I actually know people who think global warming has nothing to do with how humans are treating the earth -- they are also Tea Party supporters. Enuf' said.

Al Gore: 'Media Spin on Climate Is Bullshit'

By Troy Hooper, Real Aspen

10 August 11

l Gore is pissed.

The former vice president dropped in on an Aspen Institute media forum titled "Networks an Citizenship" on Thursday and railed against corporate evildoers who put profit above society.

Gore referenced the book "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, which tells of how petroleum, steel, utilities and other industries enlisted lobbyists to cloud the climate debate.

The vice president recalled how not long ago tobacco giants "succeeded in delaying the implementation of the surgeon general's report for 40 years - 40 years! In every one of those 40 years the average number of Americans killed by cigarettes each year exceeded the total number of Americans killed in all of World War II : 450,000 per year. My sister was one of them. ... It was evil, evil, evil."

That same model of media manipulation, Gore said, "was transported whole cloth into the climate debate. And some of the exact same people - I can go down a list of their names - are involved in this. And so what do they do? They pay pseudo scientists to pretend to be scientists to put out the message: 'This climate thing, it's nonsense. Man-made CO2 doesn't trap heat. It may be volcanoes.' Bullshit! 'It may be sun spots.' Bullshit! 'It's not getting warmer.' Bullshit!

"... When you go and talk to any audience about climate, you hear them washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again," he continued. "There's no longer a shared reality on an issue like climate even though the very existence of our civilization is threatened. People have no idea! It's no longer acceptable in mixed company, meaning bipartisan company, to use the goddamn word climate. They have polluted it to the point where we cannot possibly come to an agreement on it."

Gore lamented the diminished role that reason and fact-based analysis play in modern US politics.

During the debt-ceiling debate, American Crossroads, Americans for Prosperity and a collection of smaller groups followed tobacco's blueprint for bombarding the media with their own self-serving messages, he said.

"Unnoticed in Washington and New York as the debt-ceiling debate was going on, the ratio of television advertisements was nine to one on the 'Don't-lift-the-debt-ceiling debate. Spending is the problem.' And now we're going to tip the country back into recession. It's absolutely insane," Gore said. "Mark my words on this we became the greatest country on earth because we made better decisions than any other nation. And we made better decisions because we used shared consciousness-shared reality rule of reason best evidence democratic discourse free debate to figure out what's more likely than not to be the best decision here. It didn't always work but it worked a hell of a lot better. Since we adopted this new system we are making catastrophic decisions that have massive consequences. The Iraq invasion. What just happened with macro-economic policy. It really is extremely difficult."

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Matt Taibi asks the same questions I've been asking

EXCERPT: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

Debt Ceiling Deal: The Democrats Take a Dive

Taibblog

by: Matt Taibbi

Commentators everywhere are killing the president for his seemingly astonishing level of ball-less-ness.

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

So the debt deal has finally been reached. As expected, the agreement arrives in a form that right-thinking people everywhere can feel terrible about with great confidence.

The general consensus is that for the second time in three years, a gang of financial terrorists has successfully extorted the congress and the White House, threatening to blow up the planet if they didn't get what they wanted.

Back in 2008, the congress and George Bush rewarded Hank Paulson and Wall Street for pulling the Cleavon-Little-"the-next-man-makes-a-move-the-n---er-gets-it" routine by tossing trillions of bailout dollars at the same people who had wrecked the economy.

Now, Barack Obama has surrendered control of the budget to the Tea Party, whose operatives in congress used the same suicide-bomber tactic, threatening a catastrophic default unless the Democrats committed to a regime of steep spending cuts without any tax increases on the wealthy.

Commentators everywhere are killing the president for his seemingly astonishing level of ball-less-ness. Both the New York Times house editorial and the Nobel prizewinning liberal columnist Paul Krugman are insisting the president should have invoked extreme measures to counter the radicals on the other side, using emergency legal tactics to unilaterally raise the debt limit. Or, at least, he should have threatened to do this, according to Krugman:

And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options...

At the very least, Mr. Obama could have used the possibility of a legal end run to strengthen his bargaining position. Instead, however, he ruled all such options out from the beginning.

Is Krugman right? Probably. In a perfect world, where the president was what he is supposed to be, i.e. a representative of that majority of American voters who elected him, that is what a good president would probably have done. No matter what the situation was with the deficit, or what cuts were or were not justified, a real leader would have invoked such powers at the very least to set a precedent that the government is not to be held hostage by irresponsible lunatics bent on invoking a catastrophe for purely political reasons.

But that isn't what happened. What did happen? The popular take is that Obama is a weak leader of a weak party who was pushed around by canny right-wing extremists. Observers like pollster Sydney Greenberg portray Obama and the Democrats as a group of politically tone-deaf bureaucrats who fail because the public associates them with a corrupt government that benefits the rich and connected.

The Democrats, Greenberg argues, could change their situation by showing the public that they genuinely represent the interests of ordinary working people. In his piece, "Why Voters Tune Out Democrats," he offers a list of things Democrats could do to turn things around:

What should Democrats do?

