april clearinghouse

china to force rain ahead of olympics

could global warming be halted by controlling the weather?

the mystery of the 9/11 car bombs

rosie pledges allegiance to seeking 'truth' about 9/11

security contractor faces growing protest over 824-acre base

street closed to look for 9/11 remains

drill angers conservatives

prof who criticized bush added to 'no-fly' list

the bill o' rights giveth, the bill o'reilly taketh away

united nations wants nyc cops for peacekeeping

climate change concert star madonna accused of hypocrisy

'human trafficking' of foreign workers in mississippi

hillary picks la raza leader as campaign co-chair

small corporate media lie concerning virginia tech massacre

the wizard of the grassy knoll

a new twist on snooping at wal-mart

cho seung-hui and the not so secret school

coroner in diana inquiry steps down

they don’t call it 'american exceptionalism' for nothing

browns get five years (as 'another waco' looms)

raw video of jessica lynch rescue released

archivists work to save 9/11 history

4 students arrested for heckling fbi director

scientologists invade va tech campus

'devastating' moyers probe of press and iraq

aipac is bad for israel

'secret' air base for iraq war started prior 9/11

russia toughens penalties for 'extremism' (ie: dissent)

conspiracies: iraq

from google video/sky tv: Simon Reeve investigates the real reasons for the war in Iraq. Starting with oil and the contracts set up between Saddam and non-American/British companies. The latter part of the film looks at the petro-dollar cycle and how OPEC members can threaten US power by using the euro to trade oil - could Iran be next?

cops plead guilty to botched drug raid death

from blacklisted news/ap: Two police officers pleaded guilty Thursday to manslaughter in the shooting death of a 92-year-old woman during a botched drug raid last fall. A third officer still faces charges.

Officer J.R. Smith told a state judge Thursday that he regretted what had happened.

"I'm sorry," the 35-year-old said, his voice barely audible. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, violation of oath, criminal solicitation, making false statements and perjury, which was based on claims in a warrant.

Former Officer Gregg Junnier, 40, who retired from the Atlanta police in January, pleaded guilty to manslaughter, violation of oath, criminal solicitation and making false statements. Both men are expected to face more than 10 years in prison.

In a hearing later in federal court, both pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to violate a person's civil rights, resulting in death. Their state and federal sentences would run concurrently.

The charges followed a Nov. 21 "no-knock" drug raid on the home of Kathryn Johnston, 92. An informant had described buying drugs from a dealer there, police said. When the officers burst in without warning, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back, killing her.

Fulton County prosecutor Peter Johnson said that the officers involved in Johnston's death fired 39 shots, striking her five or six times, including a fatal blow to the chest.

He said Johnston fired only once through her door and didn't hit any of the officers. That means the officers who were wounded likely were hit by their own colleagues, he said.

Junnier and Smith, who is on administrative leave, had been charged in an indictment unsealed earlier Thursday with felony murder, violation of oath by a public officer, criminal solicitation, burglary, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and making false statements...

The deadly drug raid had been set up after narcotics officers said an informant had claimed there was cocaine in the home.

When the plainclothes officers burst in without notice, police said, Johnston fired at them, and they fired back.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Yonette Sam-Buchanan said Thursday that although the officers found no drugs in Johnston's home, Smith planted three bags of marijuana in the home as part of a cover story.

The case raised serious questions about no-knock warrants and whether the officers followed proper procedures...

After the shooting, a man claiming to be the informant told a television station that he had never purchased drugs there, leading Pennington to admit he was uncertain whether the suspected drug dealer actually existed...

hopefully hypocrites will be outed by 'dc madam'

from raw story: Brian Ross of ABC News reported Monday morning on the mounting scandal from the records of the so-called 'DC madam.' Ross said many prominent DC figures can be found on the list of clients for the escort service, which has emerged in the course of the trial of its operator, Deborah Jeane Palfrey.

"It's a long list, we've been going through the phone records for the last four years provided for us by Jean Palfrey," Ross reported on Monday morning. "There are some very prominent people, lobbyists, lawyers, members of the military, other people in the Bush administration."

