America is outraged, OUTRAGED, that AIG execs got $159 million (or is it now $200+ million?) of our money. Where is the outrage over the fact that we're still spending $720 million EVERY DAY on this continuing illegal occupation of Iraq? Condoleezza Rice is again spewing nonsense: "We never tried to tie Saddam Hussein to 9/11." W. is on the speaking circuit (yes, seriously!) talking about his "momentous" years in the Oval Office while hundreds outside the Calgary Chamber of Commerce demand his arrest as a war criminal. Cheney is still declaring victory in Iraq and proclaiming the economy is crashing because "stuff happens."

And while these "leaders" spin in circles convincing us it's all necessary and for the good, soldiers and civilians keep dying, keep being wounded, keep losing their homes and any semblance of a life they remember, and ultimately, keep losing hope that this will ever end. In fact, American soldiers are losing all hope to the point they're killing themselves (and others) in greater numbers than ever. At this point, more soldiers are committing suicide than are being killed in battle (see article below that generated this passionate outcry).

March 16th, 2009
EFF Launches Search Tool for Uncovered Government Documents
New Search Engine Highlights EFF's Transparency Efforts During Sunshine Week
San Francisco - In celebration of Sunshine Week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today launched a sophisticated search tool that allows the public to closely examine thousands of pages of documents the organization has pried loose from secretive government agencies. The documents relate to a wide range of cutting-edge technology issues and government policies that affect civil liberties and personal privacy.

by Reprehensor
March 21, 2009
911blogger.com

UN envoy Richard Falk, who wrote the foreword for David Ray Griffin's New Pearl Harbor, and has also praised Peter Dale Scott's book, The Road to 9/11, was yesterday quoted by Haaretz speaking out strongly against Israel's attacks in Gaza as war crimes;

A United Nations human rights investigator said on Thursday that Israel's offensive against Hamas in densely populated Gaza appeared to constitute a war crime of the "greatest magnitude."

Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the Geneva Conventions required warring forces to distinguish between military targets and surrounding civilians.

"If it is not possible to do so, then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law"

On March 18 we received the following email--CIA documents (posted here) have been released in the ongoing case regarding the murder of Kenneth Trentadue. Email author Jesse Trentadue, Kenneth's brother, who is an attorney in Salt Lake City continues to relentlessly pursue justice in his brother's death, apparently at the hands of the FBI, in spite of significant governmental obstacles. A brief article about Trentadue by Andrew W. Griffin was published December 3, 2008: Brother of slain inmate speaks out, says DOJ thwarted serious investigation.

Background--Readers will recall that the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed April 19, 1995. Extensive information about the OKC bombing is available at Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation Committee, and an excellent review, "Key to the Truth in Oklahoma--4.19.95 and 9.11.01" by Holland Van den Nieuwenhof was published here on April 18, 2008.]

David L. Sobel
March 19, 2009
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Attorney General Eric Holder today issued new guidelines (PDF) on federal agency implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The guidelines were issued pursuant to a directive issued by President Obama on January 21, his first full day in office. Like the Obama directive itself, the Holder guidelines express strong support for government transparency and establish a presumption in favor of disclosure of information requested under FOIA.

Perhaps most notably, the new guidelines rescind the so-called Ashcroft memo, issued by the former Attorney General in October 2001. That directive -- widely criticized within the open government community -- encouraged agencies to resist disclosure of requested information and to release documents "only after full and deliberate consideration" of the potential harms that might result. The Ashcroft memo also assured agencies that the Justice Department would defend in court any decisions to withhold information "unless they lack a sound legal basis."

March 19, 2009
By Jennifer Mascia and Jason Grant
New York Times

On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the United States' invasion of Iraq, hundreds of protesters in New York City made it clear on Thursday that while they welcomed the change in American political leadership, they would not relent in urging President Obama to accelerate the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq.

The protests were perhaps more muted than the massive demonstrations of years past, but no less fervent.

In Union Square, where about 120 people huddled together under the awning of a subway station, staying out of the rain, some protesters said that Mr. Obama, the new president, who as an Illinois state senator had opposed the war, had continued some of the Bush administration's most controversial policies.

An Open Letter to the Peace/Anti-War Movement from Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and Veterans For Peace

After six years of war and the historic election of a new President, we as veterans, military and Gold Star families felt an urgent need to reach out to the larger peace/anti-war movements to make our position on Iraq clear during this time of political and economic uncertainty. Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out and Veterans For Peace continue to stand together in our demand to Bring the Troops Home Now! We ask all those who have stood with us in the past to stay faithful to the cause.