The Democrats have to start detoxifying politics by proposing to severely limit or bar individual and corporate campaign contributions, which would mean a fight with the Supreme Court. They must make the case for public financing of campaigns and force the broadcast and cable networks to provide free time for candidate ads. And they must become the strongest advocates for transparency in campaign donations and in the lobbying of elected officials.

IF they want to win the trust of the public, Democrats should propose taxing lobbyist expenses and excessive chief executive bonuses and put a small fee on the sale of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments. By radically simplifying the tax code to allow only a few deductions, the Democrats would generate new revenue and remove the loopholes that allow special interests to win favorable treatment ...

I think everything Greenberg says is true -- except for the part about it being possible. His list of solutions would make sense as advice to a real political party.

But to a bunch of hired stooges put in office to lend an air of democratic legitimacy to what has essentially become a bureaucratic-oligarchic state, what good does such advice do? Would it have made sense to send the Supreme Soviet under Andropov or Brezhnyev a list of policy ideas for enhancing the civil liberties of Soviet citizens?

The Democrats aren't failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there's political hay to be made moving to the right. They're doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I've said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.

For evidence, all you have to do is look at this latest fiasco.

The Republicans in this debt debate fought like wolves or alley thugs, biting and scratching and using blades and rocks and shards of glass and every weapon they could reach.

The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn't fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time -- as fixed fights go, you don't see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did -- but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive.

We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

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So very true -- Obama is a president in reverse! Backing up...Beep beep

A President in Reverse

Tuesday 2 August 2011

by: William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed

President Barack Obama during a news conference about debt ceiling negotiations, July 29, 2011. (Photo: Philip Scott Andrews / The New York Times)

Obama's starting point was a demand for a "clean," unencumbered bill to raise the ceiling; House Speaker John Boehner said no. What would have happened if Obama refused to budge? We don't know because that's not his style. It would be nice, someday, to find out.

- Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post, 8/1/2011

The United States of America is different today, different in a fundamental and dramatic way, and is a better place now only for a few thousand people who are rich enough to remain above the effect of this transformation. For the rest of us, the 99% who stay up nights worrying about health care bills, retirement, finding a job, keeping a job, and aging parents who now dangle above a deliberately frayed safety net, it is a colder and more dangerous country we call home.

If I hear one more person try to tell me the deal cut between Congress and the White House was as good as we can expect, that it isn't all bad, I might vomit on them. This whole thing has been a disaster, and no amount of spin can alter the fact. Mr. Obama has taken to the habit of abject retreat with such gusto that he should be outfitted with one of those beeping devices they put on trucks to alert people when they go in reverse. At least that way, we will have some warning the next time this Democratic president backs away from the very policies and priorities he was elected to protect and defend.

We sure could have used such a signal during this debt-fight calamity.

I want a clean debt bill. Beep-beep-beep, never mind.

I want, no, I demand revenue enhancements - not from new taxes, but from closing loopholes - and I will reject any bill that does not include them.  Beep-beep-beep, forget I said that.

We must protect Social Security and Medicare. Beep-beep-beep, but now I look good to Independent voters, or something, right?

It has become an all too familiar sound, really.

I will close Guantanamo. Beep-beep-beep.

There needs to be a public option in the health care reform bill. Beep-beep-beep.

The Bush-era tax cuts? Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

An interesting thing happens when someone backs up. They get smaller in your vision, receding slowly but surely until they are all but invisible. So it is with this president, who goes into the 2012 election season a small fraction of the man who would supposedly make history.

George W. Bush took the historic budget surplus left by President Clinton and squandered it on tax cuts, further enriching those few thousand people who didn't need the money. Mr. Bush delivered us into crushing debt with two interminable wars, which many of those few thousand people continue to profit from wildly. A number of those people - the Wall Street and banking magnates - are directly and personally responsible for the recklessness and greed that very nearly annihilated the American economy, and as of this date, not only have they eluded justice for their crimes, but have been richly rewarded.

They were rewarded again with this bill. Try to spin it any other way, and you're wasting your time with me. They were rewarded, and the weight of that reward will fall on your neck and mine. Again.

As bad as this situation is, it could have been a great deal worse. "Cut, Cap and Balance" would have blown the economy to the far side of the moon, as would Boehner's initial failed attempt at this legislation. There are cuts to the defense budget, and the social safety net did not take it in the teeth as savagely as the berserkers within the GOP caucus desired. And, yes, we did manage to avoid defaulting on the debt limit for the first time in history.

That is hardly the point. In the end, Mr. Obama accepted the premise proffered by the GOP that the debt limit increase had to be tied to massive cuts. This was simply not true, and he failed utterly to make this clear. He demanded new tax revenues from closed loopholes be part of the deal, and then surrendered that position. He swore to protect the social safety net, and spent virtually the entire debate trying to give it away.

This was not a case of two steps forward and one step back, but was instead no steps forward and two steps back. The kind of cuts included in this bill are exactly, precisely the wrong medicine for an ailing economy, and for the people who make up that economy. We now stare down the yawning barrel of a double-dip recession, and that's only if we're lucky.

