Subscribe to EIR Online
This article appears in the June 29, 2001 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

LaRouche Accuses Gore Dems,
KKK-Katie in D.C. Death Toll

by Jeffrey Steinberg

[PDF version of this article]

Democratic Party 2004 Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche has issued a strongly worded denunciation of his "adversaries within the Democratic Party," for their role in "increasing the needless death toll in Washington, D.C.," by closing D.C. General Hospital.

There is a growing pattern of evidence that leading figures within the Al Gore/Eleanor Holmes Norton faction within the Democratic Party are conducting an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to block the Democratic Party leadership, particularly in the U.S. Senate, from taking the necessary legislative action to end the mounting death toll of Washington, D.C. residents and visitors, who are needlessly dying, as the result of the D.C. General shutdown. Since public health organizations and agencies, the D.C. City Council, and LaRouche, himself, all warned, in advance, of the deadly consequences of the D.C. General shutdown, those complicit are guilty of pre-meditated murder; and the death toll is rising.

"These people have got to cut it out," LaRouche declared, referring to the turncoat Democrats, in a statement released by his LaRouche in 2004 campaign committee on June 22. "They are throwing this country into Hell. We are in the grips of an international financial breakdown crisis; we are faced with a hideous, manufactured energy crisis, typified by the looting of California by the energy pirates allied with President Bush; and we are facing a total breakdown and asset stripping of our nation's health care system, a crisis epitomized by the shutdown of the only public hospital serving the nation's capital."

LaRouche continued, "There can be no more tolerance of the lies coming from Mayor Anthony Williams and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, covering up the murderous consequences of their privatization and looting of the District's public health system, on behalf of [Washington Post owner] Katharine Graham, the Federal City Council, and the Lazard Brothers-centered Wall Street-London-Paris financial apparatus. Let these Democrats who have yet to come out from `behind the Bushes,' step out of the way and allow honest Democrats to lead this crucial fight for the General Welfare."

"We know quite well, LaRouche added, "that there are a bunch of swindlers inside the Republican Party, Bush-league swindlers. Yes, the GOP is a `bad Lott,' but now we have a Democratic Party problem. And I have decided that I must personally come out publicly against those Democrats who have decided to bow down to the demands of Katharine Graham, and the banking and real estate interests she represents, and abet the mass murder of a select portion of the most vulnerable citizens of Washington, D.C."

LaRouche's warnings were echoed at a press conference in front of the Capitol on June 20, by leaders of the Coalition to Save D.C. General, including American Federation of Government Employees Local 3721 President Kenneth Lyons; Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, Minister of Health for the Nation of Islam; Rev. Willie Wilson, Pastor of the Union Temple Baptist Church; D.C. General nurse Charlene Gordon; and Lynne Speed, a Washington leader of the LaRouche in 2004 campaign. They were joined by State Rep. Thomas Jackson of Thomasville, Alabama and Camden City Councilman Ali Sloan-El. Each speaker called on the U.S. Congress to fulfill its moral and Constitutional obligation to protect the interests of residents and visitors to the nation's capital, by restoring D.C. General as a fully funded, full-service public hospital. Speed detailed the 15 cases of needless deaths that have been documented so far, as the direct result of the shutdown of D.C. General. Lyons asked of Congress: "How will history judge those who closed their eyes" to this atrocity?

The Evidence To Date

An initial pattern of evidence has been assembled by LaRouche's associates, identifying some of the major Democratic Party players in the D.C. treachery. All of the known figures have long been associated with Al Gore. Whether or not Al Gore is personally involved in the present actions against D.C. General, the Gore machine is at the very center of the effort.

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has played a particularly vicious role, on behalf of Katharine Graham, pressuring members of the Congressional Black Caucus to back off the D.C. General fight, in the interest of "preserving home rule." Holmes Norton cut her teeth, in the 1970s, as a top aide to then-New York City Republican Mayor, and J.P. Morgan asset, John Lindsey. Knowledgeable New York Democratic Party sources have confirmed that Holmes Norton was one of the pivotal players in the original Lazard Brothers-run "Big MAC" New York City control board looting scheme, which is now being replicated in Washington, D.C.—with deadly consequences.

