Black, Conrad

Conrad Black, who was pardoned of fraud and obstruction of justice convictions by Trump earlier this year, wrote at Claremont Institute...

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/chris-buskirk-supposed-be-respectable-face-new-peter-thiel-backed-far-right

when The New York Times disclosed the existence of a new multipronged right-wing project, the Rockbridge Network, backed by multibillionaire Peter Thiel in April, the paper named only one person with an official position in the new organization: its founder, Chris Buskirk. Little is known about the new venture, and Buskirk himself remains relatively obscure, although he maintains considerable access to mainstream media outlets.

In reporting on the new organization, the Times didn’t mention that the website Buskirk edits and publishes, the far-right and nationalist outlet American Greatness, is home to an array of January 6 conspiracy theories, supplemented with defenses of military coups and a combination of thinly coded and occasionally overt racism. In general,American Greatness aims to stay just barely inside the mainstream discourse, typically avoiding the kind of open white nationalism that can relegate an outlet to being rejected by legacy right-wing media.

Given the near-total secrecy around Rockbridge, it’s difficult to know what its exact plans are, but the Times reported that the group is planning to spend “more than $30 million on conservative media, legal, policy and voter registration projects, among other initiatives.” It’s not hard to determine what kinds of candidates it’ll back — both Thiel and Buskirk are supporters of far-right Senate candidates J.D. Vance and Blake Masters. As for its media ambitions, the group budgeted $8 million in 2021 towards the goal of creating a “new conservative ecosystem.” It’s not clear who got that money, but Thiel is rumored to have funded the efforts of a cadre of right-wing nationalist media figures. Whether that was through his foundation or Buskirk and Rockbridge is unclear. Regardless, Buskirk is an admirer of the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, and the best window into the types of projects the organization is likely to support — or is already supporting behind the scenes — is probably his site, American Greatness.

As the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot prepares to present to the American people, starting this week, facts and evidence about the events of that day and those leading up to it, the need to examine the role Buskirk’s website has played in spreading misinformation about the attempted coup is especially urgent – particularly since Buskirk’s money-man, Thiel, wrote in 2009, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Thiel also has close ties with figures who openly opine about their anti-democratic ideologies, and it's worth considering that one of Thiel’s main interests in Buskirk may be his site’s attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Buskirk himself serves two audiences. As publisher of American Greatness, he’s the ringmaster of a motley collection of firebrands and trolls looking to find how far they can push the concept of “nationalism” before it crosses into something more openly ugly.In his own writing and public speaking, he’s not a provocateur but a kind of human Botox that smooths out the rough edges of the far-right, presenting its palatable if slightly anesthetized face. “‘Build the wall’ … — that’s like a shorthand version of saying ‘let’s have a more sensible immigration policy,’” he implausibly in an interview with Charlie Kirk in 2020.

Unlike many of the writers he publishes, he presents as a fairly mainstream figure. He is a contributing writer to the Times op-ed page, though he hasn’t published a piece there in over a year. He has written for The Washington Post and has appeared numerous times on PBS and NPR. In 2019, he spoke on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival, criticizing mainstream outlets for writing profiles of the white nationalist Richard Spencer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to give oxygen to that sort of thing,” Buskirk said. It’s a fair point, if a bit misleading, because his site has also provided a platform to Spencer.More generally, American Greatness has given oxygen to a host of far-right, anti-democratic ideas.

Buskirk in his own words

Buskirk sees himself as a champion of the working man as a household provider, albeit one calcified by Fordist-era nostalgia. And while he will regularly rail against “elites,” he has no problem with billionaires like Thiel as such. “The problem isn’t that rich people are getting richer. It’s that almost everyone else is, at best, running to stand still,” Buskirk wrote in December 2020.

Because Buskirk is committed to preserving capitalism while adopting an anti-elitist pose, his analysis is often superficial. He has railed against “globalism,” which he argues “wants two things above all others: consumers and cheap labor.” There is, of course, an economic mode of production and accompanying ideology that demands cheap labor and the constant flow of commodities; it is called capitalism.

Buskirk’s anti-“globalism” and facile pro-worker affect is a common strain among reactionary nationalists across the world, alliances Buskirk and company hope to deepen. Toward that end, he dined with far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in 2019, and he has referred to Italy’s far-right politician Matteo Salvini as a “charismatic” candidate with “powerful ideas.” Salvini is virulently anti-migrant and often makes barely hidden allusions to fascist tropes or ideas. The neo-fascist group Forza Nuova supported Salvini as well.

When Buskirk approaches the right’s more extreme ideas, it’s often with a degree of plausible deniability, carefully calibrating his message to satisfy readers of his site without losing access to mainstream outlets like NPR or PBS. He recently retweeted an endorsement of “Christian nationalism,” which one scholar of the far-right has described as a way to “cool down the idea of fascism without losing the fascism.” Similarly, in 2018 he quoted a piece he’d published pushing a toned-down version of the racist “great replacement” theory....twt]

his belief in the theory is to be expected, given his admiration of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, the person most responsible for mainstreaming it. Carlson “is the most articulate spokesman for a set of principles and priorities that are important to middle America, but anathema to the bipartisan ruling class,” Buskirk wrote in 2019.

Buskirk hasn’t appeared on Carlson’s show often, but in one segment ostensibly about how conservatives can protect the environment in which Buskirk was a guest, Carlson pushed eco-fascistic talking points. “Crowded places are ugly places. I mean, you could make a really strong case for restricting immigration on environmental grounds. We've made that case on the show,” Carlson said. Buskirk did not contradict or challenge Carlson, which is not surprising given that Buskirk had previously exploited a family’s tragedy to argue for lowering immigration levels.

