October 4, 2004
October 11, 2004
October 18, 2004
October 25, 2004
The Bush administration's allies in Congress, led by J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the speaker of the House, have launched another assault on constitutionally protected civil liberties with a bill many are calling Patriot Act II (PA II). However, it is not to be confused with the 2003 version of Patriot Act II. But according to the Associated Press, in a draft of the House GOP legislation, many of the provisions are similar to the draft copy of the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003" that leaked out of the Justice Department in January 2003.
Many Democrats and civil libertarians charge the new PA II authorizes heavy-handed infringements on civil liberties. House Democratic leaders and civil liberties advocates said on Sept. 22 that the Republican bill ostensibly responding to the findings of the 9-11 commission would go well beyond the panel's recommendations. It would call for broad new powers for law enforcement agencies, they said, and would include new authority to conduct electronic surveillance in terrorism investigations.
Among the provisions, said AP, are measures on the deportation of aliens who are suspected of being linked to foreign revolutionary groups which have been labeled as terrorists, mandatory pretrial detention for terrorism suspects, warrants against non-citizens even when a target can't be tied to a foreign power and enhanced penalties for threats or attempts to use chemical or nuclear weapons.
John Feehery is a spokesman for Hastert. Feehery told AP that criticism of the bill was unwarranted as of the evening of Sept. 22, because the legislation was still not in final form and was not ready for release to the public. A spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) agreed on Sept. 22 that House members were still working on a final version of the legislation.
But critics warn that the proposed law is aimed against the entire U.S. population, not a minority of Arab immigrants.
The proposal, they say, would grant the government the power to strip citizenship of native-born Americans and deport them without any evidence of wrongdoing, even though this would be contrary to the Constitution.
It would also allow for secret arrests, secret trials and secret torturing of "suspects." Habeas corpus, Americans' most sacred right, would be eliminated.
The law would also remove all restrictions on police spying on citizens.
Patriot Act II would create 15 new death penalties, one of which could be applied to acts of protest. Under the Hastert measure's definitions, anti-war protesters could be deemed terrorists. In fact, any dissident could be spied on, harassed, and imprisoned indefinitely for exercising their legal and constitutionally protected rights.
This legislation would give the government the same power that Stalin and Julius Caesar gave themselves, said one detractor.
While terrorism certainly is a threat that must be addressed, curtailing the civil liberties of innocent Americans is by no means a way of doing so.
AFP readers will recall that the first so-called Patriot Act was passed without the members of Congress being allowed to view the draft of the bill. Those who wanted it to be read and debated were told to vote for it or they would be blamed for the next terrorist outrage. It passed overwhelmingly.
Many experts fear similar tactics will be used to pass PA II,
keeping the public ignorant of the proposed law's existence until
it is too late.
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The Republican and Democratic parties, fearful of issues promoted by third parties, have rigged the so-called presidential debates, experts told a Washington press conference Sept. 7.
"For the last 16 years, the general election presidential debates have been controlled by a private, tax-exempt corporation - the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) - that has deceptively served the interests of the Republican and Democratic parties at the expense of the American people," their report said.
The report was a project of 11 voter advocacy groups, including the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause, Judicial Watch and the Center for Voting and Democracy.
In 1986, the Republican and Democratic National Committees agreed for the "parties to take over the presidential debates" and subsequently created the CPD, headed by each party's national chairman, the report said. They "seized control of the debates from the genuinely nonpartisan League of Women Voters," it said.
"Behind closed doors, negotiators for the national parties jointly draft debate contracts," it said. They "dictate precisely how the debates will be run - from decreeing who can participate, to selecting who will ask the questions, to ordaining the temperature in the auditorium."
Candidates who "voters want to see are often excluded, such as Ross Perot," the report said. "Issues the American people want to hear about are often ignored, such as free trade and child poverty. The debates have been reduced to a series of glorified bipartisan news conferences, in which the Republican and Democratic candidates exchange memorized sound bites."
Because of this, "debate viewership has plummeted; 25 million fewer people watched the 2000 presidential debates than watched the 1992 presidential debates," the report said. "Walter Cronkite called the CPD-sponsored debates an `unconscionable fraud' and accused the major party candidates of `sabotaging the electoral process.' "
In 1996, Republican Bob Dole got Democrat Bill Clinton to agree
to keep Perot out of the debates, believing Perot would take more
votes from him, the report said. Dole, in exchange, agreed to
cancel one debate and to hold the other two opposite the baseball
World Series, because Clinton wanted the smallest audience possible.
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A federal lawsuit has been filed against top members of the Bush administration, alleging that President George W. Bush ordered the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as part of an operation in the planning for over 35 years to "gain political advantage" and to push the neo-conservative agenda.
Attorney Stanley Hilton, a Republican who served as Sen. Robert Dole's chief of staff, has filed a taxpayers' class action civil lawsuit representing 400 members of the families of the many victims of the attacks as plaintiffs to claim that the Bush administration "violated the constitutional rights of the victims of 9-11."
"This was all planned," said Hilton. "This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder."
The suit will be launched under the Federal Fraudulent Claims Act and RICO statutes. Hilton claims that the 19 hijackers were working for the FBI and the CIA. They had originally been brought into the United States to spy on Arab groups, he said.
Hilton also believes that the international terrorist organization "Al Qaeda" is actually a CIA creation.
Hilton says he has deposed top military officials, who assert that high-ranking government officials were complicit in the attack.
He has also gathered documentary evidence, as well as sworn witness statements from FBI agents. FBI informants and officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the U.S. military. This evidence, he claims, proves that, prior to the actual 9-11 attacks, there were drills and dress rehearsals in mock operations.
