senate panel defies bush on terror

from houston chronicle: A rebellious Senate committee defied President Bush on Thursday and approved terror-detainee legislation he has vowed to block, deepening Republican conflict over terrorism and national security in the middle of election season.

Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote, with Warner and three other GOP lawmakers joining Democrats. The vote set the stage for a showdown on the Senate floor as early as next week.

Earlier in the day, Bush had journeyed to the Capitol to try nailing down support for his own version of the legislation.

"I will resist any bill that does not enable this program to go forward with legal clarity," Bush said at the White House.

The president's measure would go further than the Senate package in allowing classified evidence to be withheld from defendants in terror trials, using coerced testimony and protecting U.S. interrogators against prosecution for using methods that violate the Geneva Conventions.

The internal GOP struggle intensified along other fronts, too, as Colin Powell, Bush's first secretary of state, declared his opposition to the president's plan.

"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," Powell, a retired general who is also a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a letter.

russian central banker murdered

from reuters/alertnet: The murder of Russia's first deputy central bank chief Andrei Kozlov, a crusader against money laundering, offers a glimpse into the world of crime which is never far from the surface of Russian business.

"Just follow the money," said a senior banker and close friend of Kozlov who expected the spotlight in the murder probe to fall on those banks he had shut down, or was about to close.

"Andrei was out to get the lousy money launderers, the crooks. He was taking them out one after another. I'm sure one of those criminal banks that he took out is behind this."

whiff of bankruptcy jolts air america

from new york post: Air America is denying intense rumors that the ratings-challenged radio network will declare bankruptcy this week and attempt to reorganize to stay on the air for the November elections.

A high-level source told The Post that Rob Glaser, the Real Networks founder who rescued the 2-year-old network from its first financial crisis, "walked away last week" and took his moneybags with him.

Earlier this week, as first reported in The Post, Air America laid off six people and shuffled its on-air lineup - including deleting Jerry Springer and returning him to independent syndication.

maybe they shouldn't have fired mike malloy...

kissinger calls for 'new world order'

Writing an opinion column yesterday, Heinz Kissinger, one of the most treasonous war criminals of all-time, called for a "building a new world order."

This civilian-bombing, child-killer said that the US & Europe must unite to head off a "war of civilizations" arising from a nuclear-armed Middle East.

In an effort to downplay our current war crime debacle, Kissinger says that "the debate sparked by the Iraq war... is dwarfed by what the world now faces."

And what is that threat? Who is this year's boogeyman? What is that soverign nation the west supplies with weapons only to turn around & overthrow it with better weapons: Why it's Iran, of course! They are at the center of the challenge because they support Hezbollah...

NSA wiretap talking points

from raw story: The NSA has taken the unusual move of sending members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee a list of "approved talking points" regarding its warrantless eavesdropping program...

Some of the talking points urge Senators to imply that they have personal knowledge of plots foiled by the wiretap program, or that the Senators--seven of whom responded by writing the NSA a letter blasting the move--had other personal knowledge that the program was legal or necessary.

"I have personally met the dedicated men and women of the NSA," one point reads. "The country owes them an enormous debt of gratitude for their superb efforts to keep us all secure."

"It has detected plots," reads another, "that could have resulted in death or injury to Americans both at home and abroad." No examples are given in the document.

The Senate voted earlier today to reject Democratic attempts to limit the use of the controversial wiretaps.

how'd you get blood on your hands???

nonaligned want terrorism redefined

from guardian: Iran, Syria, North Korea and more than 100 other nations are pushing to broaden the world's definition of 'terrorism' to include the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Converging on Fidel Castro's communist Cuba for a summit this week, members of the Nonaligned Movement complain of a double standard: powerful nations like the United States and Israel decide for the world who the terrorists are, but face no punishment for their own acts of aggression.

A draft of the group's joint declaration condemns "terrorism in all its forms," especially violence that targets civilians.

Terrorism should not be associated with any religion or nationality, says the draft. It singles out a favored phrase of President Bush in declaring that member countries "totally reject the use of the term 'axis of evil' by a certain state to target other states under the pretext of combating terrorism."

best war ever!

thanks once again to the truth will set you free...

air force chief: test weapons on testy US mobs

from ap: Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

the impolite phrase is "impeachable offense"

from keith olbermann: The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country...

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

america: bush's doormat

here's a couple of beautifully symbolic photos from the 5th anniversary of 9/11... our fearless leaders go to NYC to grandstand, literally, on the death of 3,000 people. note the expressions on their faces... could their complete & utter fucking disdain for us be any more evident?












a big thanks to jason reed & reuters for capturing these moments

agents scrutinize all in name of surveillance

The government dramatically increased its monitoring of U.S. citizens after Sept. 11, in ways that even some Bush allies now question.

from herald net: As Americans consider whether they are more safe or less five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, one thing is certain: They are being monitored by their own government in ways unforeseen before 19 terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Within minutes of the strikes, U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence-gathering authorities mobilized to find the culprits and prevent another attack. They ramped up the tapping of Americans' phone calls and voicemails. They watched Internet traffic and e-mails as never before. They tailed greater numbers of people and into places previously deemed off-limits, such as mosques.

