Supreme Court Justice Edward Lehner has begun consideration of NYC CAN's motion to reject Referee's Louis Crespo's recommendation that the NYC CAN 9/11 petition not be submitted to the voters on November 3. The petition would ask whether or not there should be an independent New York City investigation into 9/11.

Responding to a motion brought by NYC CAN attorney Dennis McMahon, a hearing was held Tuesday September 29 at the New York State Supreme Court, and concluded with the understanding that the Court will likely render a decision on the petition's legality by Friday, October 2.

The City's previously assumed deadline of September 30—spurred by the printing deadline for military absentee ballots—was brushed away by Judge Lehner as he suggested the printing of absentee ballots would likely not be ordered on Wednesday, September 30, since runoff elections were being held while the Court was in session. Even if the ballots were ordered on Wednesday, Lehner indicated, this should not prevent the referendum from being put before the vast majority of the electorate who would be voting in New York City.

A key senior figure in a Bush administration covert Pentagon program, which used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage, remains in his same position today as a chief Obama Defense Department spokesman and the agency’s head of all media operations.

In an examination of Pentagon documents the New York Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request -- which reporter David Barstow leveraged for his April 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose on the program – Raw Story has found that Bryan Whitman surfaces in over 500 emails and transcripts, revealing the deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations was both one of the program’s senior participants and an active member.

Whitman’s conspicuous presence in these records is notwithstanding thousands of documented communications the Bush Pentagon released but for which names were redacted and an untold number the prior administration successfully withheld after its two-year legal battle with the Times.

Barstow’s Times expose revealed a comprehensive, covert Pentagon campaign -- beginning during the lead-up to the Iraq War and continuing through 2008 -- that shaped network military analysts into what internal documents referred to as “message force multipliers” and “surrogates” who could be trusted to parrot Bush administration talking points “in the form of their own opinions.” Barstow’s reporting also detailed how most of the military analysts, traditionally viewed as authoritative and independent, had ties to defense contractors with a stake in the same war policies they were interpreting daily to the American public.

NY Supreme Court Hearing 9:30AM Tuesday Will Determine Fate of Referendum

March For Answers 9/27/09

See The March (more below)

On Sunday, 9/11 family member Manny Badillo welcomed the crowd at Battery Park, "Today we are marching peaceably to let the world know that the City of NY is defying the will of the people to have one question on the ballot, the question to have a proper independent investigation to answer 100% of the questions raised by the 9/11 families."

Monday, September 28th, 2009 -- 2:45 pm
RawStory.org

UPDATE (at bottom): City's law department tells RAW STORY that a new 9/11 investigation is 'not a proper subject to be placed before the voters' '

A lead actor from the popular FX television show "Rescue Me" joined a large group of 9/11 activists and survivors on Sunday in a march from New York City's Battery Park to city hall.

During an afternoon rally in the park, Daniel Sunjata, who plays the role of Franco Rivera in the firefighter drama featuring actor Dennis Leary, took the stage with an impassioned call for a new investigation.

The march was held to support the NYC CAN coalition, which is currently engaged in a court battle with city hall over the legality of their ballot measure calling for a new 9/11 investigation.

John M. Cole, a former FBI Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Manager, has publicly confirmed the FBI's decade long investigation of the former State Department Official Marc Grossman. Cole worked for 18 years in the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. According to Cole, as in over one hundred cases involving Israeli espionage activities directed against the US government, the Grossman case was covered up and buried despite mountains of evidence that was collected.

Here is the public response from John Cole after the publication of The American Conservative magazine's cover story:

"I read the recent cover story by The American Conservative magazine. I applaud their courage in publishing this significant interview. I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of the High-level State Department Official named in this article, Marc Grossman, which ultimately was buried and covered up. It is long past time to investigate this case and bring about accountability..."

Outraged by the police/military repression of protest at the G-20 in Pittsburg? Sign this letter of outrage!

September 27, 2009
World Can't Wait.org READ Cindy Sheehan's letter from Pittsburgh
WATCH video footage.

