Confine kings and queens to decks of playing cards By The Wayne Madsen Report

Confine kings and queens to decks of playing cards

By The Wayne Madsen Report

Although it is difficult to believe that in the 21st century there are still kings, queens, and other potentates in the world, it is even harder to fathom such leeches on taxpayers calling political shots. However, that is exactly what Spain experienced recently when King Felipe VI weighed in on the results of a popular referendum in Catalonia that overwhelmingly backed independence for the region.

The president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, denounced the king, saying, "The king has adopted the (national) government's position and policies which have been disastrous with regard to Catalonia. He is deliberately ignoring millions of Catalans." In a televised address to the nation, Felipe railed, "With their irresponsible behavior they [the Catalans] put their own region and all of Spain at risk." However, Puigdemont countered the King by stating the Spanish monarchy refuses to even negotiate with Catalonia, "I will repeat it as many times as necessary: dialogue and agreement are part of the political culture of our people. However, the state has not given any positive answer to those offers."

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy totally rejected Catalonia's offer of dialogue. Rajoy accused the Catalonian government of blackmail.

King Felipe bears a lot of family baggage in coming to the support of Rajoy in his confrontation with the Catalonian government and people. It was the ideological forefather of Rajoy's People's Party, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, Spain's fascist leader, who placed Felipe's father in the position of Spanish regent, or "Prince of Spain." Although Spain's monarchy had been abolished in 1931 by the Second Spanish Republic, Franco restored the kingdom after winning the Spanish Civil War in 1939 with the help of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Franco made Juan Carlos his heir apparent in 1969 after the "prince" swore allegiance to Franco's fascist movement.

Franco skipped over Juan de Borbón, the Count of Barcelona, the son of King Alfonso XIII, the nation's last king before the republic was established in 1951, and chose Juan Carlos. Juan de Borbón was seen by Franco as "too liberal," a euphemism for the Count having too much sympathy for Catalonia, the capital of which is Barcelona.

There is a widely-held belief in Spain that Juan Carlos shot to death his younger brother, Prince Alfonso, at the Borbón family's estate in Portugal, on purpose. Although Juan Carlos and royal aides claimed the shooting death was an accident, it was revealed that the revolver used by Juan Carlos was a personal gift from Franco. The only two people in the room when the shot was fired were Juan Carlos and Alfonso. The Spanish embassy in Lisbon crafted a press release that rivals any of the fake news seen today:

"Whilst His Highness Prince Alfonso was cleaning a revolver last evening with his brother, a shot was fired hitting his forehead and killing him in a few minutes. The accident took place at 20.30 hours, after the Infante's [Alfonso] return from the Maundy Thursday religious service, during which he had received holy communion."

During the Spanish Civil War, Franco's fascists committed genocide against the Catalans and Basques, both ethnic groups strong supporters of the loyalist forces of the Second Republic. During the first decade of Franco's rule, Catalans and Basques were massacred in the "White Terror," which saw as many as 400,000 opponents of the fascists fall victim to Franco's feared Guardia Civil. Franco ruthlessly made illegal the Catalan language; abolished Catalonia's instruments of autonomy; proscribed Catalonian political parties, trade unions, and newspapers; and wiped out all vestiges of Catalan culture. It is with these historical underpinnings that Catalonia today seeks to part ways with a Spanish government steeped in fascist traditions and a blind eye toward the past genocide of the Catalan people.

As if to remind Catalans of the White Terror, Rajoy's government dispatched helmeted and armed Guardia Civil members to forcibly shut down independence referendum polling places across Catalonia, beat voters and protesters, arrest Catalonian government officials, and clash with Catalonian firefighters trying to protect Catalans who were attempting to vote. The Rajoy regime has threatened to charge with sedition Major Josep Lluis Trapero, the chief of the Catalonian police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, for failing to take the side of the Guardia Civil and other Spanish state security forces against his own people. Trapero faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.     

European integrationist supporters of monarchies in the European Parliament, including the quisling Green Party, as well as Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian chairman of the "liberal" ALDE European parliamentary group, insisted that Catalonia must remain, at all costs, a part of Spain. These so-called "liberal" and "centrist" parties made common cause with the proto-fascist Rajoy and Donald Trump, who recently insisted on Spain remaining united at a White House press conference held with the Spanish prime minister.

