Longtime SE Texas US Rep. Jack Brooks dead at 89 (Dem, rode JFK's last motorcade)

[alp227]

Source: AP

Jack Brooks, who spent 42 years in Congress representing his Southeast Texas district and was in the Dallas motorcade in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, has died. He was 89.

Brooks died Tuesday night at Baptist Hospital of Beaumont after a sudden illness, according to a statement from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. Brooks, who would have turned 90 on Dec. 18, was surrounded by family when he died, Deputy Rod Carroll said.

Brooks was among the last links to an era when Democrats dominated Texas politics and was the last of "Mr. Sam's Boys," protégés of fellow Texan and legendary 21-year Democratic House Speaker Sam Rayburn in the state's congressional delegation.

"I'm just like old man Rayburn," Brooks, from Beaumont, once said. "Just a Democrat, no prefix or suffix."

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Longtime-SE-Texas-US-Rep-Jack-Brooks-dead-at-89-4091802.php

[graham4anything]

1. Save for a few bums that were in the vicinity, Brooks was about the last man standing

and then there were none

Maybe one of those bums knows the truth, but then probably would claim they didn't remember or know what the hell they were talking about but maybe they would have clarity at least for 41 seconds.

[Gabby Hayes]

2. Ollie North still walks with a limp

Brooks was a living, breathing, big screen movie. He was there at the dawn of the Space Age encouraging Congress to protect future, individual landowner rights on the Moon. And here he is during the Iran-Contra hearings calling out North for being a traitor. North's body language tells it all.

[ReRe]

3. Thank you, Thank you....

K&R

...for sharing this clip of Jack Brooks. Oh, yes, I remember him very well. And in this clip also is (rest his soul too) Henry Gonzalez! I watched those Oliver North hearings in 1987. And I watched many hours of Henry Gonzalez's 1 hour speeches from the well of the House on C-Span. Two of the best representatives ever from Texas in the US House.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. I remember that.

The media were tripping all over themselves to kiss North's ass during those hearings. That's about the time I realized that all the talk about the "liberal media" was pure bullshit. Jack Brooks was one of the few who tried to get to the truth of the matter in the Iran-Contra hearings and he earned a lot of respect from me.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

4. He fought for civil rights and stood up to the southern racists

sounds like he was a fine man and one of the last remaining of the days when Texas politics were something to be proud of.

?5

[Dustlawyer]

6. He was my Congressman for the first 31 years of my life!

I live in S.E. Texas and can say that his siding with Civil Rights was a brave decision since this District included Jasper where James Byrd was dragged to death behind the pick up of White Supremists. The man was an institution. When Hilary was running against Obama, Bill Clinton came to town. It was Jack Brooks who got as much applause introducing the former President, as the President himself. We're it not for Tom Delays gerrymandering of our District, we would have a Democrat in D.C. now. It is big pockets of Dems like us that are going to turn it back around in Texas. Wish we had a Jack Brooks to help us through this now!

[DollarBillHines]

10. He used to have lunch on Sundays at my grandparents' house

I can still hear his voice.

[Octafish]

7. Rep. Jack Brooks asked traitor col. Oliver North about a plan to suspend the Constitution...

Ollie stared at Brooks and turned to whisper some question to his lawyer, Brendan Sullivan. Before they answered, Sen. Inouye, D-Hawaii, said questions like that were best answered in closed session. Here're a few more details, courtesy of Bartcop and ProRev:

News from Post-Constitutional America

PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, 1996 - The issue arose again during the Iran-Contra affair, but even in the wake of all the copy on that scandal, the public got little sense of how far some America's soldiers of fortune were willing to go to achieve their ends. When the Iran-Contra hearings came close to the matter, chair Senator Inouye backed swiftly away. Here is an excerpt from those hearings. Oliver North is at the witness table:

REP BROOKS: Colonel North, in your work at the NSC, were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

BRENDAN SULLIVAN: Mr. Chairman?

SEN INOUYE: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch on that.

REP BROOKS: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

SEN INOUYE; May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I'm certain arrangements can be made for an executive session

With few exceptions, the media ignored what well could be the most startling revelation to have come out of the Iran/Contra affair, namely that high officials of the US government were planning a possible military/civilian coup. First among the exceptions was the Miami Herald, which on July 5, 1987, ran the story to which Jack Brooks referred. The article, by Alfonzo Chardy, revealed Oliver North's involvement in plans for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to take over federal, state and local functions during an ill-defined national emergency.