Holmes Norton's longtime (1990-99) chief of staff, Donna Brazile, was seconded to the Gore-Lieberman 2000 campaign, which she headed, working closely with then-Lazard Brothers head Steven Rattner, Gore's campaign finance committee chair.

LaRouche associates have also received indications that a disinformation memorandum is circulating among Democratic members of the U.S. Senate, featuring the lying claim that "privatization plans," similar to that being implemented in the District, have been "successfully" implemented in other cities, including San Diego, Tampa, and Detroit. Leading Senate Democrats, who should know better, including Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), have been sending communiqués to constituents, incorporating elements of the disinformation, and claiming that the D.C. General issue is "not before the Congress, but before the courts."

One possible source of the disinformation has been identified as Cynthia Gooen, a senior staffer with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), Al Gore's Vice Presidential running-mate. Gooen bluntly told a caller on June 20 that she personally supported the shutdown of D.C. General, under Mayor Anthony Williams' scheme, and, as Lieberman's chief aide on Washington, D.C. matters, had adopted this position without even consulting with the Senator. "You cannot quote Senator Lieberman as supporting the closing of the hospital," she said, because "I have not even briefed him on this position."

And the Urban Institute, with Katharine Graham its longtime vice-chairman, published a September 2000 study, touting the successful privatization of hospital services in Tampa, San Diego, Milwaukee, Boston, and Philadelphia.

Flagrant Conflict of Interest

One scandalous instance of conflict of interest, central to the D.C. General fight, involves Control Board chairman Alice M. Rivlin, the woman who personally signed the death warrant on the last public hospital in Washington. While representing the "public" as Control Board head, Rivlin was on the payroll of the Katharine Graham family, through their tax-exempt fund, the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation. In June 2001, the Brookings Institution's Greater Washington Research Program published a report, "Envisioning a Future Washington," peddling the Federal City Council line that Washington will only prosper by attracting wealthier residents. The report was co-authored by Rivlin, and financed through a $40,000 grant from the Meyer Foundation.

Sources in the District office of Eleanor Holmes Norton have denied that they participated in the drafting of the privatization scheme. They identified Mayor Williams and D.C. Health Director Dr. Ivan Walks as the authors, while freely admitting that Holmes Norton backs the takedown of D.C. General.

Walks has been at the center of controversy, since he was first appointed by Mayor Williams in 1999, in part, due to the fact that he had no experience administering a large urban health care system; yet, he was given a $227,000 salary and benefits package. In fact, Walks spent the five years, prior to his appointment to the District post, working for President George W. Bush's number one financial angel, Richard Rainwater. Rainwater is notorious for his HMO, Columbia/HCA, which looted the Medicare and Medicaid systems out of billions of dollars, and for his asset stripping of the largest private mental hospital chain in the country, Charter Behavioral. Dr. Walks was employed by both Rainwater entities, specializing in austerity in mental health care.

Al Gore's Green Hordes

At the heart of the effort to shut down basic services to the poorest segments of the Washington, D.C. population, is the drive to transform the Anacostia River area of the District into a trillion-dollar real estate bubble—which requires the forced removal of thousands of poor, predominantly African-American residents.

LaRouche campaign workers have learned that the Anacostia River swindle has drawn the active support of both the World Wildlife Fund U.S.A. and the World Bank, both headed by close Gore allies. WWF-U.S.A. is the fiefdom of longtime Al Gore mentor Maurice Strong, the Canadian Rockefeller family asset, who was a co-founder, with Prince Philip and Prince Bernhard, of the 1001 Club. WWF-U.S.A. has "adopted" the restoration of Washington's Anacostia—central to the real estate scam—as their major U.S. urban project. World Bank President, Strong protégé, and close Gore ally, James Wolfensohn, staged a public relations appearance with D.C. Mayor Williams June 21, advertising the role of the World Bank in the cleanup of Kingman Island, in the middle of the Anacostia River.

This nest of Democrats, linked to Gore and bankrolled by Lazard/Katharine Graham, have aligned themselves with the Bush/Lott Republicans, to wreck the health care delivery system in the nation's capital, a crime for which, LaRouche vowed, they will be held accountable.

Back to top

clear
clear
clear