http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/06/american-officials-admit-that-us....

Preface: U.S. President James Madison said:

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."

Everyone knows that " truth is the first casualty of war". And one of the most highly decorated American soldiers of all time said that "war is a racket".

FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials "were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power". Indeed, the former Secretary of Homeland Security - Tom Ridge - admits that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.

A former National Security Adviser told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative". In terms of a possible "why", remember that psychologists and sociologists have demonstrated that fear of terrorism makes people stupid and easy to manipulate and control.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkinEMiNVe8

Richard Gage, a member of the American Institute of architects, has been an architect in the San Francisco area for 23 years and has worked on multi-million dollar projects. He is the founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and explains the physics behind the collapse of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7 on 9/11 and the reasons why the official story of how these buildings collapsed is impossible.

By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, June 9th, 2011

LONDON — Attorney General Dominic Grieve on Thursday ruled out asking the High Court to order an inquest into the death of government weapons inspector David Kelly.

Grieve told MPs in the House of Commons there was "overwhelming" evidence that Dr Kelly took his own life and none to support claims he was murdered or "any kind of conspiracy theory".

The scientist's body was found in woods near his Oxfordshire home in 2003, shortly after he was revealed as the source of a BBC report questioning the accuracy of a government dossier arguing the case for war in Iraq.

10 steps dictators perfected by learning from previous tyrants. Full length documentary. On how to ruin a free society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5tG-_1V2fM

Minneapolis, MN, May 27, 2011. Irate peace activists interrupted US Attorney General Eric Holder's speech about youth programs several times in frustration for what they characterize as an FBI Witch Hunt violating the First Amendment rights of citizens to protest. Holder is one of the few people in the country who could reign in this action, but he has so far refused to comment on it or to act in any way. One recent story. Stop FBI site.

http://www.stopfbi.net/

By disrupting the meeting they got to speak with Holder, Klobuchar and Franken, and got commitments from Klobuchar to follow up.

A good example of how to be heard and make some noise!

Power+To+The+People!

Washington's Blog

I am a big fan of Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald - a former constitutional lawyer - regularly destroys the "official" narratives about war, torture, spying, anthrax and other topics. I have worked tirelessly and written hundreds of articles on these issues myself, and I regularly quote Glenn.

I have seen Greenwald time and again refute false claims, ad hominem attacks and illogical reasoning. I know that Glenn can ignore the straw men and red herrings, keep his "eyes on the prize" of truth, and get to the heart of the matter.

Given the way that Mr. Greenwald has shredded the anthrax investigation, I know that he is not afraid to speak truth to power and to courageously challenge false narratives being pushed by the government and the mainstream media.

Whistleblowers

Washington's Blog

People want to assume that when someone in power messes up - especially someone who appears incompetent - it was just a mistake.

For example, folks can't believe that an incompetent president could carry out scoundrelly deeds.

But as I wrote 5 years ago:

As noted social historian and author Michael Parenti writes:

"Generally, US foreign policy is remarkably consistent and cohesive, a deadly success, given the interests it represents. Those who see it as repeatedly befuddled are themselves revealing their own befuddlement.

Sometimes the policymakers themselves seize upon incompetence as a cover. [For example, when the Iran-Contra affair was discovered, President Reagan pleaded incompetence.] His admission of incompetence was eagerly embraced by various analysts and pundits who prefer to see their leaders as suffering from innocent ignorance rather than deliberate deception. Subsequent testimony by his subordinates, however, revealed that Reagan was not as dumb as he was pretending to be, and that he had played an active and deciding role in the entire Iran-contra affair.

***

No less a political personage than Henry Kissinger repeatedly pretended to innocent ignorance and incompetence when confronted with the dirty role he and his cohorts played . . . ."

This strategy of "playing dumb" and acting incompetent has, in fact, long been employed by leaders on both the left and the right. Many liberals and old fashioned conservatives have been suckered by this dumb and dumber act.

Washington's Blog

Judges, prosecutors and journalists all know that collusion happens every day. As I noted last year:

Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme was a conspiracy. The heads of Enron were found guilty of conspiracy, as was the head of Adelphia. Numerous lower-level government officials have been found guilty of conspiracy. See this, this, this, this and this.

Time Magazine's financial columnist Justin Fox writes:

Some financial market conspiracies are real ...

