cap and trade report

7/29/2019 Cap and Trade Report

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Cap and Trade ReportHere are some key pointers to the truth about President Obamas proposed cap and trade program.

There are two major question marks here:

First, the argument for global climate change is NOT settled. Why add an economic burden to the taxpayers

based on shaky evidence?

Second, the carbon credit exchange idea is nothing more than a profound economic betrayal of the American

middle-class and future generations using a wealth transfer scheme operated by global elites manipulating

derivatives.

President Obama's proposed cap and trade system for limiting and controlling carbon dioxideemissions from energy production, business, and industry will raise the cost of electricity andliving for all of us. It will also further enrich the same financial oligarchs that invented sub-primemortgages, Collateralized Debt Obligations, and Credit Default Swaps.

Since all humans and most human activities generate CO2, lowering those levels voluntarily,using clean technologies, tax incentives, and education is a good idea. Mandating a carboncredits program is a blunder for two reasons: First, there is convincing scientific evidencethat shows global warming and cooling trends are, in large part, caused by long-cycle solarenergy waves interacting with Earth's upper atmosphere, not human


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Crap and Betrayed continued...

activity. Do human life and economic activity impact carbon dioxide levels? Yes, obviously.However, the question is does human-generated CO2 create global warming... or arethese proven solar cycles the principal cause?

Historical data indicate significant heating and cooling periods have occurred on earth longbefore man and, with all due respect, Al Gore walked the planet. Second is the assumptionthat a cap system here will offer a net improvement. Unless imposed globally, it can't. Carbondioxide accumulates in the upper atmosphere and moves around the world; it doesn't hangover any given country. A U.S. cap, even if successful, will be rendered meaningless byuncapped growth in China, Russia, India, and other emerging economies.

It can be argued that even if all countries simultaneously reduced their CO2 emissionsby 20 percent, it would offer little or no net benefit. Some environmental studies claimthat it is too late to curb CO2 accumulations that the damage is done and global warming, ifyou accept carbon dioxide is the cause, will be with us for centuries.

Further, how do we benefit from the increased costs of compliance and reducedstandard of living a cap and trade scheme will impose on us? We don't. Currentlyvoluntary, a mandated carbon cap will force many of America's electric utilities, industrialcompanies, and smaller businesses, like bakeries and possibly even live stock producers, topurchase carbon credits to offset or trade for the pollution they're sending into the upperatmosphere, contributing, at least theoretically, to global warming. These costs will be passedon to us as substantially higher prices for coal-fired electricity and other staples of oureconomy. Here's where we get plundered:

Carbon credit futures are financial derivatives; they are nothing more than a shared illusionthat literally creates something expensive out of nothing. The same Wall Street casinomentality that caused our current economic mess is already pumping up this $100 billion plusinternational market. It's contrived vaporware designed to guilt the American people into payinga hidden energy and pollution tax and transfer our wealth to others. It will have little or no effecton global warming and it will only further enrich the financial elite by generating tens of billionsin commissions annually.


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Cap and trade is the next step in selling out the middle class and bringing our countryone step closer to national socialism. It!s a fraud... and I can prove it to you.

Currently, there are only two major carbon credit exchanges, The London Exchange andthe Chicago Climate Futures Exchange. The London entity owns the one in Chicago (seeabove), so, in essence, carbon credits brokerage is a global monopoly (see attached PressReleases). Both Barack Obama and Al Gore, Jr. have significant links to the founding of theChicago Climate Exchange (see attached article).

If passed, the proposed !cap and trade" bill will make Obama"s and Gore"s cronies andbusiness associates millionaires overnight.... quite literally.

President Obama has been advocating openness and transparency in his administration. Haveyou heard him disclose ANYTHING about something this significant regarding his impendingcap and trade legislation?#

The Democrat-controlled Congress is now trying to push though cap and trade#legislation.

#

The rush to legislate has clouded the reality that this is a thinly veiled wealth redistributiontax#masquerading as a solution for global climate change.#As if this insanity weren!tbad"enough, Title VIII of the proposed Waxman Markey House bill allows investmentbanks,"hedge funds and other speculators to participate in carbon credit futures,

aka"derivatives. Here"s an image from the home page of the Chicago Climate FuturesExchange:


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We!re in our current economic mess because of derivatives. Further, speculation last summerand now is the primary cause of our rising oil and gasoline prices."Since cap and tradewould"create a de facto tax on coal-fired power plants, do we really want the big boysgaming"our electric rates too?"Didn't we endure enough of that trading fraud during theEnron years?

This is particularly troubling since government has shown no"inclination to properly regulatederivatives. In fact, the bulk of the money ($180 billion so far) given to AIG has been used topay out for losses to investment banks like Goldman Sachs for gambles they took onderivatives.

Short and sweet, South Dakota taxpayers are footing the bill for a bunch greedyassholes with a gambling habit who were trying to leverage their bets beyond all reasonto puff up the investment returns and get their bonuses.

