WHAT IS TRUE

ADVENT REFLECTIONS

This is True
by Allan Boesak

It is not true
that this world and its people are doomed to die and be lost.

This is true;
God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.

It is not true
that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction.

This is true;
I have come that they may have life,and that abundantly.


It is not true
that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction have come to stay forever.

This is true:
Unto us a child is born,and unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.


Allan Boesak (b. 1945)Allan Boesak, who was a courageous and insightful leader of the Reformed Church in South Africa in the struggle against apartheid, served as President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches from 1982 to 1991.

DO THEY KNOW ITS CHRISTMAS IN DARFUR

FATAL INDIFFERENCE AND MACY'S WINDOWS

The tree is up in Rock Center. Macy's has its window display making merriment. Sidewalk trees in Washington and New York are sprouting red bulbs flecked with gold and little white lights at night.
Condolezza Rice in five inch heels (because she is shorter than DeVito) sits four pews from the rear of the National Presbyterian Church, a whitewashed tomb like building in Washington, DC, just as she always does when she is in town. She listens to one of those Sermons meant to make you feel the world is hunky dory even if you can't stop genocide and have caused a civil war and loss of life and limb in the hundreds of thousands (and your day at the office?) if only you accept Jesus in your heart. She heartily shakes the pastor's hand with two hands as she leaves the church and he wishes her well "on all your adventures."
Downstairs in the "Alternative Christmas Market" of the Church you can buy stuff for other people to make you feel less guilty about the money you will spend on your immediate family and yourself over Christmas. You write checks to other organizations to help them for various efforts. The Sudan Refugee Relief project in Darfur in conjunction with Action by Churches Together International ("ACT") will let you buy for $80. a "family survival kit" which consists of two plastic sheets, three blankets, two mosquito nets, soap, cooking supplies, fortified cereal, oil and sugar. That ought to fend off the Janjaweed militia assassins. I ask the nice gray- haired retired government worker lady at the Africa table if she has any information or pamphlets on what the church is doing in Darfur. Nope. Nothing. We aren't doing much of anything there. Can't stop it really. Let them at it if they want to kill each other off.
OK. So that is the formal church policy or just your informed opinion? Did you happen to notice that Condolezza Rice was sitting upstairs? This might be an obvious question but what is she doing about it? I heard there was some UN Resolution or something that might get signed- know anything about that?
The National Presbyterian Church pridefully boasts connections to Abraham Lincoln and General Eisenhower, both Presbyterians who frequented the church or its precursor churchs. It has an Eisenhower chapel dedicated to him. It has hosted most the big schmukety muck Presbyterians who ever held office in town at one time or another including the Doles, Dick Thornberg, Trent Lott, Frist, John Glenn, that taller than Karim Texan Bush advisor and "soccer mom" lady Karen Hughes and, of course, Condi. Condi is one of about ten darker- than- my- freckles people in the entire church but don't tell her you noticed. If she brings a friend she is one of about eleven black people. But don't ask her to racially identify with the ethnic slaugher of black people by white people in a place where the Middle East meets Africa just South of Egypt. And don't you dare tell her she isn't black enough if she didn't notice. In fact, don't talk to her, she's not there to make friends.
Let me get this straight. The African American Secretary of State of the leader of the Free World is either (a) indifferent to (b) unimpressed by (c) incompetent towards or (d) oblivious to
the largest genocidal slaughter of black Africans by whiter Muslims in her term in office and that we have seen in that region since Rwanda. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt. She already concluded she can't do anything about it- unlike Iraq where they try anyway and no one was engaging in ongoing mass slaughter at the time of our invasion.
Maybe it doesn't have oil. Maybe no one is going to name an oil cargo freighter after her for helping. Maybe she isn't going to get to be named to the Boards of Exxon Mobil or Phillips Connoco for helping.
Excuse me if I have this wrong but rape, murder, rape of children, chopping off the arms, slicing out the eyes and burning bodies alive strike me as a humanitarian crisis that should take slight precedence over face time with Malicki, but who am I?
Let me repeat it- rape, murder, rape of children, chopping off the arms, slicing out the eyes and burning bodies alive. This apparently evaded the "axis of evil" diagram.

And how was your Christmas? I hear that you can pick up Ferragamos pretty cheap in the January post-Christmas inventory Macy sales Condi. Care to do lunch?

Follow-Up:
Of course, it has oil, only the Chinese have one up on us in getting there. It's "complicated"
and this week's Economist magazine tries to explain it: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8380843&fsrc=nwl


In December 6, 2004 John Podesta gave an address at Yale titled "Dealing with Darfur: Can the World Act on it's responsibility to Protect". If you call the Call the Center for American Progress they would be happy to send you a copy.

Livin In The USSR- How to Re-Establish American Democracy

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS IN FLORIDA?

Can we all agree that if voting machines screwed up and didn’t properly count votes that we should figure out a way to get them counted correctly so the right person whom the people wanted in office gets to take office?
What if you can’t properly count the votes because there is no record of them other than what the screwed up machine did? What if there was no sort of receipt, or paper ballot to count manually? What if the memory card in the machine is defective but you can’t tell because it is programmed maliciously? What if the only thing that happened is that voters touched a screen that they thought voted for someone, the screen then said “Thanks for voting!” and the voter walked away without ever knowing whether the machine screwed up or not.
What if it was worse than that. What if the computer itself was designed to eat votes or flip them. What if there was some malicious programming in the source code that caused defaults to one candidate or flipped counts after a certain number hit or allowed anyone by touching hidden points in the screen to flip votes when the voting was cast. Any baby computer programmer can do this on a voting machine. It isn’t rocket science. Just ask Clint Curtis, the Democratic Congressional Candidate in Florida’s 24th who did just that. He developed a program where if you hit a sequence of points on the screen you flipped the vote count. Instead of Kerry 50 Bush 20, zip zip zip , Kerry 20 Bush 50. Child’s play.
Clint Curtis tried to explain it to people in Congress and testified before John Conyers’ committee. For explaining simple computer science he was castigated as a looney, tin hat
publicity grubby crazy man. All he was doing was explaining computer science 101 for the technoidiots who still don’t get it.

Let me ask the question again: Can we all agree that if voting machines screwed up and didn’t properly count votes that we should figure out a way to get them counted correctly so the right person whom the people wanted in office gets to take office?
APPARENTLY NOT IN FLORIDA.

In Florida the game is all about stacking the deck and keeping the popular will from being known.
When the computer eats your vote, or flips the tallies, there are ways to prove statistically that the machines are malfunctioning (in the vernacular- rigged crap)
You can get lists of the people who showed up at the polls per precinct and look at certified official results of vote tallies per precinct and go knock on doors and actually talk to the voters themselves. You can just ask them- hey, we know you came to the polls because we have your name here so who did you vote for? It’s more reliable than an “exit poll.” If you find that in fact abundantly more people voted for a candidate than registered you have a prima facie case of machine malfunction, and some might say election fraud. You have to look at the source code to see whether it was maliciously programmed to do that—and guess what.
The source code is a proprietary trade secret protected piece of intellectual property and the voting machine companies fight tooth and nail in court to avoid showing it to anyone-in fact they intimidate anyone who looks and send cease and desist orders around to anyone prying. This, in a Democracy that relies on the transparency and fairness of the voting process is completely unacceptable.
WHO THE --DO THEY THINK THEY ARE?

Let me try to explain it another way.
With the current laws and practices concerning voting technology and the voting machine manufacturers, no one has the first assurance that where certain machines are used that their votes are properly registered. NO ONE. They may be getting it right some of the time or twice a day like the proverbial broken clock but the American public can have absolutely no assurances that these machines are working properly and correctly registering votes because the source codes are never made public and there is ZERO electronic security. So you have to go to the voters themselves and get them to swear in Affidavits how they voted.

In Florida, they don’t even give you the data on who showed up at the polls to run the numbers and hit the streets until it’s too late- until the ten days from certified results challenge period is almost or already expired. They have an unspoken rule that they should just stonewall the data to prevent people from challenging what they do there. Once you get the data you can look and say- hey, there was actually a large “phantom overvote” situation here- where more votes were counted than people who showed up at the polls. Hmmmmmmmm. How could that happen Sherlock? As Bob Fitrakis likes to say, it's the "Loaves and Fishes Faith Based" concept of vote counting.

And in Christine Jennings’ case in Florida’s 13th, she found out that unbelievably huge and unlikely numbers of voters showed up at the polls to NOT vote for their Congressional representative (“undervotes.”) Where is Columbo when you need him? Are people in Sarasota Florida so consummed with who the local school board is but they don't care who they send to Congress when all the candidate exposure on TV ads was about the congressional candidates? Give me a break!

In 2004, Wally O’Dell the head of Diebold, who was a Bush “pioneer” fundraiser putting on thousand dollar plate dinners for Bush promised he could “deliver Ohio” to Bush, it wasn’t idle boasting. He knew he could. If I say He did I am accusing someone of a crime of vote rigging. WAKE UP PEOPLE! He was the head of Diebold. No one would ever be able to see the source coding that was in the machines that allegedly counted the votes.

Here is something else that can happen. Right now as you read this glance to the bottom right of your computer screen and look at the little time indicator. What time is it? Is it the correct time? Remember when you turned your machine “off” last? Do you turn it off every night? When you turn it back on does it still register the correct time or does it lose time when you turn it “off?” It is always the correct time-right. So how does it do that when the machine is “off?” Guess what- it is never completely off even when you think you turn it off and take the plug out of the wall. That is because there are active “hot” live components/chips/elements that you can’t see that are perpetually on. The same thing can be done to voting machines. They can be “hot wired” with components that respond to wireless interface and no one would ever see it.-- Certainly not the geriatric octogenarians that run the polling station on election day, not the voters, not anyone from the Board of Elections. Someone in a van in New Zealand can interface wirelessly with a machine sitting in Columbus theoretically. No Joke Folks.

In short, the Fuss in Florida is the Fuss that should be being made loudly everywhere in the country and nationally in Congress. Because we simply have the ruse of a chimeric Democracy and not a real one at present. We have oligarchic rule of a republican party with a consortium of voting machine manufacturers with sworn Republican loyalties who are committed to making the machines work for them- and they can and will work for them unless we do something about it. Don't think this recent Democratic sweep means they don't know how to rig it in 2008 or won't. Unless this is set right in the next two years, faaagetabout a Democratic Presidency.


