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The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


Says Bowman: 'If they have nothing to hide, why are they hiding everything?'
And: 'The most unbelievable of all the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 is the OFFICIAL conspiracy theory.'
By Winter Patriot on 9/7/2006 12:17am PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Late Tuesday night, after the numbers coming in from the Florida primaries had told their story, many BRAD BLOG readers were happily celebrating Clint Curtis' win in the 24th district, and we were blogging about it quite a bit. If you drew inspiration from the events of the evening; if you thought it was very important, and very encouraging: Congratulations! Your heart is still beating and your blood is still red --- and American!

In the barrage of Curtis-Feeney blogging, I neglected to mention another Democratic primary victory which in its own way was equally important and perhaps even more encouraging: Robert Bowman's victory in Florida's 15th district was a powerful shot in the arm for those of us who agree with what Bowman says about 9/11.

"And what does Bowman say about 9/11?" you ask.

Well done! Instead of jumping to conclusions immediately, you have asked the key question.

In a nutshell, Bob Bowman says:

The truth about 9/11 is that we don’t KNOW the truth about 9/11, and we should.

A large and growing number of Americans share Bob Bowman's view, and clearly it hasn't hampered Bowman in his quest for the Democratic nomination in Florida's 15th congressional district.

Are you with me so far? Good!

More clips and links below the fold ...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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CNN, Westminster John Knox Press, Air America help move the story along
Is The Official Story Falling Apart? Or Are We Seeing An Un-Controlled Demolition?
By Winter Patriot on 8/13/2006 8:22pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

In the past few weeks the 9/11 Truth Movement has continued to move forward, propelled by a gentle nudge from a mainstream news source, a solid bump from the publishing arm of a major American church, and a full-fledged jolt from Air America.

The Nudge: CNN's Lou Dobbs Wakes Up To 9/11 Lies

In this short clip, Lou discusses the new book Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, written by 9/11 Commission co-chairmen Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, who claim that the commission was lied to, not once but consistently, by the FAA and NORAD.

Please watch this video. Among other comments, you will hear the following from Lou Dobbs:

Well, this government doesn't deserve much credibility, does it? In point of fact, if all of the after-action reports are untrue, for whatever reason, that's a lie, because they were asserted as true by people who knew better, or should have.
...
Incompetence and ineptitude on the part of this government, on September 11th and in the weeks and months leading up to it, are established. The fact that the government would permit deception after deception, whether honestly, if you can call it that, honestly intended or not. But 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.

The Bump: Official Presbyterian Publisher Issues 9/11 Conspiracy Book

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'Is this real-world or exercise? ... Is this real-world or exercise? ... Is this real-world or exercise? ... Is this real-world or exercise?'
'I've never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise.'
By Winter Patriot on 8/2/2006 3:12pm PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

From Vanity Fair, 9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes...

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up
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and 'How do we oblige our government to control itself?' and other difficult questions
By Winter Patriot on 8/1/2006 12:00pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Winter Patriot...

Russell Tice is due in court at 1:00 on Wednesday, August 2nd.

From wikipedia:

Russell D. Tice (b. 1961) is a former intelligence analyst for the U.S. Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and National Security Agency (NSA). During his nearly 20 year career with various United States government agencies, he conducted intelligence missions related to the Kosovo War, Afghanistan, the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. In December, 2005, Tice helped spark a national controversy over claims that the NSA and the DIA were engaged in unlawful and unconstitutional wiretaps on American citizens. He later admitted that he was one of the sources that were used in the New York Times' reporting on the wiretap activity in December 2005.

Tice began to receive national attention as a whistleblower in May, 2005, after speaking publicly about alleged retaliation by government officials for reporting his suspicions that a DIA colleague might be a Chinese spy, and about the need for legislation to protect national security agency whistleblowers.

As we mentioned last week, Tice is being supported by National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), a group founded by Sibel Edmonds in order to help current whistleblowers and encourage new whistleblowers to come forward.

By serving a subpoena on Russ Tice, according to my conversation last week with Ms. Edmonds, the feds are trying to "kill two birds with one stone"; in other words they are trying to silence Tice on the secret illegal spying, while making an example of him to intimidate other potential whistleblowers.

