Money For Nothing

The Village Voice covers the people who have been using the memories of 9-11 to make a buck:

And then there are the lawyers. From the victim's compensation fund to the 9/11 health litigation, a select group of law firms have reaped close to a billion dollars in legal fees, often amid sharp criticism. In the WTC Captive Insurance fiasco the city used federal funds meant to help ailing workers to pay $165 million to three law firms fighting the case. Some of those lawyers billed at nearly $600 per hour. Meanwhile, at the time, only a handful of claims had been settled for something around $300,000.

And at the memorial:

The top 11 officials of the September 11 Memorial and Museum make at least $190,000 a year, with four of them—Joseph Daniels, Alice Greenwald, Joan Gerner, and Cathy Blaney—making well over $300,000, tax records show. That's $2.8 million in salaries just for 11 people. And when former general counsel Frank Aiello left in 2009, he got a $180,000 severance payment.

Not bad work if you can find it. And, oh, yes:

Even the so-called 9/11 Truth movement is raising funds. The president of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth took in about $344,000 in contributions in 2009—substantially more than the group raised in the previously three years. The group's director, Richard Gage, of Lafayette, California, made $75,450, in 2009.

The group claims to have evidence that explosive residue was found in the 9/11 dust, suggesting that "explosives brought down the towers." Some 1,500 architects and engineers have signed a petition calling for a new investigation.

Naturally, you can even buy 9/11 Truth merchandise: baseballs caps which say "9/11 was an inside job," and bumpers stickers which read "Bush knew."