He claims to have incriminating documents showing that Bush personally signed the orders for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
As a radio guest on Alex Jones' talk show, Hilton stated that he has interviewed officials with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the Air Force about the "5 Tripod Drills" that were taking place that morning. One had, as its scenario, "planes crashing into the World Trade Center, and int the Pentagon."
NORAD is responsible for monitoring and defending the U.S. airspace.
According to Hilton, Vice President Dick Cheney was personally leading these drills from a control room the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 - an accusation aired, but not proved, by other investigators over the past three years
The military, which had been ordered to take part, thought that the criminal events of 9-11 were part of these Tripos drills, said Hilton.
This was the reason for NORAD's "standing down," said Hilton.
Witnesses, who have wanted to testify but have been bound by official gag orders, have stated that they will come forward but only under subpoena, said Hilton.
This according to Hilton, would override such gag orders.
Hilton said the neo-conservatives' plans are to continue with more terrorist attacks in order to further their agenda. But more than that, said Hilton, their intention is to put up a smokescreen to whitewash their complicity in these events.
Hilton said that he and his staff have been threatened and harassed by the FBI. His office has been broken into, and files have been stolen. He said the government is committing obstruction of justice and other crimes to try to prevent a legitimate civil suit exposing these criminals and their acts of treason and mass murder.
"I've been harassed personally by the chief judge of the federal court, who has instructed me to drop this suit and has threatened to kick me off the court, after 30 years of practicing law," Hilton says.
"The word ‘terrorist' is now being broadened,"said
Hilton. "Its like the word ‘communist' was used for
anything during the McCarthy with-hunt. Anybody can be called
a terrorist by Bush's definition. But the irony is that the No.
1 terrorist in the world is living in the White House. I think
he deserves the world prize for hypocrisy, chicanery and fraud."
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Desperate for manpower with which to fight its projected 25-year "war on terrorism" in Iraq and elsewhere, the Bush administration has resorted to several measures just short of military conscription.
One of these is the "Stop Loss Program," a scheme to force soldiers to remain in the service after their contractual obligation has been fulfilled.
Another idea is to reactivate what is called the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). But both programs are encountering resistance from the GIs. As reported in The Army Times, about 30 percent of the IRR soldiers who have been called to active duty failed to report for mobilization.
The IRR is a manpower pool in the Ready Reserve. It consists primarily of individuals who have had training and have served previously in the "Active" component or the Selected Reserve and have some period of a military obligation remaining.
IRR soldiers are not part of a reserve unit, do not get paid and do not attend monthly reserve training. These soldiers have completed their active duty enlistment but are within eight years of when they entered the military. They can be recalled to duty if needed.
The Army's recent call-up of 5,600 soldiers from the IRR emphasizes
the
demands the administration's poor planning has placed on America's
most important military resource - our troops. These soldiers,
who have
completed their active duty enlistment but are within eight years
of when they entered the military, must now leave their jobs and
families behind and mobilize for active duty. Whether there will
be more call-ups is anyone's guess.
Many former soldiers, however, have submitted papers for "delay and exemption" consideration, claiming personal and professional matters are preventing them from showing up.
CASE IN POINT
A case in point is Master Sgt. Luis Jaime Trevino, 57, who is afflicted with skin cancer, is partially deaf and suffers from high blood pressure. Uncle Sam still wants him mobilized for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
When he got his orders to report to active duty, "I was very shocked," Trevino said. Though Trevino is willing to serve again, he wonders why the military wants him. "I'm honored to go, but I'm disabled and I'm too old," he said. "If I do not execute these orders, I go to jail."
Reservists up to the age of 60 are being activated, said Public
Affairs Specialist Julia Collins of the Human Resources Command
in St. Louis.
"I know many guys who are in that position," she said.
"It's not unusual."
More than 1,000 IRR members submitted "delay and exemption"
packets containing documentation verifying their situation. The
leading reasons IRR soldiers request delays and exemptions are:
medical causes or disabilities; administrative mix-ups; financial
hardship; being sole caretaker for children or elderly parents
and completing higher education.
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Libertarian U.S. Presidential candidate
Michael Badnarik was first invited to appear on a national "news"
network and then turned away. Now he wants the world to know some
of the tactics used by the mainstream media to keep Third Party
candidates out of the public eye.
In a recent, exclusive interview with American Free Press, Badnarik spoke about his treatment and also challenged President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry to face him in the presidential debates.
Badnarik told AFP that he was scheduled to be on Fox-TV's "O'Reilly Factor." But as he was being driven to the New York studio, Badnarik said, he received a cell phone call from the show's producer, only four hours prior to taping, telling him that the show had to go in a "different direction" because of "late-breaking news." He said he was told his appearance would have to be postponed.
This was in late June. But there has been no attempt by the show to contact the Badnarik campaign since.
Badnarik said he was never told what the "late-breaking news" was. He told AFP: "I didn't see the show, but understand from others that another replacement piece also shown was a re-run of a Michael Moore interview."
Campaign spokesman Dr. Dean Ahmad was scheduled to go on the O'Reilly program the following week but upon arrival was instructed that he could not mention the Libertarian Party nor Badnarik.
Ahnad refused to go on under those restrictions and was replaced on the live, prime time show by Khalid Turaani founder of Arab American Republicans Against Bush
After being asked by the show's host, Bill O'Reilly, whom he would vote for, Turaani quickly replied "Michael Badnarik."
A few weeks later, O'Reilly challenged anyone to debate him about the Patriot Act.
Badnarik responded immediately. However, he told AFP that he received a message back from FOX-TV telling him that he misunderstood the challenge, and O'Reilly couldn't debate him.
"I don't know which word we misunderstood," Badnarik said," ‘anyone' or ‘debate'".
