Free Republic

SHANKSVILLE, PA—In a stirring speech at the Flight 93 Memorial yesterday, some guy who started two wars called for more civility. "Yes, I may have started two foreign wars on false pretenses that wasted trillions of dollars and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people," said the guy whose name we can't remember at the moment. "However, it's important to understand the real threats to our great nation are the people who took selfies in the Capitol building a few months ago. Those Trump supporters are children of the same foul spirit as Al Qaeda and they must be brought...

Six fire departments have been called to a working structure fire at the Flight 93 National Memorial headquarters along Park Headquarters Road in Stonycreek Township, according to scanner reports. The fire was reported around 3:15 p.m. Friday. The Daily American has sent a reporter to the scene and will provide updates as they become available.

Americans who want to honor and reflect upon the memory of the crew and passengers who perished aboard United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001 will find that the federal government has blocked the road four miles down from the open-air memorial near Shanksville, Pa. CNSNews.com photographed the spot of the road closure this past weekend. The steel barrier blocking vehicles from passing says: “Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service facility is closed.” …

<p>Waiting to be interviewed on the radio the other day, I found myself on hold listening to a public-service message exhorting listeners to go to 911day.org and tell their fellow citizens how they would be observing the tenth anniversary of the, ah, “tragic events.” There followed a sound bite of a lady explaining that she would be paying tribute by going and cleaning up an area of the beach.</p>

Donors have contributed $52 million to build the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., but $10 million is still needed. Former President Bill Clinton declared Saturday that he and Speaker of the House John Boehner are going to do something about that. “Since I am no longer in office, I can do unpopular things,” Clinton declared at the end of his remarks at Saturday’s dedication ceremony.

GW Bush at Flight 93 Memorial: "Evil Is Real, So Is Courage" The best speech W has ever given in MHO. Watch here.

On September 10, 2011 at 12:30 p.m. EST, almost ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Flight 93 National Memorial will be dedicated. Following a decade of healing, the promise of this sacred ground will finally be realized. The Memorial Plaza and Field of Honor will be the first features of the memorial to be completed for dedication, and will be permanently open to the public after the September 10 ceremony. Be a part of this remarkable moment. Coverage will begin at 12:30 p.m. EST – watch the dedication ceremony LIVE at History.com.

Earlier today, Drudge Report correctly pointed out similarities that exist between the new logo of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (below left) and the logo used by the presidential campaign of Barack Obama (below right). It's another design similarity, however, that deserves more attention and should spark more outrage among Americans.

The desecration has begun. A ground-breaking ceremony was held at the Shanksville crash site on Saturday. Bulldozers will start reshaping the land this week. Never mind that the only rule for the Flight 93 memorial's design competition was that the landscape had to be left as it was. In order to complete the full arc of the Crescent of Embrace (now called a broken circle, but still a giant Islamic-shaped crescent), an earthen causeway will have to be built across the wetlands that lie about 50 vertical feet below the crash site. A contractor posted recently about his decision...

In 2007, Flight 93 Advisory Commission member Tim Baird told me that everyone at the meetings he attended is fully aware that the giant crescent, originally named the Crescent of Embrace, really does point almost exactly at Mecca. Professor Baird says they all just assume (himself included) that the Mecca orientation must be an innocent coincidence. Pretty crazy, when they have also been told the meaning of a crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca. Every mosque is built around a Mecca-direction indicator called a mihrab, and the classic mihrab is crescent shaped. Geometrically, the Crescent of Embrace...

The federal government issued an ultimatum yesterday to people who own land designated for the Flight 93 memorial in Western Pennsylvania: They have one week to reach an agreement on the sale of their land or the government will initiate proceedings to seize it.

SOMERSET, Pa. -- Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the U.S. government will not use eminent domain to seize people's land for a permanent Flight 93 memorial and instead will renew negotiations with landowners near the terrorist crash site in Somerset County. U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Salazar met with families of victims and landowners on Friday in Shanksville to discuss issues surrounding the planned national memorial for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, fatal hijacking. Specter's office said Friday's meeting also focused on what still needs to be done for the memorial to be complete in time for the...

Two Pennsylvanian’s quit the Flight 93 Memorial Commission last week, protesting Park Service plans to condemn five crash-site properties that it never negotiated for in good faith. Consider the case of the Lambert family, who have been on their land for three generations: "It's absolutely a surprise. I'm shocked by it. I'm disappointed by it," said Tim Lambert, who owns nearly 164 acres that his grandfather bought in the 1930s. The park service plans to condemn two parcels totaling about five acres — land, he said, he had always intended to donate for the memorial. "To the best of my...

It has been more than seven years since 20-year-old Deora Bodley and 39 other passengers and crew died in the fiery crash of United Airlines Flight 93, their hijacked plane disintegrating in a grove of hemlock trees outside Shanksville, Pa. Most of the remains from the tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001, were never recovered, making the bowl-shaped crash site in the western Pennsylvania countryside an unofficial cemetery and, for surviving relatives, sacred ground. But efforts to buy property for a national Flight 93 memorial have bogged down in federal red tape and a protracted land dispute, angering family members and...

The federal law authorizing the Flight 93 National Memorial has been changed to allow the federal government to use eminent domain proceedings to obtain the 275-acre Svonavec Inc. property. Patrick White, vice president of The Families of Flight 93 and buyers agent for the Families, said on Wednesday that the Justice Department would be the one to file for condemnation and will make the decision if and when to do so. It is not the Families of Flight 93’s decision, he said. “The time has come for the residents and citizens of Somerset County to understand what the law is...

Arizona Sen. John McCain’s campaign will donate $5,000 to the Flight 93 National Memorial. Paul Lindsay, the senator’s Pennsylvania campaign press spokesman, on Tuesday confirmed a report by network television stations that the presumptive Republican presidential candidate’s campaign will donate the contribution it received in April from Ted Stevens’ Northern Light PAC to the memorial. Indicted Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska pleaded not guilty on Thursday to accusations of planning to conceal thousands of dollars worth of gifts from an oil-services company. King Laughlin, campaign manager for the National Park Foundation, said he was aware of the news reports, but...

My Fellow American, Once upon a time it was September 11, 2001, and our homeland came under attack. On that fateful Tuesday morning 40 free people, the passengers and crew aboard United Flight 93, seized the opportunity to launch a counterattack against our enemy. Though each of the 40 - including our son Todd - was killed in action, together they succeeded in preventing the additional loss of life on the ground and, most likely, further disaster in our nation’s Capital. This day, this event, this true story of courage in action needs to be remembered and told to future...

The father of a Flight 93 victim says a crescent-shaped design as part of a memorial to the hijacked airliner "does not properly honor our people." Tom Burnett Sr. of Northfield, Minnesota, objects because a crescent is sometimes used as a symbol of Islam and the September 11th attacks were plotted by Muslims. Burnett spoke today at a meeting of the commission advising the National Park Service on the design. He wants an investigation of how the design was chosen. But Park Service officials and family members who like the design say it was fairly and impartially selected out of...

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...

Folks, we have a national disaster brewing over the 9-11 Flight 93 memorial. Years ago an uproar ensued over the plan to memorialize those who died on Flight 93, considered the first battle on the War on Terror which Americans won, under the Islamic symbol of the crescent. I am not against Islam in general, and I am not of the opinion that vast Muslim community is ready for war with the rest of the world. But Islamic extremists are responsible for 9-11 and many other attacks on the West before and after 9-11, so we must make sure that...