Further, why should we let those who are primarily responsible for the"current economic crisisparticipate in anythingelse?"Have they not done enough"damage? Has the American public not yet rendered enoughtribute ?

Al Gore, Jr. is a phony about all this climate change, as well. His father, Al Gore, Sr., was along-seated director of"Occidental Petroleum.

OXY has been a steady supplier of campaign funds to Gore and to the Democratic Party,though its relationship with Gore goes far deeper.

When the elder Gore left the Senate in 1970, Armand Hammer (the founder and CEO of OXY)gave him a $500,000-a-year job as the chairman of Island Coal Creek Co., an Occidentalsubsidiary, and a seat on Occidental's board of directors. By 1992, Gore owned Occidentalstock valued at $680,000

Before"Dr. Armand Hammer died, he arranged for the Gore family to be sold some oilproducing properties at a favorable rate as a thank you for Gore, Sr!s loyal service to OXY."
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/102425http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/102425http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/102425http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=65000070http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=65000070


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Here!s photographic proof. Al Gore Senior is standing in the second row, third man from the left:

At the time Gore Senior died, roughly 85% to 90% of the value of the Gore Family Trust wasOXY stock or oil producing properties and mineral rights sold to them by OXY."Most of AlGore's wealth comes from hydrocarbons.

Lowering America's carbon footprint may be a good idea, but cap and trade isn !t.

Circus impresario P. T. Barnum is credited with saying, There's a sucker born everyminute! Are the citizens of South Dakota among them?

Sam Kephart

[email protected]

605-639-3100
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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378

(c) EXCESS EMISSIONSALLOWANCES.The owners1

or operators of a covered entity that fail for any year to2

hold, on the deadline described in section 722(a) or (i)3

or 725(c), 1 or more of the emission allowances due pursu-4

ant to either of those sections shall be liable to offset the5

excess emissions by an equal quantity of emission allow-6

ances during7

(1) the following calendar year; or8

(2) such longer period as the Administrator9

may prescribe.10

SEC. 724. TRADING.11

(a) PERMITTED TRANSACTIONS.Except as other-12

wise provided in this title, the lawful holder of an emission13

allowance may, without restriction, sell, exchange, trans-14

fer, hold for compliance in accordance with section 722,15

or request that the Administrator retire the emission al-16

lowance.17

(b) NO RESTRICTION ON TRANSACTIONS.The18

privilege of purchasing, holding, selling, exchanging, and19

requesting retirement of emission allowances shall not be20

restricted to the owners and operators of covered entities,21

except as otherwise provided in this title.22

(c) EFFECTIVENESS OF ALLOWANCE TRANS-23

FERS.No transfer of an emission allowance shall be ef-24

fective until a written certification of the transfer, signed25

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449

PART FCARBON MARKET ASSURANCE1

SEC. 761. OVERSIGHT AND ASSURANCE OF CARBON MAR-2

KETS.3

(a) DEFINITIONS.In this section:4

(1) COMMISSION.The term Commission5

means the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.6

(2) REGULATED ALLOWANCE.The term reg-7

ulated allowance means any emission allowance,8

compensatory allowance, or offset credit established9

or issued under this title.10

(3) REGULATED ALLOWANCE DERIVATIVE.11

The term regulated allowance derivative means an12

instrument that is or includes an instrument13

(A) which14

(i) is of the character of, or is com-15

monly known to the trade as, a put op-16

tion, call option, privilege, indemnity,17

advance guaranty, decline guaranty, or18

swap agreement; or19

(ii) is a contract of sale for future20

delivery; and21

(B) the value of which, in whole or in22

part, is expressly linked to the price of a regu-23

lated allowance or another regulated allowance24

derivative.25

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Read moreLatest News:

Welcome to Climate Exchange

Climate Exchange plc (CLE) is a company listed on the AIM section of the London Stock Exchange. The CLE group is

principally engaged in owning, operating and developing exchanges to facilitate trading in environmental financialinstruments, including emissions reduction credits, designed to support and lower the economic costs of achieving

environmental objectives.

Climate Exchange plc has three core operating businesses: European Climate Exchange (ECX) which operates an

exchange that focuses on compliance certificates for mandatory European Emissions Trading Scheme ("EU ETS"),

Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX ) which operates the worlds first voluntary, but contractually binding cap and trade

system for greenhouse gas emissions reductions and Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE), a regulated exchange in

the U.S. with a growing portfolio of environmental futures contracts.

In addition, Climate Exchange plc is also investing in new product development such as IFEX and in other geographic

regions including:

China

Canada

Australia

GBX 861 +6 (0.7)

Our stock price and change, updated every 15 minutes from The London Stock Exchange

Notice of AGM and 2008 Report & Accounts

limate Exchange Plc http://www.climateexchangeplc

of 2 6/30/09 9:2


9/21

Chicago Climate Exchange Chairman Richard

Sandor Recognized For Contribution To Local

Economy

29/06/09

Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. (CCX) Chairman Dr. Richard L. Sandor received Ernst & Youngs Entrepreneur of

the Year 2009 Award in the green category in the Midwest region in a ceremony in Chicago Friday night. The award

recognizes his contributions to support the local economy through building and leading a dynamic, growing business.