The following video is from ABC's Good Morning America:



but remember, sometimes the worst scandals are buried...

outside the box #99

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on april 26, 2007.

from alex ansary: Liberty Walk 2008 is right around the corner. Alex talks with Cory and Heather Lunsford about their project to heighten dialog between people that stand on different sides of the political fence. Later Alex reports on the latest news.

close-up footage of wtc7 shows limited fires

from blacklisted news/prison planet: Released on You Tube yesterday, this is the first time we have seen close-up footage of WTC 7 before its collapse. Compare the fires to those that engulfed the Windsor Building in Madrid, a structure that burned for 28 hours without collapsing.

finally, a true voice of dissent: sen. mike gravel

from op-ed news: The Gravel truck is in full gear and Democrats better take note. Mike Gravel told the truth with righteous anger and touched a nation more than ready for the truth from its leaders - and would be leaders.

The reaction to Gravel’s performance has overwhelmed his campaign. His aides said they got more requests for interviews yesterday than in the first 12 months of the campaign.

Gravel’s website Mike Gravel for President 2008 could not handle the flood of hits after the debate, they said. Bloggers complained that they were ready to donate money but were unable to get into the website.

"He started out with less money than the cost of a John Edwards haircut," said Elliott Jacobson, Gravel’s national finance director. Gravel told reporters after the debate: "We stayed in a $55 motel. I’ll hitchhike to the next debate if I have to."

In case you missed the so-called debate - which, in reality, was Mike Gravel's seven minutes of fame - here are those seven minutes of Mike Gravel telling his fellow candidates and the country the truth about George Bush, The Iraq War and how we can stop it - if we have the backbone.



now, if ron paul can do the same thing in the upcoming republican debate, we just might have an honest-to-god election campaign on our hands!

tenet: cheney had eye on iraq long before 9/11

from blacklisted news/houston chronicle: White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11 attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George Tenet.

Although Tenet does not question the threat Saddam Hussein posed or the sincerity of administration beliefs, he recounts numerous efforts by aides to Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to insert "crap" into public justifications for the war. Tenet also describes an ongoing fear within the intelligence community of the administration's willingness to "mischaracterize complex intelligence information."

"There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraq threat," Tenet writes in At the Center of the Storm, to be published Monday. The debate "was not about imminence but about acting before Saddam did."

audio: greg palast in portland

from portland indymedia:
Greg Palast, investigative reporter visited Portland Wednesday evening, April 24, 2007, promoting the addition of two chapters to his most recent book, "Armed Madhouse." The event was co-sponsored by KBOO, and was a benefit for the Portland Alliance.

Palast was in town last year on his Armed Madhouse Tour, and this visit presented some of the same information. Though he did review much of the earlier material, the additional two chapters added much that was new, especially his investigation of the Federal Debacle in New Orleans leading up to and after Hurricane Katrina.

The event was extremely well attended, filling up the majority of the seats at the First Unitarian Church, probably about 300-350 people.

Greg began his one hour presentation with some of material from his last visit to Portland, his Armed Madhouse Tour. Since some of this is already familiar to those who have read his book, attended his lectures or seen the video on Public Access television or on the internet, I've broken the audio files up into three sections...

The first section goes over much of his earlier material and is about 20 minutes in length. He reiterates much of the statistics from his most recent book, "Armed Madhouse," concerning the 2000 and 2004 elections., where millions of votes were not counted. According to Palast, over three million votes were thrown out and in various parts of the country the chances of your vote not being counted increased according to the color of your skin.
Greg Palast, Part One, MP3

The second section, about 16 minutes, is about David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney from New Mexico who was one of many U.S. Attorneys fired by the Justice Department for apparently political reasons.
Greg Palast, Part Two, MP3

The third segment is about 24 minutes in length and addresses the Bush administration debacle in New Orleans. Palast demonstrates, with documentation, how the problems which plagued New Orleans after Katrina made landfall were due to mismanagement and cronyism going back many years.
Greg Palast, Part Three, MP3

a big thanks to jim lockhart & philosopher seed

9/11 first responders on 'the view'

thanks to loud studios & democratic underground for posting up this important segment from 'the view'... go rosie!

conspiracy theory rock

here is the classic 'tv funhouse' that ran only once on saturday night live on march 14, 1998 and was 'pulled for defaming GE [NBC's parent company] and alluding to Don Ohlmeyer as the reason why Norm MacDonald was fired'... now i don't think this has any 'conspiracy' to it (like alot things that get the dismissive CT tag), because everything in here is factual (except for the jfk joke)... so, i know this is old but i never posted it & if you haven't seen it then it's new to you!

media monarchy episode024

here is the latest podcast from media monarchy...
episode024 - april 27, 2007 download/stream/subscribe

media monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authority every friday at 10am pacific/1pm eastern and can also be heard on the revere radio network every monday at 4pm pacific/7pm eastern... plus, you can get always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net

students & activists protest cheney's visit to byu

from raw story: A group of 100-150 students and faculty gathered at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, to protest the commencement speech of Vice President Dick Cheney at the Mormon institution.

