If you're not aware of this tragedy, read Larry Shook's award winning journalism and expose of all things crooked in Spokane---most of which begins and ends with the Cowles, owner of a media monopoly comprised of radio, TV, and the towns only daily paper The Spokesman Review. One woman is dead, her car plunging off a downtown parking garage, directly tied to the negligence of the Cowles.
To date the FBI, the IRS, the Washington State Supreme Court, the SEC, and now the DOJ have all touched this mess and yet Spokane tax payers remain on the hook for somewhere between 50 and 100 million dollars. The Cowles remain unscathed. As a result, Spokane's budget is a mess. There are stacks of documents pointing to the wrongdoing of the Cowles, IRS findings, SEC probes and yet no one has gone to jail. It seems public officials, as long as they roll over and stay quietly in line, are nicely rewarded and awarded favorable Spokesman Review Media coverage---Turn the other direction, and you end up with the fate of Mayor West-ruined in a day by a paper. The paper's treatment of West remains debated in journalism classes throughout the world and it was the subject of a PBS Frontline special.
The story is not "dead" as some have tried to imply, and those at the center of this mess have profitted handsomely both financially and in government promotions---as demonstrated by the recent promotions of a judge and a US Attorney.
Peer reviewed Ivy league dissertations have documented the poisonous influence of the Cowles family on the region and respondents interviewed for this dissertation reported longstanding threats of intimidation and public trough feeding frenzies. The Cowles have landlocked 80% of the regions media and their holdings extend all the way across the northern tier of the country--- including strong influence over news outlets in the twin cities of St Paul/Minneapolis, Chicago, and NYC NY. Spend some time reading through the DOJ response, the exposes of Sheriff Bamonte, Larry Shook, and Detective Wright. And then scatch your head that this abuse remains unprosecuted. It is worthy of a RICO action.
http://larryshook.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/dojresponsesept2010.pdf
and here is Bamonte's response:
http://larryshook.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/bamonte-holder-oct26-20101.pdf
This is the kind of scandal that could assist the Tea Partiers in bringing down the Obama administration.
Here's Bamonte's assessment of where this is heading quoted from Larry Shook's site:
“At first, my complaint was about organized crime at a local level,” says Bamonte. “It’s not just that anymore. Now it’s about government rendering criminal assistance to organized crime.”
And the buck stops with Obama.
But who is a former sheriff from a rural county in the woods of northeastern Washington, a rescuer of stray cats, to challenge a man with nuclear weapons at his disposal? That’s the part of Bamonte’s efforts that intrigues me.
“What I’m doing here takes patience,” says Bamonte. “There have always been people who break the law and there always will be. I know from experience that you can’t catch every criminal. But you can catch a lot of them if you take your time. And you can catch some of the worst if you’re systematic about it.”
Patience and commitment are what allowed Sheriff Bamonte to solve America’s oldest open murder case (see America’s Most Dangerous Cop and Deathtrap), and even retrieve the rusted remains of the murder weapon—a pistol—after the powerful Spokane River had thundered over it for half a century.
Really, how much evidence does the DOJ need? Why didn't anyone at DOJ actually "sign" this letter? What are they afraid of? A scandal?
http://larryshook.com/
www.girlfromhotsprings.com
http://www.camasmagazine.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment