Posted on 06/30/2003 11:18:43 AM PDT by archy
... while gun nuts exhibit no sympathy for the victim, nor castigate the victimizers who were acting irresponsibly.
Kinda like your posts, eh?
I suspect a summer intern, or possibly the bosses' kid/nephew/niece running the weekend edition of the paper while the adults are on vacation.
-archy-/-
If the *victimizers* are indeed the sons of fellow police officers or local political figures, castigating them could result in beatings, multiple trumped-up charges, or harassment of your own family members, as has happened to some of those in Montana aware of narcotics transshipments coming into Montana during the reign of Montana governor Marc Rasicot.
For someone not located in the state and presumably unfamiliar with the local circumstances in many of Montana's counties, you're awfully brave to castigate victims from a safe distance yourself.
Remember that if you criticize them publically, they can kill you and get away with it. Accordingly, you'll find it safer to point your finger at other FReepers. But there's a word for that sort of behavior.
-archy-/-
A visitor
Your view of such things is clearly influenced by the distance from which you have to view the lasses of Montana, some of whom are quite comely indeed, though it can be a bit hard to tell in wintertime when they're covered with down vests and jackets.
But a close-up and personal, hands-on inspection reveals some that are clearly the equal of their sisters in other states. I intend to give the matter my closest attention in a couple of months, and I'll let you know how my research turns out....
-archy-/-
I did okay. Coming out of grade school, my parents thought it would be a swell *learning experience* for me to spend a year or two where my dad was working as a Caltex/Texaco refinery engineer and draftsman. Then Fidel Castro came along, and the operations there came under new management; we were transferred back to the states the summer before his New Years Day victory parades in Santa Clara and Havana, but not before the school I went to was thoroughly shot up, among other *learning experiences.*
Accordingly, afyer we got back, I both came to appreciate well-made stuff and took care of it. I had a string of interesting vehicles and firearms, traded around a bit, and had my motorcycle operator's licence at 15.
But I was never a believer in the theory that *whoever dies with the most toys, wins.* It should be whoever dies with the best toys, IMHO.
-archy-/-
You might have found that a Stevens 87J, a Winchester '07, or a Remington Nylon 66 could be so modified to exhibit more reliability than those in the Savage line. Even the Mossberg 151 and Marlin A1 could be so arranged with good results, though the later Marlin model 60 is a notorious jam-o-matic due to its underbarrel tubular magazine. The ones best suited for reliable feeding are those with their tubular magazines mounted solidly inside the buttstock, feeding straight into the barrel's firing chamber directly.
File it under "P" for "paranoia" or "L" for "lunacy."
File it under "P" for "paranoia" or "L" for "lunacy."
Why don't you come to Montana, and tell that to the faces of Mike Wolf's mother Virginia and Bruce Madsen's family? There is no statute of limitations for murder in Montana, even when they're a convenience to the governor. File it under "M" for murder, and "R" for Racicot.
Our Governor's Norwest Bank Secret
by Yellowstone Sam
April 13, 1998
"The Canadian-Montana border is now the principal point of entry of illegal drugs coming into the U.S. Montana is awash in them. A series of clandestine airfields stretches across the state. Naturally the journalists covering the Freemen picked up none of this bigger story right under their noses. Big names are involved in the drug operation, including the soon-to-be-indicted Governor of Montana." J. Orlin Grabbe June 17, 1996
Marc Racicot keeps a very distressing secret. It is a secret about financial transactions leading up to accounts in the Norwest Bank Branch in Helena. It's a secret that has shattered the political hopes of a man some Montanans call the most popular governor in America. It's a secret Marc Racicot knows will lead to his destruction and criminal indictment.
The secret is this: Marc Racicot took money into Norwest Bank of Helena accounts as part of his payment for allowing large scale shipments of heroin and cocaine to cross Montana from Canada. The payments were discovered during a drug investigation (involving the CIA and DEA) of Columbian drug kingpin, Fabio Ochoa, and others.
