'exercise mailed fist': largest ever marine corps drill on US east coast

multiple foreign armies involved in massive drill*
from cnn: It's mid-June, a perfect time to visit the beach to watch porpoises play in the surf or seagulls strut the sand -- or you could watch a formation of Marine Corps warplanes darting over the shore at hundreds of miles per hour. But don't worry -- the United States hasn't declared war on your family's beach house. It's just part of a major Marine Corps exercise called Exercise Mailed Fist (translation: armored fist).

The exercise is designed to test the capability of every type of Marine Corps aircraft, including MV-22 Ospreys and F/A 18 Hornets, as well as some Navy ships and Air Force planes. The drill will stretch from Quantico Marine Base in northern Virginia to the Navy's Pinecastle Bombing Range in Florida. With thousands of Marines and other service members involved, it's the biggest such drill ever on the U.S. East Coast.

homegrown threataganda surrounds okc anniversary

govt prepping you for 'domestic terror attacks'?
from paul joseph watson: Bill Clinton, the Southern Poverty Law Center and almost the entire corporate media are not letting a good opportunity go to waste today – by dancing on the graves of 168 victims & exploiting the 15th anniversary of the false flag Oklahoma City Bombing to demonize their political enemies, the Internet & anyone who dares to express dissent against the federal government.

The propaganda putsch coincides with FBI head Robert Mueller stating that right-wing extremist groups and anti-government militias now represent as big a terror threat as Al-Qaeda, as the whole apparatus of the war on terror is shifted to target Americans increasingly angry at the egregious corruption in government and the global economy as their standard of living plummets and their pension funds are under threat of seizure.

It also dovetails President Obama’s hyping last week of the threat posed by individuals acquiring nuclear weapons, a claim top nuclear experts like Henry Sokolski have derided as overstated and not based on any new intelligence.

Obama’s warning arrives shortly after FEMA was forced to scale back a simulated nuclear bomb attack by terrorists in Las Vegas that was set to involve 10,000 emergency responders, U.S. troops and officials in role playing exercises.

Former President Bill Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday that he is worried rising anger at the federal government could lead to another OKC bombing, implying that people who use the Internet to express dissent will be to blame for the violence.

related: twilight language: 419 + 420

fbi says 400,000 people on watch list; 1,600 names suggested a day

from washington post: Newly released FBI data offer evidence of the broad scope and complexity of the nation's terrorist watch list, documenting a daily flood of names nominated for inclusion to the controversial list.

During a 12-month period ended in March this year, for example, the U.S. intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a "reasonable suspicion," according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week.

FBI officials cautioned that each nomination "does not necessarily represent a new individual, but may instead involve an alias or name variant for a previously watchlisted person."

The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government's "no fly" list.

This information, and more about the FBI's wide-ranging effort against terrorists, came in answers from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to Senate Judiciary Committee members' questions. The answers were first made public last week in Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News.

scotus says ashcroft & mueller can't be sued for post-9/11 torture

from reuters: The Supreme Court rejected on Monday a lawsuit by a Pakistani man against a former U.S. attorney general and the FBI director claiming abuse while he was imprisoned in New York after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. high court overturned a ruling that Javaid Iqbal, who was held more than a year after the attacks, could sue former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The decision appeared to be narrow, limited to the facts of the case, although it could be cited as precedent in other lawsuits. The civil case involves different legal issues than the recent demands by human rights groups to hold former Bush administration officials accountable for what they describe as torture of terrorism suspects. Iqbal, a Muslim, said in the lawsuit that he had suffered verbal and physical abuse, including unnecessary strip searches and brutal beatings by guards. He said he had been singled out because of unlawful ethnic and religious discrimination. Writing for the Supreme Court's conservative majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said Iqbal's lawsuit failed to plead sufficient facts to state a claim for purposeful, unlawful discrimination. Kennedy also ruled there was insufficient evidence that Ashcroft and Mueller had deprived Iqbal of his clearly established constitutional rights.