The protesters had to stand quietly because university rules dictated that no chants or loud speeches were permitted.

Still, the protesters had messages to get across.

"Dick Cheney could not be admitted as a BYU student because of the violations of our honor code," said one professor to KSL-TV.

While chants were heard, at the end of their protest, the group sang the "Star-Spangled Banner."

The following video clips are from CNN's American Morning, KSL-TV, and ABC Channel 4 News.

doj stalls anthrax investigation

from daily kos: Democratic Representative Rush Holt (NJ-12) has been stonewalled in his efforts to get answers from the DOJ and the FBI about the status of investigations into the 2001 anthrax attacks on the federal government. The anthrax letters originated from his district.

On December 11, 2006, Holt and a bipartisan group of Congressmen requested that Attorney General Gonzales "direct the FBI to provide Congress with a comprehensive briefing on the status of the five year-old anthrax investigation." The DOJ refused.

On March 2, 2007, he sent this request to Henry Waxman and John Conyers:

"The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation have openly asserted their belief that Congress should be kept in the dark on this vital national security issue. Mr. Chairman, I ask for your help in determining why we have been unable to bring the perpetrators of this heinous act to justice. It is time to provide effective oversight of the Department of Justice and the FBI."

Why would the DOJ and FBI stonewall this Congressman's request for information on their investigations into a crime committed in his own district? ...

The anthrax letter sent to Democrat Tom Daschle was opened by an aide on October 15, 2001. Nine days later the House passed the Patriot Act. Apparently, some of them didn't read it -- or at least, didn't read it during the reauthorization in 2006, as we know from the revelation about the US Attorney clause that was slipped in by the DOJ.

Did the hysteria and fear caused by the anthrax attacks play a factor in the passage of the Patriot Act?

* Anthrax letters sent to Congress on October 9
* Tom Daschle letter opened on October 15
* 31 Capitol workers test positive for the presence of anthrax on October 17
* Patriot Act passed the House on October 24 (Yeas: 357; Nays: 66)
* Patriot Act passed the Senate on October 25 (Yeas: 98; Nays: 1)
* Patriot Act signed into law by President Bush on October 26

The 31 Capitol workers include five Capitol police officers, three of Democratic Senator Russ Feingold's staffers and 23 of Democratic Senator Tom Daschle's staffers. Including the victims of the earlier letters sent to media outlets, more than 22 people ultimately developed anthrax infections. Five people died from inhalation anthrax.

Rep. Holt says:

"The FBI’s refusal to brief Members of Congress raises serious concerns about the status of this investigation and whether it is a true priority of the FBI, which appears to be no closer to solving this act of bioterrorism than they were five years ago."

Holt wants answers about an act of bioterrorism conducted in his district. The FBI and DOJ refuse to answer. Since the DOJ benefited from the passage of the Patriot Act, isn't this just a little bit suspicious?

Don't we need some oversight into this?

orwell's house surrounded by cctv cameras

from bunch of nerds/this is london: A depressing reminder of Orwell’s classic novel, '1984', a recent study into CCTV camera usage for surveillance in Britain has came out with some startling results. Britain has over 4.2 million CCTV cameras on it’s streets, one for every 14 people in the country, and accounting for over 20% of CCTV cameras globally. It’s theorized that a normal Britain is caught on a CCTV camera hundreds of times a day in and around London. The most ironic piece of news associated with the report is the London neighborhood where Orwell lived until his death in 1950. Within 200 yards of Orwell’s former residence is over 32 CCTV cameras, including the gardens Orwell viewed from his windows, which are covered by 24-hour surveillance from 2 CCTV cameras.

The flat’s rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.

In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell’s favourite pub, the Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every person entering or leaving the pub.

Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras, together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.

japan supplied sex slaves for gi's in wwii

from ap: Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel: after its surrender - with tacit approval by US occupation authorities - Japan set up a similar "comfort women" system for American GIs, it was revealed today.

