The First Rule of Holes

When in a hole, stop digging. Now April Gallop's lawyer, William Veale, not only has to argue why he shouldn't be fined for filing a frivolous lawsuit, but has to argue why he should not be fined for filing a malicious response to being asked why he shouldn't be fined for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Good fun all around. Another nod towards LashL, the Goddess of Legaltainment for providing the court documents.

In his affidavit in support of Gallop’s motion for disqualification, William Veale—one of Gallop’s counsel of record—“demand[s]” not only that the panel, but “any other members of the bench of this Circuit who share their feelings[,] be recused.” Motion to Disqualify (Veale Aff. ¶ 2). We know of no precedent for recusing unnamed judges based on a prejudice, the only evidence of which is manifested in a decision adverse to an attorney’s (or a party’s) interests. Cf. In re Nettles, 394 F.3d 1001, 1003 (7th Cir. 2005) (recusing all district and circuit judges where the defendant acted on a threat to destroy the federal courthouse in which those judges worked by means of a truck bomb); but see Tapia-Ortiz v. Winter, 185 F.3d 8, 10 (2d Cir. 1999) (recognizing that under the rule of necessity, where all judges would be disqualified in a suit brought against every district and circuit court judge in the circuit, none are disqualified). Veale certainly points to none. Indeed, rather than pursuing his client’s interests, Veale’s actions appear to be malicious—intended, in bad faith, to use his position as an attorney of record to harass and disparage the court. See Tapia-Ortiz, 185 F.3d at 11. Such conduct, in our view, is ground for consideration of further appellate sanctions. See In re 60 E. 80th St. Equities, Inc., 218 F.3d 109, 119 (2d Cir. 2000).

Accordingly—wholly apart from the order to show cause required pursuant to our decision in Gallop, ___ F.3d ___, 2011 WL 1565858, at *5, for which briefs are now due on July 11, 2011 (for Gallop and her counsel) and July 14, 2011 (for the government)—William Veale is hereby ordered to show cause in writing within thirty days from the date of entry of this order why this Court should not impose additional sanctions pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38, 28 U.S.C. §1927, and the inherent authority of the Court, requiring him to provide appropriate notice to any federal court before whom he appears of any sanctions that may be imposed against him by this Court.

Contempt of Court

April Gallop continues the appeal of her ridiculous and ill-thought court case, even by truther standards, by accusing not just the judges on the panel, but all of the judges in the Circuit, of bias.

2. The Bias Of The Panel Members, Which May Well Be Shared By Other Members of the Court, Is Based In Deep and Fervid Emotions Arising From The 9/11 Attack And Its Aftermath.
10. Beyond the particulars of the decision, and before them—in the sense that it arose reflexively, immediately upon the judges learning what the case was about—plaintiffs consider that the prejudice against them is born of the overwhelming traumatic emotional experience of the attack and its aftermath, shared by so many who were here in New York to live through it together, and adjust to a new life and a new consciousness afterwards. Each one had to do what he or she could to heal from the shock; everyone was beset with fear and rage and lust for vengeance, mutually, collectively, along with all the other feelings people in the city experienced so intensely, and have continued to deal with in the years since. The angry, peremptory tenor of the Panel‘s decision, like that of the district court, leaves little doubt of these emotions‘ pervasive nature. It reads as the same anger and vengefulness that has been the hallmark of these feelings, throughout.

As one wit on JREF described it, "suicide by judge". Another hat tip to LashL, the Goddess of Legaltainment.

Are They Trying to Lose This Case?

When we last covered the issue of April Gallop's lawsuit against Cheney et al, SPC Gallop was getting her case thrown out of the appeals court, along with a request to explain why she should not have to pay $15,000 for a frivolous lawsuit. Now it appears though, rather than doing so, she is doubling down by demanding that the court hear the appeal to her appeal.

