Author risks $250K to show "Path to 9/11" distortions
Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 06:19:04 PM PDT
UPDATE: This is his response to the LA Times piece claiming the Clintons are blocking DVD distribution.
Whatever your view of Peter Lance, you have to admit this takes guts.
As the author of one of the three books on which The Path was based, I’m now weighing in – despite a gag order - to suggest that ABC may have other reasons for shelving Nowrasteh’s Clinton bash; a mini-series that virtually blames 9/11 on the ex-President’s failures to get bin Laden, yet gives a pass to Bush 41 for failing to stop the first World Trade Center bombing and Bush 43 for "The Day Of;" arguably the greatest defense failure in US history....
As Lance explains:
But the [$250K] deal contained a "non-disparagement" clause and gag order. In order to keep me from telling the real truth behind their distortion of my work, ABC would hold off paying me the final $50K until a month after The Path to 9/11 aired.
It gets better.
Tell Rumsfeld to let pre-9/11 intel witnesses testify
Sun Nov 27, 2005 at 10:17:35 AM PDT
Add your name to the list of 246 members of the House who have already signed Congressman Weldon's letter calling for open hearings on Able Danger, the intel unit that identified Mohamed Atta in 2000 only to be prevented from sharing the information with the FBI then later shut down by the incoming Bush administration.
Sign it here then spread the word.
Here are some of the 100 Democrats in the House who signed:
Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-NY)
John Murtha, John P. (D-PA)
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX)
Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Jane Harman (D-CA)
Charles B. Rangel (D-NY)
Maxine Waters (D-CA)
John Lewis (D-GA)
Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)
The full text of the letter is below.
Sneak preview of new conservative mega-blog OSM.ORG
Tue Nov 15, 2005 at 02:44:33 PM PDT
It doesn't launch until tomorrow, but you can see it today and decide for yourself how bi-partisan it really is. I don't see very many liberal bloggers
in their blogroll.
From the AP:
A media Web site scheduled to debut Wednesday will seek to blend traditional journalism with the freeform commentary developed through the emerging Web format known as blogs.
Some 70 Web journalists, including Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and David Corn, Washington editor of the Nation magazine, have agreed to participate in OSM -- short for Open Source Media....
Although Simon and co-founder Charles Johnson are often described as conservative, Simon said the site will transcend labels and include bloggers of all political leanings.
OSM was founded last year as Pajamas Media, a play on bloggers' ability to opine from home at all hours, day or night. It has raised $3.5 million from venture capitalists.
The URL is apparently still secret, but it was not very hard to guess. You can preview the site here.
Witness Pentagon silenced now accused of stealing pens
Fri Sep 30, 2005 at 08:30:14 AM PDT
Regardless of party, it's time for members of Congress to start speaking out against this. Can we all agree now Rumsfeld's Pentagon is covering something up?
From the AP:
An officer who has claimed that a classified military unit identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules, allegations his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his credibility.
The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk and stealing pens, according to military paperwork shown by his attorney to The Associated Press.
More details below.
Pentagon blocks testimony that Bush could have stopped 9/11
Tue Sep 20, 2005 at 06:52:40 PM PDT
Want answers? We need to get Democrats involved. Only Biden even showed up for the hearing, and he left early.
First the Pentagon had never heard of Able Danger, then it was "merely" a planning effort that ran it's course in early 2001, now it is so top secret and vital to national security - more than four years after 9/11 - that no one can testify about it to Congress. From the New York Times:
The Pentagon said today that it had blocked a group of military officers and intelligence analysts from testifying at an open Congressional hearing about a highly classified military intelligence program that, the officers have said, identified a ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a potential terrorist more than a year before the attacks.
The announcement came a day before the officers and intelligence analysts had been scheduled to testify about the program, known as Able Danger, at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Pentagon must have realized their testimony would show that Bush stopped efforts against Al Qaeda in early 2001 that could have stopped 9/11.
Key to winning filibuster battle: It's illegal
Mon May 16, 2005 at 09:26:08 AM PDT
Not being familiar with the rules of the Senate, I had assumed from all this talk that changing the rules was within Frist's power to do. It's not. You can only change the rules with a two-thirds majority vote for cloture on the motion to change the rules! The Senate rules are very clear on this point.
http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule22.htm
"Is it the sense of the Senate that the debate shall be brought to a close?" And if that question shall be decided in the affirmative by three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn -- except on a measure or motion to amend the Senate rules, in which case the necessary affirmative vote shall be two-thirds of the Senators present and voting -- then said measure, motion, or other matter pending before the Senate, or the unfinished business, shall be the unfinished business to the exclusion of all other business until disposed of.
Is Frist proposing that any Vice President can simply re-write the rules of order as he pleases? A motion to change the rules is still a motion. http://rules.senate.gov/senaterules/rule05.htm
Smoking gun on Joint Chiefs nominee Pace
Fri Apr 22, 2005 at 08:18:30 AM PDT
For all I know, he might be a great general, but he still needs to answer to this. From Bob Woodward's
Plan of Attack:
Four days later, December 1, a Saturday, Rumsfeld sent through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a Top Secret planning order to Franks asking him to come up with the commander's estimate to build the base of a new Iraq war plan.... "He had a month and we took 27 days away," recalled Marine General Pete Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a Rumsfeld favorite. Franks was to report in person three days later. (Page 38)
What was happening in late November early December 2001? I mean, besides Tora Bora:
The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.... Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December.
