Mystery Man French-American hero in Train Attack - Shot in neck stopping gunman!

.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

August 25, 2015

By Bill McKelway Richmond Times-Dispatch The Daily Progress

Family members of a former Midlothian man hailed as a hero for being the first passenger to grab an assault rifle from a gunman aboard the high-speed train headed from Amsterdam to Paris say they are proud of Mark Moogalian and anxious to learn more about his condition after being shot while wresting the weapon Friday from Ayoub El-Khazzani.

The Telegraph of London reported that Moogalian, 51, who teaches English at the Sorbonne, tackled El-Khazzani during Friday’s train attack and grabbed his weapon before being shot through the neck. The attacker was then subdued by three vacationing Americans who have been cited for their heroism in the episode, as well as a Briton.

Moogalian, a graduate of Midlothian High School, is a member of a family of Armenian descent with deep roots in Virginia. Relatives operated a grocery for many years in the Hopewell area.

“We couldn’t be more proud,” said an uncle, Harry Moogalian. He said in an interview Monday morning that the family is still trying to sort out the sequence of events that left the author and musician shot and hospitalized. Moogalian said the family here is still awaiting word about his nephew's condition.

Moogalian's encounter with the gunman appears to be the first confrontation in the episode that was quelled by the three Americans and Briton who Monday were given France's highest award, the Legion d'Honneur, by President Francois Hollande.

Hollande acknowledged that Moogalian also intervened. Moogalian's wife told Europe-1 radio Monday that he, too, "is among the heroes in this story," the AP reported.

Isabella Risacher-Moogalian described hiding behind train seats from the attacker and then seeing her husband wounded. "He looked at me and said 'I'm hit, I'm hit.' He thought it was over and he was going to die," the AP quoted her as saying.

According to The Telegraph, Moogalian was hospitalized but doing well despite the ordeal.

The British newspaper quoted Moogalian’s sister, Julia, as saying the gunman was able to pull another weapon and shoot her brother, who suffered nerve damage as the bullet passed through his body.

According to The Telegraph, Moogalian made sure his wife was behind a seat before confronting the gunman and taking his weapon.

Moogalian's sister said "there's a video of him saying, 'help me' - he thought he was losing so much blood he would die." The newspaper reported on its website that Moogalian was doing well in the hospital despite the ordeal.

"We're extremely proud of him," the sister was quoted as saying.

Moogalian's uncle described his nephew as a a free spirit who recently authored a vaguely autobiographical novel called Mr. Farride about a man living on a houseboat on the Seine River in Paris, is married and teaches English at the Sorbonne.

“He has taken a much different path than much of the family and what he has accomplished has been very much on his own,” Harry Moogalian said.

An artist, sculptor and musician, Moogalian formed a duo called Secret Season with his wife, whom he married in 2003.

Moogalian’s father, now retired, was a senior scientist with Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co.

The family moved to Richmond from Durham , N.C. and Moogalian has written that rivers, the Eno in North Carolina, the James in Richmond and the Seine in Paris have always been central to his life.

A short biography states that after travelling to France he busked from London to Venice, taking in the culture and writing songs. He paints, sculpts, writes and plays music for a living. “The trip to Europe was a turning point in his life,” according to a short biography accompanying his novel.

Moogalian was the founder of two musical groups in Richmond, Look Like Bamboo and Javaman. And his range of abilities as a musician stretches from the guitar to the hand saw. Both musical groups were widely praised by area critics for their musical ability.

Friends and family praised Moogalian on Facebook late Sunday.

“Please keep my cousin in your prayers. What courage,” Sheila Konis posted.

“Incredible act of bravery from former classmate Mark Moogalian Midlothian High School,” posted Caycee Poust Buscaglia. “Prayers on speedy recovery!”

In Paris this morning, the three Americans and Briton were honored by Hollande. He said that while two of the Americans who tackled the gunman were soldiers, "on Friday you were simply passengers. You behaved as soldiers but also as responsible men," according to an account by The Associated Press.

Hollande then pinned the medals on U.S. Airman Spencer Stone, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, and their longtime friend Anthony Sadler. British businessman Chris Norman was also honored.

A French passenger was the first to try to stop the attacker and was also honored Monday, but he did not want his identity publicly known, Hollande said, who added "I understand" the decision.

