Is Jim Fetzer a Nazi, or Just Stupid?

Yesterday I posted an interview with Jim Fetzer in which he (falsely) claimed that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and Popular Mechanics editor Benjamin Chertoff of being cousins, based off the neo-Nazi newspaper, the American Free Press. A reader pointed out in the comments that he also accused Michael Chertoff of having dual American-Israeli citizenship, based off, you guessed it, another article in the American Free Press.

The AFP website is down (thankfully) but here is a link to a mirror of the article:

CONTROLLED PRESS CONCEALS CHERTOFF'S ISRAELI ROOTS
By Christopher Bollyn
Exclusive to American Free Press

Michael Chertoff, the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, was approved in a 98-0 vote in the U.S. Senate without the question of his Israeli roots and nationality being raised.

On February 15, 2005, Michael Chertoff, an apparent dual national with Israeli roots, was sworn in as the second Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The new "homeland security czar," who oversees the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, seems to be hiding his own dual-national status all with the cooperation of the controlled press.

On what does he base this? Well, his mother worked in Israel for a while.

The omission of Chertoff's mother's Zionist past suggests that there is an effort by the media to conceal his ties to Israel and his status as a "de jure" Israeli national, by birth.

Under Israeli law, a child born to an Israeli citizen, including children born outside of Israel as first generation out of Israel, is considered an Israeli citizen. The child remains an Israeli national until he or she formally renounces their Israeli nationality.

Even worse (gasp) his mother was a flight attendent:

Chertoff was born on November 28, 1953 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to the New York-born Rabbi Gershon Baruch Chertoff and Livia Eisen, the first hostess for El Al, Israel's state-owned airlines, founded in 1948.

Then Bollyn suggests a newspaper coverup, even though he admits that he isn't even sure of Chertoff's mother's citizenship:

Even in 1998, however, The Star-Ledger was vague about Livia's nationality. "Born in Poland, Mrs. Chertoff lived in Palestine and Elizabeth before moving to Florida several years ago," it wrote.

Israel's citizenship law of 1952 says: "Any Jew who immigrated to Israel before July 14, 1952, was granted citizenship after declaring a desire to reside permanently in Israel." As El Al's first hostess, Livia probably held Israeli citizenship.

The article gets even stupider from there. This whole thing is silly though, because even if Chertoff had "dual citizenship" even Bollyn doesn't claim it was based on anything he did. He never applied for it, lived there, or even intended to live there. His mom worked there as a flight attendent. Although I suppose for a Nazi, that is enough to condemn you.

This is perfectly legal based on US law incidently:

A U.S. citizen may acquire foreign citizenship by marriage, or a person naturalized as a U.S. citizen may not lose the citizenship of the country of birth.U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship. However, a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship.

Perhaps you are saying, James, I think the American Free Press is stupid, but aren't you a little over the top in calling it "neo-Nazi"? Well, that is a good question. Let's do a little research, since we know Uncle Fetzer won't.

The American Free Press was founded by a man named Willis Carto. Willis Carto also started a site called The Barnes Review. Here is a sample article from the Barnes Review. No, this is not a satire.







Christopher Bollyn has appeared on David Duke's radio show several times. And look, if you go to David Duke's website, look who all appears in his "links" section.

Links
Duke Radio Archive
The Council of Conservative Citizens
Stormfront Forum
The Truth at Last - Dr. Ed Fields\' website
American Free Press
E.U.R.O. - European American
Unity & Rights Organization
National Vanguard
American Renaissance
The Barnes Review
The Occidental Quarterly
The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) Noontide Press

Well I am glad "Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Duluth" Jim Fetzer, only uses sources of the highest unimpeachable character.

Jesse Ventura Interviewed by Holocaust-Denying, Hate-Mongering Paper

Coming off his guest-hosting Larry King Live, Jesse the Nutbar Ventura was interviewed by American Free Press.

The straight-talking Ventura had just finished filling in for CNN’s Larry King Live as a guest host when he spoke with this AFP writer. Notably, Ventura had Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) as one of the guests on the show the evening of April 9. Another was “defrocked” former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich who, despite harboring more liberal views than Paul, concurred with the Texas congressman on several matters, particularly Paul’s insistence that the United States end its interventionist foreign policy that is a factor in bankrupting the nation.

What is American Free Press? Those who've been reading this blog for awhile know its a publication by Holocaust Denier Willis Carto:

In 2001, after years of stalling and legal wrangling in an attempt to shield his assets from seizure, Carto was ordered by the courts to relinquish control of Liberty Lobby and The Spotlight and to vacate his long held Liberty Lobby offices in Washington, D.C. Soon after, Carto did shutter The Spotlight (its last edition was July 2, 2001). However, a month later, Carto and former staffers of The Spotlight created yet another newspaper, American Free Press. Today, the Press carries stories on Zionism, secret "New World Order" conspiracies, American Jews and Israel. Mixed in are advertisements for outfits like Pete Peter's Scriptures for America and Kingdom Identity Ministries — practitioners of Christian Identity, a theology that claims that Jews are the biological descendants of Satan.

We've talked extensively about the American Free Press in the past, including its former 9-11 CT reporter (and current fugitive) Christopher Bollyn.

Why on Earth is Jesse Ventura palling around with a neo-Nazi publication? According to the interview, the Conspiracy Theory show he hosts on TruTV has been picked up for another ten episodes:

While the former Navy Seal who became a high-profile independent Minnesota governor would love to specify the 10 topics, he was not yet fully at liberty to reveal what they are, though he did say one is about the shooting of John F. Kennedy. “Initially there were seven episodes; now they’re ordering 10 more,” he stated in an upbeat manner, while noting that some decisions still have to be made on what will air and in what order.

“We have 20 conspiracies that we’ll have to pare down to 10. I’ll have to battle with the network, but in the end we’ll settle on 10 of them. They promised JFK. There is no pecking order at all.”

