper billed the Dubai government about $8 million, according to Justice Department filings. This included almost $2.5 million between Aug. 6, 2006, and Feb. 28, 2007. Over the next six months, the firm billed Dubai over $1.2 million, as it held more than 70 meetings with senior officials at the White House, the State and Justice departments, and Congress, seeking a “statement of interest” by the U.S. government for their client.

The Justice Department on July 26, 2007, informed U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga it would file a motion seeking “head of state immunity” for al-Maktoum. The judge dismissed the case days later, citing other jurisdictional issues.

A similar case was filed in Kentucky, omitting Dubai’s ruler as a defendant, and was also dismissed in November. John Eubanks, one of the lawyers who filed the cases, said the matter appears to be closed as far as U.S. courts are concerned.

How to defeat the Islamic scourge

Very interesting podcast on the topic can be heard by clicking here

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re back in the mid 1940’s, with your 2008 knowledge, attitudes, ethics and morals. The Ku Klux Klan, which has seen it’s power rinse and fall several times over the course if it’s existence, is at the peak of its power in many parts of the country. They aren’t using terror tactics as much as they used to, but the threat of violence is helping them spread their religion of hate and keep critics silent.

You’re having a casual conversation with someone when the subject of the Klan comes up. “The Klan,” they say, “is based on a religious belief, and so everyone should respect their religion. Besides,” they add, “only a tiny percentage of the Klan actually commits violent acts. Most are just normal people who want to live their lives without bothering anyone. Calling them racists and terrorists is condemning them all for the actions of a few. You shouldn’t be painting a group with such a wide brush. That’s bigotry.”

What would your reaction be? .....

Obama to Islamic World: "Americans are not your enemy"

from Salisbury News

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - President Barack Obama chose an Arabic satellite TV network for his first formal television interview as president, part of a concerted effort to repair relations with the Muslim world that were damaged under the previous administration.

Obama cited his Muslim background and relatives, practically a taboo issue during the U.S. presidential campaign, and said in the interview, which aired Tuesday, that one of his main tasks was to communicate to Muslims "that the Americans are not your enemy."

The interview on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel aired as Obama's new envoy to the region, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, arrived in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Obama said the U.S. had made mistakes in the past but "that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."

Obama condemned Iran's threats against Israel, pursuit of nuclear weapons and support of terrorist organizations, but said "it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress."

In contrast to the enthusiastic reception Obama's victory has garnered around the world, the Arab world has been much more cautious about the new U.S. president—with most people skeptical that American policy in the region will change substantially.

Obama's choice of Al-Arabiya network, which is owned by a Saudi businessman, follows the lead of the Bush administration, which gave several presidential interviews to that news channel.

Hady Amr, director of the Brookings Doha Center, an arm of the U.S. think-tank in the Qatari capital, described decision to make the first presidential interview with an Arabic news network as "stunning."

"President Obama has made it absolutely clear ... that a central priority will be repairing America's relations with the Muslim world," he said. "If that's his objective, I'd say he's been hitting home run after home run."

In the interview, Obama called for a new partnership with the Muslim world "based on mutual respect and mutual interest."

This appeal does seem to have struck a chord among many Muslims.

Read the full article HERE.

Rep. Bartlett (R-MD) Gives Dear Leader History Lesson

from Gateway Pundit

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) gave Barack Obama a history lesson today during Barack Obama's meeting with House Republicans.
Jake Tapper reported:

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md.: "Mr. President, I probably come at this from a slightly different perspective. I remember when FDR beat Hoover in 1932. So I remember the Great Depression very well. I don't remember any of the many government programs affecting the course of the Depression. Government programs didn't work then, I don't know why we think they would work now. Mr. President, I think our obsessive borrowing has fully mortgaged my kids and my grandkids. Now we're working on mortgaging my two great-grandkids. Mr. President, I think it's more than a little bit selfish to try to solve our economic problems which we created by burdening future generations yet to be born." *

This prompted applause.

The Congressional Budget Office has released an analysis of the House version of the stimulus bill (H.R. 1) and reported that less than 21% of the bailout will be spent this year:

Read the Stimulus has more on this massive boondoggle.

Motion to compel records from the Supreme Court and request for Congressional and Senate hearing

(Compiler's note: A must read item.)

Source: A friend

01.26.09.
Dear fellow Americans and Patriots,

As you probably know, in my case Lightfoot v Bowen I filed a petition for emergency stay and asked it to be treated as a writ of certiorari based on Bush v Gore 2000 precedent. The Supreme Court has logged this petition as an application for stay pending filing a writ of certiorari. Since they denied the emergency petition today, it gives me an opportunity to file immediately the actual Writ of Certiorari and it will be done within a few days.