Now I, of course, am not one to believe in conspiracy theories, but having read this latest filing, provided here courtesy of LashL, the Goddess of Legaltainment (TM), I find myself asking, "Are they trying to lose this case?" The filing is bad. Idiotically bad. Mind-numbingly bad. I am not a truther, but even I could put together a better legal argument against Dick Cheney than this. I would be willing to bet that any half competent code monkey could write a PERL script to jumble together random sentences from Truther websites that would make more sense than this awful dreck.

For example, this one sentence.

The Panel also ignored the complex web of concrete information in the Complaint relating to the alleged route of the plane, including the wholly improbable 8000-foot spiral dive it took, bypassing the major targets presented by the top of the building, and the West face where Rumsfeld &Co. had their offices, to come at the obscure back of the building (where the financial records were kept) (Complaint, ¶ 38); the “black box” and other flight path anomalies, and the conflict with the Commission‟s computer simulation (Complaint, ¶2); the contradictory statements by Rumsfeld about the damage, and about his whereabouts and movements that morning (Id, ¶¶ 45); and myriad other details casting doubt on the official account.

This is just one sentence, albeit a rather long and rambling one punctuated with the overuse of semicolons, but I count at least 5 logical and factual errors in that sentence alone. Maybe I am missing some. I did read it rather quickly. Anyone want to check my work?

And even I, jaded as I have become after years of this, was shocked to see this claim:

Examples include evidence, including video evidence, of secondary explosions at the Pentagon; evidence showing that radar records of the Pentagon plane were tampered with; evidence showing a pattern of destruction and damage in the area of plaintiff‟s Pentagon office impossible to reconcile with a plane crash, and showing that parts from a small military plane, an “A-3 Skywarrior” were found in the Pentagon ruins.

An A-3 Skywarrior? Really? Even the Loose Change guys gave that up, like, 4 versions ago. Is International Man of Mystery Karl Schwarz going to be called back from running his nanotech company in Vienna to act as an expert witness?

Steven Jones Once Again Behind the Curve

Disgraced Professor Steven Jones hilariously makes a post on 911 Blogger supporting the lawsuit of April Gallop (assuming it is still up by the time you read this) calling for people to help influence her case in the appeals court, quoting from another article:

You will need to act fast, because the case has already been in the Circuit Court, in Connecticut, for three weeks today, and a ruling can come down soon. If you value your life, you will try to stop that ruling from being an affirmation of the dismissal. Once the dismissal happens, Gallop’s case, with its amazing insights into 9/11, will be legally barred from being adjudicated. It will be like Jim Garrison’s JFK case. “So near and yet so far.…”

I am not sure exactly what either of the authors thought they can do to "stop that ruling". Are they planning on kidnapping the families of the judges or something? Regardless, as Pat pointed out yesterday, the decision has already been made. Her case was not only thrown out but Gallop and her lawyers are being threatened with legal sanctions for bringing such a frivolous suit before the court.

Wow, with cutting edge research like this, I don't know why they haven't blown the lid off of 9/11 already.

Gallop's Appeal Dismissed

No particular surprise here, the appellate court found the case as nutty as the original judge:

We hold that the District Court did not err in concluding that Gallop’s claims were frivolous, and affirm the dismissal of her complaint. In addition, Gallop’s counsel are ordered to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38, 28 U.S.C. ' 1927, and the inherent power of this Court.

Better still, the court notes that the appeal itself was frivolous and threatens Gallop and her lawyers with having to pay the costs of defending against her suit:

Accordingly, Gallop and her counsel are hereby ordered to show cause in writing within thirty days from the date of entry of this order why they should not pay double costs and damages in the amount of $15,000, for which they would be jointly and severally liable, under Rule 38, 28 U.S.C. ' 1927, and the inherent power of this Court.

I like this background:

As the sentient world well recalls, on the morning of September 11, 2001, “agents of the al Qaeda terrorist organization hijacked commercial airplanes and attacked the World Trade Center in New York City and the national headquarters of the Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia.”

As compared to the non-sentient world the Troofers inhabit.

Update: Forgot the hat tip to LashL, the JREF goddess of legal infotainment.