This wasn't the first time, Badnarik said, he has received this kind of treatment at the hands of the mainstream media.
Badnarik said that, in July, a New York Times reporter was to fly to Austin, Texas, to interview him. However this interview was also canceled without explanation on the day that the reporter was to be there.
Libertarians remain hopeful that Badnarik's message will resonate with Americans voters.
Badnarik told us in a recent interview that at the time of the Libertarian national convention in Atlanta, he did not have name recognition or financial support.
"My goal when I arrived at the convention debates was not to necessarily outshine the other two candidates, but to focus on the questions and to give answers that the general public would understand."
The strategy worked. Badnarik turned the convention around in 90 minutes, going from "some guy from Austin," as he said, "to the presidential candidate.
His campaign staff is still working to set up a debate with Bush and Kerry.
"Neither bush nor Kerry really wants to face the real
issues, and their answers shift with the wind," said Badnarik.
"A debate between those two alone is guaranteed to be a ‘snooze-fest.'"
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President Bush and Sen. John E. Kerry have been participating in what will be three far-from-freewheeling debates. It will have to have been the most stage-managed set of presidential debates in American history.
The debate agreement was codified in a 32-page contract that leaves almost nothing to chance. There were to be no surprises, and the possibility of any gaffe has been carefully minimized.
The contract specified, among other things, that no crowd shots were to be aired during the answers, and cameras could not show the opposing candidate's reactions while the other was speaking.
"Each candidate may move about in a predesignated area...and may not leave that area while debate is under way," say the agreement. "The chairs will be swivel chairs that can be locked in place and shall be of equal height."
The agreement dictated the size of the podiums, down to the inch. The Bush administration wanted the podiums to be 10 feet apart and four feet high, so Kerry would not appear to tower over Bush.\
Even the seats the candidates sat on were rigorously vetted in advance: "The stools shall have backs and a footrest and shall be approved by the candidates' representatives."
Some of the rules appeared draconian, including a ban on candidates asking each other direct questions. They could only ask "rhetorical" questions that the candidates were no obligated to answer.
The candidates have been operating under a set of rules so restrictive they even dictated where their families sat.
The agreement set out the rules for the debates with great specificity, down to details such as the temperature of the hall and who might stand in the wings. It also set out the makeup of the audience for the town hall debate between Bush and Kerry on Oct. 8 in St. Louis, Mo.
The campaigns agreed that the Audience would be divided between people leaning toward Bush and those leaning toward Kerry. However, the debate commission wanted the hall full of undecided voters, in neither camp.
Under terms of their agreement, either the Bush or Kerry campaigns could have opted out of the debates, or sought another sponsor, if the commission did not sign on to their terms.
STRICTLY TIMED
Bush and Kerry were strictly timed. Neither had more than two minutes to answer a question, with 90 seconds for a follow-up, and the moderator could have added 60 seconds for a topic, which the two would share.
No props were allowed and there will be no audience participation until the second debates.
The first showdown took place Sept. 30 in Coral Gables, Fla., and focused on national security. The second was to be a town hall-style debate in St. Louis on Oct. 8, with pre-screened questions from "likely" voters, who are "soft" Bush supporters and "soft" Kerry supporters, in the audience on various subjects. A third debate will focus on the economy, on Oct. 13, in Tempe, Ariz.
On Oct. 5, in Cleveland, Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic
vice presidential candidate John Edwards debated.
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The attorney for some 400 9-11 victims and their families has himself been attacked again. Following threats to remove him from the court if he did not drop his lawsuit charging President George W. Bush with complicity in attacks, Stanley Hilton says he has been repeatedly stymied by the U.S. law enforcement and other officials. And, now, he has found his offices targeted twice-torn apart by unidentified intruders bent on disrupting his case.
Hilton, the former chief of staff for Sen. Bob Dole, filed a federal lawsuit against top members of the Bush administration, charging that President Bush was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as part of an operation in the planning for over 35 years to "gain political advantage" and to push a neo-conservative agenda (see Oct. 4, 2004 issue.)
On the evening of sept 22, Hilton said he discovered that his Burlingame, Calif., office had been ransacked. Police reports showed that Hilton's papers were strewn throughout the office, bookshelves had been overturned, and large files were missing.
One officer at the scene reported that it seemed that "the burglars had wanted to make it obvious that they had been there," he said.
Hilton said he viewed it as a clear act of intimidation.
Six months ago, he said he had the same experience at his San Francisco office, shortly after initiating his lawsuit.
During a telephone interview, Hilton said that he was not concerned about any theft of files because backup files had been secreted in multiple locations. However, he does believe that the break-ins may have had more to do with finding out what was in his files than it did with destroying his records. He also believes that it was sent as a threat.
On Sept. 21, the day before the most recent break-in, Hilton's car was broken into and his checkbook and other personal items were stolen. At the time, he believed it to be a random crime unrelated to his legal practice. However, his attitude changed when he discovered the break-in at his office the next morning.
DEATH THREATS
Prior to the latest incidents, Hilton said he had been receiving death threats on his cell phone from unknown callers, one of whom identified himself as "Jimmy Tiger."
Hilton, a longtime Republican, recounted how, during the Pentagon Papers case, presidential minions of Richard Nixon broke into Daniel Ellsberg's office and that this type of intimidation and break-ins are "a standard modus operandi of the Republican Party."
During a telephone interview, only hours before press time, Hilton told AFP that earlier this summer he received a visit from two attorneys from the Disciplinary Committee of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. He said they told jim that Chief Judge Marilyn Patel "does not like this case" and wanted Hilton to dismiss it. They then said that if he refused, the Disciplinary Committee intended to take action to prevent him from practicing in the federal court.
