Free Republic

The David Horowitz Freedom Center, John Ziegler and Citizens United Productions present the World Premiere of the new documentary "Blocking the Path to 9/11" on August 15th at the Skirball Cultural Center. Former KFI radio talk show host John Ziegler has written, directed and produced a documentary for Citizens United telling, for the first time, the incredible untold story of the controversy surrounding the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11," which was edited by demand of Bill Clinton and has since been censored from ever airing again, or having the DVD released. Interviewed in the film is the writer of...

Excerpt - GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, July 24 (Reuters) - A driver for Osama bin Laden was not told of any rights against self-incrimination under years of interrogation, FBI agents told the Guantanamo war crimes court on Thursday. "Our policy at the time was not to read Miranda rights," FBI special agent Robert Fuller said in testimony at the U.S. military commission trial of Salim Hamdan on charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Fuller was referring to the Miranda v. Arizona U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1966, which held that potential criminal suspects in custody...

When a memorial to the victims of an Islamic terrorist attack is being built to specifications that will make it the world's largest mosque, we have a serious problem. The person who has stayed on top of all of this is Alec Rawls, author of Crescent of Betrayal - Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93. He has given up permission to reprint it here. For more information, visit his website.Here is that email:  Here are some details on the trip that Mr. Burnett and I (and hopefully a lot of others) will be making to Somerset on Saturday 2nd: At...

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver knew the target of the fourth hijacked jetliner in the September 11 attacks, a prosecutor said on Tuesday in an attempt to draw a link between Salim Hamdan and the al Qaeda leadership in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

JERUSALEM – The 9-11 attacks were carried out because of a lack of "empathy" for others' suffering on the part of al-Qaida, whose terrorist ideology "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair," Sen. Barack Obama explained in largely unreported comments eight days after the mega-terror attacks that rocked the nation. Obama went on to imply the September 11th attacks were in part a result of U.S. policy, lecturing the American military to minimize civilian casualties in the Middle East and urging action opposing "bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle-Eastern descent." "Even...

JERUSALEM – The 9-11 attacks were carried out because of a lack of "empathy" for others' suffering on the part of al-Qaida, whose terrorist ideology "grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair," Sen. Barack Obama explained in largely unreported comments eight days after the mega-terror attacks that rocked the nation. Obama went on to imply the September 11th attacks were in part a result of U.S. policy, lecturing the American military to minimize civilian casualties in the Middle East and urging action opposing "bigotry or discrimination directed against neighbors and friends of Middle-Eastern descent." "Even...

This page reflects the ongoing Levi/DRJ debate on Barack Obama and Rev. Wright. (The background, rules, and relative positions are all set forth in this post.) When I have time, I’ll simply cut and paste their arguments so that they can be followed without having to wade through all the comments. Thanks to Dana for the suggestion.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A controversial billboard in Orange County has a picture of the burning World Trade Center and the message, "Please Don't Vote for a Democrat." The man who paid for the ad says he's trying to help Republicans, but officials with both political parties are calling the billboard inappropriate. There are billboards up and down busy Orange Blossom Trail, but this at John Young Parkway (see map) one sticks out. "Just looking at it, I'm not thinking about Democrat or Republican, I'm thinking about the twin towers and all the people killed," resident Mary Anderson told Eyewitness...

By Leanne Suter MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (KABC) -- Authorities released a 911 call, hoping the public will aid them in finding a man who allegedly stabbed his girlfriend to death with a sword. The tape is an emotional plea for help from a little girl, desperate to save her mother. The 9-year-old made the 911 call early Saturday morning at the couple's Quartz Hill home. Officials said the call was placed just after she and her three young brothers watched their father murder their mother with a 3-foot-long sword. The L.A. County Sheriff's Department is asking for the public's help...

Excerpt from book: “The anthrax spores in the letter to Daschle were so professionally refined, the Central Intelligence Agency believed the powder must have been sent by an experienced terrorist organization, most probably Al Qaeda, as a sequel to the group’s September 11 attacks. During a [October 17] meeting of the White House’s National Security Council that day, Cheney, who was sitting in for the President because Bush was traveling abroad, urged everyone to keep this inflammatory speculation secret. ... They thought Cheney had already been lethally infected. ... *** Cheney in particular was so stricken by the potential for...