In 2018, the death of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts became an anti-immigrant propaganda tool for the xenophobic right, because her killer had entered the country without authorization. “The way many people see it, if a foreign national, apparently in the country illegally, kills an American citizen, it underscores the urgency of Trump’s message of putting Americans first,” Buskirk wrote in the Times, passing off the xenophobia off on to “many people” rather than owning it himself. (Tibbetts’ family asked the right to stop using her death to demonize immigrants.) His writers don’t bother with the act, though. On June 1, Daniel Oliver asked whether immigrants, specifically Muslims, know how to “behave in a ‘civilized’ society?”

Like most in the Trump wing of the conservative movement, Buskirk supported Judge Roy Moore in the Alabama Republican Senate primary in 2017. After multiple women came forward to report that Moore sexually assaulted them, including one who was 14 at the time of the incident, Buskirk continued to back Moore. Buskirk dismissed Moore’s behavior as “actions while he was single” and suggested the candidate was “someone who appears to have lived a life of personal probity since then.” Moore was in his early 30s during the alleged incidents.

That wasn’t the first time Buskirk had downplayed abusive behavior toward women. After tapes of Trump bragging about grabbing women “by the pussy” were revealed in October 2016, Buskirk dismissed the recording as “comments about the women he [Trump] tried to have sex with,” writing that the occasion “offered the GOP’s prissy moralizers yet another opening to leap on top of a soap box.” Most importantly for Buskirk, “Trump’s lewd and crude comments 11 years ago do not diminish the dangers of a Clinton election in 30 days” (emphasis original).

As for Buskirk’s ambitions with the Rockbridge media project, his praise of Roger Ailes may provide clues. “It wasn’t until Ailes built Fox News into a powerhouse that broke the monopoly of Left-liberal legacy media on television news that he became public enemy number one,” Buskirk wrote. “It’s a role he seems to have relished.”

“Ailes was energetic, ambitious, unorthodox, creative, brilliant, charming, disarming, and a bunch of other things that made all kinds of different people yell, at critical moments, ‘Get Ailes!’” Buskirk gushed. “I didn’t know him, but I wish I had.”

American Greatness and the January 6 attempted coup

American Greatness, and specifically senior writer Julie Kelly, is one of the key sources of conspiracy theories and misinformation about the January 6 insurrection. Kelly is a regular guest on right-wing media outlets, including appearing at least 17 times on Fox News to discuss the riot and its aftermath. Her purported investigations have propelled much of the manufactured confusion about that day.

Kelly has referred to January 6 as an “inside job,” suggested it was a false flag, and pushed a conspiracy theory that the FBI planted pipe bombs at the offices of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee the day before the riot. [vid?

July 2021, Kelly tweeted that Washington, D.C., police officer Michael Fanone – who was testifying before Congress about the January 6 attack at the time – was acrisis actor. She said that prosecution of the insurrectionists is an attempt to “silence political dissent,” and said it is “encouraging” that Republican voters “do not think that Joe Biden was fairly elected in 2020.” Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander praised Kelly, along with Tucker Carlson, as “patriots that are doing great work out there.”

Buskirk is a consistent champion of Kelly, calling her “indispensable,” and although he typically stays away from outright election denial, he walks up to the line. One day after the 2020 election, Buskirk tweeted in support of a “protect the vote” rally in Maricopa County, Arizona, one of the states Trump’s allies targeted in their effort to change the election results. In a recent interview on America First with Sebastian Gorka, he said a ridiculous new Dinesh D’Souza film about the election was “very, very well-researched” and “the evidence it presents, I think, is conclusive.” His site took a similar line, running a piece with the headline “2000 Mules Documentary Provides Compelling Evidence That 2020 Election Was Stolen.” The Washington Post, on the other hand, captured the reality of the film: “‘2000 Mules’ offers the least convincing election-fraud theory yet.”

Beyond Kelly, American Greatness regularly runs pieces that downplay January 6 and has accused liberals of being the real coup-plotters. Immediately after the election, the site published a conspiracy theory-addled piece alleging voting irregularity with Dominion Voting Systems, which was completely unsubstantiated at the time and remains so today. (Dominion sued Trump-affiliated lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell for making similar claims.)

John Eastman, whom the New York Times recently described as “the architect of a strategy to overturn the 2020 election,” has written for American Greatness, including about his own role in attempting to keep Trump in power. In a piece headlined “Trying to Prevent Illegal Conduct From Deciding an Election Is Not Endorsing a ‘Coup,’” Eastman repeated the lie that there was significant illegal voting in 2020. He also argued that a legal memo he wrote, outlining various other ways the electoral vote could be certified in Trump’s favor, was simply advice on how to defend the legitimacy of the election. “The memo outlined ways to ensure election integrity in the face of significant and demonstrable violations of state election law,” Eastman wrote in his own defense.

Far from how he portrays himself in his American Greatness blog, Eastman appears to have been intimately and proactively involved in overturning the election results, including working behind the scenes to get a Pennsylvania legislator to “strip Mr. Biden of his win in that state by applying a mathematical equation to accepting the validity of mail ballots, which were most heavily used by Democrats during the pandemic.”

In reality, there was never any evidence of voter fraud that could change the outcome of the election. In March, a federal judge concluded that Trump and Eastman probably committed felonies in their pursuit of overturning the election, which he referred to as “a coup in search of a legal theory.” According to Judge David Carter’s findings, Eastman participated in two meetings in the immediate run-up to January 6 “explicitly tied to persuading Vice President Pence to disrupt the joint session of Congress.”