Hilton said he refused to drop the case because "I was acting on behalf of clients."
Hilton said the two lawyers returned and met with him on July 1. He said they again threatened him, saying, "We are acting as a brake on the Disciplinary Committee."
Hilton said that he was also told "off the record" that Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Justice Department were now behind the action to stop him. He was told by the two committee lawyers that the suit did not follow the beliefs of the majority of lawyers and judges. He was also warned not to "go public" with the story.
"This is clearly an attempt to interfere with a legitimate
civil rights suit; it is a criminal act; it is a violation of
my rights; and it's obstruction of justice, witness tampering
and intimidation of an attorney. And they all should be prosecuted,"
Hilton told AFP.
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Three years ago, in the aftermath of 9-11, American Free Press was a lone voice, reporting that eyewitnesses had seen and heard officially unexplained explosions in the World Trade Center buildings before and during their collapses.
AFP reported then that Van Romero, an explosives expert at New Mexico Tech, told The Albuquerque Journal on 9-11: "My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse."
The collapse was "too methodical to be a chance result of airplanes colliding with the structures," Romero said.
However, for no apparent reason, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) attacked AFP for publishing evidence of explosions at the World Trade Center.
Why should an organization ostensibly dedicated to defending civil rights Jew find fault with an article about explosions at the WTC?
Three months after 9-11, the ADL accused AFP of using the 9-11 attacks "as grist for its mill."
"Its Oct. 29, 2001 issue," the ADL wrote about AFP, "includes an article by Christopher Bollyn titled, ‘Some Survivors Say Bombs Exploded Inside WTC,' in which Bollyn suggests that the ‘mainstream media' is ignoring ‘eyewitness accounts of bombs that exploded inside the World Trade Center before the collapse of the twin towers.'"
Yet today, in spite of evidence that explosives and missiles were employed to demolish the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, the controlled press continues to avoid this subject.
During a Sept. 11 memorial service at St. Paul's Chapel across the street from the WTC, the priest described what he heard as the towers were collapsing: "Boom, boom, boom," the priest recalled, "the sound of the floors collapsing."
However, the sounds described by the priest and New York City firefighters could be explained as explosives demolishing the central support columns rather than 110 concrete floors collapsing at the rate of 10 per second.
Accounts of this can be found on the web site 911uncovered.com.
Photographs and videos provide evidence that explosives in the towers caused the collapse of the three WTC buildings owned or leased by Larry Silverstein: the twin towers and WTC7, which was admittedly "taken down" deliberately.
"Cognitive dissonance" - described by Walter Chukwu of 911uncovered.com as "the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information" - prevents people from accepting "that the U.S. government carried out the 9-11 attacks."
Jim Marrs, author of Inside Job: Unmasking the 9?11 Conspiracies, is not affected by cognitive dissonance. Compiling information from numerous sources, including American Free Press, Marrs builds the case that 9-11 was an "inside job."
Inside Job also contains an analysis of the U.S. military's failure to intercept the four "hijacked" planes, questions the relatives' group wants President George W. Bush to answer, and a draft of widow Ellen Mariani's Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization lawsuit against President Bush and other high government officials.
While Marr's book lacks illustrations, his text is sufficient. His concise presentation of Jim Hoffman's research, with is documented on the web site 911research.wtc7.net, of explosives causing the collapse of the twin towers is compelling.
Marrs presents six arguments that disprove the official version of a fire-induced gravity collapse and indicate that explosives in the towers' cores snipped the 47 central support columns, bringing the towers down.
First, the towers' cores were obliterated. No gravity collapse scenario can explain how the massive central box columns, with 4-inch-thick steel walls were cut.
The powerful explosives required to demolish these central support columns would explain, however, the pulverization of concrete and the enormous pressure, which threw debris and girders hundreds of feet from the towers.
The pulverization of concrete cannot be explained in the gravity collapse scenario. More than 100 times the towers' gravitational potential energy would be required to pulverize the concrete, Hoffman wrote. So, where did that energy come from?
Steel beans were ejected 500 feet sideways. "The downward forces of a gravity collapse cannot account for the energetic lateral ejection of pieces," Hoffman wrote.
Videos and photographs show explosions occurring well below the level of the collapse. As Hoffman observed, "energetic dust ejections are first seen while the top is only slightly tipping, not falling." There is "no known source of the dense powder in these clouds of ejected dust," Marrs says.
The tops of the towers mushroomed into thick dust clouds much larger than the original volumes of the buildings. "Without the addition of large sources of pressure beyond the collapse itself," Hoffman says, "the falling building and its debris should have occupied about the same volume as the intact building."
That is, after all, what was observed when the 47-story WTC 7 collapsed neatly into its basement, with absolutely no lateral projections, at about 5:20 p.m.
That the towers fell at the rate of free fall defies the laws of physics. The cold and undamaged parts of the towers failed to slow the collapses. This indicates that "nearly all resistance to the downward acceleration of the tops had been eliminated ahead of them," Hoffman says.
Evidence that the central support columns were cut prior to the collapse, which AFP reported in October 2001, is seen in videos where powerful bursts of dust are seen being ejected from the towers well below the level of the collapse.
At the time, AFP reported an eyewitness seeing a number of brief light sources being emitted from inside the building between floors 10 and 15 accompanied by "a crackling sound" before the tower collapsed.
"Even a layman can see that the free-fall scenario based on fires in the building has almost no plausible explanation at this time," Marrs concludes.
During the recent "Confronting the Evidence" conference held in New York City, an individual who worked in the North Tower told AFP that prior to 9-11, elevator shafts were guarded by security guards while being "out of service" for "Weeks and months."
Because explosive charges would have to have been placed near the elevator shafts in the towers' cores, American Free Press is currently investigating contractors who had access to the towers in the year prior to 9-11.