An Associated Press review of historical documents and records - some never before translated into English - shows that US authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution.

The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan's atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war.

Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to American troops until the northern spring of 1946, when General Douglas MacArthur shut it down.

The documents show that the brothels were rushed into operation as US forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945...

UPDATE: thanks to an anonymous comment, here's a video from 'foreign exchange' with fareed zakaria

booga booga back for more

bin laden overseeing iraq & afghanistan ops
from reuters: Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is orchestrating militants' operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a senior commander of Afghan Islamist group Taliban said in remarks broadcast on Wednesday.

Bin Laden has not made any video statements for many months raising speculation that he might have died.

"He is drawing plans in Iraq and Afghanistan ... Praise God he is alive," Mullah Dadullah told Al Jazeera television.

bin laden planned cheney attack
from ap: A top Taliban commander said al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was behind the February attack outside the U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, during the visit there by Vice President Dick Cheney, according to an interview aired Wednesday on Al-Jazeera...

"You may remember the martyr operation inside the Bagram base, which targeted a senior U.S. official. ... That operation was the result of his wise planning. He (bin Laden) planned that operation and guided us through it. The operation was a success," Dadullah told Al-Jazeera.

he would know

giuliani warns of 'new 9/11' if dems win
from politico: Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

democrats fire back at giuliani on 9/11 warning
from boston globe: Democratic White House contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Republican Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday for suggesting a Democratic president would put the United States at risk of another September 11-type terrorist attack...

"Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics," Obama, an Illinois senator, said in a statement.

"The threat we face is real, and deserves better than to be the punch line of another political attack," he said.

Clinton, a New York senator, said the last six years of the Bush administration have showed "political rhetoric won't do anything to quell those threats. And that America is ready for a change."

"We have to protect our country from terrorism -- it shouldn't be a Democratic fight or a Republican fight," she said in a statement.

In 2004 Bush was re-elected after questioning Democratic Sen. John Kerry's ability to fight terrorists, and Vice President Dick Cheney said a Kerry vote could lead to another terrorist attack.

uk used humans in secret radioactive tests

from blacklisted news/sunday herald: Dozens of people drank, inhaled or were injected with radioactivity as part of a series of secret experiments carried out by the nuclear industry in the 1960s, according to official documents passed to the Sunday Herald.

Tests exposing humans to radioactive caesium, iodine, strontium and uranium were conducted despite doubts about their legal and ethical implications. One proposal even envisaged injecting plutonium into elderly people to help assess contamination risks.

The new evidence could form part of the government inquiry launched last week into the industry's shady past. The trade and industry secretary, Alistair Darling, appointed Michael Redfern QC to investigate concerns that body tissue from dead nuclear workers had been removed for tests without the consent of relatives.

Tissue from organs and bones were taken from 65 deceased workers at Sellafield in Cumbria and other nuclear plants between 1962 and 1991. They were sampled for radioactive contamination to help improve understanding of the health risks.

Now documents from the National Archives in London have shed new light on other scandals involving the nuclear industry. A memo from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) in August 1965 summarised a series of "experiments involving exposure of volunteers to radiation".

fascist america in 10 easy steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And... George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

from guardian: If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration...

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2. Create a gulag

3. Develop a thug caste

4. Set up an internal surveillance system

5. Harass citizens' groups

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release

7. Target key individuals

8. Control the press

9. Dissent equals treason

10. Suspend the rule of law

We need to look at history and face the "what ifs". For if we keep going down this road, the "end of America" could come for each of us in a different way, at a different moment; each of us might have a different moment when we feel forced to look back and think: that is how it was before - and this is the way it is now.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... is the definition of tyranny," wrote James Madison. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.

'deliberate and calculated lies'

from raw story: In a major hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the brother of deceased Army Specialist Pat Tillman, who appears to have been a victim of friendly fire, said that reports of his brother's 'heroic death' were "deliberate and calculated lies."

"These were intentional falsehoods that meet the legal definition for fraud," said Kevin Tillman, who served alongside his brother in the Army Rangers in Afghanistan.

Tillman testified alongside his mother, Mary, at a hearing on "Misleading Information from the Battlefield." Pat Tillman had been a safety for the Arizona Cardinals who turned down a contract extension in 2002 to enlist in the US Army Rangers.

