New FAQs and FAQ Index

[johnkarls]

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“Possible Topic for Fall 2011” is the only section of this bulletin board that is “locked.”

The reasons are that (1) at this point in time, this section is serving a special function as a mini-web-site for Reference Materials A – I which were promised in the letter to the 51 inner-city clergy, and for Reference Materials J – M which were mentioned in the FAQs attached to the one-page letter to U.S. Senator Christopher Coons, and (2) each time there is a “Reply” to a particular “Topic” within the section, that “Topic” immediately goes to the top of the section – making it impossible to keep the 5 letters and 13 Reference Materials in order.

Also please note that a new Reference N has been added as a result of new FAQ 14.

Quite a few new FAQs were received in response to the weekly Reading Liberally e-mail that was sent on Sat May 21st to our 150 members, four of which FAQs are of general interest. Accordingly, they and any future FAQs of general interest will appear in this sub-section.

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INDEX OF FAQs ATTACHED TO THE ONE-PAGE LETTER TO U.S. SENATOR CHRISTOPHER COONS

1. Who Is Sir Arthur Collingsworth and What Is The California Dreamers Scholarship Foundation?
2. Why Didn’t You Just Call Upon One Of Your Many Super-Wealthy Friends Such As Lillian Rothschild Berkman Who Joined The IHAD-National Board At Your Request Accompanied By A Pledge Of $10 Million?
3. Why Do You Claim That Your Pledge Was Legally Binding?
4. Did The Courts Know That 10 Million Inner-City Children Were The “Real Parties At Interest”?
5. What Is An International Tax Shelter And Who Was Donald Kendall?
6. Why Was The International Tax Shelter In These Lawsuits A Trade Secret?
7. How Do You Know Your Letters Last Year To The 21 Governmental Officials And The 43 News-Media Superstars Were Received?
8. Is There Any Chance That The Entire $84 Billion Could Still Be Recovered (Not Just The Portion Relating To The Bank Of New York)?
9. What Is www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org Where Are Located The Reference Materials Described In, For Example, The 5/18/2011 Letter to 51 Inner-City Clergy From Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland and The 5/18/2011 Letter to U.S. Senator Christopher Coons?

RUNNING INDEX OF ADDITIONAL FAQs APPEARING IN THIS SUB-SECTION

10. Who Is Your Biggest Disappointment Among The 21 Governmental Officials?
11. Who Is Your Biggest Disappointment Among The 43 News-Media Superstars?
12. Why Was The Letter To 51 Inner-City Clergy Generic Rather Than Addressed To One Of The Clergy?
13. Why Did The Reading-Liberally Newsletter of 5/21/2011 to RL’s 150 Members State That The Description For This Section “Possible Topic for Fall 2011” On The Face Of This Bulletin Board Would Contain Some Additional Paragraphs That Did Not Appear There?
14. Do You Know Michael Moore? Why Was He Copied on the 9/2/2010 Letter to the 43 News-Media Stars (Which Was Attached to Their Current Letter), on the 1/12/2011 Letter to the 51 Inner-City Clergy (Which Was Attached to Their Current Letter), and All Five Briefs Submitted to the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court and Included in Reference Materials A, B and E – But NOT Copied on Any of The Current Five Letters?

[johnkarls]

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President Obama has been the biggest disappointment. Which was why the copy of the letter sent to 21 governmental officials that was included in the package sent to recipients of the other 4 letters was addressed to President Obama. As stated on page 3 of the letter to Messrs. Axelrod and Plouffe –

“Accordingly, I would criticize the President for allocating the $5 billion for the ‘race to the top’ study of what has already been studied to death!!! While tackling universal healthcare instead, which might wind up being his greatest legacy if he is not reelected and which we did NOT need an inner-city ‘community organizer’ to champion. After all, several Presidents of both parties have championed universal health care over the last half century and, indeed, two of the leading (at the moment) Republican presidential candidates (Messrs. Romney and Gingrich) have also championed universal health care.

“Better for the inner-city ‘community organizer’ to have transformed the inner cities with universal IHAD or IHAD-style programs featuring surrogate parents. And then provided in his second term a better social net (including healthcare) for those few who weren’t able to succeed with surrogate parents.”