They clandestinely accessed bank and credit card transactions and school records. They monitored travel. And they broke into homes without notice, looking for signs of terrorist activity and copying entire file cabinets and computer hard drives.

Authorities even tried to get inside peoples' heads, using supercomputers and "predictive" software to analyze enormous amounts of personal data about them and their friends and associates in an effort to foretell who might become a terrorist, and when.

poll: more americans blame bush for 9/11

from cnn: The percentage of Americans who blame the Bush administration for the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington has risen from almost a third to almost half over the past four years, a CNN poll released Monday found.

Asked whether they blame the Bush administration for the attacks, 45 percent said either a "great deal" or a "moderate amount," up from 32 percent in a June 2002 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

But the Clinton administration did not get off lightly either. The latest poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, found that 41 percent of respondents blamed his administration a "great deal" or a "moderate amount" for the attacks.

Read the complete poll results

That's only slightly less than the 45 percent who blamed his administration in a poll carried out less than a week after the attacks.

Still, most Americans appear to be fatalistic, with more than half -- 57 percent -- saying they think that terrorists will "always find a way to launch attacks no matter what the U.S. government does."

world remembers 9/11 but many not crying

from ap: The nations of the world joined Monday in solemn remembrance of Sept. 11 - but for many, resentment of the U S flowed as readily as tears.

Critics say Americans have squandered the goodwill that prompted France's Le Monde newspaper to proclaim "We are all Americans" that somber day after the attacks, and that the Iraq war and other U.S. policies have made the world less safe in the five years since...

In Europe, where Islamic terror has struck twice since 9/11, in the Madrid train bombings and the London transit attacks, the silent tributes were tinged with doubts and recriminations.

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel — an advocate of repairing ties with Washington that were frayed under her predecessor
Gerhard Schroeder — had veiled criticism of the United States, saying: "The ends cannot justify the means."

anniversary

it's no accident that today marks the one year anniversary of media monarchy.

i appreciate all of you who take the time to read this this blog.

thank you.

flashbacks from what really happened?

FLASHBACK: Jeb declared "Martial Law" on 9/7

FLASHBACK: Insider Trading Leads To CIA's Highest Ranks

FLASHBACK: Security by Marvin

FLASHBACK: Who Told Giuliani the WTC was Going to Collapse?

FLASHBACK: Anthrax Frame-Up

outside the box #67

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on september 7, 2006.

from alex ansary: Tonight I began the program with a core focus on 9/11 and the five year anniversary coming up, and the media’s reaction to the 9/11 Truth Movement. After the weekly headlines, I made time for phone calls.

'path to 9/11' is the path to distraction

from propaganda matrix: The lapdog mainstream media and the left-gatekeeper establishment wannabees have so far succeeded in overshadowing the 9/11 truth movement nearing the fifth anniversary of the attacks, by getting all hot and bothered about a nothing docudrama that whitewashes both the Bush and Clinton administration's contribution to facilitating the destruction of the trade towers.

'The Path to 9/11', a two part ABC docudrama set to air on Sunday and Monday night, gives Clinton a pass for being too interested in his sex scandal to recognize the threat of Al-Qaeda - when in reality Bill Clinton deliberately refused to grab Bin Laden when he had the chance on numerous occasions. Mindless debates about Monica Lewinsky serve only to distract attention from the truth that both Bush and Clinton premeditatively protected terrorist networks before 9/11.

No surprises then that the idiot left gatekeepers have bought this GOP distraction talking point hook, line and sinker - taking the bait to wage endless back and forth diatribes about how angelic Bill Clinton was.

The same liberal establishment mouthpieces, including Democracy Now, The Nation and others have developed an amazing kind of amnesic barrier whereby they fully acknowledge that Bush lied about everything related to Iraq - bolstered by the Senate dismissal of Saddam-Al Qaeda ties today - and yet cannot entertain for a second the possibility that the government told anything other than the truth about 9/11.

This is exemplified today by darling of the left Alexander Cockburn, who scoffs at the notion that the greatest superpower since the Roman Empire, flush with a booty of 2.3 trillion dollars, could not possibly have had the prowess to carry out 9/11 - yet 19 incompetent pilots acting on the behest of a man in-between trips from a dialysis machine to a cave and afforded the total non-response of US air defense could have accomplished the task. Read Kurt Nimmo tear Cockburn a new one here.