MAJOR DEMOLITION
Two demolition companies, both of which have numerous branch companies, had been operating around the WTC and Pentagon sites: LVI Services, a New York-based asbestos abatement and demolition company headed by Burton T Fried, and Controlled Demolition, Inc.(CDI) of Phoenix, Md., headed by Mark Loizeaux.
LVI Demolition Services and CDI have cooperated on major demolition projects during the past decade: Las Vegas's Sands Hotel Tower in 1996, Las Vegas's Aladdin Hotel & Casino in 1998 and Denver's Terrecenter in 2002.
On Sept. 13, 2001, Engineering New-Record (ENR), a national weekly for the construction industry, reported: "LVI Services Inc, New York City, which has done extensive asbestos abatement work n the towers in the past, is involved in similar work now as well as other cleanup efforts."
AFP asked LVI president Fried about the work his company did in the towers prior to 9-11.
"W3 did not do it," Fried said. "It was a company called AASI, but they went out of business.
Asked abut the evidence that the twin towers and WTC 7 were destroyed by demolition charges, Fried replied, "No comment."
Requests to ENR and the Port Authority regarding LVI's alleged work in the towers have so far gone unanswered.
LVI has worked with the Department of Energy and uses an asbestos-digesting product developed by the Brookhaven National Laboratory and W.R Grace & Co.
AFP inquired at the Las Vegas office of LVI Environmental of
Nevada Inc. And was told, "We don't speak to the press."
LVI's Las Vegas office is headed by Joe Catania, political director
of the Nevada Republican Party.
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There is growing speculation in Washington that alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden may be making a surprise appearance in U.S. custody just be fore the November election. Alan Abelson, the distinguished writer for Barron's, a weekly publication of Dow Jones, noted in his column of Sept. 27, 2004, that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld let slip some classified information in a briefing at the National Press Club "that the man we are holding captive is not Saddam Hussein, who, indeed, was deep-sixed beneath the desolate sands, but none other than Osama bin Laden. (In case you're wondering, it wasn't Saddam, but one of his many doubles, who appeared before an Iraqi judge following his purported capture.)"
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Hill newspaper in February that "bin Laden will be caught between now and the election. I think they're on his trail now in a way they haven't been all year. It will happen because we will be able to divert more resources [to hunting down bin Laden]." Grassley declined to say where he got his information but he did say it was not from any intelligence briefing.
ALBRIGHT TOO?
In December 2003, former Secretary of State Madeleine Al bright said that President Bush may reveal the capture of bin Laden as an "October surprise" in time for the election.
Albright said this while waiting to appear on a Fox new television program. According to Fox news analyst Morton Kondracke, who was present, Albright said: "Do you suppose that the Bush administration has Osama bin Laden hidden away somewhere and will bring him out before the election?" Kondracke added: "She was not smiling." Albright later said her comment on bin Laden was "tongue-in-cheek." But Kondracke maintained she was serious.
All should unravel by Election Day. What might is speculation
today will be known as either fact or fiction.
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The freedom movement is advancing, but not in the way advocates had planned. How do you herd a bunch of cats, or porcupines? Libertarians are starting to find out. They have formed a group called the Free State Project, and already it is splintering several ways. And some of the splinters, it seems, are subsplintering.
The idea of the Free State Project, or porcupines, as members call themselves, is a simple one in principle: to create an oasis of freedom in overregulated, increasingly dictatorial America. To do this, they would first select an area, say a state, where freedom is already relatively prized by the inhabitants.
The next part is trickier - and this may be a new approach to politics that would only be possible in America: Get a number of Americans who love freedom to move to that area from outside it, to reinforce the freedom lovers already present. By achieving some sort of "critical mass," enough voters would become concentrated in the area so that they collectively resist federal intrusion.
In the June 30, 2003, issue, AFP reported that a nationwide group of Free Staters voted via the Internet on which state to move to, and New Hampshire came out the winner, with 6,000 libertarians already vowing to move there, and an anticipated 20,000 within five years.
However, this result was unsatisfactory to some westerners, and immediately the movement split, with a splinter group, called, logically enough, Free State Wyoming and led by the colorfully named Boston T. Party, opting for Wyoming.
The group favoring New Hampshire in turn began to splinter, as members differed over which town in the state should be targeted first, if any.
In view of various considerations, the potential "free towns" in New Hampshire resolved down to a few promising survivors: Dalton (pop. 854), tiny Ellsworth (pop. 86), Grafton (pop. 971), Groton (pop. 341), Lempster (pop 1,036), and Orford (pop. 1,039).
The FSP has not yet selected a town, but the Free Town Project (FTP), as one particularly anarchistic splinter - officially it has no connection with the FSP - called itself, went ahead and chose Grafton. But they soon ran into problems with the locals.
Quiet Grafton, N.H., is in the proverbial "middle of nowhere." The FTP wants to plant 200 libertarian settlers in Grafton. About 200 Grafton residents packed a town meeting this past June, demanding to know what the libertarians are planning for their town.
New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson, a Republican, has signed on as a "Friend of the FSP," which means that although he isn't actually joining the project, he supports the porcupines' goals.
This spring, Benson formed a new Task Force for Government Efficiency, which is examining state offices and suggesting ways they could operate more efficiently. Of the eight members on the task force, seven are Free Staters, including state Libertarian Party (LPNH) Chairman John Babiarz and Phillips, even though Phillips is living in Massachusetts.
John Barnes, an FSP member and vice chair of the state LP's second district, said he is convinced that the project is "the best thing that ever happened to the LPNH.
"We now have several social events every month. This is rejuvenating us, and the press exposure, both good and bad, has been fantastic."