Breaking News: Court Referee Recommends Ruling in Favor of City;
NYC CAN To File Motion To Reject Referee's Recommendation

Rather than waiting until the scheduled decision date of Monday, September 28, Referee Louis Crespo issued his "report and recommendations" on Friday, September 25, and recommended that the Court rule in favor of the City.

After reviewing the referee's report, we feel he did not give adequate consideration to the extensive arguments presented in our memorandum of law submitted on Monday, September 21. The report seemed more a cut and paste from the City's original motion papers than a balanced weighing of the arguments. In particular, the referee's report failed to analyze the vast majority of NYC CAN's legal points as to why the City's claims were unfounded and its reliance on certain case law wholly inapplicable.

By Sibel Edmonds and Philip Giraldi
September 22, 2009
American Conservative Magazine

Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.

A Department of Justice inspector general's report called Edmonds's allegations "credible," "serious," and "warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI." Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have backed her publicly. "60 Minutes" launched an investigation of her claims and found them believable. No one has ever disproved any of Edmonds's revelations, which she says can be verified by FBI investigative files.

The BRAD BLOG : Exclusive: Upcoming Cover Story on Edmonds 'Outs' Video-taped, 'Blackmailed' Dem Congresswoman; Alleges State Dept. Mole at NYTimes; MUCH MORE...

'American Conservative' mag's description of interview with previously-gagged FBI whistleblower as 'explosive' may prove to be a gross understatement

Blackmail, bribery, infiltration, theft and sale of nuke secrets by Turkey, Israel explained in clearer detail than ever before...

It seems it may be difficult to not notice it, given that Edmonds finally names, on the record, for the first time, in a right-leaning periodical founded by Pat Buchanan, the identity of the currently-serving Democratic Congresswoman she has previously described as married with grown children and having been "hooked" into participating in a lesbian affair with a Turkish foreign agent, as she was secretly video-taped for blackmail purposes.

GCN & The Dr. Laurie Nadel Show Exclusive:

Dr. Laurie Nadel interviewed Rescue Me's Daniel Sunjata about 9/11 Truth Movement September 19th

Daniel Sunjata is using his celebrity status to push for a new investigation into the discrepancies surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

A respected actor who stars as FDNY firefighter Franco Rivera on the television program Rescue Me (FX Networks), he has become an independent spokesman for the 9/11 Truth Movement. Daniel joins Dr. Laurie Nadel on Saturday, September 19th for a no-holds-barred interview.

There’s a new issue of The American Conservative going to press today, and it includes a story that will make more than a few congressmen and foreign lobbyists intensely uncomfortable: an in-depth interview between Phil Giraldi and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. She tells us exactly how Turkish intelligence have penetrated national secrets, suborned government officials, and blackmailed Congress. It’s going to be explosive.

Engineers and Architects Argue About What Made the World Trade Center Fall

One of the crucial technical disputes in American history, perhaps second only to global warming, is underway. It pits hundreds of government technicians who say the World Trade Center buildings were brought down by airplane impact against hundreds of professional architects and building engineers who insist that the Twin Towers could never have collapsed solely due to the planes and are calling for a new independent investigation. It is a fight that is not going away and is likely to get louder as more building trade professionals sign on to one side or the other.

Better than anyone, David Ray Griffin understands the “enormous importance” of Richard Gage, the Bay Area architect and staunch Republican who founded Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911 Truth).

Griffin, the controversial retired Santa Barbara philosophy professor/theologian (Claremont School of Theology), is regarded as the leading investigative force within what is called the 9/11 Truth movement, with seven 9/11 books to his credit, including his bestseller The New Pearl Harbor. Although sometimes challenged (about accuracy), until Gage appeared, Griffin found his greatest stumbling block in public appearances to be this question: If his analysis was true — that two planes could not have brought down three World Trade Center (WTC) buildings without the aid of pre-planted explosives — why didn’t a single U.S. architect or building engineer publicly support him? Now, in three years, Gage has signed up 804 architects and structural engineers, some from top firms, who challenge the official version of the buildings’ collapses.