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Sherman H. Skolnick
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COCA-COLA, THE CIA, and the COURTS
Part Four of a Series

by Sherman H. Skolnick

Is the media monster. the Tribune Company, a reputed blackmailer of The Coca-Cola Company?

Here is more that is boiling and bubbling out of that witches brew of a scandal implicating Coca-Cola. For background to this story, you should visit our website story about the Chicago Tribune linked to the criminal cartel, at least from 1910 to date, including the Trib using Al Capone as a labor consultant in 1930 to beat back a strike against the Tribune, and then again, in 1986, using gangster goons with attack dogs against the Trib's own workers in a labor strike.

With a charter for their Canadian pulp from the King of England more than a 100 years ago, and large ownership currently by the Queen of England and her dope traffickers, the Tribune Company are no angels. Neither are the Coca-Cola Company as an adjunct worldwide of the American CIA. The one who got in the middle between the Tribune Company and Coca-Cola is Chicago U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning [(312) 435-7608]. In a theft of intellectual property case pending against Coca-Cola, Judge Manning has issued a series of "judicial perjuries", as some call them, to corruptly favor Coke. [Robert E. Kolody vs. Simon Marketing and The Coca-Cola Company, 97 C 190.]

Plain-spoken folks call such things straight out lies by the Judge. In August, 2000, Judge Manning was confronted with a situation involving a spy infiltrating the camp of Coke's court opponent, Kolody, thus becoming privy to Kolody's confidential legal strategies against Coke. How did this happen, as identified in the Court record? Following a court hearing, I interviewed Kolody's required "local counsel" in the presence of Kolody's out-of-state counsel Dan Ivy

"Skolnick Does Coca-Cola and their attorneys know the legal strategies of Robert Kolody and his attorney Dan Ivy here? Local counsel Daniel V. Hanley [(708) 474-6633] Yes. Skolnick Really? How could they know? Hanley My sister is the media buyer for Coca-Cola." [Portion of transcript of interview attached to Motion for Relief Because of Fraud Upon the Court, filed 8/9/00. The term "fraud upon the court" is a profound principle of law that frightens cowardly members of the bar and corrupt members of the bench. It requires that the rulings on matters of substance by a judge acting under a malign, if not corrupt, influence, be expunged from the court record.]

When I run into savvy cynics in or near courthouses, they just cackle. "Skolnick, you have often documented such problems. How can there be a fraud upon the District Court in places like Chicago, a court that is a long-known fraud itself?"

To try to get around Kolody's Motion for Relief Because of Fraud Upon the Court, Judge Manning issued a decision giving the Motion a false label, calling it a motion to disqualify the Judge. There is no such thing in the Motion. But this is typical of judges operating under a malign, if not corrupt, influence. [A gambling casino kingpin, reportedly part of the criminal cartel, reportedly paid one million dollars to BUY the federal judgeship for Manning. As stated in the filed Motion. Visit our web stories also about Buying a Judgeship.]

And falsely calling the Motion by that name, Judge Manning said Kolody did not properly invoke the federal statutes for disqualifying a judge. So the Judge said Kolody's Motion is no good. Any one examining the Court record could see the Judge is a plain rotten liar.

In another case on Judge Manning's docket, the Tribune Company has been blackmailing the Judge. In a moment you will understand why. It is a case of a dope-trafficking gang, Chicago-Florida, involving Chicago police and dope "mules" or couriers, actually many of them women also working for the American CIA. The Tribune filed a petition in the case saying they should be allowed to intervene as of right. Why? Because, says the Tribune, Judge Manning is conducting, without notice or legal formality, secret court proceedings. And Judge Manning is censoring court documents and transcripts, by redacting them, and similar secret methods. Judge Manning's apparent purpose? To cover up the dope trafficking showing complicity by corrupt top-level IRS officials, and the kinky U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the corrupted FBI, among others. [Visit our web series on corrupt IRS brass and their ocean-going money laundry boat.]