We are proud to recognize the achievements of Richard Sandor, said Randy Tavierne, Ernst & Young, Strategic

Growth Markets Leader. Winners of the Entrepreneur of the Year award build leading businesses and contribute

significantly to the strength of our regions economy. Their success helps our area grow stronger.

>Sandor is Chairman of CCX and Executive Chairman of Climate Exchange plc, a publicly traded company listed on

the AIM division of the London Stock Exchange (CLE.L). CCX also launched the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange

(CCFE), a CFTC-regulated futures exchange that offers standardized and cleared futures and options contracts on

emission allowances and other environmental products, the world's first environmental derivatives exchange.

I am grateful to Ernst and Young for putting this together, said Sandor. CCX is honored to be a part of the Chicago

community and to contribute to the local economy, to the functioning of financial markets, and to providing

cost-effective solutions for achieving environmental goals.

In August of 2002 Sandor was chosen by Time magazine as one of its "Heroes for the Planet" and he is widely

recognized as the principal architect of the interest-rate futures market. Sandor is also a research professor at the

Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards celebrate their 23rd anniversary this year. The program honors

entrepreneurs who have demonstrated exceptionality in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal

commitment to their businesses and communities. Sandor was selected for the award by an independent panel of

judges.

hicago Climate Exchange Chairman Richard Sandor Recogniz... http://www.mondovisione.com/index.cfm?section=news&acti

of 1 6/30/09 9:1


10/21

LEAD STORIES

Climate Exchange shares rally following ICE

investment

24 June, 2009

Shares in leading carbon exchange operator Climate Exchange jumped more than 16% yesterday

following news that IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) had bought a 4.8% stake in the company

sparking speculation of a takeover attempt.

Climate Exchange owns the leading carbon exchanges in the US the Chicago Climate Exchange and

Chicago Climate Futures Exchange and the London-based European Climate Exchange. The

companys contracts are traded via the ICE platform.

ICE was previously not a shareholder in Climate Exchange, and the sudden investment boosted the

latters shares, listed on the London Stock Exchanges Alternative Investment Market. The shares

closed up 16.4%, at 7.51 ($12.44) from 6.45, and continued to rally today, closing at 8.25.

As yet, neither company has given any comment on the nature of the investment, but the 17% rise in

Climate Exchanges share price reflects the possibility that this may lead to a bid, said Ken Rumph, an

analyst at Noble Group. He also noted that ICE, with a market capitalisation of $8.4 billion and net debtof $140 million, appears to have the financial resources to acquire Climate Exchange if it wished to.

But Rumph also noted that ICE could pay a lot of money for the company, which had a market

capitalisation of 356 million at the close last night, as the 47 million shares in issue would rise by 18%

to over 56 million if all the in-the-money share options were granted. This would push the market cap

to 422 million, based on last nights share price, he said.

ICEs move could spark interest from other exchange operators, Rumph said. [Climate Exchange] is

unique ... it runs the leading emissions derivatives exchanges on either side of the Atlantic, and rivals

such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Deutsche Brse may be tempted, Rumph said. It could

be their one chance to buy the [carbon] market leader, he added.

Climate Exchange also has strategic partnerships in China, Canada and Australia and also owns the

Insurance Futures Exchange, which lists contracts linked to catastrophe risks faced by the insurance

sector.

Neil Eckert, CEO of Climate Exchange, told Carbon Finance that the company is delighted with the

move by ICE as it aligns our economic interests ... As far as were concerned, its a strategic

investment [for ICE].

Carbon Finance

News & Analysis of market solutions to climate change

limate Exchange shares rally following ICE investment http://www.carbon-financeonline.com/index.cfm?section=lead

of 2 6/30/09 9:2


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Al Gore, Maurice StrongObama!s involvement in Chicago Climate Exchange--the rest of the storyBy Judi McLeod Wednesday, March 25, 2009Canada Free Press

Good news to know that the truth will always out--even when you!re Barack Obama.

Obama Years Ago Helped Fund Carbon Program He Is Now Pushing ThroughCongress is a FOXNews story by Ed Barnes. In short, While on the board of aChicago-based charity, Barack Obama helped fund a carbon trading exchange that willlikely play a critical role in the cap-and-trade carbon reduction program he is now tryingto push through Congress as president.

The charity was the Joyce Foundation on whose board of directors Obama served andwhich gave nearly $1.1 million in two separate grants that were instrumental indeveloping and launching the privately-owned Chicago Climate Exchange, which now

calls itself North America!s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases,with global affiliates and projects worldwide.

And that!s only the beginning of this tawdry tale, Mr. Barnes.