April's Case Gallops Ahead

Here's an update from her lawyers:

Judge Cabranes asked Veale what had happened to the airplane, if, as the lawsuit suggests, it did not hit the Pentagon? Veale asked in response, “How would I know?”. The implied criticism of the irony that a lawyer who has been denied the ability to use the power of subpoena to learn the truth would be chided for not having an answer to the key to the unraveling of the entire conspiracy seemed to be lost on the judge. And the judge gave no sign that he was familiar with the details of the allegations in the Complaint concerning conflicts between the flight path of American 77 according to the NTSB and that same flight path according to the 9/11 Commission, or the scrubbing of the radar tracks of the area at the time of the attacks, or of the counter-intuitive strategy of the suicidal hijacker who chose NOT to kill 20,000 occupants of the building AND Secretary Rumsfeld, but instead flew into a sparsely occupied and recently reinforced section of the building that resulted in 125 deaths including only one flag officer, if one is to accept the government’s version.

Classic Trutherism; never mind that appeal courts are places where you discuss whether the law was properly applied in the case and not the facts.

Update: Richard Gage's Testicles posts the motion to dismiss Judge Walker from the appeal on the basis that he's a cousin of George Bush. You gotta love this part:

2. I am informed and believe that Judge Walker, assigned to the panel that will hear the oral argument in this appeal on April 5th, 2011 in New Haven, Connecticut, is a cousin of former President George W. Bush and of individuals named Wirt D. Walker III, and Marvin Bush.

And then this:

7. I am informed and believe that Wirt D. Walker III is a cousin of former President George Bush. He is either a cousin or a brother of Judge Walker who has been assigned to hear this appeal.

Which is it?

April Gallop Back in Court?

I was a bit surprised to see this recent article, since I had thought that her previous suit was dismissed, with prejudice, but I am not a lawyer, so I suppose she could still appeal it. They get practically nothing right, including referring to a Specialist (E-4) as a career Army officer, while she is neither.

Top Secret Military Specialist April Gallop saw disturbing things up close that have not been reported in the media.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, she was ordered by her supervisor to go directly to work at the Pentagon, before dropping off her ten-week-old son Elisha at day care.

Amazingly, the infant was given immediate security clearance upon arrival.

The instant Gallop turned on her computer an enormous explosion blew her out of her chair, knocking her momentarily unconscious.

Escaping through the hole reportedly made by Flight 77, she saw no signs of an aircraft – no seats, luggage, metal, or human remains. Her watch (and other clocks nearby) had stopped at 9:30-9:31 a.m., seven minutes before the Pentagon was allegedly struck at 9:38 a.m.

The 9/11 Commission reported that "by no later than 9:18 a.m., FAA centers in Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Washington were aware that Flight 77 was missing and that two aircraft had struck the World Trade Center."

Why then were there no anti-aircraft defenses, Gallop asks, or alarm warnings inside the Pentagon?

In addition to such bizarre statements, such as how her infant child received a security clearance (at least the background check would be short) they claim they will present an abundant amount of evidence, but appeals courts decide matters of law, not of fact.

On April 5th, 2011, at 11 a.m., at the Federal Courthouse at 141 Church Street in New Haven, Connecticut, the case of Gallop v. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Myers will be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

Gallop's case relies on virtually all forms of evidence admissible in court, but significantly, on published scientific evidence that residues of these explosives were found in the rubble after the attacks. In its totality the proffered case establishes that the government hypothesis – that the buildings collapsed due to fire in combination with the airplane impacts – is scientifically untenable.

Perhaps someone more familiar with this legal process could weigh in?

Well, Under That Standard the Entire Truth Movement is Frivolous

April Gallop's lawsuit got laughed out of court today. This of course would be no surprise to anybody who's been reading this blog; both James and I covered some of the problems with the lawsuit here and here. But the judge in the case went right to what the lawyers refer to as the res of the matter:


Or, as Google puts it aptly:

Robin Hordon Sabotages April Gallop's Lawsuit

With the freakiest affidavit I've ever read.