[johnkarls]

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Chris Matthews!!!

This despite the copy of the letter sent to 43 news-media superstars included in the package sent to recipients of the other 4 letters being addressed to Gwen Ifill (1) because she has her own PBS program “Washington Week” which airs on Friday evenings, and (2) because she had long been the “right-hand person” of Jim Lehrer on the PBS News Hour when, in the Fall of 2009, the PBS News Hour and the Editors of the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Wall Street Journal had been requested to shine a spot light on this litigation, and the only response had been from the PBS News Hour which promised only an obituary afterwards (please see the second quotation at the beginning of the letter to the 43 news-media superstars).

So why, on reflection over this new FAQ, did Chris Matthews edge out Gwen Ifill???

On his Sunday-Morning “Chris Matthews Show” on NBC yesterday (May 22nd), he “took a page” from Tim Russert who ended a “Meet the Press” show shortly before his death with a brief announcement with obvious and justifiable paternal pride that his son, an only child, had just graduated from, if memory serves, Boston College.

Chris Matthew’s daughter (he didn’t mention whether she has siblings) has just graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania. [Incidentally, as another proud father, I admire and salute Chris Matthews!!!]

However, my admiration for Chris Matthews in general, and for his obviously-outstanding qualities as, inter alia, a good father, do not obscure a very troubling aspect of his “world view”!!!

Beginning with the run-up to the recent Royal Wedding, he began chiding his British guests with the barb that America is the “land of opportunity” and ANY AMERICAN need only exert her/him-self a bit to become successful (my paraphrasing which, for purposes of this point, does not require going back and obtaining the exact quotation which has become a mantra for Chris Matthews and with which he has even ended at least one of his recent Sunday-morning programs).

As we have discussed on many occasions, the typical conditions faced by the participants in the first 178 “I Have A Dream”® Programs in 51 American cities featured –

(A) 99% of the “Dreamers” coming from single-adult households,
(B) 95% of total Dreamer households headed by a single adult who was a drug addict, and
(C) 75%-80% of total Dreamer households headed by a single-adult drug addict who turned any receipts over to the pusher so that the kids had to steal just in order to eat.

And we have discussed on many occasions how the prevailing High School graduation rates for the classes just before and just after those 178 IHAD classes had typically been SINGLE DIGITS if –

(A) There is added back to the base everyone who had dropped out BEFORE the beginning of high school,
(B) There is added back to the base everyone who is IN JAIL ON THE DATE of high school graduation,
(C) There is added back to the base everyone who had been KILLED BEFORE THE DATE of high school graduation, and
(D) The resulting statistic is not masked by grouping it with the results of one or more other high schools.

So my question for Chris Matthews =

If in a parallel universe, your daughter had been kidnapped at birth and placed in one of these single-adult households headed by a druggie who turned over any receipts to the pusher so that your daughter had to steal just in order to eat, and your daughter had attended inner-city schools where the learning environment included an overwhelming majority of inner-city children from similar circumstances, do you really think your daughter would ever have graduated from High School, much less have graduated Magna Cum Laude from an Ivy League school???

It really “turns my stomach” every time you repeat your “land of opportunity” mantra and your panellists smile to you their confirmation that they are “drinking your Kool Aid”!!!

Because it implies that the 43 new-media superstars and their colleagues truly believe that electing an African American as U.S. President demonstrates that there is no permanent American “untouchable” under-caste!!!

And you, Chris Matthews, are probably the most influential person among your colleagues, since you control the selection of your panellists each week and therefore exercise quite a bit of “thought control” over them – so you are probably the most culpable in perpetrating and perpetuating the myth that America is the “land of opportunity.”

In this regard, it is a tragedy that Tim Russert passed away prematurely!!! Anyone who has read his biography knows that he worshipped “Big Russ” as he called his father. “Big Russ” spent his career on a garbage truck and Tim was proud of also working on garbage trucks during his summers while working his way through college and law school. And at all times during any of the zillions of his Meet the Press programs, Tim was never far from his roots in his outlook!!! (Though he was renowned for being a thoroughly-nice person despite being tougher in his questioning than any other news-media star.)

The reason for mentioning all this about Tim Russert???

