April 13, 2009
Scott Horton
TheDailyBeast.com

Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantánamo.

Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid. But the decision is likely to raise concerns with the human-rights community on other points: They will seek to have the case referred to a different judge.

The six defendants--in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith--are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in "the war on terror." The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human-rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. "The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation," one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated.

The excellent work by Niels Harrit, Farrer, Jones and Ryan et. al in the recent journal article (Thermitic Material Discovered in WTC Dust) has paved the way for some very good media coverage in Denmark. At around 10:30 pm on Monday April 6, Harrit was interviewed for 10 minutes during the late news program on one of the two most respected Danish television channels (TV2). On Wednesday April 8, Harrit was interviewed for 6 minutes at 8:45 am during a live news and entertainment program on the same channel. In both cases, Harrit, and the claims of the article, were treated with refreshing seriousness and respect.

The first interview has been subtitled in English and loaded onto youtube (direct link):

April 7, 2009
Commentary by Tim Jones
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Deeplinks Blog

We had hoped this would go differently.

Friday evening, in a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF's litigation against the National Security Agency for the warrantless wiretapping of countless Americans, the Obama Administration's made two deeply troubling arguments.

First, they argued, exactly as the Bush Administration did on countless occasions, that the state secrets privilege requires the court to dismiss the issue out of hand. They argue that simply allowing the case to continue "would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security." As in the past, this is a blatant ploy to dismiss the litigation without allowing the courts to consider the evidence.

By Scott Roxborough
April 9, 2009, 12:37 PM ET
Hollywoodreporter.com

In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show "Devil's Advocate" on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

The Netherlands, home to "Big Brother" creator Endemol, is known for being on the cutting edge of format-based television. But even for Dutch standards, "Devil's Advocate," from Amsterdam production house AVRO, pushes the envelope.

Photo: Daniel Sunjata as Franco Rivera in 'Rescue Me'

In the new season of the FX drama Rescue Me, firefighter Franco Rivera espouses the belief that 9/11 was "an inside job." According to a Sunday New York Times article, the show's writers added this assertion because actor Daniel Sunjata is a "truther"; but the real firefighters on set—who work as script advisers—were offended by his allegations. This got the Explainer wondering: Do any firefighters believe in 9/11 conspiracy theories?

Yes. There's no evidence that firefighters buy into 9/11 conspiracy theories at higher rates than the rest of the population. (A 2007 Zogby poll found that 26 percent of Americans believe the government "let it happen." A 2006 Scripps-Howard poll found it was more than a third.) But some firemen do believe the government was behind 9/11 and use their status as first responders to draw attention to their statements.

April 9, 2009

Dear Friends around the World,

THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW

To place a public referendum for an impartial, independent and subpoena powered investigation of 9/11 on the New York City Ballot for the November General Election.

The 9/11 Commission was set up in 2002 to “provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11”. What we got instead, in the words of Commission Chairs Governor Thomas Kean and Representative Lee Hamilton, was a Commission “Set up to fail”. A joint statement from both sides of the aisle is a rarity. This one speaks volumes.

AMERICA DESERVES BETTER

Today, over 66% of New York City residents support a new 9/11 investigation. Millions now know that critical questions were left unaddressed. Only an objective, independent, subpoena powered investigation can ask the right people the relevant questions the 9/11 Commission certainly did not. Only an impartial investigation, free from intervention and powered by subpoena, can deliver the answers that every American deserves.

Thanks to your hard work and dedication in keeping 9/11 front and center all along, the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative has succeeded in collecting over 30,000 signatures, leading us to the final phase of our mission; to place a referendum for an independent subpoena powered 9/11 investigation on the NYC Ballot for the November General Election.

April 7, 2009
By Michael Collins
ePM Interviews

Michael Collins sits down with legendary LA County prosecutor and best selling author Vincent Bugliosi in a one-on-one interview on the topic of murder. Specifically, the prosecution of George W. Bush for the murder of 4,200 U.S. soldiers. While large amounts of attention are paid to the also serious charges of torture and illegal warrantless surveillance, Bugliosi sees the deliberate deceiving of the nation into war as crime that easily trumps those in terms of the seriousness -- and body count.

"If we prosecute those in America who only commit one murder, under what theory don't we prosecute a president who is criminally responsible for over four thousand murders?" Vincent Bugliosi

Photo: 2003 State of the Union, Jan. 29, 2003. WikiCommons

(April 5, Wash. DC) The legendary Los Angeles County prosecutor and top selling true crime author, Vincent Bugliosi, continues to make the case that he argued in detail in his New York Times best seller, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. His crime, according to the esteemed former prosecutor: deliberately deceiving the United States into an illegal war that resulted in the deaths of 4,200 U.S. soldiers and more than 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians.

He has the help of a citizens group called ABA Publishing headed by Arminda and Bob Alexander with Jude Morford. The all volunteer group recently sent Bugliosi's cover letter and book to 2,200 local prosecutors across the country.