However, a number of things have transpired lately.

First, an exparte private closed door meeting between 8 out of 9 Justices of the Supreme Court (Justice Samuel Alito was not present) with Mr. Barry Soetoro-Barack Hussein Obama. I will file a motion to the Chief Justice to compel the records of this private meeting, that was held only a few days before my case was supposed to be heard, where the plaintiffs state that Mr. Soetoro-Obama is illegitimate for presidency due to the fact that his father was a foreign subject and there is no evidence that Mr. Obama was really born in Hawaii, since the state of Hawaii statute 338 allows foreign born children of Hawaiian residents to obtain Hawaiian certification of live birth and such certification can be obtained based on an affidavit of one relative only. In spite of 32 legal actions filed around the country, Mr. Soetoro-Obama refused to provide his original birth certificate that is sealed in Hawaii, no hospital in Hawaii could find any records of Mr. Obama ever being born there and affidavits were given by a number of parties in Kenya, stating that he was born in Kenya.

We believe that Mr. Obama has spent over $800,000 on numerous attorneys to keep his original birth certificate sealed, because the original vault birth certificate does not provide any corroborating evidence from any hospital about him being born there.

Additionally, Mr. Obama has immigrated to Indonesia as a child with his mother and step-father Lolo Soetoro and his school records from Indonesia show his legal name to be Barry Soetoro, citizen of Indonesia. Due to the fact that Indonesia does not allow dual citizenship, Mr. Soetoro -Obama's parents had to relinquish his US citizenship in order to obtain his Indonesian Citizenship.

There is ample evidence that Mr. Soetoro-Obama has travelled on his Indonesian passport up to the time he became US Senator, whereby he reaffirmed his Indonesian citizenship as an adult.

The swearing of Mr. Obama is null and void due to the fact that he was sworn in on a name that is not legally his name and he is a foreign subject from birth and now and never qualified as a Natural Born US Citizen.

On Wednesday, January the 21st, when the Supreme Court reopened for business after inauguration, somebody deleted from the external docket all information about my case. Millions of people around the country and around the world watched that docket. A number of concerned parties have called the Supreme Court and got no explanation. Other cases were on the docket. Finally, information about my case was re-entered on the docket. I will be demanding from the Chief Justice John Roberts an immediate full investigation, as to how the information about a case of National and World importance, dealing with Mr Soetoro- Obama's illegitimacy for Presidency, disappeared from the docket of the Supreme Court.

Incidentally an article about me and the cases I am handling, has disappeared from the Wikipedia. A copy of this letter will be forwarded to the Congressional and Senatorial Judicial committees for full investigation and hearing as well as FBI and US attorney's offices.

I would ask all of the citizens that observed this disappearing and reappearing of information on the docket of SCOTUS to write affidavits to that extend. Please go to the nearest UPS store. They usually have notary public on the premises. Have your signature notarised and have the affidavit scanned and e-mailed to me.

Watergate investigation started with a small hotel braking. Obamagate Congressional and Senatorial investigation will start with this breaking into the computer system of the Supreme Court of the United States and illegal deletion of all the information about my case from the external public docket.

Dr. Orly Taitz, ESQ
dr_taitz@yahoo.com
drorly.blogspot.com

AP IMPACT: US bets on bank execs to fix this mess

By MATT APUZZO and DANIEL WAGNER

WASHINGTON (AP) - They've been bailed out, but not kicked out. At banks that are receiving federal bailout money nearly nine out of every 10 of the most senior executives from 2006 are still on the job, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory and company documents.

The AP's review reveals one of the ironies of the bank bailout: The same executives who were at the controls as the banking system nearly collapsed are the ones the government is counting on to help save it.

Even top executives whose banks made such risky loans they imperiled the economy have been largely spared any threat to their jobs, as Washington pumped billions in taxpayer money into the companies. Less fortunate are more than 100,000 bank employees laid off during a two-year stretch when industry unemployment nearly tripled, bank stocks plummeted and credit dried up.

"The same people at the top are still there, the same people who made the decisions causing a lot of our financial crisis," said Rebecca Trevino of Louisville, Ky., a mother of three who was laid off from her job as a Bank of America training coordinator in October. "But that's what tends to happen in leadership. The people at the top, there's always some other place to lay blame."

That workers and managers experience a recession differently is hardly a surprise. What's new is that taxpayers are now shareholders in the nation's bailed-out banks, yet they lack the usual shareholder power to question management decisions or demand house-cleaning in the executive suites.