That said, the FSP and the LPNH are experiencing "growing pains," he added.
An example of the growing pains is the recent uproar in Grafton. Unfortunately, much of the publicity surrounding Grafton was negative.
UNDERSTANDABLY CONCERNED
A group of people began talking on Internet chat rooms about setting up a microcosm of the FSP in one small town by moving in approximately 200 activists, and the townspeople became understandably concerned, even riled, to the point that about 20 percent of Grafton's population showed up for a town meeting to argue with FTP, FSP and LP representatives.
"We got a taste of what's going to happen to us if and when a Libertarian candidate becomes electable and the Democrats and Republicans get scared," Barnes said. "The part the mainstream opposition harped on was all the victimless crime issues. We really need to find another issue for our party to get behind. The Patriot Act seems just the ticket.
"Some FTP people were making outrageous statements about how we were going to take over the town and allow prostitution, and people reading this were understandably alarmed."
Opponents began making even more inflammatory comments and "totally unsupported statements about the Free State Project favoring polygamy," leading to the largest town meeting in Grafton's history, Barnes said.
But Phillips and Tim Condon of the FSP "acquitted themselves extremely well, given the fact that they were taking a beating from the crowd."
Babiarz, who lives in Grafton, and Mike Lorrey, another porcupine who lives in the area, both had credibility with the crowd, which eventually calmed down.
Since then, the rhetoric has been toned down, Barnes noted. And the FTP has been disbanded.
"The upshot of it was, we got a lot of press, and that's a good thing," he said. "We couldn't have gotten that much press coverage if we had paid for it. We even received international media attention."
Now the challenge will be to promote the project in a way that characterizes the FSP as "political refugees from socialist states," Barnes said.
Boston T. Party, however, was critical about the possibility
of any future collaboration between FSW and the FSP: "Given
how it's going with the FSP lately, e.g., Grafton, I'm uneasy
about any public association. They have a few loose cannons they
should dump overboard, and I disagree with the FSP strategy, if
it may properly be termed as such."
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Despite a media blackout by the controlled press, there is a growing number of Americans who believe that the events of 9-11 were an "inside job." Supported by evidence aired by independent researchers in the alternative media, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the questionable quality of the official explanation of 9-11.
Photographs from the Pentagon and the World Trade Center are analyzed in a recently release video entitled 9-11: In Plane Site, produced by Dave vonKleist of the radio program The Power Hour, based in Versailles, Mo.
VonKleist says that examination of the videos of the United Airlines (UA) Flight 175 and American Airlines (AA) Flight 11 Planes striking the "twin towers" in slow motion suggest that the attacks were a military operation. Careful analysis of the video footage indicates that the planes appear to be equipped with what might be missile pods attached to their undersides, vonKleist told AFP. He argues that incendiary missiles can be seen being fired immediately before impact with the buildings.
The video evidence is readily available to most Americans and is found in the images broadcast by the news networks on 9-11. Although the mainstream media has had these images since 9-11, it has failed to discuss their significance, according to vonKleist.
The most compelling images from the vonKleist video are of the plane that is said to be UA 175 as it crashes into the South Tower. According to vonKleist, these photographs, taken from four different angles, all seem to indicate that the plane is not a Boeing 767-200; rather, it appears to be a longer Boeing 767-300 military tanker with a missile pod attached to its underside between the wings.
VonKleist said that this evidence supports the theory that UA 175 and AA 11 landed at Stewart International Airport/Air Force Base, where they crossed as they approached New York City, and that weaponized planes replaced them and continued their flights to the twin towers.
MILLIONS OF VIEWERS
As television cameras broadcast live images, millions of viewers watched the second plane strike the South Tower at about 9:03 a.m. The second plane is said to be UA 175, hijacked by Arab terrorists with box cutters.
The video images, however, arguably do not support this version. As vonKleist's video suggests, there are a number of anomalies that indicate that the plane that struck the South Tower may not have been a passenger jet at all.
These images can be seen on videos of the WTC attacks, for example the CNN production America Remembers. A slow-motion viewing of the images reveals anomalies.
According to vonKleist, the first anomaly is seen as the plane banks to the left before striking the South Tower. Mounted on the underside of the plane, between the wings, a cylindrical object can be seen in at least four different videos. Is it a missile pod? Asks vonKleist.
An expert examination of the video images contends that the object seen on the plane's underside is a three-dimensional object.
A former pilot with United Airlines who has flown the Boeing 767-200, wich was UA 175 on 9-11, told American Free Press that the Cylindrical object is not a normal part of the aircraft. The official version, he added, is a "fair tale" and "pure Hollywood."
Slow motion viewing, according to the pilot, reveals that immediately before plunging into the tower, the pod on the bottom of the plane releases a white object that enters the building with a white flash before the nose of the plane pierces the facade. The Flash is reflected on the plane's fuselage indicating it is a separate event.
A similar flash is seen in the video of the plane striking the North Tower. In this case the flash occurs before the plane meets its own shadow indicating the flash occurred before the plane hit.
MILITARY DRONES
The flashes are thought to be evidence that the planes were military drones that carried incendiary high-explosive missiles to cause the huge explosions. The massive explosions were intended to destroy evidence of the planes and create the spectacle and logical pretext for the demolition of the towers that followed.
There are other indications that the plane was not UA 175. A hole is seen on the underside of the plane near the tail. As vonKleist says, this appears to be the boom port for the refueling line of a Boeing 767 military tanker.
He told AFP that one of the pieces seen in the video has been identified as a "static line roller," a piece of a tanker that would not be found on a passenger jet.
Eyewitnesses, including a reporter from FOX News, who saw the planes, reported having seen a windowless plane that did not look like a commercial jet. The FOX reporter said the plane had a round blue logo painted near the front.