Others with direct ties to Trump’s effort to overturn the election have also written for the site. American Greatness has published Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was recently subpoenaed by the House January 6 committee because, the committee said, she “promoted false claims of election fraud to members of Congress.” She was on a phone call when Trump tried to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “‘find’ enough votes to reverse his loss there,” according to the New York Times.

There’s also no shortage of hyperbole and exaggeration in American Greatness pieces regarding the aftermath of the insurrection and subsequent prosecutions. “American conservatives are, right now, on a course for being every bit as ostracized and alienated from broader society as Jews were in the years leading up to Nazi Germany,” wrote Eric Lendrum. He added that January 6 defendants were being abused by prison guards because of “their race and political beliefs.” Two defendants were, in Lendrum’s telling, “forced to undergo political indoctrination from judges and prosecutors” when they “were ordered by the courts to declare that Joe Biden was legitimately elected, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

And when American Greatness isn’t whipping up conspiratorial frenzies or allowing coup-plotters to rewrite their own narrative, it just does straight revisionism. “The immense and justified outrage of President Trump and his 75 million followers never led to violence or illegality and the gathering in Washington on January 6 demonstrated solidarity with the outgoing president,” wrote Conrad Black, in March 2021.

American Greatness’ bigotry

American Greatness generally eschews open racism in favor of barely coded dog whistles, but not always. One of the site’s most overtly racist pieces was a poem called Cuck Elegy. The anonymous poem was published after “Never Trump” conservative David French confronted Buskirk about harassment he’d received from Kelly regarding comments French’s wife had made about Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Separately from Kelly, French had been subjected to racist harassment from alt-right trolls regarding his Black adopted daughter, suggesting that the child was the product of French’s wife sleeping with Black men. Kelly was not implicated in that harassment, but she had alluded to it in a tweet to French. Shortly after French confronted Buskirk about Kelly’s harassment, American Greatness published Cuck Elegy and included a photo of French with the post. The piece has since been removed from the site, but a tweet from the official American Greatness account promoting it is still up.[aud]

far more common on the site are familiar complaints against wokeness and claims that anti-racism efforts are the real racism. The headline of one piece referred to Juneteenth as “George Floyd’s Critical Race Holiday.” The subheading elaborated that the decision to make the day a federal holiday is an “enormous win for the racism industrial complex.” The piece called the holiday an act of “reifying unjustified contemporary black grievance” and suggested it “could at least be combined with Martin Luther King Day.” Another argued that anti-racism is simply “thinly veiled anti-white hate.”

Apocalyptic visions of armed Black people are common on the site as well. “The African American militants who were allowed by the Democratic big-city mayors to ransack urban America all summer and were rewarded for their murder, vandalism, and looting with the defamation and defunding of the nation’s urban police forces, are agitating and threatening with redoubled vigor,” wrote Conrad Black, in March 2021. He added, “Many of the great anti-Trump newsrooms are being overrun by belligerent white-hating minorities.”

Another recurring theme is writers lamenting a perceived deficiency in Black culture. “Unfortunately, American blacks were made to think that because of landmark legislation [of the civil rights era], their major socio-economic problems could be solved through direct political action—a disastrous misconception,” wrote Paul Gottfried. “There could be no substitute for communal cooperation, hard work, and the maintenance of the family bonds that existed in the black society that I observed as a child.” He added that the Voting Rights Act has resulted in “a radicalized black electorate that has empowered the racially divisive, antiwhite Congressional Black Caucus.” Another piece enumerated the “pathologies of inner-city black culture,” including: “fatherlessness, crime, nihilistic alienation, and the exaltation of thuggery.”

Variations on white pride abound as well. A post written by Jeremy Carl argued that Democrats have “attacked, on a relentless and increasingly hysterical basis, white Americans, who as the overwhelming majority population, were the primary developers of America’s cultural, intellectual, and political heritage.” Carl went on to echo sentiment from the white supremacist movement of the 1980s and 1990s, which called for the creation of a white ethnostate in the American West and Pacific Northwest. “We must begin to relocate physically to welcoming local geographies and rebuild our capacity for independent action by creating parallel institutions to the existing corrupted ones,” he argued. Another piece, dripping with resentment, argued that the “media and elite-driven” message is “white America will always be guilty and white America can never put the past behind it.”

The site is often virulently anti-trans as well. A recent post about a fascist attack on a drag show in Dallas used the bigoted term “transvestite” to refer to a drag queen. Buskirk himself called the drag performers “evil people” who were “coming after kids,” arguing “there is almost nothing that can be done that is over the line to stop this.” Sean Ross Callaghan used the deliberately offensive term “transexuals” in a post in 2021. Another discussed “the evil of children’s transgenderism,” and yet another focused on “the insanity of transgenderism.”

These are the arguments that Buskirk is happy to feed with oxygen. He has the backing of Thiel and other multimillionaires and at least some access to mainstream platforms. Right now, American Greatness barely punches at its weight, much less above, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the effect the Rockbridge Network could have on the country.

kos aldous p

The "just wait, he's gonna turn presidential any moment now" crowd is still at it, months after Donald John Trump skulked away from the White House with his schwanz between his atrophied, KFC-bucket-balancin' gams.

For more than five years after his rambling, racist campaign launch speech, Trump has had every opportunity to prove there was more to him than meets the eye. There isn't. I've looked. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Trump's are more like splotchy peepholes into John Wayne Gacy's crawlspace. There's nothing there but rank evil, soul-crushing emptiness, and half-slurped McNugget sauces.

