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Jimlur because that is another way of trying to find out where it is coming from, you could say Melville office and if I say no, then you can ask well is it coming from so and so, and it could go on and on, I am not confirming or denying whether it is from there, again sorry for the argument being brought here, but Loop's post is legitimate, he has a beef with me, that's fine
But I said what I said on Yahoo because I know you don't like that here
Even if I do know someone from the office and they tell me what the scuttlebut they are hearing, that is not releasing inside material information
I'm pretty sure I said it was a rumor, if I did not then I apologize, but the same thing when I heard that Lucent would be the next signing, or in August when I heard positive news was going to be announced by the end of August, I always state it is a rumor that I have heard
But I feel it is my right to keep silent about where it is coming from and if someone asks if it is this or that I don't feel I have to say yes or no, because that is another way of finding out where it is coming from, just by throwing out possible places
either way I think the last two calls have been close, nothing definitive, but close enough to make me believe that what I stated on Yahoo has a high probability of happening
This is not a penny stock so I know what I say does not change share price, besides my price for those Leaps are 100 and nothing I say will even get it higher than a dollar, and contrary to what Loop says nothing I have said has been illegal.
Sorry if I ruffled some feathers but I don't believe I have done anything wrong, however that is there opinion and they are entitled to it
Loop, I never said that material information was being leaked out and I never insinuated it, just stated on another board what the rumors were, like I said I am not repeating where they came from but even if rumors emanated from the office that is not the same thing as leaking material information, in all offices there are rumors flying
anyway what does Cagne mean
TEAPEE YOU BETTER WATCH OUT, looks like if someone passed your post to the secret service you could be under investigation
Secret Service Reviews Comments By Dead Soldier's Mom
POSTED: 11:05 am EDT September 22, 2004
UPDATED: 4:49 pm EDT September 22, 2004
TRENTON, N.J. -- Threatening comments made about President Bush by a Hopewell Township woman whose son was killed in Iraq are under review by the Secret Service.
FeedRoom
Caught On Camera: Dead GI's Mom Arrested
Arrested Mom Speaks Out
Soldier's Mother Profiled
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Caught On Camera: Dead Soldier's Mom Arrested After Interrupting First Lady Laura Bush / Watch The Video
Also: Threats Against President By Upstate NY Man Possible Hoax
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Federal officials said they are examining comments made in online postings of interviews with Sue Niederer, who was arrested last week during a Republican campaign rally in Mercer County when she interrupted a speech by first lady Laura Bush.
In portions of an interview posted online in May on the Web site Counterpunch.org, Niederer said she wanted to "rip the president's head off" and "shoot him in the groined area."
The comments caught the attention of a Secret Service analyst and are under review, Special Agent Tony Colgary told The Times of Trenton for Wednesday's editions. It is a federal crime to threaten to kill the president.
Niederer told the newspaper that she was upset about her son's death when she gave the interviews. She insisted that she did not want to kill or shoot the president.
"Absolutely not," she said.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Niederer declined to comment on the controversy.
Niederer is being assisted by a volunteer lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union, said Deborah Jacobs, executive director of ACLU New Jersey.
According to Jacobs, Niederer's comments on the Web site are protected by court precedent dating back to a 1969 case. In Watts v. United States, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man who three years earlier had claimed at a public gathering that he would "set his sights" on President Lyndon Johnson if he was drafted.
The court ruled that while the nation has a valid interest in protecting the president, the 1917 statute on which the case was based "must be interpreted with the commands of the First Amendment clearly in mind. What is a threat must be distinguished from what is constitutionally protected speech."
Jacobs said Niederer's comments fall under the same parameters.
"It's political hyperbole," she said. "This woman obviously has no intention of threatening the president's life, and it's obvious from her statements."
A phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment from the Secret Service was not immediately returned on Wednesday.
Niederer's son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, was killed in February while trying to disarm a bomb in Iraq. The 24-year-old had just
returned to Iraq after spending two weeks with his family. Niederer had refused to leave the rally with Laura Bush at a Hamilton firehouse last Thursday and was eventually escorted from the site.
She wore a T-shirt that bore the words "President Bush You Killed My Son" and a picture of her son. Police dropped charges of trespassing against her the next day.
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WOW Spree calls another one right!!!! Well almost, I was off by a month, here is a copy of my post from August
: spree99
In reply to: nessco who wrote msg# 77535 Date:8/12/2004 12:53:59 AM
Post #of 80168
I am not allowed to post who it is coming from, not from the source nor from jimlur, all I heard was positive news, shortly, should be this week but I would put my money on this month, could be a license, could be a nokia settlement, could be Harry's firing, I just don't know
don't forget though I was the only one to post that Lucent would be the next license and what do you know shortly after that it was announced that IDCC was suing them, so my sources can't be that far off, check my history to confirm this
You're pretty funny Ed, if Bush brings up votes cutting back the military all Kerry has to do is repeat what Bush's father said and what Cheney testified to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if I can find the actual words you will be surprised, it was the end of the cold war, Kerry simply voted what the President and Cheney wanted and pleaded for, so let Bush bring that up, it will be funny to watch
if you think Bush is going to cut up Kerry you obviously did not watch the 1996 debates Kerry had with Weld, I did, bottom line, you should worry
You are correct eom
No stroke of genius, another poster is the one who thinks that is where it is from and he posted it on raging bull
Loop first of all I never discussed any rumors from any sources on this board because I know Jim doesn't want that, secondly I never stated where my sources are from and I never will, another poster stated he thinks it is someone from the Melville office, I never said that and I don't have to confirm or deny anything because like I said before I am not revealing where my sources are from.
