Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Three decades before Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center with planes, a secret presidential panel warned that Islamic terrorists might blow up U.S. jetliners or contaminate cities with radioactive "dirty bombs." The Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism, formed by President Richard Nixon, even asked the advice of a young prosecutor named Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani testified in 1976 that the Justice Department, where he was a top official, "must take a more active position in combating terrorism," according to once-classified documents unearthed by The Associated Press and released yesterday. Giuliani urged easing legal restrictions on domestic intelligence -...

Two items this morning. Many years ago, when the Ayatollah Khomenei was first coming to power, a senior partner in the law firm where I worked figured out early that the guy was bad news. He had a running joke with his wife. He would take the cover of Time Magazine with Khomenei's picture and hide it in various places she would find it. Open the cereal cabinet in the kitchen: there he was. Pull back the bedcovers: the Ayaltollah gracing your pillow. I'm starting to feel the same way about 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser. The ubiquitous and vaguely ominous...

KRISTEN BREITWEISER READIES SENATE BID Kristen Breitweiser, the political activist whose husband was murdered on 9/11, long ago publicly hinted on MSNBC's Hardball that she was interested in running for the Senate from New Jersey. Her latest move - endorsing John Kerry for President - is just one more step along the way in her transformation from an attorney with a legal career of precisely three days to U.S. Senator. It is also one step down from the lofty perch from which she began her entry into national politics - that of grieving 9/11 widow. If you are of the...

"I fought for the 9/11 Commission, something George W. Bush, the man my husband Ron and I voted for, didn't think was necessary. And during the Commission hearings we learned the truth, we are no safer today."--9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser in a Kerry campaign ad released yesterday "Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defensive actions to improve homeland security, we believe we are safer today. But we are not safe."--executive summary, 9/11 Commission report

To: National Desk, Political Reporter Contact: Chad Clanton or Phil Singer, 202-464-2800, both of Kerry-Edwards 2004 WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Five widows of 9-11 victims, Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken, released the following statement today regarding Condoleezza Rice's travel to battleground states: "At a time when terrorism is on the rise and American troops are dying every day in Iraq, we are disturbed that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice is giving speeches and press interviews in battleground states. Her time would be far better spent tracking down Osama bin Laden and...

Five outspoken Sept. 11 widows on Tuesday will publicly endorse John Kerry

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - They pestered, they cajoled, they asked questions and refused to go away. Known collectively as "The Jersey Girls," four widows of men killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were instrumental in pressing for public investigations and hearings into the attacks. Now the women say that many recommendations of the final report on the tragedy released Thursday need to be implemented as soon as possible. "The clock is ticking," said Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown. "It would be such a travesty if we have another attack and we can't say on that day, `At least we put...

NBC and MSNBC Allowed No Pro-Bush Mourners to Express Their Feelings About Condi Testimony Who are the most important judges of the investigation of what went wrong before September 11? The media elite have provided one consistent answer on who is in the political driver’s seat: the relatives of the victims. But not all of them. In recent weeks, the networks have interviewed a selected set of 9-11 widows and other relatives, and most have focused the lion’s share of their outrage at the Bush administration. Viewers at home might assume that a poll of 9-11 families would find they...

Has anyone else out there begun to wonder just who these 9/11 "families" are that have been interviewed without end the past week about their "outrage" over President Bush's TV ads with a quick clip of September 11? Are they all neutral innocents, as depicted, or are they part of an organized anti-Bush opposition? It seems to us that the media that gives these folks so much free face time and column inches might push the story a bit further to help viewers and readers put this dispute in context. Alas, what a little pushing of our own unearths is...

In the predawn hours of Tuesday, March 23, Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza dropped off their collective seven fatherless children with grandmothers and climbed into Ms. Breitweiser’s S.U.V. for the race down Garden State Parkway to the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. It’s a journey that they could now make blindfolded—but this one was different. On March 23, testimony was to be heard by the commission investigating intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others. These four moms from New Jersey are the World...

Clintonistas on 9/11 Commission Hunt for Bush Cover-up Two members of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks who excoriated the Bush administration for its handling of the disaster during public hearings this week are said to be aggressive Democratic partisans with close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Complaining that the presence on the commission of high powered Washington lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste and former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick all but guaranteed that the investigation would target the Republican White House, the Wall Street Journal observed last December that the two 9/11 probers were "Democratic partisans [who are] one...