President Obama has announced a plan to gradually reduce troop levels in Iraq. Many in the peace/anti-war movements are breathing a sigh of relief, and suggesting that it is time for us to scale back our efforts to bring an end to the occupation of Iraq. But for our troops on the ground, their families and the Iraqi people, the nightmare continues. They need all of us to stay in the struggle. IVAW, MFSO and VFP have been long united in our call for an immediate and complete end to the occupation of Iraq and will not shift our stance under any circumstances.

[RELATED: Posse Comitatus Act ]

SAMSON, Ala. - The Army said Wednesday it opened an inquiry into whether federal laws were broken when nearly two dozen Soldiers were sent to a south Alabama town after 11 people died in a shooting spree last week.

State officials said the deployment of 22 military police officers and the provost marshal from Fort Rucker was requested neither by Republican Gov. Bob Riley nor the White House, which typically is required by law for Soldiers to operate on U.S. soil.

Col. Michael J. Negard of the Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., said officials are trying to determine who ordered the Soldiers to Samson, who requested them, why they were sent and what they did there.

NIST's Half-Admission of Yet Another 9/11 Smoking Gun

The U.S. Senate will hold a confirmation hearing this week on the nominee for Secretary of Commerce, Gov. Gary Locke. This cabinet position oversees the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), the government agency responsible for investigating and reporting on the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7. NIST tried to avoid admitting that there was any freefall acceleration when the building came down on September 11, 2001. All the way to their draft final report on August 26, 2008, nearly seven years after the event, the NIST report's lead authors held firmly to their position that freefall did not occur.

Once NIST invited comments on its draft report, it was more or less forced to accept the indisputable explanations based on the publicly available videos proving that freefall had occurred. David Chandler, a high school physics teacher and AE911Truth researcher, provided the most compelling argument in a video seen widely on YouTube.

Everybody is rushing to condemn AIG's bonuses, but this simple scandal is obscuring the real disgrace at the insurance giant: Why are AIG's counterparties getting paid back in full, to the tune of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars?

For the answer to this question, we need to go back to the very first decision to bail out AIG, made, we are told, by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, then-New York Fed official Timothy Geithner, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last fall. Post-Lehman's collapse, they feared a systemic failure could be triggered by AIG's inability to pay the counterparties to all the sophisticated instruments AIG had sold. And who were AIG's trading partners? No shock here: Goldman, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and on it goes. So now we know for sure what we already surmised: The AIG bailout has been a way to hide an enormous second round of cash to the same group that had received TARP money already.

Charlie Giles and his family need our help. Charlie has been a huge advocate for the 9/11 First Responders. As a member of the FealGood Foundation, Charlie was not allowed to receive any assistance from the organization because it would have been seen as a conflict of interest. Sadly, and appropriately, the FealGood Foundation asked Charlie to resign so that he now can get help. John Feal released this statement:

Today the Fealgood Foundation lost board member Charlie Giles to his financial crisis. Charlie, a 9/11 responder who was seriously affected by 9/11,, was told he won his workmens comp case last week and received an award letter in the mail. His lump sum settlement would have been $40,000 plus payments every 2 weeks. The insurance company now has appealed it, and has left this hero with an eviction notice from his apartment which he moved into after losing his house last year. Charlie was asked to resign from the board because none of my board members can receive charity or any monies while sitting on the FGF board. ...

read more

 

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Blowback or Bloody Treason

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009, 9:00 am Pacific - 12:00 Noon Eastern - 16:00 GMT

Listen live at http://noliesradio.org (or http://67.18.54.205/~nolies)

Washington D.C. (March 16, 2009) -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Friday sent a letter to Chairman Edolphus Towns of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requesting an immediate investigation into allegations made by the investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that the White House operated an 'executive assassination ring' that circumvented Congressional oversight.

Kucinich explains in the letter that, "Mr. Hersh made the allegation before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. He stated, "Under President Bush's authority, they've been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving" It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. . .Congress has no oversight of it.'"

Kucinich adds, "If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S. policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional oversight. . . Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth."

In his recent TV appearance [reported on at Huffington Post, as reprinted below], Dick Cheney said "And now he [President Obama] is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack."

Some investigators of September 11th have concluded that Cheney himself played a key role in "letting 9/11 happen."

For example, David Ray Griffin in THE NEW PEARL HARBOR REVISITED (page 94) writes: "Accordingly, the Commission's treatment of Norman Mineta's testimony provides one of the clearest examples of its attempts to cover up the truth, which in this case involved Cheney's presence in the PEOC [Presidential Emergency Operations Center] during a crucial 45-minute period, during which he apparently confirmed a stand-down order." [emphasis added]

Cheney refused to testify under oath before the 9/11 Commission. If it is true that Cheney played a key role on 9/11, then his statement about "risk ... of another attack" could be seen a veiled threat about another attack--possibly now in the planning stage.