The dope trafficking case is USA vs. Joseph Jerome Miedzianowski, et al., No. 98 CR 923, U.S. District Court, Chicago.

According to advertising agency sources, The Tribune Company, as a media empire, has a beef against The Coca-Cola Company which is being corruptly favored by Judge Manning with her paper tricks. [Kolody vs. Simon Marketing and The Coca-Cola Company, No. 97 C 190.] The Tribune Company is sore at Coke because Coke's media buyer,Mary Hanley, reportedly is not favoring Trib and their raft of newspapers, TV and radio stations and such, with the proper amount of advertising bucks. Get this straight the Tribune, no crusaders against corrupt federal judges, does not wish to assist Kolody but rather to strong-arm Coke.

Just after the Fraud Upon the Court Motion is filed, Mary Hanley's boss, the monstrous DDB advertising octopus, announces, in the Chicago Tribune, that Mary Hanley has been promoted to Senior Vice President and is group media director at DDB Chicago. [Chicago Tribune, George Lazarus' column, 8/15/00.] It appears that DDB is playing the part of press agent, to try to get the stink off the mess.

And guess what? To further get away from the ruckus, Coca-Cola's media buyer, Mary Hanley, identified as such by her lawyer-brother, just at that point, is leaving the U.S. for Ireland. [Mary Hanley (312) 552-6368. E-Mail [email protected]]

By the way, reportedly arranging such propaganda is an apparatus we call The Banquet Committee, suddenly honoring someone, such as person of the year and such, to counter a scandal. More later.

We have, by the way, been commenting for some 40 years about media units blackmailing slow-to-comply would-be advertisers. The late George Seldes, a crusading journalist, wrote about this type of blackmailing in his book, "Tell The Truth and Run". Since 1991, in our public access Cable TV Program in Chicago, we have spelled out numerous examples of pressfakers using blackmail to strong-arm ads. That is, threatening to run negative stories about a corporation if they fail to buy plenty of ads.

In simple terms, the Tribune Company wants The Coca-Cola Company to throw more ad bucks its way. And twisting Judge Manning's crooked arm [maybe even Mary Hanley's arm] is the way to start the finger pointing leading to loosening up Coke's billion dollar a year advertising bankroll. [Some years ago, we showed how a local TV station in Chicago, Channel 5, WMAQ-TV, an NBC unit, did a series scandalizing Sears Roebuck & Co., basically because Sears was holding back ad bucks.]

And get this angle The Miedzianowski case secretly involves the American CIA, details covered up by Judge Manning. The background of many of the Tribune Company's correspondents and such is that they come out of U.S. Military Intelligence, the CIA's competitor. So the Tribune Company has a number of reasons to privately blackmail Chicago U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning.

Sarcastic sorts crow, if Coke does not bubble up with more ads for the Tribune Company---well, Tribune may order any Coke machines to suddenly disappear from Trib's premises. Or sternly order Tribune employees to drink Royal Crown Cola instead. NOT Pepsi-Cola, falsely described as a "competitor" of Coke, yet Coke and Pepsi are run and owned by the same folks. Ha ha. Stories like this take the fizz out of the soda monster. Stay tuned.



Since 1958, Mr.Skolnick has been a court reformer. Since 1963, founder/chairman, Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts, disclosing certain instances of judicial and other bribery and political murders. Since 1991 a regular panelist, and since 1995, moderator/producer, of one-hour,weekly public access Cable TV Show, "Broadsides", Cablecast on Channel 21, 9 p.m. each Monday in Chicago. For a heavy packet of printed stories, send $5.00 [U.S. funds] and a stamped, self-addressed business sized envelope [4-1/4 x 9-1/2 #10 size] WITH THREE STAMPS ON IT, to Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts, Sherman H. Skolnick, Chairman, 9800 South Oglesby Ave., Chicago IL 60617-4870. Office, 7 days, 8 a.m. to midnight, (773) 375-5741 [PLEASE, no "just routine calls]. Before sending FAX, call.

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