The privately-owned Chicago Climate Exchange is heavily influenced by Obamacohorts Al Gore and Maurice Strong.

For years now Strong and Gore have been cashing in on that lucrative cottage industryknown as man-made global warming.

Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as the world!s first and North America!s only legally binding greenhouse gasemission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in NorthAmerica and Brazil.

Gore, self-proclaimed Patron Saint of the Environment, buys his carbon off-sets fromhimself--the Generation Investment Management LLP, an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London and Washington, D.C.,of which he is both chairman and founding partner. The Generation InvestmentManagement business has considerable influence over the major carbon credit tradingfirms that currently exist, including the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Strong, the silent partner, is a man whose name often draws a blank on the Washingtoncocktail circuit. Even though a former Secretary General of the 1992 United NationsConference on Environment and Development (the much hyped Rio Earth Summit) andUnder-Secretary General of the United Nations in the days of an Oil-for-Foodbeleaguered Kofi Annan, the Canadian born Strong is little known in the United States.That!s because he spends most of his time in China where he he has been working tomake the communist country the world!s next superpower. The nondescript Strong,


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nonetheless is the big cheese in the underworld of climate change and is one of themain architects of the failing Kyoto Protocol.

Full credit for the expose on the business partnership of Strong and Gore in the cap-and-trade reduction scheme should go to the investigative acumen of the Executive

Intelligence Review (EIR).

The tawdry tale of the top two global warming gurus in the business world goes all theway back to Earth Day, April 17, 1995 when the future author of An Inconvenient Truthtravelled to Fall River, Massachusetts, to deliver a green sermon at the headquarters ofMolten Metal Technology Inc. (MMTI). MMTI was a firm that proclaimed to haveinvented a process for recycling metals from waste. Gore praised the Molten Metal firmas a pioneer in the kind of innovative technology that can save the environment, andmake money for investors at the same time.

Gore left a few facts out of his speech that day, wrote EIR. First, the firm was run by

Strong and a group of Gore intimates, including Peter Knight, the firm!s registeredlobbyist, and Gore!s former top Senate aide.

(Fast-forward to the present day and ask yourself why it is that every time someonepicks up another Senate rock, another serpent comes slithering out).

Second, the company had received more than $25 million in U.S. Department ofEnergy (DOE) research and development grants, but had failed to prove that thetechnology worked on a commercial scale. The company would go on to receiveanother $8 million in federal taxpayers! cash, at that point, its only source of revenue.

With Al Gore!s Earth Day as a Wall Street calling card, Molten Metal

!s stock value

soared to $35 a share, a range it maintained through October 1996. But along the way,DOE scientists had balked at further funding. When in March 1996, corporate officersconcluded that the federal cash cow was about to run dry, they took action: Betweenthat date and October 1996, seven corporate officers--including Maurice strong--sold off$15.3 million in personal shares in the company, at top market value. On Oct. 20,1996--a Sunday--the company issued a press release, announcing for the first time, thatDOE funding would be vastly scaled back, and reported the bad news on a conferencecall with stockbrokers.

On Monday, the stock plunged by 49%, soon landing at $5 a share. By early 1997,

furious stockholders had filed a class action suit against the company and its directors.Ironically, one of the class action lawyers had tangled with Maurice strong in anotherinsider trading case, involving a Swiss company called AZL Resources, chaired byStrong, who was also a lead shareholder. The AZL case closely mirrored Molten Metal,and in the end, Strong and the other AZL partners agreed to pay $5 million to dodge a

jury verdict, when eyewitness evidence surfaced of Strong!s role in scamming the valueof the company stock up into the stratosphere, before selling it off.


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In 1997, Strong went on to accept from Tongsun Park, who was found guilty of illegallyacting as an Iraqi agent, $1 million from Saddam Hussein, which was invested inCordex Petroleum Inc., a company he owned with his son, Fred.

These are the leaders in the Man-made Global Warming Movement, who three years

later were to be funded by the man who was to become President of the United Statesof America.

If we follow the time line on where Obama was during the funding of the ChicagoClimate Exchange, he was still a professor at the University of Chicago Law Schoolteaching constitutional law, with his law license becoming inactive a year later in 2002.

It may be interesting to note that the Chicago Climate Exchange in spite of its hype, is averitable rat!s nest of cronyism. The largest shareholder in the Exchange is GoldmanSachs. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is its honorary chairman, The JoyceFoundation, which funded the Exchange also funded money for John Ayers! Chicago

School Initiatives. John is the brother of William Ayers.

What a flap when it was discovered that the senator from Chicago had nursed on SaulAlinsky!s milk, had his political career launched at a coffee party held by domesticterrorist Bill Ayers, and sat for 20 years, uncomplaining in front of the God-dam-America pulpit of resentment-challenged Jeremiah Wright.

Folk were naturally outraged that the empty suit who would go on to become TOTUSwas spawned from such anti-American activism.