So what should Congress do about it? Here are a few ideas that Congress has bandied about without solid legislation of any meaning to date and a few more. Congress should of course require:

PAPER BALLOTS that can be manually inspected. This is better than “paper trail” which of course Diebold can do because they make ATMs- Duuuuuh. Diebold can also make the paper say something other than what the machine actually tallies and trick the voter into thinking it got it right.

Revise the Intellectual Property/copyright rules so that there is NO TRADE SECRET PROTECTION for source coding in any machines used in public elections as an obvious necessary exemption and
MANDATE that all source coding in voting machines be inspected and disclosed to the public at large and posted widely and publicly.

MANDATE that all voting machines be inspected and tested thoroughly by bipartisan engineers before voting day running testing and reverse engineering source coding.

MANDATE that all voting be done in rooms designed to interrupt all outside wireless signals. We might have to build some especially for elections. We might have to staff enough machines there for the numbers of people registered there also.

MANDATE that the data concerning who showed up at the polls be made available not later than 3 calendar days from voting day. It is unacceptable that people go on vacation over Thanksgiving and on Nov. 27 get back to their office to make discs of something that happened on Nov. 7. Impose severe monetary penalties on anyone and everyone connected with the reporting process if it is not done in 3 days and extend the time in which to challenge the vote a day for every day after the 3 days that the data is late. All November voting runs into Thanksgiving. The public records release stonewalling over the holiday is something that happens every year. For national elections the entire country, not just the State has an interest regarding who sits in Congress, thus it falls on Congress to set national standards, rules and regulations regarding this.

MANDATE that for any candidate for whom his contender has not conceded defeat, that he or she only be sworn in provisionally pending investigation on the challenge with the understanding that this person may be removed after the time he assumes office provisionally if it is later determined at any time that his election must be redone.

MANDATE that for all elections for which there was more “phantom over votes” in any one precinct than the percentage by which any candidate lost that the entire election must be automatically recast in a special election.
There just is no excuse for machines counting more votes than people who showed up and it indicates conclusively that someone programmed the machine to rig the vote. The entire election must be cast into doubt in such a circumstance as void for presumptively rigged and we need to adopt a ZERO TOLERANCE for it.


And so these are not all just unfunded MANDATES, audit the HAVA funding of everyone because the money is there- it was just misappropriated.

And then, and only then, can the American public believe with any confidence that their votes Count and were Counted and we have the right men and women at the helm.

Nov.13; Martin, Bill and Oprah-You Have To Come and See This

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. MEMORIAL COMING TO THE MALL

HE HAD A DREAM.
He Told Us About It On The Mall.

Now, The first and only Monument in and around the Washington, DC Mall not for a War, War Hero or President will be for a symbol of Non-Violence, Peaceful change, and the Rule of Love and Law on Earth-

Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can join President Bill Clinton and Oprah at the Groundbreaking Ceremony on November 13th- 9:00 am -12:00 noon.

To reserve tickets reserve online: www.BUILDTHEDREAM.org
or call 202-723-3471

JIM WEBB- really right for the country right now

Just A "Kind" Man

I went to a democratic victory party of sorts this evening. I ran into someone tonight I won't forget.
There is a Vietnamese man living now in Fairfax. He was wearing a Web for Senate T-shirt. He volunteered on his campaign. I asked him what caused him to come to America and become eventually involved in electoral politics.
The man's name is Tuy Le.
He told me that when he was 13 years old there were American soldiers in his village. He couldn't talk about it all. He said it was too hard to describe (and he wasn't in the mood chowing his buffalo wings.) He said he first ran into Jim Webb in the village where he lived, a place called Go Noi Island. There were American soldiers in Go Noi Island.
I asked him if he remembered Jim Webb from when he was 13. He said "of course'- he couldn't forget him. There was combat, fighting, and the American soldiers kept safe all the little children running around the village. He said Jim Webb gave him candy and befriended him. He said Jim Webb made him feel safe. "The American soldiers kept us safe." I asked him what he remembered about Webb in particular all these years later. He said "Jim Webb is a really Kind Man."

I almost cried.
Actually, I cried.

Jim Webb isn't anything like any of the Allen ads that mis-portray him. I am not from Virginia. I don't have a horse in that race.

But Jim Webb is exactly a gift to the country for this time in our history.
He is The American Good Soldier.

He should be the jr. Senator from Virgina. This is exactly the sort of person that Bush should want to help him with what we are trying to do in Iraq.
ALLEN should graciously give it up now.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL DEMOCRATIC WINNERS AND A SPECIAL HIGH FIVE HORRAH!! TO SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE

A HISTORIC MOMENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY

THE FIRST WOMAN SPEAKER OF THE US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NANCY PELOSI


(keep the Faith for the Senate folks and a special Bravo to Jim Webb and Bob Casey)

What War?

Just Anything But The Facts, MA'Am


There was a Harry Nielson song when I grew up with a refrain "put the lime in the coconut..." and it said something like "we see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear." People also tend to project their own psychotic obsessions on people wholly innocent of the slander.
My aunt who is diabetic likes to tell everyone to get their blood sugar level checked whether they need it or not. I have another relative who had fibroids who at the slightest sight of puffiness sends people for check ups for tumors, and yet another who is rather bonkers who tells everyone else they should see a shrink. There is an official psychiatric term for it- it's called "PROJECTION."
It is easy to see that this is exactly what is at play in the current RNC sleezy ad campaign where they throw a scummy level of dirt on candidates, accusing them of everything from 900 number sex talk solicitation, to investigating bisexual eskimos and studying dirty habits of old men, to hanging out in Playboy mansions. That of course is the classic inverted mirror projection only worthy of the party that enabled Foley frolicking, and massive corruption on all levels (don't get me started on the Vice President's daughter and his wife's depiction of graphic lesbian love affairs).

The fact that the RNC can't dredge up anything better to tar and feather these people with is indictive of the fact that they can't think of anything better to tar and feather these people with.

More intelligent reasoned debate on the issues you might find at the reptile pit of the National Zoo.

Bean Counters and Opti-Scanners

At least you could see the Chads Hanging

Hold on to your Mouse- and get ready for flipping screen checkmarks, hopping yellow screen highlights and a baffling mysterious count that bears no relation to the polls and multiple news accounts of who actually won.
Heaven Forbid-- please Heaven- forbid it this time.

One thing I love about the Dominicans, that white robed Order of Catholic Preachers is that since the 13th Century they have elected democratically their own leader. Two people were apparently nominated (OK- so they are all men, aside from that constitutional conundrum Mrs. Lincoln the play was fine).
The two people then are voted on by the friar brothers. Here is how they do it.
They count beans. I kid you not.
White beans and black beans. If you like candidate A you put a white bean in a jar, candidate B a black bean in a jar. Then they count the beans.
Let's look at the principle, while the numbers were decidedly smaller than a city, state or all 300 million of us now.
Let's just take one race- say Harold Ford's race where you know that Rove is going to try to pull every dirty little trick in the book to try to defeat him.
What if in every polling place throughout the State of Tennessee there were a Democratic
pollwatcher- could be an attorney election protection appointee- and that person had a jar the size of a large inverted water cooler. In places where there were larger numbers of registered people have 2, 3, 4 or 5 water cooler jugs depending on the numbers of registered voters. As people leave, ask them if they voted for Harold, have a huge sign above the water cooler jugs- did you vote for Harold? If they voted for Harold tell them they can take and eat a jelly bean and ask them to put one in the jug. Make sure you get an answer from everyone who leaves.
Did you vote for Harold? (Have another jug for people who would rather not say and everytime that is the answer put a jelly bean of another color in that jar.
Then each Democratic pollwatcher takes the jug to central counting. They all count the beans together.
It's an edible exit poll. It operates as a check against the hopping screens, the disappearing provisional ballots, the destroyed memory cards and the hacking switcheroo.
That my friends is how the Black Jelly Beans Rise to the Top of the Jug- and Harold Ford will be the next US Senator from Tennessee- the first African American since Reconstruction. God Bless Him.

Truth in Advertising and other things out the Window

Ken Mehlman wears his Mother's Underwear-see the CNN exclusive tonight.

I Couldn't remain silent any longer. It's getting just too wierd in Washington.

The RNC has apparently assaulted Harold Ford's good honor, and spun first an absurd piece of white-women bashing insulting tripe designed to lose him the African American women vote because some faux blonde winky bimbo thinks he's cute, followed with another equally misleading attempt to dump him into their formula whether the facts fit or not. The Republicans are fact adverse and no fact phases them apparently.
Do they think that all good looking people are too Hollywood for them? Is that just because most of their bigger wigs are uglier than mud? Take Ken Mehlman for example? Can you imagine him on a sit com? I can imagine him maybe on an ad for those extreme makeover surgeons.

In case you missed it, here is the Republican formula that they apply all across the Board pasting on anyone whether or not exactly the opposite is true:
1. They support gay marriage
2. They support extension of wild uncontrolled abortion on demand (especially for teenagers)
(and usually while it doesn't feature in this Harold attack- 3. they don't have the stomach for war and thus can't keep us safe.)

It's just ridiculous-laughable really, that this is the only thing in a time of incredibly complicated world security where we are bleeding the treasury by the billions for folly after misguided folly in Iraq, that the republicans can't think of anything better than to tar and feather every democrat with that absurd formula. How do you feel about health care, impoverished hungry children, global aids crisis creating millions of orphans, global warming us into the sea, huricaine FEMA competency, education and literacy, having one friend outside the continental US? (just to name a few other issues the Iraq obsession has obscured)

I am not surprised actually that this is the best that Ken Mehlman can do. Not to malign Franklin and Marshall College where he went to college (and where I went for a year before transferring to a school you actually had to study for to get As) but Ken Mehlman is not the brightest bulb in the florescent fixture. He's apparently just the tackiest and most below the belt base unthinking tool of Rove's evil "genius" and three fries short of a happy meal when it comes to understanding what the American people are really concerned about today.