Chris Matthews provoked the comparison by congratulating his daughter in Russert-like fashion!!!

But more importantly, can any reader of Tim Russert’s biography doubt that despite his humble background, he would be much more cautious about claiming that America is a “land of opportunity” FOR EVERYONE???

He would have been enough of “a Mensch” to have admitted that even though he had had a very rough road to the opportunity he was able to make his destiny, inner-city conditions do indeed, as described in the 5/18/2011 letter to Messrs. Axelrod and Plouffe, convince inner-city children by the age of 5 that they are ineligible for their dreams because they are not white – and also convince them that they have no realistic career hopes other than runner graduating to pusher or runner’s girl friend graduating to whore.

Shame on you, Chris Matthews!!!

[johnkarls]

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Unlike the 21 governmental officials and the 43 news-media superstars, the 51 inner-city clergy are not vis-à-vis this imbroglio “public figures” whose privacy should be of little concern.

Moreover, any competent cub reporter can probably identify them quite easily.

[johnkarls]

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Unfortunately, the software for our Bulletin Board has a limit of 4,000 characters for information appearing on its face concerning a particular section. And the first batch of newsletters (our e-mail software has a limit of 100 per hour) had already been sent when “Possible Topic for Fall 2011” was posted. There follows what was sent with our newsletter (including the second batch) concerning the last portion of the information about “Possible Topic for Fall 2011” which concerned John Howard Griffin and Jonathan Kozol. To meet the 4,000-character limitation for the Bulletin Board, most of the material about my own views of Griffin and Kozol had to be chopped for the Bulletin Board.

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"Inner-City Holocaust" has been written In Memory Of John Howard Griffin whose "Black Like Me" half a century ago tried to convince America of its racism.

It is also written in honor of Jonathan Kozol whose award-winning books over the last half century have tried to convince America that it has created a permanent "untouchable" under-caste as a result of its racism -

(1) The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005)
(2) Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope (2001)
(3) Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995)
(4) Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (1991)
(5) Rachel and Her Children (1988)
(6) Illiterate America (1985)
(7) The Night is Dark and I Am Far From Home: Political Indictment of US Public Schools (1975)
(8) Death at an Early Age (1967)

One might wonder why I am placing myself on the same stage as these two Saints. I'm not. They are on pedestals in my place of worship. Like one of Ghandi's followers, it is my turn to have my head bashed in.

In other words, the expected reactions to the prospect of "Inner-City Holocaust" are to try to defame me and to try to explain why the racism of the judges involved, the 21 governmental officials and the 43 news-media super-stars is all my fault rather than theirs.

It is my privilege to bear such "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" because, as often said by Bill Lee (one of our members) who is probably quoting someone else - "If not I, then who???" and "If not now, then when???"

[johnkarls]

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Kudos to the 3 Reading Liberally e-mail members who responded on this!!!

No, I don’t know Michael Moore and have never received anything from him.

However, when there had been no response to the 8/16/2010 letter to the 43 news-media superstars or the 6/18/2010 letter to the 21 governmental officials, it occurred that all of them had concluded that they would never be criticized for turning their backs on 10 million inner-city children!!!

Accordingly, I began copying Michael Moore on everything starting with the 9/2/2010 letter to the 43 news-media superstars.

The cover letter to Michael Moore with his copy of the 9/2/2010 letter explained that his movie “Sicko” had included a vignette about a father whose deaf child had been provided by their health-insurance company with an extremely-expensive hearing aid but for only one ear and the father, who had seen the advertisements by Michael Moore for vignettes to be included in “Sicko,” wrote instead to the insurance company’s CEO to inquire whether he would like the chance of being featured in “Sicko” – whereupon the second extremely-expensive hearing aid was provided forthwith!!!

Accordingly, the first cover letter to Michael Moore pointed out my inference that the inclusion of the vignette in “Sicko” implied that Michael Moore approves of free-lance uses of his name for a good cause and, therefore, the letter concluded that I would employ such tactics unless he requested me to stop. He never did.

Before answering the last part of the FAQ about why I didn’t copy Michael Moore on the five current letters, there is something that should be noted about the items already posted before another round of FAQ’s is generated.

