Friday, November 20 2009   -   Other Important News

November 10th, 2009
By David DeGraw
AmpedStatus

As most of you have noticed, we are primarily focused on covering the economic coup. We strongly feel that the theft of Trillions of taxpayer dollars by a small group of men on Wall Street is the biggest story of our time. We understand that these are very difficult times for most people and there are many pressing and vitally important issues confronting us. However, the theft of Trillions of dollars has to be the lead story every day until there are investigations and prosecutions to resolve it.

Many of the news sites that we link to on a daily basis have been covering this issue. However, these sites are not covering the issue sufficiently. There should be blazing headlines on a daily basis: ECONOMIC COUP IN THE US! TRILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS STOLEN!

Think about all the vital issues you care about and then think about the Trillions of dollars that were stolen. How could a small fraction of that money directly affect the issues you care about most? We need to make this connection, and we need to make the theft of Trillions of dollars THE LEAD ISSUE RIGHT NOW!

 

Friday, November 20 2009   -   Other Important News

By Cain Burdeau (AP)
November 18, 2009
Google news

NEW ORLEANS -- A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with five residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where one of the plaintiffs lived.

Duval awarded the plaintiffs $720,000, or about $170,000 each, but the decision could eventually make the government vulnerable to a much larger payout. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.

 

Tuesday, November 17 2009   -   Other Important News

IANS 16 November 2009
Times of India

Ed. Note: The LA Times article mentioned is available here:

CIA says it gets its money's worth from Pakistani spy agency: It has given hundreds of millions to the ISI, for operations as well as rewards for the capture or death of terrorist suspects. Despite fears of corruption, it is money well-spent, ex-officials say.

And for more reading on the ISI connection to 9/11 (and utter failure by the 9/11 Commission to investigate that connection) see History Commons' 9/11 Timeline, here.

LOS ANGELES: The CIA has paid millions of dollars to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since 9/11, accounting for as much as one-third of the foreign spy agency's annual budget, says a media report.

The ISI also collected "tens of millions of dollars through a classified CIA programme", which pays for the capture or killing of wanted militants, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday citing current and former US officials.

 

Saturday, November 7 2009   -   Other Important News

by Brad Jacobson
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
RawStory.com

[Read Part I, Part II and Part III of this series.]

The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General is conducting a new investigation into a covert Bush administration Defense Department program that used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage.

Asked when his office expects to conclude the investigation, Comerford said, “As a matter of policy we do not set deadlines since any number of variables or factors could result in a delay.”

He did confirm that investigators in his office have read Raw Story’s recent articles on the topic.

Last May, the Inspector General’s office rescinded and repudiated a prior internal investigation’s report on the retired military analyst program, which had been issued by the Bush administration, because it “did not meet accepted quality standards for an Inspector General work product.” Yet in recent interviews with Raw Story, Pentagon officials who took part in the program were still defending it by referencing this invalidated report.

Gary Comerford, Inspector General spokesman for the Defense Department, told Raw Story last week that his office is conducting an investigation into the retired military analyst program and confirmed that the investigation began during the summer.

 

Wednesday, November 4 2009   -   Other Important News

November 4, 2009
BBC News

An Italian judge has convicted 23 Americans - all but one of them CIA agents - and two Italian secret agents for the 2003 kidnap of a Muslim cleric.

The agents were accused of abducting Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from Milan and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.

The trial, which began in June 2007, is the first involving the CIA's so-called "extraordinary rendition" programme.

Three Americans and five Italians were acquitted by the court in Milan.

The Americans were all tried in their absence as they have not been extradited from the US to Italy.

The CIA's Milan station chief at the time, Robert Lady, was given an eight-year term, while the other 22 Americans convicted - one of them a US air force colonel - were sentenced to five years in prison.

 

Tuesday, November 3 2009   -   Other Important News


November 2, 2009
Dear Readers,

911Truth.org is closing our online store at www.911truthstore.com due to a lack of necessary resources to continue to maintain and stock it, fill orders, meet customer service needs and handle back-end administration. We have marked prices down to at or below our original cost for nearly all remaining inventory, which offers you a great opportunity to purchase brand new books, DVDs, audio CDs, stickers, posters and deception/conception/media/election dollars at really low prices.

As you may know, the store was previously a significant source of support for the organization and to those of you who have supported us with purchases there, we thank you very much. If it is important to you to see 911truth.org continue to exist as a valuable web presence and research resource, now is an important time for you to make a donation.

Thank you!  

Tuesday, September 29 2009   -   Other Important News

September 29th, 2009
by Brad Jacobson
RawStory.com

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.

 

Tuesday, September 29 2009   -   Other Important News

September 28th, 2009
by Philip Giraldi
AmConMag.com

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..."

 

Tuesday, September 22 2009   -   Other Important News

The gagged whistleblower goes on the record.

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.

 

Tuesday, September 22 2009   -   Other Important News

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.

 

Saturday, September 19 2009   -   Other Important News

4,000 word exclusive interview with 'the gagged FBI whistleblower on espionage, al-Qaeda, and secrets for sale'...

9/18/2009
Source: www.bradblog.com


Broke the news on air tonight. 4,000 word cover story on FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds in The American Conservative to hit stands and web tomorrow, by former CIA agent Phil Giraldi.

We'll pick this up tomorrow after I get a look at it. You East Coasters will likely beat me to it. But here's the teaser from TAC...:

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.