No No No No No-- Harold Ford did not ever vote to give teenagers an after pill or encourage their abortions. Harold Ford did not vote to support Gay Marriage (whatever you might think of the proposition.) It's just more of the same formulaic hooey (as Tony Snow likes to say.)

Now here's the little legal lesson--
Basic 101 Defamation law tells us that public figures can't sue for slander or libel unless there is demonstrable "malice." That is so as to not chill people from freely speeking their minds about public figures or chilling the public debate. I think it's easy to demonstrate Malice in these sorts of bold faced lie in our faces deceptive campaigns. Further I think that there ought to be heavy FEC (Federal Election Commission) fines and penalties for totally unresearched clearly false advertising. And there out to be published FEC issued commercials airing in the same markets and times explaining that the previous Ad was pulled by order of the FEC because it contained false and misleading advertising. That might make folks a bit more honest.

The damage is typically done with these sorts of lies before any lawsuit could resolve the legal defamation issues (and who wants to pay lawyers when you would rather pay campaign people) so candidates who are typically spent out after election season don't bother if they lose- and the other side feeds the press with all kinds of crap on why they lost which has nothing of course to do with the swiftboating influence- but someone ought to give serious thought to whether there ought to be a Non Profit organization set up for the express purpose of
seeking heavy punitive damages against either side which airs clearly boldly false claims
with expedited proceedings and a redesigned injunction standard and malice threshold standard to get them off the air the day that they air and shut these factories of falsehood down.

Since when do lies ad to the public debate? When does boldly misasserting facts known to be false ever advance the public discourse?

To Harold and all swiftboated candidates everywhere I say- just sue the Bastards.

This Just In

-Finally Catching On-

VIDEO - RFK Jr. on 'MSNBC Hardball' Says Hacking an Election on E-Voting Machines 'Easy', Endorses Emergency Paper Ballot Legislation, Recommends BRAD BLOG!
UPDATED: Complete Video Now Linked!

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Mathews to discuss his recent Rolling Stone piece on Diebold's duplicity in their voting systems.
Kennedy spoke about how easy it now is to hack an election with an Electronic Voting Machine ("in just 60 seconds") as based on recent studies by Princeton, NYU's Brennan Center and the non-partisan GAO office.
He also discussed the new Congressional Emergency Paper Ballot legislation, and even recommended your friendly neighborhood BRAD BLOG as a good source for information on all of the above!
COMPLETE VIDEO LINKED HERE:http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3540
---Brad FriedmanTHE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...http://www.BradBlog.comVELVET REVOLUTION - The revolution begins...http://www.VelvetRevolution.us
Do you want to protect the election in November so voters at least have a chance of having their votes counted as cast, not messed up by flawed voting machines? Take action now!

Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Christopher Dodd (R-CT), and Russ Feingold (D-WI) just submitted an emergency Senate bill, S 3943, that will provide Federal reimbursement for states to make paper ballots available to all voters who want them, and Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) has submitted a companion bill, HR 6187, in the House. With only a couple more days in this congressional session, these bills have to be heard and passed immediately.

What you can do:

1. Contact your Senators and Representative immediately to ask them to cosponsor these bills and to vote for them (You can contact your particular members via this link.)

2. Contact your local media and ask them to publicize the story (You may write in support of, or ask your local media to cover this issue via this link.)

3. Forward this message to everyone you know, in every state, who cares about our democracy and wants to have a chance that the votes will be counted accurately in November.

Thanks.
Kate

Latest info on these critical bills, S 3943 and HR 6187, as of Wed, Sep 27, 1:40 p.m.:
S.3943Title: A bill to amend the Help America vote Act of 2002 to reimburse jurisdictions for amounts paid or incurred in preparing, producing, and using contingency paper ballots in the November 7, 2006, Federal general election.Sponsor: Sen Boxer, Barbara [CA] (introduced 9/26/2006) Cosponsors (2)Latest Major Action: 9/26/2006 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.

H.R.6187 : To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to reimburse jurisdictions for amounts paid or incurred in preparing, producing, and using contingency paper ballots in the November 7, 2006, Federal general election.Sponsor: Rep Holt, Rush D. [NJ-12] (introduced 9/26/2006) Cosponsors (None)Committees: House AdministrationLatest Major Action: 9/26/2006 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on House Administration.



More info about the issue and the Senate bill from Brad Friedman's blog on Sep 26:

URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3531

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: BOXER, DODD INTRODUCE 11th HOUR EMERGENCY PAPER BALLOT LEGISLATION IN SENATE!
Calls for 'Contingency Paper Ballots' in States, Counties this November to be Paid for Feds!
Co-Author of HAVA is Co-Sponsor of New Bill Answering Our Call for a 'LET AMERICA VOTE ACT', Makes Paper Ballots Optional to States Rather Than MandatedŠBut We'll Take it! -- Sources Say House Bill to Follow Soon!
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) introduced emergency legislation to amend the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) this afternoon to offer funding to states and counties who make 'contingency paper ballots' available to voters to be used at the voter's option instead of electronic voting systems.
The so-called contingency paper ballots would be counted as normal ballots, as opposed to Provisional Ballots which must be vetted first to determine the integrity of the voter's registration. Provisional ballots are frequently counted only several days after Election Day, and often, not at all.
The inclusion of Dodd as a co-sponsor on this 11th hour legislation is no small coup, as he was one of the original co-sponsors of the HAVA legislation of 2002 which this bill would amend. Until now, he and the other bi-partisan co-sponsors of that original legislation have been reluctant to open HAVA to amendment.
The BRAD BLOG has further learned from Capitol Hill sources that similar legislation is currently being prepared for introduction in the U.S. House. We hope to have more details on that later today, as the legislators on the House side are working through several language issues in collaboration with colleagues in the Senate.
The legislation, filed just after 4pm ET this afternoon, would refund voting jurisdictions who offer paper ballots as an option to voters, and requires such jurisdictions post "in a conspicuous manner at the polling place, a notice stating that contingency paper ballots are available at the polling place and that a voter may request to use such a ballot at the voter's discretion."
Election integrity advocacy groups and citizens alike have been rallying members of both the U.S. House and Senate to pass such legislation since The BRAD BLOG initially called for what we had called, the "LET AMERICA VOTE ACT" last Tuesday. The act we called for would mandate emergency paper ballots at all polling places this November in light of thousands of voters having been sent without being able to cast a vote in primary after primary election so far this year when new electronic voting machines either malfunctioned or were otherwise unavailable.
The short Boxer/Dodd bill does not mandate the use of such ballots, but rather offers federal payment to local jurisdictions that choose to make such 'contingency paper ballots' available at either the voter's request or in the event of machine malfunction.
The bill is now being referred to informally as the "Confidence in Vote Act of 2006". It's a simple bill, three pages long in total, and is posted in full at the bottom this article. The final version of the bill to be filed momentarily (it may have already been) may be downloaded here in PDF format.
The bill introduced today is notable in no small part in that it's co-sponsored by Dodd - one of the original co-sponsors of HAVA along with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in the Senate and Reps. Bob Ney (R-OH) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD) in the House. HAVA was the bill which had set in motion the nationwide implementation of electronic voting systems paid for by the federal government. That bill gave states and counties some $3 billion dollars for voting systems "upgrades" around the country, and has led to a panoply of problems at polls, criticism from computer scientists, security experts and non-partisan election integrity organizations.
Dodd, and the other bi-partisan co-sponsors of HAVA, including the now-disgraced lead author Ney (R-OH), have been reluctant up until now to modify the legislation in any way, despite repeated calls from Election Integrity advocates, and a host of bills filed in both the House and Senate which have not been allowed to move forward.
The BRAD BLOG has learned that Boxer and Dodd chose to make the use of "contingency paper ballots" an option to states, rather than a mandate, in hopes that it would make the bill less contentious and easier to pass in the few days left in this legislative session before the election recess.
Both touch-screen DRE's and paper based optical scan systems have spectacularly failed across the country so far this year as well, and contingency plans have been called from both Republicans and Democrats alike to have such contingency plans in place at local jurisdictions should such machines continue to fail this November.
The downside to offering these paper ballots as an option, instead of a mandate, is that some states - such as Florida - have provisions in place making it essentially illegal for elections directors to offer such paper ballots at the polling place. For those states, it may well be that only a federal mandate would do the job of ensuring that voters would be able to vote come hell or highwater this November.
The legendary Leon County, FL Election Director Ion Sancho had previously expressed hopes that such a bill would make it "illegal to send a properly registered voter away from the polls without allowing them to cast a vote."
The latest state to have had machine problems in their primary election, resulting in voters being turned away from the polls, or being given Provisional Ballots (which are frequently not counted at all after Election Day) was Maryland. The Republican Governor of Maryland, Bob Ehrlich, called for scrapping the state's Diebold paperless touch-screen voting systems after their September 12th primary, calling on the state to impliment Emergency Paper Balloting this November. Incidents similar to the now-infamous "Maryland Meltdown" have been occuring across the country all year in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Arkansas, West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, and many others.
The Boxer/Dodd legislation cites a recent call from former Republican Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and former Democratic Governor Richard Celeste to have such "backup and contingency plans that anticipate a wide range of possible failures in their electronic voting systems" this November.
With just 4, or so, legislative days left in this Congress before they break for their Election Recess, it'll be no easy feat to see the bill passed by both the House and Senate before they leave. But given the stakes, and the bi-partisan call across the country for such a measure, we hope the Congress can act with the speed appropriate for a bill so important to, at least, helping to mitigate the train wreck that our democracy may be headed for this November 7th.
The BRAD BLOG would urge you to contact your Congress Members to demand they support this legislation immediately. You can contact your particular members via this link. You may write in support of, or ask your local media to cover this issue via this link.
The complete text of the Boxer/Dodd legislation and this complete story, in full at:URL: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3531
---Brad FriedmanTHE BRAD BLOG - The uprising continues...http://www.BradBlog.com

MALICE TOWARD NONE

Charity For All

Lincoln's Second Term--
American Civil War 1861-1865

Bush's Second Term--
Iraqi Civil War 2003-?


Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:

With Malice Toward None
With Charity for all
with firmness in the right
as God gives us to see the Right
let us strive on to finish the work we are in
to bind up the nation's wounds
to care for him who shall have borne the battle
and for his widow
and his orphan
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
and a lasting Peace
among ourselves
and with all nations.


The American Civil War ended. WWI ended. WWII ended. The Korean War ended. The Vietnam War ended. The Iraq war must have an ending. Finish It. It's time.

What if its all a Crock

Imagine there was No 9-11.

Take 'the world changed after 9-11' out of the Republican lexicon and what do you get? A hideously psychopathic deranged delusional presidential power grab and a $300 billion raid of the national Treasury as we incite murderous rage against Americans everywhere because we launched an unprovoked war killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims-for what?

Now look below at the fine citizens who think that the convenient excuse of 9-11 was a little too convenient and the 9-11 report a Whitewash cover-up of impeachment proportion:


go to:
http://www.patriotsquestion911.com.

Then tell me whether you think we need a real new 9-11 thorough investigation- and a real new Congress to do it under oath and penalty of perjury.


(plaintiff rests)

The Call To Love Thy Neighbor

Every great moral theologian, great thinker, truly great statesman and stateswoman worth his or her salt had some compelling deep concern and the need to speak for the welfare of others, the "common good" the advancement of goodness not just greatness to bless others. Today George Soros proved he is no exception. Lecturing before his Foundation and friends in Washington today he reminded us that we too must determine as a priority to care for the wellbeing of the world, not just our national or personal security as our private obsession to which we demand enscriptment of the world. If one truly does that it requires that we minimize collateral innocent casualties of war waged in the name of our national security. The call to love is a call to elevate, to enliven, to lift and redeem. It is not a call to accidentally collaterally destroy. In this case this has been a wholly unnecessary evil.
The war on poverty must be fought not just because it has repercussion on our national self interest but because it is a worthy goal in itself to eliminate the suffering of poverty because we have compassion and empathy on those suffering it. To reduce everything meaningful to strategic twists on a "War on Terror" is to live a false metaphor through which we view everything through a paranoid narcisism.
It is unacceptable to have continuing accidental collateral death in the hundreds daily in Iraq or anywhere. The only excuse for perpetuating it is if we know that to leave will be the trigger for more accidental deaths. Soros is of the view that we are sitting on a civil war in Iraq that is not "getting much oxygen now because we are sitting on it." But if we immediately leave, which he does not support, it will collapse into a civil war and threaten a larger regional conflict. He views Iran's nuclear capability as "unacceptable." But believes we have to engage them to make peace. You make peace with your enemies not your friends. Making peace requires diplomatic engagement- by definition.
Our national psyche has been perverted not merely strained by the self centered self obsessed narcisism of viewing everything in the world through a prism of what threatens our security which demeans and cripples our ability to view the world as something we need to positively engage to mutually encourage creative mutually beneficial enterprise in a positive balance of trade and creativity. Instead we are spending ourselves in a hole dug clear through to China to wage death and destruction in the name of our protection. Dieu Tout Puissant.
If each of us individually and collectively as nations and states has a limited time on planet earth; generously say 100 years a person, 100 years a leader, times all the leaders of the world, to leave the world "better of" than when we got here, what would we do? Would we destroy nations and peoples to make us more secure, or would we try -really hard- to make the world a place where instead Love ruled- on earth as it is in heaven-- Where swords were beaten into plowshares-and people shared the plowing. Plowing in tandem doesn't work if one side knocks off and out the other.
Soros envisioned a future Iraq with power sharing along lines of oil revenue licensing rights distribution. The shift from mutual self assured destruction to mutual collaborative positive growth is something that comes from moral leadership of which we can't afford to squander any more.
When you were a kid, you didn't imagine growing up to kill anyone so that your place on the planet was secure? The obsession has raped our national innocence just as much as the original tragedy that inspired it. Our national insecurity doesn't have to be healed with more killing and never will be. Or national insecurity will come by building bridges of peace through loving our neighbors all around the world as ourselves ---just as He said.



Love keeps you young
I've heard it said
- turns your grey head
It lifts your heavy wrinkled brow
- turns your glaring frown toward the clouds
Love keeps you young
I've heard it said
As you astonishingly watch God's breath
through mysteries and miracles
that couldn't be but for his eye
that guides your flight silently
and connects you to the unreachable
Love keeps you young
I've heard it said
and when you can no longer
lift a foot over the other in steady pace
love still keeps you young
in parallel time and space
where your heart exists in perfect peace
where sworn enemies
become your brothers
who share your grief in atoning
moaning
Love keeps you young
I've heard it said,
it can even raise the dead.

THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH SO HELP US GOD

There is a lot of talk about Freedom-lipservice-claptrap-hoopla -speeches and military campaigns in its name. But we know it's source- it's in TRUTH. The Truth will set us free. Without it we are captives to illusions subject to being manipulated and deceived creating a twisted world based on the violence of lies. And that is where we find ourselves five years after September 11, 2001.

Someone very beautiful once said- I am the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father but through me. That means NO ONE comes to the Father without going through Foundational Truth which He is.

The questions that remain about the biggest questions- the "why" questions, which have been swept under the carpet in oppressive condemnations of alleged "conspiracy theorists" rise from the cinder dust of 9-11. How could this happen? Why, why, why.

The 9-11 Commission, declared Tom Kean it's Chair today, was "set up to fail." It was under-resourced, and ran out of time without getting all the core questions answered. It tried perhaps. These are honorable men. But they operated from the framework of assumption that was spoon fed them and they were hamstrung by some procedural constraints.
They didn't or couldn't require witnesses, including government witnesses to swear to their testimony under oath like Congressional hearings. They obtained subpoena power but didn't use it, and they were flatly denied by the White House the ability to question the detainees-or anyone allegedly connected with the plots.

So they didn't look under every rock, follow every lead and were too quick to dismiss that which seemed implausible. They viewed their task as presenting the most credible story line that would stick and coming up with some recommendations to make us safer. They ran out of time and money and Dennis Hastert wouldn't give them more of either. Following the official plot whose lines they connected after following those dots, they came up with what Lee Hamilton, Vice-Chair called common sense recommendations. Both Hamilton and Kean wonder why not many of 41 recommendations- the "no brainers" have been in five years implemented. He bemused that there does not appear to be any sense of urgency-(yet there was Urgency to get to Iraq before the inspectors declared their job done and Urgency to get every appropriations bill since passed.)
We have spent 300 billion on an unconnected war in a country that did not attack us, but we couldn't find resources in five years to put first responders on the same air wave frequency or create the systems to allow them to communicate with each other- something that could save many lives. The 9-11 families whose insistence pioneered the creation of this Commission felt not more than 25% of their questions were answered at all. And it still does not make sense.

The Washington Post recently ran a large article attempting to deride and debunk the so called "conspiracy theorists" of 9-11 . In doing so they mock themselves because the largest most elaborate conspiracy is the one passing off as normalcy.

There is a movement getting stronger by the day to get at the bottom of 9-11 truth. It has solid academics and researchers in it. It has lawyers in it. It has very credible very logical people in it who believe the country owes it to itself to get to the full Truth, and Nothing but the Truth about 9-11.

Today at the National Press Club determined 9-11 families came again to Washington, facing more mockery and scorn, to challenge the Official Story line of 9-11 and demand a new investigation. They are part of the "Press For Truth" movement. They offer a DVD movie which you can order on line. There are also Scholars for Truth, and Truth-seekers by many other names and some who prefer not to be named writing from undisclosed locations. They share one thing in common- a determined belief that this Administration isn't fully leveling with us and the facts just don't add up to the simple conclusion they preach.

This blog applauds all the courageous people who stand up and refuse to be silenced. We know that we are not going to shut up until the Truth is shouted from the Mountaintop.

News stations all day were replaying same day 9-11 news coverage broadcasting from lower Manhattan. Newscasters were repeatedly reporting they heard explosions. Explosions. Manhattanites were chased for blocks as a massive grey dust cloud enveloped everything like a hurricane tossing cars and people wildly into the air. Explosions. Did two planes really cause all this?

We will not get a thorough investigation until we get a new Congress. In two months we can make that a reality. So long as we are held captive to illusions we Americans are not a free people. We are mere patsies to the ruling oligarchic trifecta of war industry, fear peddling and republican government that binds us in its illusions for their service.

As one 9-11 family member from the Press For Truth conference stated so eloquently today-
"God blessed America, but it was men who cursed us." If we have a hope of fighting the curse, we have to know every place from where it originated and who really did the cursing.

We remember that day on the 11th of September, 2001 and the people who died in New York, Pennsylvania and Northern Virginia at the Pentagon, and also their families today with deep sadness and deeper respect.
This little blog here at www. democracytruth.blogspot.com was created in large part so they could see real Justice in their lifetime.

The Truth-it is Promised- Will Set Us Free.