Is it too much to hope that Jesse will decide to do one on the Holocaust?

9/11 Deniers Attending Conference Sponsored by Extremist Anti-Semitic Groups

I posted earlier on the conspiracy theory conference that Dylan Avery announced he is attending this weekend, in the wake of cancelling from the 9/11 Accountability Conference because of the presence of one or more Holocaust deniers. In addition other 9/11 denial notables such as Kevin Barrett, Steven Jones, and Webster Tarpley are listed as speakers. I mentioned at the time that the conference was sponsored by a rather interesting group called the Freedom Law School, which seems to be dedicated to avoiding income taxes. I am afraid I underestimated just how extreme they are.

Upon further research it appears they are not just some fringe group, like a bunch of tax accountants on steroids, they are even on a list of "active patriot groups" compiled by the civil rights organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The SPLC has even done news reports on their previous conferences. Let's just say they have some interesting friends:

IRVINE, Calif. -- Peymon Mottahedeh adjusted the knot of his Statue of Liberty tie and smiled broadly as he surveyed the cacophonous conference room inside the Atrium Hotel. More than 200 attendees swarmed vendors' tables as they waited for the seventh annual "Health and Freedom" tax-protesters conference to begin last March. Peymon -- who is known in tax-protest circles by his first name only, like Madonna or Prince -- had good reason to smile. At $50 a head, "Health and Freedom" in 2006 represented another substantial payday for the organizer and emcee of the annual gathering of tax protesters, which in recent years has attracted a variety of extremist speakers including Hutton Gibson, actor Mel Gibson's father, and Holocaust denier Willis Carto, founder of the Institute for Historical Review.

Slick brochures for this year's conference promised to show attendees how to "Wipe the IRS off of Americans' lives!" and provide answers to burning questions like "Is the One-World Government Coming?" and "Are The FBI & CIA Harming Americans?"

Ahh, the usual mix of Holocaust deniers and anti-NWO paranoids. The neo-Nazis at the American Free Press appear to be quite well represented, from the same source:

The real action of the weekend took place during breaks between speakers, when eager crowds formed at nearly every vendor's table, transforming the conference into a virtual swap meet of extremist and conspiracy-theory wares. Willis Carto's American Free Press needed two display tables for its revisionist history books and back copies of the Holocaust-denial magazine Barnes Review, another Carto creation. Both tables were nearly emptied by Sunday afternoon.

This association with the AFP, which we have discussed plenty of times before, is obviously continuing, as who is one of their speakers this year?

WHAT DID THE MEDIA NOT TELL YOU?



Mark Anderson
Reporter with the American Free Press, the largest independent weekly paper in America will share the major News/Events of the Year that the Major Media did not tell you! /www.americanfreepress.net

In fact, on the brochure advertising this conference, the AFP is listed as a co-sponsor.

The connection between the Freedom Law Center and Holocaust deniers is more than just incidental, last year the head of the organization, Peymon Mottahedeh, spoke at a conference year which was co-sponsored by none other than the American Free Press and the Barnes Review, the Holocaust denying publication which, as you may recall, published an article saying that Hitler should have won a Nobel Peace Prize.

The SPLC is not the only civil rights group that considers them extremists, this very event is on a list of extremist events compiled by the Anti-Defamation League:

Friday, March 09, 2007 - Sunday, March 11, 2007
Irvine, California
"2007 Justice and Freedom Conference"
Conference focusing on government conspiracies, sponsored by the Freedom Law School, a tax protest group

So Dylan, are you going to stand by your previous policy of not associating with Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites, or is the pay too good for this event?

Nope, No Holocaust Deniers Here

A 9-11 Denier posts a little screed on how unfair it is that they are associated with Holocaust Deniers. Nothing could be further from the truth, says he:

Thirdly, I’ve never met a single truther that actually denied the Holocaust. Maybe some exist, but I haven’t found running any of the thousands of websites I’ve personally visited in trying to develop my own understanding of the events that took place on 9/11.

Well, let's take a look at the link between Holocaust Denial and 9-11 Denial, shall we? Eric Hufschmid was the first American to publish a book about 9-11 Troof, called Painful Questions, which was released in 2002. Eric might be called the godfather of the American 9-11 Truth Movement. And Eric is a Holocaust Denier.

We are told that the blue stains are proof that human beings were killed in this room by cyanide.

However, photos do not prove that people were killed in the room, or how many people, who which people, or why they were killed. Actually, photos do not prove the blue stains are from cyanide!

Even if the blue stains are from cyanide, there is no evidence that human beings were killed in that room. It may have been a disinfection chamber. Or maybe the room held chemicals, and the blue stains are due to splattering or leaky containers.

Eric Hufschmid's work was cited by David Ray Griffin in the New Pearl Harbor, and by Sofia Shafquat and Brad Waddell in 9-11 Mysteries. We shall return to Sofia later.

What about American Free Press? AFP was the single most-cited source in Loose Change 2nd Edition. From Wikipedia:

The American Free Press (AFP) is a weekly newspaper published in the United States. According to one former correspondent, the AFP's direct ancestor was the neo-nazi publication The Spotlight, which ceased publication in 2001 when its parent company, Liberty Lobby, was forced into bankruptcy.

The Liberty Lobby was founded by Willis Carto, who also founded the Institute for Historical Review.

Founded in 1979 by Liberty Lobby leader Willis Carto, the Institute for Historical Review (IHR) has spearheaded the international movement to deny the reality of the Holocaust. Though it broke with Carto and the Liberty Lobby network in 1993, to its own financial detriment, IHR remains the world's single most important outlet for Holocaust-denial propaganda.

