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In Herman Cain lore, the man singlehandedly saved Burger King . . . and so impressed were the powers that be at Pillsbury that they made Cain head doughboy in charge of the faltering Godfather's Pizza chain. Cain was able (sorry) to turn Godfather's around in 14 months! So wildly profitable, goes the yarn, that Pillsbury sold the chain. (Scoobie say, "hhhrrrrrunnnnhhh???") You don't often see the name of the buyers in this tale of food and glory, but it was a group of manager-investors lead by one . . . Herman Cain. . . . Who were these investors who had money for the slice? This was 1988, and restaurants were and remain dodgy investments, especially when a huge food conglomerate is giving them a vote of no confidence. When adjusted for inflation, Cain's long reign over Godfather's saw a 46% drop in profits and Godfather's went from the 5th to the 11th ranked pizza chain in the United States. . . . Lawrence E. King was a fixture in the Omaha black community. He had seen his opportunity gathering up black folks' money in a credit union known as the Franklin Credit Union, which he'd taken over in 1970. . . . Tales of King entertaining guests with cocaine, hookers and hustlers were pervasive, but Omaha has some strange code of silence. It had been for many years a sort of mob neutral zone. "Tony might whack Vinnie in Chicago," but in Omaha their kids and wives would peacefully shop, play and picnic together. Drawing attention is not acceptable. Bush flew to Omaha on 9/11 in a very standard emergency protocol, and not one in ten Americans ever knew. . . . King - who had been recruited by the RNC to get out the black Republican vote - in his rise through the Republican ranks, was able to be the sum of their black best friends, as it were. He sang the national anthem at the 1984 and 1988 Republican conventions. In 1986, the Franklin Federal Credit Union moved into brand-new digs that also served as headquarters for King's burgeoning catering and food-service empire. King began making donations to the Omaha Press Club, the Republican Party and even gay rights organizations (especially those funding area youth programs). . . . Franklin Federal Credit Union seemed to be all right until an audit of King's taxes revealed what appeared to be some missing funds. A phony "certificates of deposit" scheme. Initially it was thought that $400,000 had disappeared. Then $4 million. Ultimately $40 million was determined to have vanished. . . . The FBI raid of the credit union sparked rumors that drugs and child pornography were discovered in the lower levels of the facility. It had been whispered that King had used the basement of the credit union as a "waiter academy" to train young men (twinks and blinks) in the fine art of waiting tables for what was hopefully to become his restaurant empire. Eventually a private investigator was hired by the state legislature to look into stories of an international child prostitution ring. He interviewed dozens of waiters and folks around Omaha who had been curious about King's lavish gifts and extravagant ways. But things seemed tempered by the fact that King hung out with presidents, and area journalists. And owned a bank, and a sushi bar and . . . The investigator is said to have flown to Chicago to meet with a person who had damning photographic evidence as to what was going on in the bowels of Franklin. That investigator never made it back to Omaha. His plane mysteriously blew up on the return flight. Primary witnesses suddenly changed their stories, and those who did not were convicted of perjury. One rent boy who testified that he was farmed out to several closeted power brokers in and around Omaha died mysteriously in New Mexico. King was convicted of bank fraud and served nearly 10 out of the 15 years to which he was sentenced, but the grand jury concluded that all of the salacious allegations were merely "a big hoax" (wtf!). These allegations included supplying children for satanic blood rituals in Spain and supplying teens to a sex party in Washington, D.C., where some of those teens claimed they saw George W. Bush in attendance.Another one bites the dust. (But we'll never know the whole story, I'll bet. Just the parts which they can "clean up" and claim they've already made good the entry fee. ("Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.") Read the entire essay and weep as one of the stories delineating what happened to the American Experiment and why it's so hard (but not impossible) to reclaim it. (Click on the link below.)