Practically speaking-what can you do- consider this:

Subj:
We Are the Troops
Date:
9/12/2006 11:43:21 AM Eastern Standard Time
From:
info@johnkerry.com
Reply-to:
jk4p-0032Q03oL0@mailer.johnkerry.com
To:
butlerlawfirm@aol.com
Dear Cynthia,
I remember when I was back home from Vietnam and veterans were speaking out against the Vietnam war policy, someone yelled at the vets: "You should support the troops." One of those veterans said simply: "Lady, we are the troops."
With a war in Iraq gone horribly wrong and a Republican attack machine determined to smear those who speak out, there's nothing more important this fall than electing veterans to Congress who can speak out about Iraq with a special moral authority.
And man, do we need them. Recently, John "Randy" Kuhl, a Republican incumbent House member from New York, returned from a visit to Iraq. He reported that things were going well. In fact, he says he almost forgot he was in a war zone.
I can't tell you whether that hard-to-believe comment reflects his disconnect with reality or his refusal to level with the people he represents. But, I can tell you this: No one who knows what it really means to be in a war zone would talk like that.
If you act now to support Eric Massa, the 24-year Navy veteran running against Kuhl, there will be one less Congressman in Washington next year who blindly supports the failed Republican policy in Iraq.
Eric served in Desert Storm, Bosnia and Beirut. And he's telling people the truth about Iraq -- that there is no purely military solution to the problems there. He, three other proud veterans I'll tell you about in a moment, and VoteVets.org, a political action committee founded to support candidates like them, need your help right now.
SUPPORT OUR "FOUR VETS, FOUR VICTORIES" CAMPAIGN
Our "Four Vets, Four Victories" campaign can help change the face of Congress if you act now. Every one of these candidates has served America under fire. And every one of them can win the opportunity to serve again on November 7th if we act now.
Chris Carney, a veteran of multiple military operations, is in a toss-up race against Don Sherwood, another rubber-stamp Republican incumbent who has failed to ask tough questions about the Bush administration's aimless policies in Iraq.
Joe Sestak, a former three-star Admiral who served in the Navy for 31 years, is another veteran on the road to victory in Pennsylvania. He's running against Curt Weldon, a Republican incumbent in the Rick Santorum camp who believes the "jury is still out" on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, despite overwhelming and undeniable proof to the contrary.
The third in our trio of Pennsylvania veterans running to change the face of Congress is Patrick Murphy. He is an Iraq War veteran, former West Point professor, and criminal prosecutor. Patrick is on the verge of victory if we give him the financial support he needs to compete in the countdown to Election Day.
SUPPORT OUR "FOUR VETS, FOUR VICTORIES" CAMPAIGN
Nothing would make me prouder than to know that our "Four Vets, Four Victories" campaign helped carry these impressive candidates to Congress. That's the outcome that's within reach, but only if you rush your financial support to one or more of these candidates.
Every day it becomes more apparent how hard the Republican Party and its candidates will struggle to hold on to power in these elections. They'll throw everything they've got at our candidates. We've got to be there with our financial support.
So, pick one candidate or donate to all four. But, whatever you do, don't stay on the sidelines. This is your opportunity to stand side-by-side with veterans who have already given so much to America and who are ready to provide the leadership we need in Washington.
SUPPORT OUR "FOUR VETS, FOUR VICTORIES" CAMPAIGN
Thank you for all you are doing in the critical buildup to Election Day.
Sincerely,
John Kerry
P.S. There's one other critical way you can help veterans running for office. Support VoteVets.org, a political action committee formed by Iraq veterans to support Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are running for Congress. VoteVets.org is providing campaigns with training and support and running TV ads critical of candidates who support the failed "stay the course" policy of the Bush administration.
So, in addition to supporting our four candidates, I hope you'll consider standing with VoteVets.org.

Paid for by Friends of John Kerry.Authorized by Sestak For CongressAuthorized by Patrick Murphy for CongressAuthorized by Carney for CongressAuthorized by Massa for CongressAuthorized by VoteVets.org

Blinded By The Night

TRANSGRESSING TO THE DARK SIDE--with only one way out.

One of the more memorable moments on Meet the Press today was when Tim Russert asked the gold rolex wearing Vice President whether he had traversed to the "dark side." Cheney's response was that he has done any and everything-whatever it took to "make America safer." The few people in the inner circle of the CIA who have not been fired for being too "reality based" only know how many faustian deals the Vice President has actually struck and where they actually took what was left of his soul-and how he got the multi-millions to buy his palacial estate in an exclusive Eastern Shore town. But what we do know for certain, is that he isn't leveling with us about much and couching everything in the usual hyped paranoid Fear Factor spin. He snortled condescendingly, laughed smirkingly with a side snarl and refused to answer other questions. I was left with the impression that this man is gloating all the way to his far above government salary pied-a-tier estate in Saint Michaels on the Eastern Shore for having pulled the biggest in plain view heist ever pulled by a "government servant."
The latest RNC hysterically absurd talk point is that the Islamo-fascists want to turn half the world into a seventh century "Caliphate" which sounds scarier than a nineteenth century Ottoman Empire (that might malign our Turkish buddies.) Apparently we have concluded that the states like democratically elected Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Aman, Kuwait, Dubai, Saudi, etc. all somehow risk being run or want to be run by the same wild eyed fundamentalist clergy who fashion themselves after a seventh century "Caliphate" -as if they ever would accept one monolythic voice for all their litany of woes. Were it not uttered by someone couched in all the credibility of one of the highest political offices of the land wearing a gold rolex, we should all be laughing hysterically and wondering whether John Cleese will enter stage right doing the goose-stepping silly walk from the Ministry of Silly Walks. It's such an off the wall notion as to be completely hysterical that all of the Muslim world is in some risk of falling to one dictatorial tyrannical "caliphate" character. It flies in the face of what we know about sectarian conflict in Iraq alone (something you never hear Bush mention and wonder if he grasps), not to mention the issues that Iraqis have with the rest of the Muslim world. If we don't have a Ministry of Silly Walks, we might just have a Ministry of Ragheaded Bogeymen and Other Things That Go AsalamAlekam in the Night.
The choice in the Mid-Term is clear. It is not at all a question of whether the Republicans can do a better job at combatting terror- they already proved they are the source and perpetuators of terror. The question is as basic as this:

Do you believe in a World where more fear and terror defeats terror, and more war stops wars, or do you believe that the only thing stronger than hate is Love? Do you believe that peace is achieved by war or that peace insists that swords be beaten into plowshares?

This election is a referendum at the crucible of our National Soul.

It is a referendum on whether the United States believes in the force and Power of Love over Hatred, Peace over Violence, Forgiveness over Revenge, and Hope over Despair and Destruction.

Whose side are you on- Jesus said if you are lukewarm- I spew you out of my mouth. The way we get out from under the power of the Darkness is to clean House (and Senate) in November.
---and a little prayer and fasting like Mahatma Ghandi wouldn't hurt.

UNITED FLIGHT 93-and little green men in Area 51

CIA DISINFORMATION -IS FLIGHT 93 IN INDIAN LAKE?
By: Cynthia L. Butler, Esq.

For years a culture-cult and a lot of merchandising of inflatable green aliens developed around the firm belief that there were slant-eyed aliens in a place in the Nevada desert called "Area 51." People swore that they saw alien spacecraft over the place. Turns out that the CIA had an active disinformation campaign happy to perpetuate that belief because it distracted everyone from the fact that this is where they were testing advanced military drone operated and other aircraft under cover of night so our enemies wouldn't catch on and spy on our technology.
This is apparently where the B52 bomber was secretly tested/developed. But if you talked to the few folks in surrounding "towns"(e.g. the diner by the gas station)- they would swear they saw flying saucers and other such beam-me-up-Scotty amazements with blinking lights at night. The belief generated myths and movies.

The Bush Administration apparently, however, miscalculated in thinking that the tumble-brush whisky soured heat stricken folks of the Nevada desert remotely resemble what was mistakenly assumed to be the cow-tipping bandana-wearing Jamesway-plaid rifle-toting pick-up riders of Central Pennsylvania. They thought they could pull a similar trompe d'oeil on these folks and no one would notice in a place called-for God's sake- Shanksville.

The problem with this assumption is that Central Pennsylvania also boasts historic residents like that famous architect guy who built "Falling Waters," Joe Paterno, various relatives of Eisenhower, a law school at Penn State called Dickenson, a ski resort at Seven Springs and a Lake called Indian Lake, where people inconspiciously retire after making their millions in the market or in Pittsburgh industry, living next door to a famous golfer named Arnold- and a musical prodigy organist who has composed liturgical symphonic operas and arias named Ben Smedburg near Johnstown. Not exactly the desolate dirtbag piney nowheresville they thought they could get away with pulling the wool over. They have that sort of midwestern charm that eschews conspicious oppulence and they like to live in the middle of corn-fields- this apparenly fooled Bush.

The questions that remain about Flight 93 include the obvious- what I call "where are my sunglasses" questions -after my mother who is famous for asking "where are my sunglasses" while they are perched atop her head. The answers are that obvious and point to the inevitable.

1. The jet fuel in the transatlantic flight on Flight 93 was of the same substance and volume as that which apparently melted down all three buildings, two towers of the WTC, but did not scorch the grass around the hole into which it allegedly plummeted in Pennsylvania one iota.

2. The official explanation for the fact that no one could find any plane or body remnants is that it was swallowed in a "liquified" earth because the earth was a reclaimed coal strip mine. That one was amusing to the natives. Is the local gas station also sitting on liquifiable earth? If the earth was a reclaimed strip mine- there would be the same topsoil as surrounding areas over fragments of coal- which gets very hot and would be expected to be searingly hot around a running aircraft engine- but no grass around the perfect hole was even singed and the ground didn't melt anything down- the trees nearby surrounding the hole didn't even burn-and they are made of-you guessed it-wood (unlike the Towers built of steel.)

3. There were remnants of odd items found apparently "charred" as reported by the Mayor of Indian Lake in and/or around the Lake Marina- including letters packed in the hull and body parts which were turned over to the FBI apparently by Marina workers.

4. The Mayor of Shanksville has reported to a German news organization and elsewhere that there was no plane.

5. News accounts widely reported residents of Indian Lake reporting that pieces were falling out of the sky onto their houses and at least one Indian Lake Marina worker thought initially a boat blew up on the Lake.

6. Indian Lake is a 750 acre Lake on a 2,000 acre development. Adjacent to Indian Lake on the Shanksville side is Stoneybrook Creek which is divided from Indian Lake by a sort of dam such that nothing can travel upstream from Stoneybrook Creek into Indian Lake. I know because I spent every summer for years on the lake and I know that these two bodies of water are separated and you cannot waterski from one part to the next because of this dam. You cannot boat into the one from the other because of this dam. I assumed it had something to do with some power generation for the development on the Lake or the Marina. Anyone who has been on the Lake would know that pieces of anything floating on it cannot travel from the Stoneybrook side to the Indian Lake side. The mythmakers have obviously not been on the lake. I am guessing that they were aiming for the lake where the shoot down or explosive missile hit would be more murkily unascertainable than even the "liquified" hole field. What you see in the field is a missile hit.
People have misreported that Indian Lake is only 3 miles from Shanksville because they are measuring from the Stoneybrook creek back exit of the Lake development when in fact the alleged crash site was inbetween Lambertsville and Shanksville- and the Stoneybrook Creek off-shoot of the Lake is closer to Shanksville with Indian Lake actually much further away upstream. Thus the bodies and other material which were found at or around the Indian Lake Marina were not closer than 5 miles away from the crash site and more like 10 miles away from it.
There is NO WAY that bodies and material that crashed to the earth would traverse past the trees lining the field over land and a creek, landing upstream in a lake from a crash site five to ten miles away. NOT POSSIBLE. Thus, the bodies and debris exited the aircraft at some point while it was in the air. (Additional materials both charred and whollly in tact were found another 8 miles away in New Baltimore, PA, also in Sommerset County). Additionally these materials, while wet were "charred" according to the Mayor of Indian Lake- who if you talk to him, is probably a guy who likely never owned a pick up truck, probably never made less than 150,00 his whole life, drives a Mercedes, is a member of the Lions Club, has a great handicap and probably has friends named things like Paterno and Palmer.