One of the chief writers for American Free Press was Christopher Bollyn, currently a fugitive from justice. Bollyn, when asked about the Holocaust, wrote the following:

As I said, I have not seen at these three former camps any evidence of any large oven in which hundreds of people could be gassed or burned. Nor, have I seen any photographs or physical evidence of such an oven. I don't see how this could make me a denier of anything. One can only deny by refusing to acknowledge something that one has seen the evidence of. I have looked for the evidence of these huge gas chambers and crematoria and not found it in the places they are said to have existed. That does not make me a holocaust denier.

Bollyn's work is cited in several of David Ray Griffin's books, including Debunking 9-11 Debunking. Here's Bollyn collaborating with Professor Steven Jones:



One of the most famous 9-11 "Truthers" is Kevin Barrett, who was the first professor to incorporate 9-11 nuttery into a college-level course on Islam. Barrett wrote an email in which he slipped into Holocaust Denial:

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.

I talked earlier about Sofia Shafquat. Her movie, 9-11 Mysteries: Demolitions, is probably the second biggest hit flick among the Troofers, surpassed only by Loose Change. Sofia's buddy Brad Waddell narrates the beginning to 9-11 Mysteries and cites Eric Hufschmid as the person who turned him into a 9-11 Troofer. Sofia's website is currently marketing the DVD and Book of the Ernst Zundel Story. Ernst Zundel is a major figure in Holocaust Denial.

Note that this is before we talk about relatively minor figures in the 9-11 Troofy Troof Movement, like Eric D. Williams, or Nick Kollerstrom.

Hat Tip: You Might Know Who (in the comments)

The Company You Keep

Korey Rowe and Jason Bermas filled in recent for John Stadtmiller on the Republic Broadcasting Network. The interview itself was pretty boring, mostly Dumb and Dumber bragging about how awesome their movie is. Dylan Avery did call in at the end, apparently driving from the airport, just returning from his trip to Washington D.C. where he made the shocking discovery that there was a jetliner at the Pentagon. Wow, 5 years of investigating and they only now discover a fact that was established the first day. Of course now they have to come up with a wild and complicated explanation for how that plane didn't actually hit the Pentagon, and instead it was an A-3 Skywarrior/cruise missile/Javelin anti-tank missile/flying magic school bus.

They get off a couple of sarcastic remarks against Debunking 9/11 and Screw Loose Change (although it is not apparent whether they are talking about the blog or the movie), but the thing that really set me off, was yet another tie in to the Neo-Nazi American Free Press. They run a one minute ad for the AFP at the 32 minute mark, with the following ironic wording:

There is one, and only one, national populist news weekly, staffed by an unsurpassed team of veteran investigative news journalists who have dared to rip the veil of deception from the coverup news stories controlled by the big money monopolies. American Free Press. AFP's no-holds-barred journalists fearlessly seek the truth, no matter how controversial the issue. AFP publishes exciting indepth uncensored news information good patriotic Americans need to know to combat the coming police state being clamped on our republic. The American Free Press is your voice. Subscribe today and catch up on the real news! Mention RBN when you call and receive a one year subscription plus a copy of Michael Collins Piper's latest best-seller "The High Priests of War" all that for just $49. Call AFP toll free. 1-888-699- XXXX or visit americanfreepress.net.

They run the same ad during Jim Fetzer's weekly radio show "Non-Random Thoughts". So basically not only do key members of the 9/11 denial movement uncritically cite Neo-Nazi newspapers, but they benefit from their financial support of their radio shows to spread their propaganda.

And it is not like it requires in-depth investigative reporting to find out about these radical ties, all one needs to do is go to their website, like the ad asks you to. Here, for example is a a flier for the "AFP-TBR 2006 Free Speech Conference". TBR refers to "The Barnes Review". Hmm, where have we heard of them before?











They list the speakers for their conference, in the spirit of "in-depth investigative reporting", let's take a look and see who some of them are:















I have talked about what a fraud De Grand Pre is before. He even made the recent Popular Mechanics book, where they point out what a faker he is. He claims to be intimate friends with figures such as General Hugh Shelton, who when contacted by the magazine, never heard of him





















Who is "Historian Juergan Graf"? Well, here is a character reference for him.

My good friend, the scholar Juergen Graff, is in exile because he faces a two year prison sentence in Switzerland for his intellectual research and writing that historically challenges some areas of the Holocaust story.

The good friend that speaks of him, is none other than David Duke. I don't wish to link to him, so if you want to look it up, do a web search.

Udo Walendy is another prominent Holocaust denier, who has even served jail time in Germany as a result.

Willis Carto, the founder of the AFP we have already covered several times.

John Stadtmiller is the RBN radio host for whom Bermas and Rowe were filling in. This raises an interesting question, what is the connection between AFP and RBN?

Chrisopher Bollyn is of course the reporter for the AFP (do they have any others?) on whom Dylan Avery and Jim Fetzer base so many of their claims. He is most known recently, for being arrested, which he blamed on (who else?) the Jews.

Sorry if I am getting a bit repetitive on this subject, but these guys just disgust me.

Debunking 9/11 Myths

I read the new Popular Mechanics Debunking 9/11 Myths book over the weekend. It is pretty good. My biggest complaint is that it isn't very long, only about 200 pages. It doesn't unveil anything stunning, but it is well researched and provides an indepth analysis of certain areas. There are over 300 experts listed in the appendix, although they are strangely missing any theology or philosophy professors.

Speaking of which, the release of this book is obviously worrying some people, since Jim Fetzer is attacking it, without having read it, just like he did to the website 9/11 Myths. I guess this is what they call the "scientific method". Here is Fetzer being interviewed by Air America's Mike Newcomb:

Fetzer: I might want to add Mike, that there is a current effort to spread diisinformation. To revising and expanding [sic] a Popular Mechanics piece that appeared some time ago. It’s been thoroughly taken apart, dismantled by several studies on our website. But the point I want to make is this. Popular Mechanics was taken over, and the main researcher on Popular Mechanics debunking of 9/11 research was done by Benjamin Chertoff who is the cousin of Michael Chertoff our Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Which means that, you know, this guy who is deeply committed obviously to the government’s account. Michael Chertoff, I can’t understand has a joint citizenship, both Israeli and American. Why we would have someone in a vital position like that who has an obvious conflict of interest is beyond me.