According to Chardy, the plan called for 'suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.' The proposal appears to have forgotten that Congress, legislatures and the judiciary even existed.

CONTINUED...

http://prorev.com/coup.htm

Jack Brooks also was a leading light investigating the Inslaw-PROMIS affair.

A Primer on INSLAW

This primer has been collated and provided as a courtesy by Brian Wright. (Thank you.)

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Excerpt from:
NEWS RELEASE
August 11, 1992
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary

Jack Brooks, Texas, Chairman

JUDICIARY COMMITTEE REPORT CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE THE INSLAW CONTROVERSY

The ("INSLAW Affair&quot report concludes that there appears to be strong evidence, as indicated by the findings of two Federal court proceedings, as well as by the Committee investigation, that the Department of Justice "acted willfully and fraudulently," and "took, converted and stole," INSLAW's Enhanced PROMIS by "trickery, fraud and deceit." The report finds that these actions against INSLAW were implemented through the Project Manager from the beginning of the contract and under the direction of high-level Justice Department officials. The evidence presented in the report demonstrates that high-level Department officials deliberately ignored INSLAW's proprietary rights and misappropriated its PROMIS software for use at locations not covered under contract with the company. Justice then proceeded to challenge INSLAW's claims in court even though its own internal deliberations had concluded that these claims were valid and that the Department would most likely lose in court on this issue.

According to the report, the second phase of the Committee's investigation concentrated on the allegations that high-level officials at the Department of Justice conspired to drive INSLAW into insolvency and steal PROMIS. In this regard, the report states that several individuals testified under oath that INSLAW's PROMIS software was stolen and distributed internationally in order to provide financial gain to associates of Justice Department officials and to further intelligence and foreign policy objectives of the United States. Additional corroborating evidence was uncovered by the Committee which substantiated to varying degrees the information provided by these individuals.

(Chairman) Brooks stated, "Although (the Department of Justice was) faced with a growing body of evidence that serious wrongdoing had occurred which reached to the highest levels of the Department, both Attorney General Meese and Thornburgh ignored these findings of two Federal courts and refused to seek the appointment of an Independent Counsel."


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Excerpt from:

"Summer Of the Octopus"

WASHINGTON POST
by Mary McGrory
August 18, 1991


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(Danny Casolaro) had been investigating the Inslaw case, a tangled affair of government perfidy and international intrigue that has been in litigation since 1983. In his explorations, he found out about possibly related scandals -- BCCI, S&Ls, Iran-contra, the "October surprise" -- but until two weeks ago, he had found nothing about Inslaw. Then, he joyfully told friends, he hit bingo. One more interview and the case was cracked.
Suicides do not tell their intimates within days of taking the hemlock that they are "ecstatic" or "euphoric." Casolaro did. Nor do they attend family birthday parties, as Danny Casolaro was planning to do hours before he died. The last known call was to his mother in Fairfax (VA). He told her he was on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania. He would be late, but he was headed home. A manic-depressive might then kill himself. Nobody ever suggested Danny Casolaro was one.

Although the case involves the alleged theft of computer software by the Justice Department in the time of Ed Meese, Thornburgh took it to his bosom. Bill Hamilton, a perfectly nice midwesterner who owned a Washington firm called Inslaw, had invented Promis, a software especially adapted to crime statistics, which he sold to Justice. The second year, Justice stopped making payments. Hamilton and his wife, Nancy, believe that cronies of Meese were given the franchise to sell around the world. Promis has turned up in Canada and Pakistan. Thelink with the "October surprise" is Earl Brian, a former Reagan political associate who allegedly paid off Iranians to keep the hostages until after the 1980 election -- and allegedly was paid off himself with huge profits from Promis.


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Excerpt from:

"The Inslaw Octopus"

by Richard L. Fricker
WIRED

But the real power of PROMIS, according to Hamilton, is that with a staggering 570,000 lines of computer code, PROMIS can integrate innumerable databases without requiring any reprogramming. In essence, PROMIS can turn blind data into information. And anyone in government will tell you that information, when wielded with finesse, begets power. Converted to use by intelligence agencies, as has been alleged in interviews by ex-CIA and Israeli Mossad agents, PROMIS can be a powerful tracking device capable of monitoring intelligence operations, agents and targets, instead of legal cases.