Therefore, the conclusion that United Flight 93 disappeared into the Liquified Earth at Shanksville is slightly less credible than the conclusion that little three feet slant-eyed transluscent androgens named "vweezgeezle" eat pancakes with Aunt Jemmima in Area 51.

7. The Lake Bottom:
The bottom of the lake is of a consistency of tarrish thick mud-such that by walking into it you sunk in places to your mid-calves through thick muck. It's almost like a quicksand sort of mud on the bottom. As a kid you artfully jumped into the raft from the dock without touching bottom because you would get stuck sinking into it. You put your waterskis on at the dock because you didn't want them to get stuck in the muck on the bottom.


DREDGE THE LAKE:
Have they drained the Lake since the flight went down? Anything traveling at the speed of a jet or pieces thereof into the lake could be stuck embedded at the bottom of the Lake in the mud. Something as large as a whole plane would be noticed going down- except if it was in September after Labor Day not on a weekend when everyone was back to school-a day like September 11, 2001- and might stick up in some places (the center of the Lake is deep but the there are shallow sides and mudbars throughout)- but it may not be noticeable if it was shot to pieces and went deep into the muck of the bottom. That could explain why no one has found the plane or the bodies yet except for the fragments that floated to the top toward the Marina.
Pictures of an explosive mushroom like plume cloud seen over the lake were taken and compared to those over Afghanistan by the locals who believed the plane was shot down in a sonic boom like explosion. If it was blown to obliterated bits it could be in many pieces at the bottom of the lake.

Congress might investigate exactly what has popped to the surface of the Lake over the years.
If the Indian Lake Mayor claims what they found there were only charred remains (while other
uncharred bits appear miles down the road) it suggests one possibility;

United Flight 93 was blown up to bits and is in Indian Lake.

http://911review.org/Wiki/Flight93.shtml

DREDGE THE LAKE

Why Republicans Deserve to Lose Every Seat in Congress

..And Pat Buchanan knows it.......

By: Cynthia L. Butler, Esq. (an attorney admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, the District of Columbia, the Third and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals and a sixth generation Pennsylvanian)


Today is the Anniversary of my good American Republican parents from Pennsylvania. In honor of my late father-the quintessential good and righteous man I write this.

When Ronald Reagan Jr. says "American soldiers are torturing prisoners of War" it makes Rumsfeld's statement that those against the Iraq war are "intellectually or morally confused" or
Chamberlain appeaser protegees
look more than silly- it looks, like most of what Rumsfeld does- plainly sick, sickening and deceitful. My father, son of a WWII Vet, himself a Korean War Vet who interned for Eisenhower, would be thoroughly disgusted.
Bush's current blundering PR offensive around the country to preach that those against our currently pathetically dangerously misguided foreign policy are 'Nazi appeasers' is grossly insulting, deeply offensive and is going to backfire. It, like most everything that has come from this paid PR offensive of this Administration is just wrong, deceitful, deceptive, and shameful garbage spin.
This Administration has built a foreign policy on a House of joker cards with the windows punched out sitting in a sewage sludge swamp against the better advice of just about everybody, including his own father. Bush's crew has created straw men, myths and hoaxes to propel a nation into serving its financial interests which are not the interests-either security interests or financial interests- of the nation as a whole-and the Nation as a whole is waking up, fed up and disgusted. It has engaged this PR offensive with rude, blistering, ignorant assaults by people who know better but behave instead like little hysterical school yard bullies.
My advice- just stop listening to them. Change the channel. Give the Rove play-book away to the next mission crate traveling to the Dominican Republic because its only redeeming value is that it might teach someone to read.

My applause goes to Keith Olberman of MSNBC whose retort to Rumsfeld's diatribe is worth reading in full.
Additionally Ronnie Duetch of the Big Idea gets a spine award for telling Ann Coulter she was "just being ignorant" when refering to anyone who doesn't equate defense of America with this wrongheaded war and the Fear Tour strategy as not "worshipping the God of Abraham." This lady is a person who has threatened and/or wished bodily harm on Supreme Court justices, Bill Clinton and now Lincoln Chaffee-and she wonders why no one dignifies her drivel by taking the bait for a high school debate with her. She should get less main stream press play than Courtney Love on a crack binge. But Cheney's idea of a press offensive is apparently get hysterical bleach belching blondes like Hanreity to scream "wooowooowooo they are going to kill me if we don't massacre them first!!" You can't want cute blonde women to die horrible deaths at the hands of muslim rapists! I am looking for Simon Legree in a Kafkan.

I am starting to get a crush on Keith Olberman because he seems like the only person in the world who is willing to take these people on with the same force that they dish out. Only he has clarity and sense.

Here is what I want to see the Main Stream Press looking at (and I am dismayed they have dropped the ball so far)
Think on this-
The Mayor of Shanksville, Sommerset County, Pennsylvania, the town in which the United flight that the LetsRoll characters allegedly brought the plane down swears no plane was ever in that huge smoking hole we all saw in Shanksville. He talked to everyone relevant, he went to the site, he did his research. NO PLANE PEOPLE IN SHANKSVILLE.
The Central Pennsylvanians who went to look were all mystified. What plane? Look closely at the video footage- did you ever see a plane? Did you ever see parts of a plane in that hole or anywhere around it? Did you ever see bodies being removed from the hole? No bodies. No Plane. So what the---A missle hit just miles from the Rolling Rock Country Club in Ligonner where every big money Republican name on the planet golfs including the infamous Mellon Schaiffe and the less famous my uncle Mike.
It has been reported, and begs for deeper verification, that there were bodies, according to eye witness accounts instead floating in Indian Lake, still in Sommerset County about ten miles away which apparently dropped from the sky. They were found at the Marina in Indian Lake. Why would there be bodies ten miles away that dropped from the sky. This is more consistent with the eye witness accounts that an F16 bearing missile attacked the plane and it was downed closer to New Baltimore, Pennsylvania (with the evidence of the missile hit destroyed with the plane and bodies) while everyone was sent to Shanksville to look at a smoking hole. The existence of bodies ten miles away is consistent only with the fact that the flight was shot down mid-air, not that it actually crashed fully in tact.
Indian Lake Pennsylvania is a development that was built around an artificial lake whose signature feature is a golf course designed by Arnold Palmer who had a home on the Lake. Its a beautiful peaceful beucolic serene place. It's a summer retreat for the most part with more residents going there on weekends or in the summer. My grandparents in fact had a summer home there and I went there for some part of most summers for about fifteen years of my youth. Bodies falling out of the sky or floating in the Lake would be a shocking unforgettable event to anyone who saw it. It should not be too difficult to find the people who saw floating bodies in the lake by the Marina in 2001. What did they do to identify these bodies? Why isn't the press tracking down this information?

Similarly there never was a plane found, nor could one have fit in the hole in the Pentagon. The exit hole in the rear was apparently perfect missile circle. In the new movie On Native Soil, which they are playing nonstop on CNN and which you can get at the video store now, Condi Rice said no one could have anticipated that these terrorists would use airplanes "like a missile." What a freudian slip. That's because in two cases, they didn't - more likely the government used airplanes to mask the use of CIA missiles that created the illusion they wanted. Rumsfeld himself freudian slipped and said "the missile that hit the Pentagon." Similarly there have been Rumsfeld slips saying things like those terrorists who "shot down the plane in Pennsylvania." Look closely- google, lexis, ask jeeves or dig in dogpile-however you do your research. But do it. Look closely, don't just eat the government pork. Look to see whether an entire country has been lied to in the most cynically obscene self serving manner and tell me whether you trust them to speak to Iran or N.Korea. I wouldn't let them babysit a pet cat.

Rumsfeld won't resign because he knows that in this crooked fixed poker game he threw in the chips of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and thousands of American soliders lives and he knows where the bodies are buried and the cash is hidden. He knows that the person coming after him cleaning house is going to find things under the floorboards and behind the trick panels in the parlor that could put those folks away for a long long time.

This is a Democracy but only so long as we keep it. If it is going to work you have a duty to educate yourself beyond what the government paid media has fed you. The government by the way commissions so called documentaries and docudramas on the discovery and history channels.
You have to do your own research.
And you have to
vote and make it count.

That is what people like us-we, who are not intellectually or morally confused do. We, the People.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad.

Still Missing the Point

The Official Story Unravelled:

Will someone please tell Tim Russert that we don't care whether the Mayor of New Orleans called Ground Zero a "hole in the ground" or referred to it with more reverence. We care that we know the truth about what really caused three buildings to collapse when two aircraft and the fires that they generated could not have done it. http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html,http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/eagar_jom/eagar_0112.htmlWe care that Main stream media continues to suppress the real story about how the Towers collapsed. The rest of the country is catching on but the talking heads are picking their noses harping on irrelevant questions that entirely miss the point.

Bin Laden's father, we learned from Christiane Amanpour's CNN documentary on Bin Laden had close ties with Saudi Royalty. Like Father like son. The Documentary tells us that Bin Laden grew up in a wealthy home where his father was connected with the Saudi Royalty as a prominent business icon and the largest construction developer in Saudi. Bin Laden grew up working for the family business doing hands on construction. We saw footage of him riding a bulldozer and/or digger. All his brothers did this. He certainly knows how construction companies implode buildings in controlled demolitions. It was part of the job.