These Sunday simulcasts are nothing new
Sat Apr 16, 2005 at 12:37:36 AM PDT
For what it's worth, you might think this is a "historic" event as the FRC puts it, but the truth is they have sent out these pre-recorded messages to their affiliated churches before.
Details to Second 'Battle for Marriage' Simulcast Announced:
Saturday, Jun. 26, 2004
The second "Battle for Marriage" simulcast will be broadcasted live on Sunday evening, July 11, from Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Family Research Council (FRC) who is co-hosting the event along with the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in association with Focus on the Family (FOTF), National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and SkyAngel.
"Battle for Marriage: Imminent Vote"will also coincide with the date for "Marriage Protection Sunday," another pro-family effort to rally support for the Federal Marriage Amendment which asks churches to preach on the issue and encourage its members to urge Senators to vote in favor of protecting traditional marriage by contacting them on "Call Your Senator Day," July 12.
Frist's participation is unique, but not these events. More below.
Bush assures foreign investors: "It's just paper!"
Tue Apr 05, 2005 at 04:18:19 PM PDT
With foreign holders of U.S. Treasury notes
covering $2 trillion of our $7 trillion public debt,
and lack of confidence in these treasury notes causing major concerns about the declining dollar,
clearly there was only one way to win back confidence in U.S. Treasury notes:
President Bush sought to dramatize Social Security's solvency problems Tuesday by pointing to government IOUs stored in a file cabinet that are supposed to finance America's future retirement needs.
"A lot of people in America think there is a trust that we take your money in payroll taxes and then we hold it for you and then when you retire, we give it back to you," Bush said in a speech at the University of West Virginia at Parkersburg.
"But that's not the way it works," Bush said. "There is no trust `fund' just IOUs that I saw firsthand," Bush said.
NOTE: "It's just paper!" is not an exact quote.
Half of Blacks, Latinos, and Southerners Dropout
Tue Mar 22, 2005 at 01:00:27 PM PDT
Normally I'd never quote the neo-con Manhattan Institute, but since the Bush Education Department no longer keeps these statistics,
here's their report:
The state with the highest graduation rate in the nation in 2002 was New Jersey (89%), followed by Iowa, Wisconsin, and North Dakota (each at 85%). The state with the lowest graduation rate in the nation was
South Carolina (53%), followed by Georgia (56%), Tennessee (57%), and Alabama (58%).
There is a wide disparity in the graduation rates of white and minority students. In the class of 2002, about 78% of white students graduated from high school with a regular diploma, compared to 56% of African-American students and 52% of Hispanic students.
There is also a large difference among racial and ethnic groups in the percentage of students who leave high school eligible for college admission. About 40% of white students, 23% of African-American students, and 20% of Hispanic students who started public high school graduated college-ready in 2002.
Clearly, No Child Left Behind is working wonders.
Lindsey Graham: Personal accounts are "a sideshow"
Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 08:23:42 AM PDT
Haven't we been saying this all along?
From the Washington Post:
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has spent weeks attempting to recruit Democratic support for a plan to restructure Social Security, said yesterday that Republicans "made a strategic mistake" by initially focusing on a proposal to create individual investment accounts.
The accounts, the centerpiece of President Bush's proposal, would benefit young and poorer workers by letting them use compound interest to help make up for any benefit reductions, Graham said. But he said the accounts, by themselves, will not fix the solvency problem Social Security faces as baby boomers begin to retire.
"We've now got this huge fight over a sideshow," Graham said during a meeting with Washington Post reporters and editors. "It's always been a sideshow, but we sold it as the main event. [Critics are] attacking it as the undoing of Social Security. That's what frustrates me -- that we're off in a ditch over a sideshow, and there's plenty of blame to go around."
That's right, he said it three times.
Privatizing the freeways - It's starting in Texas
Mon Mar 07, 2005 at 10:49:24 AM PDT
It looks like privatization efforts are well under way on a new front, our interstate highways. It's already starting in Texas and the trend is predicted to spread nationwide. Do we really want a for-profit highway system?
I never thought it could happen, until I saw this from Texas:
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the plan: Private contractors would bankroll and build the highways, then charge tolls for up to 50 years. The contractors would rent the right of way from the state. Highways traditionally have been financed by federal and state governments.
This way of paying for roads is the wave of the future, says Tim Lomax, a research engineer at the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University who studies national traffic congestion and commuting.
Mary Peters, head of the Federal Highway Administration, says a $284 billion transportation bill pending in Congress gives state and local governments more flexibility to use toll roads.
Chicago has a similar, yet much more limited,
privatization plan in place, too.