Also at the hearing was Jessica Lynch, the Army Private whose tales of heroism were exaggerated in the aftermath of her capture and subsequent recuse from an Iraqi hospital in March and April 2003.

Lynch criticized the media for making too much of her heroism.

"My parent’s home in Wirt County [West Virginia] was under siege of the media all repeating the story of the little girl Rambo from the hills who went down fighting. It was not true," she said. "The truth of war is not always easy to hear but it's always more heroic than the hype."

Lynch, who still suffers from many injuries inflicted during her ordeal in Iraq, showed a quiet and reserved manner distinct from the Tillmans, who made it clear that they were pursuing truth and justice.

Kevin Tillman set the scene, arguing that the image of America's military campaign in Iraq was bruised after the US tactical defeat in Falluja, the Abu Ghraib scandal, and the call-up of 20,000 additional American troops to fight in Iraq.

"The media accounts, based on information provided by the Army and White House, were wreathed in a patriotic glow," he said of reporting on the circumstances of his brother's death.

"This was a terrible tragedy that might have further undermined support for the war in Iraq, and was instead transformed into a message," to build support for the war he argued.

When quizzed by one Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa of California, if there was any evidence of a conspiracy to falsify details of the Army Specialist's death, Tillman answered without any doubt.

"The evidence is leading to a point, which is why we came to your committee sir," Kevin Tillman responded.

Referring to the 'disconnect' between the stories told of Tillman's death and the truth about its circumstances, his brother said more investigation was needed.

"Based on how a lot of these wars are perception based, it's imperative that the committee take a look," Tillman argued. "[Politicians were] the ones who ultimately benefited from that story."

When Specialist Tillman's mother, Mary, was asked what gaps there were in the public record, she pointed to the large ring binder sitting on the table in front of her.

"See this binder?" she said to Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA).








For starters, she suggested that the Army's awarding of a Silver Star to her son needed to be investigated, as it 'created a paper trail.'

She also challenged the Army Inspector General's report that a group of generals were the sole cause of the fabrications of the circumstances of Pat Tillman's death.

"That's a smokescreen, these officers are scapegoats," Mary Tillman said angrily, while answering a question asked by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT).

But while the Tillman family saw a political decision being made to falsify accounts of the Army Specialist's death, Lynch said to Issa that she didn't see any larger conspiracy beyond the media.

She blamed the media, "for letting the story keep going, they should have found out the facts before they spread the word like wildfire."

But in his opening statement, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the committee's chairman, doubted that the media itself could be to blame for the story on Lynch's capture and rescue.

"Jessica Lynch was captured on March 23. The Washington Post published a completely factual article on her rescue on April 2. But by April 3, ten days after her capture, U.S. officials had become the source for a story that riveted the nation, but twisted the truth beyond recognition," Waxman argued. "It’s four years later and we still don’t know who’s responsible and why they did it. All we really know is that they did a great disservice to Jessica Lynch." ...

new hearings on old military lies part one

from raw story: "Does the U.S. military exaggerate stories, or alter or enhance them?" ABC's Diane Sawyer asks rhetorically in this video clip, as Congress prepares to hold hearings today on misleading information from the battlefield.

ABC senior correspondent Jake Tapper says the Pentagon "spun heroic myths," such as the ordeal of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, stories that were "too good to be true... and they were."

Sawyer speaks with Lynch, who says it bothers her how she was "used" by the military for public relations purposes. "It was important for me to come out with the truth," says Lynch. "I didn't want to be portrayed as this Rambo fighting machine when I knew that it wasn't the truth..."

chemical bomb test in pennsylvania

from herald-mail: By the time medical personnel reached the "victims" at a mock terrorism exercise Sunday, most of them had abandoned coughing and unconsciousness to go in search of a bathroom.

Made aware that they were needed, the female victims jogged back to the J.C. Penney wing of the Chambersburg Mall and collapsed to the floor.

There, two by two, they were loaded onto stretchers and taken outside to the showers in a mobile decontamination unit.

The volunteer victims' roles were woven into an exercise that Susan Dutko, of Franklin County Emergency Services, said was designed to "make us all better on something we hopefully never have to do."

emblems of belief

from san francisco guardian:
The Wiccan pentacle has been added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on government-issued headstones of fallen soldiers, according to a settlement announced Monday.