The new round of FAQ’s might inquire whether the California Court of Appeal had received anything on which Michael Moore had been noted as receiving a copy before it issued its first “Segregated Toilet” opinion with regard to conversion – since the earliest legal document posted on the Bulletin Board is the Petition for Rehearing in Mellon Bank - Bank of New York.

In this regard, the second page of the 1/30/2011 Universal Lawsuit Withdrawal Offer (Reference Material D) states –

“However, it is important to note several pivotal procedural irregularities that occurred in the California Court of Appeal. The First Division of the Court of Appeal announced in an opinion in a related case issued two months before the hearing in Wachovia/Wells that they had already reached a decision in Wachovia/Wells favorable to the defendants. In response to a Motion to Recuse all of the judges of the First Division, Presiding Judge William McGuiness temporarily assigned Justice Maria Rivera from the Fifth Division to conduct the Wahcovia/Wells hearing with Justices Robert Dondero and Sandra Margulies who had signed the opinion two months earlier saying they had already reached their decisions. (First Division Presiding Justice James Marchiano who had also signed the earlier opinion and Justice Kathleen Banke who had originally been scheduled to replace him for the Wachovia/Wells hearing apparently both recused themselves requiring the assignment of Fifth Division Justice Maria Rivera by Presiding Judge William McGuiness.) Presiding Judge William McGuiness then presided personally over the Mellon/Bank of NY hearing which followed several weeks later.”

Digressing for a moment, anyone who has had as much experience as I with litigation while serving as Texaco’s Senior Tax Counsel and Director of Worldwide Tax Planning (1974-1987) knows that a Motion to Recuse is normally a desperate gamble because if the judge or judges refuse to recuse themselves, they have been antagonized. Indeed, when Texaco was sued by Pennzoil over the Getty acquisition, Texaco’s general attorneys authorized their Texas law firm to make precisely that desperate gamble and lost. [For the curious (1) the ensuing adverse jury verdict which was enough to “sink the ship” and (2) Carl Icahn snapping up 10% of both Texaco and Pennzoil because he noticed the amount of the verdict left the “market capitalization” of Texaco’s stock but nothing appeared in Pennzoil’s “market cap” so he aimed to capture a nano-second capital-gain on the combined 10% stock holdings equal to 10% of the verdict and then was stuck with unexpected long-term market risk on holding oil-company stocks because even the smallest settlement exceed the “D&O” insurance-liability limits for Texaco’s directors – were the two reasons why I “jumped ship” at the end of 1987.]

However, in the Wachovia - Wells Fargo and Mellon Bank - Bank of New York litigation, there was no downside to the Motion to Recuse because the California Court of Appeal had already announced in an opinion published 2 months BEFORE any hearing on the conversion issue, that they had already decided the conversion issue adversely!!! It was Presiding Judge William McGuiness who denied the Motion for all of his Division One judges to recuse themselves (even though two of the four Division One judges refused on their own to serve, forcing Presiding Judge McGuiness to wheel in a replacement judge from Division Five to complete the three-judge panel that then heard the Wachovia - Wells Fargo oral argument) – and then Presiding Judge McGuiness himself led his own Division Three three-judge panel that heard the oral argument in Mellon Bank - Bank of New York and wrote that opinion.

Indeed what was there to lose???

Division One Judge Dondero who wrote the opinion on another matter two months BEFORE any hearing on the conversion issue that stated that he and his colleagues had already reached their decision on the conversion issue, is the Judge who three months later wrote the first opinion on the conversion issue!!! With Division One Judge Margulies who had signed the earlier opinion announcing that she had already made her decision before the hearing, also signing Judge Dondero’s second opinion carrying through on her pre-hearing decision.

And what would be the point in filing a Motion for Judge McGuiness to recuse himself from leading the three-judge Mellon Bank - Bank of New York panel after he had already acted so egregiously???

But enough digressing!!!

[Though the earlier California Court of Appeal opinion on the unrelated issue announcing the pre-hearing decision on the conversion issue will be added to the Bulletin Board as Reference Material N. Incidentally, it should be noted that the earlier opinion, now Ref. N, was also a “Segregated Toilet” opinion that cannot be published or cited because the judges knew it was diametrically opposed to well-settled law.]

Back on track!!!