but on a positive update: scotus upholds medical marijuana law
from raw story: The Supreme Court refused to hear a case Monday contesting California’s medical marijuana law, in a win for medicinal marijuana advocates. The case involved two California counties that contested a measure allowing medical marijuana, which was approved by voters in 1986. Lower courts have sided with advocates for medical marijuana. San Diego and San Bernadino counties have fought state laws which require counties to issue medical marijuana ID cards. They argued that the state law allowing marijuana was at odds with federal drug laws.

news on the march: dc madam, eugenics, anthrax, mind control & more

florida police confirm dc madam 'suicide'
from washington times: Police in Florida closed the book Friday on the suicide of the so-called "D.C. Madam," confirming that she hanged herself with a nylon rope rather than face prison time for running an elite prostitution ring. Tarpon Springs police hoped the report would help squelch online speculation that someone killed 52-year-old Deborah Jeane Palfrey to keep her from identifying more prominent clients of the Washington-based escort service. "It's unfortunate that a lot of people seem to be obsessed with the conspiracy theory notion here," said Preston Burton, the Washington lawyer who represented Palfrey in the trial. "I am aware of no information that would compel a conclusion other than she took her own life. It's a real tragedy that still affects her mother greatly."

time names 23&me retail dna test 'invention of the year'
from engadget: Time Magazine has released its annual Best Inventions issue, and topping the list is the 23andMe retail DNA test, a kit which which offers consumers 23 clinical reports on their genetic risk for everything from Psoriasis to Prostate Cancer. It may not be as well known as last year's iPhone (or YouTube the year before that), but the $399 package might signal a significant revolution in preventative medicine... or it might bring mankind a disturbing new form of eugenics. Whatever you use it for, the process couldn't be easier: the kit comes with a tube that you spit in and mail back to the company, which in a mere 4 - 6 weeks will notify you that testing is complete. As you wait for the results to be posted online you might want to spend some time contemplating the ethical dilemmas posed by this technology.

medical atrocities did not end with nazi era
from toronto star: The socialization of doctors to evil did not begin in Germany, a Holocaust Education Week gathering heard this week, and it didn't end there, either. In fact, we hear echoes of it to this day. "What happened in Germany could have happened elsewhere," said Dr. Yoel Abells, a Toronto family doctor and a medical ethics columnist. Abells told the crowd of about 100 at Toronto General Hospital that the slow drift of doctors to taking part in the Holocaust began decades earlier when scientific and political communities began to embrace eugenics, the systematic sterilization of those deemed unfit to procreate... Today, Abells said, a disturbing number of doctors continue to be involved in genocidal campaigns, terrorist organizations, torture and the interrogation of prisoners of war. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine in September found that the U.S. Army continues to use doctors in its interrogation of suspected terrorists, despite every major medical association condemning the practice. Even in Canada and other Western nations, doctors are regularly called on to help decide who gets medical care, such as kidney dialysis or expensive medication, and who doesn't, Abells said. The danger is that this can lead to questions of who is unfit for treatment, and who deserves access to society's scarce resources, the kinds of questions that led to eugenics and euthanasia, he noted.

poisoned horses drank too much fluoride
from youtube: Justus's horses are found to be suffering from chronic fluoride poisoning from drinking fluoridated water. Study published in peer reviewed scientific literature.


scientists slam fbi anthrax probe
from nypost: It was an open-and-shut case, the FBI said. But three months after agents pinned the post-9/11 anthrax mailings on Army scientist Bruce Ivins - who committed suicide as the FBI closed in on him - his former colleagues have approached a lawyer to sue the feds for fingering the wrong man, The Post has learned. They argue that the FBI abused its power and violated its own policies as they probed an innocent man for six months... The move by the Army scientists comes on the heels of a Senate Judiciary Committee demand for an independent review of the case following a hearing with FBI Director Robert Mueller in which committee members called the bureau's case an "open matter." The bureau has named a panel of independent scientists to review the evidence against Ivins - a probe that will take six to 18 months.