A settlement between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Wiccans adds the five-pointed star to the list of "emblems of belief" allowed on VA grave markers.

Eleven families nationwide are waiting for grave markers with the pentacle, said Selena Fox, a Wiccan high priestess with Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The settlement calls for the pentacle, whose five points represent earth, air, fire, water and spirit, to be placed on grave markers within 14 days for those who have pending requests with the VA.

"I am glad this has ended in success in time to get markers for Memorial Day," Fox said.

john kerry on wtc 7

from prison planet: At a recent speaking engagement in Austin Texas, Senator John Kerry responded to a question about WTC Building 7 by concluding that according to his information, the building was brought down as a result of a controlled demolition, directly contradicting the official line that the structure fell as a result of fire and debris damage.

WTC Building 7 was a 47-story building in the WTC complex that collapsed at 5:20pm on September 11. The building had been structurally reinforced and was not hit by a plane yet collapsed in a uniform implosion within its own footprint in a matter of seconds after sustaining relatively light debris and fire damage following the collapse of the twin towers.

News networks like BBC and CNN were reporting that the building had collapsed before it fell, indicating that the media were being handed a script of events that had yet to even unfold.

Ground zero EMT's, firefighters and police were all told hours in advance to clear a collapse zone for Building 7 as it was going to be "brought down."

Questioned on WTC 7 by members of Austin 9/11 Truth Now at a Book People event in Austin Texas, Kerry responded, "I do know that that wall, I remember, was in danger and I think they made the decision based on the danger that it had in destroying other things, that they did it in a controlled fashion."

outside the box #98

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on april 19, 2007.

from alex ansary: Alex talks with Dr. Robert Duncan, an expert on mind control technology and artificial intelligence. Later, Alex discusses the recent shooting at Virginia Tech.

epa unaccountable for lies about 9/11 air

from newsday: An appeals court ruling could spell trouble for New Yorkers suing the Environmental Protection Agency and its former chief for saying that sooty lower Manhattan air was safe to breathe after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declared that then-EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other agency officials can't be held constitutionally liable for making rosy declarations about air quality in the days following the World Trade Center's destruction.

The opinion, written by the court's chief judge, Dennis Jacobs, said opening EPA workers up to lawsuits for giving out bad information during a crisis could have a catastrophic side effect. (ed: like accountability?)

"Officials might default to silence in the face of the public's urgent need for information," Jacobs wrote.

The ruling, filed Thursday, applied only to a suit brought by five government employees who did rescue and cleanup work at Ground Zero, but it contained language suggesting that similar legal claims could face trouble.

It specifically mentioned a class action lawsuit brought by Manhattan residents who claim Whitman jeopardized their health by declaring that "the air is safe to breathe" at a time when, according to the EPA inspector general, a quarter of dust samples were recording unhealthy asbestos levels.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts, refused to dismiss that case, calling Whitman's statements "conscience-shocking." That decision is now on appeal and has yet to be argued before the 2nd Circuit, but Jacobs indicated a reversal might be imminent, saying outright that the panel disagreed with Batts' reasoning.

Those developments brought a blunt assessment from attorney Stephen J. Riegel, who represented the national guardsman, deputy U.S. Marshal and three city emergency medical service workers who were the subject of Thursday's ruling.

related: visibility 9/11's 3-part series on 9/11 dust

flashbacks: epa whistleblower says US hid 9/11 dust danger & more allegations from epa whistleblower

media monarchy episode023

here is the latest podcast from media monarchy...
episode023 - april 20, 2007 download/stream/subscribe

media monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authority every friday at 10am pacific/1pm eastern and can also be heard on the revere radio network every monday at 4pm pacific/7pm eastern... plus, you can get always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net

bullet control

what really happened to media monarchy

last month i installed a statcounter on the site and i was averaging about 100 hits a day.

but when michael rivero of what really happened linked to my post about 'racists all over the media,' the site got over 2,500 hits in a day and a half! so a big thanks goes out to michael as well as all of the others who linked to the page, like crescent & cross, progressive patriots and more...

now what's REALLY interesting is looking at who's visiting the page... not only has media monarchy had visits from seattle to sydney, but the site also gets visits from folks like the chase manhattan bank, harper-collins, the army corps of engineers, department of veterans affairs, oklahoma office of state finance, navy.mil (nctc), army.mil (usaisc-cecom), marine corps community services, drug enforcement admin & the world bank (in raleigh, nc)...

so, welcome aboard everyone!

noble resolve '07: 4 days of simulated terror

from false flag news: From April 23-27, the elite echelon of the military are running Noble Resolve 07, a 4-day marathon of “simulated” terror attacks across the US and Europe. This includes a simulated detonation of a “loose” 10-kiloton nuclear weapon Virginia harbor, smuggled in by a “foreign nation.”

