Andrew Napolitano

World Trade Center 7 | Some “Trutherisms” Refuted

Published by Papa Giorgio

Originally posted here in April of 2011

INTRO/CONTENTS

JUMP TO:

Steve Spak | Edward Current 1 | Diesel Fuel In WTC-7
Falling Debris Damaged WTC-7 | Demolition? | Fires Raged for Hours
Does Office Furniture Melt Steel | Q&A | Challenged with Building Number Seven
Debunking 9/11 Book Quote (Fuel) | Debunking 9/11 Book Quote (Bedfellows)
Edward Current 2 (UFOs and Explosions) | Pull It – BIG

JUDGE NAPOLITANO AND GERALDO RIVERA (WTC-7)

(HOTAIR hat-tip) The Judge and Geraldo Rivera Truthers!? Building Seven’s collapse was explained then as it is now and below. 

I was not surprised to find out the Judge is a truther… people cannot be convinced that mankind is finite and saturated with failure and stupidity to explain away our missteps. The would rather believe in a very complex set of steps to leading to irrationality than that. “There HAS to be something more… a grand conspiracy to fool the intellectual prowess we all possess.

This is a many years update and additional media and pictures added (2023-09-05) to keep this post alive and well. The debate on Tower 7 still rages, and I must say, it is fun to show how awkward the counter position is.

STEVE SPAK

Before starting this “funfest,” I will say that one of the best refutations of the truther movement was a video done by fireman and photographer, Steve Spak. I used his mini-documentary for a while, until it was removed from his video account.

I tracked him down and we talked over the phone (many years ago now). I asked him why he would pull such a great resource off the internet. He responded that these nutters would come by his work and interrupt his daily life… so he just didn’t want to deal with all the nonsense.

I did track down — finally — an interview with Steve where much of this pertinent information comes out. So this is the first time Steve (God Bless Him) is back on my site in what? Seven years (April 10, 2011) Enjoy:

STEVE SPAK was partly in charge of the firefighting efforts around WTC-7, and was one of the main persons involved in the decision to let it burn. I had heard a previous interview years before this one, but Steve pulled it from the internet. His reason? 9/11 Truther crazies would show up at his station and interfear with every day work firefighters do around their station. They would yell at him, call him a liar, etc. He said he had had enough of these nuts and went silent. I believe this interview is after he retired.

I am starting to get some truther (e.g., 9/11 conspiracy theorists) traffic so I will post a Tower Seven resource blog for those who wish to come here and see for themselves (or to send a friend).

EDWARD CURRENT 1

The last word on the collapse of the original 7 World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Running down the mainstream engineering explanation, debunking common Truther myths, and answering frequently asked questions. Comments may be intentionally demolished…make your own video if you want to spread misinformation about this engineering disaster, or about anything else.

The “truther” would have us believe that the building (WTC 7) received no structural damage. This is just not the case.

FUEL IN WTC-7

Nor do you hear them mention that there was diesel fuel throughout the building:

Tower 7 housed the city’s emergency command center, so there were a number of fuel tanks located throughout the building—including two 6000-gal. tanks in the basement that fed some generators in the building by pressurized lines. “Our working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time,” according to Sunder. Steel melts at about 2,750 degrees Fahrenheit—but it loses strength at temperatures as low as 400 F. When temperatures break 1000 degrees F, steel loses nearly 50 percent of its strength. It is unknown what temperatures were reached inside WTC7, but fires in the building raged for seven hours before the collapse.

See NCSTAR Report WTC7 pp. 60-63 (104-107) 3.4.2 Diesel Fuel

DAMAGE FROM FALLING DEBRIS

Below are some examples or the damage caused by the collapse of Tower 1 and 2 — that show some of the damage caused by falling debris. What the truthers don’t mention either is that the falling debris from the Twin Towers damaged many of the high-pressure water lines the fire department needed to fight the fires in WTC 7. (As already pointed out above by Steve Spak and Edward Current):

When it was completed in 1973, the World Trade Centre was the tallest building in the world, thanks to many of its revolutionary construction methods. But none of these methods was enough to survive the attacks on September 11th where jet fuel fires led to a weakening of the steel that held the structure together, and ultimately caused both buildings to collapse.

Now I want to show the debris ring and an example (Bankers Trust) of the destruction from the original two towers collapsing:

There are also video examples of some of this debris actually hitting WTC 7:

Another lie about WTC 7 is that it took under 7-seconds to collapse… showing a similarity to a controlled demolition.