The cover of the New Yorker isn’t the only controversy, the article itself is very revealing. It mentions how unstable the young Senator was, as he threatened to physically kick another Senator’s a$$! It also has this little snippet of interesting information from an Obama speech on 9/19/01 speech:

Eight days after the atrocities of September 11, 2001, Barack Obama wrote a piece for the Hyde Park Herald—and blamed the attacks on “a failure of empathy.” "Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of...

Oscar-winning French actress Marion Cotillard gave an interview to a French magazine. "Psychologies Magazine", July-August 2008 issue "I didn't say that insurance companies destroyed the towers. I said that I don't trust what the US government and the media say. My words have been misunderstood. I think there are a lot of shadows in the official version. Numerous American citizens ask to reopen the 911 investigation. A real investigation.

On Friday, just outside of Dallas/Ft Worth International Airport, the first national memorial to 9/11 heroes was dedicated. Shirley Hall, who is a Flight Attendant and the Vice President of the 9/11 Flight Crew Memorial Foundation, explained the memorial sculpture's symbolism during the memorial's July 4, 2008, dedication ceremony: As volunteers on this project, we have each spent time describing this statue in our attempts to raise funds to turn Valerie’s dream into a reality. From Bryce Cameron Liston’s original interpretation to the final magnificent piece of art you see here today, each of us has shared our ideas on...

Roots of Religious Terrorism Brett interviews Professor James W Jones, on the new book, Blood that Cries Out from the Earth: The Psychology of Religious Terrorism. Dr. Jones, talks about what it is that motivates religious terrorists and the commonalities and differences between religiously motivated terrorists both in the East and West. Dr. Jones has extensively researched the jihadi movement and brings us fantastic insight. Dr. Jones shares with us the dangers of the virtual world and how that aids jihadists in recruitment and what must be done to counter to those efforts? Are we winning or are we losing...

With the Post-9/11 Veterans Education Assistance Act of 2008 signed into law June 30, military members and veterans crave information on whether, when and how they will gain access to the richer education package, known also as the Webb GI Bill or the Webb-Hagel GI Bill. Keith M. Wilson, director of education service for the Veterans Benefits Administration, gave refreshingly direct and detailed answers during a Military Update interview July 2. Wilson said the VA also has a pamphlet on the new GI Bill posted at its website, www.gibill.va.gov, and a toll free number, 1-888-GIBILL1, for follow-up questions. Here are...

Vanessa Alikhan was at a Democratic ''unity party'' when she overheard another guest indignantly refute the rumor that Barack Obama is Muslim, as if it was a racial slur. She later recounted the conversation to a friend. ''She told me that this is politics and that I should just deal with it,'' said Alikhan, a Fort Lauderdale graphic artist who converted to Islam about five years ago. ``To me this is the same as telling an African American or a Jewish person they should deal with discrimination because people aren't ready to embrace them as a group.'' She and other...

The owner of the World Trade Center has abandoned the timetable for rebuilding work at the site of the 9/11 attacks, saying it was "not realistic". Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director, Christopher Ward, listed over a dozen issues that had slowed work and raised costs. New dates for the completion of a memorial, skyscrapers and a transit hub are expected to be issued in September. It is unclear if the centrepiece Freedom Tower will now be scaled back. The tower, intended as a replacement for the destroyed Twin Towers, had been scheduled for completion in...

July 04, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Ground Zero of National ParalysisRebuild the Towers, privately. By Deroy Murdock In olden days, Americans needed just 13 and a half months to erect the Empire State Building, four and a half years to build Hoover Dam, and six years, four months to install the Transcontinental Railroad. And yet this Independence Day, six years, nine months, and three weeks have elapsed since September 11, and Ground Zero remains an 80-foot-deep international embarrassment for the United States. The government functionaries who fathered this fiasco should yield immediately and assign private developer Larry Silverstein to arrange...

9/11 third tower mystery 'solved' By Mike Rudin BBC, Conspiracy Files The final mystery of 9/11 will soon be solved, according to US experts investigating the collapse of the third tower at the World Trade Center. The 47-storey third tower, known as Tower Seven, collapsed seven hours after the twin towers. Investigators are expected to say ordinary fires on several different floors caused the collapse. Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition. Unlike the twin towers, Tower Seven was not hit by a plane. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, based...