The projectile verbal diarrhea surrounding 'The Path to 9/11' is clearly an intentional ploy to create enough noise in the news cycle to drown out prominent media coverage of the 9/11 truth movement and the educational and demonstrative actions now being organized for the weekend on behalf of the Loose Change crew and Alex Jones.

Don't let this non-issue hog the limelight - The Path to 9/11 is the path to distraction.

BYU places '9/11 truth' professor on paid leave

"it is a very simple question... are you now or have you ever been a member of the 9/11 truth movement?"

from deseret news: Brigham Young University placed physics professor Steven Jones on paid leave Thursday while it reviews his involvement in the so-called "9/11 truth movement" that accuses unnamed government agencies of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center.

BYU will conduct an official review of Jones' actions before determining a course of action, university spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said. Such a review is rare for a professor with "continuing status" at BYU, where Jones has taught since 1985...

Jones became a celebrity among 9/11 conspiracy-theory groups after he wrote a paper titled "Why Indeed Did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?" (pdf) The paper was published two weeks ago in the book "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out" and lays out Jones' hypothesis that the three towers fell because of pre-positioned demolition charges — not because of the planes that hit two of the towers.

When Jones began to share his demolition theory publicly last fall, he politely declined to speculate about who set the charges other than to say terrorist groups couldn't have been the source.

Then, later, he started to speak publicly about research conducted at BYU on materials from ground zero. He said he found evidence of thermite — a compound used in military detonations — in the materials.

In recent weeks, after becoming the co-chairman of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Jones seemed willing to go further, implicating unnamed government groups but not President Bush...

Jones, also known for his cold fusion research, provided academic clout to the 9/11 truth movement. C-SPAN repeatedly broadcast a conference that featured Jones this summer. Recent articles about Sept. 11 conspiracy theories that focused at least in part on Jones have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian in London and other publications.

please watch professor steven jones' keynote address at the american scholars symposium on june 24th in los angeles...



also check out TAFM's great post about "Sticking Up for Steven Jones," which astutely points out that "all sides of this argument have a right to say what they think happened without being persecuted. Anything less than that goes against what this nation stands for."

white house targets conspiracy theorists as terrorist recruiters

from propaganda matrix: A document cited by President Bush in his recent speech at the Capital Hilton Hotel on how to 'win the war on terror' cites conspiracies as one of the wellsprings of terrorism and threatens to "address" and "diminish" the problems they are causing the government in fulfilling their agenda.

On Tuesday Bush referred to the strategy paper as "an unclassified version of the strategy we've been pursuing since September the 11th, 2001," that takes into account, "the changing nature of this enemy."

The document says that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."

The terminology echoes President Bush's speech to the UN General Assembly on November 10th 2001 in which he stated, "Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th, malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty.



This is an outright threat to the 9/11 truth movement and is meant to have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.

It is also a callous reminder that the administration that has been the progenitor of the most heinous and deliberate campaign to mislead and lie to its own people is so transfixed by its own hubris that it has the temerity to accuse others of propagating deceptive information.

This is the same administration that deliberately included the Niger yellow cake fraud in a state of the union speech to sell a war - knowing that the information was completely bogus.

How dare they threaten us with the very defining characteristic of their black legacy and equate us with terrorists?

This is a direct assault on the alternative media and a continuation of the twilight zone rhetoric that saw the administration attempt to link its critics with Fascists and Hitler appeasers. The only fascists that should really concern us are not imaginary 'Blogofascists' or 'Islamofascists' but the Neo-Fascist slugs that occupy the White House and their cheerleading sycophants in the mainstream media and congress.

This is by no means the first time political enemies of the state have been smeared as terrorist sympathizers.

Alex Jones' 2001 documentary film 9/11: The Road to Tyranny featured footage from a FEMA symposium given to firefighters and other emergency personnel in Kansas City in which it was stated that the founding fathers, Christians and homeschoolers were terrorists and should be treated with the utmost suspicion and brutality in times of national emergency.

We have highlighted previous training manuals issues by state and federal government bodies which identify whole swathes of the population as potential terrorists. A Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Law Enforcement pamphlet gives the public characteristics to identify terrorists that include buying baby formula, beer, wearing Levi jeans, carrying identifying documents like a drivers license and traveling with women or children.

A Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists lists anti-government and property rights activists as terrorists and includes binoculars, video cameras, pads and notebooks in a compendium of terrorist tools.

Shortly after 9/11 a Phoenix FBI manual that was disseminated amongst federal employees at the end of the Clinton term caused waves on the Internet after it was revealed that potential terrorists included, "defenders of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN," and individuals who "make numerous references to the US Constitution." Lawyers everywhere cowered in fear at being shipped off to Gitmo.

In May we broke the exclusive of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for a declaration of martial law, property and firearm seizures, and forced relocation.