The Clintons, Jackson Stephens and the East Liverpool OH Incinerator:

[mod mom]

EAST LIVERPOOL OHIO, THE SITE OF THE WTI INCINERATOR SITS IN A FLOOD PLAIN AND HAS A MICROCLIMATE THAT CAUSES AIR STAGNATION, AND YET ONE OF THE LARGEST WASTE INCINERATORS WAS BUILT THERE.
DID CORPORATE INFLUENCE PEDDLING PLAY A ROLE? YOU BE THE JUDGE:


Here is a portion of activist/mother, Terri Swearingen's acceptance speech for the Goldman Environmental Prize, given April 14, 1997:



I am not a scientist or a Ph.D. I am a nurse and a housewife, but my most important credential is that I am a mother. In 1982, I was pregnant with our one and only child. That's when I first learned of plans to build one of the world's largest toxic waste incinerators in my community. When they began site preparation to begin building the incinerator in 1990, my life changed forever. I'd like to share with you some of the lessons I have learned from my experiences over the past seven years.

One of the main lessons I have learned from the WTI experience is that we are losing our democracy. How have I come to this sad realization? Democracy is defined by Merriam Webster as "government by the people, especially rule of the majority," and "the common people constituting the source of political authority." The definition of democracy no longer fits with the reality of what is happening in East Liverpool, Ohio. For one thing, it is on the record that the majority of people in the Ohio Valley do not want the WTI hazardous waste incinerator in their area, and they have been opposed to the project from its inception. Some of our elected officials have tried to help us, but the forces arrayed against us have been stronger than we or they had imagined. Public concerns and protests have been smothered with meaningless public hearings, voodoo risk assessment and slick legal maneuvering.

Government agencies that were set up to protect public health and the environment only do their job if it does not conflict with corporate interests. Our current reality is that we live in a "wealthocracy" big money simply gets what it wants. In this wealthocracy, we see three dynamics at play: corporations versus the planet, the government versus the people, and corporate consultants or "experts" versus common sense. In the case of WTI, we have seen all three.

The second lesson I have learned ties directly to the first, and that is that corporations can control the highest office in the land. When Bill Clinton and Al Gore came to the Ohio Valley, they called the siting of the WTI hazardous waste incinerator next door to a 400 student elementary school, in the middle of an impoverished Appalachian neighborhood, immediately on the bank of the Ohio River in a flood plain an "UNBELIEVABLE IDEA." They said we ought to have control over where these things are located. They even went so far as to say they would stop it. But then they didn't! What has been revealed in all this is that there are forces running this country that are far more powerful than the President and the Vice President. This country trumpets to the world how democratic it is, but it's funny that I come from a community that our President dare not visit because he cannot witness first hand the injustice which he has allowed in the interest of a multinational corporation, Von Roll of Switzerland. And the Union Bank of Switzerland. And Jackson Stephens, a private investment banker from Arkansas. These forces are far more relevant to our little town than the President of the United States! And he is the one who made it that way. He has chosen that path. We didn't choose it for him. We begged him to come to East Liverpool, but he refused. We begged the head of EPA to come, but she refused. She hides behind the clever maneuvering of lawyers and consultants who obscure the dangers of the reckless siting of this facility with theoretical risk assessments.

-snip

http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/wti/et0897s17.html



There has always been something incongruous about Stephens Inc. Despite the Little rock firm's attempts to portray itself as a small- city operation that closes for the duck season and got fabulously lucky on a couple of down-home deals like Wal-Mart, it was, at the incinerator's inception, the ninth-largest investment bank in the country. Since it is not headquartered in New York, its dealings are local news, little noticed by the national press, even when they have national implications. And, as a source close to the company once remarked, "The farther you get from Arkansas, the better it looks."

Stephens Inc. was founded by Witt Stephens, a state legislator's son who parlayed a Depression-era belt-buckle, Bible, and municipal-bond business into an immense personal fortune. After his retirement in 1973, the company was run by his shy younger brother, Jackson (a classmate of Jimmy Carter's at the Naval Academy). Witt Stephens and Stephens Inc. did much to create the economic paradox that is modern Arkansas: a desperately poor state with a scant 2.3 million inhabitants that is nonetheless home to a number of wealthy companies. Without the financial assistance of the Stephens brothers, Sam Walton might have ended his days as the most innovative merchant in Bentonville. Stephens money was also important to the fortunes of enterprises as various as Tyson Foods and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the television producer and reigning First Friend. Stephens Inc. is an important client of the Rose law firm, whose chairman, C. Joseph Giroir, made Hillary Rodham Clinton a partner. And back in 1977, Stephens assisted BCCI's infiltration of the American banking system by brokering the latter's purchase of National Bank of Georgia stock held by Bert Lance, former President Jimmy Carter's friend and disgraced budget director.

