R Rod's blog

Airlines file to make federal government more culpable for not preventing attacks

Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0725784820070807

Airlines seek FBI, CIA September 11 testimony

By Christine Kearney and Paritosh Bansal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Airlines sued by victims of the September 11 attacks filed complaints with a U.S. court on Tuesday to compel testimony from FBI and CIA agents in a bid to make the federal government more culpable for not preventing the attacks.

In separate complaints filed in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York, seven U.S. airlines sought testimony from two members of a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency unit that investigated Osama Bin Laden and five current and former FBI agents who investigated al Qaeda.

Some relatives of the victims of September 11 have filed suit against the seven airlines - including AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines - seeking damages for personal injury and wrongful death.

The airlines said they needed the agents' testimony to prove their actions were reasonable.

NYPD:Average citizens who quietly band together adopt radical ways & pose mounting threat to security, could exceed al -Qaeda

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20278590/

NYPD warns of homegrown terrorism threat
Analysis describes a path to violence for disaffected Muslim youth

NEW YORK - Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.

The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men — often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country — adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence.

The report was intended to explain how people become radicalized rather than to lay out specific strategies for thwarting terror plots. It calls for more intelligence gathering, and argues that local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to monitor potential terrorists.

“Hopefully, the better we’re informed about this process, the more likely we’ll be to detect and disrupt it,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a briefing with private security executives at police headquarters.

Bush admin will designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as 'global terrorist'

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20269253/

U.S. to move on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard
Administration will designate group as ‘global terrorist’
AP, Aug 15, 2007

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration’s move to blacklist Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “terrorist” organization is a new salvo in a broader effort to choke off funding to Iranian elements accused of developing nuclear weapons and fomenting violence in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

At the same time, it is intended to send a message to countries doing business in Iran that the United States is serious about isolating Tehran and is willing to slap sanctions on companies that continue to trade with Iran even if the United Nations is not, according to U.S. officials.

A decision in principle has been made to name at least parts of the Revolutionary Guard a “specially designated global terrorist” group under an executive order signed by President Bush in 2001 as part of larger post-Sept. 11 measures to fight extremism, the officials said.

Internet is "the new Afghanistan": NY police commissioner

Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1524872020070815

Internet is "the new Afghanistan": NY police commissioner
Wed Aug 15, 2007 3:51PM EDT

By Michelle Nichols and Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Internet is the new battleground against Islamist extremism because it provides ideology that could radicalize Westerners who might then initiate home-grown attacks, New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Wednesday.

"The Internet is the new Afghanistan," Kelly said, as he released a New York Police Department (NYPD) report on the home-grown threat of attacks by Islamist extremists. "It is the de facto training ground. It's an area of concern."

The report found that the challenge for Western authorities was to identify, pre-empt and prevent home-grown threats, which was difficult because many of those who might undertake an attack often commit no crimes along the path to extremism.

The report identified the four stages to radicalization as pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization, and said the Internet drove and enabled the process.

Biden: U.S. Is Free To Attack Al Qaeda in Pakistan

The New York Sun
http://www.nysun.com/article/60612

Biden: U.S. Is Free To Attack Al Qaeda in Pakistan
By SETH GITELL
Special to the Sun
August 15, 2007 updated 4:43 pm EDT

BOSTON – When Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, and Senator Dodd engaged in a fiery exchange over the proposition of using American force against Al Qaeda in Pakistan last week, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Democratic candidate for president, Joseph Biden, says they missed the point: America, he says, can already attack Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan.

The exchange between the Democratic candidates highlights what is emerging as a hot issue in the first race for an open White House after the September 11, 2001 attacks: which Democrat has the foreign policy experience to lead a nation at war?

Mr. Biden, who has served in the Senate for 34 years, 10 of them as the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, contends that his years of work on global issues, meetings with foreign leaders, seasoned staff advisers, and judgment give him an edge over both Mr. Obama, who has been in the Senate for less than three years, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Dodd, and the others.

