Saturday, January 10 2009   -   Other Important News

21 hours ago
AFP at www.google.com/hostednews

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The outgoing White House administration will next week hold a joint "disaster scenario" exercise with top members of the incoming team of president-elect Barack Obama, US officials said Friday.

"I'm not going to go into the details of it, but it is a disaster scenario where the government would be very much tested," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

"It is an exercise scenario, a hypothetical scenario that is designed to test and tax the capabilities of the federal government," he added.

He did not specify whether Obama or vice president-elect Joe Biden would take part in Tuesday's three-hour long exercise, saying merely it was part of regular training events and had not been motivated by any specific threat.

 

Friday, January 9 2009   -   Editorials

UPDATE 1/10/09: Shamefully, the US House of Representatives yesterday passed H.Res.34, "Recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza, reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process," on a suspension of the rules since it had not yet come back out of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. (Apparently, Rep. Howard Berman was in a big hurry to get this done.) Full text of the resolution is reposted at the end of this article.

In the end, 116 Reps Cosponsored the Resolution, and roll call vote shows 490 YEA, 5 NAY, 22 COWARD (aka "PRESENT"), with 16 not voting. Integrity Award goes to NO voters Dennis Kucinich, Gwen Moore, Ron Paul, Nick Rahall, and Maxine Waters. For all the terrible details, see "House Adopts Measure Backing Israel on

 

Friday, January 9 2009   -   9/11 Consequences

Among the men about to undergo military trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind.

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The military judge overseeing proceedings against five of the men accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks signed an order designed to protect classified information that is so broad it could prevent public scrutiny of the most important trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to lawyers and human rights groups.

The protective order, which was signed on Dec. 18 by Judge Stephen R. Henley, an Army colonel, not only protects documents and information that have been classified by intelligence agencies, it also presumptively classifies any information "referring" to a host of agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the State Department. The order also allows the court in certain circumstances to classify information already in the public domain and presumptively classifies "any statements made by the accused."

 

Friday, January 9 2009   -   In the Media

By Paul Craig Roberts
January 08, 2009
Information Clearinghouse

The American print and TV media has never been very good. These days it is horrible. If a person intends to be informed, he must turn to foreign news broadcasts, to Internet sites, to foreign newspapers available on the Internet, or to alternative newspapers that are springing up in various cities. A person who sits in front of Murdoch's Fox "News" or CNN or who reads the New York Times is simply being brainwashed with propaganda.

Before conservatives nod their heads in agreement, I'm not referring to "the liberal media." I mean the propaganda that issues from the US government and the Israel Lobby.

It was neoconservative Bush regime propaganda fed to America through Judith Miller and the New York Times and through Murdoch's Fox "News" that convinced Americans that they were in danger from a small secular Arab country half way around the globe called Iraq. It was the American media that convinced Americans that getting rid of dangerous "weapons of mass destruction," weapons that did not exist in Iraq, would be a cakewalk paid for by Iraqi oil revenues.

 

Friday, January 9 2009   -   Other Important News

By Paul Elias
Associated Press
January 7, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO -- Six veterans who claim they were exposed to dangerous chemicals, germs and mind-altering drugs during Cold War experiments sued the CIA, Department of Defense and other agencies today.

The vets volunteered for military experiments they say were part of a wide-ranging program started in the 1950s to test nerve agents, biological weapons and mind-control techniques.

They allege in their lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court that they were never properly informed of the nature of the experiments and are in poor health because of their exposure. They are demanding health care and a court ruling that the program was illegal because it failed to obtain their consent.

 

Thursday, January 8 2009   -   9/11 Consequences

by Peter Dale Scott
January 7, 2009

Paulson's Financial Bailout

It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.

The excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed.

According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by "news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits."¹ In addition, as AP reported in October, "Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,' he said."²

Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details ...

 

Thursday, January 8 2009   -   Get Involved

January 8, 2008

This just in from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, IAVA:

This week reports surfaced that KBR, a military-contracting firm, may have knowingly exposed troops to dangerous toxins in Iraq. Today, I am asking you to take a stand with IAVA, and call for accountability.

In April of 2003, members of the Indiana National Guard were protecting KBR employees at a power plant in Southern Iraq. After their service, some of these troops exhibited signs of cancer, tumors and rashes, and new reports indicate that these injuries may be the result of exposure to toxins present at the site.

Incredibly, CBS News has uncovered evidence that KBR may have known about the risks months before it took any action to inform those soldiers.