NBC News

August 25, 2015

French Train Attack: Hero American Teacher Mark Moogalian 'Would Give Anything for Anybody'

by M. Alex Johnson, Katie Wall and F. Brinley Bruton

Relatives of the American teacher who was shot while trying to disarm a gunman aboard a high-speed French train say they're not the least bit surprised by his selfless act.

French President François Hollande noted the courage of Mark Moogalian, 51, originally from Midlothian, Virginia, who remained in a Lille hospital Tuesday.

Dr. Patrick Goldstein, director of the hospital emergency room, told reporters on Monday that Moogalian was being treated for a neck wound, three broken ribs and other unspecified injuries.

"You see stuff on the news and you never think it would be our brother," Julia Allen, Moogalian's sister, told NBC News on Monday.

But she said her brother's attempt to wrestle down the Kalashnikov-armed gunman during Friday's attack on the Amsterdam-to-Paris train was wholly in character.

"Mark would give anything for anybody," Allen said. "He's just that kind of person."

Moogalian, who's lived in France for more than 20 years, had remained unknown until Sunday, when he was identified by British newspapers. He is a published author, artist and musician who teaches English- and French-language courses for business clients in France, according to the websites for his artistic pursuits and for The American Studio, his language business.

"My husband told me that he had seen someone strange because he had entered the toilets with his suitcase and it lasted a long time," Moogalian's wife, Isabella Risacher-Moogalian, told Europe1 Radio on Monday. "A little while later, the guy came out, and that's when he saw that the guy was carrying a gun."

Moogalian told his wife to "go" and then "rushed toward the gunman to remove ... the Kalashnikov," Risacher-Moogalian said.

"I look at my husband through the seats at an angle, and he looked straight at me and said, 'I'm hit!' ... There was blood everywhere," she said. "I ran toward him, and I could see that he a wound on his back. I then saw another wound by his neck."

Allen told NBC News that it still wasn't clear when Moogalian would be able to leave the French hospital, which has added to the family's stress.

"It's been extremely emotional because he's an ocean away, and we cannot be there to give him our comfort and our love and our hugs" Allen said.

"The last time we saw our brother was just a few short weeks back," she said. "We did lose our mother, and we know she would be extremely proud of Mark."

An uncle, Harry Moogalian, told The Richmond, Virginia Times-Dispatch on Monday that his nephew was a graduate of Midlothian High School, near Richmond, where the family has deep roots.

"He has taken a much different path than much of the family, and what he has accomplished has been very much on his own," Harry Moogalian said.

.

The Stock Market Roller Coaster - Who wins, certainly not you!

.

So, last week the market lost ten percent of the value, an amount measured in the trillions. The Dow dropped over 500 points on Friday alone.

Then this morning, Monday August 24, the market opened and dropped 1,200 more points.  At first, the financial media panicked because NO ONE predicted this would happen.  More important, in spite of China's woes, there is nothing going on in the world to trigger such a dramatic loss in value.

Miraculously, the market recovered 1,000 points in the next hour or so, one of the fastest gains in value in history.  Right now, it is down less than 200 points.  For perspective, the greatest daily loss in stock market history was 777 points, a level surpassed for a couple of hours today, to the tune of five hundred points more than the previous record.

This morning somebody continued the false sell off of assets to drive the market down the most points in history.  When the market bottomed out they started buying back the stock at a record pace at a massive scale.  In the process somebody had to make trillions of dollars in order to generate such a massive fall then gain in the market.

Did you make a small fortune in a couple of hours this morning?  We know the computer programmed accounts on Wall Street made the gains.  We know the wealthy just got a few trillion dollars richer watching us lose billions of dollars.

Since none of this investment capital is going to create jobs, create new businesses, or benefit existing employees of corporate America, who did gain?

The same people that give billions of dollars to our politicians to protect their own tax status and make certain everyone else paid the cost, the very, very wealthy.

Someone in Washington, D.C. has to stop them.

Is anybody listening?

.

Modest American Heroes Honored in France

.

France honors 3 Americans, Briton for stopping train attack

By Faith Karimi and Nic Robertson, CNN

Updated 8:46 AM ET, Mon August 24, 2015

(CNN)They grew up together, fought off an attacker together and accepted a nation's honor together.

Three days after they pounced and subdued a gunman aboard a packed train, American childhood friends Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos got the Legion of Honor -- France's highest recognition.

Fellow British passenger Chris Norman, who helped tackle the gunman, also received the award during Monday's ceremony at the Élysée Palace.