Apparently, Israel was not the only country interested in using PROMIS for internal security purposes, Lt. Col. Oliver North also may have been using the program. According to several intelligence community sources, PROMIS was in use at a 6,100 square-foot command center built on the sixth floor of the Justice Department. According to both a contractor who helped design the center and information disclosed during the Iran-contra hearings, Oliver North had a similar, but smaller, White House operations room that was connected by computer link to the DOJ's command center,

Using the computers in the command center, North tracked dissidents and potential troublemakers within the United States as part of a domestic emergency preparedness program, commissioned under Reagan's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), according to sources and published reports. Using PROMIS, sources point out, North could have drawn up lists of anyone ever arrested for a political protest, for example, or anyone who had ever refused to pay their taxes. Compared to PROMIS, Richard Nixon's enemies lists or Sen. Joe McCarthy's blacklist look downright crude. The operation was so sensitive that when Rep. Jack Brooks asked North about it during the Iran-contra hearings, the hearing was immediately suspended pending an executive (secret) conference. When the hearings were reconvened, the issue of North's FEMA dealings was dropped.

Freelance reporter Danny Casolaro spent the last few years of his life investigating a pattern which he called "The Octopus." According to Casolaro, Inslaw was only part of a greater story of how intelligence agencies, the Department of Justice and even the mob had subverted the government and its various functions for their own profit.


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Excerpt from:

"The Dirtiest Bank of All"

by Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne
TIME
July 29, 1991

The more conventional departments of B.C.C.I. (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) handled such services as laundering money for the drug trade and helping dictators loot their national treasuries. The black network, which is still functioning, operates a lucrative arms-trade business and transports drugs and gold. According to investigators and participants in those operations, it often works with Western and Middle Eastern intelligence agencies. The strange and still murky ties between B.C.C.I. and the intelligence agencies of several countries are so pervasive that even the White House has become entangled. As TIME reported earlier this month, the National Security Council used B.C.C.I. to funnel money for the Iran-contra deals, and the CIA maintained accounts in B.C.C.I. for covert operations. Moreover, investigators have told TIME that the Defense Intelligence Agency has maintained a slush-fund account with B.C.C.I. apparently to pay for clandestine activities.
But the CIA may have used B.C.C.I. as more than an undercover banker: U.S. agents collaborated with the black network in several operations, according to a B.C.C.I. black-network "officer" who is now a secret U.S. government witness. Sources have told investigators that B.C.C.I. worked closely with Israel's spy agencies and other Western intelligence groups as well, especially in arms deals.

---a bookstore for democracy ---

http://www.copi.com/articles/inslaw_primer.htm

Mr. Brooks was a great man and a great Democrat.

[lonestarnot]

9. I can always count on you!

Thank you!

[Eleanors38]

11. I remember that committee session distinctly...

Pretty much shows what's in store when things hit the fan. And we STILL don't know what those plans are. Brooks knew the stink was there (via the Miami Herald which is rumored to know where a lot of the authoritarians-to-be bodies are buried). Rest in peace. BTW, he knew the value of the Second Amendment, just like Hubert Humphrey.

[JackRiddler]

8. RIP Jack Brooks:

He was one of the few to probe for truth during the Reagan-Bush era Iran-Contra hearings, which served to cover up a vast complex of criminal dealings in arms, drugs and money to pay for the CIA's right-wing armies and death squads. To him we owe the limited exposure of Oliver North's involvement in the Rex-84 interagency martial law plans and exercises, held in 1984. These rehearsed the round-up of 400,000 political opponents and undocumented Central American aliens in the contingency of a US invasion of Nicaragua. The exposure and uprooting of the deep state networks who would even contemplate such operations remains as a future necessity.

.

[Eleanors38]

12. Uproot indeed. Those malignant growths are still there, and the roots go deeper. nt

Now, when you hear talk about some secret plan to establish an authoritarian government, it is subject matter for "Infowars," off-the-wall militia groups, and wacko websites.

But the plan is still there, once we get beyond the constraints of political style.

[Octafish]

13. The 'Aspens,' Scooter Libby called them, in an email to Steno Judy Miller of NYT.

The same class of world class warmongers has lied America into war for 32 years now - not counting Vietnam and all the prior profit centers going back to Smedley Butler.