DEMOLITION? FREE FALL?

As an example of how persistent this idea of “demolition” is of WTC-7, here is a chap on X noting this idea as if it is sound. Think of the power tools (noise and lugging them in and out), the noise, the dust (have you fixed your own drywall at any point?) — all unnoticed:

Frankie, below, I think is speaking about the Twin Towers, while I am speaking about Building Seven. The demolition teams required for the Twin Towers would defiantly number 2 teams of 75 people [or more] and take many months of prep with all the associated “mess” noted below — compounded for a larger building and time needed.

My oldest son commented on the above in a series of texts:

The most top notch team in the world !

A clandestine multi point dark demolition mission synchronized with a plane hijacking….while having no correlation to the terrorist who also invested months in training themselves…. [in other words: There’s no evidence of anyone in the demo team coordinating the strike]

Literally be the wildest operation [in our countries history] ever 

And no witnesses 

You would have to use the Men In Black mind swipers 

MY TEXT BACK: And while I was talking about building 7, he was talking about the Twin Towers. So larger teams (doubled), more time and waste n tools, etc

Like magically hiding all the Det cord 

And explosives…. are very closely watched via the ATF for demolition people 

A building like that takes quality materials 

MY TEXT BACK: All under the nose of New York unions

Honestly…. Macro evolution is looking more likely  

FREE-FALLING

The times that the truthers originally gave to WTC-7 free-falling [in Loose Change and other sources] did not hold up, as this next video clearly shows:

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted an extensive three-year scientific and technical investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7) in New York City. This video describes the results of this study, which concluded that fires on multiple floors in WTC 7–which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings–caused an extraordinary event. Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

9/11 Debunked: Larry Silverstein’s “Pull It” Explained

I love the truth of a matter; it is the truth that shall set you free, not opinion. Be set free truther’s, be set free.

FIRES BURNED FOR HOURS!

I want to post some pictures and a video here that will curb some of the wild thoughts that the fire in the WTC-7 was small and contained. Often times this is the photo or scene shown on many of the conspiratorial “documentaries” or sites:

Then the Truther will say something like… “Wow! Such a rager of a fire.” HOWEVER, the fire burned for hours, and here are some accompanying pics that should be shared as well:

VIDEO OF FIRE – RPT’s RUMBLE:

Me hunting the WWW…

All Footage of WTC-7 from Steve Spak’s DVD:
“WTC 9-11-01 Day of Disaster”

MORE FOUND AT THE MAIL ONLINE:

It is easy to show the fact that there was a massive fire in WTC-7.

But people cannot be convinced easy… especially if they have thought this to be true for years.

MELTING STEEL?

Now I want to switch gears and repost an old blog on “MELTING STEEL,” another fallacy of the 9/11 truthers:

FUEL & STEEL

According to the 9/11 Truthers, gasoline doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel. Remember that the type of heat experienced in the Twin Towers weakened the steel by more than 50%. This aside, what you see below is steel melted by gasoline. Apparently this can happen only in steel beams used in the construction of bridges, but not in buildings. (Watch your volume levels – static)

A newer edition to this “heat vs. bridges” is this one from BRETBART:

A section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, collapsed when a tanker truck went up in flames on Sunday, and officials warned drivers to stay clear of the area.

The truck was hauling a petroleum product when the blaze ignited, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Q & A

These are responses, positive and negative to this post. I am sharing a few over the years as they are me responding to some supposed challenges.

...Dayton Responds

very interesting indeed

...Luke Responds

Dayton introduced me to this blog of yours, and I gotta say, nice work.

...I Respond

Thanks Luke.

For many years I followed the New World Order stuff, reading many, many books on the subject, even going so far as to visit the local John Birch Society meeting once-in-awhile, and after many years I came to realize that if you critically looked into the evidences for this giant conspiracy to fool mankind knowingly, it is shown to be wanting.

Currently the conspiracy to fool mankind is backed by liberals, however, when Clinton was President, it was backed by conservatives. For a theory or model to explain every possible outcome and have completely different backers depending on who’s in office simply means that it is not a true theory or model because it is so elastic. And this is a conclusion that I came to a while back and had solidified by Michael Medved during his monthly Conspiracy Show (around the full moon). elastic.