Sure, it's possible Trump could still see the light, renounce his numerous past outrages, and embrace Western liberal democracy. It's also possible I'll suddenly improve upon my 4-inch vertical and join the Milwaukee Bucks roster just in time to snag an NBA championship ring. (Go Bucks! As a native Wisconsinite, I need something to distract me from Ron Johnson's perpetual awfulness.)

That said, Trump's legion of apologists is keeping the faith. The guy was president for four years, after all. He must have learned something along the way about fair and effective governance. (Narrator: He didn't.)

Witness one Conrad Black, the author of A President Like No Other: Donald J. Trump and the Restoring of America. Black apparently thinks there's still something salvageable in this tire fire of a human being, and he's decided to die on this Hill.

Buckle up, folks. This will get weird, starting with the headline. Unless you want to spray your beverage halfway to Alpha Centauri, make sure you're not drinking anything when you read this. You've been warned.

"How Trump can win again: Become the calm, moderate candidate," Black posits. It just gets goofier from there.

First, the lede:

The political scene is evolving so quickly that I presume to offer some advice to President Trump: He can now win in 2024 by being the potential candidate of calm and moderation.

Sure, Trump can do that. Or he can suggest nuking hurricanes, try to overturn a free and fair election, incite a deadly riot, lobby for putting alligator-filled moats at the southern border, promote unapproved drugs, act like a freshly gelded howler monkey when, and generally behave like a marginally less grounded Randy Quaid.

The uncharacteristically incautious comments of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that, in effect, the dreadful Trump specter had passed and they could all go back to being the good-natured losers of the Bush-McCain-Romney eras was effectively retracted within a few days. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has disgraced herself by joining the Trump-hate operation of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and, in Republican terms, is sinking without a ripple as a consequence.

Hmm, the Bushes won three out of four of the elections they competed in after becoming their party's nominees. John McCain and Mitt Romney lost just as many elections as Trump. And George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush both won the popular vote at least once, whereas Trump never did. What on Gaia's green globule is this fucknut talking about?

Black rambles on for a half dozen anti-Democrat paragraphs before arriving at the pièce de résistance.

Now, as time passes, the public irritation with Trump's bombastic behavior, of his being in the nation's face day and night for four years, will recede and gradually be replaced by the spectacle of acomatose Biden administration, floundering and dissembling, fecklessly struggling with the various crises it has created. There will be, soon enough, nostalgia for Trump instead — and if he is wise, he can become a winning figure of comparative Olympian serenity.

Nostalgia for Trump? Uh, no. The guy is seared into our memories, I'll give you that. But "nostalgia" implies fond memories. I have nostalgia for eating Cracker Jack on a picnic bench during the summer of '76. I don't have nostalgia for the raucous pink belly I received from my reprobate siblings 10 minutes later.

But this. This! "… if he is wise, he can become a winning figure of comparative Olympian serenity."

Trump isn't wise, and never will be. (See also: nearly every news story from the past half-decade.)

Trump's a loser. Full stop.

A "figure of comparative Olympian serenity?" Next to Trump, was a figure of comparative Olympian serenity. But Trump himself never, ever will be.

It's normal for historians and especially partisans to want to rehabilitate a former president's image and reputation, but Trump's rep is trashed. He might as well have smeared those feces on the inner walls of the U.S. Capitol himself. There's no forgetting Jan. 6—or any of the other 1,460 days he cosplayed as president.

And no amount of gaslighting after the fact can possibly make us forget, no matter how much devotees like Conrad Black try.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Conrad Black, who was pardoned of fraud and obstruction of justice convictions by Trump earlier this year, wrote at Claremont Institute that “waves of desperate people in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America who have tried to swarm into Europe and North America more closely resemble, though they are less organized, the barbarian masses who surged into the Western Roman Empire in the fifth and sixth centuries.”

These sentiments published by the Claremont Institute, reverberate with white nationalist philosophy as it was popularized and mainstreamed with the rise of Trump during the 2016 election. The Southern Poverty Law Center notes that fighting multicultural programs has been a common cause of white nationalists and paleo-conservates.

http://www.newsmax.com/ConradBlack/trump-clinton-sanders-democrats/2016/06/15/id/734030

Mark Steyn

Author/Recording Artist

Mark Steyn is an international bestselling author, a Top 41 recording artist, and a leading Canadian human rights activist. Mark is also a visiting fellow of Hillsdale College; and a popular guest host of America's Number One radio show The Rush Limbaugh Program, and America's Number Two cable show Hannity.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cra-put-liens-on-conrad-black-home-fearing-flight-from-tax-debts/article30462150/

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/08/vanity-fair-exclusive--conrad-black-on-life-in-prison--maintaini

The myth is that the price war put so much pressure on our profits that I was forced to steal money to maintain my opulent lifestyle,” Conrad Black tells Vanity Fair’s Bryan Burrough. “It’s part of the whole News Corp. mythmaking apparatus,” he explains. “It was Rupert, you know. He originated that one. He certainly parroted it. Rupert always says reasonably nice things about me, but then he throws in something like that for effect. I don’t really blame Rupert. He’s not a non-friend. Rupert is just Darwinian.”

Black opens up to Burrough about every aspect of his experience in jail at Coleman Federal Correction Complex where he served for over two years and where he is likely to return this fall. “I’m not embarrassed in the least bit I was in prison—not the slightest,” he says. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You can’t talk to Martha Stewart about it, or Alfred Taubman. They didn’t see it as I did, as a nightmarish change in careers. I see it as a temporary vocation.”