mind control: 'course in miracles' a cia manipulation device?
from alex constantine: A Course in Miracles (also referred to as ACIM or "the Course"), [originally published in 1975] is a book considered by its students to be their "spiritual path". According to Dr. Helen Schucman and the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP), Dr. Helen Schucman and Dr. William Thetford "scribed" the book by means of a process coming from a divine source through a form of channeling which Schucman referred to as "inner dictation". Schucman described the divine source of her channeling as none other than the person of Jesus Christ. Well.... Dr. William Thetford, headed the CIA's "Mind Control" MK-ULTRA SubProject 130: Personality Theory, while at Columbia University between 1971-1978. Dr. Thetford’s Professional Bio, also available on the A Course in Miracles web site, makes reference to his involvement in a Personality Theory Research Project while Professor of Medical Psychology at Columbia University, but the information does not specifically cite this as a CIA MK- ULTRA SubProject.

new shocker in the jfk/oswald story
from washington whispers: Some 45 years after Jack Ruby was convicted in 1964 of slaying Lee Harvey Oswald, his celebrated "irresistible impulse" defense is being challenged—by Ruby's own words. That's right, the most investigated political assassination in history, the JFK-Oswald story, has yet another shocker. Never-before-revealed interview notes taken by a Ruby biographer and heading to auction strongly suggest that Ruby did not act on impulse when he came face to face with Oswald at the Dallas Police Station. The notes the biographer used to write stories sold to newspapers to build a legal defense fund quote Ruby saying he "intended" to gun down Oswald. In the story draft, Ruby describes seeing Oswald: "I lost my senses . . . I pulled out my gun and took a couple of steps . . . they could have blown my head off. I only shot him once . . . I guess I intended —I don't know what." But defense lawyer Melvin Belli edited out that and other potentially incriminating Ruby quotes. Alexander Auctions President Bill Panagopulos, whose sale takes place November 6 and 7, tells us, "Undoubtedly, much more could be read into these notes." He predicts they'll sell for up to $3,000.

welcome to the mary ferrell foundation
from 9/11 blogger: Question - what did the 9/11 Commission learn from the Warren Commission? Answer - don't release 26 accompanying volumes of evidence. More than four decades ago, those 26 volumes, at odds with much of the Warren Report, set off a handful of researchers on parallel journeys to find the truth behind the JFK Assassination, trying to succeed where they believed their government had failed them. It is because of those researchers that I'm writing this today. I'm the Executive Director of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, and want to take this opportunity to give a brief introduction to the work of the Foundation. The MFF is a non-profit group dedicated to the exploration of the deeper stories behind the national tragedies and crises that shape our lives. Our main topics are the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King. Our goal is to not only shed light on these tragedies, but place them in a modern context, showing how the events of the past irrevocably effect our present and future. The focal point of the MFF site is our vast document archive, currently containing over one million pages of once-classified documents, many declassified as recently as the late 1990s.

pulitzer prize-winning author studs terkel dies at 96
from ap: Studs Terkel captured the essence of Chicago in the pages of his best-selling oral histories, chronicling common people and celebrities alike. Along the way he became an ageless master of listening and speaking, a broadcaster, activist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Terkel died Friday at age 96. "He found his home in Chicago and he found it in the gritty aspect of Chicago life," said Russell Lewis, chief historian at the Chicago History Museum. "The ne'er-do-wells, the outcasts, the bums, all these people were people he was curious about. They intrigued him." Dan Terkel said his father died at home, and described his death as "peaceful, no agony. This is what he wanted."


in the last 6 weeks, the federal reserve has doubled the amount of total credit in the banking system since 1913
from contrarian profits: Almost a trillion dollars of new credit in 6 weeks! Gaaaahhhh! My hands now mysteriously clenched into Mogambo Fists Of Outrage (MFOO), I am forced to clutch a pencil between my teeth and try to laboriously calculate that if $1,803 billion in Federal Reserve credit is up $915 billion in 6 weeks, then the percentage change is, ummm, wait a minute, ummm, carry the one, ummmm, well, the percentage change is, ummm, well, who the hell cares what the damned stupid exact percentage is when you can just freaking LOOK at the problem to see that TFC has about doubled? Yow! A 100% gain! In 6 weeks! My brain is staggered! In 6 lousy weeks, all of the total credit in the banking system created by the Fed since 1913 was almost instantly (poof!) doubled! Gaaaahhhh! We’re freaking doomed!

anthrax: panel reviews, honest mistakes & email boasts

single-bullet specter want details of anthrax investigation
from iht: A month after the FBI declared that a U.S. Army scientist was the anthrax killer of 2001, leading members of Congress are demanding more information about the seven-year investigation, saying they do not think that the bureau has proved its case.