Updated: Rove caught in bold-faced lie on Social Security
Fri Mar 04, 2005 at 07:11:53 AM PDT
I was watching CNBC this morning when they played a preview from part of an interview to be broadcast on Kudlow and Company at 5pm EST in which Karl Rove says the following in answer to a question from Kudlow about eliminating the cap on income subject to the payroll tax:
ROVE: That would only buy us another 4 to 6 years before the trust fund would go bankrupt anyways.
Perhaps Rove, as White House Deputy Chief of Staff, should call someone over at the SSA.
From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:
In October 2003, Social Security actuaries analyzed two proposals for changing the cap, which at the time was $87,900.
Under one scenario, actuaries looked at eliminating the cap on taxable income altogether while guaranteeing that the benefits wealthier workers received when they retired reflected the extra money they had paid into the system. The analysts said that change would extend the life of the Social Security trust fund from 2042 to 2075.
Maybe Harold Ford could bring this up when he
appears on the show as a guest tonight?
UPDATE: The GOP has been using this "six year" line for weeks and still gets away with it!
State's report says child labor now "routine" in Iraq
Tue Mar 01, 2005 at 08:04:13 AM PDT
The documented cases of rape, torture, and summary execution are indeed disturbing, but it is important to not lose track of the impact the chaos is having on an entire generation of Iraqi children. After all, they are the future of Iraq.
From the State Department's report:
According to UNICEF, almost one-half of the country's total population was under the age of 18.
Primary education, which is free and universal, is compulsory through age 11. Attendance in the sixth grade fell to about 50 percent of first grade levels due, in part, to the pervasiveness of child labor.
According to UNICEF, nearly 1 in 4 children (31.2 percent of girls and 17.5 percent of boys) between the ages of 6 and 12 did not attend school. According to authorities, literacy dropped from 80 percent in the late 1980s to approximately 50 percent during the year. Although 75 percent of teachers are women, women and girls represented approximately 70 percent of the increase in illiteracy.
There's more:
Document purge at Commission on Civil Rights
Tue Feb 22, 2005 at 10:45:21 AM PDT
From MemoryHole.org:
As of 7 January 2005, the website of the US Commission on Civil Rights has been purged of 20 reports that didn't meet the approval of the agency's Republican majority.
The site says that you may still order copies of these reports, but, tellingly, they require that you give them a physical mailing address. In other words, they'll send you a paper copy of a report, not an easily-postable electronic copy.
The Memory Hole was able to locate 19 of these deleted reports.
Note that other, less bothersome reports, are still available
back to 1999. The commission (established by President Clinton with the intent of providing an independent voice on civil rights) has also posted details on it's own site, with a
list of publications no longer available for download:
ChoicePoint reveals personal info of 145,000
Mon Feb 21, 2005 at 07:34:32 AM PDT
Talk about chutzpah. ChoicePoint discloses the personal info of 145,000 and their response is to offer the victims a free trial of ChoicePoint services?
From the Washington Post:
As many as 4,500 residents in the District, Maryland and Virginia were among up to 145,000 people whose names, addresses, Social Security numbers and, in some cases, credit files were electronically shipped by ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., to people posing as business officials in the Los Angeles area.
Investigators said they think the number of victims will continue to rise as officials learn more about the scheme. At least one lawmaker on Capitol Hill has called for stiffer regulation of commercial data services. This week, others are expected to push for hearings about the information industry.
To control the damage to consumers and the company, ChoicePoint executives over the weekend decided to announce changes in how they assess their clients and maintain security.
Starting today ChoicePoint will offer victims free credit reports and credit-monitoring services for the next year.
UPDATE: More on ChoicePoint here.
Shiite Alliance wins majority of seats
Sun Feb 13, 2005 at 07:13:10 AM PDT
Barring any major changes in the contest phase, based on the official uncertified results from the IEC website, the threshold for a seat in the new Iraqi National Assembly will be about 28850 votes.
Using that value, here are the number of seats by party name out of 275:
140 United Iraqi Alliance
75 Kurdistan Alliance List
40 Iraqi List
5 Iraqis
3 Turkoman Iraqi Front
3 National Independent Cadres and Elites
2 Islamic Group of Kurdistan
2 National Union
2 Islamic Action Organization
1 Al Rafideen National List
1 National Democratic Alliance
1 Liberation and Reconciliation Gathering
Updated to reflect the AFP estimates.
More complete official election results below.
Turnout under 10% in Al Anbar province
Mon Jan 31, 2005 at 12:31:31 PM PDT
NBC News has details, but not the big picture:
RAMADI, Iraq - Voter turnout in Ramadi, the capital of restive Al Ansar Province and in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, was disappointing, but hardly unexpected.
According to U.S. military sources, around 1,700 Iraqis, mostly Sunnis, voted here, representing about 1 percent of eligible voters.
The city's main polling site looked like a high security no-man's-land for most of the day....
Figures for the entire province painted a slightly brighter picture. Over 15,000 Iraqis voted, including around 7,500 in Fallujah, scene of a major U.S. counter offensive last November that destroyed much of the city.
While there are no precise census data, U.S. military sources believe that in the end up to 10 percent of Al Ansar's Sunnis voted.
See census figures for Ramadi and Al Anbar below.