Worst of all, Mr. Obama has proven to the Tea Party nutjobs that hostage-taking works, that threatening not only the American economy but the global economy with comprehensive disaster is a proper way to pursue policy initiatives. Imagine if a member of the House Insanity Caucus had broken into a nuclear missile silo and threatened to launch unless Reagan's face was carved on Mt. Rushmore...and got what he wanted, and was allowed to go free.

What's next? You really think they won't try this again at the first opportunity? Of course they will, and why not? It worked like a charm.

They got away with it, just like Mr. Bush and his cronies got away with lying us into war while bankrupting the country, just like the "defense" contractors who skimmed billions from the war funding, just like the Wall Streeters and banksters who stole our future from us.

They got away with it, and so they will try it again somewhere down the road...and there will be Mr. Obama, receding slowly into the distance. Again.

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Republicans continue taking our country down the road to hell

Ransom Paid

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

01 August 11

 

nyone who characterizes the deal between the President, Democratic, and Republican leaders as a victory for the American people over partisanship understands neither economics nor politics.

The deal does not raise taxes on America's wealthy and most fortunate - who are now taking home a larger share of total income and wealth, and whose tax rates are already lower than they have been, in eighty years. Yet it puts the nation's most important safety nets and public investments on the chopping block.

It also hobbles the capacity of the government to respond to the jobs and growth crisis. Added to the cuts already underway by state and local governments, the deal's spending cuts increase the odds of a double-dip recession. And the deal strengthens the political hand of the radical right.

Yes, the deal is preferable to the unfolding economic catastrophe of a default on the debt of the U.S. government. The outrage and the shame is it has come to this choice.

More than a year ago, the President could have conditioned his agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond 2010 on Republicans' agreement not to link a vote on the debt ceiling to the budget deficit. But he did not.

Many months ago, when Republicans first demanded spending cuts and no tax increases as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, the President could have blown their cover. He could have shown the American people why this demand had nothing to do with deficit reduction but everything to do with the GOP's ideological fixation on shrinking the size of the government - thereby imperiling Medicare, Social Security, education, infrastructure, and everything else Americans depend on. But he did not.

And through it all the President could have explained to Americans that the biggest economic challenge we face is restoring jobs and wages and economic growth, that spending cuts in the next few years will slow the economy even further, and therefore that the Republicans' demands threaten us all. Again, he did not.

The radical right has now won a huge tactical and strategic victory. Democrats and the White House have proven they have little by way of tactics or strategy.

By putting Medicare and Social Security on the block, they have made it more difficult for Democrats in the upcoming 2012 election cycle to blame Republicans for doing so.

By embracing deficit reduction as their apparent goal - claiming only that they'd seek to do it differently than the GOP - Democrats and the White House now seemingly agree with the GOP that the budget deficit is the biggest obstacle to the nation's future prosperity.

The budget deficit is not the biggest obstacle to our prosperity. Lack of jobs and growth is. And the largest threat to our democracy is the emergence of a radical right capable of getting most of the ransom it demands.

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Republicans Win - Again. Dems have to be the adults--but at what cost?!!!

The President Surrenders

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times

01 August 11

A deal to raise the federal debt ceiling is in the works. If it goes through, many commentators will declare that disaster was avoided. But they will be wrong.

For the deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America's long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status.

Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.

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The documentary "SPIN" -- a must-watch

A documentary made more than 20 years ago --  imagine how much more advanced
they have become in SPIN these days! Do you believe we EVER get the truth in news?    
Behind the scenes at the so-called TV "news."  You think the news is manipulated?
This film shows how they do it by catching them in the act over and over again.  
You'll never look at TV news the same way again.  
Video:  http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/2988.html     

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Republicans will never say YES to Obama, no matter how much he capitulates to their demands

The Party That Can't Say Yes

By The New York Times | Editorial

23 July 11

 

or days, the White House has infuriated its Democratic allies in Congress by offering House Republicans more and more in exchange for a deal to raise the debt ceiling and prevent default. But it was never enough, and, on Friday evening, it became clear that it may never be enough. Speaker John Boehner again walked away from the "grand bargain" he had been negotiating with President Obama, leaving the country teetering on the brink of another economic collapse.

At the White House podium a few minutes later, the president radiated a righteous fury he rarely displays in public, finally placing the blame for this wholly unnecessary crisis squarely where it belongs: on Republicans who will do anything to upend his presidency and dismantle every social program they can find. "Can they say yes to anything?" he asked, noting the paradox of Republicans, who claim that financial responsibility and debt reduction are their biggest priorities, rejecting yet another deal that would have cut that debt by at least $3 trillion.

Mr. Obama, in fact, had already gone much too far in trying to make his deal palatable to House Republicans, offering to cut spending even further than the deficit plan proposed this week by the bipartisan "Gang of Six," which includes some of the Senate's most conservative members. The White House was willing to cut $1 trillion in domestic and defense spending and another $650 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and even Social Security.

Much of that savings would have come from raising the eligibility age for Medicare benefits and reducing the cost-of-living increases that elderly people depend on when receiving their health and pension benefits. It could have caused significant damage to some of the nation's most vulnerable people.