In a letter sent Friday to Robert Mueller 3rd, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Democratic leaders of the House Judiciary Committee said that "important and lingering questions remain that are crucial for you to address, especially since there will never be a trial to examine the facts of the case."

The scientist, Bruce Ivins, committed suicide in July, and Mueller is likely to face demands for additional answers about the anthrax case when he appears before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on Sept. 16 and 17.

"My conclusion at this point is that it's very much an open matter," Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate committee, said of the strength of the case against Ivins, a microbiologist at the army's biodefense laboratory who worked on anthrax vaccines. "There are some very serious questions that have yet to be answered and need to be made public."

anthrax case to be reviewed by panel
from washington times: FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told lawmakers Tuesday that an independent panel will review the science that the bureau relied on to conclude a troubled Army microbiologist carried out the 2001 anthrax attacks. "We're in discussions with and are going to request the National Academy of Sciences review the work that was done in the course of this investigation," Mr. Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. "But as I say, the national academy is an independent entity and will be conducting a review."

the fbi's mail-sorting theory doesn't add up
from george washington: The FBI claims that mail-sorting equipment crushed the killer anthrax in the letters to Senators Daschle and Leahy down to a fine powder. Is that possible? Well, the anthrax spores in the Daschle letter were 1.5 to 3 microns, according to the Washington Post. See also (this). There are 25,400 microns in an inch. Mail-sorting equipment is generally built to handle letters at least 1/4 inch thick. Correspondingly, U.S. Postal Service guidelines allow letters to be up to 1/4 of an inch thick.

Here is one of the U.S. Postal Service's mail sorting machines which actually processed an anthrax letter in 2001 (although probably not the one which processed the Leahy and Daschle letters): What does this all mean? 1/4 of an inch equals 6,350 microns. So the FBI is trying to say that a mail-sorting machine which is designed to process letters 6,350 microns thick crushed something down to 3 microns . . . 2,116 times smaller than the type of envelope sorting machines are designed to handle. I don't know about you, but my mail isn't crushed into oblivion when I get it.

On the other hand, the LA Times hints at a more likely explanation: "Since the early 1990s, U.S. Army scientists at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have made small quantities of weapons-grade anthrax that is virtually identical to the powdery spores used in the bioterrorist attacks that have killed five people, government sources say."

scientist concedes 'honest mistake' about weaponized anthrax
from latimes: An acclaimed government scientist who assisted the federal investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings said Tuesday that he erred seven years ago when he told top Bush administration officials that material he examined probably had been altered to make it more deadly. The scientist, Peter B. Jahrling, had observed anthrax spores with the aid of an electron microscope at the government's biological warfare research facility at Ft. Detrick, Md... "I believe I made an honest mistake," Jahrling said in response to questions e-mailed to him for this article, adding that he had been "overly impressed" by what he thought he saw under the microscope. "I should never have ventured into this area,"

leahy: others involved in anthrax attacks
from abc: Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy told FBI Director Robert Mueller during testimony before his committee that he did not believe Army scientist Bruce Ivins acted alone in the 2001 anthrax attacks. "I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact," said the Vermont Democrat who received an anthrax-tainted letter. "I believe that there are others out there. I believe there are others who could be charged with murder."


anthrax-case affidavits add to bizarre portrait of suspect
from nytimes: A judge unsealed a new batch of court documents in the anthrax case on Wednesday, filling in further details of the bizarre behavior of Bruce E. Ivins, the Army scientist who the F.B.I. has said carried out the letter attacks of 2001. Last September, according to a sworn statement from an F.B.I. agent, Dr. Ivins sent himself an exuberant e-mail message under the heading “Finally! I know Who mailed the anthrax!” He did not identify the perpetrator but said he was close to assembling the final proof. “I’m not looking forward to everybody getting dragged through the mud, but at least it will all be over,” Dr. Ivins wrote, adding, “I should have been a private eye!!!!” and signing the message “Bruce.”