It's August of what will probably be the hottest year ever recorded, but I am so cold!

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Panel Discussion on '9/11 and the Neocon Agenda' features James Fetzer, Steven Jones, Robert Bowman and Webster Tarpley with Alex Jones
You can catch it this (Sunday) afternoon if you missed it on Saturday (like I did) ... and it's also available on the net!
By Winter Patriot on 7/30/2006 12:36am PT  

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

We've been hearing all good things (especially in this thread) about CSPAN's coverage of the American Scholars Symposium: 9/11 and The Neo-Con Agenda, a two-day event held in Los Angeles in June. As far as this lowly and nearly frozen blogger can tell, Saturday marked the first time that video from this symposium has been available on television.

If you didn't catch it then, you will soon have another chance. C-SPAN will rebroadcast it starting at 2:15pm (Eastern time) this afternoon (Sunday), which of course is 11:15am Pacific.

In my opinion you should watch it, record it, and share it with your family, friends and neighbors.

Of course, if you would prefer to watch it on the net, rather than on TV, you can always click here ... or here!

And I wouldn't mind if you passed a few of these links around ... hint, hint!

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(We'd have posted it earlier today if it hadn't been for 9/11!)
By Brad Friedman on 5/21/2006 8:45pm PT  

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MSNBC: Video only shows 'tip of plane', will not satisfy 'conspiracy theorists'
[UPDATED SEVERAL TIMES WITH NEW INFORMATION]
By David Edwards on 5/16/2006 9:47am PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...

CNN's Barbara Starr is reporting that a court has ordered the Pentagon to release Pentagon surveillance video from 9/11 that shows AA flight #77 hitting the building. Judicial Watch has pursued this video in the courts for several years.

Barbara Starr expects that this video will answer some questions and suspicions that have circulated (largely on the internet) since 9/11. This video release on includes the Pentagon 's surveillance cameras. It does not include other surveillance video that were confiscated from local business after the 9/11 attack.

UPDATE: Judicial Watch plans to post the video on their site sometime after they receive it at 1 pm ET today. Their site is getting hit pretty hard right now. If we can obtain a copy of the video we will re-post it here.

UPDATE #2: MSNBC's Pete Williams is reporting that the newly released video is a series of frames that are similar to some previously released video frames showing a fireball exploding on a exterior wall of the Pentagon. The new video frames show the same fireball exploding from a different angle. It supposedly only shows "the tip of the plane which may not be enough to satisfy the conspiracy theorist," says Williams.

UPDATE #3: CNN is now showing the new video frames. They look very similar to the previously seen "pentagon fireball" video frames. If you weren't convinced by that earlier set of video frames then you will probably not be impressed by this newly released set of video frames. The new video is reported to be a little over a minute long and may have views from several different (but similar) angles. We're trying to get a copy from Judicial Watch for closer inspection...

UPDATE #4 (This one from Brad): I just spoke with Christopher Farrell, director of Investigations and Research at Judicial Watch who says their servers have crashed due to the crush of interest in the video, but that their technical guys are working on it, and they should be back up shortly.

He says this new video, "shows the plane coming in real fast and real low and the nightmare ball of fire that you'd imagine."

Farrell explained that while "some Internet sites had some other version that they posted that is different from the one we've got. This one shows a silver streak very clearly coming in, incredibly low, and slamming into the building. It wasn't like a dive-bomber from above, but coming in very low."

He says that, though it's security camera video, so it's not great, it clearly shows the plane as it crashed into the Pentagon.

Keep checking the Judicial Watch site for when they come back up. Otherwise, we've offered to host the video over here at BRAD BLOG if they continue to have bandwidth and server issues. So feel free to continue checking back here to this item as well.

UPDATE #5 - From MSNBC, here is a screenshot of the frame that reportedly shows the plane followed by a zoomed-in view of the same frame...

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By David Edwards on 4/13/2006 12:21pm PT  

Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com

Most people have little doubt that Americans were mislead into supporting an invasion of Iraq. As the war has continue, so have the lies. Here are a few of the latest...