Let me point something out though. The difference between the lib/con views of the giant conspiracy to fool mankind is that no leading political figure in the Republican Party accepted these crazy conspiracy myths as real. Today however, you have a huge chunk of the Democratic base accepting many of these wild stories and blame America first mentality, as well as many Democrat senators and representatives mentioning these crazy ideas.

Its funny, I can show someone proof that “X” didn’t happen, but “B” in fact did. They will simply respond that that too was a cover up meant to fool the general public, e.g., me. There is no debating such a person. In fact, this was the original reason for my creating a MySpace, was to challenge a few of my oldest sons friends on this exact matter.

As for us Christians . . . I use to think that this giant conspiracy would fool mankind into following the Anti-Christ. Now I think the delusion of this theory will drive many people to accept almost anything . . . even a messianic type figure. In other words, it’s the conspiracy theory ITSELF that breaks down the critical thinking and road to truth that makes accepting incredible claims without evidence, logic, history, and the like, more common place. Which is why having a healthy eschatology as a Christian is very important.

Sorry for the rant, again, glad you enjoyed.

PapaG

BUILDING .. NUMBER .. SEVEN

This was in response to a discussion about the Twin Towers:

...Mark Joins In

You’ve got me almost convinced. But three words still ring in my ear.

Building

number

seven.

Building number 7 of the wtc was not hit by a 747, jet fuel or falling debris (aside from the dust that covered most of NYC) but mysteriously caught fire and imploded.

What – magic?

POPULAR MECHANICS BOOK (DEBUNKING 9/11 MYTHS) | FUEL

...I Respond

Thank you Mark for your interaction here, it is welcomed.

Actually, building seven was hit by a massive amount of debris from Tower 1 or 2 (I will look into which tower when I get the National Geographic DVD, since that has the best shots of falling debris I have seen yet). What you may not know is that building 7 housed the city’s emergency command post. The building was designed to remain operational if power were to be lost. How was this building designed to keep running if power were to go out? This is the part we don’t hear too much about:

  • …There were a number of fuel tanks throughout the building that may have supplied fuel to the fires for up to seven hours. In addition to smaller “day tanks” on each floor, two 6,000-gallon tanks in the basement fed most of the generators in the building….. Two generators, located on the fifth floor, were connected to the fuel tanks in the basement via a pressurized line. Says Sunder: “Our working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time”…. (p. 56)
  • ….WTC 7 was built to straddle a Con Edison electrical substation. That required an unusual design in which a number of columns were engineered to carry exceptionally large loads, roughly 2,000 square feet of floor area for each floor. “What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors,” Sunder notes, “it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down.” (p. 55)

(Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts)

Also note that trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed (similarly to WTC 1 and 2) to transfer loads from one set of columns to another.

(The following is added for clarity even though already ): I want the skeptic to look here at the damage caused by debris [let alone the fires] from the falling Twin Tower to building 7:

Oooops, I guess the building was damaged after all!

...Ryan Joins In

Do you work for the government? lol… first off just because people have conflicting theories and haven’t figured out everything doesn’t mean there wrong. Ok I am pretty convinced that 9-11 was an inside job from the videos I have seen and you call people who believe in this wacko… not a very good thing if you want people from the other side to listen to you. I haven’t read everything you said yet… I get headaches when I read. Do you have any google videos or something that I could watch that supports your side?

POPULAR MECHANICS BOOK (DEBUNKING 9/11 MYTHS) | BEDFELLOWS

...I Respond

The best bet is to buy The Learning Channel’s video “World Trade Center: Anatomy of the Collapse”, this is a great resource. Dude, you are talking to a guy that is going to recommend books all-day long… so you may want to find someone else to talk to. Some of the largest demolition companies were approached by the authors of the book I recommend, and they said that it would take two-teams of 75-people (each team) months to plant and strip all the supports columns on three floors. This went unnoticed?

Also, the “Loose Change” people have strange bedfellows… something the conspiracists always try to make connections to in regards to Bush and the oil companies…. I would say for them to look at the log in their eye first:

[….]

I am including some edited comments I made from another post to make clear some thinking here:

...Additional Info

Grant,

First off let me welcome you to this site. While I will disagree with you you must keep in mind your opinion is welcome here.