Thursday, July 07, 2011 Does Herman Cain Have A $40 Million Problem? One That Could, As They Say, Come Out? The devastating Herman Cain video (above), posted by the Ron Paul camp should have put a quick end to whatever there is of Cain's campaign for the Republican Party presidential or vice presidential nomination (although I suspect he'd be equally happy with a secondary ambassadorship). . . but it didn't. Inside the GOP these days, support from the Koch brothers for one of their lackeys trumps good judgment - or even common sense. Herman Cain wasn't just the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and he wasn't just the Godfather's Pizza guy either. A confidential DWT informant wrote the following guest post for us:But, hey, don't feel too badly for the "Cain" Rethugs (who are spreading like a virus), there're a lot more like them in "training" now. We'll not lack for their presence nation/worldwide (for years in the future), I fear. (And if "Godfather's Pizza" isn't the nastiest pizza ever sold in the U.S., it's not for lack of trying (or cheap ingredients).) Rethuglican Rules!Two black Republicans walk into a restaurant . . . in Omaha . . . in 1986 . . . could be either of their joints. They both are in the restaurant biz. One of them sang for two presidents. The other wants to be president. Well, maybe they've never been in each other's restaurants and even though they both would gain notoriety for their banking skills, maybe they have never traded one thin dime. But Omaha is a great big small town . . . . The story is larger and dirtier than what is within the scope of a DWT guest blog, and in fact was the subject of a Discovery Channel investigative report. Alas, that program was "purchased" a week before it was to air by some anonymous party. . . Everybody in Omaha knew about this story, and everybody knew somebody connected to it. I almost opened an account in Franklin, until a friend who worked there told me not to put my money in "the booty bank." . . . So what happened to the $40 million that King ripped off from the Franklin Federal Credit Union? It's not very clear, but the year Franklin was raided, a small group of restaurant managers and a future black Republican presidential candidate bought a chain of mafia-themed pizza joints from Pillsbury for $40 million.
Murdoch Kills Paper To Salvage Mega Deal LONDON (Reuters) - In a breathtaking response to a scandal engulfing his media empire, Rupert Murdoch moved on Thursday to close down the News of the World, Britain's biggest selling Sunday newspaper. As allegations multiplied that its journalists hacked the voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain's war dead, the tabloid had hemorrhaged advertising, alienated millions of readers and posed a growing threat to Murdoch's hopes of buying broadcaster BSkyB.From The Guardian:Yet no one, least of all the 168-year-old paper's 200 staff, was prepared for the drama of a single sentence that will surely go down as one of the most startling turns in the 80-year-old Australian-born press baron's long and controversial career.
"News International today announces that this Sunday, 10 July 2011, will be the last issue of the News of the World," read the preamble to a statement from Murdoch's son James, who chairs the British newspaper arm of News Corp.
It seemed a bold gamble, sacrificing a historic title that is suffering from the long-term decline of print newspapers to stave off a threat to plans to expand in television -- "Talk about a nuclear option," said a "gobsmacked" Steven Barnett, professor of communications at Westminster University.
But some analysts said Murdoch would still face pressure to remove his close confidante and top British newspaper executive Rebekah Brooks*, a friend of Prime Minister David Cameron. Her editorship of the News of the World a decade ago is at the heart of some of the gravest accusations.
*Rebekah Wade (Brooks) is now in her fifth year of editing the country's biggest-selling daily newspaper. It may soon be time to stop calling her a survivor, and start calling her a fixture.Quality journalism! From the best of the best. Don't worry. Rupert's just fine now. Stay tuned! People are Awakening - The Revolution Has Begun Half Of World's Refugees Are Running From U.S. Wars The Strange Silencing of Liberal America If more Americans paid attention to the fate of neighbors and loved ones who have fallen victim to the cruel dysfunction of our health care system, they would see through the onslaught of lies and propaganda perpetrated by special interests profiting from the status quo (Wendell Potter) If American Exceptionalism Were a Reality, Here's What Life in America Would Be Like Brzezinski Warns Inequality Could Lead to Unrest Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force _______________________This time last year, Wade was on the back foot and then-editor of the News of the World Andy Coulson was widely perceived to be the Sun editor in waiting. What a difference 12 months make.
Coulson is now the Conservative party's communications chief, having quit the News of the World in the wake of the royal phone-tapping scandal.
And Wade's Sun is back on form with a series of scoops including Prince William and Kate Middleton's split and the dramatic US jet cockpit video of the moment a British soldier was killed by friendly fire.
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