ABC News Report on False Claims about Bio-Weapons Trailers


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...
Audio in MP3 format...

The Bush Administration made claims that mobile biological weapons labs had been found in Iraq for at least a year after a several reports determined that the trailers were used for making weather balloons. The Washington Post first broke the story on Wednesday morning.

The White House would not say if the President or others had read the report before continuing to use the trailers as case for justifying their war on Iraq.

MSNBC Countdown Interview with Journalist Who Broke Phony Bio-lab Story


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...
Audio in MP3 format...

Countdown provides another great report on the Bush Administration's misrepresentation of Saddam era weather balloon trailers as mobile bio-weapons labs.

Keith Olbermann interview Washington Post writer Joby Warrick who broke the story. Warrick responds to the charge of irresponsible reporting from the White House.

ARAB TV - Iraqis Angry Over U.S. Military's Al-Zarqawi Propaganda


Video in Streaming Flash format...
Video in Windows Media format...
Audio in MP3 format...

Al-Alam TV reports on a Washington Post article exposing a U.S. Military plan to inflate the role of Al-Zarqawi as a source of terrorism in Iraq. As the deceptions continue, Iraqis are becoming increasingly angry with the American occupation.

The Washington Post article begins saying, "The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks"

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By Brad Friedman on 11/7/2004 1:07pm PT  

Like everyone else honest enough with themselves to see our country --- and our world with it --- being torn apart by George W. Bush, Andrew Veal, a 25 year-old employee at the University of Georgia recognized the disaster afoot in Iraq (where as of last night, they've officially declared Martial Law in the country --- more evidence of "catastrophic success", I guess).

Veal was an ardent John Kerry supporter and became despondent after Tuesday's results were announced.

He travelled to New York City on Friday --- home of the world's worst-ever terrorist attack and a city that voted overwhelmingly in favor of John Kerry to keep them safer in the future --- went downtown to the site of 9/11's "Ground Zero" and shot himself in the head with a .12-gauge shotgun.

Newsday reported yesterday that "Ground Zero remains a top tourist attraction" and that opinions of sight-seers later in the day varied about the latest tragedy to occur there.

One visitor was quoted as saying "Maybe he felt ineffective...You feel ineffective if you tried and it all failed" speaking of "many New Yorkers who are depressed over this."

An East Village artist and registered Democrat suggested the suicide was symbolic, "Obviously, this person was devastated. I can see why he would come here".

And from the Right, Bobbie Jensen, a 54 year-old "Republican from Pheonix" was compassionate enough to understand that Bush's victory must have been troubling to those who dislike him.

But, Ms. Jensen explained, "You can be upset about the war, about Bush, but this is a sacred place."

Apparently, for the compassionately conservative Ms. Jensen, Ground Zero is just an inappropriate place to blow ones brains out.

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By Brad Friedman on 9/11/2004 12:24pm PT  

Courtesy of The Freeway Blogger...

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(Originally published 6/24/03 after the GOP announced their convention site)
By Brad Friedman on 9/1/2004 11:15am PT  

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Or just needs a time-out?
By Brad Friedman on 4/6/2004 1:17am PT  

Is it just me? Or is this odd? From a press session Monday morning with Bush in North Carolina:

THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you a couple of questions. Who is the AP person?

Q I am.

THE PRESIDENT: You are?

Q Sir, in regard to --

THE PRESIDENT: Who are you talking to?

Q Mr. President, in regard to the June 30th deadline, is there a chance that that would be moved back?

...Okay...and then, shortly after, this:

Q Mr. President, can you just tell me --- the 9/11 Commission, the Chairman yesterday, Governor Kean, said a date had been set, I think, for your testimony and the Vice President's. Is that --

THE PRESIDENT: I would call it a meeting.

Q A meeting, I'm sorry.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

...Touchy?...The rest of the session then rambled as follows, with this burst seemingly out of nowhere. Picking up precisely where the above left off, which was the only allusion to 9/11 at all to this point:

Q Has that date been set, and could you share it with us? And number two, can you tell us the rationale as to why you have chosen to testify or rather meet with them with the Vice President?