Also this has nothing to do with inside information, I never stated it as fact, I said it was a rumor, even if it was somebody from the office, if the talk around the job is one thing, then it is a rumor not inside information.
You should look up the rules on inside information and the SEC and funny how this is all dangerous to the members of the board, come off your highhorse please
I don't remember you trying to get at the bottom of a group of investors issuing a press release saying they were organizing stock members to vote against the company, we dropped that day, I know some here were mad, curious if you were one of the posters trying to get to the bottom of it.
Wow very cool, congratulations, maybe you can post some of the pictures on this board
He will have the shortest tenure of any cia director
Well that certainly was a worthy contribution, remember if you participate in throwing mud you will get always get some on yourself
Funny, how is that off topic, anyway I'm surprised nobody else but teecee is interested in this, I know Fly is hardly ever right but still curious, when I am proven right you guys are going to faint, this settlement will be at a minimum of 500 million
Come on someone tell me what the Fly rumor was
I remember that mob in Miami, they were all aides and staff members to congressional members, what a joke, the people in miami who ran the elections were a bunch of cowards, if count was allowed to take place Gore would have went ahead, and that is what the Bush people were afraid of, once Gore had the lead they would have been screwed, although I can't see how the Supreme Court would have not done what they did
F6 the only problem is all of this talk justs takes the focus off of the election issues, however as the debates are now coming next thursday the talk should get back to the important issues that Bush can't duck
You are right I never said it was a big deal, just want to see what the actual rumor is
F6 the only thing about that theory is why would the Republicans give a document that basically confirms what the secretary said, I guess they did because Burkett wouldn't have given it to Rather if it was in any way positive to Bush
There obviously is a trail, now if reporters are worth anything they should be able to find the source, if it comes out that it was a paid operative of the Republicans or Bush campaign that would be huge
Like I said I highly doubt the media couldn't fish out who the source was, just start with Burkett and find the chain
Seems like someone took the original document and retyped it with a computer
But also the signature is the same, so there has to be an original, doubt someone could forge a signature that good
Anyway your report on assault weapons misses some key points, one of the features that was banned was flash suppressors, basically that means that now if you have one and are shooting at cops, a cop can't easily see where the bullets are coming from, no way a hunter needs a flash supressor
Some Yahoo poster is claiming the rumor is that talks between IDCC and Nokia over settlement have broken down, but until a trusted poster here can post what was actually said on Fly I won't believe it
They do offer a free trial but you have to give your credit card and then voluntarily cancel the service, knowing myself I will probably forget so I am not bothering, but I do remember a few here used to have access
Dws if you are being serious then just private message me the rumor
FLY ON THE WALL RUMOR, ANYONE HERE HAVE ACCESS TO IT, IT WAS POSTED ABOUT IDCC AT 1123 AM
Teecee said there would be a Fly On the Wall Rumor at 1123am anyone know what it was
Teapee how sick of you, pretty despicable even for you to call for that killing, also hypocritical, I thought human life is sacred yet you call for the killing of our commander in chief
don't use someone's death for political purposes, pretty cheap
Matt isn't calling someone an a-hole enough to land that person in jail, that would end your need for a moderator
It takes a lot of drugs to come up with your theories
Yeah F6 I guess if something is alleged it must be true, while it certainly is possible that theory has never been proven, but I'm sure you have 100 website authors that says otherwise but like your other crackpot theories you have no smoking gun
Matt, absolutely not F6, easymoney, teapeabubbles, especially when they attack people with profanity
Not sure who is the most impartial, my first guess would be arthritis
Yeah and that is supposed to mean what, that we killed Americans, nice try, we sold arms to Iran to get back hostages, it was stupid, it was contradictory, but the fault of the american dead does not lie with us, it lies with the terrorists, of course it was wrong to even negotiate with terrorists to get back hostages, that just inspires more terror, but if you think they needed arms from us to blow up a barracks then you are funny
I never said that you or anyone stated they were related, f6 said the same people are in government,implying what, what do you think he is implying by saying that, you people don't even understand what your own thoughts are
April 9, 2002 8:55 a.m.
9/11 Denial
The French bestseller and its company.
O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.
— Voltaire, 1767
ell, it did not take long for the ridiculous to find its way into print. In what is billed as the "first independent inquiry" into the events of Sept. 11, French left-wing activist Thierry Meyssan comes to the shocking conclusion that the Pentagon was not hit by American Airlines Flight 77. His book, L'Effroyable Imposture (The Frightening Fraud) is apparently a hot seller in his native land, the first 20,000 copies having been whisked off the shelves with more to follow. Meyssan, who had published his views as early as October 8 on his website, the Voltaire Network, (the philosophe must be spinning in his grave having his name appropriated by this imbecile), proves, at least to his own satisfaction, that the damage to the Pentagon could not have been caused by a Boeing 757, but was in fact the result of a carefully planned truck bombing or missile strike which was then made to look like a plane crash.
Meyssan offers as evidence a careful analysis of images of the crash site. (See "Hunt the Boeing," a site based on Meyssan's assertions and run by his son, and the point-by-point refutation here.) He also notes discrepancies in the eyewitness descriptions. (See here for a compendium of eyewitness accounts that, in fact, all pretty much agree.) Note that I haven't read the book — I'm waiting for the movie — but presumably Meyssan answers salient questions such as, if Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon, where is it? Where are Barbara Olson and the other passengers who left loved ones behind? If the eyewitnesses can't agree on what they saw, what was it they are disagreeing about and why are there so many of them?