This week Dick Cheney has also been warning of the “very real” threat of a nuclear attack on an American city. Could the Noble Resolve drills be used as a screen for a false-flag attack to be blamed on Iran, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, or sheep-dipped Americans like Adam Gadahn?

The drills are being run by Joint Task Force Command (JTFCOM), Northern Command (NORTHCOM), J9 Joint Innovation and Experimentation Directorate, FEMA’s command bunker, the Department of Homeland Security, and Virginia police.

The US Marines are also running “Emerald Express 07” in Virginia on April 24 as part of their Urban Warrior 07 drill package.

It is important to note the “Noble Resolve” drills are dominated by NORTHCOM, the branch of “homeland defense” based in Colorado and responsible for shutting down the United States under martial law, as well as ushering in the merger of the US, Canada, and Mexico via the SPP.

Meanwhile the J9 Directorate, formulates various terror scenarios and uses advanced computer modeling to run drills and predict human reactions; Recent articles highlight how they are using virtual environments to create and manage realistic war scenarios with millions of “people.”

Some key quotes from the article:

“He said the scenario of the experiment's first phase starts with multinational partners and goes down to individual municipalities. It begins with a threat that originates in Europe and travels toward the United States.”

“Kersh said that as the scenario progresses, other agencies and other layers of government become involved.”

"The problem eventually arrives at the commonwealth of Virginia with that threat making it into port and then blowing up. This will cause us to work the consequence management part of the problem”

“The fusion center is in a state police headquarters and it's collocated with Virginia's emergency operations center.” (ed: Mount Weather)

“coordinated with DHS, possibly to coincide with one of that department's major exercises.”

We must remember that CIA agent Philip Giraldi warned the American Conservative magazine that STRATCOM would launch a nuclear attack on Iran in the wake of a new WMD-style attack on American soil.

And the Russian media and former Russian military members continue to warn that an American and Israeli strike on Iran is imminent.

While many drills are run every month, Noble Resolve 07, with it’s “realistic” scenarios, comes at a time of increased geopolitical tension. It is reminiscent of the drills in 2005, where a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon was “simulated” to explode in South Carolina. Some speculated that four-star Gen. Kevin Byrnes, of the Fort Meade TRADOC command, was fired due to his exposure of the drill.

We should not live in a constant state of panic and fear, or make any irresponsible predictions about Noble Resolve 07. But in the coming days, we can email this information to blogs, media outlets, friends and family. Congressmen, and others to help inoculate against any possibility that rogue “red teams” inside the drills may be activated.

'bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb iran'

from raw story: At a stop on Senator John McCain's "Straight Talk" tour, the 2008 presidential candidate decided to respond to a question with some bars of a song, but it is unlikely that Arizona's Republican senator will be reaching the final rounds of Fox's "American Idol."

Speaking at Murrells Inlet VFW Hall in South Carolina, McCain was asked when he thought the US Military might "send an air mail message to Tehran."

"McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular Beach Boys song," the Georgetown Times reports.

"'Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,' he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann," the paper notes.

McCain then added, "Iran is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. That alone should concern us but now they are trying for nuclear capabilities. I totally support the President when he says we will not allow Iran to destroy Israel." [editor's note: that's israel's job]

The paper notes that McCain stopped short of answering the actual question and did not say if he supports an invasion of Iran.

Later, McCain campaign spokesman Kevin McLaughlin told ABC News that the senator "was just trying to add a little humor to the event."

ABC's report adds, "On a more serious note, however, McCain has long been an advocate of dealing with rogue states aggressively. Back in 2000 when then-Gov. George W. Bush was wary of nation building and talking about a foreign policy based on humility and restraint, McCain was advocating a policy of 'rogue-state rollback,' which he described in a 1999 speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies as a '21st century interpretation of the Reagan doctrine.'"