But the media should have been hollering, Stop Thief! instead.

The same Chicago Climate Exchange promoting public rip-off was funded by Obamabefore he was POTUS.

Even as man-made global warming is being exposed as a money-generating hoax,Obama is working feverishly to push the controversial cap-and-trade carbon reductionscheme through Congress.

Obama was never the character he created for himself in the fairy-tale version inDreams of My Father. He!s the agent of Change and Hope for cohorts making moneydown at the Chicago Climate Exchange.

The Barbarians are pushing at the gate of the Global Warming fraud, and to borrow aline from children playing Hide and Seek, Here they come, ready or not!


14/21

From the WSJ Opinion Archives

Albert Gore Jr.: Occidental and Oriental Connections

Originally published in The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 29, 1999.

BY MICAH MORRISONSaturday, August 12, 2000 12:01 a.m. EDT

CARTHAGE, Tenn.--On his 1998 tax returns under "supplemental income," VicePresident Al Gore lists a $20,000 royalty payment from Union Zinc Inc. for the right tomine zinc from his 88-acre farm here in the verdant hills of the Cumberland River valley.In the 25 years he has held the zinc lease, Mr. Gore has earned more than $450,000.

The man who provided Mr. Gore with that farm and mineral lease is of some note as the2000 presidential race begins. Mr. Gore's father, former Sen. Albert Gore Sr., acquiredthe land and mineral rights on what appears to be highly favorable terms from Armand

Hammer, the late chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp. Mr. Hammer, an influencepeddler of the highest magnitude, trafficked in politicians of all parties and stripes; hepleaded guilty in 1975 to making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's campaign in theWatergate affair. But the closest and most sustained of Mr. Hammer's connections seemto have been with the elder Mr. Gore and his family. It was the earliest of a number ofcontroversial associations that tarnish the stiff Boy Scout image of Al Gore Jr.

As mentioned in yesterday's story on George W. Bush, this two-part series is not a taleof smoking guns and indictable offenses. Yet voters should know the financialconnections of candidates, though they probably will make their decisions on othergrounds. And while the candidates will not appreciate questions being raised about the

murky areas of their finances, the lessons of the Clinton era suggest that it is better toput matters on the table early, lest they rise Whitewater-like to haunt a newadministration.

The Hammer-staged zinc payments were first disclosed by Charles Babcock of theWashington Post in 1992, as then-Sen. Al Gore Jr. campaigned on the presidentialticket with an Arkansas upstart named Bill Clinton. An Occidental Petroleum subsidiary,Occidental Minerals, had negotiated the generous terms for Occidental's right to mineminerals beneath the land in 1972. The senior Mr. Gore had set his sights on the landas early as 1970, Mr. Babcock reported. Occidental Minerals purchased the estate froma local widow in 1972; within a year, Mr. Gore Sr. had bought the property and sold it to

his son.

The $20,000 annual lease payment amounted to $227 an acre, much more than the$30 an acre Mr. Hammer's company had been paying locally only a few years earlier.Until 1985, Mr. Babcock noted, Occidental paid Mr. Gore Jr. "$190,000 for the leasewithout mining under the property because it never built a mine in the area." In 1985, itsold the lease to Union Zinc, which began mining operations. The mine has changedhands several times since and is now owned by Pasminco, an Australian company.


15/21

Mr. Babcock's 1992 article said the lease payment was the senator's "most importantsource of income after his salary." In recent years, Mr. Gore's steady zinc profit hasbeen eclipsed by his environmental bestseller, "Earth in the Balance," which has earnedmore than $1.1 million in royalties, according to the vice president's tax returns and

financial-disclosure statements.

After the elder Mr. Gore lost his 1970 Senate re-election bid, Mr. Hammer placed him onOccidental Petroleum's board of directors and named him chairman of an Occidentalsubsidiary, Island Creek Coal Co.--posts that would bring him more than $500,000 peryear.

The senior Mr. Gore died in December. He is survived by his wife, Pauline. The vicepresident was named executor and trustee of his father's estate, and was given "solediscretion" to manage a trust on his mother's behalf. The vice president's 1998 financialdisclosures value the estate in a range between $266,000 and $565,000, including a

block of Occidental Petroleum stock listed at a value of between $250,000 and$500,000. Local property records, however, place the value of Mr. Gore Sr.'s landholdings alone at more than $1.1 million.

Mr. Hammer was generous with the younger Mr. Gore as well, beyond the zinc lease.Occidental Petroleum was one of the largest contributors to Mr. Gore's successful 1990bid for Senate re-election. The Hammer family and corporations made donations up tothe legal maximum in all of Mr. Gore's campaigns, according to Mr. Hammer's formerpersonal assistant, Neil Lyndon, writing in London's Daily Telegraph.

