IS THERE A MORMON MAFIA BEHIND KYLE SAMPSON? OR JUST A NETWORK OF FAR RIGHT EXTREMISTS?
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Karen, the head of DWT's Mean Jean Schmidt Department, had a slow news week with Mean Jean keeping a low profile after the vomit incident. So Karen started tracing some of the friendship webs that have been behind Kyle Sampson's otherwise inexplicable rise to power. Karen discovered a network of wingnuts, many of whom are Brigham Young University alumni and believers in the large and wealthy Mormon cult, who recommend and protect each other. Their cabal has been fueled by a huge influx of patronage from the Bush Regime. (It helps explain why Utah is the last remaining state in the entire U.S. where Bush is viewed as doing a good job as president.) Karen pointed out to me that there is no comparable network among, say Methodists who graduated from SMU, or among any other sect or religious group, although I hope some time she will take a look at the highly secretive Opus Dei sect for us.
STRANGE CONNECTIONS
by Karen Allen
In the ongoing matter of the seven US Attorneys being fired for political reasons, it’s interesting to look at the threads and knots beneath the tapestry. As an example, let's take a look at Kyle Sampson, who recently resigned his title as Chief of Staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Sampson didn't quit, he just gave up his title. Today, he is still drawing his full salary at the Department of Justice.
Two of Sampson’s, and relatedly Gonzales', most staunch supporters in the media have been Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). The relationships of these men and others who are outspoken for Sampson run deep and mysteriously.
Sheldon Bradshaw, a former Bush deputy US Attorney General and now Counsel in the Food and Drug Administration, says Sampson has "an outstanding legal mind." Bradshaw is said to have slowed down the prosecution of tobacco companies by the FDA. Bradshaw also is first counselor to Kyle Sampson, in the same ward (district) where Sampson is the bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City. Sheldon graduated from Brigham Young University.
Corrine Larsen Bradshaw worked for Senator Orrin Hatch. Mrs. Bradshaw is the wife of the above Sheldon Bradshaw. She also was legislative director for Utah Senator Robert Bennett.
Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, is a good friend of Sampson’s and was a classmate of his in law school. It was Elizabeth who is said to have put a word in with her father to get Sampson a top job in the Bush administration. Hatch was also instrumental.
Sampson practiced law in Salt Lake City until 1999, when he then began working in the office of Senator Orrin Hatch.
Brad Berenson was an associate counsel to Bush in the first term. He states Sampson has "a shrewd political talent." Berenson is now Sampson’s lawyer in the US Attorney matter now under Congressional scrutiny.
An email released in the document dump this past Thursday suggests Sampson as early as 2005 may have tried to push US Attorney for Utah Paul Warner out of his job so Sampson could then be appointed US Attorney. Warner did leave his position in 2006 to become a federal magistrate.
The job in Utah as US Attorney was given to Brett Tolman, a former Senate Judiciary Committee staff member to Senator Arlen Specter, who Specter now blames for inserting the stealthy, last-minute paragraph into the Patriot Act renewal in March, 2006, permitting Bush to appoint US Attorneys without congressional approval. In essence, Tolman wrote and surreptitiously inserted the paragraph in the Patriot Act renewal that enabled him to get the job as US Attorney.
Another Utah resident, Taylor Oldroyd, now with the US Dept. of Agriculture, wrote a piece in an issue of the Brigham Young University alumni magazine, saying that he and other Sampson friends now have jobs in the Bush administration.
Brigham Young University recently removed Kyle Sampson’s photo from its online alumni magazine so that members of the media would not have access to it.
Bush nominated Charles R. Christopherson, Jr. to be chief financial officer of the Department of Agriculture. Christopherson graduated from Brigham Young Univ.
Timothy Flanagan, a friend of Sampson’s, was named as US Deputy Attorney General, despite opponents pointing out that Flanagan had no prosecutorial experience whatsoever. Flanagan previously worked at the disgraced Tyco Corporation. Flanagan is another Brigham Young alumnus.