No matter. Meyssan's purpose is to uncover a much deeper plot of the United States against the world. He reveals other interesting facts, like bin Laden was an agent of the U.S. who was used by President Bush to destroy secret CIA offices in the World Trade Towers. Seems like a lot of effort — when Stansfield Turner wanted to do it he just fired a bunch of guys. And if the WTC planes were part of the plan, and presumably also United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania, why go to the trouble of fabricating a strike on the Pentagon instead of just using another aircraft like the missing Flight 77? At some point Occam's Razor has to come into play. But to the tortured mind of Meyssan, whose other causes include hard anti-Catholicism and "rejection of a return to a moral order" it probably makes a lot of sense.
Today is Yom Hashoah, the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust, and Meyssan's theory fits neatly with those of the Holocaust deniers. In both cases, the premises of their originators are indefensible, which forces them into a position where they have to throw the facts overboard to sustain their arguments. But notions like this are kept alive by people who have a predisposition to believe them, those who have pre-existing grudges and will engage in whatever reality-denying behavior justifies their baseline prejudices. For example, it is already widely believed in the Middle East that Sept. 11 was not perpetrated by bin Laden but by the Mossad, the CIA, or some other group, in order to give the United States a pretext to intervene in the region. Meyssan's theory is a qualitative step beyond the idea that al Qaeda was not behind the attacks — he denies that the attack on the Pentagon even happened, at least not "the way the government says it did." This story is certain to find fertile soil in some of the more radical quarters, especially among those that both deny the Holocaust happened and wish it had been more effective. For example Ibrahim Abu-al-Naja, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who complained about how the world was going to make the Palestinians "pay the price for what happened to [the Jews], if indeed anything had happened to them." Or the recent editorial on WAFA, the Palestinian Authority news service, that admitted that a few Jews went to the gas chambers, but "about whose number there is some ambiguity." (WAFA had no trouble counting the 12 million Native Americans allegedly exterminated in the 17th-19th centuries.) If Meyssan has any sense at all, he will rush out an Arabic edition pronto.
The answer to Meyssan and any other such revisionist is the truth, particularly the primary sources, the body of knowledge compiled by those who experienced the events in question. In the case of the Holocaust, the affirmative evidence is overwhelming, particularly the living record, the dwindling numbers of survivors and witnesses who have assumed the responsibility to chronicle their stories, to relay them personally to generations born long after the events. Likewise with the Sept. 11 attacks, it is incumbent to remember, and through memory to prevent similar events from happening again. The images of the WTC attacks speak for themselves. Where video is lacking, as in the case of Flight 77 (which is more proof of the plot, says Meyssan) it is up to the eyewitnesses to tell their stories.
So here's mine. I was in my Washington office doing research when one of the secretaries told me that an aircraft had hit the World Trade Center. We brought the news up on the projection screen in our darkened conference room and watched the coverage, seeing endless six-foot high replays of the impacts and explosions. It was unsettling, even disorienting, but my colleagues and I were appraising it professionally, trading theories on who was to blame and how the terrorists coordinated the attacks. We did not come to any firm conclusions.
I went back to my office around 9:20. A short time later a friend of mine called, an Air Force officer, and we spoke awhile about the strikes in New York. I was standing, looking out my large office window, which faces west and from six stories up has a commanding view of the Potomac and the Virginia heights. (When I hired on my boss said we had the best view in town. True, most days.) The Pentagon is about a mile and half distant in the center of the tableau. I was looking directly at it when the aircraft struck. The sight of the 757 diving in at an unrecoverable angle is frozen in my memory, but at the time, I did not immediately comprehend what I was witnessing. There was a silvery flash, an explosion, and a dark, mushroom shaped cloud rose over the building. I froze, gaping for a second until the sound of the detonation, a sharp pop at that distance, shook me out of it. I shouted something both extremely profane and sacrilegious and told my friend, "They hit the Pentagon. We're under attack. Gotta go." I hung up the phone and turned back to the window to see the dark cloud spreading. I yelled down the hall, "Look out the window!" I heard gasps outside, and a researcher dashed into my office and stared. I grabbed my bags and said I was getting out of the building and invited others to do the same. I took the elevator down and walked to the edge of the greensward, in easy view of the Pentagon across the river. I set down my bags and stood in the dew soaked grass, seeing the brilliant blue sky filling with rolling clouds of smoke. The blackness stretched south the length of the horizon. The adrenaline of the initial shock had worn off a bit, and I was able to take in the enormity of the event. Even more than witnessing the plane crash, I remember those long helpless minutes standing in the grass.
So, of course, I take it personally when a half-wit like Meyssan comes along saying it did not happen. And he is so evidently at war with reality that one is tempted not to waste time with him. His ideas are obviously foolish, easily disproved, an affront to any reasoning person. It would be easy to ignore him. But that would be a mistake. This is another front in what President Bush called "the war to save civilization itself." The history of the 20th century should show that no idea is so absurd that it cannot take destructive hold and play havoc with societies, even to the point of sanctioning mass murder. Allowing the extremists to go unchallenged only encourages them. People like Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and other millennial criminals were just like Meyssan at one point in their careers. If they had been opposed more vigorously sooner, perhaps they never would have attained power. When such ideas are allowed to stand, they take root among the impressionable or those predisposed to think the worst. And especially now that communications technology has made it possible to give global reach to the bizarre and archive it forever, it is essential for men and women of reason resolutely to counter the delusions of the fringe element.