Most good investigative reporters are conspiracy theorists, by the way.

Indeed, conspiracies are so common that judges are trained to look at conspiracy allegations as just another legal claim to be disproven or proven by the evidence.

As I pointed out in 2009:

Federal and all 50 state's codes include specific statutes addressing conspiracy, and providing the punishment for people who commit conspiracies.

***

Washington's Blog

Preface: Now that Bin Laden has been confirmed to be dead, it has been established that Saddam Hussein was not behind 9/11 (one of the main reasons for the Iraq war), and Iran has been accused of having a hand in 9/11 - potentially forming the basis for a war against Iran - it is time to revisit some important, unanswered questions.

This essay does not argue that bombs brought down the Twin Towers or World Trade Building 7, even though many top structural engineers believe that is what happened, and people could easily have planted bombs in the trade centers without anyone noticing and without the conspiracy being discovered.

It simply addresses the frequent argument that fires caused the metal to sag, which brought down the 3 buildings, and that the case is closed.

The Fires at the World Trade Centers Were NOT Very Hot

The government agency in charge of the investigation of why three buildings collapsed on 9/11 - the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) - says that paint tests indicated low steel temperatures -- 480 Fahrenheit -- "despite pre-collapse exposure to fire". NIST also said that microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values of 600 Celsius (1112 degrees Fahrenheit) for any significant time.

Numerous top fire protection engineers have said that the fires in the World Trade Centers were not that hot. For example:

• A mechanical engineer with 20 years experience as a Fire Protection Engineer for the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, and Veterans Affairs, who is a contributing Subject Matter Expert to the U.S. Department of Energy Fire Protection Engineering Functional Area Qualification Standard for Nuclear Facilities, a board member of the Northern California - Nevada Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, currently serving as Fire Protection Engineer for the city of San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the United States (Edward S. Munyak) says that the fires weren't big enough to bring down Building 7:

Washington's Blog

Preface: This essay does not argue that bombs brought down the Twin Towers or World Trade Building 7. It simply addresses the often-made argument that no one could have planted explosives without people noticing.

Tightrope walker Philippe Petit snuck into the World Trade Center with a friend in 1974 with massive amounts of equipment, smuggled the equipment to the top floor and rigged up a highwire for his tightrope walking stunt without being detected.

In 1978, the 59-story story Citicorp building was secretly retrofitted at night over the course of several months without the knowledge of tenants, the general public, or the media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_ekNosnieQ 

In 2009, Raw Story notes:

A Government Accountability Office investigator smuggled live bomb components into a federal building in just 27 seconds, then assembled a bomb in a restroom and ventured throughout the building without being detected, a leaked tape revealed Wednesday.

In addition, congressional investigators were able to penetrate every single federal building they probed without any difficulty — 10 in all.

And see this.

In fact, there is additional evidence that bombs could have been planted in the World Trade Center without anyone knowing:

• Bomb-sniffing dogs were inexplicably removed from the Twin Towers five days before 9-11

• The Twin Towers had been evacuated a number of times in the weeks preceding 9/11

• There was a power down in the Twin Towers on the weekend before 9/11, security cameras were shut down, and many workers ran around busily doing things unobserved (confirmed here)

• And -- as an interesting coincidence -- a Bush-linked company ran security at the trade centers, thus giving it free reign to the buildings

The chief electrical engineer who wired the World Trade Centers (Richard Humenn) says that people working on the elevators could have planted explosives:

Tenth Anniversary Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the International Center for 9/11 Studies will sponsor four days of citizen hearings at Ryerson University in the city of Toronto, Canada. These international hearings will be commonly referred to as the Toronto Hearings and more information can be found at http://torontohearings.org/ .

Help Kevin and friends by contacting the media outlets up and around Toronto, including all Canadian, Rochester NY and Buffalo NY outlets, and politely yet firmly ask them to cover this important 10th Anniversary event.

This is a list of television and radio stations along with a list of media outlets in and around Toronto, Ontario including the Greater Toronto Area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_in_Toronto

NBC Buffalo NY: http://www.wgrz.com/company/contact/accountable/default.aspx (cbishop@wgrz.gannett.com)
CBS Buffalo NY: http://www.wivb.com/subindex/About_Us/Contact_Us/ (newsroom@wivb.com)
ABC Buffalo NY: johndis@wkbw.com ; news@wkbw.com

By BENJAMIN WEISER and SCOTT SHANE

Published: May 19, 2011

Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2011

Could someone other than the late Bruce Ivins be the real anthrax killer? | Photo courtesy U.S. Army Medical Institute

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Buried in FBI laboratory reports about the anthrax mail attacks that killed five people in 2001 is data suggesting that a chemical may have been added to try to heighten the powder's potency, a move that some experts say exceeded the expertise of the presumed killer.