Mike: Well…

Fetzer: This Popular Mechanic’s piece is nice disinformation, you can find it taken apart on ST911.org.

Mike: Beautiful

Speaking of disinformation. For the umpteenth time, Michael Chertoff and Benjamin Chertoff are not known to be related. The only basis to make this claim this is an interview in that scholarly source, the neo-Nazi propaganda rag the American Free Press. The editors at Popular Mechanics are obviously annoyed by this, because they mention it in the book, from page 102:

Soon after the Popular Mechanics report appeared, conspiracy buffs began parsing the names of the various researchers who contributed to the article, noting the odd coincidence that Benjamin Chertoff, then head of the magazine's research department, has the same last name as the then newly appointed head of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. In a rare instance of reportorial initiative (most 9/11 "Internet researchers" rarely venture beyond Google), Christopher Bollyn phoned Ben's mother, who volunteered that, yes, she thinks Michael Chertoff might be a distant cousin, "Chertoff's Cousin Penned Popular Mechanics 9/11 Hit Piece," read the headline on Bollyn's next American Free Press story. "This is exactly the kind of 'journalism' one would expect to find in a dictatorship like that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq," he concluded. Later a headline was added to his article: "Ben Chertoff: Propagandists & Illuminati Disinformation Tool."

As often happens in the world of conspiracy theories, a grain of truth- it's possible that Ben and Michael Chertoff are distantly related- was built into a towering dune. In fact, Ben and Michael Chertoff have never spoken. And no one at Popular Mechanics had any contact with Michael Chertoff's office while preparing the article.

Now the question is, does Fetzer know he is lying, and that he is relying on Neo-Nazi propaganda, or is he just so sloppy and lazy he doesn't bother to do any research to check out his sources?

Update: A reader points out that Fetzer also claims in this interview that Michael Chertoff has dual American-Israeli citizenship. Some quick research shows this story also started with, you guessed it, Christopher Bollyn of the American Free Press.

As We Move Even Farther into Bizarro World...

While perusing the Loose Change Forum I came across this torrent link to an interview with American Free Press "journalist" Chris Bollyn, who sadly is probably the most prominent "investigative journalist" of the 9/11 denial movement. It appears to be on some sort of cable access program, sort of a Palestinian Wayne's World.

I haven't suffered through the whole thing yet, but I swear, we should start an American Free Press drinking game. Anytime something is blamed on the "Zionists" take a swig. In this case an Israeli company let all the Israelis know about the attack ahead of time, there were 140 dancing mossad agents (sounds like a new show on Broadway), and the Chertoff family (both Michael and Benjamin) are Israeli agents.

I am starting to think there are Mossad agents living in my basement...

Update: For more on Chris Bollyn, check out this thread, from a conspiracy theorist web site no less, where Bollyn goes off on someone for checking out his claims of police brutality. Bizarrely if you read the forum you find out that Eric Hufchmid accused the American Free Press of being run by Zionists. Is there anything the Zionists do not run?

Who Is The American Free Press?

Loose Change mentions "The American Free Press" on at least 4 occasions. I found this rather interesting because I had never heard of them before. This is more than they mention the New York Times, which is amazing, because in addition to it being one of the country's most widely read newspapers, most of the events took place in New York. So how did this obscure little newspaper become such a major source for this film? What is it?

Well just go to their website:

Find out why maverick, independent grass-roots media voices such as American Free Press have declared all-out war on the elite-controlled Big Media Monopoly in America and around the globe . . .

OK, I have no problem with being an independent source of information, blogs do that to a certain extent. But what type of information are they reporting? Here are some of the articles:

Prospects Sour for White Males in United States

CIA Death Squad Continues to Pile Up More Bodies

Milosevic Trial in The Hague Embarrasses West

Educators Advocate Homosexuality, Pedophilia

Zionist Circles Benefit From WTC Collapse

Or how about some of the ads they display prominently on their home page?

The High Priests of War: The The Secret History of How America's Neo-Conservative Trotskyites Came to Power and Orchestrated the War Against Iraq as the First Step in Their Drive for Global EmpireZionism and Christianity - An unholy alliance

1-800-BEAT IRS - we have the tax information that you need!

White Christian Heritage. Souvenirs, Books & Stuff. Christian Identity, Southern, T-shirts, Flags. Visit us at: www.whiteheritagestore.com

The people of earth before Adam. The Jews are not the Israelites of the Bible, who the Israelites are today, when people's skin were changed, explains what causes around 400 kinds of cancer in US and our livestock, explains why Canaan was cursed. $3.50 to

I didn't link to the ads, because I in no way wish to support these types of people. So we essentially have here a group of paranoid, anti-Semitic, white supremacist conspiracy theorists, and this is one of the major sources for Loose Change. That says a lot.

Thanks to reader Truth, whose research contributed to this post.

More On the American Free Press

I posted earlier on the American Free Press, the white supremacist anti-Semitic newspaper which is the source for many of the claims in Loose Change. A reader, with the nom-de-blog of extremist pointed out one of the characters behind the newspaper, Willis Carto, which sheds a lot of light on their viewpoint. From his Wikipedia entry:

Carto's career has been marked by controversy, and even among his contemporaries he is a polarizing figure. The Anti-Defamation League, as well as other critics, believe that Willis Carto, more than anybody else, was responsible for keeping organized anti-Semitism alive as a movement in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century. These critics have noted that Carto has founded some organizations, such as Liberty Lobby, with the intent of appearing to be respectable conservative, populist, or anti-Communist organizations, while founding other organizations that were racialist or National Socialist in nature.