I was there. I saw it. That is my entire rebuttal.
— By James S. Robbins, a national-security analyst & NRO contributor
Do you read your own material, many of the people from iran contra are in government today, yes so what are you implying by saying that, obviously saying that if they could committ iran contra certainly 9/11 is possible
You had better get a grip, now you are going to say some contras killed americans, yeah that is the same as the government ordering them dead, look out the black helicopters are coming out tonight
When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad
By David Corn, AlterNet. Posted March 1, 2002.
Theories that the U.S. government aided or engineered the 9/11 attacks aren't just horribly misguided -- they distract from the nefarious deeds our leaders actually do perpetrate. Story Tools
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Also in Top Stories
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Laura Rozen, AlterNet
More stories by David Corn
Please stop sending me those emails. You know who are. And you know what emails I mean ... Okay, I'll spell it out -- those forwarded emails suggesting, or flat-out stating, the CIA and the U.S. government were somehow involved in the horrific September 11 attacks.
There are emails about a fellow imprisoned in Canada who claims to be a former U.S. intelligence office and who supposedly passed advance warning of the attack to jail guards in mid-August. There are emails, citing an Italian newspaper, reporting that last July Osama bin Laden was treated for kidney disease at the American hospital in Dubai and met with a CIA official. There are the emails, referring to a book published in France, that note the attacks came a month after Bush Administration officials, who were negotiating an oil deal with the Taliban, told the Afghans "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs."
Get the hint? Washington either did nothing to stop the September 11 attacks or plotted the assaults so a justifiable war could then be waged against Afghanistan to benefit Big Oil.
One email I keep receiving is a timeline of so-called suspicious events that "establishes CIA foreknowledge of [the September 11 attacks] and strongly suggests that there was criminal complicity on the part of the U.S. government in their execution."
I won't argue that the U.S. government does not engage in brutal, murderous skulduggery from time to time. But the notion that the U.S. government either detected the attacks but allowed them to occur, or, worse, conspired to kill thousands of Americans to launch a war-for-oil in Afghanistan is absurd. Still, each week emails passing on such tripe arrive. This crap is probably not worth a rational rebuttal, but I'm irritated enough to try.
It's a mug's game to refute individual pieces of conspiracy theories. Who can really know if anything that bizarre happened at a Dubai hospital? As for the man jailed in Canada, he was being held on a credit card fraud charge, and the only source for the story about his warning was his own word. The judge in his case said, "There is no independent evidence to support his colossal allegations." But a conspiracy-monges can reply, wouldn't you expect the government and its friends in Canada to say that?
So let's start with a broad question: would U.S. officials be capable of such a foul deed? Capable -- as in able to pull it off and willing to do so. Simply put, the spies and special agents are not good enough, evil enough, or gutsy enough to mount this operation. That conclusion is based partly on, dare I say it, common sense, but also on years spent covering national security matters. (For a book I wrote on the CIA, I interviewed over 100 CIA officials and employees.)
Not good enough: Such a plot -- to execute the simultaneous destruction of the two towers, a piece of the Pentagon, and four airplanes and make it appear as if it all was done by another party -- is far beyond the skill level of U.S. intelligence. It would require dozens (or scores or hundreds) of individuals to attempt such a scheme. They would have to work together, and trust one another not to blow their part or reveal the conspiracy. They would hail from an assortment of agencies (CIA, FBI, INS, Customs, State, FAA, NTSB, DOD, etc.).
Yet anyone with the most basic understanding of how government functions (or does not function) realizes that the various bureaucracies of Washington -- particularly those of the national security "community" -- do not work well together. Even covering up advance knowledge would require an extensive plot. If there truly had been intelligence reports predicting the 9/11 attacks, these reports would have circulated through intelligence and policymaking circles before the folks at the top decided to smother them for geopolitical gain. That would make for a unwieldy conspiracy of silence. And in either scenario -- planning the attacks or permitting them to occur -- everyone who participated in the conspiracy would have to be freakin' sure that all the other plotters would stay quiet.
Not evil enough. This is as foul as it gets -- to kill thousands of Americans, including Pentagon employees, to help out oil companies. (The sacrificial lambs could have included White House staff or members of Congress, had the fourth plane not crashed in Pennsylvania.) This is a Hollywood-level of dastardliness, James Bond (or Dr. Evil) material.
Are there enough people of such a bent in all those agencies? That's doubtful. CIA officers and American officials have been evildoers. They have supported death squads and made use of drug dealers overseas. They have assisted torturers, disseminated assassination manuals, sold weapons to terrorist-friendly governments, undermined democratically-elected governments, and aided dictators who murder and maim. They have covered up reports of massacres and human rights abuses. They have plotted to kill foreign leaders.
These were horrendous activities, but, in most instances, the perps justified these deeds with Cold War imperatives (perverted as they were). And to make the justification easier, the victims were people overseas. Justifying the murder of thousands of Americans to help ExxonMobil would require U.S. officials to engage in a different kind of detachment and an even more profound break with decency and moral norms.
I recall interviewing one former CIA official who helped manage a division that ran the sort of actions listed above, and I asked him whether the CIA had considered "permanently neutralizing" a former CIA man who had revealed operations and the identities of CIA officers. Kill an American citizen? he replied, as if I were crazy to ask. No, no, he added, we could never do that. Yes, in the spy-world some things were beyond the pale. And, he explained, it would be far too perilous, for getting caught in that type of nasty business could threaten your career. Which brings us to....