AFP asked both United and American Airlines and the U.S. Air Force about the images.
Jeffrey Green, a spokesman for United, refused to view the images, and said that any suggestion that UA 175 did not hit the South Tower was "offensive."
"Neither I, nor any of my colleagues or UAL executives, withes to see the video,' Green wrote. PI think you and I have discussed the events of 9-11 enough. Please do not contact United Airlines again in the future.
American Airlines has not yet received the video.
AFP asked the office of the secretary of the Air Force, Dr. James Roche, about the video's allegations that military tankers were involved in the attack. Capt. Kristen Lesperance at the secretary's office told AFP that any questions about the aircraft seen in the videos are "outside the Air Force's purview."
Lesperance told AFP to contact the Department of Homeland Security. Darrin Kayser at Homeland Security said the department is focused on the future and questions about the attacks should be directed to the 9-11 commission.
Earlier the commission's Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton said: "The focus of the commission will be on the future. We're not interested in trying to assess blame; we do not consider that part of the commission's responsibility."
"It is clear that whoever was behind the attacks had information, if not help, from inside the government," Jim Marrs wrote in his recently published book Inside Job. "The totality of the information available today can only lead to two inescapable conclusions: Either the highest leadership of the United States is composed of imbeciles and incompetent blunderers or they are criminally negligent accessories to the crimes, if not worse."
The questions raised by the evidence bring only more questions.
"The greatest of these questions concerns what the American
people intend to do about all this," Marrs wrote. "Will
they continue to be led by corporate mass media that deceive by
omission?"
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At the instigation of the Zionist Organization of America, 13 members of Congress have sent a letter to the Department of Commerce demanding that action be taken to stop the American branches of the Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches from divesting in companies that do business in Israel. They have suggested that the churches are in violation of the U.S. Export Administration Act (EAA), which prohibits Americans from participating in the long-standing Arab boycott of Israel. But the campaign by the "paid politicians" against the Christian churches goes much further than this: the members of Congress are going so far as to suggest that, along with the churches, students, academic organizations and other institutions that urge Americans to disinvest in companies doing business with Israel are also in violation of the EAA.
The members of Congress are charging that the very act of advocating divestment from Israel is illegal.
The ringleaders of the group are two New Jersey representatives: Jim Saxton, a Republican, and Rob Andrews, a Democrat. The 11 others include: Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), Pete Sessions (R-Texas), Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.), Peter King (R-N.Y.), Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), Martin Frost (D-Texas), Philip Crane (R-Ill.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.).
A press release from the Zionist Organization of America, dated Sept. 28, 2004, claimed credit for inducing the bipartisan group of federal office holders to send the letter to the Commerce Department.
In the meantime, another group of congressmen, led by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), have sent a strongly worded letter to the Presbyterian Church USA condemning the vote to begin selective disinvestments from companies doing business with Israel.
Those representatives joining Berman in attacking the Presbyterian Church for its action include: Roy Blunt (R-Missouri), Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), John Lewis (D-Ga.), John Linder (R-Ga.), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.), and Lamar Smith (R-Texas).
Joining the members of Congress in slamming the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches is Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, the "interfaith affairs director" of the Israeli lobby group known as the Anti-Defamation League. Bretton-Granatoor said: "The Presbyterian divestment could potentially create a snowball effect and resurrect what had been a moribund issue. Now it has provoked the Anglicans [the Episcopal Church_Ed.], and we know it will not end there."
Although the rabbi added, in a threatening fashion, "We have to send a clear message to every church that they will have to face a united Jewish community on this issue," the fact is that even many grass-roots American Jews have urged divestment in Israel, evidently shamed by the actions of Israel against the Muslim and Christian Arab Palestinian people under its domination.
Following the passage of measures in July 2004 calling for
selective divestment of stock in corporations within the church's
$8 billion portfolio which profit by supporting violence in Israel
and Palestine, the Presbyterian Church issued a statement saying
it wanted to send a strong message to the U.S., Israeli and Palestinian
governments, so they could begin to "lay aside arrogant political
posturing and get on with forging negotiated compromises that
open a path to peace."
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Neither President Bush nor Sen. John Kerry has a credible plan for dealing with the fiscal challenges he will face if elected, according to the bipartisan Concord Coalition.
"Both candidates are touting expensive initiatives costing about $1.3 trillion that would make deficit reduction more difficult in the short term and fiscal sustainability unlikely in the long term," said the coalition's executive director, Robert Bixby.
"The policy options in their plans are different but the bottom lines are not," Bixby told a Washington press conference. "Regarding the deficit, they appear to be taking alternative routes to a similar destination."
The coalition said neither candidate is proposing a balanced budget, setting aside resources for reform of the alternative minimum tax beyond 2005, given assumptions on the ongoing costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, or proposed a strategy for achieving long-term fiscal sustainability.
"Even if the policies in their budget plans succeed in halving the deficit by 2009, deficits are on track to shoot up again after that due to rising entitlement costs," the coalition's report said.
Entitlements refer to financial benefits government pays out to citizens, such as welfare, Medicare, Veterans Administration programs and Social Security.
"Getting control of a ballooning budget deficit requires two things the candidates are loath to discuss; spending cuts when they would prefer to talk about increases and tax increases when they would prefer to talk about cuts," the report said. "Yet the American people deserve something more from their candidates than an invitation to a free lunch - even if that is what they want to hear."
Both candidates' proposals have back-loaded costs, it said.
"The president's five-year budget omits almost 90 percent of the 10-year revenue loss from his tax policy proposals," the report said. "The cost of Sen. Kerry's health plan grows by 50 percent between 2009 and 2024."