It continues:

Carto was also the founder of a publishing company called Noontide Press, which published a number of books on white racialism, including Yockey's Imperium and David Hoggan's The Myth of the Six Million, one of the first books to deny the Holocaust. Noontide Press later became closely associated with the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), and fell out of Carto's hands at the same time as the IHR did. The IHR was founded by Willis Carto in 1979, with the intent of promoting the proposition that the Nazi Holocaust never happened - a view known as Holocaust denial. After losing control of Noontide Press and the IHR in a hostile takeover by former associates, Carto started another publication, "The Barnes Review", which is also dedicated to denying that the Holocaust happened. On March 26, 2003, the nation of Switzerland issued an arrest warrant for Carto for embezzling millions from the IHR and its parent company.

One has to wonder whether the 3 college-aged kids behind the making of this movie are actually aware of the background of the sources they use, or if they just naively figure, "Hey, it is on the Internet, it must be true!"

Slate Backs Up Conspiracy Theorists, Cites American Free Press

What a lame article by "The Explainer":

Do other professions marshal their own expertise to poke holes in the official story? Absolutely. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth point to the physics of the towers' collapse—its "free fall" pace, the "lateral ejection" of steel, the "mid-air pulverization of concrete"—as evidence that they could not have fallen exclusively because of the planes' impact. Pilots for 9/11 Truth have their own set of theories that focus on the planes' black boxes and flight paths, arguing, for example, that the hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 would have had to perform an extremely difficult aerial maneuver to hit the Pentagon where they did.

The article regurgitates some of the usual idiocy from the troofers. The DeMasi claim of discovering the black boxes is spewed. Hilariously, the writer mentions that DeMasi's account is backed up by another first responder. And can you guess who he links to in order to prove this? Yep, that oft-cited source for 9-11 Troof and anti-Semites alike, the American Free Press.

His other sources:

Explainer thanks Mike Berger of 911Truth.org, Mark Fenster of University of Florida, Erik Lawyer of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, and Barrie Zwicker.

Fenster wrote a book arguing that conspiracy theorists are not paranoid nutbars (while not embracing conspiracy theories either). The other three are certified kooks.

Jet Engine Red Herrings

I previously discussed the American Free Press, now here is an example of how Loose Change uses them as a source. Not only is AFP a questionable source to begin with, but the article they are citing, doesn't even make the point the filmmakers are attempting to make. Here they are trying to prove that a 757 didn't hit the pentagon:

Likewise, the two engines should have been found relatively intact at the Pentagon. Instead, there was a single turbo-jet engine approximately 3 feet in diameter found inside the building.

After this photo was published by American Free Press

Readers wrote in to suggest that the turbine was a piece from the Auxiliary Power Unit - APU mounted in the tail section of the 757. Chris Bollyn (of the AFP) contacted Honeywell in Phoenix, Arizona, the manufacturer of a 757's APU. An expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity told him that: "There's no way
that's an APU wheel.”

Bollyn then contacted Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce, The two companies that manufacture 757 engines. Pratt & Whitney pointed Bollyn towards Rolls-Royce and John W Brown a spokesman for Rolls-Royce told Bollyn that, "It is not a part of any Roll's Royce engine that I am familiar with."

Well, why is their spokesman not familiar with it? Loose Change won't tell us. AFP doesn't seem to have the article up, but you can find it reposted on the Internet, here is one link.

John W. Brown, spokesman for Rolls Royce (Indianapolis), had previously told AFP: “It is not a part from any Rolls Royce engine that I’m familiar with, and certainly not the AE 3007H made here in Indy.”

The AE 3007 engines are used in small commuter jets such as the Cessna Citation; the AE 3007H is also used in the military’s unmanned aircraft, the Global Hawk. The Global Hawk is manufactured by Northrop Grumman’s subsidiary Ryan Aeronautical, which it acquired from Teledyne, Inc. in July 1999.

If the government version that an American Airlines 757-200 hit the Pentagon is accurate, then the object in the photo would have to be from a Rolls Royce RB211-535 turbofan engine. When AFP told Brown that it must be a piece of a Rolls Royce engine, Brown balked and asked who at Pratt & Whitney had provided the information.

Asked again if the disc in the photo is a piece of a Rolls Royce RB211-535, or from the AE 3007 series, Brown said he could not answer.

AFP then asked Brown if he was actually familiar with the parts of an AE 3007H, which is made at the Indiana plant: “No,” Brown said. “I don’t build the engines. I am a spokesman for the company. I speak for the company.”

So they ask a spokesman, who doesn't even work at the plant the engines are made, and he tells them straight out that he isn't even familiar with the parts of the engine the plant does make, and could not identify the part regardless, and somehow he becomes a technical expert. In reality the only thing they could accuse him of is being a poor spokesman.

More on this later. And once again thanks to Truth and his excellent research on debunking Loose Change.

Boston Bomber a Truther?

Apparently the dead Boston Bomber might have been a bit of a conspiracy theorist.

The programme discovered that Tamerlan Tsarnaev possessed articles which argued that both 9/11 and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing were government conspiracies. Another in his possession was about "the rape of our gun rights". Reading material he had about white supremacy commented that "Hitler had a point"

And this is a surprise to whom exactly?

And on another note. More evidence for the Willy Nelson Hypothesis.

The brothers had been reading militant Islamic websites before the bombings. Friends say the younger brother smoked copious amounts of pot and rarely prayed. 'Tito' told us Dzhokhar's older brother dominated him and didn't approve of his "party lifestyle".

Update: The Wall Street Journal adds more details to this story, even giving it front page treatment.  Apparently out old friends the American Free Press were involved.