The "bargain" would require that alongside these cuts, tax revenues would go up by $1.2 trillion, largely through a rewrite of the tax code to eliminate many deductions and loopholes. That's substantially less in revenue than the $2 trillion in the "Gang of Six" plan. The problem is that while much of the cutting would start right away, most of the revenue increases would be put off, in part because a tax-code revision would take months, and in part to allow House Republicans to say they did not agree to any specific tax revenue increases.

Democratic lawmakers were rightly furious when they heard about these details this week, calling the plan wholly unbalanced. But, in the end, it was Mr. Boehner who torpedoed the talks. He said Friday evening that he and the president had come close to agreeing on $800 billion of the revenue increases (the equivalent of letting the upper-income Bush tax cuts expire as scheduled next year - not much of a heavy lift) but could not stomach another $400 billion the White House wanted to raise through ending tax loopholes and deductions.

So, on the eve of economic calamity, the Republicans killed an overly generous deal largely over a paltry $400 billion in deductions. Mr. Obama was willing to take considerable heat from his liberal critics over the deal, and the Republicans were not willing to do a thing to anger their Tea Party base. As the president forcefully said, there is no evidence that House Republicans are capable of making those tough decisions. If last-ditch talks beginning Saturday fail, they will have to take responsibility if the unimaginable - a government default - happens in 10 days and the checks stop going out.

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FOX News is being revealed as phone hackers in Murdoch's Empire

Click on this link to read article:
Former Fox News producer claimed network’s ‘Brain Room’ led to phone hacking.

It's about time an investigation was made into FOX News and all other ultra-conservative reporting, which is anything but "fair and balanced." With the FBI in the picture, who knows how far this Murdoch debacle can go? Murdoch must be pulling his hair out in bunches (what little he has left, that is). Finally, his evil tactics are being brought into the light. We can only hope that his empire crumbles -- and his political influence along with it. Transiting Pluto in the sign of Capricorn is doing its job.

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9/11:Press for Truth video

For anyone interested in historical facts and truth, I highly recommend watching the documentary video 9/11:Press for Truth. So much has been shoved under the rug about 9/11. This video documents the brave but futile attempts of family members of 9/11 victims to get to the truth. Anyone who thinks our government doesn't keep secrets from the people should definitely watch this film. Here we are at the 9th anniversary of the tragic 9/11 event and we still are being stonewalled by the government. Warning: the film is an eye opener, relating facts that appeared in mainstream news here and there over the months and years following 9/11 -- but were mostly hidden on back pages of the news and rarely reported on TV. Most people are totally unaware of these facts. Please pass this information along to your friends if you think it worthwhile. Only if we are educated with heretofore hidden facts can we be fully informed voters/members of our society, helping to build a better future for ourselves and our children.

If you are a member of Netflix, you can play this documentary on Netflix online at: http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70055100&trkid=1448414

or in 9-part segments online at youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSVgnsIJH4Y

In addition, today I came across the following PR Newswire report about 9/11 and the thousands of architects and engineers across this country and across the world who are also determined to get out the facts about the collapse of all three of the WTC buildings, which they claim were demolished by explosive detonations, in order to collapse as they did. Here is that article re. a press conference held in Washington today (but no doubt you will never hear anything about this press conference in the major media): http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/architects--engineers-for-911-truth-announces-hard-evidence-of-explosive-demolition-of-world-trade-center-high-rises-on-911-102519299.html

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Announces: Hard Evidence of Explosive Demolition of World Trade Center High-rises on 9/1

Founder Richard Gage, AIA, with host, former Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK) Present Findings at 2pm on September 9, 2010 at National Press Club, Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Richard Gage, AIA, Founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) with former Senator Gravel, will hold a press conference to present the group's findings and to call for a new investigation into the destruction of the 3 World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11. Following the press conference, there will be a Mock Debate during which public statements made by government investigators and other defenders of the official account will be addressed.

"Critically important evidence has emerged after the government building reports were completed," says Senator Gravel.

Gage points to World Trade Center 7, a 47-story building that was not hit by an aircraft, yet collapsed in free-fall acceleration and in a manner consistent with a controlled implosion: "Government investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have been forced to acknowledge the free-fall descent, an indicting fact, after being presented with analysis by AE911Truth petition signers." Other facts that AE911Truth supporters have uncovered in the course of examining the forensic evidence include:

• The Twin Towers suffered total destruction in 10 to 14 seconds in near free-fall accelerations which can only occur as a result of pre-set demolition explosives.
• More than 100 first responders reported explosions and flashes consistent with pre-set demolitions.
• 90,000 tons of concrete and metal decking were pulverized in mid-air, creating the signature dust clouds of controlled demolitions.
• A massive debris field 1,400 feet in diameter, along with the absence of "pancaked" floors, indicates a very explosive destruction of each tower.
• The presence of several tons of molten metal found in the debris is consistent with the extreme temperatures generated by the use of thermite – an incendiary used to cut through steel like a hot knife through butter.
• An international team of scientists found nano-thermitic composite material in World Trade Center dust samples, providing hard evidence of the presence of advanced energetic materials in the disaster debris.