I, Robin Dirk Hordon, declare, under the penalty of perjury:

That I am a former Air Traffic Controller [ATC] who worked at the Boston ARTCC [Air Route Traffic Control Center] located in Nashua, NH; and further, that I worked the specific airspace in which American Airlines flight Eleven [AA11] went off course and showed signs of an in-flight emergency before being considered a hijacked aircraft on September 11, 2001.

Note that he does not specify when he was an ATC; the answer is during the Carter and first Reagan Administration. Note as well the curious focus on AA11 in that opening paragraph. Do I have to mention that AA11 has nothing to do with the Pentagon attack, which is the focus of Gallop's lawsuit?

Hordon, like all "Truthers" uses alleged only when referring to non-controversial aspects of 9-11:

...an 85-88-minute delay in scrambling/intercept response for UA93 before its alleged crash (or its shootdown) in Shanksville, PA.

According to the U.S. Military and the FBI, the eastbound high-speed target eventually noticed by Danielle O’Brien as it entered her airspace at Dulles Tower-Potomac TRACON was AA77, based upon hard evidence allegedly found at the Pentagon crash site.

At any rate, with friends like these, April Gallop has no need for enemies

Maybe April Gallop is a Fire-Walker!

My favorite thread at Truth Action continues to provide amusement. After the momentary diversion into "I've got Pat Curley's home address", we learn the suspicious thing that chek NI has figured out:

I'm adding a pic of two images we are probably all reasonably familiar with - one of the famous gatehouse frames, and another found on Jim Hoffman's 911 Research, known to be taken before any fire suppression measures had begun after the strike.

My purpose in starting this thread was and is not to cause disruption/insult anyone's intelligence/stamp on anybody's bunions, but rather to reconcile in my own mind the yawning chasm of mystery between these images and April Gallop's now very topical testimony.

Which to remind everybody, included exiting barefoot and carrying her infant son from her exploded office less than 50ft from the alleged impact out through the hole and onto the lawn. Without being burned or seeing any fire or aircraft wreckage.

Here's are the photos he points to:

Given that an awful lot of people have admitted not taking much interest in the Pentagon issue, then they just might have found some slight incongruity between those photos of the alleged actual strike and those infernos that they've "all seen 5000 times before" and the testimony of a living, law-suit bringing witness who walked out of that exact location with a different story.

I would hope that it rocks some cognitively dissonant little socks off.

Yes! They have proven the "official story" can't be true! The fires weren't there! It was secretly just a tiny, oxygen-starved fire. All the eyewitnesses work for the government and won't get their pensions if they admit it! So when one of the other morons over there says "What's your point? Is April lying or were the fires faked?", the response is:

For some strange reason, you left out out the most obvious:

Yet another of the many occasions when the sophisticated 911 Cover Up Myth aka the OCT fails to match up with what actually happened.

Translation: I'm just asking questions! But Stefan the British troofer has a scenario:

What if there was more than one device used inside the Pentagon, and that these did not go off in synchrony, but over a period of time? Perhaps they were meant to and it didn’t go to plan, perhaps that was the way it was planned, who knows? And perhaps the fires were not started by the first explosion, but by the second or even the third?

That would of course explain how April was able to leave the building without being burned to a crisp, but is there any evidence for a second explosion, after the first yet before the larger collapse of the outer face?

And the new guy Daniel is thrilled:

Excellent piece of detective work, Stefan. Seems very reasonable to me. This is exactly the kind of invaluable collaborative work that can result from the efforts of many hardworking and reasonable open-minded citizen investigators working together to collectively seek the truth that I like to see this network being used for.

Yes indeed, it is a much better explanation than that she did not go out through the main part of the fire, but in the confusion and shock she remembers things inexactly.

Maybe our commenter anonymous is right and we're wasting our time covering the chess match at the Special Olympics. Not without its amusement value, but we really don't need to add the laugh track.

Update: Truthmover is suspicious:

Very revealing!

Do a search for "April Gallup" or "April Gallup" + "William Veale" or "April Gallup" + 9/11. What do you find?

Answer: You find those sites that are too stupid to spell Ms Gallop's name correctly.