Mr. Tsarnaev got his own subscription to American Free Press, a paper that the Southern Law Poverty Center said promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. A spokeswoman for the paper denied it had such an agenda, saying the paper publishes "news that the established media won't." She confirmed that someone bought Mr. Tsarnaev a "get acquainted" 16-week subscription in December. It expired in April, at about the time of the Boston Marathon attack.

 And to respond to M. Gregory Ferris in the comments. No, I am not Batman, although with access to enough startup capital and adequate research facilities, I could be...

Strange Witness

We have discussed numerous times before how Loose Change misuses witnesses. Here is another example, at the 51 minute mark.

Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. Told the American Free Press, that in the basements of the World Trade Center, where 47 central support columns connected to the bedrock, hot spots of "literally molten steel" were discovered more than a month after September 11th. These incredibly hot areas were found at the bottoms of the elevator shafts down 7 basement levels. The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed. " He said that molten steel was also found at World Trade Center 7.

OK, first of all, the fact that this was reported by the American Free Press automatically makes it suspect. But how exactly did he know this, he is the president of the company, not a technician? Well it turns out he probably found out second hand, hardly the most scientific method.

But let's look the big picture. Where else have we heard of Controlled Demolition Incorporated? Oh that is right, only 4 minutes later Loose Change is suggesting that the company is behind blowing up the World Trade Center! Not to mention ruthlessly destroying innocent old storage tanks everywhere.

So essentially we are to believe, that molten metal could only be caused by the use of explosives, and the man who so conveniently told us about it, is the man who supposedly caused it in the first place. Gee, you would think that the head of a demolitions company would recognize the effects of his own demolition, and say... shut up about it! This is as idiotic as the theory that Larry Silverstein casually admitted to ordering the destruction of World Trade Center 7.

Griffin Book: The Usual Suspect Sources

One of the 9-11 Deniers thoughtfully transcribed a portion of the book that he feels expertly debunks Popular Mechanics. In fact, it looks to me like Griffin's using the same old sources with no apparent concern for their credibility.

Our old buddy Christopher Bollyn, for example:

In the months just prior to the publication of the article on which this book is based, a radical change in PM’s personnel was orchestrated by the president of Hearst Magazines, Cathleen P. Black. As reporter Christopher Bollyn pointed out, Black is married to Thomas E. Harvey, who has worked for the CIA, the Department of Defense, and the US Information Agency.

Bollyn, describing this Black-orchestrated change at Popular Mechanics as "a brutal take-over," wrote: "In September 2004, Joe Oldham, the magazine’s former editor-in-chief, was replaced by James B. Meigs. In October, a new creative director replaced PM’s 21-year veteran who was given 90 minutes to clear out of his office." In each of the following six months, Bollyn further reporter, three or four more people were similarly dismissed. Accordingly, the suggestion that this book about 9/11 reflects PM’s long tradition of expertise is misleading.

Once again, why do we hammer these guys all the time on sources like Bollyn? Because he's an anti-semitic kook like Eric Hufschmid and Daryl Bradford Smith. Here are a few other things that Christopher Bollyn has exposed over the years:

Jews control Brigham Young University:

Within two days, the authorities at BYU apparently caved to organized Jewish pressure and put Jones on paid leave. Students who had already begun their fall physics courses with Jones will be taught by other faculty members for the rest of the semester as university administrators review his statements and research.

The Allies are still occupying Germany:

The Allied occupation of Germany began 58 years ago this month and in the eyes of many Germans has not yet ended. Foreign armies are still based on German soil and Europe's largest and most prosperous 'democracy' still lacks a constitution and a peace treaty putting a formal end to the Second World War.

For Germany, World War II, like the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, lacks formal legal closure because a peace treaty has never been signed between the Allies and Germany.

The Israelis were responsible for Abu Ghraib:

The abuse at Abu Ghraib resembles Israeli methods applied in the occupied territories. "Israel is the only country in which the kind of abuse documented at Abu Ghraib occurs as a matter of policy," Hussein Ibish, spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the largest Arab-American organization, told American Free Press.

Indeed, even some of the 9-11 Deniers are very uncomfortable with Bollyn's prominence in their movement:

I used to think that Griffin used Bollyn as a source because he didn't know better, but folks have been bashing him for these types of sources for years. I'm beginning to suspect that Griffin uses Bollyn because he agrees with his kooky ideas on Jews and the Holocaust.

Let the Pogroms Begin

The conspiracy theorists' favorite journalist is keeping busy since being fired from the American Free Press. He is bragging about an ad some congressional candidate is running about him:

Political issue radio ads for Jim Condit Jr., a Cincinnati-based candidate (Ind.) for the U.S. Congress, are airing around the country.

In Chicago, Condit is running powerful ads on WLS Radio (890 AM) that call for the arrest of Michael Chertoff - and the release of independent journalist Christopher Bollyn.

On August 15, Bollyn was brutally attacked and TASERed by undercover cops at his home in front of his wife and youngest child. The 3 heavily armed and unidentified tactical cops appear to have been carrying out special orders from Dept. of Homeland Security - and the Israeli-American Czar of homeland security, Michael Chertoff.

These ads are rocking the airwaves of Chicago. Here is the text of Condit's ad:

The best thing we can do for Homeland security, ----- is arrest the head of Homeland Security. This is Jim Condit Jr.

Michael Chertoff is a traitor to America.

Descended from Russian Jews, a citizen of Israel, Chertoff is now an “American.”

Investigative Reporter Christopher Bollyn has proved in many articles that Chertoff and Israel are implicated neck-deep in 9-11. In August 2006, three mysterious Homeland Security-related men trespassed onto Bollyn’s Illinois home, handcuffed and TASERed him in front of his family, and took him to jail WITHOUT CAUSE.

We charge Chertoff is retaliating against Bollyn for his patriotic, honest reporting.