Mr. Hammer was Mr. Gore's guest at the 1981 inauguration of Ronald Reagan. In May

1987, Mr. Gore and Mr. Hammer were in Moscow for a convention of InternationalPhysicians Against Nuclear War, a group calling for the abolition of all nuclear weapons.Mr. Hammer received a humanitarian award from the group; Mr. Gore delivered aspeech saying conventional arms should be cut along with nuclear weapons. A monthlater, Mr. Hammer hosted a luncheon for presidential candidate Gore in Los Angeles.

Mr. Lyndon wrote that the younger Mr. Gore regularly dined with Mr. Hammer andOccidental lobbyists in Washington, and that he and his wife, Tipper, attended Mr.Hammer's lavish parties. "Separately and together, the Gores sometimes usedHammer's luxurious private Boeing 727 for journeys and jaunts," Mr. Lyndon noted. Theformer Hammer aide added that the "profound and prolonged involvement between

Hammer and Gore has never been revealed or investigated." Vice President Gore'soffice did not respond to a request to discuss Mr. Hammer.

Mr. Hammer died in 1990 at 92. The Hammer myth, developed with great care duringhis lifetime, presented the billionaire industrialist as a generous patron of the arts and achampion of peace during the Cold War. But the reality behind the myth was fardifferent.


16/21

In his penetrating 1996 book, "Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer," authorEdward Jay Epstein demolished the elaborate biographical backdrops Mr. Hammer andhis helpers erected. Drawing on FBI documentation and files from Moscow intelligenceagencies, Mr. Epstein told the story of Mr. Hammer's extensive business dealings withthe Soviet Union. Mr. Hammer helped develop, and exploited for his business purposes,

the image of a benign and profitable communist colossus, at a time when Stalin wasmurdering millions. Lenin himself, Mr. Epstein documents, told Stalin that Mr. Hammerwas a "path leading to the American business world, and this path should be made useof in every way." Mr. Hammer mined asbestos and brokered the production of tractorsand pencils for Stalinist Russia. He cut lucrative fur deals. He trafficked in Czarist art,real and forged. He laundered millions for the Soviet Union in sham transactions. Later,Mr. Epstein reports, Mr. Hammer leapt into the big time by acquiring Libyan oil rights forOccidental Petroleum through a combination of shrewd dealing and bribery.

Much of this was not a secret in Cold War Washington, certainly not to J. Edgar Hoover.But Mr. Hammer also collected politicians, among them Albert Gore Sr. In 1950, Mr.

Epstein writes, Mr. Hammer made then-Rep. Gore "a partner in a cattle-breedingbusiness, and Gore made a substantial profit." Over the years, as Mr. Gore rose inprominence and went on to the Senate, many favor-seekers traveled to Tennessee topurchase some very expensive cattle. The profits allowed the senator and his family tolive in luxury at Washington's Fairfax Hotel. In return, Mr. Gore provided severalvaluable services to Mr. Hammer, including fending off the FBI.

In 1972, a Hammer operative gave $54,000 in laundered hundred-dollar bills to Nixonfund-raiser Maurice Stans for use in the Watergate coverup. Questioned by the FBI anda Senate committee, Mr. Hammer lied about the money. But his flunkies crumbled underquestioning. In 1975, Mr. Hammer pleaded guilty to three counts of making illegal

campaign contributions. He spent the rest of his life campaigning for a pardon, whichPresident Bush granted in 1989.

Mr. Hammer also had close ties to two lawyers who later would play important roles inthe Clinton administration: Mickey Kantor, who served as commerce secretary, U.S.trade representative and White House damage-control specialist, and Gerald Stern, theJustice Department's special counsel for financial-institution fraud. Mr. Stern was onOccidental Petroleum's payroll as senior general counsel before coming to Washington.Mr. Kantor was a key player as outside counsel to Occidental when his law firm, Manatt,Phelps, Phillips & Kantor, waged a long and ultimately unsuccessful battle to openportions of the California coast to oil drilling.

Mr. Kantor was the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign chairman and head of the transitionteam; Mr. Stern, a boyhood friend of Mr. Kantor's, was staff coordinator of the transitionteam. At Justice, Mr. Stern managed the department's largely fruitless efforts to get tothe bottom of the BCCI banking scandal. A decade earlier, before Mr. Stern worked forOccidental, Mr. Hammer had been deeply involved in his own maneuvering to gaincontrol of Financial General Bankshares, a Washington, D.C., bank holding company.When his takeover attempt did not succeed, Mr. Hammer sold his interest in Financial


17/21

General to BCCI front men in 1981. BCCI was shut down in 1991 amid charges ofglobal bank fraud.

Mr. Gore's lifelong association with Armand Hammer casts some doubt on the popularimpression that he was unsullied before accepting the vice presidential nomination on

Bill Clinton's ticket. In fact, some of the most controversial figures in the Clintonscandals came into the administration from the Gore camp. Craig Livingstone, thecentral player in the appearance of hundreds of FBI files at the White House, is a formerGore advance man. Nathan Landow, who entertained former White House volunteerKathleen Willey while apparently trying to suppress her story about the president'ssexual advances, was a Gore fund-raiser, and remains one today. Mr. Landow hasdenied any wrongdoing in the Willey matter and no charges were brought against him.