Jackson Stephens (who turned over the reins to his son, Warren, in the late eighties) and his firm were both substantial contributors to the campaigns of Presidents Reagan and Bush (to the tune of at least $100,000 in 1980 and 1989), but they have been closer still to Bill Clinton (whom Witt Stephens had been known to call "that boy").

On two occasions, once when Clinton was running for reelection in Arkansas in 1990 and again in March 1992, when his battered presidential campaign was broke, the Stephens family saved Clinton's bacon with an infusion of money. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that their Worthen Bank's emergency $3.5 million line of credit saved the presidential campaign from extinction. --L.J.D.

-snip

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1993/11/davis.html




Who is the octopussy that might be lurking in the Ohio River Valley? Perhaps we should start by asking shy Arkansas billionaire Jackson T. Stephens. After all, Stephens introduced BCCI from Pakistan to the United States and the WTI waste incinerator to East Liverpool, Ohio. Stephens would be a good sketch artist because he's seen some monstrous scandals in his day. Stephens' family firm is the largest privately owned investment bank outside Wall Street. In September 1977, President Jimmy Carter's Budget Director Burt Lance was forced to resign amid allegations about his bank dealings with Stephens (Stephens and Carter were classmates at the Naval Academy). In 1978, Stephens, Lance and BCCI were charged with violating U.S. security laws. The charges were dropped after the defendants promised not to violate security laws in the future, even though they admitted no guilt.

The New York Post reported in February 1992 that it was Stephens who enabled BCCI to gain a foothold in the U.S. and helped the fraud-plagued bank secretly acquire U.S. banks. In Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin's book, False Profits, perhaps the best account of the BCCI scandal, the authors outlined how opium revenue from Afghanistan Mujahedin fighting the Soviets ended up in the accounts of BCCI, founded by Agha Hasan Abedi. The Post reported that Stephens allegedly introduced Abedi to Lance shortly after Lance resigned.

In 1991, Lance testified that he urged Abedi to acquire a Washington bank holding company, but he denied any knowledge of BCCI's subsequent secret ownership of First American Bankshares. The Post reported that Securities and Exchange Commission documents from 1977 substantiate that the idea originated with Stephens.

During Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential run, Stephens and his son Warren boasted of raising more than $100,000 for the campaign. The Stephens family also owned a 38 percent share in Worthen National Bank that extended a crucial $2 million line of credit to Clinton in January 1992.

-snip

http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/wti/bob.html

[mod mom]

1. Environmental Justice Case Study from U of Michigan:

Environmental Justice Case Study: Waste Technologies Industries, Inc. and the Fight Against A Hazardous Waste Incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio

The Problem

The Waste Technologies Industry, Inc. incinerator is located in the floodplain of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio. The surrounding area is elevated on a bluff, such that incinerator's stack is level with the windows of local buildings. The incinerator is located about 300 feet from homes and just 1100 feet from an elementary school. The location of the facility has been intensely criticized by citizens, scientists, and government officials alike. East Liverpool is located at the juncture of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, approximately 35 miles from Pittsburgh.
The WTI struggle is a regional issue that drew much national attention during the early 1990's, much to the credit of organizer Terri Swearingen, a citizen of Chester, W. VA. who coordinates the Tri-State Environmental Council. Tri-State Environmental Council became outraged by the various environmental problems that the WTI facility has created for several reasons. First, there has never been a comprehensive study of the potential health effects upon the surrounding community, either from inhalation of toxics or accumulation of materials (such as dioxin, a known carcinogen) in fatty tissues and subsequent transmission via mother's milk or the food chain. Also, the incinerator will be pumping hazardous chemicals into the environment, including mercury and other heavy metals. It is expected to emit 4.5 tons of lead per year, and this less than 400 yards from an elementary school and residential area.

Foremost, issues of environmental justice have been avoided by regulatory officials through this struggle, although it has been observed that East Liverpool and the surrounding communities are predominantly low-income and minority neighborhoods. These neighborhoods have already incurred adverse environmental effects from existing local industry. Government response during the reauthorization process for WTI as well as towards these concerns has been conspicuously slow.