The German shepherd, who lives with his owner, James Symington, in Los Angeles, was picked by BioArts International, a Californian cloning firm, as the most "clone-worthy" canine in a competition offering an owner a free chance to replicate their pet. Mr Symington said he and Trakr were among the first search and rescue teams to arrive at the New York site after the attacks, and were responsible for locating the last human survivor under about 30 feet of debris

Jay and I have been bantering the 'Joe Horn' case, discussing various aspects of it and what it means to the greater society. Along the way, Jay mentioned the concept of 'duty to retreat'. The concept is based on the idea that when faced with an aggressor, a person has a moral duty to avoid confrontation, to give up ground and back away. That when a criminal gets it in his head that he wants to take something, we should just let him do so. That if he hurts someone, we should not try to prevent it. That the most...

American School Books Redefine 'Jihad' to Exclude Violence -- Where is Media? By Warner Todd Huston | June 8, 2008 - 21:49 ET In yet another example of why the west could be too weak to fight the sort of global terrorism that takes the form of Islamofascism, a textbook monitoring group is charging that American textbooks have been cleansed of mentioning the violence inherent in the Islamic "Jihad." Now, our children will not be taught what "Jihad" truly means, nor that it has been used as an excuse to kill their fellow citizens because our schools have sanitized Islam...

British 9/11 fears over private planes, Government terror adviser warns By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 9:41PM BST 23/06/2008 Private jets and light aircraft could be used by terrorists to launch attacks on crowds and buildings in Britain, the Government's anti-terror expert has warned. There are an estimated 8,500 private aircraft and up to 500 "landing sites" in Britain, ranging from farmers' fields to regional airports Senior police officers have "real anxiety" about the possibility of terror missions being launched from small airports amid fears over lax security. Jets could be hijacked and used as "vehicle bombs" to...

An antique cherry wood chair scorched to its springs by a fireball inside a Battery Park City apartment. Family letters and wedding invitations miraculously recovered from the rubble. A $2 bill pulled from a victim's bruised wallet that finally convinced his wife he was never coming home. These are the everyday objects of Sept. 11, 2001, all of which will end up in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Jihad Against Freedom of Speech at the United NationsBy Jeffrey Imm The United Nations' Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has no problem with its members suggesting that the 9/11 attacks were an "inside job" perpetrated by the United States on itself. The human rights of America's 9/11 victims are not a priority for UNHRC's Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, who engages in 9/11 conspiracy propaganda, while working for an organization headquartered in New York City funded by U.S. tax dollars. This is Richard Falk's protected freedom of speech. Denying the role of Jihadists in...

This "as President" talk by Barack Obama on what he would do about Osama bin Laden is political gobbledygook: "First of all, I think there is an executive order out on Osama bin Laden's head. And if I'm president, and we have the opportunity to capture him, we may not be able to capture him alive." -- June 18, 2008 There is no publicly known Presidential Executive Order "out on Osama bin Laden's head." The administration has never acknowledged whether President George W. Bush has or has not signed an Executive Order that states the policy of the United States...

June 19, 2008 -- NAME-BRAND journalists have let Barack Obama make any claim he chooses about Iraq, Afghanistan or coping with terrorism without pinning him down for details. Yet many of his comments and positions seem stunningly naive about national security. Given that this man may become our next president, shouldn't he explain how he'd do the many impressive things he's promised? This week, Obama claimed, again, that he'd promptly capture Osama bin Laden. OK, tell me how: Specifically, which concrete measures would he take that haven't been taken? How would he force our intelligence agencies to locate bin Laden?...

When the terrorists attack again — as Homeland Security has repeatedly warned us they will — how many survivors will be consoled because the Supreme Court and the State Department looked out for the "rights" of terrorists before the rights of their dead loved ones? Will the dead be wrapped in a copy of the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling granting foreign detainees, whose mission is to destroy our Constitution, our country and way of life, the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their detention, a right that should be reserved only for American citizens? Perhaps inside the...

The White House and allies in Congress have begun exploring how to limit the scope of this week's Supreme Court ruling that says suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detentions in federal court. Administration lawyers were digesting the ramifications of a decision they condemned as an unjustified judicial usurpation of federal and congressional prerogatives in waging war. They said the court provided little guidance for the standards judges should use in evaluating the claims of detainees seeking release, and suggested that they might press Congress to spell out new rules. "We're looking at all...

Thursday's 5-4 decision awarding "unlawful combatants" at Gitmo --terrorists-- the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" has left millions of Americans stunned. What in the world is the majority of the Supreme Court thinking? Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, was blunt: America is at war with radical Islamists. The enemy began by killing Americans and American allies abroad: 241 at the Marine barracks in Lebanon, 19 at the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, 224 at our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, and 17 on the USS Cole in Yemen. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United...