And Mr. Gore had his own, independent connections with some of the Asian figuresmade famous by the Clinton scandals. His notorious appearance at a 1996 fund-raiserat the Hsi Lai Buddhist temple in California--where $65,000 was funneled to the Clinton-

Gore effort through the use of Buddhist monks as conduits--followed a decade-longassociation with fundraiser Maria Hsia, who staged the temple event. A SenateGovernmental Affairs Committee report identifies Ms. Hsia as "an agent of the Chinesegovernment." The six-volume report details the Gore connection with Ms. Hsia, as wellas a lengthy relationship with campaign-finance figures James Riady and John Huang.

The dry committee report is engagingly retold for the nonobsessive in Bob Zelnick'suseful 1999 biography, "Gore: A Political Life." "Gore and the Buddhists went back along way," Mr. Zelnick notes, "and always at the center of the relationship was moneyfor the Tennesseean and his campaigns." Ms. Hsia, Mr. Riady and Mr. Huang wereinstrumental in bringing then-Sen. Gore to Taiwan in January 1989 under the auspices

of a lobbying group they had formed a year earlier, the Pacific Leadership Council. Mr.Riady's Lippo Group provided the seed money for the trip; Mr. Huang handled theitinerary.

Following Sen. Gore's 1989 trip, Ms. Hsia and the Pacific Leadership Council "helpedrun numerous fundraising events on his behalf," the Senate Governmental AffairsCommittee reported, "organizing Asian-American and Indo-Americans in Tennessee forGore's re-election." Ms. Hsia, an immigration broker, "enlisted Senator Gore's office intrying to help her arrange business deals--on a commission basis--between Tennesseebusinesses and Taiwanese business contacts."

While offering few details, the Governmental Affairs Committee's final report stated thatMs. Hsia had been "an agent of the Chinese government, that she acted knowingly insupport of it, and that she has attempted to conceal her relationship" with it. Ms. Hsia iscurrently under indictment in the Buddhist Temple scheme; her attorney has denouncedthe charges as "absolutely false."

Ms. Hsia also was no stranger to Peter Knight, the sometime Washington lobbyist whois Mr. Gore's current senior fund-raiser. In his book, Mr. Zelnick reports that Mr. Knight


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and Leon Fuerth--Mr. Gore's longtime national security assistant--urged Mr. Gore in1988 to accept Ms. Hsia's invitation to Taiwan. Mr. Knight's interest, Mr. Zelnicksuggests, was to develop the Asian-American community both on his boss's behalf andto further his own career as a lobbyist.

In 1996, Mr. Knight signed on as campaign manager of the Clinton-Gore re-electioneffort. As the campaign-finance scandal unraveled, Mr. Knight and Mr. Landow--theDemocratic fund-raiser involved in the Kathleen Willey affair--were widely criticized forsqueezing a $100,000 donation out of the impoverished Cheyenne and Arapaho tribesof Oklahoma and attempting to extract business concessions from them.

Mr. Landow told the Washington Post that he met with the tribes only to be "polite" anddid nothing improper in seeking further business with them related to mineral rights in along-running land dispute with the federal government. These days, he is back in actionon Mr. Gore's behalf, helping raise $50,000 at a Maryland event in May. The vicepresident's office did not respond to a request for details on Mr. Landow's current role in

the Gore campaign. Mr. Knight told the Post that he himself had only minimal contactwith tribal representatives; according to the Post, his lobbying firm had been seeking a$100,000 retainer and a $10,000-a-month fee from the tribes in the land dispute.

Mr. Knight came under congressional scrutiny as well for his lobbying efforts on behalfof Molten Metals Technology, a Massachusetts toxic-waste cleanup firm that donated$90,000 to the Democrats in 1996. In a separate probe, the House CommerceCommittee referred to Attorney General Janet Reno questions about a $1 million fee Mr.Knight received after lobbying federal officials to move the Federal CommunicationsCommission headquarters to a building complex controlled by Tennessee developerFranklin Haney, a Gore family friend and Knight client. No charges were brought in

either matter. In a separate prosecution, Mr. Haney was acquitted in July on 42 countsof making illegal contributions to Mr. Gore and other politicians.

Mr. Gore also raised eyebrows in May with the appointment of former Rep. Tony Coelhoto run his presidential campaign. Among hardened political professionals, the move wastaken as a sign that the Gore campaign will not overly trouble itself about the ethicalquandaries of big-time money raising. In 1989, Mr. Coelho beat a hasty retreat fromCongress as scandal clouds gathered around him. The immediate cause of hisdeparture was an undisclosed financial relationship with financier Michael Milken. ButMr. Coelho by that time had become infamous as a pioneer of the hardball politicalshakedown, threatening business and political action committees for "donations" with

the reminder that congressional Democrats were in a position to punish their enemiesand reward their friends.

