Jon Gold's Other Video

I'm flabbergasted that Jon posted this video himself.



I guess he thinks Steve comes off poorly here, but of course to any sane person he comes off as a diligent member of the working press at what was billed as a press conference but became a pep rally. I am astounded that Jon, who I believe is Jewish, couldn't see what a favor Stephen and I did the Truthers by exposing the story of Eric William's involvement in the conference three weeks before it took place, so they could get rid of him. Instead, of course, they kept him on behind the scenes and even invited him up onto the stage the last night in a show of unity. (One video that I am sure will never be released; even Jon's not that stupid.)

The video turns into a Blair Gadsby tribute halfway through. Now who's associating Truthers with Holocaust Deniers?

The Truthers don't need debunking. All you have to do is shine a spotlight on them and they'll self-debunk.

Hat Tip: Walter Ego

The Bird Soars

Our buddy Stephen Lemons is back with an article on Karen Johnson and Blair Gadsby. It's an absolute delight with laugh-out-loud passages like this:

Enter Republiloon Karen Johnson, state senator from Mesa, who, to cadge a phrase from the Bird's debunking pal Pat Curley of the blog Screw Loose Change, went full woo last month with two error-riddled op-eds — one in the Arizona Republic, the other in the East Valley Tribune. This crazy old bag, who's retiring from the Arizona Senate this year to let anti-Hispanic a-hole Russell Pearce run for her seat, barfed forth more whoppers in those two pieces than a bulimic at Burger King.

Great stuff!

The Bird On Gadsby

Our longtime buddy Stephen Lemons has some thoughts on the 9-11 "Truth" Diet.

I for one hope that Gadsby is successful in his hunger strike. Nah, I don't want him to get any time with McCain. I want him to starve! And as he does so, I'd like to be there, noshing on some Chinese takeout. Plus if Gadsby keels over from lack of sustenance, maybe his students will get a replacement religion prof who has a PhD and is not a complete fruitcake. Hey, dare to dream, people.

As I've pointed out in the past, WTC 7 is a foolish focus for the "Truthers", because it takes too long a chain of an argument:

Truther: WTC 7 proves 9-11 was an inside job.
Debunker: How so?
Truther: Because it came down in a controlled demolition.
Debunker: So what? The fear that the building would collapse was impeding rescue efforts in the towers, so maybe they brought down the building.
Truther: No, it takes months to rig a building for controlled demolition.
Debunker: So they couldn't have done it? Is that what you're saying?
Truther: No, I'm saying that they did do it. They set it up months in advance.
Debunker: And nobody noticed this? But let's grant your point for a second. What's the big deal? Nobody died in WTC 7, so what does it matter?
Truther: But if WTC 7 was a controlled demolition, then the towers must have been controlled demolitions too!
Debunker: Okay, so what you're really trying to prove is that the towers were controlled demolitions, and the reason you know this is that another building was a controlled demolition? Why do the collapses of the two towers look nothing like the collapse of WTC 7?
Truther: Because they were a different kind of controlled demolition!

The Word from the Bird

Our buddy Steve Lemons checks in with a column on Arizona's nutbar supreme, State Senator Karen S. Johnson.

Like you needed more proof that state Senator Karen Johnson is nuttier than Paula Abdul, Tom Cruise and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright combined, the Mesa Republitard recently appeared on Texas conspiracy king Alex Jones' radio show, fawning after the crackpot AM a-hole like a gushing schoolgirl and signing on to nearly every conspiracy theory since the assassination of Lincoln.

:)

If only I could write like he can. Savor it!

Why, Some of My Best Friends are Terrorists

Get this rather original response to Stephen Lemons' portrait of Screw Loose Change and me:

It was nice knowing you: Your appalling portrait of pro-Republican Fox News lover Pat Curley is disgusting ("The Yoda of 9/11," Stephen Lemons, August 9). Comparing him to Yoda from Star Wars? When all of your personal rights have been diminished in fear of the "so-called" terrorists maybe you will understand. Ask yourself, how many terrorists have you met? But yet we all should live in fear? I hope you continue to move toward truth, and for now, I choose to move away from your publication. Tell Ted Turner I said hello.

Kevin Jones, Phoenix

Offhand I can think of about 2,996 people who had never met a terrorist as of about 8:11 in the morning on 9-11-01 who were about to have that experience. None of them will have another opportunity to meet anybody.