Verhofstadt, a major opponent of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, is also a fierce opponent of the secession from Belgium of Flanders as an independent republic. Verhofstadt served as Belgian prime minister from 1999 to 2008, during a time when Belgian King Albert II was embroiled in a festering scandal involving pedophiles at the highest levels of the government, church, and business. In 2013, Albert suddenly abdicated the throne in favor of his son Philippe.

Felipe of Spain, Philippe of Belgium, Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands -- who insists on retaining colonies as his personal fiefdom in Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius, and Saba, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom -- who quietly campaigned against independence for Scotland and republic status for Jamaica and Barbados, Mohammed VI of Morocco -- who brutally governs the stolen nation of Western Sahara, and the jihadist-supporting monarchs of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi have seen their era come and go. The only kings, queens, and knaves should be those found in every deck of playing cards and not governing from palaces in European capitals and desert sands of the Middle East.

Reports from Syria of U.S. military engagement with Russian troops By The Wayne Madsen Report

Reports from Syria of U.S. military engagement with Russian troops

By The Wayne Madsen Report

Reports have reached WMR of possible combat between U.S. Special Forces and Russian troops in northeastern Syria. The situation is so dire, some U.S. Special Forces personnel have broken operational security, or "OPSEC," to send electronic messages to their next-of-kin in the United States that they are currently deployed in Syria and may never again see their loved ones. It should be emphasized that these U.S. Special Forces personnel -- Army, Marine Corps, and Navy -- have never before revealed to their families where they are currently engaged in combat.

In a statement from Moscow, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov blamed the United States for the recent combat death in Syria of Russian Lt. General Valery Asapov. The general was killed recently in mortar shelling carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), near the besieged Euphrates River town of Deir Az Zor. Asapov, a military adviser to the Syrian government, was killed at a Syrian Army command field station while directing troops fighting to liberate Deir Az Zor from ISIL.

Reports from the combat zone in northeastern Syria suggest that ISIL and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Front (SDF) have joined forces in fighting against Syrian government forces and their Russian allies. WMR's information from U.S. Special Forces sources indicates that American troops have engaged Russian, Syrian, and Iranian troops on behalf of ISIL and its SDF partners. One communication indicated that if any U.S. Special Forces personnel are killed in combat, the Pentagon will inform the next-of-kin that they were not killed in Syria, but died elsewhere. It has long been Pentagon policy to claim that Special Forces troops who are killed on covert missions died while on "training missions" far from the actual combat zones.


Russian Lt. General Valery Asapov killed in Syria combat. Russia blames U.S. for his death as U.S. Special Forces in Syria break OPSEC to warn of U.S.-Russian combat engagement
Asapov is not the only Russian military member who has been killed in Syria at the hands of U.S.-linked jihadist forces. The Russian government has not disclosed the total number of Russian killed-in-action but some estimates have the total as being over 30.

An important 9/11 postscript - BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

An important 9/11 postscript - BY THE WAYNE MADSEN REPORT

WMR has been informed of an important detail concerning the mysterious airline company, Air Cargo Carrier (ACC), based at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On September 19, 2017, WMR reported that an individual associated with ACC threatened a group of graduate engineering students at the University of Alaska with non-employability because of their research into the circumstances surrounding the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 during the late afternoon of September 11, 2001. There was an inference that the engineering students were "aiding terrorism" with their research.

Our report stated that ACC is owned by ACC Holding, Inc. ACC also owns Telford Aviation, Inc., also based in Milwaukee, which also does business as "The Telford Group." ACC, which is also known as ACC Integrated Services, Inc., "offers short notice service throughout North America, Mexico, and the Caribbean." ACC was founded in 1986, at the height of the Iran-contra affair, and specializes in airlifting freight to various destinations in North America and the Caribbean.

According to corporate records for Telford Aviation, Inc., its chairman of the board and chief executive officer was Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of George W.  Bush and his brother, Marvin Bush. Walker and Marvin Bush figured heavily in the investigation of firms linked to both the World Trade Center and Dulles International Airport, nexuses for the 9/11 events. Walker and Marvin Bush are featured in this editor's book, "Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Big Oil & Black Ops":




The association of members of the Bush family with a reputed CIA airline front company provides more highly-relevant circumstantial evidence on the involvement of the Bush family with the events of 9/11. Former president George H. W. Bush was diverted to Milwaukee, the headquarters of Air Cargo Carrier, while in-flight from Washington, DC to St. Paul, Minnesota during the morning of the 9/11 attack. Bush had spent the previous day and night at the White House. Bush claims he and Barbara Bush were whisked off to a motel well outside the city limits of Milwaukee by the U.S. Secret Service. During the night and morning of September 10-11, 2001, Bush, Sr. attended a board meeting of The Carlyle Group at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington. Also attending that meeting was the brother of Osama bin Laden.