Bugliosi is offended by the prominence of proposed torture charges to the exclusion of what he argues is the much larger charge: murder.

Since the days of Sir Isaac Newton, Science has proceeded through the publication of peer-reviewed papers. Peer-review means a thorough reading, commentary and even challenge before publication by "peers", that is, other PhD's and professors. This paper was thoroughly peer-reviewed with several pages of tough comments that required of our team MONTHS of additional experiments and studies. It was the toughest peer-review I've ever had, including THREE papers for which I was first author in NATURE. (Please note that Prof. Harrit is first author on this paper.) We sought an established journal that would allow us a LONG paper (this paper is 25 pages long) with MANY COLOR IMAGES AND GRAPHS. Such a scientific journal is not easy to find. Page charges are common for scientific journals these days, and are typically paid by the University of the first or second author (as is the case with this paper) or by an external grant.

A peer-reviewed journal is also called a "refereed" journal. Peer-reviewers are almost always anonymous for scientific publications like this -- that is standard in the scientific world. While authors commonly recommend potential peer-reviewers, editors choose the referees and usually pick at least one or two reviewers that the authors did NOT mention -- and that is almost certainly the case with this paper (based on commentary we received from the reviewers). In the end, all the reviewers -- who were selected by the editor(s) -- approved publication. Thus, the paper was subjected to peer review by the editor or editors, and it passed the peer-review process.

by Jack Hunter
April 8, 2009
Charleston City Paper

"...there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans." --Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, 2003

When discussing politics, if there's one thing that sends people running for the hills, it's conspiracy theories -- or worse, conspiracy theorists.

As with those who are deemed "racist" or "isolationist," conspiracy theorists are automatically dismissed by polite society, not necessarily because they are wrong, but because of the nature of their arguments. And because their ideas and opinions are outside of consensus politics or the mainstream media, conspiracy theorists lack credibility simply for being outside the realm of respectability.

... But 9/11 Truthers and similar groups don't concern me half as much as the conspiracy theorists in our media and government, who have the power to start wars, end lives, and damage nations, based on their own self-aggrandizing-fantasies.

By Elaine Jarvik
April 6, 2009
Deseret News

Tiny red and gray chips found in the dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center contain highly explosive materials -- proof, according to a former BYU professor, that 9/11 is still a sinister mystery.

Physicist Steven E. Jones, who retired from Brigham Young University in 2006 after the school recoiled from the controversy surrounding his 9/11 theories, is one of nine authors on a paper published last week in the online, peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal. Also listed as authors are BYU physics professor Jeffrey Farrer and a professor of nanochemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

For several years, Jones has theorized that pre-positioned explosives, not fires from jet fuel, caused the rapid, symmetrical collapse of the two World Trade Center buildings, plus the collapse of a third building, WTC-7.

Professor David Ray Griffin, renowned author of a series of eye-opening books that recount his painstaking research into the attacks of September 11, 2001, begins his new European tour in London on 14th April. Stressing the fact that the time has come for a second look at the events of that fateful day, the tour will include stops in Paris, Brussels and Madrid, and several other cities.

Professor Griffin's talks will afford the public an excellent opportunity to learn more about the fundamental questions surrounding 9/11. The 9/11 Truth Movement, which started out as a disparate, grass-roots undertaking, has blossomed into a serious community that now includes many specialized branches, such as Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth, Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, Veterans for 9/11 Truth, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (a group which includes a significant number of prominent scientists). Many former intelligence officers also support the movement and have contributed to the ever-growing list of evidence that proves far beyond a reasonable doubt that the explanations provided by the Bush-Cheney administration are quite simply false.

America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite’s rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs. 

We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book "Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West." David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)," and David C. Korten, in "When Corporations Rule the World" and "Agenda for a New Economy," laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.

DANIEL SUNJATA, once a football hero at Mount Carmel, is sure to draw fire as he promotes 9/11 conspiracy theories

April 4, 2009
by Mary Houlihan
Chicago SunTimes

Sunjata has his own 9/11 suspicions

One of the more interesting, and controversial, storylines in the new season of "Rescue Me" revolves around firefighter Franco Rivera and his belief that 9/11 was an "inside job."

As it turns out, Daniel Sunjata, who plays Franco, subscribes to the same conspiracy theory.

"I was shocked that they added it to the show," Sunjata admitted. "When I saw the script, I thought it was a practical joke."

Executive producer Peter Tolan says Sunjata is "well read" and has "done a lot of research" on the topic.

World Trade Center crashed perhaps gravel because someone had placed combustible nano materials in the buildings, and not because the two aircraft were throbbing in them. Analysis of the dust after the WTC has just published a scientific article, including Neils Harrit, a Danish chemist.

Photo: Asbestos and glass flew around New York streets when the Twin Towers collapsed after the attack on the World Trade Center 11 September 2001. Now it appears that these materials had company in the dust of højenergetisk material which might have melted the supporting structure of the Twin Towers. (Photo: Federal Emergency Management Agency)