Dylan Avery and April Gallop on the Pentagon Defenses

Apparently April Gallop will be appearing in Loose Change version 4, as Dylan is quoting interviews with her over at his forum, and using her to attack me:

Going through our interview with April Gallop, and a few lines immediately jumped out.

Btw, this is a rush transcript. Don't hate on the grammar.

---

APRIL DAWN GALLOP

I was quite surprised. You have to know that you know then you get integrated at the Pentagon you repeatedly told that this is one of safest buildings in all of the United States of America. So you know, I was in a location were I believe that if anything was gonna happen, you know nothing was ever gonna happened there. You know so you have that extra sense of security while working there that whatever you were doing that you were safe.

APRIL DAWN GALLOP

So again, I’m thinking you know, here we are believed that this was one of the safest places in all United States of America…and not one mechanism was working on that day. I mean what is the probability that nothing was working on that particular day. What about, you know, the defense system that was surrounding the building. What about the satellites that surrounded the building were supposed to be able to zoom in on particular places if it’s necessary and how all of a sudden on this particular day, this was able to happen. We were able to be attacked, so it led me to ask particular questions and to really try to get an understanding of what happened. You know, why did it happen and then those questions led to more questions.

APRIL DAWN GALLOP

We go to this briefing when you’re integrated. It is called reception integration when you come to the Pentagon and you do get a tour. And, you know, one of the most common statement is “This is one of the safest buildings in this world.” And so you wonder how on one particular day no mechanism, safety mechanism, alert mechanism, was functioning on one particular day in a building that you believe is one of the safest buildings in the United States. How in the world, you know, they said it was a plane I wasn’t outside, I didn’t see it but you wonder with the nature of the safety mechanisms, the things that they have to protect the building, how in the world that it get close enough to hit the building and we not be alerted, not warned. You know, the World Trade Center had already been hit, no get on stand by, nothing. Nothing.

---

And then I stumble upon this article...There Are No Missile Defenses at the Pentagon by James Bennett, a person who, as far as I can tell, has never set foot in the building, and is relying upon Google.

Here's a good one:

"no reliable source has ever reported the existence of any type of anti-aircraft defenses at the Pentagon on 9/11, and those claiming that they exist can provide no proof, or even anything beyond vague speculation as to what and where they are."

--

-So, now the question I pose to James Bennett, Mark Roberts et al is:April Gallop. Honest 9/11 victim, or woman with an agenda? Remember, you laud the importance of the victims and how much you care about them.

The logical fallacy employed in arguing that there were weapons at the Pentagon is commonly known known as "argument from incredulity". People cannot understand how there could not be anti-aircraft weapons at the Pentagon, "It is the safest building in the world" and therefore that somehow proves they are there. Note that Dylan does not address a single argument that I make in a rather detailed 11 page paper, other than to express mocking disbelief.

To answer Dylan's question, no I don't believe Ms. Gallop has "an agenda". I do believe, however, that she has been quite traumatized by the horrible events she has had to witness, and is searching hard for a way to explain how this could have happened. She cannot emotionally accept that she has been a random victim of this tragedy. She is not, however, a military expert with secret inside knowledge. Her answers on this subject, both here, and in the interview I cite in my paper are inconsistent and bizarre, especially the comment about "satellites that surround the building". My heart goes out to her, but being a victim does not somehow embue someone with infallibility or omniscience.

Notice that other than vague comments about how it is the "safest building in the world" (would you expect them to tell new employees something else) she still has not specifically said that there are anti-aircraft missiles at the Pentagon, nor described them in any manner, so the quote from my paper that Dylan cites is still 100% accurate.

As for Dylan's quip about whether I have visited the Pentagon, no, I have not had the opportunity to be that close to the flagpole. I am not sure what difference this makes though, as hundreds of thousands of people have visited the Pentagon, and nobody has ever described seeing any anti-aircraft weapons of any kind. Would my visit be the one that somehow reveals this carefully hidden secret? I am willing to bet that I know a lot more about the military than Dylan does, or even SPC Rowe, the guy who claimed that the Pentagon attack could have been carried out by a shoulder launched anti-tank missile.