Saturday, May 21 2011   -   Anthrax

May 20, 2011
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.

Those elements are found in compounds that could be used to weaponize the anthrax, enabling the lethal spores to float easily so they could be readily inhaled by the intended victims, scientists say.

 

Wednesday, May 18 2011   -   In the Media

May 18, 2011

USA Today has posted an online poll asking whether readers think Champion should have dismissed Rashard Mendenhall as their spokesperson. As of last count, 65% of those voting think the company did the right thing. If you have not read this football running back's Tweets, which initially stirred such "controversy" (read, blather for 24/7 sports "news" and fodder for haters), see this. Mr. Mendenhall's clarification statement, published on his new blog May 4, is also reposted below.

As a mother of three young athletes myself, with ten more years of athletic equipment purchases in front of me, I can state with certainty I will never buy them another product made by this company and will be writing to let them know they should have been proud to have an intelligent, thinking athlete speaking for them.

 

Wednesday, May 18 2011   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

 

Wednesday, May 18 2011   -   Get Involved

Sen. Mike Gravel and Lt. Col. Bob Bowman on Empowering Citizens to End the 9/11 Wars and Restore Lost Liberties

Introductory Speakers

Peter Phillips will be our MC and first speaker. Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and former Director of Project Censored, Peter currently co-hosts The Morning Show on KPFA and is President of The Media Freedom Foundation.

Richard Gage, AIA, is well known to many in the Bay Area. He is the dynamic founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which has grown to 1500 petition signing professionals. He will update us on the many recent activities of AE911Truth.

Introducing Kathy McGrade, a Silicon Valley engineer now affiliated with AE911Truth. Her work includes ensuring the safety of firefighters during structural fires. She presents a sharp critique of the government's account for the demise of the three WTC Towers.

Featured Speakers ...

 

Tuesday, May 17 2011   -   In the Media

May 17, 2011

KPFA, the community radio station in Berkeley, California whose signal reaches one third of the state, is broadcasting a three-and-a-half hour 9/11 special this Thursday, May 19th, from noon to 3:30 PST.

Hosts for the program are: Dennis Bernstein, Bonnie Faulkner, Mickey Huff, and Peter Phillips

Guests during the day will include: 12:15 David Ray Griffin, 12:45 Frank Morales, 1:00 PM Bob Bowman, 1:30 Paul Rea, 2:00 Mike Gravel, 2:30 Carol Brouillet, 2:45 Richard Gage and Kathy McGrade, and more. Clips from Press for Truth, Zero, Griffin's best DVDs will be played on the air.

Program will be on-line live from KPFA.org (listen live here, and archived on line from Noliesradio.org.

This is a fundraiser for KPFA Radio, which as a community radio station is supported by listeners. Please thank the station and these great hosts for airing programming that supports truth as generously as you can.

 

Friday, May 13 2011   -   Other Important News

The Associated Press
First published May 11, 2011
Updated May 12, 2011
Salt Lake Tribune

A federal judge in Utah on Wednesday ordered the FBI to produce more information about its record-keeping in response to an inquiry by a man who contends unreleased video and other records from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing will show more people were involved in the attack.

U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups said he believes Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue has raised valid questions about whether the agency has done enough to find a pair of videotapes sought as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.

Waddoups also wants to know whether bureau officials believe they can conceal information from the public and the courts and ordered a Department of Justice attorney to detail how difficult it would be for the FBI to manually search for the records in evidence control centers in Oklahoma City, Washington, D.C., and at an FBI crime lab.

 

Saturday, May 7 2011   -   Get Involved

Announcement dated May 6, 2011

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/.

The objectives of the hearings are as follows:

(1) To present evidence that the U.S. government's official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, as pursued by various government and government-appointed agencies, is seriously flawed and has failed to describe and account for the 9/11 events.

(2) To single out the most weighty evidence of the inadequacy of the U.S. government's investigation; to organize and classify that evidence; to preserve that evidence; to make that evidence widely known to the public and to governmental, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations.

(3) To submit a record and a summary of the Hearings, together with signed Statutory Declarations by witnesses, to relevant governments, groups and international agencies with the request that a full and impartial investigation be launched into the events of September 11, 2001, which have been used to initiate military invasions and to restrict the rights of citizens.

Continues ...

 

Saturday, May 7 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

by David Ray Griffin
May 6, 2011
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/obama-says-justice-has-been-done-bin-laden-scholar-says-no-121381654.html

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., May 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. David Ray Griffin's 2009 book, "Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?" presented compelling evidence that bin Laden died in December 2001 -- prompting a BBC documentary of the same name.

Griffin, founder of the soon to be announced 9/11 Consensus Panel, and named among the New Statesman's "50 People Who Matter Today," today released the following statement:

President Obama, speaking of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, said: "Justice has been done."

It has been widely assumed that, if bin Laden is now dead, the person most responsible for the 9/11 attacks has been brought to justice. But the US government has never provided evidence that the attacks were carried out by bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization.

 

Thursday, May 5 2011   -   Other Important News

Supporters of accused WikiLeaks source vow to fight on for open trial and freedom

May 5, 2011
By the Bradley Manning Support Network
Published at Couragetoresist.org

Hundreds of thousands of individuals globally celebrate today the confirmation that their efforts to end the torturous pre-trial confinement conditions inflicted upon US Army PFC Bradley Manning have been successful. Manning's lead defense attorney, David E. Coombs of Rhode Island, has personally verified that Manning is indeed being held in Medium Custody confinement at the Joint Regional Corrections Facility (JRCF) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as claimed by the Army last week.