The lab data, contained in more than 9,000 pages of files that emerged a year after the Justice Department closed its inquiry and condemned the late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, shows unusual levels of silicon and tin in anthrax powder from two of the five letters.

Airs Friday, May 20 at 10 p.m. ET

Hosted by Bill Hemmer with reports from Catherine Herridge and Eric Shawn.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-reporting/transcript/fox-news-rep...

A decade after the attacks of 9/11, questions remain about who was involved in the terror plot against America.

Only one person in the United States -- Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker -- has been tried and convicted for the murder of over 3,000 Americans. But, as you will see, there were others -- some still living here -- who helped 19 men fly planes into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Fox News reveals new details of a support network, here in America for decades.

In this shocking special, we investigate the associates of the 9/11 terrorists, including American-born cleric Anwar Awlaki, who is now on the CIA's capture or kill list. By digging deep into thousands of government records from the 9/11 Commission, the Congressional Joint Inquiry and the FBI, Fox News fills in some of the blanks about who really helped the hijackers across America.

And, in a Fox News exclusive, why was Anwar Awlaki invited to the Pentagon for lunch after 9/11 when the FBI knew of his relationship with three of the hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77?

As we show in this program, there are compelling reasons to continue to investigate the largest attack on American soil and the secrets of 9/11.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-reporting/transcript/fox-news-rep...

Washington's Blog

Preface: This essay does not question whether Bin Laden and Al Qaeda attacked us on September 11, 2001, or whether Iran, Saudi Arabia or another nation-state had a hand in the attacks. It focuses solely on a peripheral issue regarding the third building which fell on that terrible day.

Former commander-in-chief President Bush said:

"Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories."

Indeed, the 9/11 Commission was warned not to probe too deeply. For example, ACLU, FireDogLake's Marcy Wheeler and RawStory reported (quoting RawStory):

Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU.

The current commander-in-chief, Barack Obama, has also warned against questioning 9/11:

As anyone in the military knows, you can't give your opinion unless you get first "permission to speak freely".

We're not in the military. However, I am not entirely sure that matters, given that speaking out against government policies may be considered a type of terrorism in America today.

Many hundreds of high-level military officers, intelligence officers, congressmen, legal scholars and experts have broken the commander-in-chief's orders not to question the government's official narrative regarding 9/11. And see this and this.

But neither Bush nor Obama has instructed us not to discuss World Trade Center Building 7. Indeed, they have never once mentioned the fact that a third building collapsed on 9/11 (and the 9/11 Commission never mentioned it either), even though that building was not hit by a plane.

By David Swanson on 5/12/2011 2:12pm 

When a United Airlines pilot of a flight I was on celebrated the killing of Osama bin Laden, and I blogged about it, my friend Emily Levy urged me to complain to the airline. So I did.

Here's their response, followed by what I had sent them...

By Dennis Romboy, Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake attorney's dogged pursuit of videotapes associated with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that he believes the FBI has withheld from the public gained momentum from a federal judge Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups ruled Jesse Trentadue raised enough questions that he wants the government to explain why it hasn't searched all possible databases and evidence rooms where the tapes might be stored. He posed a list of questions he wants the FBI to answer by June 30.

"It's crucial that they don't deny they exist, only that 'we can't find them. Trust us,'" Trentadue said after the hearing.

SHOWDOWN ON GROUND ZERO: At the center of a huge 9/11 lawsuit—a $1.2 billion property damage case—is the Chicagoan Robert Clifford, one of the top aviation lawyers in the nation

By David Bernstein

“When I see a wrong, I want to right it,” says Clifford, pictured in the conference room of his Loop law office.

Sitting at a table in a hotel conference room in Portland, Maine, the Chicago personal injury attorney Robert Clifford studied the man who had once famously—or infamously—stared into the eyes of the devil.