"The official FEMA and NIST reports provide insufficient, contradictory, and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction," says Gage. "We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials."

An AE911Truth petition calling for a new investigation has been submitted this week to every government representative in Congress. The petition now contains over 1,270 architect/engineer signers – altogether over 10,000 around the world have signed the petition.

Florida State Professor Lance deHaven-Smith, who coined the academic term State Crimes Against Democracy [SCAD] will be providing final comments at the debate.

Thousands of scientists; senior-level military, intelligence and government officials; pilots and aviation professionals; firefighters; scholars and university professors; and 9/11 survivors and their family members share AE911Truth's conclusions (PatriotsQuestion911.com). And today two new 9/11 truth groups, directly engaged with AE911Truth, have emerged: ScientistsFor911Truth.org and MilitaryOfficersFor911truth.org.

AE911Truth's findings comprise an important update to their 9/11: Blueprint for Truth – The Architecture of Destruction, which is available on their website, AE911Truth.org.

This press conference is being given by our petition signers and supporters concurrently in 65 locations around the world including 30 states and 4 countries.

The Washington DC press conference will be accessible via webcast at AE911Truth.org at 2:00pm EDT on September 9, 2010.

To arrange print/broadcast interviews with Richard Gage, AIA, contact Tania Torres at 510-292-4710, or CongressionalOutreachTeam[at]ae911truth.org.

SOURCE Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

Back to top RELATED LINKS
http://AE911Truth.org

And here is yet more mainstream news information for those curious enough to want truth, instead of the government lies most people have believed up until now:

9/11: Eye-opening Major Media Articles Raise Serious Questions

"It's almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA's New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened."
-- Time magazine article quoting John Farmer, Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission

Dear friends,

Did you know that literally hundreds of respected government officials, professors, and 9/11 survivors and family members have stated there was a major cover-up around 9/11? Did you know that over 1,000 architects and engineers have signed a petition calling for a new investigation into the collapse of the buildings on 9/11? And did you know about the media articles? The below excerpts from eye-opening news articles published on highly respected major media websites raise serious questions about what those in key positions in the U.S. government really knew about 9/11 and who was behind the attacks.

Though this information may be disturbing to read, consider that the more well informed we are, the more effectively we can work together to build a brighter future. By reviewing these articles, verifying them using the links provided, and then spreading the word, you can make a significant difference in helping to make our world a better place to live for all of us. And don't miss the "What you can do" box at the end which provides excellent links to further educate yourself and to spread the word. Thanks for caring, and have a good day.

With best wishes,
Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team

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[9/11] Hijack 'suspects' alive and well
2001-09-23, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well. The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt. Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11 September. His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world. He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities. He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring. But, he says, he left the United States in September last year [and] became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines. Abdulaziz Al Omari, another of the Flight 11 hijack suspects ... says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver. Meanwhile ... a London-based Arabic daily says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi. He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive. FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt.

Note: Yet these four are all later listed in the 9/11 Commission report as the hijackers. Click here and scroll down a little over half way to see their photos in the official report. For more on this, click here. For an abundance of reliable information suggesting a major 9/11 cover-up, click here.

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A New Look at the 9/11 Commission
2009-09-11, Time magazine
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1921659,00.html

Former New Jersey attorney general John Farmer served as senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, tasked with investigating the government response to the attacks. His new book, The Ground Truth, picks up where the commission left off — taking a deeper look at the government's ... response to the attacks and exposing officials determined to hide their failings from the inquiry. Farmer uses newly released transcripts and recordings to cast doubt on the official version of events. He spoke with TIME about the attacks. [Time:] Why do you think officials tried to obscure [the truth about 9/11]? [Farmer:] It's almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA's New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened. [Time:] Some of the distortions you've discussed have fed various conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. Did you ever see any evidence of a conspiracy? [Farmer:] One of the harmful byproducts of not telling the truth about what happened is that it did fuel all sorts of conspiracy theories about what might have happened. If what the government is telling you isn't true, then the truth could be anything. I think there is evidence that the truth wasn't told and that at least some of that was deliberate.

Note: Many respected scholars, officials and professionals have questioned the 9/11 Commission's report. Click here and here to read some of their statements.

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U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba
2001-05-01, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's ... Fidel Castro. America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years. The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba. Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof … that the fault lies with the Communists." The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after.

Note: Many military and political leaders tend to look at the world as a chess board. Sacrificing pawns (innocent civilians) is sometimes necessary to capture the queen. Is it beyond comprehension that this might have been the case with 9/11? And why was ABC the only major news source to report this highly revealing story? To read the shocking declassified documents on Operation Northwoods, click here.