It was politics as blood sport, and Rep. Coelho pursued it with a vengeance. One friendthat reaped the reward was the savings-and-loan industry. Mr. Coelho raised millions forthe Democratic Party from S&L owners, including hosting parties aboard a Potomacyacht named the "High Spirits," owned by Vernon Savings & Loan of Texas. Herewarded his S&L friends in 1987 by helping to gut a House reform package, prolonging


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a debacle that cost the taxpayers more than $200 billion. Vernon's owner eventuallywas convicted of looting the S&L, and Mr. Coelho was forced to reimburse theconservators for the use of the yacht.

Does any of this matter to the 2000 presidential race and a possible Gore

administration? In many respects, Al Gore and George W. Bush have similar historiesas sons of prominent politicians. But unlike his putative presidential opponent, Mr. Gorehas not relied on his father's connections in cutting deals leading to great personalwealth. He has, however, toiled at the feet of not only Bill Clinton but Armand Hammer,another master of transient morality, and his taste in associates tends to raise doubtsabout his clean-cut persona. This of course is no disqualification from serving aspresident. The charitable voter would recall the words of that political sage Mr. Dooley:"Politics ain't beanbag."


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Gore sensitive about Hammer connection

Posted: February 18, 20001:00 am EasternBy Joseph Farah

A gossip columnist for MSNBC suggests Al Gore is being cagey about his middle namebecause of his family's long-time association with a billionaire Soviet apparatchik.

In her Feb. 15 column, Jeanette Walls reveals the vice president usually gives only hismiddle initial -- A -- when asked about his middle name. When pressed upon by a fifthgrader recently, Gore asked the kid to give his full name.

In other words, the vice president won't even give a straight, direct answer to thequestion: "What's your name?"

Does this remind you of any recent presidents?

On his tax return, Gore lists his middle name as Albert. I always thought that was hisfirst name. According to the Wall Street Journal, his birth certificate lists the middlename as simply the initial "A."

Very strange. Why the hypersensitivity?

A source told Walls that his parents gave him the initial as a middle name because theywanted their friend and benefactor, Armand Hammer, to believe their child was namedfor him. An official spokesman for the vice president questioned the veracity of thereport.

With good reason the campaign wants to divert attention from the Hammer-Goreconnection.

Hammer used to boast that he had Sen. Al Gore Sr. "in his back pocket." As I havereported here before, Hammer set up Gore Sr. in business before he ventured intopolitics, stayed close to him throughout his political career and hired him after he leftoffice.

"Throughout the whole of his life, Al Gore Sr. and his family depended on pay-outs,kickbacks and subventions from Hammer," wrote Neil Lyndon, who worked for Hammer.

"Like his father before him, Al Gore Jr.'s political career was lavishly sponsored byHammer from the moment it began until Hammer died, only two years before GoreClinton in the 1992 race for the White House."

Who was Hammer? He was a personal friend of V.I. Lenin. He was known as Lenin's"path" to America's financial resources. He was the first of a long line of Westernbusinessmen to participate in KGB-controlled joint ventures in the Soviet Union. He wasthe son of Julius Hammer, a founder of the Socialist Labor Party and later the


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Communist party USA and who served time in Sing Sing for performing illegal abortions.Armand Hammer was called the "Capitalist Prince" by the KGB. He dutifully served theSoviets for seven decades and became the first -- and only -- "American capitalist" to beawarded the Order of Lenin.

According to Edward J. Epstein's "Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer,"Lenin told Stalin about this so-called "industrialist": "This is a small path leading to theAmerican 'business' world, and this path should be made use of in every way."

In other words, Hammer was a part-time spy, part-time money-launderer, part-time"industrialist" -- but a full-time traitor to the United States of America.

To the Soviet Union in his day, Hammer was a figure with much in common with thecontemporary spy-cum-billionaire Mochtar Riady -- doing the bidding of socialist tyrantsand making a bundle in the process.

It was Al Gore Sr. who stopped the FBI from pursuing an investigation of Hammer as aSoviet agent of influence. And the cozy relationship with the family continued when AlGore Jr. -- whatever his real name is -- was elected to the Senate in 1980. Hammer wasthe guest of honor in the "senators only" section during President Reagan'sinauguration.

The Hammer connection continued to define Al Gore's political career. He serves as co-chairman of a Russian-U.S. commission intended to help the next generation of ArmandHammer-style "Capitalist Princes" develop contacts with businesses that are little morethan foreign intelligence fronts.

In 1994, the vice president established U.S.-Russian Joint Commission on Economicand Technical Cooperation, better known as the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission. Thepurpose of the commission is to help establish join ventures in space exploration,science and technology, defense conversion, environmental initiatives, public healthissues, agribusiness and economic development. The Russian side of this equation islittered with shadowy figures with one foot in the intelligence community and the other inmob-related activities.

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