Not gutsy enough. Think of the danger -- the potential danger to the plotters. What if their plan were uncovered before or, worse, after the fact? Who's going to risk being associated with the most infamous crime in U.S. history? At the start of such a conspiracy, no one could be certain it would work and remain a secret. CIA people -- and those in other government agencies -- do care about their careers.
Would George W. Bush take the chance of being branded the most evil president of all time by countenancing such wrongdoing? Oil may be in his blood, but would he place the oil industry's interests ahead of his own? (He sure said sayonara to Kenneth Lay and Enron pretty darn fast.) And Bush and everyone else in government know that plans leak. Disinformation specialists at the Pentagon could not keep their office off the front page of The New York Times. In the aftermath of September 11, there has been much handwringing over the supposed fact that U.S. intelligence has been too risk-averse. But, thankfully, some inhibitions -- P.R. concerns, career concerns -- do provide brakes on the spy-crowd.
By now, you're probably wondering why I have bothered to go through this exercise. Aren't these conspiracy theories too silly to address? That should be the case. But, sadly, they do attract people.
A fellow named Michael Ruppert, who compiled that timeline mentioned above, has drawn large crowds to his lectures. He has offered $1000 to anyone who can "disprove the authenticity of any of his source material." Well, his timeline includes that Canadian prisoner's claim and cites the Toronto Star as the source. But Ruppert fails to note that the Star did not confirm the man's account, that the paper reported some observers "wonder if it isn't just the ravings of a lunatic," and that the Star subsequently reported the judge said the tale had "no air of reality." Does that disprove anything? Not 100 percent. There's still a chance that man is telling the truth, right? So I'm not expecting a check.
Conspiracy theories may seem more nuisance than problem. But they do compete with reality for attention. There is plenty to be outraged over without becoming obsessed with X Files-like nonsense. Examples? There's the intelligence services's failure to protect Americans and the lack of criticism of the CIA from elected officials. Or, General Tommy Franks, the commander of military operations in Afghanistan, declaring the commando mis-assault at Hazar Qadam, which resulted in the deaths of fifteen to twenty local Afghans loyal to the pro-U.S. government, was not an intelligence failure. (How can U.S. Special Forces fire at targets they wrongly believe to be Taliban or al Qaeda fighters, end up killing people they did not intend to kill, and the operation not be considered an intelligence failure?) More outrage material? A few months ago, forensic researchers found the remains of people tortured and killed at a base the CIA had established in the 1980s as a training center for the contras. The U.S. ambassador to Honduras at the time is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte.
There are always national security misdeeds to be mad about. They may not be as cinematic in nature as a plot in which shady, unidentified U.S. officials scheme to blow up the World Trade Towers to gain control of an oil pipeline in Central Asia. But dozens of dead Hondurans or twenty or so Afghans wrongly killed ought to provoke anger and protest. In fact, out-there conspiracy theorizing serves the interests of the powers-that-be by making their real transgressions seem tame in comparison. (What's a few dead in Central America, compared to thousands in New York City? Why worry about Negroponte, when unidentified U.S. officials are slaughtering American civilians to trigger war?)
Perhaps there's a Pentagon or CIA office that churns out this material. Its mission: distract people from the real wrongdoing. Now there's a conspiracy theory worth exploring. Doesn't it make sense? Doesn't it all fit together? I challenge anyone to disprove it.
David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation.
REFUTING THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIES
I believe the articles below thoroughly refute the various 9/11 conspiracy theories. One of these conspiracy theories says President Bush and other top government officials deliberately ignored intelligence information that pointed to impending terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda. Another theory says Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the attacks, that they were carried out by the U.S. military at the behest of the oil industry and the military industrial complex, and that the Pentagon was struck by a cruise missile (and not by a Boeing passenger jet). Which is it going to be? Yet another theory holds that terrorists did indeed fly planes into the World Trade Center but that the Pentagon was struck by a cruise missile that was fired by our own military in order to intimidate Congress! Wouldn't the military have fired the missile at the Congressional Office Building or at the Capital Building if they wanted to intimidate Congress? Why would anyone have thought that firing a missile at the Pentagon would intimidate Congress? And what about the fact that the remains of the passengers on Flight 77 were recovered from the wreckage at the Pentagon? What about the fact that both of Flight 77's black boxes were recovered from the wreckage? What about the fact that numerous witnesses specified that they saw a jetliner approach and/or hit the Pentagon? What about the fact that photos from that day show plane debris near the hole that the jetliner tore into the Pentagon? What about the fact that witnesses saw plane debris in the wreckage? The articles below present evidence that Al Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and they take a critical look at the theory that the Pentagon was not struck by Flight 77.
Answers to Questions Posed by Conspiracy Theorists About the 9/11 Attack on the Pentagon
An Engineer and a Physicist Refute the Theory that a Missile Hit the Pentagon on 9/11
New Simulation Shows 9/11 Plane Crash with Scientific Detail. Scientific animated simulation showing that a Boeing 757 could indeed have done the damage that was done to the Pentagon.
September 11 Pentagon Attack Simulations Using LS-Dyna. Another scientific computer simulation of the Crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon, with additional scientific commentary showing that the "official" version of the Pentagon attack is entirely plausible
No Airliner Crash at the Pentagon?