In addition to the Motion to Recuse, there were simultaneously filed with the California Supreme Court under Procedural Rule 8.552(c) Petitions to Transfer for Decision by the Supreme Court both the Wachovia - Wells and the Mellon Bank - Bank of New York cases on the Rule 8.552(c) grounds that (1) the published prejudice of the Court of Appeal demonstrated that the 10 million inner-city children would not be able to receive impartial treatment by the Court of Appeal, and (2) the delay in waiting for hearings and the already-announced results by the Court of Appeal would condemn 500,000 additional inner-city to a life of misery.

Copies of both Petitions to the Cal. Supreme Court had to be filed with the Court of Appeal. The Motion to Recuse and both Petitions to Transfer indicated on their covers that copies were being provided to Michael Moore. So the Cal. Court of Appeal was well aware of the presumptive interest of Michael Moore before it issued its first opinion on the conversion issue.

The last part of the FAQ???

Obviously, the judges on the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court do not mind being featured in a Michael Moore documentary recording their racism and their refusal to grant 10-million inner-city children the same “Equal Protection of the Law” routinely enjoyed by first-class American citizens!!!

[Incidentally, mutual friends had reported before the first copying of Michael Moore that he had long since sworn off ever making another documentary anyway.]

The obvious indifference of the California judges to being exposed in a Michael Moore documentary for their racism compelled a re-thinking of basic strategy.

They were obviously indifferent because in their worlds of being lionized by law firm senior partners at their local country clubs, they are sufficiently insulated from a few weeks of adverse exposure in a Michael Moore documentary that nobody would ever dare mention (even derogatorily) at their local country clubs.

That was the reason for dropping the copies to Michael Moore.

And before anyone asks whether writing an entire book (“Inner-City Holocaust and America’s Apartheid ‘Justice’ System”) is an attempt to embarrass some judges more effectively than a Michael Moore documentary, the answer is no.

I’ve given up on the question of whether a modern-day Holocaust could happen in America and nobody would care!!!

Obviously my despair concerning American values was caused by the argument made by Mellon Bank - Bank of New York to the California Supreme Court that the 10 million inner-city children were not entitled to the same “Equal Protection of the Law” routinely enjoyed by first-class American citizens because the inner-city children were allegedly not facing a Holocaust.

It now strikes me that it is time to “throw in the towel” on America’s current generation of decision makers and begin focusing efforts on where there is still hope – educating the country’s next generation of decision makers so that “change” may finally become possible when they reach power.

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It may strike the reader that the judgment to which I have come is too pessimistic.

However, I would request you to consider that the country’s judges and decision makers are people with whom I constantly associate at, for example, the Harvard Club of NYC and in the first row of opera/ballet performances and, because of my interest in sailing, at the New York Yacht Club (which held the America’s Cup for the first 126 years of its existence) because it is next door to the Harvard Club and my New York Yacht Club friends are always inviting me for lunch – and that I constantly dealt with such people 1994-1996 when I chaired the American Bar Association’s Committee on Foreign Activities of U.S. Taxpayers (the country’s top 300 international tax attorneys with 22 working sub-committees).

AND I WOULD ALSO ASK YOU TO CONSIDER THAT THE JUDGMENT OF RACISM IS NOT SOLELY MINE!!! AFTER ALL, IT WAS THE ATTORNEYS FOR MELLON BANK – BANK OF NEW YORK WHOSE SENIOR PARTNERS REGULARLY STROKE THE EGOS OF THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT JUDGES AT THEIR COUNTRY CLUBS WHO MADE THE JUDGMENT REGARDING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ARGUING TO THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT JUDGES THAT INNER-CITY CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE ACCORDED THE “EQUAL PROTECTION OF THE LAW” ROUTINELY ENJOYED BY FIRST-CLASS AMERICAN CITIZENS BECAUSE THE INNER-CITY CHILDREN ARE ALLEGEDLY NOT FACING A HOLOCAUST!!!

IN OTHER WORDS, THE ATTORNEYS FOR MELLON BANK – BANK OF NEW YORK HAVE BY THEIR ARGUMENT REVEALED THEIR OWN EVALUATION THAT THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT JUDGES ARE HOPELESS RACISTS!!!

[johnkarls]

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