Flashback: Biden on 9/10/01 warned the ‘real threat’ may come in ‘the belly of a plane’

Before 9/11, the Bush administration’s national security focus was on missile defense, not terrorism. In fact, on 9/11, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was set to deliver a speech that focused “largely on missile defense.” Writing at the Huffington Post, Joe Cirincione — president of the Ploughshares Fund — recalls this quote from Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) on Sept. 10, 2001, warning against the Bush administration’s approach: We will have diverted all that money to address the least likely threat while the real threats come into this country in the hold of a ship, or the belly of a plane, or are smuggled into a city in the middle of the night in a vial in a backpack.

Art in a Time of Terror: Acclaimed Art Professor Steve Kurtz on How He Became a “Bioterrorism” Suspect After His Wife Died in Her Sleep

In his first broadcast interview, Steve Kurtz discusses the bizarre case of how he became the focus of an FBI bioterrorism investigation. On May 11, 2004, his wife Hope Kurtz tragically died in her sleep. When he called 911 for help, a nightmare that would last for the next four years began to unfold. The police became suspicious of his art supplies and harmless bacteria cultures that he was using for an antiwar project about the public health impact of germ warfare programs. His home was raided by the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force and Homeland Security. His belongings, his cat, and even his wife’s body were seized. [includes rush transcript] AMY GOODMAN: Why don’t you tell us your story, beginning that day, May 11, 2004? STEVE KURTZ: Well, that was a very dark day for me. I woke up that morning and found that my wife had died in her sleep. And kind of after a moment of shock that slowly broke into a kind of panic, I made my way to the telephone, called 911. They came quite rapidly. And as they looked around, they did as they had to do when a woman who, quite young at this age, forty-five, dies in their home and called the police. And the police came out and secured my home, and then three detectives showed up. And for the rest of that day, I was pretty much interrogated as a murder suspect.

Charged in the name of terror
On May 11, Steve Kurtz phoned 911 to report his wife of 20 years was unresponsive. When paramedics came to his house, one of them noticed that Kurtz had laboratory equipment, which he used in his art exhibits. The paramedics reported this to police and the FBI sealed off his house. Authorities later said that Kurtz's wife had died of "heart failure," but he wasn't allowed to return to his home for two days while the FBI confiscated his equipment, and biological samples. They also carted off his books, personal papers and computer. The contradiction between the charges for possessing harmful substances and the county health commissioner assessing that no hazardous substances were found in the house leaves only the conclusion - that ideas, when misunderstood or disagreeable, are toxic.

Gregg Bordowitz Talks to Steve Kurtz
Steve Kurtz is not someone who should be sitting across the interrogation table, submitting to random drug tests and regularly meeting with his parole officer. He is an artist and educator who masterfully subverts the aesthetic to serve his goals. Kurtz, an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at SUNY, Buffalo, is the founding member of the Critical Arts Ensemble (CAE), a group of artists “whose multi-media projects fuse the political pedagogy of Bertolt Brecht with the madcap performance of Mr. Wizard. Donning lab coats and armed with household supplies and high school lab equipment, they assume the persona of amateur scientist. Their aim is to demystify the shadowy world of bio-weapons, trans-genetic manufacturing and the corporate appropriation of visual culture as well as more broadly, the public sphere itself,” writes Gregory Sholette, former Chair of the Art Administration Department at SAIC. The CAE take their performances into museums, festivals and the streets. They are actively engaged in theorization of their practice and regularly publish manifestoes advocating “tactical media activism.” They are “specialists in revolt,” according to Gregg Bordowitz, Assistant Professor, Film Video and New Media.