Michael O’Neil is Chief Counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee (see Brett Tolman, above). O’Neill also graduated from Brigham Young Univ.
Thomas Griffith was appointed to the DC Circuit Court, which hears appeals from the US District Court and reviews the decisions of a number of administrative agencies. Griffith also graduated from Brigham Young Univ.
Robert Clive Jones was nominated by Bush to the federal District Court judgeship. Jones also graduated from Brigham Young Univ.
Jay Bybee became the judge for the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, nominated by Bush. Bybee listed one of his passions as serving the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, an international professional organization for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Bybee also graduated from Brigham Young Univ.
Ted Stewart, former chief of staff to the governor of Utah, was confirmed as a federal district court judge.
Utah District Court Judge Denise Posse-Blanco Lindberg testified on behalf of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts at his confirmation hearings. She was appointed to her state court position by Utah Governor Michael O. Leavitt, whom Bush chose as Secretary of Health and Human Services. She graduated from Brigham Young Univ.
Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) has said no one has been able to show that any corruption was involved in the US Attorney firings. Yet each day it becomes more obvious as a fact that politics was the only involvement in those firings, directly by the Department of Justice and the White House. Cannon further states there is "nothing wrong with firing attorneys for the reason of politics."
Dick Cheney will be this year’s commencement speaker at Brigham Young University.
Is this making your head spin yet? There is much, much more!
Labels: Kyle Sampson, Mormons, Orrin Hatch, Purge-Gate
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 5:12 PM
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14 Comments:
Wow, what an impressive article! It should have a Pulitzer Prize. It must have taken a lot of research to come up with all that. Every time I read one of Karen's articles I am impressed.
Somehow, John Doolittle (R, CA-04) must have a role to play in this.
Yeah, Karen. You're so the best. It's wonderful to see a blogger with absolutely no hurtful agenda in her writing. My hero.
Please tell me this is a joke and not meant to be taken seriously.
It's not enough to find a dozen officials who went to BYU. No doubt there are hundreds who went to Harvard, Yale, etc. You need to show that there's an unusual *percentage*, relative to how many people attend BYU & other colleges. Then, contrast the ratios with those from Clinton years, because maybe BYU has a longstanding reputation for producing good public servants.
There's even more. I dug into this about 18 months ago and found more BYU folks - DoJ, Dept of Ag., EPA, Dept. of Interior, connections to Exxon and Diebold...
My dKos diary on the BYU/Bush connection
Hello, I am LDS:
No, there is no "Mormon Mafia", in fact it is laughable that you'd say as much, but not offensive, we have great humor about how people see us.
There have always been scads and scads of Mormons in government service, your ideation is linked simply to people becoming aware that Mormons actually exist, not that there is anything odd about their existence. The church is growing rapidly so whereas the defined pool of a few hundred thousand secluded in Utah was the fact in the 1960s, the church membership has increased some ten fold in my lifetime and growths continues to sky rocket. People like yourselves and teh nation in general though, still think of us as some remote bastion of insanely weird fundamentalism hidden in a desert outpost. That is, your prejudices likely inform this dialogue more than do any actual facts. Again we do not take offence at same.
I am reading all kinds of "conspiracy" theories about the LDS church, let me say I have been aware of these for about 40 years of my life and they are almost always patently absurd.
Stuff I have heard about mormons, let me rummage in my memory, oh here's a keen one: Mormons, all mormons, are required to keep spo;ing meat in their refrigerators. The cannot eat Ketchup. They use rattlesnake blood and human skulls in their Temples (maybe we do, huh, maybe we do????). Oh, what else, they actually control most of the fnancial district of New York (take that Judah!!!), uh what else, they force children to marry (that actually is a group of loonies who were excommunicate dfro? Forcing children to marry!). The church controls the Utah legislature, blah blah blah.
To all this intersting kerfluffle may I say:
Not terribly likely, although when in Utah I did once see I htink a Rattlesnake in the desert so let's not rule anything out.