The lawyers who are championing the rights of terrorists should tell the public what this decision really means. It means that terrorists will be entitled to Miranda rights, to legal representation and the right to remain silent. And they will. When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, was handed over to the U.S. after his capture in Karachi in 2003, he taunted his interrogators with this, "I'll talk to you guys in New York when I see my lawyer." But they won't tell the public, they will continue to talk about preserving the rights of people who would behead...

ABC News' Tahman Bradley Reports: Across the pond for a Europe farewell tour, President Bush spoke candidly about his legacy, acknowledging mistakes in handling the Iraq war. Bush told the British newspaper, The Times, he regrets the bitter division over the Iraq war and -- rather remarkably -- admitted his words in the lead up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq did not help unite the country behind the effort. The paper writes that the president "expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood." Bush told...

At his arraignment Thursday, Ramzi Binalshibh admitted he committed an overt act in the 9/11 attack plot: "I've been seeking martyrdom for five years. I tried to get a visa for 9/11, but I could not," said [Ramzi] Binalshibh, who was a member of the German-based Hamburg cell of Al-Qaeda which planned and then carried out the attacks. A native of Yemen, Binalshibh shared a Hamburg apartment with Mohammed Atta, a key leader of the 19 hijackers who took over four planes on the day to use as weapons, but unlike Atta and the others, he was unable to get...

We're on a break for lunch and a scheduled prayer time for top 9/11 suspects who are being arraigned here today. It's been an extraordinary last couple of hours, sitting in the courtroom press gallery, a mere 50 feet from a person who bears the name Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed. KSM, the self-confessed mastermind of 9/11. Without him, the government says, Sept. 11th would not have happened. There he is, 50 feet away. KSM, talking and breathing and existing like everyone else. I have spent the last several hours staring at him. I watched as this man we've come to think...

(La Crosse, WI company will track health of ground zero workers) Washington - As President Bush's health chief, Tommy Thompson proudly trumpeted millions of taxpayer dollars to help workers sickened by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center, even amid complaints that his agency wasn't doing enough. Now, Thompson's private company has won an $11 million contract to treat some of those same workers - the latest twist in a fitful government effort to determine how many people were made ill by the toxic debris and to care for them. The contract awarded by the U.S. Centers...

Within his report ‘9/11 kin barred from Gitmo trial’ yesterday for the New York Daily News, James Gordon Meek questioned Debra Burlingame’s objectivity. Yet is creating a controversy, reporting the outcome, labeling some but not others within that report, and filing it as news ethical journalism? When the architects of the 9/11 attacks are charged this week at Guantanamo Bay for killing nearly 3,000 Americans, the victims' families won't be allowed to witness it. The Defense Department outraged 9/11 families by belatedly disclosing that just one victim's relative - GOP loyalist [all emphasis here added mine] Debra Burlingame, whose brother...

"We Were Lied To". This meme, which has been the mantra among supposed political "progressives" for years now, was reignited over the weekend with the publication of a memoir by former Bush press secretary Scott McLellan claiming that President Bush and his cronies wove a spell of lies to get a war in Iraq underway. This is the narrative that Americans tell themselves to prove that, if it weren't for bad leaders, we would be a morally upright nation. I don't think so. And, remember, I write the following as a registered Democrat (and an Obama voter in my primary...

.NEVER FORGET.And now the Man who predicted 9/11 ...one 9/11 Lifesaver extraordinaire RICK RESCORLA... finally gets his due:TIME Magazine Cover Story June 9, 2008'How to Survive a Disaster' ...By Amanda Ripley(See 'How One Person Made a Difference' - Pages 3 & 4).NEVER FORGET.

At 9:37 a.m., on 9/11, those aboard Arlington Fire Department Engine 101 were headed north on I-395 for a training session near the Pentagon. Firefighter Jamie Lewis saw the American Airlines Flight 77 first. “Hey, look at the plane!” he shouted. “What’s he doing?” Nearby, on the Columbia Pike, Paramedic Claude Conde was loading a stroke victim into an ambulance when a plane roared overhead. “He had never seen a plane so close. Something wasn’t right. The airport wasn’t far away, but the plane was already at treetop level, well below the glide path it should be on for National...