ivins bragged to himself in an email that he knew anthrax killer
from raw replay: Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of carrying out the 2001 anthrax attacks, e-mailed himself last year saying he knew who the killer was. According to an FBI affidavit, the e-mail was dated Sept. 2007. This video is from The Associated Press, broadcast September 25, 2008.

anthrax case stays open: why did the fbi let the ft detrick scientists investigate themselves?
from truthout: The Congressional anthrax hearings of September 16-17 revealed that public pressure is keeping the doors open in the anthrax case. FBI Director Robert Mueller promised that the FBI will provide their evidence to a panel of experts for scientific evaluation. The battle will now turn to the independence of this panel, and whether "all evidence" or merely "scientific evidence" will be under review.

During the hearings, Mueller found himself under fire by Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman John Conyers for not having answers to their questions. Republican Arlen Specter was furious at Mueller for his unwillingness to assure them that Congress would have a role in determining the panel's composition.

Meanwhile, new evidence shows just how deeply wrong ABC and Washington Post reporters have been over the years on their coverage of the anthrax attacks. They can't have it both ways: Either they made repeated "mistakes" by relying on their sources, or several people deliberately lied in order to advance war on Iraq.

In his recent book Taking Heat, former White House secretary Ari Fleischer wrote that Bush was more shook up by the anthrax attacks than by any other event. White House officials repeatedly pressed Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by al-Qaeda or Iraq. After days of provocative statements designed to scare the American people, Cheney himself believed that he had been exposed to anthrax. Although the test results were negative, October 18, 2001, was the moment when Cheney decided to withdraw to an "undisclosed location" and carry biodefense protection during all of his mysterious travels.

fbi won’t release documents on anthrax suspect
from freep: The FBI is declining to release at least 15,000 pages of documents related to the now-deceased prime suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks despite lingering suspicions that the bureau has accused the wrong man.

In August, the FBI and Justice Department identified Bruce Ivins, a former microbiologist at the U.S. Army’s biological weapons research center at Ft. Detrick, Md., as the “only person involved” in the attacks that killed five people.

But David Hardy, the section chief of the FBI’s records management division, notified McClatchy Newspapers that his office couldn’t immediately release the records because there were “investigative leads still open” and the FBI needed to withhold the documents to protect confidential sources, privacy, law enforcement techniques and a suspect’s right to a fair trial.

McClatchy had filed a request for the documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act, which generally permits the release of records of a dead person. Ivins committed suicide in July.

mailmen may deliver anti-anthrax drugs
from washington times: If there ever is another anthrax attack, the letter carrier may deliver your antibiotics. Federal health officials are beginning a project in Minneapolis-St. Paul to let letter carriers stockpile a personal supply of emergency antibiotics so they are protected and ready to deliver aid to the rest of the city at a moment's notice.

"These letter carriers are being asked to put their lives on the line to help their communities," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said Wednesday. By ensuring they are protected first, "the carriers can be ready on short notice to take to the streets."

The project aims to overcome a big hurdle of emergency planning. The government has much drugs stockpiled in case of future bioterrorism, but few ways to get them quickly to panicked citizens. Leavitt noted that if someone possibly has inhaled anthrax, the chances of survival are best if antibiotic treatment begins within 48 hours.

fbi misused patriot act powers

from ap/yahoo: The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.

And for three years the FBI underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who oversees the FBI, described the problems cited in the report as unacceptable and left open the possibility of criminal charges. He ordered further investigation.

"Once we get that information, we'll be in a better position to assess what kinds of steps should be taken," Gonzales told reporters following a speech to privacy officials.

"There is no excuse for the mistakes that have been made, and we are going to make things right as quickly as possible," the attorney general said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was to blame for not putting more safeguards into place.

"I am to be held accountable," Mueller said. He told reporters he would correct the problems and did not plan to resign.