The founder of Telford Aviation, Telford Allen II, was killed on August 1, 2010 in the crash of his Cessna A185F floatplane into Moosehead Lake in Rockwood, Maine. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that Allen had taken too much of the over-the-counter antihistamine, diphenhydramine, which impaired his judgment and caused him to crash his plane. The NTSB interim report stated: "While the pilot may have been having difficulty sleeping due to back pain or his impending surgery or possible chemotherapy, the investigation was unable to determine that fatigue was a factor in the accident." While Allen was killed, a passenger, although injured, survived the crash. The passenger indicated to the Bangor Daily News that they "had a normal flight” and the location of the crash was in "the same area" Allen always landed.
Some four months after Allen's death in Maine, two ACC pilots, Kevin Kuranz of Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Christopher Schmidt of Maryville, Tennessee, were arrested by the Dominican Republic police in Santo Domingo on December 2, 2010. 321 pounds of cocaine and 4 pounds of heroin were discovered hidden beneath the floor boards and behind the wall panels of their ACC-owned aircraft. Some 19 members of the Dominican military were also arrested in connection with the illegal narcotics discovery. 

Kuranz and Schmidt, who were temporarily based in Puerto Rico, were released on bail of $12,160 each after an intercession by ACC with the Dominican Republic's ambassador in Washington and the government in Santo Domingo. The two pilots agreed to return to Santo Domingo in the event of a trial, however none was ever scheduled for them. The Dominican prosecutor assigned to the case, Carmen Diaz Amezquita, wanted the two American pilots held until he could fully prepare the case. The presiding judge overruled the prosecutor and ordered the pilots released on bail. The case was never brought to trial and 12 of the Dominican military personnel initially arrested in connection with the drug bust were released without charges being brought.
What is discovered about ACC, Telford Aviation, Stratesec/Securacom, Aviation General, and Commander Aircraft are interlocking directorships involving members of the Bush family and their business associates.

Bloomberg's corporate database provides the following linkages:





From the above information, Wirt Walker III, Abrahamson, and McDaniel, previously cited in "Jaded Tasks," are found, along with Mishal Yousef Saud al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti chairman of KuWam and board member of Commander Premier Aircraft Corporation. There are board interlocks between StoneGate Capital Group LLC, with offices in Dallas and New York City, and Commander Aircraft and Stratesec (formerly Securacom). The Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly investigated Wirt Walker and his wife Sally for insider trading prior to 9/11. Their September 6, 2001 purchase of 56,000 shares of Stratesec, which had security contracts for the World Trade Center, Dulles airport (where highjacked American Airlines flight 77 originated), and United Airlines. The stock doubled in value on the morning of September 11 and remained that way until the market re-opened on September 17. The SEC recommended that the Walkers be investigated for 9/11-related insider trading but the FBI cleared the couple and considered the case closed. 

WMR landed the story on the suspicious death of Marvin Bush's maid, near Alexandria, Virginia on September 29, 2003. Bertha Champagne was crushed by her own vehicle on Mr. Bush's driveway after she told the president's brother she had a "video" to show him.

Now we have an individual associated with a Walker/Bush-influenced company, Air Cargo Carriers, making veiled threats to engineering students who have been researching the collapse of WTC Building 7, a facility for which Securacom/Stratesec had a contract for security. The conclusion of the University of Alaska report is that fire from the impact of the two planes into WTC 1 and 2 (the Twin Towers) was not a factor in the internal demolition-like collapse of Building 7. Apparently, some members of the Walker and Bush families do not appreciate engineering experts sticking their noses into an area where the Walkers and Bushes are on very shaky ground.

Israelis helping North Korea violate (food export) sanctions By The Wayne Madsen Report

 Israelis helping North Korea violate (food export) sanctions

By The Wayne Madsen Report

As Donald Trump harangued North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela during his September 19 neocon-drafted speech to the United Nations, one leader in the audience was beaming and applauding with almost every Trump syllable. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, both facing prison terms in their country for corruption, was encouraged by Trump's tough stand against "rogue regimes."

Trump lambasted the P5+1 nuclear accord with Iran, a move that played right into Netanyahu's hands. Barack Obama and the five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany hammered out an agreement with Iran that saw the Iranians give up any nuclear weapons development in return for the curbing of international sanctions. Israel was never happy with the deal and it used its foreign lobbies, albeit unsuccessfully, to sink the deal.