The documentation in bank records is unmistakable. A forensic criminal audit has been performed on the accounts. It's all there in black and white. Marc Racicot knows it. So do several bankers. Four lawyers close to Marc Racicot=s inner circle also know. Consequently there have been some frantic phone calls made by Governor Racicot=s close associates during the last few months.
Once Marc Racicot's name began to circulate as a Republican Presidential or Vice Presidential hopeful the national public began to pay close attention to Marc Racicot1. What astute journalists found was that Racicot's ambitions for national office were closely linked to the Bush family and were targeted much earlier in the foreign press 2. The wildly conflicting reports are underscored by an apparent battle between rival U.S. intelligence factions.
Varied and knowledgeable intelligence sources have referred to an enormous drug smuggling operation in Montana. Some of the sources include David Hume, a retired U.S. Coast Guard intelligence officer; Chip Tatum, former CIA and OSG-3 operative; longtime CIA operative Charles Hayes; Jack Wheeler of Strategic Investments (co-editor with William Colby, former CIA director, prior to Colby's accidental death); and a Phoenix, AZ. private investigator, Mike Roe.
The drug smuggling operation involved light plane shipments of cocaine and heroin into the Montana, as part of a scheme involving corrupt FBI agents and local law enforcement officers. The planes flew from a staging area near Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Several of the pilots who flew drugs into Canada- have co-operated with an internal FBI investigation which implicates Miami FBI agent Terry Nelson.
Several of the sources maintain that Marc Racicot was involved in the drug scheme and that Racicot took payments from some of the other conspirators. The payments were made into an account (or accounts) in the Norwest Bank of Helena. One of the sources, Charles Hayes, offered in writing to testify and provide copies of the bank documents to the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee3.
Racicot's involvement in the operation seems to be underscored by Mike Roe who says that his investigations into drug related corruption in Sidney and Chinook (two of the small towns used by the smugglers for landings) were personally spiked by Racicot when he was Attorney General. It was obvious that eye-witnesses were intimidated or ignored in the investigation.
It all might have been forgotten except for the fact that Michael Wolf and Bruce Madsen turned up dead in Sidney on December 16, 1993. Those deaths coupled with the Cowan murders in Chinook six years earlier, left a group of journalists and researchers who were convinced that the killings were tied to a drug ring.A drug ring with heavy links to law enforcement.
As more research turned up additional unexplained deaths on the Fort Peck Reservation, it became clear that persons involved in the smuggling operation were also tied to the killings. Mike Perry of the Chinook Opinion, who began to cover the broadening investigations, also began to feel the brunt of personal attacks when Perry editorialized about the corruption. At the root of the harassment- time and time again- it was found that Marc Racicot was micromanaging the situation
While Marc Racicot was ignoring investigations, and allowing harassment of witnesses, he also was busy working on a public relations campaign which he thought would get him into national political office. Racicot was very wrong with that strategy.
As Racicot assistants, such as Mary Jo Fox, fanned the flames of presidential rumors about Racicot in Montana, journalists outside the state noticed that something was amiss with the candidate's background. Do you consider for a minute that Racicot's involvement in drug trafficking would go unnoticed by the national media? Of course not.
This is precisely why Racicot's political campaign for the year 2000 isn't going anywhere, (and was never going anywhere). The powerful men who were involved in the Republican Party were quick to jettison the pretentious governor from Montana. Racicot's explanations about the drug scandal being "ridiculous" weren't bought by many people in Washington D.C. or Montana.
At the point that the funds transferred into the Norwest Bank of Helena for Marc Racicot were publicly identified, Marc Racicot was doomed. The man has privately wept bitter, bitter tears because he knows other people know his secret, (and he can't control the situation). His typical public response has been to avoid the topic- or ridicule the story; but his tactics have worn exceedingly thin.
What exists now is that Marc Racicot has moved into the end game. His secret is no longer a secret.