U.S. Congressman Keith Ellison Muslim, Minnesota I am a proud Muslim American whose faith informs my actions. I believe in the spirit - and practice - of generosity and inclusiveness. I believe in an America where scarcity is a myth and poverty is not necessary. America need not have thirty seven million Americans living below the poverty line. It is a choice. Hunger is a choice. Exclusion of the stranger, the immigrant, or the darker other is a choice. Like Senator Obama, I believe that the problems of poverty and healthcare, racism and education, childcare and human rights are not...

Special Report: A Phila. law firm wages an epic legal battle to recover billions in damages for 9/11. Less than a mile from the mournful place in Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground, in a hushed federal courthouse, a small band of Philadelphia lawyers is prying loose secrets of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It is here that the Cozen O'Connor law firm has filed an 812-page lawsuit on behalf of U.S. and global insurance companies alleging that Saudi Arabia and Saudi-backed Islamic charities nurtured and financed al-Qaeda, the author of those deadly...

Over several nights this month, a graffiti vandal stared into the face of Firefighter Peter Bielfeld, who lost his life rushing into the World Trade Center - and coldly spray-painted right over it. Now the Olinville community where Bielfeld lived, the South Bronx community where he worked and Bielfeld's family are raging, and out to punish whoever defaced the memorial wall mural of Bielfeld. "It's ridiculous. It is very personal," said Bielfeld's father, Ernest, 73, who held memorial services at the mural in memory of his son on Olinville Ave., before his son's remains were found. "It's such an emotional...

Memorial Day: More Than Just a Vacation Day The News & Advance Published: May 25, 2008 Say the phrase “Memorial Day,” and more people than you’d imagine will think of city pools opening, the first three-day weekend of the year, cookouts, the unofficial start of summer, big sales at the mall. Fewer and fewer people today would first think it’s the day to honor America’s war dead. How sad it is that the nation’s most somber holiday has turned into a day for pool parties, grilling up some burgers and dogs and snagging some bargains on markdown. Over the course...

Fresh Air from WHYY, May 22, 2008 · After American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, it took firefighters three days to extinguish the flames. Firefighter Patrick Creed and journalist Rick Newman join Fresh Air to talk about the Pentagon blaze and the book they wrote about it, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. Firefight tells the stories of the people inside the Pentagon when the plane hit, the rescue efforts that followed the attack and the three-day battle to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters faced unique circumstances, Creed and Newman write,...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday defended tough interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects approved by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, saying they were necessary to protect America from new attacks. In her most extensive public comments about how the administration dealt with detainee interrogations in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed, Rice insisted the methods of questioning complied with both U.S. law and treaty obligations. But she acknowledged that those rules had since changed and that the United States was a "different place" then, adding that the administration's top priority...

For The Sake Of Us All It cannot be refuted or denied, but it can be ignored. For whatever the reason, there have been times in American history where the U.S. government participated in the spreading of disinformation or lies. For example, until this day, many believe both Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew the Japanese were about to attack Pearl Harbor. Indeed, the conventional wisdom at the time was either Midway Island or Pearl Harbor, Hawaii would be targeted by the Japanese war machine. It is important to remember most Americans believed ...

The Clintons lied in 1992 (about Bill's affairs and their phony plans for middle class tax cuts), 1995 (about Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress), 1998 (about Monica Lewinsky), 2000 (again about the need for tax cuts in light of an upcoming recession), and 2001 (about Bill's pardons of some criminals). Each time after those lies, terrorist attacks against the US or Americans occurred, killing people -- the Twin Towers were bombed, five servicemen died in Riyadh, two African embassies were bombed, the USS Cole was attacked, and the Twin Towers were destroyed while the Pentagon was attacked. Thus, it...

Filmmaker Michael Moore says he is currently working on a follow up to his Oscar-winning 2004 documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which was a scathing critique of President George W. Bush and his decision to go to war in Iraq. The as-yet untitled movie aims for a spring 2009 commercial release, a date deliberately chosen by Moore to follow this fall's U.S. presidential election. Co-financed and distributed by Overture and Paramount Vantage, the film is being described by the two studios as "searing and provocative." "He intends to examine how America's role in the world has changed over the last eight years,"...

Charges dropped against alleged 20th hijacker: Pentagon WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon has dropped charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged "20th hijacker" in the September 11 attacks on the United States, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday. Susan Crawford, the convening authority for war crimes trials by special military commissions, gave no explanation in dropping the charges against al-Qahtani "without prejudice," said Commander Jeffrey Gordon. "They have been dismissed without prejudice, which means they can be reinstituted at any time," he said of the charges.