Netanyahu cheered on Trump's verbal attack on North Korea -- one that saw the president call North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "rocket man" and threatening to "destroy" North Korea. Although the UN has imposed severe sanctions on North Korea, Israelis have been in the process of breaking it through its international Chabad network of Hasidic criminal syndicates. Ironically, one of the methods by which Israeli criminals are helping North Korea to evade sanctions is the sale of North Korean-caught Pacific Ocean crabs in cans that label their country-of-origin as either Russia or China.

Kosher dietary laws strictly ban the consumption of shell fish like crabs, lobsters, and scallops. When it comes to making money illicitly, however, the Chabadniks are more than willing to discard their religious tenets. North Korea is well-known for producing and marketing counterfeit goods, including U.S. brand cigarettes and other consumer items. Chabad, which also excels at counterfeiting, has found a natural business partner in North Korea, particularly in Asia, where the Hebrew- and Yiddish-speaking Hasidics are at a disadvantage.

The "Crab Mafia," as it is known in northeast Asia, procures seafood, often poached from restricted Sea of Japan or Bering Sea waters by often unflagged North Korean fishing trawlers, and cans it in China or Russia with Chinese or Russian country-of-origin labeling (COOL). The North Koreans receive hard currency, which is now severely restricted by international sanctions, in return for their catch. Pirated seafood sold under false labels constitute a huge business. In 2013, false country-of-origin crab sold in the United States amounted to some $600 million. Much of that money ended up in the hands of the Crab Mafia and North Korea.

The Chabadniks, who constitute an unofficial virtual arm of the Israeli Mossad, have extended their operations in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok and the Joseph Stalin-created Jewish Autonomous Republic, which sits along the Trans-Siberian railway on the border with China. Once referred to as the "Soviet Zion," Stalin saw the Far Eastern region as the future homeland of the Jewish people.

  
Netanyahu's Chabadniks helping North Korea re-label Crab Mafia catches as "Chinese" and "Russian" to avoid sanctions. Shellfish is strictly non-Kosher

The Jewish Autonomous Republic and Israel are the world's only two official Jewish state entities. However, Jews only represent 0.2 percent of the Jewish Autonomous Republic's population. Israel and Chabad are trying to change that by urging Israeli and other Jews to take up dual residency in the Jewish republic, something that has been encouraged by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yiddish is currently taught in Birobidzhan schools and there is a Yiddish newspaper and radio station, as well as a Kosher market. Travel between the Jewish Autonomous Republic and Israel is increasing and a large number of Chabadniks from Israel have taken up part-time residence in the autonomous republic.


One of many unflagged North Korean fishing boats that ply the Sea of Japan and poach in restricted waters and sell their catch to sanction-busting Jewish criminals operating from Vladivostok and Birobidzhan
Dealing with the northeast Asian Crab Mafia has been lucrative for the Chabad smugglers and counterfeiters of Birobidzhan. Canneries in adjacent Khabarovsk and Primorsky, the latter the location of Vladivostok, are plentiful. Trump, of course, had no idea that his threats against North Korea are meaningless as long as Israel tolerates Israeli nationals working to circumvent UN economic sanctions against North Korea. Nor does it help that Trump's key confidantes, son-in-law Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, are active supporters of Chabad.

The re-establishment of Jewish control over Birobidzhan is financed by a foundation called Bereshit. The first word in the Torah is bereshit, which is translated as "in the beginning." Some of the financing network for the Bereshit Foundation comes from Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, and Pyotr Aven, all of whom are linked to Russia's Alfa Bank, Jared Kushner, and the financing of the Trump presidential campaign, and the Wexner Foundation of Les Wexner, the billionaire mentor of Trump friend and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. When Trump threatened to "destroy" North Korea with Netanyahu nodding his head approvingly, little did anyone else inside the General Assembly realize that the wealthy allies of Trump and Netanyahu have been helping North Korea to evade economic sanctions from far-flung Chabad outposts in Siberia.

Suspicious airline threatens World Trade Center engineering student investigators By The Wayne Madsen Report

Suspicious airline threatens World Trade Center engineering student investigators By The Wayne Madsen Report

The annual commemoration of the 9/11 attack brings out the best and, sometimes, the worst in people. An aspect of the worst was recently visited upon engineering graduate students at the University of Alaska.

