Thursday, August 31 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

By Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor
The Crisis Papers
August 29, 2006

Excellent review of the downstream consequences -- intended and otherwise -- of the September 11 attacks. - Ed.

The imminent fifth anniversary of 9/11 provides the proper moment for a good, ol'-fashioned sum-up of the past half-decade under CheneyBush, especially because so much has happened in the past 12-months:

The Bush Administration's Katrina debacle, Iraq being sucked deeper into the civil-war vortex, Afghanistan turning once again into a major war theater, more and more military leaders speaking out about the disaster that is CheneyBush foreign policy, the defection of so many moderate conservatives from their GOP home, the plummeting of Bush's popularity to not much more than his fundamentalist base, the revelation that Bush&Co. have been spying on citizens' phone calls and emails without court warrants, the indictment of CheneyBush's chief aide Scooter Libby for obstruction of justice in the case of the White House's outing of a covert CIA agent, the "rendering" of detainees abroad for extreme torturing, etc. etc.

I'll get to the annual list in a moment. But first let's step back and take a deeper overview. Buckle your seat belts, here we go.  

Saturday, August 5 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

President Bush is at the Helm of an Administration that Won't Stop Lying

Paul Craig Roberts
The Smirking Chimp
July 29, 2006

In earlier careers, Dr. Roberts was associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan. Now he's one of the most devastating conservative critics of the neocons' long fascistic spree. Here he offers a potent and 9/11-mindful counterattack on their bloody war on truth. The final few paragraphs summarize our challenge memorably. - Ed.

The Bush Regime has killed tens of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan, mainly women and children. The deaths are excused as unintended "collateral damage" of the ongoing war, but the deaths are nonetheless important to the tens of thousands of relatives and friends. An equally important casualty of the Bush Regime is truth. The American public has been trained to obediently accept their government's lies fed to them by their government's handmaiden, the US Media. No statement or claim by a Bush Regime Official is too outlandish to be received with acceptance. Consider the claim by Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary for War and Aggression, made to the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on May 17, that Iran was to blame for the instability in Iraq.

Did the senators laugh Rumsfeld out of the room? No.

 

Sunday, July 30 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

Proof of Lung Woes

by Jordan Lite and Corky Siemaszko
New York Daily News
July 27, 2006

Toiling deep in the bowels of Ground Zero, Firefighter Kevin Delano suspected he was breathing in poison but continued hunting for bodies anyway.

Now there's more proof the asthma that has made it impossible for the 52-year-old to cross his lawn without wheezing was caused by the deadly dust he inhaled.

 

Monday, July 10 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

Tax Dollars to Fund Study on Restricting Public Data

by Richard Willing
USA TODAY
7/5/2006

With state, church, academia and the armed forces all slamming Constitutional windows and breaking out the duct tape, wonder whether the insiders or outsiders will end up suffocating first. Just as wholesale Internet surveillance is "justified" by kiddie porn, this clampdown on FOI protections is being peddled as "critical infrastructure defense." Next time you want to know about the toxic waste your corporate neighbor is exuding, the graft that's driving our energy policies, or the environmental impact of the new nuclear plant they're planning down the street, remember you're in state secrets land now, children. You want the terrorists to win? - Ed.

The federal government will pay a Texas law school $1 million to do research aimed at rolling back the amount of sensitive data available to the press and public through freedom-of-information requests.  

Monday, July 3 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

by Jeff Wells
Rigorous Intuition
June 17, 2006

A briefly missed blog gem from the righteous Jeff Mills at Rigorous Intuition. See also his insightful riff on physical evidence controversies: The Guns of 9/11. - Ed.

They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy.
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can't help it if I'm lucky. - Bob Dylan

This may be old news to you, but just a quick note here of something I'd missed about Flight 77, thanks to "Bismillah" and the RI forum, that I hope you won't miss, too.

At least among those with a mind for such things, it's fairly well-remembered that on September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld made the shocking announcement that the Pentagon "couldn't track" $2.3 trillion of its transactions. "Iroquois" observes, "What's interesting to me is that he made his press release on a Monday. In DC, I always see bad news given on a Friday, usually late in the afternoon on Friday. The exception, of course, would be when someone happens to know that there is a far bigger story coming out."

 

Thursday, June 29 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 29, 2006

Contact:
Sibel Edmonds,
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition,
SEdmonds@NSWBC.org

Alexandria, VA -- The following members of Congress, by their action or inaction, have stood against real investigations, hearings, and legislation dealing with government whistleblowers who have exposed fraud, waste, abuse, and/or criminal activities within government agencies. These representatives of the People are not only standing against whistleblowers, but against the public's right to know, effective oversight, accountability, and ultimately against the democratic processes that underpin our society.  

Wednesday, June 21 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

Homeland Security, the "Keystone Stasi," Now Tracks and Enforces Local Police Warrants

June 20, 2006: For many years, those working to create a total surveillance state have employed the "salami tactic" of taking away our freedoms one slice at a time. Laws that directly challenge constitutional rights, like the USA PATRIOT Act, are the spectacular exception. Agencies like FEMA quietly prepare plans for martial law, and have built a "Shadow Government" for military rule without need of a written order. The Bush administration for its part has constantly tested the waters, establishing new realities by fiat (as in its creation of the "enemy combatant" category to justify unlimited detention without charges), or floating test balloons like the "Total Information Awareness" program (which was withdrawn officially, even as the NSA's telephone surveillance proceeded to implement its spirit behind the scenes).

 

Sunday, June 18 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

By Eric Lipton
New York Times
June 18, 2006

The pervasive public fear ignited by 9/11 and relentlessly fanned by government leaders and the mainstream media has proved an unfailing political profit center for the administration and unimaginably enriched its military-industrial handlers. It is now also enwealthening scores of officials personally as "War on Terror"-profiteering accelerates the fusion of our private and public spheres. - Ed.

WASHINGTON - Dozens of members of the Bush administration's domestic security team, assembled after the 2001 terrorist attacks, are now collecting bigger paychecks in different roles: working on behalf of companies that sell domestic security products, many directly to the federal agencies the officials once helped run.

At least 90 officials at the Department of Homeland Security or the White House Office of Homeland Security - including the department's former secretary, Tom Ridge; the former deputy secretary, Adm. James M. Loy; and the former under secretary, Asa Hutchinson - are executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars' worth of domestic security business.

 

Friday, June 16 2006   -   9/11 Consequences



 

Monday, June 12 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

by Evelyn Pringle
http://www.opednews.com
June 7, 2006

Well, it certainly did not take long for our rebalanced Supremes to get down with the repressive beat driving our other two branches of governance. Who said the neocons were not a unifying force? - Ed.

According to US Census Bureau statistics, in 2002, there were over 21 million federal, state, and local government employees in the US. These employees are in the best position to expose misconduct and abuses of power that arise in government agencies. However, the recent US Supreme Court decision effectively muzzles the nation's watchdogs.

Attorney Barry Turner, a Lecturer of Law at Leeds Law School in the UK, describes the Supreme Court's decision absurd. "Transparency is essential in any democracy and is a bulwark against corruption, which," he points out, "requires secrecy to survive."

 

Friday, March 17 2006   -   9/11 Consequences

March 17, 2006