Back to Table of Contents

Background

Waste Technologies Industries' hazardous waste incinerator was first proposed in 1977, and has been under severe scrutiny from its neighbors since 1980. Once construction began in 1990, an intense campaign against the WTI facility and incineration as a means of hazardous waste disposal commenced in East Liverpool, surrounding communities, and eventually the nation. WTI its self has been a topic o national controversy, and was mentioned specifically during the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. Clinton and Gore promised the American people that not only would the Clinton Administration never let such a facility become a reality, but they aimed to prevent the WTI facility from opening before questions regarding the safety and legality of its operation were answered. Vice-President-Elect Gore, along with five U.S. Senators and two Representatives, followed up on this promise by requesting a General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation of the facility. However, after sixteen years of community struggle after the incinerator was proposed, the facility is currently operating, despite an array of procedural and legal mishaps.

-snip

http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/mcormick.html

[mod mom]

2. Despicable stats and politics:

The incinerator failed its March 1993 test burn.<6> Among other shortcomings, its efficiency rating for burning mercury was only 7 percent, as opposed to the required 99.99 percent.

An April 1993 inspection of the facility revealed numerous violations. For example, employees had failed to store some of the hazardous waste in closed containers and were not monitoring the underlying soil conditions, although cracks had already appeared in the incinerator's foundations.

In late June, after a three-year investigation, the Ohio attorney general issued a heavily censored report concluding that, yes, because of all the ownership changes, under state law the incinerator permit was invalid after all. Nonetheless, on August 24, the U.S. EPA ruled that although Von Roll wrongfully failed to register the 1989 ownership change, this did not invalidate the incinerator's operating permit. The EPA just fined Von Roll $64,900 for failing to modify the permit.

On July 28, an EPA whistle-blower charged two senior EPA administrators with fraud for allowing the incinerator to operate despite the decision of the Ohio attorney general. In a memo to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, Hugh Kaufman, whose job is to act as an internal watchdog at the EPA, claimed that Deputy Administrator Robert Sussman and Region 5 Director Valdus Adamkus modified the incinerator's permit to grant it "temporary authorization" to operate, even though they knew the permit was legally invalid. He called for a criminal investigation into Sussman, Adamkus, and the "business entities" running the incinerator. (The federal Justice Department has had no comment on Kaufman's charges.)<7>

-snip

http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/wti/motherjones.html

[autorank]

3. "I can teach the science I like"

I heard someone say that about the advantages of home schooling...the science "you like." How about
real science.

It's the same when science and politics/commerce intersect when that science is intended for the
public interest.

We're not recognizing the world of pain we're creating for children and the elderly in particular
by horsing around with real fixes for the environment.

It isn't hard to clear money out if there's the will. Time to take back our government, get all
money out of political campaigns.

[karynnj]

5. I agree with you on the need to get money out of campaigns

Here is a 1996 speech that speaks to how money causes the voice of the people to be lost. It should be noted that the Senator was the only one Senator willing to pursue BCCI even beyond what he could do in the Senate committee.

"Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I want to speak before you today about a critical challenge before this Senate--the challenge of reforming the way in which elections are conducted in the United States; the challenge of ending the ``moneyocracy'' that has turned our elections into auctions where public office is sold to the highest bidder. I want to implore the Congress to take meaningful steps this year to ban soft money, strengthen the Federal Election Commission, provide candidates the opportunity to pay for their campaigns with clean money, end the growing trend of dangerous sham issue ads, and meet the ultimate goal of restoring the rights of average Americans to have a stake in their democracy. Today I am proud to join with my colleague from Minnesota, PAUL WELLSTONE, to introduce the ``Clean Money'' bill which I believe will help all of us entrusted to shape public policy to arrive at a point where we can truly say we are rebuilding Americans' faith in our democracy.
For the last 10 years, I have stood before you to push for comprehensive campaign reform. We have made nips and tucks at the edges of the system, but we have always found excuses to hold us back from making the system work. It's long past time that we act--in a comprehensive way--to curtail the way in which soft money and the big special interest dollars are crowding ordinary citizens out of this political system.
Today the political system is being corrupted because there is too much unregulated, misused money circulating in an environment where candidates will do anything to get elected and where, too often, the special interests set the tone of debate more than the political leaders or the American people. Just consider the facts for a moment. The rising cost of seeking political office is outrageous. In 1996, House and Senate candidates spent more than $765 million, a 76% increase since 1990 and a six fold increase since 1976. Since 1976, the average cost for a winning Senate race went from $600,000 to $3.3 million, and in the arms race for campaign dollars in 1996 many of us were forced to spend significantly more than that. In constant dollars, we have seen an increase of over 100 percent in the money spent for Senatorial races from 1980 to 1994. Today Senators often spend more time on the phone ``dialing for dollars'' than on the Senate floor. The average Senator must raise $12,000 a week for six years to pay for his or her re-election campaign.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The use of soft money has exploded. In 1988, Democrats and Republicans raised a combined $45 million in soft money. In 1992 that number doubled to reach $90 million and in 1995-96 that number tripled to $262 million. This trend continues in this cycle. What's the impact of all that soft money? It means that the special interests are being heard. They're the ones with the influence. But ordinary citizens can't compete. Fewer than one third of one percent of eligible voters donated more than $250 in the electoral cycle of 1996. They're on the sidelines in what is becoming a coin-operated political system.
The American people want us to act today to forge a better system. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 77% of the public believes that campaign finance reform is needed ``because there is too much money being spent on political campaigns, which leads to excessive influence by special interests and wealthy individuals at the expense of average people.'' Last spring a New York Times found that an astonishing 91% of the public favor a fundamental transformation of this system.
Cynics say that the American people don't care about campaign finance. It's not true. Citizens just don't believe we'll have the courage to act--they're fed up with our defense of the status quo. They're disturbed by our fear of moving away from this status quo which is destroying our democracy. Soft money, political experts tell us, is good for incumbents, good for those of us within the system already. Well, nothing can be good for any elected official that hurts our democracy, that drives citizens out of the process, and which keeps politicians glued to the phone raising money when they ought to be doing the people's business. Let's put aside the status quo, and let's act today to restore our democracy, to make it once more all that the founders promised it could be.
Let us pass the Clean Mo ney Bill to restore faith in our government in this age when it has been so badly eroded.
Let us recognize that the faith in government and in our political process which leads Americans to go to town hall meetings, or to attend local caucuses, or even to vote--that faith which makes political expression worthwhile for ordinary working Americans--is being threatened by a political system that appears to reward the special interests that can play the game and the politicians who can game the system.
Each time we have debated campaign finance reform in this Senate, too many of our colleagues have safeguarded the status quo under the guise of protecting the political speech of the Fortune 500. But today we must pass campaign finance reform to protect the political voice of the 250 million ordinary, working Americans without a fortune. It is their dwindling faith in our political system that must be restored.
Twenty five years ago, I sat before the Foreign Relations Committee, a young veteran having returned from Vietnam. Behind me sat hundreds of veterans committed to ending the war the Vietnam War. Even then we questioned whether ordinary Americans, battle scarred veterans, could have a voice in a political system where the costs of campaigns, the price of elected office seemed prohibitive. Young men who had put their life on the front lines for their country were worried that the wall of special interests between the people and their government might have been too thick even then for our voices to be heard in the corridors of power in Washington, D.C.
But we had a reserve of faith left, some belief in the promise and the influence of political expression for all Americans. That sliver of faith saved lives. Ordinary citizens stopped a war that had taken 59,000 American lives.
Every time in the history of this republic when we have faced a moral challenge, there has been enough faith in our democracy to stir the passions of ordinary Americans to act--to write to their Members of Congress; to come to Washington and speak with us one on one; to walk door to door on behalf of issues and candidates; and to vote on election day for people they believe will fight for them in Washington.
It's the activism of citizens in our democracy that has made the American experiment a success. Ordinary citizens--at the most critical moments in our history--were filled with a sense of efficacy. They believed they had influence in their government.

Today those same citizens are turning away from our political system. They believe the only kind of influence left in American politics is the kind you wield with a checkbook. The senior citizen living on a social security check knows her influence is inconsequential compared to the interest group that can saturate a media market with a million dollars in ads that play fast and loose with the facts. The mother struggling to find decent health care for her children knows her influence is trivial compared to the special interests on K Street that can deliver contributions to incumbent politicians struggling to stay in office.
But I would remind you that whenever our country faces a challenge, it is not the special interests, but rather the average citizen, who holds the responsibility to protect our nation. The next time our nation faces a crisis and the people's voice needs to be heard to turn the tide of history, will the average American believe enough in the process to give words to the feelings beyond the beltway, the currents of public opinion that run beneath the surface of our political dialogue?
In times of real challenge for our country in the years to come, will the young people speak up once again? Not if we continue to hand over control of our political system to the special interests who can infuse the system with soft money and with phony television ads that make a mockery of the issues.
The children of the generation that fought to lower the voting age to 18 are abandoning the voting booth themselves. Polls reveal they believe it is more likely that they'll be abducted by aliens than it is that their vote will make a real difference. For America's young people the MTV Voter Participation Challenge ``Choose or Lose'' has become a cynical joke. In their minds, the choice has already been lost--lost to the special interests. That is a loss this Senate should take very seriously. That is tremendous damage done to our democracy, damage we have a responsibility in this Senate to repair. Mr. President, with this legislation we are introducing today, we can begin that effort--we can repair and revitalize our political process, and we can guarantee ``clean elections'' funded by ``clean money,'' elections where our citizens are the ones who make the difference"

