Dec. 29, 2008
Associated Press

MIAMI - U.S. prosecutors want a Miami judge to sentence the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 147 years in prison for torturing people when he was chief of a brutal paramilitary unit during his father's reign.

... A recent Justice Department court filing describes torture -- which the U.S. has been accused of in the war on terror -- as a "flagrant and pernicious abuse of power and authority" that warrants severe punishment of Taylor.

"It undermines respect for and trust in authority, government and a rule of law," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller in last week's filing (emphasis added). "The gravity of the offense of torture is beyond dispute."

December 28, 2008
by Harold Saive
911Blogger.com

In November, 2008, Gators911Truth sent a letter to FBI Director, Robert S. Mueller, III asking the DOJ to consider the forensic evidence of controlled demolition as presented by Architect, Richard Gage - founder of AE911Truth.org. The evidence is presented in Gage's 2008 DVD lecture titled: "911: BLUEPRINT FOR TRUTH. The Architecture of Destruction".

The letter was sent under the provisions of TITLE18 USC § 2382, Misprision of Treason and/or 18 USC § 4 , Misprision of Felony. We received a response today from the Asst. Dir. of Counterterrorism, Michael J. Heimbach.

Interview: Monday, Dec 29, 2008 from 4 - 6 pm Pacific Time
Activist singer-songwriter Vic Sadot has a new CD out, 9/11 Truth & Justice Songs. Vic will be interviewed by Che X on the popular San Francisco station known as Pirate Cat Radio.

Vic Sadot has been an activist since his college days when campus activists at the University of Delaware convinced him that we were being lied to about the Vietnam War. Songwriter Phil Ochs became a hero to Vic and his brothers and sisters from 1968 until Ochs' shocking suicide in 1976. In May of 1973 Vic was a community volunteer at Georgetown University's WGTB. He jumped at the opportunity to interview Phil Ochs. Vic wrote a tribute song to Phil Ochs a year after Ochs died: Broadside Balladeer.

Vic's current project is a Limited Edition collectors item fitting for a first announcement on a show like Pirate Cat Radio's "Notes from the Underground". The show will be archived and available for mp3 download within 2 hours after the broadcast concludes. "9/11 Truth & Justice Songs" was begun in Delaware studios. Vic moved to Berkeley, California in September of 2008.

by Kevin Ryan
December 27, 2008
Kevin Ryan's Blog at 911Blogger.com

This past year I've done some photomicroscopy of samples of WTC dust. A number of examples of the photos can be found in the latest AE911truth.org video. The related scientific analyses of the particles found in the WTC dust, in particular the red-gray chips first discovered by Professor Steven Jones, are ongoing.

But I've also spent some time making nanothermites, and igniting them. Here is a slideshow of 26 photomicrographs, half of which are nanothermite residues and half of which are ferromagnetic particles extracted from WTC dust samples. These photos share many things in common, including the presence of metallic microspheres, vesicular formations and red-orange chips. Sometimes it's hard to remember which photo belongs to which category. If the nanothermite residues were mixed with concrete dust and glass fragments, it would likely be much more difficult to notice any differences.

Project Censored's list of stories here includes "Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror," which is reprinted below.

• #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
• # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
• # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
• # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
• # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
• # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
• # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
• # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
• #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
• # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
• # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
• # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
• # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
• # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
• # 15 Worldwide Slavery
• # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
• # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
• # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
• # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
• # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
• # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
• # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
• # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
• # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror (Reprinted below)
• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

Accusation--Attorney general-nominee led effort to kill investigation into prisoner's death.

By Pamela Manson

The Salt Lake Tribune

December 25, 2008

A Salt Lake City lawyer who claims his brother was tortured and murdered in a federal prison is alleging that Attorney General nominee Eric Holder played a role in covering up the crime.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee members, lawyer Jesse Trentadue acknowledges the paper trail on Holder's actions "is scant," but claims he was the "point man" in an effort to persuade Congress to not investigate his brother's death. He is asking that Holder be questioned at his confirmation hearing next year about his alleged attempt to block efforts "to obtain a certain measure of justice for my brother's murder."

For Immediate Release: December 22, 2008
Contact: Krista Minteer (212) 845-5207

Human Rights Group Requests Stay in KSM's Military Commission Case

New York--Human Rights First filed a friend-of-the-court brief today, requesting a stay of proceedings in the military commission case of the alleged 9/11 conspirators, United States v. Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, et al. until after President-elect Barack Obama takes office. Obama has repeatedly criticized the military commissions, and he has vowed to close Guantanamo and try suspected terrorists in ordinary criminal or military courts.