 

Thursday, January 8 2009   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

Dec 15, 2008
by David Chandler
Architects & Engineers for 911 Truth (AE911Truth.org)

In its draft report, released in August 2008, NIST attempted to cover up evidence that WTC7 fell at freefall, but the coverup was transparent. In its final report, released in November 2008, NIST finally acknowledged freefall, but couched it in a bizarre framework that continues to deny its clear significance. Part I [of this video] chronicles NIST's attempted obfuscation and eventual admission of freefall. Part II demonstrates that their replacement theory is based on fabricated evidence and is a continuation of the coverup. Part III will spell out the significance of NIST's admission of freefall.

Click more for videos:

 

Wednesday, January 7 2009   -   Get Involved

For nearly five years, 911Truth.org has served as your portal to reliable information about 9/11, its precedents and consequences, as an umbrella for hundreds of local truth activism groups, as a catalyst for national campaigns and new 9/11 truth special interest groups, and so much more. We are at a very critical juncture right now, as monthly donation pledges total about $500. We need to raise $15,000 for this first quarter of 2009 if we are to continue to provide these valuable services.

Please take a moment right now to help.

 

Wednesday, January 7 2009   -   Resources and Materials

Don Paul is a writer, musician and activist who was among the first to speak out about 9/11 fraud. His books, including "'9/11': Facing Our Fascist State" and "Waking Up From Our Nightmare (with Jim Hoffman)," have inspired many to seek the truth about 9/11 and other critical issues.

A new compilation of Don's writings is called The World is Turning: "9/11," the Movement for Justice, & Reclaiming America for the World. This new book combines two earlier and much-acclaimed Don Paul books with many articles that are new to print and that extend into late 2008. I was honored to be asked to write the introduction. The book should be available soon though Don's website, http://www.wireonfire.com/donpaul/dphome.html

Today, a new essay from Don, entitled "Becoming Our Government, Making the Future Our Own" is available here: http://www.911blogger.com/files/Becoming.pdf. Many thanks to Don for all his courageous and hopeful work.

 

Tuesday, January 6 2009   -   In the Media

You can hear LIVE Alternative Coverage of the Israeli War On Gaza on No Lies Radio, every weekday at 5pm Pacific - 8pm Eastern

Click Here To Listen -- http://noliesradio.org

 

Monday, January 5 2009   -   Get Involved

Inaugurate Yourself!

Starting: San Diego, CA, on January 10
Ending: Washington, DC on January 20

How will the American people set an agenda in Washington that guarantees deep change?

How can we aim high, and demand the impossible?

How can we guarantee Barack Obama will fulfill the hope and promise he has represented?

(And how deep will the change really be, when you’ve put together a centrist cabinet?)

Inaugurate Yourself! will gather fellow rebels and radicals, spiritual people and political instigators, people who want to speak out and support Sander Hicks'' “Three New Imperatives:”

 

Monday, January 5 2009   -   Resources and Materials

FAMILY OF SECRETS:
The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House,
and What Their Influence Means for America

By award-winning investigative journalist Russ Baker

Revelatory new book on Bush family
publishing January 2009

How did Bush happen? How did George W. Bush, of all people, rise to the most powerful position in the world? This simple question sparked a five-year investigative odyssey by Russ Baker. What he found will force us to rethink virtually everything we thought we knew about the Bush family and its role in shaping recent American history.

In FAMILY OF SECRETS, Baker reveals that Bush, the people around him, and his policies are but an extreme, very public manifestation of what his family and its circle have always been about: an interlocking web of covert and overt machinations on behalf of a small cluster of elites-social, financial, industrial, military, intelligence-that enabled the Bush dynasty and propelled George W. Bush to the top.

 

Sunday, January 4 2009   -   Research/Evidence

by Reprehensor
Sunday, January 04, 2009
911Blogger.com

(James Bamford has done another great deed for the public by revealing the extent of the NSA's wiretapping on U.S. soil, and how the NSA sub-contracts the vast majority of its work to Israeli high-tech firms bristling with "former" Israeli military intelligence agents, and in the case of Verint, a company with serious corruption issues. It was Bamford who popularized the existence of Operation Northwoods in his 2001 book, Body of Secrets. In The Shadow Factory, he sheds light in the secret rooms of Verizon and AT&T, and shows the NSA to be a very poor custodian of the nation's security.)

Bamford Brings the Goods

On October 14, 2008, James Bamford talked about some of the shocking research in his new book on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman ...

 

Sunday, January 4 2009   -   Other Important News

by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories
Huffingtonpost.com
January 2, 2009

For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.

Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign fellowship awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives. At the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago when I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for human rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health of the Gazan population, especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases. The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already in grave condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.