“I quickly developed alliances with the Mafia people,” Black says, “then the Cubans. I was friendly with the ‘good ol’ boys’ and the African-Americans. They all understood I had fought the system, and I do believe I earned their respect for that. Everyone got along,” he says, “except with the child-molesters. There was the occasional scuffle there, I heard.” He recalls the welcome he received from a senior member of the Genovese crime family: “No one will bother you here. If you catch a cold, we will find out who you got it from. You know, we have much in common .… We are industrialists.”

“The myth, in all the Canadian papers, was that I would not hold up in prison, that I would be physically and sexually abused …. I realized, well, it would be a little tedious, but it wouldn’t be difficult to endure.” He recalls the indignities of anal inspections, telling Burrough: “[I] was slightly mystified at the extent of official curiosity about that generally unremitting aperture.” He describes cleaning prison shower stalls, a form of punishment at Coleman: “It wasn’t terribly exciting work. You just put soap on the wall and focus a hose on it. There was a social component to it, however. All of these guards from all over coming into the shower to watch this millionaire clean the shower. I said, ‘Captain, I get the sense you are watching the Super Bowl here, that this is a spectator sport. I assure you, this is nothing so entertaining.’”

“When I first went in, we still had high hopes for the appeal process,” he tells Burrough. “You have to understand, I am an innocent man. I was very hopeful and moderately confident I would not be serving the whole sentence.” He hoped President Bush would grant him a pardon. “The father delivered it by hand to the son,” Black says. “But George W. wouldn’t look at it. Wouldn’t even look at it.”

“Frankly, these charges are absurd,” Black says of the fraud and obstruction-of-justice charges for which he will spend probably under a year in jail starting this fall. “If I wanted to take documents out of my offices, what are the chances I would have lugged them out under the glare of security cameras I myself installed?” he says. “I mean, I’d have to be mad. That’s the only thing they haven’t accused me of. The whole thing is absolutely farcical, but here we are. After eight years … here we are.” When Burrough mentions the percentage of Hollinger profits Black was alleged to have hidden in shell companies, he scoffs: “I’m going to throw up,” Black says, “The real number is 17 percent, not 95 percent. And you know they never raised it at the trial. It wasn’t even part of the case against me. That whole thing was just a pack of lies.” As for $73 million in non-compete payments Hollinger was said to have made to him and other executives, he says, “God, pass the sick bag. Those non-competes were wholly legitimate. The allegation was defeated in court.” He blames his principal partner, David Radler, for not showing them to the board as they should have been. “My dear associate, Mr. Radler, had done a few bad things,” Black says. “He misled all of us, and we’d been in business 30 years. I was quite shocked by that.”

...

Conrad Black

Speaker/Author

Critically acclaimed author and biographer, former head of Argus & Hollinger group of companies and London's Telegraph newspapers, Black is also the founder of Canada's National Post. He's been a member of the British House of Lords since 2001.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/07/11/rush_s_interview_with_conrad_black

RUSH: Conrad Black had to sell his house in Florida to live, a number of his assets were frozen and literally taken away from him before the trial. He had, I don't know, 80% of his net worth taken away from him before the trial under the guise he might have been a flight risk or whatever. He's Canadian. He's still not allowed in the United States. I don't want to spend a lot of time on his legal experience. You can read about them if you want. I'm not here to defend him on that. I'm just describing to you who he is. He's a conservative. He's a famed media mogul. He owned Hollinger, which was a company that owned a lot of media properties, including the Jerusalem Post, the Canada Post, which he founded, the UK Telegraph, hundreds of newspapers that the man owned.

He's a renaissance man. He's a prophetic writer. He's just one of the most erudite people you run into. And he has written the most amazing book. And its release, timed of course to our Independence Day. The book is called "Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies that Brought America from Colonial Dependence to World Leadership." Encounter Books (May 28, 2013) Perseus] And it's big. It is a huge book. It's not something you read over the weekend at the beach, but boy is it wonderful. I recommend it to each and every one of you.

wiki

stole pension fund

Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, KSG (born August 25, 1944) is a Canadian-born British former newspaper publisher, a writer, a non-affiliated life peer, and a convicted felon in the United States for fraud.^[n ^1] Black controlled Hollinger International, once the world’s third-largest English-language newspaper empire,^[3] which published The Daily Telegraph (UK),Chicago Sun Times (U.S.), The Jerusalem Post (Israel), National Post (Canada), The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), and hundreds of community newspapers in North America, before he was fired by the board of Hollinger in 2004. ^[4]

In 2004, a shareholder-initiated prosecution of Black began in the United States over $80 million in assets claimed to have been improperly taken or inappropriately spent by Black.^[5] He was convicted of three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in a U.S. court in 2007 and sentenced to six and a half years' imprisonment. In 2011, two of the charges were overturned on appeal, and he was re-sentenced to 42 months in prison on one count of mail fraud and on the one count of obstruction of justice.^[6] Black was released on May 4, 2012.^[7]

^==^

HIN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

CONRAD M. BLACK, HOLLINGER INC.,§

and 504468 N.B. INC., §

§ Nos. 130, 292 and 304, 2004

Defendants and Counterclaim § (Consolidated)

Plaintiffs Below, §

Appellants, Cross-Appellees, § Court Below: Court of Chancery

§ of the State of Delaware, in and

v. § for New Castle County

HOLLINGER INTERNATIONAL INC., § C.A. No. 183-N

et al., §

Plaintiff and Counterclaim §

Defendants Below, §

Appellees, Cross-Appellant. §

CONRAD M. BLACK, §

Defendant and Counterclaim §

Plaintiff Below, §

Appellant, §

v. §

HOLLINGER INTERNATIONAL INC., §

et al., §

Plaintiff and Counterclaim §

Defendants Below, §

Appellees. §

CONRAD M. BLACK, HOLLINGER INC., §

and 504468 N.B. INC., §

Defendants Below, §

Appellants. §

v. §

HOLLINGER INTERNATIONAL INC., §

et al., §

Plaintiff and Counterclaim §

Defendants Below, §

Appellees. §

Submitted: December 15, 2004

Decided: April 19, 2005

Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND and JACOBS, Justices.