CONCLUSION
Marc Racicot cannot explain some bank transfers into Montana Bank of Helena accounts. The money trail implicates Marc Racicot in large-scale drug smuggling and related murders.
Please print this out and let other people know. Let's work together to see that this evil man is brought to justice. We invite you to share Marc Racicot's secret.
Time-Honored Tradition Penetrates the GOP
by Hi-line Mary
May 5, 1998
HAVRE- All across the Hi-line small talk revolves around Canada drug smuggling allegations. Sidney has its Wolfe-Madsen murders; Lambert has its drug flights; Fort Peck Reservation has stories of dozens of murders and clandestine airstrips; Chinook has the Cowan murders, and its own stories of drug flights;Whitefish has a money laundering bank scandal; and Eureka-Libby has the Lucianos. Oh yes, the Lucianos.
Curious Montana people catch a small glimpse of puzzle piece truth in each of the interlocking stories.
The Cowan murders were planned in a Havre casino/bowling alley. The ownership records of the casino point back to a man in Sidney who was suspected of dealing drugs big time. The Sidney man was also mentioned (as a suspect) in the Wolfe-Madsen killings. Those killings may have been linked to Indian "hit men" operating off the Fort Peck Reservation. In a startling harmony, drug flights were observed by a myriad of witnesses as all the above events were discussed, compartmentalized, then forgotten.
The dramas played out without the daily newspapers giving them much attention.
All the reports were perceived as, a series of isolated vignettes, loosely related, but more easily attributed to glitches on a mostly tranquil, rustic Montana border landscape.
To be sure, Gene Moore warned his wife he was going to be killed because of what he knew about the "drug cartel". Then Moore drove off in a fuel truck, and was gunned down by area law enforcement, just outside Joplin. But that was only another coincidence. We are told.
Some know what we are spoon fed by the corporate daily newspapers is as far from the real truth as possible.
ROBERT VESCO AND CANADA
Heroin refineries have thrived in Marseilles, France and Corsica since the end of World War II. The ties of Sicilian Mafia families to the French heroin manufacturing networks were a given, from the beginning, in the US.
Prior to the renaissance of renegade pharmacy in the 1960's (with Tim Leary and Richard Alpert leading the charge), drug distribution was orderly through traditional Mafia channels. The drugs were grown in the Mideast, shipped to the French refineries, and then distributed into the lucrative American markets. The Atlantic seaports gradually gave way to the easier, safer smuggling routes into Canada.
Why Canada ? Because Canada has a very small narcotics enforcement unit, and a very large French speaking population in Quebec. Canada also had thousands of miles of virtually unguarded border with its friendly southern neighbor. Further, Canada has a history of tolerating smuggling during the years of US alcohol prohibition. The Bronfman owned Seagrams factory, in southern Saskatchewan, adjacent to the US border, is only one such example.
Old time mobsters Lucky Luciano and Al Capone used Montana as a smuggling area. Capone visited Havre, and its opium dens and recreation houses during his heyday. Luciano's love for the Eureka-Libby area surpassed his appreciation of his last US home in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Later during the mid-sixties Joseph Bonano secured airstrips along the Canadian border near Eureka, Libby and Troy, Montana.
The popular film "The French Connection" gave the exotic concept of French based smuggling into the United States a tremendous boost. Also noteworthy was the involvement of Lucky Luciano, in the early efforts of US intelligence during World War II. Few realized how Montana was the mob's well kept secret.
In a recent interview, film maker Ciba Banar claims he has documentation that "fugitive financier" Robert Vesco, funded criminal activities in the United States from his operations in Toronto. The operations according to Banar involved drug trafficking into Canada. Again and again big names in organized crime come up in Canada smuggling - then disappear.
Robert Vesco, thought he could disappear into Costa Rica, but he didn't. Neither did $200,000 in $100 bills set aside to be delivered to Nixon administration officials, Maurice Stans and John Mitchell in February, 1972. At the same time Montana governor Tim Babcock was assisting the Nixon national campaign efforts from Helena as much as he could. Some say that Governor Babcock went well beyond the call of duty.