The LDS do well in Government Service because they believe in higher education, they work their butts off, they don't come in drunk or hungover, and they have less of a penchant for sleeping around in the office, driking too much coffee, etc. They don't whine about pay or hours. Again, they work their butts off--and that gets notice and it gets people advanced. The fact they are typically conservative places more of them in more visible places, in this particular government, but the idea of welding the Church to government is repugnant to us.
Church President Gordon Hinckley has a photo of himself meeting Reagan on his office wall and he candidly remarked once (I personally heard this) that it was there to remind him that we live in Caesar's world--hardly a resounding endorsement of the beloved conservative icon most would have expected per these theories about "mormons" and the GOP.
If you mention politics in our churches, we cut it short toot suite. You may not oreach or discuss politics in classes, talks, or dialogue on church property save it is innocent and in passing. We do not pass out "education flyers" about candidates, we refuse to accept government aid or influence of any kind. Every election cycle the church sends out a letter saying that we believe people shold learn about their candidates and vote for those they believe best mirror what they themselves want and that: the church never has and never will endorse a party or candidate. We believe voting is a civil obligation. How revolutionary! How underground!
The church is obligated to speak out about morality, and that sometimes places them into what is a political process (for example, gay marriage), but politics makes people in the church feel dirty and they simply do not like it. Career politicians in the church always end up out of step with the church.
There are batty weird mormons like there are batty, weird liberals, baptists, buddhists, etc.
They are also generally naieve and believe everyone is honest or at least everyone wants to be good. In fact, Utah is known as the swindle state because so many con men come to prey upon the little sheep of the LDS. If you're nice to them, they'll believe anything you say.
They also don't believe in squealing on anyone else but believe that they personally are responsible for all sins associated with them so Kyle Sampson saying "I am responsible" was in line with what we preach as much as it might be seen as a coverup.
Sampson is to me a disappointment as a Latter Day Saint, we prefer that to "Mormons" by the way, because I felt he might have told more of what he could possibly divulge, as much as he possibly could have, but I am not he and do not sit in judgment of him nor do I know eveyrthing about how he came to be there or what he does in fact know.
He had instant credibility going to congress with no preparation and no attorney. I doubt any of us will ever really know everything about this admin, they are quite secretive. That is something I think all Americans should be concerned over.
If you have specific questions about the church, feel free to ask.
Yours,
MeanBobMean
http://meanbob.blogspot.com/
there is a mormon mafia it is true. they own shopping centers and run a local strip club thats just what I KNOW FOR SURE. my father is a hit-man and i'm a drug runner. i'm not exactly sure how high up in the mormon church it goes but my father has pictures of himself with thomas s. monson.
and my father's former boss was mentioned in an mormon conference talk not to long ago i would give you the name and date but it is a small buisness.
don't mess around with them.
the mormon church is dying bob and alot of people want their money.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I am a mormon and Im going to keep it short and sweet. Every person on the planet is prone to make mistakes, reguardless of what religion he or she is a member of. Notice how I said, "religion". This is because the mormon church is not a cult. Anyway... if someone from the mormon church (LDS Church( people tend to think these two names are different churches)) does something wrong... it isn't to show what our church is all about. It simply shows that nobody is perfect. There are people out there who embarras the church all the time, but 99.9% percent of the time the mormons are out there just trying to make the world a better place. There is no mormon mafia, that's pretty funny. We are once again not a cult. Any questions about the church: smile_kyle16@hotmail.com
Mormons have fought 3 wars with America, the Mormon religion has multiple references to 911 in Mormon lore (including the 9/11/1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre) and Brigham Young declared independence from America on September 15, 1857.
www.MormonZeitgeist.com
Please visit
www.mitt-romney-exposed.com
Thanks.
The LDS do well in Government Service because they believe in higher education
But not really for women, as it is their job to drop out of college without a degree, get married to a returned missionary and start giving birth to many children, even though the husband is working his way through college.
The MM is alive and well. The trick for the Mormons is for you to be in it without knowing you are in it.
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