Upon appeal from the Court of Chancery. AFFIRMED.

Jesse A. Finkelstein, Raymond J. DiCamillo and Candice M. Toll, Esquires,

of Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A., Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Jeffrey

A. Lamken (argued) and Alexandra Walsh, Esquires, of Baker Botts L.L.P.,

Washington, D.C.; John L. Warden, David H. Braff, James V. Masella, III, and

Laurent S. Wiesel, Esquires, of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, New York, New York;

Attorneys for Defendant Below/Appellant Conrad M. Black.

A. Gilchrist Sparks, III, Kenneth J. Nachbar and Megan Ward Cascio,

Esquires, of Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell, Wilmington, Delaware; Of

Counsel: Nathan P. Eimer, David M. Stahl (argued), Andrew G. Klevorn and

Vanessa G. Jacobsen, Esquires, of Eimer Stahl Klevorn & Solberg LLP, Chicago,

Illinois, Attorneys for Defendants Below/Appellants Hollinger Inc. and 504468

N.B. Inc.

Lawrence C. Ashby, Philip Trainer and Richard L. Renck, Esquires, of

Ashby & Geddes, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Jonathan Rosenberg,

Esquire, of O'Melveny & Myers LLP, New York, New York; Henry C. Thumann

and Ian Simmons, Esquires, of O'Melveny & Myers, Washington, D.C.; Attorneys

for Counterclaim Defendants Below/Appellees Gordon A. Paris, Graham W.

Savage and Raymond G.H. Seitz.

Collins J. Seitz, Jr. and Samuel D. Brickley II, Esquires of Connolly Bove

Lodge & Hutz, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Thomas J. Kavaler,Robert A.

Alessi and Hilary S. Steuer, Esquires, ofCahill Gordon & ReindelLLP, New

York, New York; Attorneys for Counterclaim Defendants and Appellees Richard

C. Breeden and Richard C.Breeden& Co., LLC.

Edward P. McNally and Linda Martin Gilchrist, Esquires of Morris, James,

Hitchens & Williams, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorneys for Counterclaim

Defendants Below/Appellees Richard R. Burt and Henry A. Kissinger.

David C. McBride, Bruce L. Silverstein, Rolin P. Bissell, Christian Douglas

Wright and Karen E. Keller, Esquires, of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP,

Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Martin Flumenbaum (argued) and Robert A.

Atkins, Esquires, of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, New York,

New York; Attorneys for Plaintiff and Counterclaim Defendant Below/Appellee,

Cross-Appellant Hollinger International, Inc. and Counterclaim Defendants

Below/Appellees James R. Thompson, Richard N. Perleand Shmuel Meitar.

Per Curiam:

Pending before this Court are an appeal and cross-appeal from a final

judgment of the Court of Chancery awarding injunctive, declaratory and money

damages relief against Hollinger Inc. (“Inc.”) and Inc.’s ultimate controlling

stockholder, Lord Conrad M. Black (“Black”). The judgment was awarded in

favor of Hollinger International Inc. (“International” or “the Company”). We find

no error of fact or law and, therefore, affirm.

Background Facts1

To aid in understanding the issues presented on this appeal, the background

facts and history of this litigation are first set forth. International is a Delaware

publicly-held corporation controlled by Inc.2

Besides being International’s

controlling stockholder (through intermediate holding companies), Black was also

the Company's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. In May 2003, one of

International’s largest stockholders demanded that International's board of

directors investigate the payment of over $70 million to Black and other

1 The adjudicated facts and legal rulings are found in the Court of Chancery opinion granting

declaratory and injunctive relief to International, Hollinger Intern., Inc. v. Black, 844 A.2d 1022

(Del. Ch. 2004); and the transcript of that Court’s bench ruling granting International’s motion

for summary judgment as to liability and damages, Hollinger International Inc. v. Black, C.A.

No. 183-N, (Del. Ch., May 19, 2004) (Transcript). The presentation of the adjudicated facts in

this Opinion is abbreviated. A complete recitation of the facts is found in the above-cited

opinion and transcript ruling.

2 Inc. is a holding company whose principal asset is ownership of almost 15 million shares of

Class B common stock of International, representing 30.3% of International's equity and 72.8%

of its voting power. Black controls International through The Ravelston Corporation, a company

wholly owned by him. Ravelston, in turn, owns approximately 78% of Inc.’s common stock.

International executives, purportedly made in connection with covenants not to

compete. It was claimed that those payments violated the executives’ duty of

loyalty owed to International. In response to that demand, the International board

formed a Special Committee with the mandate and power to investigate and (if

believed warranted) to prosecute litigation on behalf of International. As a result

of its investigation, the Special Committee identified potential improprieties

relating to both the purported non-competition payments and the disclosures in the

company’s annual reports relating to those transactions.3

The Special Committee

brought its preliminary findings to the Audit Committee, to enable the two

committees to confer on what should be done. The result was a letter sent by the

chairs of both committees to all executives who had received the questioned

payments, asking the recipients to detail the circumstances, and to furnish

evidence, of the approval of each non-compete payment.

Aware of his vulnerability to a full-blown investigation not only from the

Special Committee but also from the United States Securities and Exchange

Commission (SEC), and faced with findings of improper self-dealing and material

misrepresentations in International’s public filings, Black entered into a

“Restructuring Proposal” Agreement with the Company. As part of that

3 The Special Committee found no evidence that any non-competition agreements were ever

entered into, or approved by, International’s Audit Committee or its board of directors. The

Special Committee was also concerned that the annual report disclosures were false and needed

immediate correction.

Agreement, Black agreed to, among other things: resign as CEO, repay the noncompete

payments and cause Inc. to do likewise, accede to a reconstituted board

that would have a solid majority of independent directors, and not interfere with

the on-going Special Committee investigation. Black also agreed to devote his

principal time and energy to a “Strategic Process” that would involve the

development of a value-maximizing transaction for the Company, such as a sale of

the entire Company or some of its assets. The Restructuring Proposal Agreement

was publicly announced in November 2003.

Almost immediately after the Restructuring Proposal Agreement was

announced, Black violated it. Black did so by diverting to himself a valuable

opportunity that had been presented to International—the possible sale of one of its

flagship businesses (The Daily Telegraph) or of the Company as a whole—to

Frederick and David Barclay (the “Barclays”), two English brothers whose

corporations owned assets that included media firms in the UK and Europe. The

Barclays had first approached Black about such a sale in his capacity as the

Company’s CEO and Chairman. But, in a deliberate effort to “steer[ ] the Barclays

toward doing an end-run around the Strategic Process,”4

Black counter-proposed,

and then negotiated with, the Barclays, to purchase Black’s own controlling

interest in Inc., which represented voting control of International. In connection

4 844 A.2d at 1045.

with that diversion of opportunity, Black used confidential, non-public information

of the Company for his own purposes without permission. He also gave the

International board false and misleading assurances that he was not violating the

Restructuring Proposal Agreement by arranging a deal involving the sale of Inc.

Later, Black further violated the Restructuring Proposal Agreement by invoking

his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination during an investigation

by the SEC (thereby denying the SEC the benefit of International’s full

cooperation that was promised when the Restructuring Proposal Agreement was

announced), and also by failing to repay the first 10% of the non-compete

payments as he had promised.

Although Black had made every effort to conceal his dealings with the

Barclays, by this point the International board suspected that Black was negotiating

a transaction that would subvert the Restructuring Proposal Agreement.

Accordingly, the International board, with advice of counsel, began considering

various measures, including adopting a “poison pill” rights plan that would prevent

Black from selling Inc. to the Barclays. Aware of the board’s deliberations, Black

threatened to remove the entire International board if it adopted a rights plan. He

also threatened to sue the directors who served on the Company’s Special

Committee and on its Audit Committee.

On January 16, 2004, the Special Committee caused a lawsuit to be brought

against Black and others, claiming they had engaged in improper self-dealing. The

following day, International’s Executive Committee met and voted to remove

Black as Chairman. The reasons (as disclosed by the minutes of that meeting)

were that Black had refused to cooperate with the SEC, had violated the

Restructuring Proposal Agreement, and had engaged in other breaches of fiduciary

duty not related to the non-compete payments.

Thereafter, on January 17, 2004, Black faxed a letter formally advising the

Company of his intent to enter into the “Barclays transaction,” in which the

Barclays would purchase all the equity of Inc. and would redeem certain of its

preference shares. Black and his holding companies agreed to support the

transaction. That same day, Black sent a letter to the International board

repudiating the Restructuring Proposal Agreement, claiming (falsely) that at the

time he signed the Restructuring Proposal Agreement he did not have access to

evidence that the non-competes may have been properly authorized, but that he

now possessed such evidence.

In response to these events, the International board met on January 20, 2004

and formed a Corporate Review Committee (“CRC”) composed of all directors

other than Black, Mrs. Black and another director (Colson) who was allied with

Black. The CRC was given broad authority to act for the Company, including

authority to adopt measures such as a stockholder rights plan, to initiate litigation,

and to cooperate with governmental investigations.

In response to these actions, Black caused Inc. to file a written consent that

amended the bylaws of International (the “ByLaw Amendments”), to require: (1)

seven days’ written notice to all directors of any meeting of the International

board; (2) in any notice of a special meeting of the board, disclosure of all business

to be conducted at the meeting; (3) at least 24 hours written notice to all directors

of any committee meetings; (4) within five days of the meeting, a report to the full

board of the substance of all actions taken at committee meetings; (5) the presence

of at least 80% of the directors at any board meeting in order to constitute a

quorum for most business; (6) the presence of all directors to constitute a quorum

for the International board to take action on certain “Special Board Matters,” which

included changing the number of directors, filling a vacancy on the board,

approving a merger or selling all or substantially all of the Company’s assets or

selling assets having a value of more than $1 million, and amending or repealing

any by-law; (7) the unanimous assent of all directors to approve any Special Board

Matter or to establish new committees; and (8) the dissolution of all committees of

the board (including the CRC) except for the Audit and Special Committees, and

rescinding all added authority given to the Special Committee in the January 20

Board resolution.