The Bird Takes On Griffin

Hmmm, is that the bird against a half-bird, half lion? Anyway, Stephen Lemons, whose cover story on this blog last week thrilled us, takes a good whacking stick to the posterior of David Ray Griffin:

Griffin's Debunking 9/11 Debunking is all about ego. I'm looking to get hold of an electronic copy, so the number of times Griffin uses the first person pronoun "I" can be counted. Griffin's latest is weirdly self-referential and, um, self-reverential. He takes debunking tracts to task for not including him into their arguments. Why, the mere fact that an intellect of his stature has taken up the 9/11 conspiracy cause, should be proof enough that there's some validity in all this troofer wombattery, eh?

Highly recommended! Steve did a lot of research on the cover story that due to space and/or narrative constraints could not make it into the print edition. It looks like he's going to release that information via his blog.

Rosie O'Donnell Harassed by 9-11 Deniers?

She may be beginning to see the downside of associating herself with these wackjobs:

A 9/11 truth organization supporting and attempting to speak with Rosie O'Donnell about her recent comments regarding the September 11 attacks outside the ABC studios were harassed and intimidated by New York City police, a scene that caused O'Donnell to prematurely leave.

O'Donnell has been attacked by Neo-Con webzines over the last few days but completely ignored by the corporate media for controversial comments questioning the official 9/11 story.

Police were out in force to harass a group of about twenty 9/11 truth movement activists, led by Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change, telling them to take down signs, turn off video cameras and cell phones, checking ID's and taking information - despite the fact that they were simply news gathering and exercising their first amendment.

Nico has more on the bizarre scene:

After a few unsuccessful attempts at the lobby entries on opposite sides of the building, finally at around 11:30 AM, 911tvfakery.net was able to get a DVD with 100 of the best 9/11 Video MashUps (incl. evidence on 9/11 TV Fakery) personally delivered to O'Donnell with help of "Freddie", a flower delivery guy, who sticked the DVD and a leaflet into a flower buquet present for Rosie and promised to hand it over...

The only thing that could make this better is if Rosie becomes a no-planer!

911tvfakery.net arrived at 9:00 AM and tried already to hand out leaflets to the waiting audience, with mixed reactions. At around 9:30 AM the local ny911 activist group around Luke Rudkowski, R Rod and Tom Foti arrived at the spot and started to deliver their leaflest and DVDS as well (911bloglines reported).

The group incl. NY911Truth and CHANGE members also tried to deliver a DVD, leaflets and a T-Shirt Birthday Present to Rosie O'Donell, but got rejected several times by security.

At around 10:00 AM ABC7 decided to call the police. 3 cars then joined the peaceful protest group, always switching between two doors of the lobbies.

Apprx. 30-40 Protestors chanted "9/11 was an Inside Job", "Stop the 9/11 Cover-Up- join Rosie's View" or sang "Happy Birthday to you, Rosie". The protest was succesfully organized withy enough leaflets, banners and DVDs.

Update: Stephen Lemons has more thoughts on Rosie.

Update II: Greg Gutfeld checks in here. Damien Penny has some good news for Ro.

Update III: Ron (Pomeroo) Wieck was there and reports (in the comments):

I made the mistake of attending the gathering of tinfoil-hatters who celebrated Rosie O'Donnell's birthday and her second coming-out-of-the-closet, this time as a 911 fantasist.

Nico Haupt was there. I asked him if he was himself or one of his impersonators. He is pretty affable and was kind enough to sort out the various factions that have emerged in Twooferdom. Somewhat ungraciously, I had made a remark about "no-planer no-brainers," and was reminded that he does not believe that commercial airliners struck the WTC, the images seared into the memories of milllions of viewers being examples of "video fakery." Again displaying my characteristic tactlessness, I commented that the thousands of New Yorkers who actually watched the second plane hit from the street and their office windows know that he isn't telling the truth. He muttered something about conflicting eyewitness accounts and liars, at which point our conversation trailed off.

The rest of the small crowd (twenty or so) contained the usual loons. These strange people cling tenaciously to their thoroughly debunked factoids, each having his or her particular favorite. One guy swallows Fetzer's nonsensical fable about the "missing" 2.3 trillions dollars. I tried explaining that there's nothing to debate: he could simply read Rumsfeld's speech for himself. But he didn't want to be confused. An attractive young woman is firmly convinced that Osama continues to deny any involvement in the attacks of 9/11. Another guy said that the suspicious trading in airline stocks proves that it was an inside job. Several believe that demolition experts are incapable of recognizing a top-down demolition. And two or three of them went on and on about the molten "steel."

Mark Roberts has made it his mission to hurl facts at some of the hardest heads since the heyday of Jake LaMotta. He has more stamina than I. The whole phenomenon is amazing--and very sad.