On this day in November 2006, Clifford was deposing Michael Touhey, a former US Airways ticket taker who had checked in Mohamed Atta and a second al-Qaeda terrorist in the early morning of September 11, 2001. Hours later, Atta piloted a connecting flight into the World Trade Center. Questioned by Clifford, Touhey recounted how the two terrorists approached his counter in a rush to catch the 6 a.m. flight to Boston. The ticket agent recalled having a bad feeling. Atta had the eyes of a killer—the devil—Touhey said. And there were other red flags: The two men arrived just minutes before departure, and they had $2,500 one-way first-class tickets, though business travelers typically fly roundtrip.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/04/official-bin-laden-death-photo-is...

Preface: This post does not speculate on whether or not Bin Laden was actually killed last week or died previously, or on what images the government may possess, but only on what actually happened and what photographs have been released to date.

The White House said that Bin Laden had a weapon and tried to hide behind his wife like a coward. Now, the White House has admitted both claims were false.

Many of the largest news outlets ran a supposed death photo ... but it was quickly proven fake (and see this).

The government now claims that it has a photo showing a dead Bin Laden ... but won't release it.

The photo was supposedly taken in a hangar in Afghanistan. As CNN notes:

Photos of OBLs body at a hangar after he was brought back to Afghanistan. This is the most recognizable with a clear picture of his face. The picture is gruesome because he has a massive open head wound across both eyes. It’s very bloody and gory.

The fact that the photo wasn't taken right after the raid in Pakistan - but in a different country - makes it harder to confirm when the photo was taken.

Moreover, Senator Scott Brown first told Fox News that he had personally seen the gruesome death photo: http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/morning/sen-scott-brown-on-attack-ad-bin-...

But he later told Fox that he - and a lot of other people - had been shown a fake:

Scott Brown tells FOX25 - "The photo that I saw and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic."

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/bin-laden-dead-why-didnt-we-get-h...

President Obama announced tonight that U.S. special forces killed Osama Bin Laden.

That's great ... but we could have killed him years ago.

As I noted in 2009:

According to the U.S. Senate - Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of the U.S. military in Afghanistan in December 2001, but that then-secretary of defense Rumsfeld refused to provide the soldiers necessary to capture him.

This is not news: it was disclosed in 2005 by the CIA field commander for the area in Afghanistan where Bin Laden was holed up.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/04/4-stories-this-week-prove-that-wa...

Executive Summary: Two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 'dis America's hyper-aggressive imperialism ... Newly-leaked documents show that innocent people were thrown into Gitmo because they wore Casio watches or were Al Jazeera reporters … Al Qaeda assassin worked for MI6 … And – yes – the Iraq war was for oil.

Four stories from the last week confirm what many have been saying for years: the war on terror is a farce.

Military Brass Say Imperial Wars of Aggression are Hurting America

I've said for years that the war on terror is weakening America.

I've pointed out that experts say that the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdS2GADYdUs

Jesse Ventura's Media Tour Appearances:
http://weaintgottimetobleed.com/appearances/

http://firefightersfor911truth.org/

Richard Gage, a member of the American Institute of Architects, a 23-year practicing Bay Area professional architect, and founder of Architects & Engineers for 911 Truth, addressed an attentive crowd of 100 persons at the Ames City Auditorium in Ames, Iowa on the evening of April 3, 2011. Mr. Gage presented a stimulating and persuasive multimedia program on the topic "What the Media is NOT telling you, 9/11: Blueprint for Truth", lasting approximately two hours, followed by Q & A. A poll of the audience taken at the beginning of the program indicated that about 15% of the audience members believed the official story narrative about 9/11 offered by the government and most media, that Osama bin Laden and 19 Arab terrorists were responsible, was essentially correct. The same question posed again at the end of the presentation indicated unanimity among those present that the government's story was essentially inaccurate and misleading.

Mr. Gage appeared on the following evening, April 5, at the Adel, IA public library, the home base of the sponsoring group, 911 Truth of Central Iowa. He was enthusiastically greeted by 35 of that group's members and guests. He presented a slightly shorter version of his talk of the night before, with graphics, and participated with the group in a spirited and informative discussion of a number of aspects of the 9/11 events.