"By their courage, they saved lives," President François Hollande said. "They gave us an example of what is possible to do in these kinds of situations."

The four stopped a potential massacre Friday aboard the high-speed train headed from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Paris.

"Three Americans and one Englishman ... you risked your lives to defend an ideal, the ideal of liberty and freedom," Hollande said.

Another passenger -- a French national who has not gone public -- also confronted the gunman and will be honored at a later date.

Napoleon Bonaparte established the Legion of Honor in 1802 to recognize exceptional leaders and unusual achievements.'He never said a word'

'He never said a word'

The four were in the same train car when gunfire erupted. Shortly afterward, a shirtless man appeared with a gun slung over his shoulder.

"He never said a word," said Sadler, a student at California State University in Sacramento. "At that time, it was either do something or die."

They charged at the gunman, and a fierce struggle ensued.

"He kept pulling more weapons left and right," Stone said, his arm in a sling from injuries suffered in the struggle. "He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end. So were we."

They punched the suspect, choked him and hit him with his own weapons. They finally restrained him before the train pulled up in Arras in northern France.

The confrontation left Stone, a U.S. Air Force member who tackled the attacker first, with wounds in the head, hand and neck. He was hospitalized and released.

"It is clear that their heroic actions may have prevented a far worse tragedy," President Barack Obama said.

Inspired to act

Norman said he was honored to receive the medal and ecstatic to be alive -- together with all the passengers on the train.

"I am happy that no one got hurt," he said. "Spence and Alek are the two guys who we should really thank the most because they were the first ones who actually got up and did it."

When they took action, Norman jumped in as well.

"That gave me the impetus to get up and do it," he said. "They galvanized me to go."

Witness: I was not ready to die

New York social worker Christina Coons, who was aboard the train, said she didn't think she would make it.

"The thoughts that were running through my mind were, ' I'm I going to die ... I'm not ready to die,' " she told CNN's "New Day" amid tears. "I have so much more to do with my life. I'm only 28 years old."

She said she owed her life to the passengers who tackled the gunman.

"I'm incredibly grateful to those men. ... They are fantastic human beings," she said. "Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart."

Report: Suspect says he intended to rob train

The alleged gunman, identified as Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, said he only intended to conduct a robbery, not a terror act, his attorney Sophie David told CNN affiliate BFMTV.

David said her client told her he found the firearms in a public garden next to a train station in Brussels, Belgium.

But authorities said with the kind of firepower he had, it appears he was planning a massacre.

He had an AK-47 assault weapon with nine magazines of ammunition, a Luger pistol with extra ammo and a box cutter, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

"The guy had a lot of ammo," said Skarlatos, a National Guardsman based in Oregon. "His intentions were pretty clear."

Spain, France aware of suspect

Spanish officials said the suspect's family moved to Spain from Morocco in 2007.

He was linked to investigations into radical Islamist networks, a senior European counterterrorism official said. His DNA was on file with Spanish authorities, French media reported.

There are indications he traveled to Turkey between May and July, probably to try to join up with ISIS in Syria, a senior European counterterrorism official told CNN terror analyst Paul Cruickshank.

ISIS operatives are using Turkey as a base to redirect European extremists trying to travel to Syria to launch attacks back home, according to Cruickshank.

Link to ISIS fighters?

Investigators have yet to make a final determination on El Khazzani's travel. He was likely linked to ISIS fighters in Turkey, according to the counterterrorism official

It's unclear whether he made it to Syria or what he did to attract the attention of Spanish authorities. Spanish police alerted France he was preparing to travel to the latter country last year, Cazeneuve said

Beyond that, there appears to be a disagreement between French and Spanish sources about who knew what and when.

The suspect is in custody undergoing interrogation.

CNN's Jason Moon, Jessica Moskowitz and Tim Lister contributed to this report.

New York Daily Mail

'He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end ... So were we': American heroes in France recall fight with train gunman

BY Stephen Rex Brown

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, August 23, 2015, 1:17 PM

From right, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler and Spencer Stone conduct a press conference, along with with  U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley (l.), about the men's heroics on the European train.

As a heroic American struggled to subdue a gunman with terrorist ties aboard a train in northern France, one thought raced through his mind: survival.

Off-duty U.S. Air Force member Spencer Stone recalled Sunday the harrowing moments when he and his two best friends pummeled the would-be killer, fighting for their lives.