Furthermore, I charge that CHERTOFF, and the Criminal Neo-Con Jews around him, are planning a SECOND horrible, TERRORIST ATTACK against America, a phase II of 9-11, as an excuse to suspend the Bill of Rights.

Well of course, if some "journalist" gets roughed up by the cops in Chicago, the culprit must be the Jew in Washington D.C.

The Implicit Racism of the 9/11 Denial Movement

We have already spoken at length about the anti-Semetic ties of the 9/11 conspiracy community, from Holocaust deniers to Jim Fetzer's love of the American Free Press, but this is a subtler form of racism. One thing I have seen repeated often, is this terminology, or variations of it, as posted earlier today from a British musician:

Are we really supposed to believe that a man in a cave in Afghanistan managed to orchestrate the most unbelievable attack on the United States of all time?

The "scholars" (I cannot use scare quotes big enough for that word in this case) even use this in their press releases, as delivered by Jim Fetzer:

What this means is that the wrong parties have been accused of the monstrous crimes committed on 9/11. The country appears to have been hijacked, not by a group of 19 Islamic fundamentalists under the control of a man hiding in a cave
in Afghanistan, but by a gang of neo-conservatives right here in front of our very eyes, who have used special effects and propaganda to deceive us.

The implication is of course, that these are a bunch of unsophisticated Arabs living in primitive conditions, and there is no way they could have had the intelligence, planning, and coordination to pull off these hijackings. They are just a bunch of Arabs after all.

But one must remember, Osama bin Laden was not "hiding in a cave" before 9/11. Thanks to his Afghan hosts, he had the free run of almost an entire country. He and his supporters were able to set up camps to train thousands of mujahadeen in the use of weapons, explosives, communications, security, and a variety of other skills. This is just one of those camps.















They are hardly living in caves.

And while the average Al Qaeda foot soldier may be neither educated nor sophisticated, that does not mean that their leadership isn't. Osama bin Laden after all, came from one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia, was educated as an engineer, and learned combat skills in the Afghan war against the Soviets. His number 1 assistant Ayman al Zawahiri is an Egyptian born physician. Aside from providing the inspiration for the attack (if even that) and the funding, bin Laden would not even be needed to "coordinate" the attacks. The 19 hijackers could have easily done this autonomously.

Neither were the 19 hijackers picked from the ranks of Arab peasantry. They were all selected because they would be among those Al Qaeda members able to get along in the west. Mohammed Atta was a Egyptian, who had been studying urban planning for years in Germany. All 4 of the pilots had commercial pilots licenses, requiring at least 250 hours of flight time, and most had at least some college education.

Is the thought of these men coming here, brutally taking over flights, destroying our landmarks and murdering our people repulsive? Of course it is. But dismissing them as a bunch of Arabs led by a man in a cave, in order to absolve them of responsibility is equally so.

Jesse Ventura Channels Judy Wood

The troofers are all excited over another statement by Jesse "The Body" Ventura endorsing 9/11 woo on the Alex Jones show. Apparently Jesse is not keeping up on his woo though, because he is quoting the billiard ball theory from Judy Wood, who although she was previously the belle of the ball in the troofer community is now about as popular there as Barack Obama at an American Free Press staff meeting, since proposing her Star Wars Death Beam theory. To quote Jesse:

Ventura then explored how it was possible that all three buildings could rapidly collapse at almost free fall speed.

"How could those buildings fall at the speed of gravity - if you put a stopwatch on them both of those World Trade Center buildings were on the ground in ten seconds - how can that be?" asked Ventura.

"If you took a billiard ball and dropped it from the height of the World Trade Center in a vacuum it would hit the ground in 9.3 seconds and if you took that same billiard ball and dropped it 10 stories at a time and merely stopped it and started it it would take 30 seconds - if you dropped it every floor of the World Trade Center to the ground, simply stopping and starting it on gravity it would take over 100 seconds to reach the ground," he surmised.

The speed of gravity? That must be how fast he used to do those fake body slams in the WWF...

He finishes with one of the more humorous misuses of metallurgy:

"When I was watching Loose Change with a friend of mine - he happens to work for a company that helps build the Boeing airplanes and they said that when the engines completely disappeared and were destroyed, his response was, excuse my French - bullshit!," said Ventura.

"I turned to him and said why and he said because they're made of titanium steel - they can't disintegrate."

You have got to love that titanium steel, it is so much better than your regular run-of-the-mill steel.

Reports from Troofest '09 Trickling In

One of the guys who went to Sander's NYC event:

* Barrett, Ranke, Les Jamieson and many of his associates were all there.
* Ranke had a table set up in front of the church where he was distributing free DVDs of National Security Alert
* Ranke spoke and literally had people standing up clapping when he was finished. I would not call it a standing ovation, but people in attendance were overwhelmingly supportive.
* Ellen Brown's book Web of Debt has praise on the back of it by a writer for the American Free Press.
* There were not more than maybe 200 people there. I think that most of the crowd volume was at the We Are Change event. This one attracted a much older audience than the We Are Change activities that I witness at Ground Zero yesterday.
* Daniel Hopsicker was not there and apparently backed out at the last minute. I am not sure if he had problems with who else was on the bill.

Heheh, people were standing and clapping, but it's not a standing ovation? As for Hopsicker, I'd guess that they couldn't pay his airfare. And the attendance estimate may be overblown:

My estimate would be 100 or even less. It was definitely a pathetic scene, that's for sure.

Or less:

The portion of the conference today with Baker was really good. It was a lot of the same stuff that I had heard from Baker before, but he is always very informative. There were about 60 people there and like Truthmod said, it was almost entirely white men over the age of 50.

Jon Gold can't even drive to Ground Zero for 9-11 without dedicating the ride:



The education of the sheeple goes on:



I love that he leads with John Schroeder.