The evidence and serious scholarship now points to the conclusion that the WTC was a controlled demolition. Apparently eye witness accounts insist. But how did he rig the WTC? Did you know or does Tim Russert know that the security company in charge of all WTC security is owned by George Bush's brother Marvin and a cousin? Did you know that there was some sort of emergency security shut down days before the 11th?


Here is a blurb on a book by a guy who believes that the Official Story is the Lie:

In discussing my second 9/11 book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, I have often said, only half in jest, that a better title might have been "a 571-page lie." (Actually, I was saying "a 567-page lie," because I was forgetting to count the four pages of the Preface.)
In making this statement, one of my points has been that the entire Report is constructed in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is true.
Another point, however, is that in the process of telling this overall lie, The 9/11 Commission Report tells many lies about particular issues. This point is implied by my critique's subtitle, "Omissions and Distortions." It might be thought, to be sure, that of the two types of problems signaled by those two terms, only those designated "distortions" can be considered lies.
It is better, however, to understand the two terms as referring to two types of lies: implicit and explicit. We have an explicit lie when the Report claims that the core of each of the Twin Towers consisted of a hollow steel shaft or when it claims that Vice President Cheney did not give the shoot-down order until after 10:10 that morning.
But we have an implicit lie when the Commission, in its discussion of the 19 alleged suicide hijackers, omits the fact that at least six of them have credibly been reported to be still alive, or when it fails to mention the fact that Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapsed. Such omissions are implicit lies partly because they show that the Commission did not honor its stated intention "to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11."
They are also lies insofar as the Commission could avoid telling an explicit lie about the issue in question only by not mentioning it, which, I believe, was the case in at least most instances.
Given these two types of lies, it might be wondered how many lies are contained in The 9/11 Commission Report. I do not know. But, deciding to see how many lies I had discussed in my book, I found that I had identified over 100 of them. Once I had made the list, it occurred to me that others might find this summary helpful. Hence this article.
One caveat: Although in some of the cases it is obvious that the Commission has lied, in other cases I would say, as I make clear in the book, that it appears that the Commission has lied. However, in the interests of simply giving a brief listing of claims that I consider to be lies, I will ignore this distinction between obvious and probable lies, leaving it to readers, if they wish, to look up the discussion in The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions.
For ease in doing this, I have parenthetically indicated the pages of the book on which the various issues are discussed. Given this clarification, I now list the omissions and claims ofThe 9/11 Commission Report that I, in my critique of that report, portrayed as lies:
1. The omission of evidence that at least six of the alleged hijackers — including Waleed al-Shehri, said by the Commission probably to have stabbed a flight attendant on Flight 11 before it crashed into the North Tower of the WTC — are still alive (19-20).
2. The omission of evidence about Mohamed Atta — such as his reported fondness for alcohol, pork, and lap dances — that is in tension with the Commission's claim that he had become fanatically religious (20-21).
3. The obfuscation of the evidence that Hani Hanjour was too poor a pilot to have flown an airliner into the Pentagon (21-22).
4. The omission of the fact that the publicly released flight manifests contain no Arab names (23).
5. The omission of the fact that fire has never, before or after 9/11, caused steel-frame buildings to collapse (25).
6. The omission of the fact that the fires in the Twin Towers were not very big, very hot, or very long-lasting compared with fires in several steel-frame buildings that did not collapse (25-26).
7. The omission of the fact that, given the hypothesis that the collapses were caused by fire, the South Tower, which was struck later than the North Tower and also had smaller fires, should not have collapsed first (26).
8. The omission of the fact that WTC 7 (which was not hit by an airplane and which had only small, localized fires) also collapsed — an occurrence that FEMA admitted it could not explain (26).
9. The omission of the fact that the collapse of the Twin Towers (like that of Building 7) exemplified at least 10 features suggestive of controlled demolition (26-27).
10. The claim that the core of each of the Twin Towers was "a hollow steel shaft" — a claim that denied the existence of the 47 massive steel columns that in reality constituted the core of each tower and that, given the "pancake theory" of the collapses, should have still been sticking up many hundreds of feet in the air (27-28).
11. The omission of Larry Silverstein's statement that he and the fire department commander decided to "pull" Building 7 (28).
12. The omission of the fact that the steel from the WTC buildings was quickly removed from the crime scene and shipped overseas before it could be analyzed for evidence of explosives (30).
13. The omission of the fact that because Building 7 had been evacuated before it collapsed, the official reason for the rapid removal of the steel — that some people might still be alive in the rubble under the steel — made no sense in this case (30).
14. The omission of Mayor Giuliani's statement that he had received word that the World Trade Center was going to collapse (30-31).
15. The omission of the fact that President Bush's brother Marvin and his cousin Wirt Walker III were both principals in the company in charge of security for the WTC (31-32).
16. The omission of the fact that the west wing of the Pentagon would have been the least likely spot to be targeted by al-Qaeda terrorists, for several reasons (33-34).
17. The omission of any discussion of whether the damage done to the Pentagon was consistent with the impact of a Boeing 757 going several hundred miles per hour (34).
18. The omission of the fact that there are photos showing that the west wing's façade did not collapse until 30 minutes after the strike and also that the entrance hole appears too small for a Boeing 757 to have entered (34).
19. The omission of all testimony that has been used to cast doubt on whether remains of a Boeing 757 were visible either inside or outside the Pentagon (34-36).
20. The omission of any discussion of whether the Pentagon has a anti-missile defense system that would have brought down a commercial airliner — even though the Commission suggested that the al-Qaeda terrorists did not attack a nuclear power plant because they assumed that it would be thus defended (36).
21. The omission of the fact that pictures from various security cameras — including the camera at the gas station across from the Pentagon, the film from which was reportedly confiscated by the FBI immediately after the strike — could presumably answer the question of what really hit the Pentagon (37-38).
22. The omission of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's reference to "the missile [used] to damage [the Pentagon]" (39).
23. The apparent endorsement of a wholly unsatisfactory answer to the question of why the Secret Service agents allowed President Bush to remain at the Sarasota school at a time when, given the official story, they should have assumed that a hijacked airliner might be about to crash into the school (41-44).
24. The failure to explore why the Secret Service did not summon fighter jets to provide air cover for Air Force One (43-46).
25. The claims that when the presidential party arrived at the school, no one in the party knew that several planes had been hijacked (47-48).
26. The omission of the report that Attorney General Ashcroft was warned to stop using commercial airlines prior to 9/11 (50).
27. The omission of David Schippers' claim that he had, on the basis of information provided by FBI agents about upcoming attacks in lower Manhattan, tried unsuccessfully to convey this information to Attorney General Ashcroft during the six weeks prior to 9/11 (51).
28. The omission of any mention of the FBI agents who reportedly claimed to have known the targets and dates of the attacks well in advance (51-52).
29. The claim, by means of a circular, question-begging rebuttal, that the unusual purchases of put options prior to 9/11 did not imply advance knowledge of the attacks on the part of the buyers (52-57).
30. The omission of reports that both Mayor Willie Brown and some Pentagon officials received warnings about flying on 9/11 (57).
31. The omission of the report that Osama bin Laden, who already was America's "most wanted" criminal, was treated in July 2001 by an American doctor in the American Hospital in Dubai and visited by the local CIA agent (59).
32. The omission of news stories suggesting that after 9/11 the U.S. military in Afghanistan deliberately allowed Osama bin Laden to escape (60).
33. The omission of reports, including the report of a visit to Osama bin Laden at the hospital in Dubai by the head of Saudi intelligence, that were in tension with the official portrayal of Osama as disowned by his family and his country (60-61).
34. The omission of Gerald Posner's account of Abu Zubaydah's testimony, according to which three members of the Saudi royal family — all of whom later died mysteriously within an eight-day period — were funding al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (61-65).
35. The Commission's denial that it found any evidence of Saudi funding of al-Qaeda (65-68).
36. The Commission's denial in particular that it found any evidence that money from Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, went to al-Qaeda operatives (69-70).
37. The denial, by means of simply ignoring the distinction between private and commercial flights, that the private flight carrying Saudis from Tampa to Lexington on September 13 violated the rules for U.S. airspace in effect at the time (71-76).
38. The denial that any Saudis were allowed to leave the United States shortly after 9/11 without being adequately investigated (76-82).
39. The omission of evidence that Prince Bandar obtained special permission from the White House for the Saudi flights (82-86).
40. The omission of Coleen Rowley's claim that some officials at FBI headquarters did see the memo from Phoenix agent Kenneth Williams (89-90).
41. The omission of Chicago FBI agent Robert Wright's charge that FBI headquarters closed his case on a terrorist cell, then used intimidation to prevent him from publishing a book reporting his experiences (91).
42. The omission of evidence that FBI headquarters sabotaged the attempt by Coleen Rowley and other Minneapolis agents to obtain a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer (91-94).
43. The omission of the 3.5 hours of testimony to the Commission by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds — testimony that, according to her later public letter to Chairman Kean, revealed serious 9/11-related cover-ups by officials at FBI headquarters (94-101).
44. The omission of the fact that General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan's intelligence agency (the ISI), was in Washington the week prior to 9/11, meeting with CIA chief George Tenet and other U.S. officials (103-04).
45. The omission of evidence that ISI chief Ahmad had ordered $100,000 to be sent to Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11 (104-07).
46. The Commission's claim that it found no evidence that any foreign government, including Pakistan, had provided funding for the al-Qaeda operatives (106).
47. The omission of the report that the Bush administration pressured Pakistan to dismiss Ahmad as ISI chief after the appearance of the story that he had ordered ISI money sent to Atta (107-09).
48. The omission of evidence that the ISI (and not merely al-Qaeda) was behind the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masood (the leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance), which occurred just after the week-long meeting between the heads of the CIA and the ISI (110-112).
49. The omission of evidence of ISI involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Reporter Daniel Pearl (113).
50. The omission of Gerald Posner's report that Abu Zubaydah claimed that a Pakistani military officer, Mushaf Ali Mir, was closely connected to both the ISI and al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (114).