Stone said he had just woken up from a deep sleep when he saw the shooter, identified as Ayoub El-Khazzani, brandishing an AK-47. Stone's friend, National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, said they had to act.

"Alek just hit me on the shoulder and said, 'Let's go,'" Stone recalled in a Paris press conference.

"I put him in a chokehold. It seemed like he kept pulling more weapons left and right," Stone added.
The shooter, who never spoke, pulled out a box cutter and stabbed Stone in the hand and neck.

During the brief confrontation, a French-American passenger was wounded by a bullet.

That's when Skarlatos began bashing the shooter with the butt of his own rifle. The third member of Skarlatos' group, college student Anthony Sadler, punched the Moroccan national in the head as Stone choked him unconscious.

Stone had only had one thing on his mind: "Survival. For myself and for my friends and for everyone else on the train."

British businessman Chris Norman joined the scrum.

"He seemed like he was ready to fight to the end," Stone said of the gunman, who the men guessed was 160 pounds and 5 feet, 10 inches tall.

"So were we."

It could have been much worse.

Skarlatos said El-Khazzani didn't know how to use his weapon.

"He clearly had no firearms training whatsoever," Skarlatos said of the 26-year-old reportedly known to Spanish anti-terrorism officials.

"If he'd had more training … we probably wouldn't be here today."

After El-Khazzani was subdued, the men began helping wounded passengers. Stone stuck his finger in a wounded passenger's neck, pinching an artery.

"In the beginning it was mostly gut instinct, survival," Skarlatos said. "Our training kicked in after the struggle."

Sadler said the experience taught him that one must act when confronted with extreme crisis.

"Do something. Hiding or sitting back is not going to accomplish anything," Sadler said.

The intense confrontation still hadn't sunk in for the three Americans.

"It feels very unreal. Feels like a dream," Stone said.

U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley echoed President Obama's praise of the men.

"We often use the word 'hero' and in this case I know that word has never been more appropriate," Hartley said. "They are truly heroes. When most of us would run away, Spencer, Alek and Anthony ran into the line of fire, saying, 'Let's go.' Those words changed the fate of many."

.  

Wall Street Greed to Propel Progressive Dream Team into Presidential Race - Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren

.

As Wall Street greed continues to manipulate the stock markets for the sole purpose of generating even more wealth for the wealthy, the result should be a dire consequence to the wealthy, and brokers who feed the insatiable appetite of the wealthy.

The obvious result to those not blinded by greed is that the door is now wide open for a Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren ticket that could capture the populist disgust with Wall Street and sweep them to victory next year.

Look at the facts.  Obama came into office on the heels of a take over of the world economy by Wall Street and the Central Bankers.  Since Obama was already in the pocket of big money, he did nothing to protect us from future manipulation by the wealthy and they thrived during his entire two terms in office.

Instead of throwing them in jail, he rewarded them with bailouts saving the rich billions of dollars while costing the public trillions of dollars.  An incompetent media and even more incompetent economic analysts ignored the threat and fed the beast enabling our current economic manipulation on the eve of Obama's departure.

In time, the truth will come out, probably when Obama gets $500,000 speaking fees like Hillary and Bill Clinton, thus showing again how big money trumps big government when it comes to the bottom line.

Well Hillary is one of them, the fat cats, and she has done nothing to prove she is not.  Even her efforts to appear to take the advice of Elizabeth Warren, were nothing but a political sideshow to con the voters, but people sense her motives.  Why else do the majority of voters not trust her?

As for Elizabeth Warren, she is the number one enemy of big business, the wealthy, and the fat cats because she was an Obama Administration insider, saw the carnage they could cause, and refused to be a party to the rape of the American taxpayer by resigning.

The progressive left has been desperately trying to make her into their poster girl but to do so will seriously impair her ability to win.  This is a moment of common sense for the progressive movement.

Forty-three percent of Americans refuse a conservative or progressive label.  Just thirty percent of voters lean Democratic and twenty-six percent lean Republican.  As I mentioned in previous articles, over fifty percent of the eligible voters refuse to be a part of the system so deep is their disgust with the electoral process.

Still, neither the Democrat nor Republican base has the votes to elect a ticket on their own.  If Elizabeth Warren allows the progressive elements of her party to hijack her candidacy by declaring her a left wing fanatic rather than a concerned American, she probably will not win.  There is absolutely no reason for her to allow such a tragedy.