The graduate students, who assisted Professor Leroy Hulsey in his research, have concluded, following a two-year Finite Element Analysis of World Trade Center building number 7, that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report on the collapse of the building during the late afternoon of September 11, 2001 was seriously flawed. Hulsey and his team concluded that building 7 did not collapse due to a fire, which was alleged by NIST.

Hulsey and his graduate students received a letter from a principal of a murky company called Air Cargo Carrier (ACC), based at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that clearly intimidated Hulsey and the engineering students. The letter implied that the group was somehow aiding and aiding "terrorism" with their research on the collapse of building 7 and that the future careers of the graduate students could be in jeopardy. It should be noted that the University of Alaska engineering department is considered a center of excellence on the construction of tall buildings, especially when it comes to their withstanding earthquakes.

ACC is owned by ACC Holding, Inc. ACC also owns Telford Aviation, Inc., also based in Milwaukee, and also does business as "The Telford Group." ACC, which is also known as ACC Integrated Services, Inc., "offers short notice service throughout North America, Mexico, and the Caribbean." ACC was founded in 1986, at the height of the Iran-contra affair, and specializes in airlifting freight to various destinations in North America and the Caribbean. The President of ACC is listed as James M. Germek of Milwaukee. A subsidiary of ACC is Milwaukee Avionics & Instruments. ACC also serves Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

Ironically, former president George H. W. Bush was diverted to Milwaukee while in flight from Washington, DC to St. Paul, Minnesota during the morning of the 9/11 attack. Bush had spent the previous day and night at the White House. Bush claims he and Barbara Bush were whisked off to a motel well outside the city limits of Milwaukee by the U.S. Secret Service. During the night and morning of September 10-11, 2001, Bush, Sr. attended a board meeting of The Carlyle Group at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington. Also attending that meeting was the brother of Osama bin Laden, according to The Washington Post:

"It didn’t help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden [Shafiq bin Laden]. Former president Bush [senior], a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day. (Greg Schneider, 'Pairing the Powerful With the Rich,' Washington Post, March 16, 2003.")

The author of the intimidating letter has a relationship with ACC. He is an attorney who uses addresses in Janesville, Wisconsin and Brooklyn, New York. Janesville is the hometown of U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Telford operates a facility at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland under a Department of Defense contract. Aberdeen is tasked with testing new ordinance, including explosives, for the U.S. military. Telford also maintains an office in Dothan, Alabama, which is near the Army's Fort Rucker aviation training base.

The owner and founder of Telford Aviation, Telford Allen II, 64, was killed on August 1, 2010 in the crash of his Cessna A185F floatplane into Moosehead Lake in Rockwood, Maine. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that Allen had taken too much of the over-the-counter antihistamine, diphenhydramine, which impaired his judgment and caused him to crash his plane. The NTSB interim report stated: "While the pilot may have been having difficulty sleeping due to back pain or his impending surgery or possible chemotherapy, the investigation was unable to determine that fatigue was a factor in the accident." While Allen was killed, a passenger, although injured, survived the crash. The passenger indicated to the Bangor Daily News that they "had a normal flight” and the location of the crash was in "the same area" Allen always landed.

   
Telford Allen [left], founder of Telford Aviation, killed in suspicious plane crash in 2010. Left-to-right, second photo: ACC pilots Kevin Kuranz and Christopher Schmidt, arrested in Dec. 2010 after cocaine and heroin was discovered on board their chartered aircraft in the Dominican Republic.
Some four months after Allen's death in Maine, two ACC pilots, Kevin Kuranz of Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Christopher Schmidt of Maryville, Tennessee, were arrested by the Dominican Republic police in Santo Domingo on December 2, 2010. 321 pounds of cocaine and 4 pounds of heroin were discovered hidden beneath the floor boards and behind the wall panels of their ACC-owned aircraft. Some 19 members of the Dominican military were also arrested in connection with the illegal narcotics discovery. 

Kuranz and Schmidt, who were temporarily based in Puerto Rico, were released on bail of $12,160 each after an intercession by ACC with the Dominican Republic's ambassador in Washington and the government in Santo Domingo. The two pilots agreed to return to Santo Domingo in the event of a trial, however none was ever scheduled for them. The Dominican prosecutor assigned to the case, Carmen Diaz Amezquita, wanted the two American pilots held until he could fully prepare the case. The presiding judge overruled the prosecutor and ordered the pilots released on bail. The case was never brought to trial and 12 of the Dominican military personnel initially arrested in connection with the drug bust were released without charges being brought.