USA Today Site on 9/11 Pentagon Attack (Very Good Graphics and Text Explaining the Damage and the Crash)
Refutation of the Theory that A Missile Struck the Pentagon on 9/11
Al Qaeda Admits It Was Behind the 9/11 Attacks
Debunking the Bunk About 9/11
Oil Conspiracy Redux
What the President Knew and When He Knew It
Why the WTC Towers Collapsed So "Quickly"
Dissecting Disinformation: The "No Boeing 757" Theory
9/11 Denial
Dissonance About the 9/11 Attacks
French Buy Into 9/11 Conspiracy
Detainees Reveal Bin Laden's Reaction to 9/11 Attacks
Egyptians Knew of Planned 9/11 Attacks
One Member of Buffalo Al Qaeda Sleeper Cell Knew About 9/11 Plan
CIA Director George Tenet on the Terrorist Activities that Preceded the 9/11 Attacks
Cynthia McKinney's Insanity and Hypocrisy
When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad
What DIDN'T Really Happen
The 9/11 X-Files
9/11 Chronology
How the Left Caused the 9/11 Attacks
Send E-Mail to Michael T. Griffith
Divergent Opinion Polls Reflect
New Challenges to Tracking Vote
By JOHN HARWOOD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 20, 2004
WASHINGTON -- Widely divergent poll results in recent days underscore a paradox of the 2004 presidential race: Despite all the surveys, it may be the toughest election in memory for anyone to track.
Opinion polls themselves had been getting harder to conduct long before the matchup between President George W. Bush and his Democratic rival, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. The reasons range from growing reluctance to participate in surveys to increasing reliance on cellphones rather than the land lines pollsters have long used to ensure demographic and geographic balance in surveys.
But this year's bitter presidential contest has heaped on new challenges. They include an exceptionally close race and a polarized electorate that magnifies the consequence of different polling methods. In addition, unprecedented voter-mobilization drives by both parties make it especially tough for pollsters to say which voters probably will show up on Election Day.
"It makes it harder" to forecast the likely electorate, says Fred Steeper, a longtime pollster for Mr. Bush. In the six weeks to Election Day on Nov. 2, he adds, disparate polls may reflect sampling error and methodological differences more often than shifting opinion. "My advice to the consumer is ... the day-to-day reports of polling will exaggerate the changes in this race."
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Media coverage of the campaign last week appeared to prove that point. On the same day last week, USA Today cited a new poll by the Gallup Organization in reporting that Mr. Bush "has surged to a 13-point lead" over Mr. Kerry, while other news organizations reported surveys by Pew Research Center and Harris Interactive showing the contest tightening to a dead heat.
Adding to the confusion is the way poll reports themselves become weapons in the campaign. The Bush campaign swiftly touts favorable surveys and seeks to discredit those showing Mr. Kerry drawing closer. The approach plays on the so-called bandwagon effects that energize supporters of a surging candidate and dispirit those of a lagging one.
Kerry advisers embrace dead-heat polls as a way to halt high-profile critiques of their campaign's inner workings and shift public dialogue to more fruitful ground such as violence in Iraq or domestic issues. Thus, even as Bush aide Matthew Dowd argued that Mr. Bush's lead was widening at week's end, Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters, "The trends are going in our direction."
Underlying those conflicting arguments aren't just different political calculations but also differences in polling philosophy and techniques. Consider last week's Pew Research Center survey, which showed strikingly different research during two consecutive polling periods.
In the portion of the survey conducted Sept. 8-10, Mr. Bush led Mr. Kerry 52%-40% among registered voters. In a separate portion conducted Sept. 11-14, Messrs. Kerry and Bush were tied at 46%. But there was one other key difference, too: Among voters sampled in the first portion, self-described Republicans outnumbered Democrats by two percentage points; in the second, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by four percentage points.
Pew pollster Andrew Kohut described that difference as normal week-to-week drift -- because party allegiance is a fluctuating attitude -- that doesn't call his results into question. In fact, he says his surveys show the race is more volatile than other analysts have suggested. But the Bush campaign insists the partisan variation exaggerated the appearance of a trend toward Mr. Kerry.
Party allegiance "does not change in seven days" by that much, says Mr. Steeper, the Bush pollster. He says Mr. Kohut should have "weighted" his poll with a common assessment of partisanship for both samples; averaging the two would have shown the president with a steady lead of about six percentage points.
Bush advisers were more pleased by a CBS-New York Times survey late last week showing the president leading Mr. Kerry by nine percentage points, 50% to 41%, up from seven points the previous week.
Yet those CBS surveys were conducted the same way the Pew polls were -- without making any adjustment for the different number of Republicans and Democrats surveyed. And in the CBS polls, the number of Republicans surveyed rose sharply from the first week to the second.
Last week's CBS sample, in a mirror image of Pew's, contained four percentage points more Republicans than Democrats. Because this polarized contest has left roughly nine in 10 adherents of each party supporting its nominee, such variation in the number of Republicans and Democrats surveyed has an unusually large impact on polling outcomes.
In a close race, in fact, that can make the difference between an apparent dead heat and a solid lead for one candidate. If the CBS and Pew surveys are adjusted to reflect comparable numbers of Republicans and Democrats, their results would have been virtually identical.
Indeed that's precisely what liberal polling analyst Ruy Teixeira did on his Web log, called Emerging Democratic Majority. As the New York Times report of the poll carried the headline "Bush Opens Lead," Mr. Teixeira's blog declared, "CBS News/New York Times poll has it close to even."