Neither candidate "has produced a credible set of numbers
to back up his deficit-reduction rhetoric," the coalition
concluded.
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Americans concerned about the world's biggest retailer taking over their towns and putting local "mom and pop" type stores out of business, costing economic ruin and overall loss of jobs, are finding they are not alone. Wal-Mart, the Arkansas-based retail giant, is causing havoc with local businesses as it invades Mexico, just as it has in America. And in Mexico there are accusations of corrupt local officials who are allowing it. There are even allegations of murder.
In San Juan De Teotihuacan, just northeast of Mexico City, Bulldozers churning up the earth for a 71,902-square-foot Godega Aurrera store - a subsidiary of Wal-Mart of Mexico - and with a parking lot for 236 cars, are digging up ancient artifacts in sight of Mayan pyramids.
Critics of the multinational's intrusion claim that corruption ruled when Maribel Miro Flaquer approved the project for the Mexican Federal Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), quitting her job a short time later, many say much richer.
Her successor, Raul Javier Cordoba Garcia, who was said not to be in favor of the Wal-Mart invasion of the archeological site, died of unknown causes a week after taking office.
There are those who claim he was murdered, but local authorities led by Mayor Guillermo Rodriguez Cepedes, deny this, writing off critics of the project as "a handful of malcontents.
Wal-Mart entered the retail market in Mexico in 1991, when it took over the Mexican retailer, Cifa. Since then it has quickly gobbled up a bigger and bigger share of Mexican consumer spending, now operating 650 stores, restaurants and supermarkets in six subsidiary chains. Its annual take out of Mexico is $11 billion and growing, far surpassing Mexico's three next largest discount retailers combined. Wal-Mart announced last February that it plans to build 77 new stores throughout the country.
Mexican poet Homero Aridjis is among Wal-Mart's biggest critics there. Aridjis says building a giant store in San Juan De Teotihuacan, which was founded by Spanish monks in 1548, is "driving the stake of Globalization into the heart of Mexican antiquity."
"We see awful corruption all around that stinks, from INAH to the mayor's office," said Emmanuel D'Herrera, a schoolteacher and former diplomat who lives near the ancient Mayan pyramids. "We want to preserve our heritage. It's not a common piece of land.
Herrera said that three weeks before the INAH gave its approval for the new store, bulldozers were already digging at the site. The cinder-block construction is a stark contrast to the grandeur of the architectural brilliance of the ancient Mayan pyramids.
Detractors have criticized Wal-Mart for undercutting local businesses and forcing them to close down. The savings consumers get come at a price, however, as money leaves local communities for the coffers of the multinational company and workers are forced to take slave wages.
"It's a crime," Irma Gonzalez Rodriguez, who sells chickens in a local market, said of what the new store will do to her business and so many others. "They say they will bring 200 jobs. How many are you going to leave without jobs for those 200?"
Mexicans have discovered, just like their American neighbors,
that when Wal-Mart moves into a community the Local businesses
quickly disappear.
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Last week the House of Representatives passed the 9-11 Recommendations Implementation Act, a bill that ostensibly puts in place the ideas endorsed by the 9-11 commission. As I related in August, however, the commission amounted to nothing more than current government officials meeting with former government officials, many of whom now lobby government officials, and agreeing that we need more government.
Most of the reforms contained in this bill will not make America safer, but they definitely will make us less free. The act also wastes American taxpayer money on unconstitutional and ineffective foreign aid programs, designed to prove that money can buy us friends.
Instead of expanding the federal police state, Congress should make America safer by expanding liberty and refocusing our foreign policy on defending this nation's vital interests, rather than wasting American blood and treasure on quixotic crusades to "democratize" the world.
Disturbingly, the bill creates a de facto national ID card by mandating new federal requirements that standardize state-issued drivers licenses and birth certificates, even requiring biometric identifiers. State drivers license information will be stored in a national database, which will include information about an individual's driving record that has nothing to do with terrorism.
Nationalizing standards for drivers licenses and birth certificates, and linking them together via a national database, creates a national ID system pure and simple. Proponents of the national ID understand that the public remains wary of the scheme, so they attempt to claim they're merely creating new standards for existing state Ids. Nonsense. This legislation imposes federal standards in a federal bill, and it creates a federal IS regardless of whether the ID itself is still stamped with the name of your state.
It's must a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new license will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane. Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free republics. Nothing in our Constitution can reasonably be construed to allow government officials to demand identification from individual who are not suspected of any crime.
This Legislation's foreign policy provisions are similarly objectionable and should be strongly opposed. I find it incredible that in the 500-plus-page report, there is not one mention of how our interventionist foreign policy creates enemies abroad who then seek to harm us. Until we consider the root causes of terrorism, beyond the jingoistic explanations offered thus far, we will not defeat terrorism, and we will not be safer.
I am skeptical about the reorganization of the intelligence community in this legislation. In creating an entire new office - the national intelligence director - we are adding yet another layer of bureaucracy to our already bloated federal government. Yet we are supposed to believe that even more of the same kind of government that failed us on Sept. 11, 2001 will make us safer. At best this is wishful thinking.
The constitutional function of our intelligence community is to protect the United States from foreign attack. Yet ever since the National Security Act of 1947, the agencies created have been meddling in affairs that have nothing to do with the security of the United States.
When considering the CIA's overthrow of Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadeq in the 1950s, or CIA training of the jihadists in Afghanistan in the 1980s,it is entirely possible the actions of the CIA abroad have actually made us less safe and more vulnerable to foreign attack.
It would be best to confine our intelligence community to the defense of our territory from foreign attack. This may well mean eliminating the CIA altogether and turning intelligence functions over to the Department of Defense, where they belong.
For more from Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) See his web site at www.ronpaul.org.