Secondly, did you even read my post? There was a destructive agent involved, and it wasn’t Bush! Could it be… “SATAN?!” No, it was probably the 15,000 gallons of fuel in WTC-7. There are two important things to remember: there hasn’t been a building (1) like the Twin Towers Complex built that had (2) this amount of damage done to them. Keep in mind that the other buildings often used as “caught on fire and didn’t collapse” as proof that the Twin Towers or WTC-7 shouldn’t have were never hit by large debris [and in the case of the TT, planes] and then caught on fire with their particular architecture, 15,000-gallons of fuel in the building, and no water to fight it.

Another important thing to remember is that in those other buildings always mentioned, there was sufficient water to fight the fires and put them out or stop them from spreading. Most of the sites you probably visit do not show the photos and video I will show.

I will first – in the “UPDATE” section [photos shown above] – show the photo most see on conspiracy sites, and then show some video and shots that tell the whole story. But first, let’s review how this is different, than say a plane hitting the Empire State Building:

1) About 15,000 gallons of fuel, some of it high pressured “spouts of flames;”

2) Little to no water pressure to supply the firefighters hoses to fight the fire (damaged from the massive amount of debris from Tower 2);

3) Yes steel used in WTC-7… but no, not same design. The support structure of this building was wildly different than any other building’s design. So the factors of debris, architectural design, and fuel all were a deadly combination to any and all of these buildings.

A LATER UPDATE
FAKE VIDEO USED AS PROOF

UFOs and WTC-7

It’s funny because someone just posted this video that Eddie Current made. Here is the video posted on Twitter, with my response:

I guess the guy missed the UFO added as well! LOL:

Many 9/11 “Truthers” weren’t fooled by my ridiculous fake video of 7 World Trade Center being taken down by controlled demolition. But those who were, well….. gullible people are gullible.

 

A well-known leader in the truther movement, has left the movement — but not before creating a fake video that the 9-11 truthers fell for, hook-line-and-sinker. Here are two videos by him.

HERE IS HIS FIRST VIDEO ABOUT LEAVING THE MOVEMENT:

A semi-comedic — but dead serious — account of my embarrassing brush with the delusional “Truth” movement.

Here is a waaay more in-depth “Pull-It” response.

Pull It

I can’t believe I am revisiting this. At any rate, someone challenged me with the Pull-It “conspiracy,” proving [somehw] that the building was brought down by charges/detonation devices. I was asked to watch this:

This is from one of the best sites on this matter, Debunking 9/11’s post on Pull-It:

Silverstein’s Quote:

  • “I remember getting a call from the Fire Department commander, telling me they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, you know, ‘We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is just pull it.’ And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building collapse.“

-Fact which is undisputed by either side, he was talking to the fire commander

-Fact which is undisputed by either side, both are not in the demolition business

Silverstein’s spokesperson, Mr. McQuillan, later clarified:

“In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.“

He could be lying, right? But here is the corroborating evidence…

“They told us to get out of there because they were worried about 7 World Trade Center, which is right behind it, coming down. We were up on the upper floors of the Verizon building looking at it. You could just see the whole bottom corner of the building was gone. We could look right out over to where the Trade Centers were because we were that high up. Looking over the smaller buildings. I just remember it was tremendous, tremendous fires going on. Finally they pulled us out. They said all right, get out of that building because that 7, they were really worried about. They pulled us out of there and then they regrouped everybody on Vesey Street, between the water and West Street. They put everybody back in there. Finally it did come down. From there – this is much later on in the day, because every day we were so worried about that building we didn’t really want to get people close. They were trying to limit the amount of people that were in there. Finally it did come down.” – Richard Banaciski

(NEW YORK TIMES – PDF)

Here is more evidence they pulled the teams out waiting for a normal collapse from fire…

  • “The most important operational decision to be made that afternoon was the collapse (Of the WTC towers) had damaged 7 World Trade Center, which is about a 50 story building, at Vesey between West Broadway and Washington Street. It had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our members, so we had to give up some rescue operations that were going on at the time and back the people away far enough so that if 7 World Trade did collapse, we [wouldn’t] lose any more people. We continued to operate on what we could from that distance and approximately an hour and a half after that order was [given], at 5:30 in the afternoon, World Trade Center collapsed completely” – Daniel Nigro, Chief of Department

(NEW YORK TIMES)