The mob strategy was to pull strings in Montana which would allow for the revenues of the lucrative heroin markets. The Bonano airstrips in Montana operated quietly during most of the 1970's. The Lucianos, who claimed they were (and also claimed that they were not) relatives of Lucky Luciano, continued to live and prosper in northern Montana. The Lucianos and the Bonanos were allowed to prosper in Montana because of a system of corruption which has come to be recognized as the most serious example of governmental improbity in the United States.
OMERTA - CODE OF SILENCE
The Mafia used "omerta", the code of silence, as its shield from attack from outsiders and law enforcement. A Mafia soldier could go to prison or death and know his family would be protected if he could keep his oath of silence. A similar "code of silence" was held in Montana by the early day Vigilantes. It became understood in modern Montana that actions were taken on decisions which originated in secret places and cabals.
Helena Madame "Big Dorothy" learned of the code of silence, as she plummeted from atop a multi-storied Helena building, after she threatened to name names of her customers, if her wide-open bordello was shut down. Banker Bob Kropp was bludgeoned to death after he began to feed information about the Montana Supreme Court's system of bribery. Highway Patrolman Michael Remz was gunned down after he trailed cars leaving a Bonano airstrip near Eureka.
Montana newsmen were willing accomplices. Strange deaths were dutifully reported. But the obvious specter of high-level corruption was utterly ignored. Frank Luciano fled the United States for the Caribbean, amid little fanfare. Luciano's involvement in laundering funds to the Caymen Islands was disregarded. Al Luciano was indignant that stupid people were saying that, he, (of all persons!) was related to Lucky Luciano.
The traditional organized crime route for heroin and cocaine in Montana lasted for more than thirty years. It served its purpose well. But the pipeline was supplanted by another organization who needed better security.
REPUBLICAN MARC RACICOT
Col. Oliver North became a controversial figure during the Reagan administration scandal known as the Iran-Contra affair. The scandal involved off-the-books efforts to fund the resistance to Marxian governments in Central America. The funding efforts became entangled in Oliver North's scheme to finance the operation with sales of cocaine in the United States.
Much of the operation coincided with the use of Arkansas airstrips in and around the small town of Mena. CIA operative Barry Seal was involved in the drug enterprise. After Seal was indicted, when the airstrips around Mena came under heavy surveillance, the southern smuggling operation was shifted to Canada and Montana. Barry Seal flew into the Canadian border area with Montana and North Dakota several times before he was assassinated.
The Seal flights were likely made to coordinate the new smuggling operation from Canada. Mike Huxtable, was helping with the flights through Canada, including both Chapeau airstrip in Quebec and another outside of Weyburn, Saskatchewan. The Weyburn staging area supplied "protected" landing strips in Sidney, Chinook, the Fort Peck Reservation, and Havre in Montana. Eventually hundreds of flights were made into Montana bearing billions of dollars worth of cocaine and heroin.
The safety of the illicit cargoes was protected by obtaining the co-operation of corrupt police and prosecutors in Montana. The coordination of involvement of the county attorneys in the scheme was managed by Marc Racicot, then in the Montana Attorney General's office.
Marc Racicot received payments for his efforts, which were deposited in accounts in the Norwest Bank of Helena. Marc Racicot took it upon himself to squelch investigations involving drug allegations against prosecutors in Sidney and Chinook. Many of the witnesses were intimidated and several died under highly suspicious circumstances.
The investigations in Sidney and Chinook eventually lead to conclusions that the ring's criminal activities were much more broad than had been originally anticipated.
Unusual curses also beset Racicot's political opponents during this time. Incumbent Attorney General Mike Greely fell into disgrace after he was arrested for DUI outside Billings. Greely claimed someone had tampered with his drink. Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Waltermire was killed in a plane crash after returning from Glasgow on a day where Waltermire met with concerned individuals about local corruption. In the fall of 1996, Democratic candidate for governor Chet Blaylock died enroute to a debate with Racicot in which Blaylock had promised his supporters he would raise corruption issues.