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CNN Asks Why Government is Lying about 9/11
2006-08-09, CNN News
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0608/09/ldt.01.html

A shocking new book by the 9/11 Commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton says Americans still don't know the whole truth about their government's initial response to those terrorist attacks that day. [The book] outlines repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and Federal Aviation Administration. Fog of war ... could not explain why all of the after-action reports, accident investigations, and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue. Untrue -- the military's original timeline of United Flight 93. Equally untrue, the government's timeline for American Flight 77 and details about fighter jets scrambled to intercept it. DOD did not accurately report to the 9/11 Commission on the response to the September 11, 2001 hijackings. So far, government investigators stopped short of calling all of these inaccuracies lies. If all of the after-action reports are untrue, for whatever reason, that's a lie. Incompetence and ineptitude on the part of this government ... in the weeks leading up to 9/11 are established. The fact that the government would permit deception ... the fact that they would continue and perpetuate the lie suggests that we need a full investigation of what is going on and what is demonstrably an incompetent and at worst deceitful federal government.

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Is Al Qaeda Just a Bush Boogeyman?
2005-01-11, Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/11/opinion/oe-scheer11

Is it conceivable that Al Qaeda, as defined by President Bush as the center of a vast and well-organized international terrorist conspiracy, does not exist? To even raise the question amid all the officially inspired hysteria is heretical. Yet a brilliant new BBC film produced by one of Britain's leading documentary filmmakers systematically challenges this. "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear" ... argues coherently that much of what we have been told about the threat of international terrorism "is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned ... around the world." Why have we heard so much frightening talk about "dirty bombs" when experts say it is panic rather than radioactivity that would kill people? Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on "Meet the Press" in 2001 that Al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when British and U.S. military forces later found no such thing? The film ... directly challenges the conventional wisdom by making a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda. "The nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion. Wherever one looks for this Al Qaeda organization, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the 'sleeper cells' in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy."

Note: If above link fails, click here. This highly revealing film by one of Britain's most respected documentary makers is available for free viewing on the Internet. For the link and lots more on this amazingly revealing documentary, click here. For an excellent review of the film in one of the U.K.'s leading newspapers, click here.

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9/11 conspiracy theorists multiply
2006-09-08, MSNBC/Washington Post
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14723997

A recent Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll of 1,010 Americans found that 36 percent suspect the U.S. government promoted the attacks or intentionally sat on its hands. Sixteen percent believe explosives brought down the towers. A Zogby International poll of New York City residents two years ago found 49.3 percent believed the government "consciously failed to act." The loose agglomeration known as the "9/11 Truth Movement" has stopped looking for truth from the government. The academic wing is led by [Prof. David Ray] Griffin, who founded the Center for a Postmodern World at Claremont University; James Fetzer, a tenured philosopher at the University of Minnesota; and Daniel Orr, the retired chairman of the economics department at the University of Illinois. The movement's de facto minister of engineering is Steven Jones, a tenured physics professor at Brigham Young University, who's ... concluded that the collapse of the twin towers is best explained as controlled demolition. Catherine Austin Fitts served as assistant secretary of housing in the first President Bush's administration. [Robert] Bowman was chief of advanced space programs under presidents Ford and Carter. Fitts and Bowman agree that the "most unbelievable conspiracy" theory is the one retailed by the government. It was a year before David Ray Griffin, an eminent liberal theologian and philosopher, began his stroll down the path of disbelief. He wondered why ... military jets failed to intercept even one airliner. He read the 9/11 Commission report with a swell of anger. Contradictions were ignored and no military or civilian official was reprimanded. Griffin's book, "The New Pearl Harbor" ... never reviewed in a major U.S. newspaper, sold more than 100,000 copies and became a movement founding stone.

Note: If the above link fails, click here.

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Connections And Then Some
2003-03-14, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A25...

The Carlyle Group [is] an investment house famous as one of the most well-connected companies anywhere. Former president George H.W. Bush is a Carlyle adviser. Former British prime minister John Major heads its European arm. Former secretary of state James Baker is senior counselor, former White House budget chief Richard Darman is a partner, former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt is senior adviser -- the list goes on. Those associations have brought Carlyle enormous success. The Washington-based merchant bank controls nearly $14 billion in investments, making it the largest private equity manager in the world. It buys and sells whole companies the way some firms trade shares of stock. But the connections also have cost Carlyle. It has developed a reputation as the CIA of the business world -- omnipresent, powerful, a little sinister. Media outlets from the Village Voice to BusinessWeek have depicted Carlyle as manipulating the levers of government from shadowy back rooms. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) even suggested that Carlyle's and Bush's ties to the Middle East made them somehow complicitous in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It didn't help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden. Former president Bush, a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day. Bush['s] primary function is to give speeches for Carlyle that attract wealthy foreigners in places where the former president is especially revered, such as Asia. The company has rewarded its faithful with a 36 percent average annual rate of return.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. To understand the amazingly powerful role of this low-profile, yet extremely wealthy and influential group, click here to view free a 48-minute documentary shown on Dutch national TV which clearly depicts the depths of corruption and deceit at the highest levels of government. You will be thankful that you watched this highly educational film.