  • “Early on, there was concern that 7 World Trade Center might have been both impacted by the collapsing tower and had several fires in it and there was a concern that it might collapse. So we instructed that a collapse area — (Q. A collapse zone?) — Yeah — be set up and maintained so that when the expected collapse of 7 happened, we wouldn’t have people working in it. There was considerable discussion with Con Ed regarding the substation in that building and the feeders and the oil coolants and so on. And their concern was of the type of fire we might have when it collapsed.” – Chief Cruthers

(NEW YORK TIMES)

  • “Then we found out, I guess around 3:00 [o’clock], that they thought 7 was going to collapse. So, of course, [we’ve] got guys all in this pile over here and the main concern was get everybody out, and I guess it took us over an hour and a half, two hours to get everybody out of there. (Q. Initially when you were there, you had said you heard a few Maydays?) Oh, yes. We had Maydays like crazy…. The heat must have been tremendous. There was so much [expletive] fire there. This whole pile was burning like crazy. Just the heat and the smoke from all the other buildings on fire, you [couldn’t] see anything. So it took us a while and we ended up backing everybody out, and [that’s] when 7 collapsed…. Basically, we fell back for 7 to collapse, and then we waited a while and it got a lot more organized, I would guess.” – Lieutenant William Ryan

(NEW YORK TIMES)

“Firehouse: Did that chief give an assignment to go to building 7?

Boyle: He gave out an assignment. I didn’t know exactly what it was,but he told the chief that we were heading down to the site.

Firehouse: How many companies?

Boyle: There were four engines and at least three trucks. So we’re heading east on Vesey, we couldn’t see much past Broadway. We couldn’t see Church Street. We couldn’t see what was down there. It was really smoky and dusty.” 

“A little north of Vesey I said, we’ll go down, let’s see what’s going on. A couple of the other officers and I were going to see what was going on. We were told to go to Greenwich and Vesey and see what’s going on.So we go there and on the north and east side of 7 it didn’t look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn’t look good.

But they had a hoseline operating. Like I said, it was hitting the sidewalk across the street, but eventually they pulled back too. Then we received an order from Fellini, we’re going to make a move on 7. That was the first time really my stomach tightened up because the building didn’t look good. I was figuring probably the standpipe systems were shot. There was no hydrant pressure. I wasn’t really keen on the idea. Then this other officer I’m standing next to said, that building doesn’t look straight. So I’m standing there. I’m looking at the building. It didn’t look right, but, well, we’ll go in, we’ll see.

So we gathered up rollups and most of us had masks at that time. We headed toward 7. And just around we were about a hundred yards away and Butch Brandies came running up. He said forget it, nobody’s going into 7, there’s creaking, there are noises coming out of there, so we just stopped. And probably about 10 minutes after that, Visconti, he was on West Street, and I guess he had another report of further damage either in some basements and things like that, so Visconti said nobody goes into 7, so that was the final thing and that was abandoned.

Firehouse: When you looked at the south side, how close were you to the base of that side?

Boyle: I was standing right next to the building, probably right next to it.

Firehouse: When you had fire on the 20 floors, was it in one window or many?

Boyle: There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was probably about a third of it, right in the middle of it. And so after Visconti came down and said nobody goes in 7, we said all right, we’ll head back to the command post. We lost touch with him. I never saw him again that day.

(FIREHOUSE MAGAZINE)

This proves there was a big hole on the south side of the building. From the photographic evidence and these quotes which aren’t meant to be technical, I suspect there was a large hole in the center of the building which may have gone up 10 stories connected to a large rip on the left side of the building which continued up another 10 or more stories. Together they would make “a hole 20 stories tall“.

Hayden: Yeah. There was enough there and we were marking off. There were a lot of damaged apparatus there that were covered. We tried to get searches in those areas. By now, this is going on into the afternoon, and we were concerned about additional collapse, not only of the Marriott, because there was a good portion of the Marriott still standing,but also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.

Firehouse: Was there heavy fire in there right away?

Hayden: No, not right away, and that’s probably why it stood for so long because it took a while for that fire to develop. It was a heavy body of fire in there and then we didn’t make any attempt to fight it. That was just one of those wars we were just going to lose. We were concerned about the collapse of a 47-story building there. We were worried about additional collapse there of what was remaining standing of the towers and the Marriott, so we started pulling the people back after a couple of hours of surface removal and searches along thesurface of the debris. We started to pull guys back because we were concerned for their safety.

Firehouse: Chief Nigro said they made a collapse zone and wanted everybody away from number 7— did you have to get all of those people out?