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, it will be a great opportunity from them to ask both of us our opinions on the subject. And we're meeting with the entire commission. I'm not exactly sure what the status is of putting out the date. I told them I'd meet with them at a time that's convenient for all of us, and hopefully we'll come to that date soon.

I look forward to sharing information with them. Let me just be very clear about this: Had we had the information that was necessary to stop an attack, I'd have stopped the attack. And I'm convinced any other government would have, too. I mean, make no mistake about it; if we'd had known that the enemy was going to fly airplanes into our buildings, we'd have done everything in our power to stop it. And what is important for them to hear, not only is that, but that when I realized that the stakes had changed, that this country immediately went on war footing, and we went to war against al Qaeda. It took me very little time to make up my mind, once I determined al Qaeda to do it, to say, we're going to go get them. And we have, and we're going to keep after them until they're brought to justice and America is secure.

But I'm looking forward to the conversation. I'm looking forward to Condi testifying. I made a decision to allow her to do so because I was assured that it would not jeopardize executive privilege. And she'll be great. She's a very smart, capable person who knows exactly what took place, and will lay out the facts. And that's what the commission's job is meant to do, and that's what the American people want to see. I'm looking forward to people hearing her.

Wish I had seen the above on video, cuz the official transcript from the Whitehouse just reads...like he's coming unglued? Bizaare...

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By Brad Friedman on 4/5/2004 11:15am PT  

On the front page of Rush's website today, you'll find the following link to a transcript from a call about Condi Rice: "Like Clarence Thomas, this self-made black leader must be destroyed..."

Apparently, this is the stunning next chapter in the Right's desperate attempt at the Defense of Condi Rice. This bizarre strategy was first floated by Bob Novak last week when he sandbagged Rahm Emanuel on Crossfire:

NOVAK: Congressman, do you believe, you're a sophisticated guy, do you believe watching these hearings that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?

EMANUEL: Say that again?

NOVAK: Do you believe that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?

Huh? Emanuel was as flummoxed as I was by the odd question.

I believe it was The Daily Show who later complimented Novak on having "played a race card from a deck which nobody even realized had one".

A day or two later, like clockwork, one of Brad Blog's favorite DittoHead commenters did his good soldier Right Wing Echo Chamber duty by repeating the suggestion: "I hope it doesn't turn out to be a 'high-tech lynching of an uppity black.'"

Mission accomplished.

Have we ever seen an Administration so freaked out by the merest suggestion that they - perhaps - haven't done everything perfectly? It's rather astounding to watch.

Are these guys that desperate to defend Bush at all costs that they're already falling back to the Clarence Thomas "defense" here? Apparently so. Last week Rush answered a Liberal caller's question about why --- if the Bush Administration had such a wonderful Anti-Terrorism program from Day 1 --- why it wasn't actually ever implemented until after 9/11.

The answer was classic Rush. First, he informs us, it was because the Bushies were too busy at first because the Florida Election Debacle cost them so much valuable time that they had to work with Clinton Appointees like Richard Clarke (never mind that he was actually a Reagan appointee - DittoHeads aren't big on Facts).

But then there's this:

RUSH: ...it's all about powerful blacks in the Republican Party just are not tolerable. It is just intolerable. Condoleezza Rice stands as an exact antidote to what the liberal Democrats are telling the black population of this country. She can get where she got and she didn't have to be a Democrat, and she didn't have to be part of the civil rights coalitions, she didn't have to use affirmative action. It was the same thing that scared them about Clarence Thomas and there's an all-out effort now to destroy her as well.

Well, okay. I guess that explains that.

I guess I'll have to do some research on Condi to find out exactly where "she didn't have to use affirmative action." Perhaps she was admitted to Yale with a C+ grade average and received a Legacy admittance like Dubya. I'll get back to you on that.

By the way, if you do click-through to the Rush transcript posted above, be sure to note the section where Rush has been going on and on, until the caller finally breaks in with:

CALLER: I don't mean to cut you off, Rush, but that is laughable.