51. The omission of the 1999 prediction by ISI agent Rajaa Gulum Abbas that the Twin Towers would be "coming down" (114).
52. The omission of the fact that President Bush and other members of his administration repeatedly spoke of the 9/11 attacks as "opportunities" (116-17).
53. The omission of the fact that The Project for the New American Century, many members of which became key figures in the Bush administration, published a document in 2000 saying that "a new Pearl Harbor" would aid its goal of obtaining funding for a rapid technological transformation of the U.S. military (117-18).
54. The omission of the fact that Donald Rumsfeld, who as head of the commission on the U.S. Space Command had recommended increased funding for it, used the attacks of 9/11 on that very evening to secure such funding (119-22).
55. The failure to mention the fact that three of the men who presided over the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks — Secretary Rumsfeld, General Richard Myers, and General Ralph Eberhart — were also three of the strongest advocates for the U.S. Space Command (122).
56. The omission of the fact that Unocal had declared that the Taliban could not provide adequate security for it to go ahead with its oil-and-gas pipeline from the Caspian region through Afghanistan and Pakistan (122-25).
57. The omission of the report that at a meeting in July 2001, U.S. representatives said that because the Taliban refused to agree to a U.S. proposal that would allow the pipeline project to go forward, a war against them would begin by October (125-26).
58. The omission of the fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 book had said that for the United States to maintain global primacy, it needed to gain control of Central Asia, with its vast petroleum reserves, and that a new Pearl Harbor would be helpful in getting the U.S. public to support this imperial effort (127-28).
59. The omission of evidence that some key members of the Bush administration, including Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, had been agitating for a war with Iraq for many years (129-33).
60. The omission of notes of Rumsfeld's conversations on 9/11 showing that he was determined to use the attacks as a pretext for a war with Iraq (131-32).
61. The omission of the statement by the Project for the New American Century that "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein" (133-34).
62. The claim that FAA protocol on 9/11 required the time-consuming process of going through several steps in the chain of command — even though the Report cites evidence to the contrary (158).
63. The claim that in those days there were only two air force bases in NORAD's Northeast sector that kept fighters on alert and that, in particular, there were no fighters on alert at either McGuire or Andrews (159-162).
64. The omission of evidence that Andrews Air Force Base did keep several fighters on alert at all times (162-64).
65. The acceptance of the twofold claim that Colonel Marr of NEADS had to telephone a superior to get permission to have fighters scrambled from Otis and that this call required eight minutes (165-66).
66. The endorsement of the claim that the loss of an airplane's transponder signal makes it virtually impossible for the U.S. military's radar to track that plane (166-67).
67. The claim that the Payne Stewart interception did not show NORAD's response time to Flight 11 to be extraordinarily slow (167-69).
68. The claim that the Otis fighters were not airborne until seven minutes after they received the scramble order because they did not know where to go (174-75).
69. The claim that the U.S. military did not know about the hijacking of Flight 175 until 9:03, when it was crashing into the South Tower (181-82).
70. The omission of any explanation of (a) why NORAD's earlier report, according to which the FAA had notified the military about the hijacking of Flight 175 at 8:43, was now to be considered false and (b) how this report, if it was false, could have been published and then left uncorrected for almost three years (182).
71. The claim that the FAA did not set up a teleconference until 9:20 that morning (183).
72. The omission of the fact that a memo by Laura Brown of the FAA says that its teleconference was established at about 8:50 and that it included discussion of Flight 175's hijacking (183-84, 186).
73. The claim that the NMCC teleconference did not begin until 9:29 (186-88).
74. The omission, in the Commission's claim that Flight 77 did not deviate from its course until 8:54, of the fact that earlier reports had said 8:46 (189-90).
75. The failure to mention that the report that a large jet had crashed in Kentucky, at about the time Flight 77 disappeared from FAA radar, was taken seriously enough by the heads of the FAA and the FBI's counterterrorism unit to be relayed to the White House (190).
76. The claim that Flight 77 flew almost 40 minutes through American airspace towards Washington without being detected by the military's radar (191-92).
77. The failure to explain, if NORAD's earlier report that it was notified about Flight 77 at 9:24 was "incorrect," how this erroneous report could have arisen, i.e., whether NORAD officials had been lying or simply confused for almost three (3) years (192-93).
78. The claim that the Langley fighter jets, which NORAD had previously said were scrambled to intercept Flight 77, were actually scrambled in response to an erroneous report from an (unidentified) FAA controller at 9:21 that Flight 11 was still up and was headed towards Washington (193-99).
79. The claim that the military did not hear from the FAA about the probable hijacking of Flight 77 before the Pentagon was struck (204-12).
80. The claim that Jane Garvey did not join Richard Clarke's videoconference until 9:40, after the Pentagon was struck (210).
81. The claim that none of the teleconferences succeeded in coordinating the FAA and military responses to the hijackings because "none of [them] included the right officials from both the FAA and the Defense Department" — although Richard Clarke says that his videoconference included FAA head Jane Garvey as well as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, the acting chair of the joint chiefs of staff (211).
82. The Commission's claim that it did not know who from the Defense Department participated in Clarke's videoconference — although Clarke's book said that it was Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers (211-212).
83. The endorsement of General Myers' claim that he was on Capitol Hill during the attacks, without mentioning Richard Clarke's contradictory account, according to which Myers was in the Pentagon participating in Clarke's videoconference (213-17).
84. The failure to mention the contradiction between Clarke's account of Rumsfeld's whereabouts that morning and Rumsfeld's own accounts (217-19).
85. The omission of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's testimony, given to the Commission itself, that Vice-President Cheney and others in the underground shelter were aware by 9:26 that an aircraft was approaching the Pentagon (220).
86. The claim that Pentagon officials did not know about an aircraft approaching Pentagon until 9:32, 9:34, or 9:36 — in any case, only a few minutes before the building was hit (223).
87. The endorsement of two contradictory stories about the aircraft that hit the Pentagon — one in which it executed a 330-degree downward spiral (a "high-speed dive") and another in which there is no mention of this maneuver (222-23).
88. The claim that the fighter jets from Langley, which were allegedly scrambled to protect Washington from "Phantom Flight 11," were nowhere near Washington because they were mistakenly sent out to sea (223-24).
89. The omission of all the evidence suggesting that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77 (224-25).
90. The claim that the military was not notified by the FAA about Flight 93's hijacking until after it crashed (227-29, 232, 253).
91. The twofold claim that the NMCC did not monitor the FAA-initiated conference and then was unable to get the FAA connected to the NMCC-initiated teleconference (230-31).
92. The omission of the fact that the Secret Service is able to know everything that the FAA knows (233).
93. The omission of any inquiry into why the NMCC initiated its own teleconference if, as Laura Brown of the FAA has said, this is not standard protocol (234).
94. The omission of any exploration of why General Montague Winfield not only had a rookie (Captain Leidig) take over his role as the NMCC's Director of Operations but also left him in charge after it was clear that the Pentagon was facing an unprecedented crisis (235-36).
95. The claim that the FAA (falsely) notified the Secret Service between 10:10 and 10:15 that Flight 93 was still up and headed towards Washington (237).
96. The claim that Vice President Cheney did not give the shoot-down authorization until after 10:10 (several minutes after Flight 93 had crashed) and that this authorization was not transmitted to the U.S. military until 10:31 (237-41).
97. The omission of all the evidence indicating that Flight 93 was shot down by a military plane (238-39, 252-53).
98. The claim that Richard Clarke did not receive the requested shoot-down authorization until 10:25 (240).
99. The omission of Clarke's own testimony, which suggests that he received the shoot-down authorization by 9:50 (240).
100. The claim that Cheney did not reach the underground shelter (the PEOC [Presidential Emergency Operations Center]) until 9:58 (241-44).
101. The omission of multiple testimony, including that of Norman Mineta to the Commission itself, that Cheney was in the PEOC before 9:20 (241-44).
102. The claim that shoot-down authorization must be given by the president (245).
103. The omission of reports that Colonel Marr ordered a shoot-down of Flight 93 and that General Winfield indicated that he and others at the NMCC had expected a fighter jet to reach Flight 93 (252).
104. The omission of reports that there were two fighter jets in the air a few miles from NYC and three of them only 200 miles from Washington (251).
105. The omission of evidence that there were at least six bases with fighters on alert in the northeastern part of the United States (257-58).
106. The endorsement of General Myers' claim that NORAD had defined its mission in terms of defending only against threats from abroad (258-62).
107. The endorsement of General Myers' claim that NORAD had not recognized the possibility that terrorists might use hijacked airliners as missiles (262-63).
108. The failure to highlight the significance of evidence presented in the Report itself, and to mention other evidence, showing that NORAD had indeed recognized the threat that hijacked airliners might be used as missiles (264-67).
109. The failure to probe the issue of how the "war games" scheduled for that day were related to the military's failure to intercept the hijacked airliners (268-69).
110. The failure to discuss the possible relevance of Operation Northwoods to the attacks of 9/11 (269-71).
111. The claim — made in explaining why the military did not get information about the hijackings in time to intercept them — that FAA personnel inexplicably failed to follow standard procedures some 16 times (155-56, 157, 179, 180, 181, 190, 191, 193, 194, 200, 202-03, 227, 237, 272-75).
112. The failure to point out that the Commission's claimed "independence" was fatally compromised by the fact that its executive director, Philip Zelikow, was virtually a member of the Bush administration (7-9, 11-12, 282-84).
113. The failure to point out that the White House first sought to prevent the creation of a 9/11 Commission, then placed many obstacles in its path, including giving it extremely meager funding (283-85).
114. The failure to point out that the Commission's chairman, most of the other commissioners, and at least half of the staff had serious conflicts of interest (285-90, 292-95).
115. The failure of the Commission, while bragging that it presented its final report "without dissent," to point out that this was probably possible only because Max Cleland, the commissioner who was most critical of the White House and swore that he would not be part of "looking at information only partially," had to resign in order to accept a position with the Export-Import Bank, and that the White House forwarded his nomination for this position only after he was becoming quite outspoken in his criticisms (290-291).
I will close by pointing out that I concluded my study of what I came to call "the Kean-Zelikow Report" by writing that it, "far from lessening my suspicions about official complicity, has served to confirm them. WHY would the minds in charge of this final report engage in such deception IF they were NOT trying to cover up very high crimes?" (291)
Griffin Seals Case for 9/11 WTC Demolitiom