The amicus brief was filed in response to a request by Muhammed and his co-defendants, made during a court appearance on December 8th, to withdraw all legal motions and plead guilty. The military judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley adjourned the case temporarily to allow for mental competency evaluations of two of the defendants and for the government to brief whether the Military Commissions Act permits guilty pleas in a capital case. But the military prosecutors are continuing to press forward with the case, and they are likely to seek another hearing before President-elect Obama takes office. Three of the five detainees, including Muhammed, are representing themselves and have resisted working with the military lawyers assigned to assist them.

by Ann Wright
26 December 2008

On the news today of the death of Harold Pinter, the winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature, I remembered hearing his Nobel Laureate lecture/acceptance speech. I was in London in December 2005, speaking at the annual Stop the War conference when Pinter delivered his speech - not in Oslo, as Pinter was very sick and could not travel, but in London via TV link.

I was amazed and thrilled that he chose to use the Nobel Prize platform and devote a huge portion of his speech to shining an international spotlight on the tragic effects of the past decades of US foreign policy and particularly, on George Bush and Tony Blair's decisions to invade and occupy Iraq, on Guantanamo and on torture.

Pinter's Laureate speech question, "Is Our Conscience Dead?" is most relevant today when three years after his acceptance speech, "Art, Truth and Politics," Bush, Cheney, Rice and other administration officials are either trying to rewrite history or, as in Cheney's case - purposefully revealing his role in specific criminal acts of torture and daring the American legal system and people to hold him accountable.

By Thomas A. Schweich
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Washington Post

We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk.

President-elect Barack Obama's selections of James L. Jones, a retired four-star Marine general, to be his national security adviser and, it appears, retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair to be his director of national intelligence present the incoming administration with an important opportunity -- and a major risk. These appointments could pave the way for these respected military officers to reverse the current trend of Pentagon encroachment upon civilian government functions, or they could complete the silent military coup d'etat that has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most Americans and the media.

While serving the State Department in several senior capacities over the past four years, I witnessed firsthand the quiet, de facto military takeover of much of the U.S. government. The first assault on civilian government occurred in faraway places -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- and was, in theory, justified by the exigencies of war.

23 December 2008
by Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site

With his choice of Admiral Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, President-elect Barack Obama has now named three recently retired four-star military officers to serve in his cabinet. This unprecedented representation of the senior officer corps within the incoming Democratic administration is indicative of a growth in the political power of the US military that poses a serious threat to basic democratic rights.

As head of the US military's Pacific command in 1999-2000, Blair was distinguished by his efforts to solidarize the Pentagon with the military of Indonesia as it carried out butchery in East Timor, effectively vetoing the half-hearted human rights concerns voiced by the Clinton administration.

Before tapping Blair, Obama named former Marine Gen. James Jones as his national security adviser and former Army chief of staff Gen. Erik Shinseki as secretary of veterans affairs. It is also reported that the incoming administration may ask retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to stay on as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Dec. 21, 2008
60 Minutes

Since 9/11, $40 billion has been spent to beef up airport security, with most of it going to hire 50,000 screeners who enforce rules often considered annoying and arbitrary.

...When correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Kip Hawley, the outgoing head of TSA, if all this is really necessary, he wanted us to know that the terrorist threat has not gone away.

"This is war. These people are trying to kill us. They got on the planes in September 11th, 2001, killed 3,000 people. And they will do it again as many times as they can," Hawley said.

By Jordy Yager
December 17, 2008

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

"As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain," said Daniel O'Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. "This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter."

It's not about them--it's about us

December 15, 2008
by Mike Ferner
MikeFerner.org

During the rush to get the Nuremberg Tribunals underway, the Soviet delegation wanted the tribunal’s historic decisions to have legitimacy only for the Nazis. U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson, serving as the chief prosecutor for the Allies, strong-armed the Soviets until the very beginning of the tribunal before changing their minds.

In his opening statement Jackson very purposely stipulated, “…Let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.”

Can there be a better reason for prosecuting George Bush and his administration for war crimes than those words from the chief prosecutor of the Nazis, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, with the full support of the U.S. government? Robert Jackson’s words and the values this nation claims to stand for provide sufficient moral basis for putting Bush and Cheney, their underlings who implemented their policies and the perverted legal minds who justified them all in the dock. If those are not sufficient reasons, there is a long list of binding law and treaties – written in black and white in surprisingly plain English.

December 20, 2008
VelvetRevolution.us

Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution ("VR"), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell's activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how to tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that the George Bush and Dick Cheney would "throw [him] under the bus."

A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell's life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR's attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General, Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell's not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabotaged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.

As the departing Bush administration frantically attempts to shore up its place in history, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann stands ready to kick the props out from under it again. A renewed claim that "no one could have anticipated" the attacks of 9/11 attracted his scorn in particular on Thursday's Countdown.

"This is a White House talking point still, even though your average three-year-old could disprove it using an etch-a-sketch." Olbermann sneered on Thursday, over the heading, "Insult the Dead-gate."

Olbermann's specific target was White House press spokesman Tony Fratto, who responded to a Fox News interviewer's suggestion on Wednesday that before 9/11, "nobody was thinking that there'd be terrorists flying 767s into buildings" by agreeing, "No one could have anticipated that kind of attack -- or very few people."