'rescue me' star comes out on 9/11

from 9/11 blogger: Daniel Sunjata, co-star of the critically-acclaimed FX Network television series, Rescue Me, spoke out today for 9/11 Truth. In a lengthy statement to the PatriotsQuestion911.com website, Sunjata offered his thoughts about how a small group within our military and government could have been complicit in the terrible events of 9/11.

Sunjata is a versatile actor who received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor for his starring role in the Broadway play, Take Me Out. He appeared in Woody Allen's 2004 film, Melinda and Melinda and in the 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada with Meryl Streep. He plays the starring role of Reggie Jackson in the upcoming ESPN mini-series, The Bronx is Burning.

Here's Sunjata's statement:

"I would like to respond to the question, 'How could a small group within our military and government have been complicit in the terrible events of 9/11 without the entire government being aware of it?'

My response is that the whole government would not have to be in on the alleged conspiracy for the following reason; our government is a hierarchy in which compartmentalization of knowledge is a given. As suggested by the symbol of the pyramid, the tier below does not necessarily know everything that the tier above knows, and the tiers above that are privy to even more sensitive and 'classified' intelligence and so on. Even within common tiers you see this compartmentalization where 'the left hand knows not what the right hand is doing.'

Sounds dark and conspiratorial but that's the fact. In fact it is the official excuse given by the establishment for how such a thing as 9/11 could have happened on their watch...

For instance, the NORAD and FAA air-traffic controllers could well have been ignorant of the alleged plot, yet innocently participated in its being carried out. The commonly accepted stance of those urging for a truly independent reinvestigation of 9/11, is that it is a rogue faction within our government and military who hatched and perpetrated this unholy atrocity through the agency of our ISI funded assets like Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda (ISI is the Pakistani version of our CIA, created and funded by our CIA).

One strong piece of evidence in this regard (albeit circumstantial, though one would expect that FEMA, NIST and The 9/11 Commission would have probed this with duly diligent scrutiny) is the fact that India's press and subsequently the FBI both reported that Mohammed Atta had received a $100,000.00 money transfer from the head of Pakistani ISI, Chief Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmed, three days before the attack. Also General Ahmed was in the U.S. from approximately Sept 9th to Sept. 13th (DURING THE ATTACK) meeting with (among others) George J. Tenet, the then CIA Director, and Porter Goss, the future Director of the CIA.

Isn't it reasonable to subpoena General Ahmed and those he secretly met with during the 9/11 attacks and question them under oath regarding the substance of their discussions and the nature of their relationships? Especially given the public record of ISI's dealings with and funding of known terrorist organizations, one of which happens to be Al Qaeda, and the revelation of the general's $100,000 'donation' just before the murder of 2972 souls?

It is the avoidance of such obvious questions as these, of which there are literally hundreds (most of them posed by The Family Steering Committee during the 9/11 Commission's so called investigation) which begs greater scrutiny of the official story. When a 7 year old girl is found raped and dead in the cellar of her family home, as painful and politically incorrect as it may be to question and treat as suspects the parents who claim to have been sleeping soundly during the rape and strangulation of their loved one... such protocols are standard procedure in homicidal investigations.

Shouldn't the same protocols be followed in the case of domestic mass slaughter, where a government who claims to have been asleep at the wheel during the said atrocity is partially staffed and run by people who have published a document outlining a 30 year plan for global economic and military hegemony and 'full spectrum dominance' characterized by a permanent military presence in the middle east and cheap access to that regions oil reserves? Especially when the same document states that 'this process of transformation is likely to be a long and arduous one, absent some cataclysmic and catalyzing event like A NEW PEARL HARBOR?'

Speaks to possible motive, no? I say yes. What say you?

Here is a link to the documentary, 9/11: Press For Truth, the first-person account of The Jersey Girls [Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken]; four widows who lobbied 441 days to get the Bush administration to open an investigation into the events on (and leading up to) 9/11. They helped spearhead The Family Steering Committee, did years of research in the process, and felt that 70% of the burning questions they had posed on behalf of the victim's families went completely unanswered, since to address them would have lead the Commission into 'painful and politically incorrect' territory. Do their words carry any weight, or are they just crazy conspiracy theorists as well? You decide..."

here are few of daniel sunjata's interviews...
lone lantern radio on march 20, 2007
lone lantern radio on march 27, 2007 part1 & part2
alex jones show on april 13, 2007

and finally, here is daniel on resistance radio...

or you can download the mp3