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ACC has been involved in a number of civil cases brought by ex-employees and business partners.  In 2015, Jesus Alvarez, an ACC/Telford Field Service Engineer in Texas, filed a discrimination suit against Air Cargo Carrier LLC/Telford Aviation, Inc. in the Texas District Court in El Paso, Texas.  Alvarez claimed that Anglo-American employees of ACC/Telford subjected him to harassment over his Hispanic heritage, claiming that Mexicans are "worthless." The harassment continued until ACC fired Alvarez. The El Paso court dismissed Alvarez's lawsuit for damages. Court records indicate that ACC has been active not only in west Texas, but also in Arkansas in the late 1980s and 90s.  ACC's operations in Arkansas would place it within the milieu of several Central Intelligence Agency covert operations in support of the Nicaraguan contras and Colombian drug cartels.

Hollywood, FL nursing home's owners given pass by Trump's Labor Secretary regarding the death of eight elderly patients By The Wayne Madsen Report

Hollywood, FL nursing home's owners given pass by Trump's Labor Secretary regarding the death of eight elderly patients

By The Wayne Madsen Report

The owners of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, Florida -- where eight elderly residents died after a power failure caused by Hurricane Irma -- cut off the air conditioning, received a sweetheart deal on federal fraud charges from the then-U.S. Attorney for Florida Alex Acosta. Acosta now serves in the Trump cabinet as Secretary of Labor.

On September 10, nursing home staff was aware that the air conditioning failed as the result of a widespread power failure. However, the staff used portable air conditioners and fans to compensate for the lack of central air conditioning. By September 13, eight residents died from respiratory and heart failure as a result of triple-digit temperatures inside the facility.

The dead were identified as Carolyn Eatherly, 78; Miguel Antonio Franco, 92; Estella Hendricks, 71; Betty Hibbard, 84; Manuel Mario Mendieta, 96; Gail Nova, 71; Bobby Owens, 84; and Albertina Vega, 99.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article173059891.html#storylink=cpy

There was no attempt by Hollywood Hills operators to evacuate the residents to Memorial Regional Hospital, which is across the street from the nursing home, after the air conditioning failed.

Hollywood Hills is owned by Hollywood Hills, LLC, whose principal owner is Dr. Jack Michel. Michel also owns Larkin Community Hospital, which has an interlocking business relationship with Hollywood Hills. From 2000 to 2002, Larkin also served as a board member of the scandal-plagued Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer research fund.

 

Jack Michel [left] and Rick Scott [right]: two peas in the same Florida Medicare/Medicaid fraud pod

In 2015, Larkin assumed control of Hollywood Hills after the nursing home declared bankruptcy after its previous principal officer, Philip Esformes, was convicted in a $1 billion Medicare fraud scheme. Esformes is a longtime business partner of Michel.

In 2006, Michel, Esformes, and other partners were found liable for a scheme involving kickbacks to local doctors in return for physician referrals to Larkin. Michel and his Larkin business partners, who included his brother, Dr. George Michel, settled with the government in return for a $15.4 million fine. Larkin's owner at the time of the 2006 settlement,
Dr. James Desnick, settled with the government over a similar kickback scheme run in Chicago from 1992 to 2000. Desnick settled that case for $14 million. Hollywood Hills has been cited for repeated safety and health violations by Florida officials.

Acosta, the same U.S. Attorney who gave Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein his "get-out-of-jail" during the day deal after a conviction for soliciting prostitution from an underage female, also arranged for the Michel brothers, Desnick, and their partners to avoid prison by their agreeing to pay a civil fine for Medicare fraud. Michel had the temerity to counter-sue the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration for providing evidence to the Justice Department over Medicare and Medicaid fraud by Michel, his brother and Oracle Health Systems, Inc.



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Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott, who plans to run for the U.S. Senate next year, has vowed to thoroughly investigate the deaths at Hollywood Hills. However, Scott is on thin ice when it comes to investigating Medicare and Medicaid fraudsters. While the CEO of Columbia/HCA, the hospital firm was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Scott claimed he did not know about the fraud even though the warnings about company fraud were contained in annual reports to Columbia/HCA's shareholders. In 2000, Columbia/HCA settled with the U.S. Department of Justice and agreed to pay $1.7 billion in criminal fines, civil damages, and penalties. The Justice Department called Scott's case the "largest health care fraud" in U.S. history.

Scott vowing to get to the bottom of the Hollywood Hills massacre of elderly residents is like Al Capone promising to investigate gangland hits in Chicago.