Deniers Try to Dig Up Dirt on Stephen Lemons

This is actually pretty funny. Turns out the kooks are trying to get Stephen Lemons fired. Utilizing their usual crack (pipe) investigative skills, they discovered that one Stephen Lemons of Clinton, Massachusetts had recently served 3.5 years for molesting a 15-year-old boy. Of course, to the 9-11 Deniers, there could only be one Stephen Lemons in the world. That the Stephen Lemons in question looks nothing like our guy (for starters, he appears to be 20 years older or so) is a mere bagatelle, a distraction to throw them off the scent. That the Massachusetts pervert story is from January 29, 2007, and that our man penned his initial column on Eric D. Williams' Holocaust Denial on February 1, 2007 simply shows that he had his escape to Phoenix planned well beforehand.

Failing in this, the Deniers have taken to writing letters to the editor regarding his treatment of Bob McIlvaine, the father of a 9-11 victim, but that isn't going to work either.

BTW, on the subject of people with the same names, an emailer sent me some information that seems pertinent in this regard. Turns out there are at least two Mohammed Attas living in Norway, one in Sweden, and astoundingly five in the United States. Boy, it must suck to have that name here in the USA!

Both Sides Now

Our buddy the Bird reports further on his weekend with the Deniers:

Santa Claus-bearded geezer Jim Marrs, who could pass for a cross between Wilford Brimley and Windfall Willie (the mascot of the AZ lottery), came to Williams' defense.

"Can I lay this to rest right now?" tweeted Marrs. "Eric Williams is right here. Did people get killed in World War II as a result of state policy?" he inquired of the Holocaust denier.

Williams replied in the affirmative. To the heavily mustachioed Marrs, that ended the matter.

But as the taloned one continued his queries, the crowd grew restless with demands that this bluebird be booted. That'd be The Bird they wanted tossed, not the adored Sir Eric, who wrote a vile volume asserting there were no mass executions via gas chambers at Auschwitz. How ironic, since The Bird was the only member of the working media present.

Eventually, the pep rally turned ugly for this feathered fiend, to the extent that a security guard forced The Bird to leave the hall. Therefore, for a few minutes, there was no press at the press conference. How, um, de-press-ing! Sanity prevailed in the form of Philadelphia lawyer Phil Berg, the moderator for the event. Berg came outside and instructed that this journalistic jaybird be let back in. He then told the crowd that members of the working media (that would be moi) must be given deference, since (ahem!) it was a press conference, after all. The Bird was allowed to interrogate the panelists unmolested after that.

As you can see, Stephen really has a way with words; his column is definitely one to savor. Let me add too that Berg was quite sensible in allowing him to ask a little more than his share of questions, seeing as how he was the only real MSM representative at the confab. And he even kindly deferred to me on one question, which allowed me to have my little fracas with Uncle Fetzer (not that the Bird didn't have his own tussle with the McKnight prof, as you'll see if you read the entire article).

Devvy Kidd was also at the conference, but her quarrels were more along political lines:

On Saturday morning I attended a networking/political action workshop. After fifteen minutes I wanted to simply gag. Although I'm sure it will be denied, there was a whole lot of socialism being pushed at that conference. The instructor was a very nice lady, but her presentation, using an overhead projector, was all about social action, collectivism, working together for human rights around the world, workers rights; an endless laundry list. I'm sorry, but I have spent the past 17 years studying world history (not the bunk one gets in the public indoctrination centers called public schools or from the boob tube), but actual events. This includes understanding socialism, communism, fascism and delivery systems for these ideologies, i.e., specific dialect. I saw no reason for this type of activism to be a focus of networking to bring facts about 911 to other Americans. As Phil Berg pointed out in his flyer available to attendees: "Accountability = responsibility and that we must unite and move forward on points that we agree with and put aside our differences." That's why I was turned off with the inserting of social causes from "progressives" into this conference. It was distracting and will push people away who understand the game and how it's played.

She has somewhat of a different take on Stephen's performance at the Pep Rally--err, press conference:

Instead of reporters and media attendees asking a question and the panel returning with a response, virtually without exception, questions from the media "gallery" was endless proselytizing for their favorite cause or complaining that organizations like MoveOn.org and Cindy Sheehan have refused to join with them in the effort to get accountability regarding the events of September 11, 2001. It was quite nauseating and some of the panel members fell for it instead of simply providing crisp, concise and clear answers to questions that only arrived after endless speeches. One local reporter in attendance disrupted the press conference for a full 30 minutes by repeatedly insisting one of the organizers was "anti-Semitic." Apparently, local media were comparing those attending this conference to holocaust deniers.