"We won this battle because 600,000 individuals took the time to write letters and sign petitions, because thousands called the White House switchboard, because 300 of America's top legal scholars decried Bradley's pre-trial conditions as a clear violation of our Constitution's 5th and 8th Amendments," declared Jeff Paterson of Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network. "We won this battle because over a hundred concerned citizens engaged in civil disobedience at the White House and at Quantico, and because our grassroots campaign shows no sign of slowing."

 

Wednesday, May 4 2011   -   In the Media

May 2, 2011

From the CBC Radio program "As it Happens:"
BIN LADEN: US REACTION Duration: 00:07:47

News of Osama Bin Laden's death last night brought Donna Marsh O'Connor sadness and a sense of loss.

That's an unusual reaction for anyone --- but especially for someone who lost a pregnant daughter in the September eleventh attacks nearly ten years ago, and could have had a grandchild by now.

Donna is now the spokesperson for September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group that aims to turn the grief of losing a loved one in the 2001 attacks into a catalyst for peace.

We reached her in Syracuse, New York.

Hear the audio at:
http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=1906256326

 

Wednesday, May 4 2011   -   In the Media

By Reuters
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 -- 8:24 am
Rawstory.com

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Pittsburgh Steelers halfback Rashard Mendenhall remained a target of sharp criticism by Twitter users on Tuesday after he posted a message questioning whether news that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed should be cheered.

As spontaneous celebrations broke out in the hours after the nation learned bin Laden was shot dead by U.S. forces in Pakistan, Mendenhall used the social media site to denounce the response.

"What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side," Mendenhall wrote in a message posted to the social media site on Monday.

 

Tuesday, May 3 2011   -   Civil Liberties-Police State

Invasive provisions about to expire haven't made us safer

By Coleen Rowley and Philip Leggiere
April 25, 2011
WashingtonTimes.com

In little more than a month, three of the 160 provisions of the notorious Patriot Act are set to expire. While federal officials have claimed that Congress must reauthorize those provisions to keep the nation safe, we should take their claims with a grain of proverbial salt. Last month, FBI Director Robert Mueller urged Congress to extend these provisions, set to expire May 27, and even to make them permanent. Section 215 authorizes secret court orders for business records. The "Lone Wolf" wiretapping provision allows the government to track non-U.S. citizens inside the country even if they have no affiliation to a foreign power or terrorist group. Finally, the "John Doe" roving wiretap provision allows open-ended wiretapping orders limited neither to a particular suspect nor particular phones or devices.

Mr. Mueller warned ominously that without these powers, law enforcement and counterterror investigations would be severely undermined, adding, predictably, that they are "critical to national security."

But his words have an all too familiar - and hollow - ring.

Nine years ago, before Coleen Rowley (co-author of this article) retired from a 24-year career as an FBI special agent, she wrote to Mr. Mueller to point out some of the bureau's failures prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A disturbing lack of accountability had followed the attacks with the director and other officials falsely suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies lacked advance knowledge of the attacks. That wasn't so. Numerous pieces of intelligence data had poured in during that summer of 2001, including prior warnings from my colleagues in the Minneapolis field office related to Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui would later be convicted for his role in the Sept. 11 plot.

 

Tuesday, May 3 2011   -   Editorials

by Kristen Breitweiser, 9/11 widow and activist
May 2, 2011
Huffingtonpost.com

When my husband was killed on the morning of 9/11, television stations around the world ran split-screen video. They showed the buildings still burning juxtaposed against young Arabs celebrating in the streets. That disturbing vision left me incredulous; it was forever emblazoned on my psyche.

Ten years later, now fully awake in the bright sunlight of the day, when I contemplate the definition of victory for our country when it comes to the death of Osama bin Laden, I can only think about the damage that has been done.

I think about the thousands of lives lost -- American, Afghani, Iraqi. I know firsthand the sorrow those families have felt. I ponder how the billions -- maybe trillions -- of dollars could have been better spent. I remain alarmed about the continued expansion of absolute Executive power in the name of fighting this seemingly ongoing and never-ending "war on terror." I worry about the further erosion of our constitutional rights. I wonder when our troops will ever be called home. I know all too well, that thousands of young American men and women soldiers will never have the opportunity to return home. And of course, I fear reprisal.

 

Monday, May 2 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

BUSH: "We haven't heard from him in a long time. ... Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. ... I just don't spend that much time on him... we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run.

March 13, 2002
Comments by then-President George W. Bush
Georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 13, 2002

President Bush Holds Press Conference
[Partial transcript follows with Bush's full comments in response to a press question on bin Laden.]

 

Monday, May 2 2011   -   Research/Evidence

June 7 2006
FBI says, "No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11"

Reread this full article, reprinted at 911truth.org from Muckraker (no longer available online) here: http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20060611155014535

Courtesy of The Muckraker Report

June 6, 2006 -- This past weekend, a thought provoking e-mail circulated through Internet news groups, and was sent to the Muckraker Report by Mr. Paul V. Sheridan (Winner of the 2005 Civil Justice Foundation Award), bringing attention to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist web page for Usama Bin Laden.[1] (See bottom of this web page for Most Wanted page) In the e-mail, the question is asked, "Why doesn't Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted poster make any direct connection with the events of September 11, 2001?" The FBI says on its Bin Laden web page that Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. According to the FBI, these attacks killed over 200 people. The FBI concludes its reason for "wanting" Bin Laden by saying, "In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorists attacks throughout the world."

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden's Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11. The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI. When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden's Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11." (emphasis added)