Greely, Waltermire, and Blaylock were the most formidable opponents in the three successive state wide elections Racicot was involved in.
Along with the administration of the smuggling investigations, Racicot took an unusual interest in the Hi-line area. In spring, 1996 then governor Racicot made a series of phone calls to a Phoenix newspaper, and (according to editor Ron Paulson) threatened the editor several times over an article it had published implicating Racicot in the drug trafficking. Later Paulson claimed Racicot had offered $10,000 to Paulson to disclose the persons on the newspaper's distribution list in Montana.
Shortly thereafter in May, 1996 Racicot gave statements to several Montana newspapers claiming that a Bulgarian writer Krassimir Ivandjiiski, who had written an expose of drug trafficking in Montana, "did not exist". Ivandjiiski, when contacted at his office in Sofia was furious about Racicot's remarks. The major significance of the February, 1996 Ivandjiiski article was that it was the first discussion of Marc Racicot's intention to seek a place on the year 2000 Republican ticket as Vice President with one of George Bush's sons.
As Racicot assistant, Mary Jo Fox, lobbied with the Republican National Committee to make Racicot a player for the year 2000 national campaign, the Lee Enterprises newspaper chain kept up a steady torrent of pro-Racicot articles which focused on his claim to be "the most popular governor in the United States". The claim was based on Racicot's popular vote totals against Chet Blaylock's successor, (who replaced Blaylock upon his death shortly before the 1996 election). The jocose claims became even more transparent when Republican straw polls in the south completely ignored Racicot as a serious candidate. Most Republicans could not pronounce the surname "Racicot" for instance.
As the Lee Enterprises newspapers churned out article after favorable article on Racicot, the favorite-son candidate was busy monitoring the growing scandal around the Fort Peck Reservation and a tribal group there who claimed corrupt law enforcement had been involved in smuggling from Canada. The tribal claims were made even more convincing when a host of former intelligence operatives supported the assertions: Chip Tatum, Charles Hayes, David Hume, Ron Gold and others. The offices of Rep. Hill and Senator Baucus also became interested in urging an investigation of the strong, credible corruption allegations.
Marc Racicot in his official capacity began to respond to the allegations by using heavy handed truth suppression techniques. The most cruel example was Racicot's intimate management of harassment of Chinook publisher, Mike Perry. Perry had tracked evidence that two Havre residents were murdered because of their stated intention to provide information highly damaging to a Chinook prosecutor who was said to be involved in drug smuggling. A rival newspaper was formed, and operated at a loss, eventually forcing Perry to sell out and leave the state.
(Nota Bene: It was recently discovered the rival editor was singled out in an unsuccessful scheme to reimburse him (for the costs of destroying Perry's business), when Racicot attempted to orchestrate a secret land purchase for a new Montana prison. The land belonged to the corrupt editor. The prison scheme also came at the same time Marc Racicot appointed shadowy Glendive attorney, Richard Simonton, to the bench. Simonton, had purposely set out to damage the drug corruption allegations. Lawyer Simonton had been given full rein to harass Arnie Hove.)
Circle attorney Arnie Hove, who also had uncovered related Canada smuggling corruption evidence, was also targeted by a wrongful "Helena endorsed effort" to have his kids removed from his home. Attorney Hove had powerful evidence, and it took radical overt efforts to suppress truth Hove and witnesses were communicating to the District Court. Still, despite the oppression, Racicot did not fully succeed.
Another attack, on another front, was directed at Bozeman state senator Casey Emmerson (R-Bozeman) who attempted during the 1996 legislative session to promote legislation for a state inspector general. Emmerson , a conservative Republican, also spoke strongly in private of impeachment proceedings if witnesses came forward who were able to substantiate the payoffs to Racicot. Emmerson was immediately subjected to personal attacks (about his record as a high school teacher during the 1960's) and was wrongfully discredited.