This is a dodge that I've seen over at 9-11 Blogger too. For the last time, we are not accusing all 9-11 Truthers of being Holocaust Deniers. That would be almost as stupid as some of the things you guys come up with. What we are saying is that if you hang out with Holocaust Deniers, we're going to point out your obvious lack of critical thinking skills. We're going to use that against you every single time, because it's a whole lot easier than arguing whether the hijackers are alive, and it moves large quantities of folks off the fence to our side very quickly.

One thing they both agree on is Phil Berg:

I also had the pleasure of meeting Phil Berg; see here for his latest. Media hacks who get paid to promote the government's fairy tale will call people like Mr. Berg a crack pot or lunatic. Funny, I didn't get that impression from this former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania.

I'm not a big fan of Berg myself, but he handled himself extremely well at the press conference. Speaking of which, Devvy reminds me of something particularly loony that one of the supposed "press" members suggested:

During the press conference one media rep gave his speech and then said that "they" (never did find out who "they" are) intend to shut down every major freeway in this country early next year.

You want to see Troofers getting their heads handed to them, just try this freeway shutdown.

Eric Williams Still In, Loose Change Out At 9-11 Accountability?

James reported yesterday that Dylan Avery announced on the Alex Jones show that he would not be appearing for the 9-11 Accountability Conference. The Louder than Words crew reveal a bit more in their press release today:

Louder Than Words LLC will no longer be able to participate in the upcoming 9/11 Accountability Conference in Arizona on February 23rd - 25th, due to the involvement of Eric D. Williams who has authored a book promoting Holocaust denial, entitled "The Puzzle Of Auschwitz."

Louder Than Words LLC does not associate in any way with Holocaust denial groups, hate groups, or fringe conspiracy theory groups of any kind. We regret not being able to attend, and this does not reflect in any way our passion for seeking the truth regarding 9/11.

We apologize to anyone who was anticipating our presence.

First of all, kudos to Dylan, Korey and Jason for making this announcement. They did the right thing.

Second, this apparently confirms what Stephen Lemons has reported at the New Times, that Williams is still involved behind the scenes.

Dylan confirms it on the Looser forum:

Eric is still attached to the conference. And apparently Kevin Barret has made some off-color remarks concerning the Holocaust as well. It's a very unfortunate situation for all involved.

Dingdingding! We have a winner in our "Can you guess who said this contest":

Begin forwarded message:
From: Khidria
Date: December 14, 2005 11:08 AM : Dec 14
To: Mark Robinowitz
Subject: Fwd: Holocaust Fundamentalism - You WILL Believe--By Mark Green

However one feels about Green's perspective, and whatever the facts about WWII, it seems tragic that systematic Zionist Big Lies (we just want a homeland, not our own state; the Arabs started it; it was a land without people for a people without land; the Germans hated Jews for no reason whatsoever, just like the Arabs do now; the Palestinians left voluntarily in 1948 under orders of the Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem; most of the so-called Palestinians were not really from Palestine; the Arabs started the 1967 war; allegations of disproportionate Jewish influence in the American academic, media and financial sectors are false and anti-Semitic; the attack on the Liberty was a mistake; the Iraq war is about democracy or Saddam or US security or Peak Oil or anything except Israel, etc. etc.) have cast legitimate doubt upon ANYTHING Jews say about Jews and their recent history, including the Holocaust. As a rational person who is not a specialist in the subject of WWII, but who has studied the history of Zionist Big Lies vis-a-vis Palestine, I cannot possibly dismiss the arguments of people like Green, Irving, and even Zundel. And even if the 6-million-deliberately-murdered-for-purely-ethnic-reasons figure is correct--which it very well may be; I have grown agnostic on that after studying the Big Lies of Zionism-- I would still have to characterize the Holocaust as it is taught in the US as a hideously destructive myth. (A myth is a sacred, worldview-inaugurating story its users believe to be true.)
The upshot: nobody in the debate should be boycotted or vilified; nobody should be arrested for expressing honestly-held opinions; all voices should be heard; and the destructive myths and mind-numbing censorship imposed by Zionism must be swept clean so an honest assessment of history can emerge--at which point the Holocaust revisionists may very well be proven incorrect. And even if they are, they obviously should not be harassed or vilified, much less jailed!!
In the meantime, voices like Green and AFPN should be heard and subjected to rational criticism, not vilified or silenced. And the use of state power to enforce Holocaust Fundamentalism must end!
Kevin

Big hat tip to JREFer Maccy.

Update: But in news that may save the conference, Jim Fetzer has now agreed to appear on the "Scholars United" Panel.

Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

Update II: See also the Feathered Bastard's post on this.