(The Wall Street Journal and NBC News plan to release the latest of their surveys later this week. The Journal/NBC poll does adjust for variations in self-described party identification.)
Mr. Teixeira argues that the Democratic edge Mr. Kohut found is realistic, since exit polls from the 1996 and 2000 campaigns indicated that in both cases four percentage points more Democrats than Republicans showed up to vote. Slightly more self-described Democrats than Republicans voted in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 elections as well.
There's no assurance that will be the case this year, since both realignment of voter attitudes and party turnout drives can sharply affect that balance. Mr. Dowd says a roughly equal number of Democrats and Republicans will show up on Nov. 2.
Just who will turn out represents one of the biggest quandaries facing pollsters. About 105 million ballots were cast in 2000, and all sides agree more Americans will vote this time. Bush strategist Karl Rove predicts a total of around 110 million; Democrats estimate an even larger turnout, with some projections as high as 120 million.
Close to election time, pollsters like to report results among those considered most likely to vote on the theory that those results will align most closely with the final outcome. But weeks away from Election Day that's especially difficult to do, since many of the campaign's mobilization activities occur immediately before the election.
"I don't know how you factor that into your polling," Mr. Steeper says. Adds Democratic pollster Peter Hart, a veteran of presidential politics who helps conduct the Journal/NBC survey: "This is art. This isn't science. Nobody knows."
The Journal/NBC survey uses a single question to identify likely voters. It asks respondents to assess their interest in the election on a 10-point scale with 10 as the highest; those responding 9 or 10 are called likely voters.
The Gallup Poll, which provides surveys for CNN and USA Today, among others, assesses likelihood of voting in a different way that has raised the ire of the Kerry campaign. Gallup asks a series of questions first devised decades ago that assigns voting probability to each respondent; it then uses their answers and an overall estimate of voter turnout to identify the likely electorate.
Since mid-July, that method has yielded a likely electorate that is substantially more Republican-leaning than those of recent presidential contests. For instance, the likely-voter sample in last week's survey showing Mr. Bush ahead by 13 points contained seven percentage points more Republicans than Democrats. Given the current polarization by party, the survey would have showed a near-even race had the sample's partisan balance matched the 2000 exit polls or the registered-voter sample in the Pew poll.
As a result, Kerry pollster Mark Mellman has loudly accused the high-profile Gallup survey of using a likely-voter identification method that is "not very accurate," in part because the screening questions are outdated and because they can't properly measure voting intention so long before Election Day. The substantial variation between the likely-voter results and Gallup's registered-voter findings -- which showed an eight-percentage-point Bush lead -- is larger than what other likely-voter assessments usually record, Mr. Mellman says.
"We're open to any scientific evidence that would point to our modifying our likely-voter model," responds Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll. Mr. Newport says so far he hasn't seen any.
In 2000, Gallup's election-eve sample of likely voters showed Mr. Bush leading by two percentage points over Al Gore. Its registered-voter sample, showing Messrs. Bush and Gore neck and neck, was closer to the actual Election Day results. But Mr. Newport notes that in 1996 the likely-voter model more accurately forecast the size of Bill Clinton's victory over former Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole.
Mr. Bush narrowly lost the popular vote while winning enough electoral-vote battlegrounds to capture the presidency. And the same polling variations that can affect assessments of the race nationally are multiplied this time around by the intense focus on polls in battleground states. Democrats insist Mr. Kerry is more competitive with Mr. Bush in the race toward a 270-electoral vote majority than national polls would suggest. They argue Mr. Bush is piling up exceptionally large polling margins in states he's already expected to win, masking closer contests in battlegrounds such as Ohio and Florida.
Mr. Dowd argues, to the contrary, that Mr. Kerry's advantages in Democratic-friendly states such as California and New York offset Mr. Bush's edge in the South and Mountain West. As a result, he says, the president's advantage in battleground states matches his national lead.
The argument is especially hard to sift since different surveys of battleground states as a group show different results. There are multiple public polls of many individual battlegrounds, and the campaigns rarely publicize their private battleground-state surveys.
Write to John Harwood at john.harwood@wsj.com
What I meant to say was conspiracy theory, your assertion that iran contra could lead to 9/11 is hogwash, that was arms for hostages and using the money off the sales to fund an anti communist group, none of it had to with killing americans
Yeah name me all of the conspiracies, and don't name iran-contra because it really happened and we all know about it
but I would like to hear your conspiracy theories, go as far back in history as you like
No, took it from google, had no idea what website it was from, but you can find good info even from sides you don't agree with
9/11 Conspiracy Theory Freaks
In the turbulent winds of the presidential election campaign and the 9/11 congressional investigation, we are blown about from all sides by facts, almost facts, lies, half-truths and, worst of all, conspiracy theories. It is one thing to accuse the much maligned Bush administration of incompetence, fanatical ideology, catering to big business, lying, cheating, aggressive defamation tactics and so forth, all justified accusations, but to accuse them of orchestrating the destruction of the Twin Towers in order to justify a war against Iraq is simply nauseating. There’s a website called “Serendipity” which, in its summing-up of a long fairy tale, says the following
“Some people have said that this account of the events of September 11th 2001 is "too convoluted to understand". Actually it's quite simple:
1. Four commercial passenger jets (American Airlines Flights 11 and 77 and United Airlines Flights 93 and 175) take off and shortly after the pilots are ordered to land at a designated airport with a military presence.
2. Two previously-prepared planes (one a Boeing 767, painted up to look like a United Airlines jet and loaded with extra jet fuel) take off and are flown by remote control to intercept the flight paths of AA 11 and UA 175 so as to deceive the air traffic controllers.
3. These (substituted) jets then fly toward Manhattan; the first crashes into the North Tower and (eighteen minutes later) the second crashes into the South Tower.
4. A mock 757, destroyed just before impact, and two or three cruise missiles, hit the Pentagon.
5. The people on three of the Boeings are transferred to the fourth (UA 93).
6. This plane takes off and is shot down by a U.S. Air Force jet over Pennsylvania, eliminating the innocent witnesses to the diversion of the passenger planes.
7. Under cover of darkness later that evening the other three Boeings are flown by remote control out over the Atlantic, are scuttled and end up in pieces at the bottom of the ocean.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Dewdney concludes his Operation Pearl article thus:
Under the Operation Pearl scenario, the most likely perpetrator would be Mossad, Israel's spy agency. An arm's-length relationship with the Bush administration, with neocon elements acting as go-betweens, would enable Rumsfeld, Bush and other members of the US administration to disclaim any "specific" knowledge of a forthcoming attack.
So it appears that the Bush clique (including neocons Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz) collaborated with the Israeli government to stage the September 11th attacks, with Mossad providing the hands-on direction of the operation. But it is unlikely that Operation Pearl could be carried out entirely by Mossad agents — Americans within the U.S. Air Force and the state security and intelligence agencies had to be involved.”
Quite Simple? Yes indeed, simple enough for the simple-minded to believe. [Serendipity: “(Coined by Horace Walpole, after the fairy tale The Three Prices of Serendip) n. The happy knack of making unexpected and delightful discoveries by accident.”]
The fact that such nonsensical “discoveries” are presented as factual on the web nowadays, complete with illustrations of a mock 767, is not surprising, for, as we all know, there are a lot of conspiracy theory crackpots out there and anyone can say what they like on the web, no matter how grotesque and defamatory. What is surprising, and sad, is that people one knows, who until now you thought reasonably intelligent, can read this stuff and believe it and call you naïve if you don’t. I’ve learned long ago that it’s useless to try and convince such people otherwise. They aren’t interested in the facts, which they call cover ups, only what happens in their own dark, paranoid imaginations.
Please do not think that I am defending Bush & Co. In the article by Joe Conason in this issue of SCR he synthesizes Richard Clarke’s accusations about the ineptness, ideological narrow-mindedness and irresponsibility with respect to the 9/11 tragedy. Clarke was there, he knows, and Conason presents facts as narrated by Clarke. Neither Clarke nor any other sane critic of this administration even remotely suggests that they deliberately conspired to destroy the Twin Towers. Or is Clarke also a part of the conspiracy?
Even if we for one moment entertain such an idea, we immediately find that it would be technically impossible to carry out and humanly impossible to keep secret.
The following is an eloquent email reply from a woman of my acquaintance to someone else who recommended the “Serendipity” site:
“The 9-11 issue is very personal for me. I lived in the D.C. area and still have family and friends there who were affected by the Pentagon attack, and a good friend here who lost family at the WTC.
I know for a fact that a plane went into the Pentagon.
I know for a fact that the first plane that went into the WTC was reported correctly because a good friend had an uncle on the plane that went into the 1st tower. This man, Chuck Jones, 48, from Bedford, MA, with BAE Systems, was a retired astronautical engineer and manager of space programs. He had his throat slit open with a box cutter when he rose from his first class seat in response to the takeover.
How do I know this? Because, contrary to the nuts publishing the crap that you are forwarded, there ARE tapes. One tape from that plane is a recording of the conversation that took place between a hostess on the plane and ground control where she reported the takeover of the plane and how several people had had their throats cut with box cutters, including "one military type who was sitting near the pilot's cabin". The content of this conversation was shared with the family and this was done within a few days of the tragedy.
Another wacko website talks about how Ted Olsen is telling nothing but lies about the phone conversation he had with his wife, Barbara, who was on the plane that went into the Pentagon. I don't know why Olsen doesn't sue these wacko nuts! How terrible to put forth such disinformation about a man who lost his wife under such horrific circumstances! Barbara Olsen called her husband from her cell phone, not from the credit card phones on the plane, as alleged on one wacko site. She called not once, but twice, on her cell phone, from her seat. She did not know about the planes that had hit the WTC and Ted Olsen did not tell his wife that she was doomed and there was nothing he could do! This man (who even thought some here might hate him because he is in the Bush administration) is a human being, a husband only fairly recently married, who sat and listened to his wife ask for his help as the television in his office reported the horrors going on, knowing he could do nothing but hold the phone in his hand and wait for his wife's cell phone to go silent.
How horrible that people would twist and distort such tragedy for their own ideological purposes based on hate and paranoia. How equally horrible to be able to disconnect one's imagination from the human tragedy of that day to play out one's ideological obsessions about their political views, No, there wasn't much of a plane left in the ruins of that crash, just as there were no bodies to find or bury, not Barbara Olsen's, nor my oldest friend in the DC area's young friend, nor the bodies of the D.C. school children going on an awards trip to California.
Paulina"
It won’t do any good to tell that to the 9/11 conspiracy theory freaks, though. It’s like talking to holocaust deniers; their ignorance of the real world is too sublime.
Frank Thomas Smith
fts@SouthernCrossReview.org
Guess you had to change your message after you realized that you lied once again, hmmm, thought you had the guts to stick with your original post