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9/11 third tower mystery 'solved'
2008-07-04, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7485331.stm

The 47-storey third tower, known as Tower Seven, collapsed seven hours after the twin towers. Investigators are expected to say ordinary fires on several different floors caused the collapse. Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition. Unlike the twin towers, Tower Seven was not hit by a plane. The National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] ... is expected to conclude in its long-awaited report this month that ordinary fires caused the building to collapse. That would make it the first and only steel skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire. [NIST's] lead investigator, Dr Shyam Sunder, spoke to BBC Two's "The Conspiracy Files": "Our working hypothesis now actually suggests that it was normal building fires that were growing and spreading throughout the multiple floors that may have caused the ultimate collapse of the buildings." However, a group of architects, engineers and scientists say the official explanation that fires caused the collapse is impossible. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth argue there must have been a controlled demolition. The founder of the group, Richard Gage, says the collapse of the third tower is an obvious example of a controlled demolition using explosives. "Building Seven is the smoking gun of 9/11. A sixth grader can look at this building falling at virtually freefall speed, symmetrically and smoothly, and see that it is not a natural process. Buildings that fall in natural processes fall to the path of least resistance", says Gage, "they don't go straight down through themselves."

Note: To watch a one-minute clip of the fall of WTC 7 from a PBS documentary, click here. For a two-page summary of some unanswered questions about what really happened on 9/11, click here. To learn about over 1,000 architects and engineers who claim a major cover-up around 9/11 click here.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto: Osama bin Laden is Dead
2007-11-02, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7070000/newsid_7075800/7075843.stm

David Frost: Does anyone know exactly who was responsible for this assassination attempt? There is one report that said that you arranged to send President Musharraf a letter ... in the event of your death by assassination, urging him to investigate certain individuals in his government. Is that true? Benazir Bhutto: Yes it is true that I wrote to General Musharraf. I feel these are the forces that really want to stop not just me, but the democratic process and the will of the people [from] triumphing. David Frost: In terms of these three people you mentioned where they members of or associated with the government? Benazir Bhutto: One of them is a very key figure in security. He is a former military officer. He is someone who has had dealings with Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of the band [of] groups of Maulana Masood Azhar, who was in an Indian jail for decapitating three British tourists and three American tourists. And he also had dealings with Omar Shiekh, who murdered Osama bin Laden.

Note: The key statement on bin Laden's murder happens at minute five in the video at the above link. If the link fails, click here. For a Jan. 9, 2010 BBC article also suggesting bin Laden may be dead and his death covered up, click here. Bhutto was assassinated not long after this interview on Dec. 27, 2007.

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Is Osama Bin Laden dead or alive?
2010-01-09, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8444069.stm

Osama Bin Laden died eight years ago during the battle for Tora Bora in Afghanistan, either from a US bomb or from a serious kidney disease. Or so the conspiracy theory goes. The theory that has developed on the web since 9/11 is that US intelligence services are manufacturing the Bin Laden statements ... to justify the so-called war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and back at home. Numerous audio and video statements purporting to be from Bin Laden have been released, but their authenticity has been continually questioned. The veracity of all of the videos is questioned by David Ray Griffin, a former theology professor and member of the 9/11 Truth Movement, which also questions mainstream accounts of the attack on the World Trade Centre. "None of them can be proven to be authentic," he says. "At least three of them can be shown to be almost certainly fake. And if somebody is faking Bin Laden videos, then that leads to the suspicion that all the videos and audio tapes have been faked." His first example is a video released by the US Department of Defense in December 2001. In it, [the] Bin Laden [figure] confesses to 9/11, yet Mr Griffin points out that al-Qaeda has only rarely admitted responsibility for terrorist attacks. He also maintains that the Bin Laden figure looks very different to previous footage - fatter, with shorter fingers, and that he is even writing with the wrong hand.

Note: To see how easily audio and video materials can be faked, read excerpts from this Washington Post article. WantToKnow team member David Ray Griffin has written extensively about the evidence regarding whether Osama bin Laden is alive or dead, including his recent book, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

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Tenet told 9/11 panel that he warned Rice of Al Qaeda
2006-10-03, Boston Globe/Washington Post
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/10/03/tenet_told_9...

Former CIA director George Tenet told the 9/11 Commission that he had warned of an imminent threat from Al Qaeda in a July 2001 meeting with Condoleezza Rice, adding that he believed Rice took the warning seriously, according to a transcript of the interview and the recollection of a commissioner who was there. The meeting has become the focus of a fierce and often confusing round of finger-pointing involving Rice, the White House, and the 9/11 Commission, all of whom dispatched staffers to the National Archives and other locations yesterday in attempts to sort out what had occurred. Members of the commission, an independent bipartisan panel created by Congress to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, have said for days that they were not told about the July 10 meeting and were angry at being left out. As recently as yesterday afternoon, both commission chairman Thomas H. Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton said they believed the panel had not been told about the July 10 meeting. But it turns out that the panel was, in fact, told about the meeting, according to the interview transcript and Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, who sat in on the interview with Tenet. Rice added to the confusion yesterday by strongly suggesting that the meeting may never have occurred at all, even though administration officials had conceded for several days that it had.

Note: Could it be possible that some of our nation's top leaders are lying? How could they have just forgotten about such important matters? For lots more see http://www.WantToKnow.info/911information.

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Why I Resigned From the CIA
2004-12-05, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-scheuer5dec05,1,471321...

Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA, wrote "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror." Between January 1996 and June 1999 I was in charge of running operations against Al Qaeda from Washington. When it comes to this small slice of the large U.S. national security pie, I speak with firsthand experience (and for several score of CIA officers) when I state categorically that during this time senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence that provided multiple chances to eliminate Osama bin Laden — either by capture or by U.S. military attack. I witnessed and documented, along with dozens of other CIA officers, instances where life-risking intelligence-gathering work of the agency's men and women in the field was wasted. I was never charged with deciding whether to act against Bin Laden. That decision properly belongs solely to senior White House officials. However, as a now-private American citizen, it is my right to question their judgment; I am entitled to know why the protection of Americans — most selfishly, my own children and grandchildren — was not the top priority of the senior officials who refused to act on the opportunities to attack Bin Laden provided by the clandestine service. Each of these officials have publicly argued that the intelligence was not "good enough" to act, but they almost always neglect to say that they were repeatedly advised that the intelligence was not going to get better and that Bin Laden was going to kill thousands of Americans if he was not stopped.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. For many other serious questions around the 9/11 attacks, click here.

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The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
2004-10-19, Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/oct/19/opinion/oe-scheer19

It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. "It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me. [The] release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief. The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible." By law, the only legitimate reason the CIA director has for holding back such a report is national security. None of this should surprise us given the Bush administration's great determination since 9/11 to resist any serious investigation. The president fought against the creation of the Sept. 11 commission, for example, agreeing only after enormous political pressure was applied by a grass-roots movement led by the families of those slain. And then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commission members, with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White House meeting in which commission members were not allowed to take notes.

Note: If the above link fails, click here. For more verifiable information on the 9/11 cover-up, click here.

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Transcript: Rice's Testimony on 9/11 (for 9/11 Commissioner Lehman)
2004-04-08, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61252-2004Apr8_4.html

LEHMAN. Were you told that there were numerous young Arab males in flight training? RICE. I was not. LEHMAN. Were you told that the red team in F.A.A. for 10 years had reported ... that the U.S. airport security system never got higher than 20 percent effective. RICE. To the best of my recollection I was not told that. LEHMAN. Were you aware that I.N.S. had quietly internally halved its internal security enforcement budget? RICE. I was not made aware of that. LEHMAN. Were you aware that it was the U.S. government established policy not to question or oppose the sanctuary policies [which] prohibited the local police from cooperating at all with federal immigration authorities? RICE. I do not believe I was aware of that. LEHMAN. Were you aware of a program that was well established that allowed Saudi citizens to get visas without interviews? RICE. I learned of that after 9/11. LEHMAN. Were you aware of the extensive activities [of] the Saudi government in supporting over 300 radical teaching schools and mosques around the country, including right here in the United States? Were you aware at the time of the fact that Saudi Arabia ... had in their custody the C.F.O. [Chief Financial Officer] and the closest confidante of Al Qaeda, of Osama bin Laden, and that they refused direct access to the United States? RICE. I don't remember anything of that kind. LEHMAN. Were you aware that they would not cooperate and give us access to the perpetrators of the Cobar Towers attack? RICE. I was very involved in issues concerning Cobar Towers. LEHMAN. Were you aware that it was the policy of the Justice Department ... to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning? RICE. No.

Note: Don't miss the full revealing transcript at the link above. Most of the quotes above are towards the bottom of the webpage. Why didn't we hear lots more about these astounding facts put forward by one of the 9/11 commissioners, yet hardly mentioned in the final report? For lots more, click here.

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Experts Urging Broader Inquiry In Towers' Fall
2001-12-25, New York Times
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40A11FB3E550C768EDDAB0994D94...

Saying that the current investigation into how and why the twin towers fell on Sept. 11 is inadequate, some of the nation's leading structural engineers and fire-safety experts are calling for a new, independent and better-financed inquiry that could produce the kinds of conclusions vital for skyscrapers and future buildings nationwide. Experts critical of the current effort ... point out that the current team of 20 or so investigators has no subpoena power and little staff support and has even been unable to obtain basic information like detailed blueprints of the buildings that collapsed. Some structural engineers have said that one serious mistake has already been made ... the decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses that held up the buildings. Interviews with a handful of members of the team, which includes some of the nation's most respected engineers, also uncovered complaints that they had at various times been shackled with bureaucratic restrictions that prevented them from interviewing witnesses, examining the disaster site and requesting crucial information like recorded distress calls to the police and fire departments. Members have been threatened with dismissal for speaking to the press.

Note: Our website has over 30 full articles posted from the New York Times. This is the only article for which the Times threatened to sue us if we didn't remove it. We were allowed to replace it with this short summary. For more on this, click here. For what you can do about all this, see the box below.

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What you can do:

• Inform your media and political representatives of the vital information in these 9/11 news articles. To contact those close to you, click here. Urge them also to join in calling for the release of secret documents and for a new, impartial investigation of 9/11.
• Explore the wealth of reliable, verifiable information on 9/11, including several excellent documentaries, in our 9/11 Information Center available here.
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