-James Hufferd, Ph.D.
founder, 911 Truth of Central Iowa

He's been the governor of Minnesota, a Navy SEAL, a pro-wrestler, a Harvard professor, and most recently an author. Today on American Morning, Kiran Chetry, Ali Velshi and Christine Romans talk politics with the man himself, Jesse Ventura.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/04/05/exp.cnn.intv.ventura.cnn

Behind the scenes at CNN: Backstage Piers Morgan

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2011/04/01/exp.piers.morgan.jesse....

By Phil Rosenthal / Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, March 29, 2011

CHICAGO — It’s going to be so long "O” and hello "Ro" in Chicago’s West Loop.

Rosie O’Donnell, a multiple Emmy winner for "The Rosie O’Donnell Show" and former co-host of "The View," is going to help fill the void at Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios when Winfrey retires her nationally syndicated TV program after 25 seasons in May.

Chicago Harpo employees were told Monday that O’Donnell’s new one-hour daytime talk show, set to launch this fall on cable’s OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, will tape on Winfrey’s soon-to-be-vacated stage in the studio space at West Washington Boulevard and North Carpenter Street.

"Hello people of Harpo, it’s me, Rosie O’Donnell, star of ’The Flintstones,’" O’Donnell said, referring to her 1994 film in a homemade video message shown to studio staff. "I just wanted to say: Hi, I’m coming to Chicago. Yes, I am, and I’m thrilled about it. And I get to work with all of you, who have created magnificent television for two decades-plus."

One day, he decided to talk to people on the subway...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0oHlX8Kmxk

Please let me know what you think about this, honestly i still felt hesitant to release this but I decided to do it anyway to see your reaction and where I should go next with my work. I recently been through a hard time in my life and I am trying to find myself through expressing myself, if I am on the wrong path let me know.

Featured by Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times:
http://twitter.com/ebertchicago/status/52810577935990784
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/being-here/talking-to-people-on-the-subw...

Wesley Clark is a retired General of the United States Army. In this interview, he suggested that the US Government's decision to get involved in the Middle East during the Bush Presidency was heavily influenced by the people at PNAC (Project for New American Century). "This country was taken over by a group of people with a Policy coup" says Clark, who commanded the Operation Allied Force in the Kosova War during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000.

http://www.thelibertyunderground.net/2011/03/wesley-clark-this-country-w...

http://securingamerica.com/feedback

Washington's Blog

Preface: I am using the word "evil" in its secular sense in this essay, as in a horrible, destructive act ... religion is beyond the scope of this essay.

When someone fails to stand up to a heinous act, that leads to a whole chain of events.

It Enables More Destructive Acts

Initially, by failing to stand up to the bad act, we are enabling the person who committed it to do bigger and worse things in the future.

Army psychiatrist and Christian philosopher M. Scott Peck wrote extensively on evil in People of the Lie (since Peck was a psychiatrist and an empirical researcher, his investigation of the dynamics of those who commit heinous acts and the subsequent attempts to cover them up is very interesting, even for atheists who will disregard all religious overtones). As Peck wrote:

It is necessary that we first draw the distinction between evil and ordinary sin. It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people...The central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it.

And a longer passage:

We lie only when we are attempting to cover up something we know to be illicit. Some rudimentary form of conscience must precede the act of lying. There is no need to hide unless we first feel that something needs to be hidden. We come now to a sort of paradox. Evil people feel themselves to be perfect. At the same time, however, they have an unacknowledged sense of their own evil nature. Indeed, it is this very sense from which they are frantically trying to flee. The essential component of evil is not the absence of a sense of sin or imperfection but the unwillingness to tolerate that sense. At once and the same time, the evil are aware of their evil and desperately trying to avoid the awareness. Rather than blissfully lacking a sense of morality like the psychopath, they are continually engaged in sweeping the evidence of their evil under the rug of their own consciousness (or attempting to redefine their evil as good). The problem is not a defect of conscience, but the effort to deny the conscience its due. We become evil by attempting to hide from ourselves. The wickedness of the evil is not committed directly, but indirectly as a part of this cover-up process. Evil originates not in the absence of guilt but in the effort to escape it. Since they will do almost anything to avoid the particular pain that comes from self-examination, under ordinary circumstances, the evil are the last people who would ever come to psychotherapy. The evil hate the light – the light of goodness that shows them up, the light of scrutiny that exposes them, the light of the truth that penetrates their deception.

So when people fail to stand up to the heinous acts of a bad person, they are empowering that person's cover up, the very core of their propensity to do further bad acts in the future.