Anybody seen any text reports from the We Are Changing Diapers crew?

Update: Our buddy CHF writes that the Toronto Troof chapter was a little more honest than most:

Toronto 9/11 Truth: 8th Anniversary Celebration, Fri, September 11th, 7 pm

Yep, it's a celebration.

What's Box Boy Richard Gage Up to These Days?

If you check his events page, it looks like "not much" is the answer. The most recent event shown is the 15th anniversary, where Gage shared the stage with Munchkin Barbara Honegger.

But it turns out that the founder of AE911Truth participated in the recent Nation of Islam conference. It's not like Gage to avoid publicizing such events; when he appeared there in 2012 he was certainly crowing about the opportunity to expose Louis Farrakhan's followers to 9-11 Troof.

Back then we bashed him a bit based on inside information we had stating that Boy Wonder Kevin Barrett would be appearing with him. As it turned out, our insider was wrong. Waterboy Kevin Ryan appeared instead.

And indeed, this may give us something of a clue as to why Richard Gage is not anxious to publicize his appearance at the Nation of Islam rally. This time around, not only was he appearing with Kevin "the Holocaust is a hideously destructive myth" Barrett, but also Christopher Bollyn.

Bollyn gave us quite a bit of amusement back in the early days of this blog. Once a reporter for the Holocaust-denying, white separatist rag the American Free Press, Bollyn was an early investigoogler of 9-11 nuttery, with the result that when a more respectable and scholarly-seeming man like David Ray Griffin came along, Bollyn's work was often cited. Indeed, I used to joke that Griffin seemed unable to complete a book without referring to him once or twice.

One afternoon, Bollyn was apparently drinking when he noticed a suspicious looking vehicle parked in his neighborhood. When he confronted the occupants of the vehicle, they apparently freely admitted they were local cops on a stakeout of a nearby residence that they suspected of drug-dealing.

Well, paranoid people are going to be paranoid, and Bollyn assumed that the cops were in fact spying on him. Big altercation, Bollyn assaults a cop, and he's up on charges. He was convicted and probably facing about 90 days in the big house, but he lammed instead.

So this time around, Gage shared the stage with two Holocaust deniers, one of whom may still be a fugitive from justice.

I'm sure he'd much rather we talk about his exciting new NIST whistleblower.

But it's a classic false appeal to authority. As Peter Michael Ketcham himself notes in the video, he did not work on the WTC investigation. He states that he was in the mathematical computations area, which leads me to wonder if we are in for some real deep calculations that prove inside job.

Not to worry. Ketcham's cited evidence has nothing to do with number crunching. It's the usual "symmetrical collapse into its own footprint at near free-fall acceleration." Ketcham is Charlie Sheen with less hair.

Here's Ketcham's Linked-In page. His current occupation?

Mobile application developer currently building a data visualization application for Apple iOS devices with an emphasis on accessibility for disabled users. Other interests include data science, virtual reality environments, haptic technologies, hierarchical data formats, matrix computations, and Swift numeric data types for rational numbers, complex numbers, and quaternions.

Again, if he were questioning the numbers used by NIST he might have some credibility. But he's not, he's just parroting the Truther talking points.

First They Ignore You, Then They Laugh At You, Then They Fight You...

And then you lose because you didn't clean house back when you were being ignored. The Deniers are discovering sudden mainstream popularity comes with a cost; every stupid little thing you've said and done suddenly comes under the microscope.

Take Kevin Barrett, for example. We've already discussed his comment about the Holocaust as it is taught in the United States being a hideously destructive myth. Turns out Mr Barrett has an email newsletter that he sends around to his fanbase. (Update: Online version posted here at Barrett's Mujca site).

In the latest instalment, Barrett hypes the supposed identification of the Bin Laden confession videotape as "bogus" according to a Bin Laden scholar appearing on Kevin's show.

Is the famous "confession video" genuine? Despite Bush's insistence that the tape is authentic, America's top academic Bin Laden expert has finally gone on the record, joining numerous other experts. "It's bogus," says Professor Bruce Lawrence, head of Duke University's Religious Studies program.

Lawrence, author of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, offered his historic debunking of the administration's lie in an interview with Kevin Barrett ("Dynamic Duo," gcnlive.com, 2/16/2007, first hour). The interview marked Lawrence's first major public statement since he made headlines last year by suggesting that recent Osama tapes are hoaxes and that the real Osama Bin Laden may be dead.

Nothing particularly vile there; obviously we disagree with him on the authenticity of the Bin Laden tape (for an excellent video on this check here). But Barrett goes on to cite some other sources:

Bin Laden: AUTHENTIC INTERVIEW
by Carol A. Valentine

http://www.public-action.com/911/oblintrv.html

October 16, 2001-- An interview with Osama bin Laden was published in a Karachi-based Pakistani daily newspaper, Ummat, on September 28, 2001. In this interview, bin Laden says of the September 11 attacks in the US...

Carol A. Valentine? Public-action.com? Gee, who are they? I'm pretty versed by now on the big names in 9-11 Denial but these were new ones on me. So I surfed over there:



Ah, nice to see that somebody's standing up against the "American Coup D'Etat and the War for Jewish Supremacy". And hey, how convenient to have a set of links to historical revisionists (sic) websites that examine the stories of World War II atrocities. And yep, quite a few of our old buddies are listed there, including the Institute for Historical Review, Zundelsite, the Barnes Review, and the source that Dylan cited more than any other in Loose Change, the American Free Press:



Now the interesting thing is that aside from Carol Valentine's sterling commentary, Barrett could have gotten the story about Bin Laden denying his involvement in 9-11 from an number of non-Holocaust Revisionist sites, like:

911Review.com
Robert-Fisk.com
Prison Planet

None of those sites are particularly credible to me, but of course they have mountains of credibility compared to Carol A. Valentine.