In each circumstance it was demonstrated that Marc Racicot was working behind the scenes to stymie investigations or publicity around the drug smuggling. Those who knew the truth were continually saddened at the boyish, smiling image Racicot presented in television ads for Montana charities. Those who knew that Racicot's financial dealings with drug cartel representatives were documented, also knew Racicot's former campaign treasurer, Howdy Murfitt was attorney for the Norwest Bank system in Montana where the illicit funds had been deposited.
DEMOCRATS AND CLINTON
President Bill Clinton will not finish his term as president. The scandals which surrounded him for years did heavy damage. This week Webster Hubbel and Susan McDougall were indicted again on federal charges. Campaign funds from Chinese sources to the Democratic National Committee have created a cloud over the future and very existence of the Democratic Party.
This should be apparent to any observer when the left leaning (Washington D.C. based), Progressive Weekly, is now one of the most outspoken critics of the Democratic presidency.
As early as August of 1996, key Democrats, including former DNC chairman Strauss, urged Clinton to resign. The ante has reached the highest of all possible stakes. The Democrats can only act decisively now, to undue their horrible predicament.
Bill Clinton, as governor of Arkansas, was involved in a drug scheme similar to what is going on in Montana. His associate Dan Lassater laundered hundreds of millions of dollars into financial institutions along with Arkansas state agency accounts. Bill Clinton was compromised from the beginning in the scheme. Much of the Arkansas drug involvement was also linked to the Whitehouse under the Reagan and Bush administrations. The greatest corruption allegations in those years, Iran-Contra, also implicate former Arkansas Governor Clinton. The same illicit operations still exist today, and were transferred to Montana when Arkansas came under too much scrutiny.
Persons at the highest levels of the Democratic Party know this. Separate credible sources confirm that the Montana drug scandal allegations were among the issues raised when key Democrats met with Clinton prior to the national convention in the summer of 1996. This explains why the US government has apparently intervened in a Canadian criminal proceeding against Mike Huxtable (and a US official in Miami), involving large scale drug smuggling into the United States.
In order to survive, the Democrats are forced to make the smuggling operations a national issue. They have no other real choice.
This is no different than what occurred in Columbia and in Mexico. Politicians in both those Latin countries wrecked the justice system with corruption . We Americans must realize that our justice system is also corrupted by drug trafficking. If the Democrats act decisively Oliver North, George Bush and other well known Republicans will be implicated. They should be.
Such decisive action will cushion the fall of Bill Clinton and will prevent America from shifting into a Mexico-like one party system.
THE END OF A DREAM
Marc Racicot built a story book empire in Montana alongside Last Chance Gulch. The ruthless, evil methods Racicot employed masked his phantasmal have-a-good-day image.
The sweet appearance contrasts sharply with the dark, wicked things going on around the Governor. Marc Racicot became involved in narcotics smuggling. He compromised his sworn duties and all his ethical responsibilities. The calamity- the banging, the yelling, the fireworks were all put in motion years ago. Montana's Marc Racicot is about to be utterly destroyed. In his destruction, and perverse vanity, the Republican Party will suffer mightily. You will see Marc Racicot wake up from a dream- screaming.
I find it hard to believe that there are no shooting ranges in Montana.
As commercial shooting ranges tighten restrictions on shooters due to regulatrions imoposed by their insurance carriers, more and more shooters say the hell with it and go elswhere, and that's particularly true of full-auto shooters. But in a very real sense, it's fair to say that any secluded and safe public area in Montana is a shooting range. I couldn't tell you how many friendships I've made in Montana and Wyoming where the first introduction was the loud boom of someone sighting in or trying out a favored rifle, and an interesting conversation followed. Sometimes that happens at ranges, as often, not.
-archy-/-
I can't speak for Travis, but I like it. But I'm also very fond of the other old one:
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