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^{http://www.delawarelitigation.com/blackHollinger.pdf}

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'Corporate Kleptocracy' at Hollinger

The company allegedly paid for personal perks that included corporate jets, a $42,000 birthday party, and the refurbishment of a Rolls Royce.

Ed Zwirn, CFO.com | US

September 1, 2004

Conrad Black, Hollinger International’s former chief executive officer, David Radler, its former chief operating officer, and other controlling shareholders and associates constituted a “corporate kleptocracy” which systematically looted the company of more than $400 million, according to a report issued Tuesday.

The 513-page report, filed in a Chicago court by a special committee of Hollinger’s board that is probing financial improprieties at the company, alleges that the group stole what amounted to 95.2 percent of Hollinger’s adjusted net income from 1997 to 2003.

Soon after becoming a public company a decade ago, “Hollinger went from being an expanding business to becoming a company whose sole preoccupation was generating current cash for the controlling shareholders, with no concern for building future enterprise value or wealth for all shareholders,” according to the report.

The investigation that produced the report was launched in May 2003 at the urging of shareholders led by New York investment firm Tweedy Browne Co., which owns an 18 percent stake in the publisher. Hollinger publishes The Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times.

The committee “knows of few parallels to Black and Radler’s brand of self-righteous, and aggressive looting of Hollinger to the exclusion of all other concerns or interests, and irrespective of whether their actions were remotely fair to shareholders,” the report stated.

The company “was used as a piggy bank for the Blacks,” according to the committee, which reported that shareholders paid for the purchase of a Challenger aircraft ($11.6 million) for Radler, and lease of a Gulfstream IV jet (at a cost of $3 million to $4 million per year) for Black.

A much more unusual corporate “expense” was allegedly paid in 2000, when Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, “swapped” Park Avenue apartments with the company. The apartment owned by the Blacks (which they had bought for $499,000 two years earlier) was priced in the swap by crediting it with 70 percent appreciation from its acquisition cost, according to the report. The apartment owned by Hollinger (which it had bought for $3 million six years earlier) that the Blacks acquired was “priced” in the swap by crediting it with zero appreciation. Both apartments were in the same building.

Apartments weren’t the only deal the Blacks cut for themselves in living expenses, according to the report. Conrad Black’s corporate expense reports charge the company for items such as handbags for his wife ($2,463), exercise equipment ($2,083), a “T. Anthony Ltd. Leather Briefcase” ($2,057), opera tickets ($2,785), “silverware for Blacks’ corporate jet” ($3,530) “Summer Drinks” ($24,950), a “Happy Birthday, Barbara” dinner party at New York’s La Grenouille Restaurant ($42,870), and $90,000 to refurbish a Rolls Royce for his personal transportation.

Conrad Black and Radler controlled Hollinger Inc., the parent company of Hollinger International, via their private holding company Ravelston Corp., Reuters reported. Ravelston asserted that the report was "laced with outright lies” and defended the publisher's board of directors, according to the news service.

"The report is full of so many factual and tainting misrepresentations and inaccuracies that it is not practical to address them in their entirety here," Ravelston reportedly said in a statement. The company vowed to take the matter to court, according to Reuters.

Gordon Paris, Hollinger’s interim chairman and CEO, said the committee, led byformer SEC Chairman Richard Breeden, will continue its work until litigation based on the investigation is concluded.

^{http://www.cfo.com/printable/article.cfm/3149716}

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pdated 7/6/2005 10:40 AM

AIG names former SEC chief Levitt as adviser

By Elliot Blair Smith, USA TODAY

American International Group named the federal government's former top securities cop, Arthur Levitt, as a special adviser Tuesday, adding to the parade of companies hiring former regulators to lead them out of trouble.

Levitt, 74, a former two-term chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who retired in 2001, joins the insurance giant at a time when it faces civil fraud charges by the New York attorney general's office and probes by the SEC and Justice Department.

AIG said Levitt would help strengthen the company's governance and advise its board on director nominees. Securities lawyers said his real value to AIG might come as a signal to regulators the company is ready to reform itself.

"What's AIG doing? They're trying to get their reputation back," says former SEC attorney Laurence Lese, a partner at Washington law firm Duane Morris, who terms Levitt's appointment "the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

Levitt joins a succession of former SEC chiefs and U.S. attorneys in lending his personal prestige to help turn around a troubled situation in exchange for what is likely to be a lucrative payday. Others:

• Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney in New York, negotiated a deferred prosecution agreement in June with federal prosecutors in New Jersey for her client, Bristol-Myers Squibb.

White, who joined the New York law firm Debevoise & Plimpton as head of its litigation practice in 2002, also represents clothier Tommy Hilfiger in talks with her former office about its investigation of Hilfiger's commissions and tax payments. And she is leading an internal investigation at insurer ACE related to a kickbacks probe by the Justice Department, SEC and New York attorney general's office.

• Former SEC chairman Richard Breeden, who acknowledges he once threatened to leave an accused securities cheat "naked and homeless and without wheels," more recently oversaw reforms at scandal-tinged WorldCom (now MCI) and Hollinger International.

• Former SEC chairman David Ruder, Breeden's predecessor in the late 1980s, joined Strong Financial as a compliance consultant after that company, now part of Wells Fargo, was implicated in the mutual fund scandal in late 2003.

Former SEC attorney Derek Meisner, now a defense lawyer at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart in Boston, says these legal luminaries have what their clients may lack: credibility. "They know how to navigate the waters but not sink the ship," he says.

Yet AIG's decision to hire Levitt also puts its internal-reform efforts in the spotlight.

Ruder, now a law professor at Northwestern University, says

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