[seemslikeadream]

4. Jackson Stephens

http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID60/27138.html

Stephens, Inc. may factor in somewhere
Stephens, Inc. is the Arkansas bank of Jackson Stephens. He was a fund-raiser in Arkansas for Jimmy Carter and also bankrolled Bill Clinton's early campaigns. But he switched over to the Republicans with the 1980 Reagan campaign and his wife managed Bush, Sr.'s 1988 campaign in Arkansas.
Stephens, Inc. was involved with BCCI in the late 70's, helping them gain control of American banks. It was Stephens, Inc. that arranged the sale of Bert Lance's National Bank of Georgia to BCCI frontman Ghaith Pharaon in 1978.

Stephens, Inc. became involved with Harken Oil in the late 80's, at about the same time as Bush, Jr., and arranged Harken's 1987 stock offering through BCCI-related banks in Europe.

Stephens then brought in a Saudi real-estate magnate, Sheikh Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, to acquire those shares, amounting to 17.6% of Harken's total stock. Bakhsh was a partner of Ghaith Pharaon and his banker was Khalid bin Mahfouz, whose name comes up so often in BCCI and bin Laden-related matters.

Bakhsk's investment manager, Talat Othman, became his representative on Harken's board of directors and gained access to Bush, Sr. as a result, being part of a group of Arabs who met with him two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

I mention all this because Jackson Stephens and Stephens, Inc. are the one clear link I know of between Jimmy Carter/Bert Lance/Bill Clinton and the whole BCCI-related complex that figures so strongly in the later Bush dealings. And because there definitely seems to have been something screwy going on in Arkansas (and possibly Missouri) -- although the extent of Clinton's knowledge of it still appears problematic.





George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens, c. 1979–90, 5th Version, 1999, by Mark Lombardi




http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=216

Whole chains of Florida hospices and nursing homes to which Jackson Stephens is the ultimate owner, along with Carlysle Groupies, run with front men in charge. These companies are interbred with funeral homes and graveyards where bodies get disinterred and bones sold.
The FuneralGate scandal was a big thing before 911.

How many hops between this hospice, and the nearest FuneralGate figure?
Damm few, betcha.

... with Ken Lay, his giving the finger to Clearwater protesters, Florida's criminal
purge of LEGAL voters, the Menorah Gardens Funeralgate scandal, and on and on ...

[mod mom]

6. Thank you, SLAD, I just received a Mark Lombardi book for Christmas.

I learned about him from you, blm and others.

QUESTION: This WTI scandal hurt Gore in Ohio in 2000, as he didn't fulfill a campaign promise made while running w Clinton. Do you believe the Clinton's nixed the idea of interference due to their connections w Stephens?

[seemslikeadream]

8. Clinton's protection of Jackson Stephens did end up hurting Gore's credibility

on environmental matters, ineffective as VP.

[seemslikeadream]

7. BCCI frontman Jackson Stephens

BCCI frontman Jackson Stephens

http://www.slate.com/id/2094848/

Jackson T. Stephens—$60.5 million to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, and St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center; and a $20.4 million pledge of which $13.26 million was paid in 2003 to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Stephens, 80, owner and operator of Stephens Inc., a brokerage house in Little Rock, Ark., gave $48 million to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, in Little Rock. The gift will finance a building at the Jackson T. Stephens Spine and Neurosciences Institute at the university, purchase equipment for the institute, and support programs and research. Stephens also gave $10 million to the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, in Annapolis, Md., for renovations at the Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium there. The gift is the largest ever to the naval academy. Stephens graduated from the academy in 1947. Stephens also gave $2.5 million to St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center, in Little Rock, to purchase equipment for the health center and to support completion of the hospital's new heart center. He also pledged $20.4 million to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to construct a center for the university's athletics department and basketball and volleyball teams. The center is scheduled to open in spring 2005.

[mod mom]

9. His obituary painted a glowing report of his life. It failed to mention the damage

he did to the country or even the personal lives of the impoverished folks of East Liverpool (WTI). :mad: