Very interesting, particularly in light of evidence that the WTC was nuked:

http://911blogger.com/news/2011-11-19/911-...

While September 11, 2001 is well known as the day when the U.S. suffered its worst terrorist attack, what is little known is that it was also a day when large sections of the armed forces around the nation had been preparing to fight a simulated nuclear war, as part of major training exercises being conducted at the time. In their annual exercises "Vigilant Guardian" and "Global Guardian," the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the United States Strategic Command (Stratcom) were scheduled to carry out what has been described as a "simulated air war," a "full-blown nuclear war" exercise, a "fictional nuclear war," and a "practice Armageddon."

No official attempts have been made to fully investigate these exercises and what effect they had on the military's response to the 9/11 attacks. But evidence indicates they caused at least some confusion over what was "real-world" and what was simulation, and they may also have been a factor behind the communication problems experienced by military personnel that day. Other evidence suggests that some actions that have been presented as reactions to the terrorist attacks may actually have been related to these exercises--actions such as raising the alert status of American armed services to Defcon 3 and closing the huge "blast doors" to NORAD's operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. There is also evidence that other "practice Armageddon" exercises were being conducted at the time of the 9/11 attacks, but details of these are unknown.
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Topics covered in the piece:

AMERICA'S AIR DEFENDERS WERE SET TO FIGHT A 'SIMULATED AIR WAR' ON SEPTEMBER 11

EXERCISE SIMULATED A 'FULL-BLOWN NUCLEAR WAR' AGAINST RUSSIA

EXERCISE INCLUDED A SIMULATED HIJACKING

'GLOBAL GUARDIAN' EXERCISE TESTED STRATCOM'S ABILITY TO FIGHT A NUCLEAR WAR

SUBMARINES, BOMBERS, AND HUNDREDS OF PERSONNEL PARTICIPATED IN GLOBAL GUARDIAN

STRATCOM WAS AT INCREASED STATE OF ALERT, AIRCRAFT WERE 'SIMULATING THEIR WARTIME ROLES'

CREWS LOADED LIVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ONTO BOMBERS

AIR FORCE COMMANDER THOUGHT FIRST ATTACK WAS EXERCISE SIMULATION

EXERCISE INCLUDED SIMULATED COMMUNICATION OUTAGES

NORAD CLOSED DOORS PROTECTING OPERATIONS CENTER FROM A NUCLEAR ATTACK

BLAST DOORS WERE CLOSED DURING EXERCISES

MILITARY'S ALERT STATUS WAS RAISED TO DEFCON 3

DEFCON 3 WAS INTENDED 'TO RESPOND TO A NUCLEAR THREAT'

DEFCON CHANGES WERE SIMULATED DURING EXERCISES

WERE THERE OTHER 'PRACTICE ARMAGEDDON' EXERCISES ON SEPTEMBER 11?

OFFICIAL INVESTIGATIONS OVERLOOKED THE 9/11 EXERCISES

this post sums up my feelings pretty well--

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/def...

The point here is not to endlessly criticize the President, nor is it to ignore the very real constraints placed on him by the right wing propaganda infrastructure and the Republican House, as well as his need to look forward to re-election in 2012 with independent voters who are wary of "government spending" and desirous of "compromise." It may be that between the S&P shakedown and the GOP House's willingness to take the entire economy hostage, some version of austerity was necessary, and that a real jobs program in the wake of the 2010 elections would not have been possible. The counterargument by Administration defenders against Krugman and progressives is that we lack the political savvy to understand what is politically possible given realities in Washington. That we're political rookies, so to speak.

But let's say the defenders of the Administration are right on the political realities of the situation. That doesn't mean the President had to embrace austerity with open arms. He could just as easily have laid out his jobs program and his desire to put America to work, while warning about the effects austerity would have. He could have called out House Republicans for taking the country hostage, and made clear that he was signing austerity measures under duress. He could have demanded real concessions in exchange for the austerity measures put in place.

We've all been stuck in no-win situations before, where our only options are bad or worse because our hands are being forced by others. Smart people know that the way to handle those situations is to get everything we can out of the bad deal, while making it clear that it isn't how we would have preferred to handle it. When things go wrong, we make clear why they went wrong, and hopefully we get more leeway to make the right choices next time. This is basic politics--and not just Washington politics. It's basic family politics, office politics, organizational politics.

But the Administration didn't do that. It chose to embrace austerity. Even if austerity was inevitable, the embrace of austerity was an unnecessary slap to the face of the progressive base, of intelligent followers of Keynes' economic ideas, and of working people everywhere, while doing little to shore up the President's credibility with independents or feed the confidence fairy in the markets. The reason that many progressives are so over the top in suggesting that the Administration is corrupted and acting in bad faith is because it's an easy answer to a hard question: what is going through the heads of the policy and political advisers at the White House? The embrace of austerity seems so basically stupid from both a policy and political standpoint that people looking in on the situation from the outside are left with either corruption or weakness as an answer.

Last night, I went to a town hall meeting held by my extremely conservative congresscritter, Todd Rokita (R-IN). Rokita was elected to congress for the first time in 2010, took over the seat from Steve Buyer, who retired after a small scandal. Rokita could be called a tea-partier in mentality but is very articulate and has some brains. He was Indiana secretary of state before running for Congress, and did some controversial things there, such as pushing for the onerous state ID law for voting.

There were probably about 500 people there. This is a conservative, middle-class, semi-rural congressional district. I think the audience was 100% white, mostly middle-aged, probably 60% male.

I think the experience was a sobering look at what we are up against.

He gave about a 15 minute talk before taking questions for about an hour and a half. His powerpoint talk focused on the federal debt almost completely, and he put up a scare slide showing a huge red increase in federal debt -- the "Great Tidal Wave of Debt". He noted how Medicare was paying out far more per person than what was being put in. As a solution, he pushed massive federal cuts and a balanced budget agreement. The audience mostly lapped it up. Rokita's whole philosophy seems to be that the government needs to get out of the way of business, and that it is red-tape and regulations that are holding business back. That was his whole solution to the economy-- cutting govt regulations and govt spending.

While this is all very wrong and upsetting, Rokita was very slick, calm and "reasonable" and it was hard to get mad at him. The whole meeting was very non-partisan. I don't think anyone said Democrats once. As one-sided as it was, there were few if any blatant lies. Very little wingnut-ese-- the closest was some references to "Obamacare".

I didn't say much or ask a question because I was taking it all in and trying to get a feel for the crowd and what their concerns were.

Probably the most maddening thing was when Rokita took a hand vote of how many people wanted to let the Bush tax cuts expire. Probably 3/4 voted no, and then Rokita asked how many wanted the cuts expire just for the rich. Fewer hands overall, but probably 2/3 still wanted to keep the cuts for the rich!

He said before the debt ceiling vote, his calls were like 4-1 for voting "no", and he did vote no.

Half of the questions were from people who really supported him, and some people wanted to know how they could get the word out to the American public about this-- and for politicians to cut the crap and talking to Americans like they are dumb.

The ONLY real contentious questions were from people asking about American manufacturing and the loss of jobs to free trade. Rokita was an unapologetic free-trader, and this is a potential weakness. But no one seemed extremely upset about this, and most of the focus was on govt spending.

What was interesting was things that were NOT mentioned, not even once:

1) banking and the financial scandals
2) wealth disparity
3) religion/gays/abortion
4) Iraq
5) terrorism
6) sex scandals/corruption
7) money in politics
8) Fox News
9) 2012 Republican candidates


Some interesting stuff from Rokita (towards the end he let it hang out more and was less circumspect/ less diplomatic)--

He's worried that the "soul of the country is being sucked into a huge government program"

He talked a lot about how "Obamacare" cuts Medicare.

Worried about govt bureaucrats controlling people's lives (the light-bulb example came up).

Was very obnoxious telling the unions he was disappointed that they didn't push for more road building programs in the 2009 stimulus (!?!).

He said he co-wrote the Ryan Medicare plan, and at the end, was openly pushing for cuts to Social Security and Medicare as a way to solve the debt problem, but it got glossed over.

Said MORE people in the US need to pay federal income tax-- only 50% pay now. Used the stat that 40% of Americans pay 90% of taxes (something to that effect).

Said (about solving US debt problem) his side was pushing broccoli and the other side is pushing twinkies.

He did say we are in three theaters of war we don't need to be in (didn't say which ones), and no one argued. I would bet he means Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq but don't know for sure.



Things that got big applause--

1) a comment form the audience about term-limits in Congress
2) a comment from the audience complaining about "Obama-care"
3) a comment from Rokita about closing the border
4) a comment from Rokita about doing more oil drilling in the US
5) a comment from the audience about reforming the tax code

Overall, it was very sobering and just makes me feel hopeless we can ever have a fair discussion of these issues with the right. They are in their own world, and are happy there. And they are on a mission to cut the govt, and are slick about selling it.

I cannot believe this insanity, I am disgusted beyond words.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/06/g...

WASHINGTON -- As it considers steep cuts to domestic programs in an effort to slash the deficit, the House is set to consider a defense spending bill on Wednesday that increases the Pentagon's budget by $17 billion.

The Defense Department appropriations bill includes $530 in base Pentagon spending, which is $8 billion less than President Obama's request for fiscal year 2012. There's an additional $118.6 billion for overseas contingency operations -- a $39 billion drop, reflecting the expected drawdown in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Republicans announced in May that they were going to try to cut $30 billion from federal agencies' operating budgets in order to deal with the growing deficit.

While the Pentagon isn't getting all the money the Obama administration would like it to receive, it's still in a significantly stronger position than many other government agencies. If the Pentagon gets its full $17 billion increase, that means that domestic agencies have to absorb $47 billion in cuts.

and doesn't deserve to be re-elected.

I have voted Democratic my whole life, and I have never been so outraged by a Democratic president until now.

It's not just the catering to Wall Street after the worst financial crisis in 75 years.

It's not just his sell-out health care deal.

For me it was:

1) continuing the horrible Bush "national security" and anti-terrorism policies
2) completely immunizing Bush officials from torture prosecution
3) starting new pointless wars and continuing counter-productive, wasteful, pointless wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan
4) making deals with Republicans to cut Medicare and Social Security and falling trap to right-wing memes
5) fighting liberals more than he fights conservatives
6) claiming what the US is doing in Libya is not "hostile" and ignoring the war powers act

I had really hoped he would be a transformational figure that would restore our country in a noble way. Now, I feel like he's just an embarrassment to Democrats.

Yes, the Republicans are horrible and insane and shouldn't be in office. That makes Obama's embrace of their ideas all the worse, in my opinion.

Our political system is so terribly broken, and he is just emblematic of the problems. Nevertheless, I have concluded that I cannot support Obama's re-election and will support a third party candidate.

Rick Scott

Rick Snyder

Rick Perry

Rick Warren


The four Ricks of the Apocalypse?

Republicans have long dreamed of destroying medicare and social security.

They happily cut taxes for 8 years under Bush and then insisted on no new taxes under Obama.

They supported unrestrained banking practices that led to the 2008 crash.

The national debt went up and up and up, but the Repubs kept increasing the debt limit.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/04/... /

Maddow show showing Republican hypocrisy on increasing the debt limit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2khEV88eteA...

Now, with the debt at historic level following the great recession of 2008-2009-- a recession their policies helped bring on-- the Republicans are insisting on draconian cuts to social programs-- when the debt problem has never been due to high levels of spending on social programs. The debt problem is due to tax cuts, the unpaid for wars of the Bush years, and the great recession of 2008-2009. But the Republicans are holding the country hostage to the debt limit increase-- which must be done-- in order to extort extreme cuts to social programs.

Isn't it obvious that this was the Republicans plan all along-- remember Grover Norquist and starving the government? The Republicans purposefully built up massive deficits JUST TO REACH THIS PIVOTAL MOMENT WHERE THEY CAN INSIST ON MASSIVE CUTS TO THE PROGRAMS THEY DETEST and starve the government.

This is the Republicans' moment-- and the really sad thing is that Obama and the Dems seem to be going mostly along with this scam: accepting massive spending cuts!

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/sol...

The criminal media won't talk about this, but it seems painfully obvious what is going on-- a massive wealth transfer AGAIN, from the poor to the rich. If the Dems don't stop this outrage somehow-- and by most accounts they already have-- they have failed in their biggest battle.

Pathetic and depressing.

But brilliant on the Republicans' part.

My parents were friends with one of his sons and sent this to me-- I thought it was pretty cool:


http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-...

Be nice to have more signatures here:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/sig...

As far as I know, no high quality videos from 9/11 have been released by the media.

Obtaining high quality videos from 9/11 would go a long way towards proving or dispelling many allegations of fakery that have been made about the 2nd hit and the destruction of the towers.