RUSH: I'm not through with --

CALLER: Let me --- you're telling me --

RUSH: Sean. Sean. Sean. You are a caller, and you can't cut me off. Now, if you keep on filibustering like this, I'll just take you down so we can't hear you.

I hate it when those callers filibuster poor Rush and never let him get in a word edgewise. Classic. And the DittoMonkeys eat it up.

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By Brad Friedman on 4/2/2004 6:47pm PT  

...That the proposed changes in FCC fines for "indecent speech" currently moving through Congress and chilling broadcasters will change the penalty for individual performers (not the stations owners!) from the current $11,000 after a first-warning to a whopping $500,000 per incident with no warning whatsoever? Read about it here, since MSNBC hasn't gone out of their way to tell you about it.

...That, according to an audit by the US Governmental Accounting Office (GAO), the vast majority of companies in America didn't pay any federal income taxes at all from 1996 to 2000? Read about it here, since Dubya keeps forgetting to mention it.

...That despite what you may have heard from the majority of the Media (controlled almost exclusively by Conservatives) about George W. Bush still being ahead of John Kerry, that Kerry actually leads Bush in the two most recently released polls? Read about it here, since Sean Hannity forgot to announce it.

...That Great Britain's conservative newspaper, The Independent, reports that a former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance testified to the 9/11 Commission that she "saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes" and that she gave the Commission "details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation....everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily." Which, of course, makes Condi Rice's claims that "we could never have foreseen planes being used as missiles" even more incredible than they already were? Read about it here, since Scott McClellan keeps leaving these things out of his morning briefings.

...That if Donald Trump is as good a businessman as he would like us to believe, he will see to it that hot couple Amy and Nick will be the final two contestants left on The Apprentice? No need to read about it anywhere else, cuz I just told you, and you've got other reading to do!

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By Brad Friedman on 4/1/2004 9:44am PT  

Yesterday, there was a horrible Mogadishu-style attack against Americans in Fallujah. Nine Americans were killed, and four of them were burnt, dragged through the streets, dismembered and hung from lightposts and bridges.

The American Media, perhaps taking their cue from the Whitehouse who will not allow pictures of coffins returning from Iraq, decided that Americans are simply too fragile to be shown the horrible images that came out of Fallujah yesterday. The rest of the world saw them, but not Americans.

All of which brings me to a point I've been pondering for a while. After Richard Clarke last week displayed the first real act of contrition from an American Official since the 9/11 Attacks by apologizing for the Government's failure to protect us, there was one lone member of the Media, Rick Mercier - sadly from a tiny paper in Fredericksburg, VA --- who had the courage to admit the Media's culpability in this whole fine mess:

THE MEDIA are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there's one thing they forgot to say: We're sorry. Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage. Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq. Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations. Sorry we couldn't bring ourselves to hold the administration's feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered. Maybe we'll do a better job next war.

Since the attacks of 9/11 (but also in the months leading up to it) the complicity the Major Media outlets have shown by simply going along with the Whitehouse line, wholly unchallenged and uninvestigated, is a National Disgrace. They have, by and large, played Hired P.R. Hand to virtually every hollow, misleading and frequently out and out incorrect line that the Whitehouse has tried to sell the American People since that day.

Their sycophantic behavior shows little sign of abating. Last week's Radio & Television Correspondents Association Dinner featured a slide-show narrated by Dubya, with photos of him looking around the oval office along with the repeated lines: "Those WMD's gotta be somewhere!"

The packed house of DC Media and Insiders yucked it up together. What a riot. 600 or so Americans and countless Iraqis are now dead because they all failed to do their job of keeping the Government honest by actually investigating their claims and by and large wholly shutting out or even mocking (ask Scott Ritter) all viewpoints which ran contrary to the Whitehouse line. Alternative viewpoints which turned out to be correct in the end, right in front of their noses, but they were too busy - I suppose - hoping not to be branded "unpatriotic" or otherwise losing their much sought insider status.

Is it any wonder then, that Americans have such a high view of themselves even while seeming to have no clue why the rest of the world could possibly hold us in such contempt?

The swamp is hardly being drained --- and there is plenty of blame for that to go around.

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