8/11/07 family member speaks out at ground zero

www.wearechange.org

Manny Badillo, a proud member of CHANGE, lost his uncle on 9/11. Here he is speaking out at Ground Zero on 8/11/07. Do a street action on every 11th for Manny and the rest of the family members who's questions where never answered by the government. We will never stop in our relentless pursuit for truth and justice, JOIN US!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EyFTwohaHQ

Author of "To Save America, we need another 9/11" article: "I was wrong about another 9/11"

Thanks to those of you who called and wrote and lead him to recant this article published a few days ago. http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20070809_Stu_Bykofsky___To_save_America__we_need_another_9_11.html

Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20070813_Stu_Bykofsky___I_WAS_WRONG_ABOUT_ANOTHER_9_11.html
Posted on Mon, Aug. 13, 2007

Stu Bykofsky | I was wrong about another 911

MY HYPOTHESIS last week that another 9/11 attack would unite America was wrong, judging by e-mail and voice-mail responses. When I stopped reading at 1,000 (lots more unread) roughly 65 percent disagreed with me, many violently and obscenely.

Published early Thursday, the column received moderate response until it was posted on Web sites from right (Drudge) to left (CrooksandLiars). Then my world exploded and I became the flavor of the day.

Interview requests rained in from radio (local, national and Canadian) and TV (Fox News, CNN Headline News.) I accepted as many as I could.

Van Romero's NM Inst of Mining and Tech named Hottest College in War on Terror by Newsweek's College Guide '08

The Newsweek College Guide '08 has named as this year's "Hottest in the War on Terror" the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Many may remember that is the same institution where demolitions expert Van Romero is vice president for research, whose first said the Towers were demolished, then retracted that statement just ten days later.
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/retractions/romero.html

(Note how this article describes the "flood of federal dollars" the school has received)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20228437/site/newsweek/page/5/

Newsweek College Guide '08
25 Hottest Schools

Hottest in the War on Terror
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, N.M.

WTC INSURE FUND MAKES A TOXIC $350M 'BLUNDER'

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08122007/news/regionalnews/wtc_insure_fund_makes_a_toxic_350m_blunder_regionalnews_susan_edelm...

WTC INSURE FUND MAKES A TOXIC $350M 'BLUNDER'

By SUSAN EDELMAN
August 12, 2007 -- The city-run $1 billion fund for claims by sick 9/11 responders has "screwed up" by failing to lock up at least $350 million in coverage, lawyers charge.

The WTC Captive Insurance Co., run by the Bloomberg administration, failed to promptly notify insurers for the city's Ground Zero contractors that they could be on the hook for claims, the lawyers allege.

Dozens of those insurers now say notice came too late for them to honor policies for millions of dollars in coverage for injured workers.

The city may have now blown its chance to collect some $350 million in primary coverage for 9/11 workers with respiratory illness, cancer and other diseases from toxic exposure.

"Their failure jeopardizes the ability to get the full compensation available for these heroes," said Paul Napoli, a lawyer for 10,000 cops, firefighters and other workers.

"What a screw-up," said Napoli. "It's a major goof."

9/11 Families to Enter Pit for the Last Time This Year

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/83755

9/11 Families to Enter Pit for the Last Time This Year
WNYC Newsroom

NEW YORK, NY August 12, 2007 —This year's September 11th anniversary commemoration will be the final time that victims' families will be able to descend into the ground zero pit, according to Mayor Bloomberg.

The mayor this week reached an agreement with some victims' families who were upset by the city's plan to hold this year's ceremony at a nearby park because of ongoing construction at the Trade Center site. The mayor approved the families' proposal that they descend single file into the pit this year, stopping only briefly to touch bedrock.

Attorney Norman Siegel, who represented the relatives in the dispute, says some families are still hoping to walk on the land in future years. He says the families will wait until after this year's ceremony to decide on a course of action.

Giuliani claims as much "if not more" exposure to 9/11 air as first responders

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070810/D8QTQO300.html

Giuliani Talks About Ground Zero Risks

By DAN SEWELL

CINCINNATI (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Thursday he had exposed himself to the same health risks as workers at ground zero after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and spent as much time at the site as those involved in the recovery.

The former New York mayor has faced criticism from relatives of some of the firefighters killed at the World Trade Center, who have contended that Giuliani was woefully unprepared for 9/11.

Last month, the parents and siblings of some of the 343 firefighters killed in the terrorist attacks released a video with the International Association of Fire Fighters, which opposes Giuliani's candidacy.

Campaigning in Ohio, Giuliani defended his work, including raising funds.

"This is not a mayor or a governor or a president who's sitting in an ivory tower," he said. "I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers. ... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them."

Battalion Chief John McDonnell, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association in New York, said: "I have a real problem with that statement. I think he's really grasping and trying to justify his previous attempts to portray himself as the hero of 9/11."

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