Benazir Bhutto's Killer = Pakistan's New President

Meet Zardari: Killer, Looter, Pluderer: I told everyone as soon as I found out about Bhutto's murder that it was probably her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Everyone looked at me like I was nuts and all the troofer lemmings were claiming she was killed for revealing Bin Laden's death, as if that wasn't obvious for 6 years. Zardari, according to many, killed his first wife also. In addition, he and Benazir conspired to kill Fatima (Benazir's niece) Bhutto's father, Murtaza, who was vocal against their corruption and THEFT of BILLIONS in $US DOLLARS$. He stood to benefit from the murder and is now about to become crowned as the president of Pakistan with no one left standing in his way. He even tricked fellow looting goon Nawaz Sharif by promising to settle the issue of the judges within 24 hours of the "coalition's" threat of impeachment on Musharraf which lead to his abdication from the throne, and then retreated from it once Busharraf was out of the way, causing the breakup of the "coalition"

Documents Reveal PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intel Findings

New documents from within the Bush administration and US intelligence community during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq reveal that the White House began assembling a case for war before it had compiled the intel that ostensibly formed the basis of that case. A new report on the documents from George Washington University's National Security Archive also presents compelling evidence that the Bush administration pressured the CIA and other intelligence agencies to tailor their reports to back-up Bush's desire to invade. The report suggests the bulk of this effort was run out of Vice President Dick Cheney's office, backing up numerous other post-war examinations of the path to invasion that saw Cheney as the mastermind of the plan to oust Saddam Hussein. In addition to the Archive's newly obtained documents, Dr. John Prados, who compiled the report, examined previous investigations of pre-war intelligence manipulation such as the recently completed Senate Intelligence Committee "Phase II" report on administration officials' pre-war rhetoric and books on the subject such as former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's memoir.

U.S.: End Beating of Children in Public Schools
DALLAS – More than 200,000 US public school students were punished by beatings during the 2006-2007 school year, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a joint report released today. In the 13 states that corporally punished more than 1,000 students per year, African-American girls were twice as likely to be beaten as their white counterparts. A culture of beatings and torture dating back to slavery in pre civil war America.

The Story of Palestinians Childhoods

Najwa Sheikh in Gaza - As if the Israelis well practiced the devices and techniques to kill the hope inside us the Palestinians, the last operation in Gaza, proves that the killing machine of the Israelis is now created to put more pain and bitterness on the people of Gaza by targeting their small tiny buds, the innocent children, from infants up to toddlers, to even teenagers, and the only reason is that they are Palestinians. Four boys killed while playing football I still can not erase the images that stuck on my mind of the killed children of Dardouna family who were playing football in their house yard in Jabalia. Like an addicted I was searching for the story details, as if the images with all its sorrow, grieve, and bloody color was not enough for me. “I was playing with my cousins” said Yehya, “Suddenly we were targeted. Ahmed’s head was far away from his body. I did not feel my legs. I was screaming as well as the other kids. We were not kids anymore”

The Bush regime’s Patriot Act has removed freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in America. Americans don’t yet realize they are no longer free. Whenever a pitiful few Americans try to assemble and speak out they are quickly beaten to the ground and arrested. This is happening because the majority of Americans will not stand up for freedom and have embraced fascism and repression. They seem to want war and are glad that America attacks other countries and kills innocent people. When Kucinich and Paul dared to speak out for peace, ending the Iraq war, and restoring human rights and constitutional rights, it proved to be extremely unpopular with Americans, and Kucinich and Paul were quickly removed from the election process. Obama soon realized that speaking out for peace and withdrawing soldiers from Iraq was very unpopular. Obama changed his tune and started talking about sending more troops to Afghanistan and keeping a permanent military force In Iraq. Only then did he begin to receive more support from the American people, but it was to late. McCain will win because he understood from the beginning of the election what the American people really want. Americans have been molded into homicidal psychotics by a lifetime of brain washing by their corporate media. Even if Obama were to actively promote fighting a 'never ending war', and a possible nuclear war with Russia, he couldn’t catch up with McCain. The American people are confidant that McCain will deliver the unending war and mass death they seem to desire. "More bad news for Sen. Barack Obama's campaign on the polling front. The latest George Washington University-Battleground 2008 Poll done jointly by Republican and Democratic pollsters shows that Sen. John McCain has managed to move independent voters to him to such a degree that he now leads Obama by 10 percent." The above video is posted here: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/35717