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), for example, once was among the top lenders of subprime mortgages, or loans to buyers with low credit scores. The company received $25 billion in bailout money and plans layoffs in the coming months. But longtime CEO Richard Kovacevich remains the company's chairman, and the board recently waived its mandatory retirement age for him. John Stumpf, the president since 2005, became chief executive in 2007.

"Our senior leadership team of our CEO and his direct reports have an average tenure of almost a quarter-century with our company," Wells Fargo spokeswoman Julia Tunis Bernard said in a prepared statement. "Our unchanging vision, values and time-tested business model will continue to guide our leaders and our team into the future, and are now more than ever a competitive advantage as our industry evolves."

Under the government's no-strings-attached bailout plan, taxpayers must take it on faith that bank executives will make better decisions this time around, said Jamie Court, president of the California-based group Consumer Watchdog.

"When you deal with the same dogs, you're going to end up with the same fleas," Court said.

The bailout list includes banks of all sizes - from Wall Street giants to small community banks. Some led the rush into subprime mortgages. Others followed.

Many executives on the list are small-town executives who don't earn anything close to Wall Street salaries and who suffered alongside their communities when the economy turned sour. The trouble with the bailout is that nobody in government ever stopped to figure out who caused the avalanche and who simply got buried, said University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici.

"If they got involved in questionable loans and contributed to the speculative bubble, they should be out," Morici said. "These people should be removed and banned from banking, unless we wanted to make them all janitors. But the question then is, 'Can they be trusted wandering around the offices at night?'"

Barack Obama as president-elect and some in Congress have suggested auto company executives should lose their jobs as part of the bailout of that industry. But there has been no such suggestion about banks. Congress twice authorized $350 billion in bank bailout money. Both times, lawmakers set few conditions on the money.

The president of the American Bankers Association, Ed Yingling, said he understands taxpayers are frustrated. But most banks had nothing to do with the subprime crisis, he said. As for whether taxpayers should demand management changes, he said that was never a condition of the bailout plan the government crafted.

"Are we going to have the American people saying, 'We're invested in you, so now we should look at your margins, look at every loan you make, look at your lending policies?' No. That was never discussed," Yingling said. "You can't micromanage banks."

In some cases the market held executives accountable for the mortgage crisis. When banks such as Washington Mutual, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers were bought up, many executives lost their jobs. When the government took over mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), directors and executives were fired.

But the financial bailout has resulted in no such consequences. AP's review of the more than 200 publicly traded banks that received federal bailout money found that about 87 percent of the top three executives in 2006 - typically the chief executive, operating and financial officers - still remain on the job.

And that number is deceptively low, since those few executives who left their jobs often did so because they retired - or died. Several stayed on as directors or in consulting positions.

Even banks that were involved in risky lending saw little turnover:

_JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), which invested billions in subprime mortgages, has the same leadership team, led by CEO James Dimon. Dimon made about $28 million in 2007. The company is shedding about 10 percent of its investment bank staff.

_Cleveland-based KeyCorp, which ran subprime lending subsidiary Champion Mortgage until late 2006, received $2.5 billion in bailout money. Its chairman and CEO, Henry Meyer, has been in charge since 2001. Jeffrey Weeden, the company's chief financial officer, and Thomas Stevens, the administrative officer who oversaw the risk review group, have been on the job for years.

KeyCorp has been cutting jobs over the past two years, including 200 announced this month at a Tacoma, Wash., call center. A company spokesman said the bank was too busy preparing its earnings report to answer questions about whether taxpayers should have confidence in the company's management.

"The on-the-record comment I would make is that we declined to comment even though we'd like to, because we don't have time," spokesman Bill Murschel said.

_Capital One Financial Corp., one of the nation's biggest credit-card providers, dove into the risky mortgage business when it bought GreenPoint Mortgage in 2006. GreenPoint made exotic loans to borrowers without verifying income or credit scores, then sold those loans to investors.

A year later, Capital One shuttered GreenPoint, cutting 1,900 jobs. CEO Richard Fairbank and his top executives were not among them. The company received about $3.5 billion in bailout money.

In Louisville, Trevino and her family are living mostly off credit cards and savings while she interviews for jobs. Her husband is in commercial real estate, which has slowed significantly. After what she described as a bare-bones Christmas, she said she looked over her household finances and realized they might lose their home.

"That's when I was just, 'Lord, I know you have a plan. Can you just show me? I'd really like to know,'" she said.

Trevino said she isn't upset that her old boss, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, is still on the job. There are others in the industry with greater responsibility for the crisis, she said.

Trevino agreed the federal government needed to rescue the banks but said there should have been some oversight.

"It is surprising that leadership can make decisions that lead to financial ruin for so many," she said, "and then get bailed out for it."