Warren and her battle against the rich is like Joan of Arc taking on the English army.  In the end, she won her battle but lost her life in the process.  Warren could have both because the Independents and substantial members of both parties are fed up with the rich, yet are suspicious of the progressive agenda because Obama failed to show how it works.  In fact, he left a bad taste  for socialism in the mouths of the public and there is no place for socialism in America.

Joe Biden offers the perfect vehicle for Warren, to get into a position to rein in the dastardly rich and powerful.  Good old Joe, while a loyal Vice President to Obama, managed to distant himself from the liberal-progressive heap of Obama staff, those who went too far in trying to change America into a socialist paradise.

Joe Biden opposed the president on policies, he disagreed with the way Obama ignored congress and the Republicans, and he was never in the back pocket of big business like Obama or Hillary.

He is electable as president, and by having Elizabeth Warren as Vice President, he could help her take on the wealthy in a non-partisan way to benefit all Americans.

If Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren ran as a ticket committed to serving all Americans, not just the progressives, or Democrats, then America could benefit, polarization would end, and big business kicked out of controlling the government, the money supply, and the world.

As a result, Biden would get his reward for all those years of loyal service, he would fulfill the last request of his son to run for president, and Joan of Arc would be in a position to not just win the battle against the enemy, but win the war.

Besides, when was the last time we saw a genuine laugh of joy from our president, saw him enjoying the people he served, or share a beer with a Republican?  Good old Joe always had time for all the people.  

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, Americans for all Americans, it does have a nice ring.

. 

Banks and Brokers bank big bucks as Little People get Played - Again!

.

Once again it was the individual investor excluded from the buy and sell and buy action that sent shock waves through the financial markets today, because once again the computers took over the stock markets with programmed selling forcing the market into an unexpected correction and creating a mountain of opportunities for the computers to profit in any recovery.

By now, most informed people know the American stock markets serve no public interest, fail to do what they were intended to do, and act to feed their wealthy owners even more wealth.  It is a vicious cycle begun in earnest with the last major stock market crash in 2009, and it operates at a level of legal, but immoral corruption that the Obama administration has never fixed.

It was back in 2008 I warned that Goldman Sachs owned candidate Obama much like they owned President Clinton when he needed millions of dollars to pay his legal fees during his impeachment.

Once he got elected Goldman people were placed throughout Obama's administration and controlled all fiscal policy of the government.  As it became clear billions of dollars were going to be lost only the two major banks who supported Obama in 2008 received virtually all the money they had at risk, an amount totaling billions of dollars, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan.

Here we are, seven years since the economic crash that cost consumers trillions of dollars in wealth and not a single banker behind the economic manipulation was prosecuted, or wound up in prison.. This is the same pattern they perfected with the Clintons by providing millions for Bill's legal defense fund to save him from impeachment, then arranging for hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees, and helping his rather mysterious Clinton Foundation.

Hillary is the most recent recipient of the Goldman purse strings as Bill and Hillary have now received over $23 million in speaking fees.

Well Goldman and Morgan will no doubt benefit from the stock market crash, what the pros call a correction, since some of those massive computers are theirs.  In the meantime, the average person in America will lose 10% more of their wealth while the bank boys make 10% more on their manipulations.

Once upon a time such practices landed executives in jail but no more under the Obama administration.  Perhaps one day, people will realize that it really does not matter whether a politician is a conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, they are all owned by the rich and only the rich and their political stooges are getting richer.

After the collapse this week the market is down 10% and the professional economists blame it on China, North Korea, excess oil inventories, the wavering of the Fed on cutting interest rates, and the instability in Europe because of Greece.  None is true.

The market will rise when the rich can make money and will fall when they stop making money.  They sell when the market peaks and buy after the collapse, all with the help of their monster computers.

If they still do not make money, they bring new companies into the market through public offerings, known as IPOs.  Of course they really do not want them to succeed so they buy up all the stock before the first public offering, then sell it to the stupid public the first day it is available to buy when the price is being driven up.  Once the stock rises, they lose interest and so far this year 38 IPOs have gone bankrupt, which cost the little people untold millions or billions of dollars.

I guess there is a reason our founding fathers did not trust big banks, international banks, or even capitalism.  Maybe our current leaders should pay attention to history, not just their campaign fund raising efforts.

.