Hayden: Yeah, we had to pull everybody back. It was very difficult. We had to be very forceful in getting the guys out. They didn’t want to come out. There were guys going into areas that I wasn’t even really comfortable with, because of the possibility of secondary collapses. We didn’t know how stable any of this area was. We pulled everybody back probably by 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon. We said, this building is going to come down, get back. It came down about 5 o’clock or so, but we had everybody backed away by then. At that point in time, it seemed like a somewhat smaller event, but under any normal circumstances, that’s a major event, a 47-story building collapsing. It seemed like a firecracker after the other ones came down, but I mean that’s a big building, and when it came down, it was quite an event. But having gone through the other two, it didn’t seem so bad. But that’s what we were concerned about. We had said to the guys, we lost as many as 300 guys. We didn’t want to lose any more people that day. And when those numbers start to set in among everybody… My feeling early on was we weren’t going to find any survivors. You either made it out or you didn’t make it out. It was a cataclysmic event. The idea of somebody living in that thing to me would have been only short of a miracle. This thing became geographically sectored because of the collapse. I was at West and Liberty. I couldn’t go further north on West Street. And I couldn’t go further east on Liberty because of the collapse of the south tower, so physically we were boxed in.

(FIREHOUSE MAGAZINE)

It mirrors what Silverstein said.

  • WTC Building 7 appears to have suffered significant damage at some point after the WTC Towers had collapsed, according to firefighters at the scene. Firefighter Butch Brandies tells other firefighters that nobody is to go into Building 7 because of creaking and noises coming out of there.  [Firehouse Magazine, 8/02 — METABUNK]
  • Battalion Chief John Norman later recalls, “At the edge of the south face you could see that it is very heavily damaged.” [Firehouse Magazine, 5/02 — METABUNK]

Heavy, thick smoke rises near 7 World Trade Center. Smoke is visible from the upper floors of the 47-story building. Firefighters using transits to determine whether there was any movement in the structure were surprised to discover that is was moving. The area was evacuated and the building collapsed later in the afternoon of Sept. 11.

(FIREHOUSE MAGAZINE)

Who Decides Who or What is “Essential”

Published by Papa Giorgio

Editor’s Note: No politician has a right to note which organizations are and are not essential.

From the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, governors told us what were and were not essential businesses. But what criteria were used?

Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano provides insights into legal battles over state stay-at-home orders.

No, 17-U.S. Agencies Did Not Say Russia Hacked Dem E-mails

Published by Papa Giorgio

Unfortunately, Russia being behind the hacks is more conjecture than fact. Some have been leaked by Democrats themselves, others may have been leaked by NSA officials getting back at Hillary for the death of some intelligence agency employee’s and the worry that her reckless behavior with State Secrets would continue in the White House. Annnd may some were done by Wikileaks. The funny thing is however that Hillary denies her emails were at the same time she blames Russia.

Hillary Clinton in last night’s presidential debate tried to avoid talking about the substance of the damaging WikiLeaks disclosures of DNC and Clinton campaign officials by claiming 17 U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russia was responsible for this. After Clinton made this claim, she scolded Trump for challenging U.S. intelligence professionals who have taken an oath to help defend this country.

What Clinton said was false and misleading. First of all, only two intelligence entities – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – have weighed in on this issue, not 17 intelligence agencies. And what they said was ambiguous about Russian involvement. An unclassified October 7, 2016 joint DNI-DHS statement on this issue said the hacks

  • …are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow — the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europa and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.

Saying we think the hacks “are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts” is far short of saying we have evidence that Russia has been responsible for the hacks. Maybe high-level officials would have authorized them if Russian hackers were responsible, but the DNI and DHS statement did NOT say there was evidence Russia was responsible….

Don’t forget that some are saying that a portion of these WIkiLeaks came from a Democrat operative, that dies in the nick of time:

DNC staffer Seth Rich was mysteriously murdered in the streets of Washington, D.C., on July 10. Although it is being investigated as a robbery, his wallet, credit cards and watch were not taken. The 27-year old was shot in the back on July 10 at 4:15 a.m. near his affluent neighborhood, while he was reportedly walking home from his girlfriend’s apartment. Police still have no suspects, witnesses or motive. His mother told the local NBC station that there were bruises on his face, knees and hands, apparently from trying to fend off his attackers.

[….]

Rich was a data analyst, so it is very possible he could have had access to the DNC’s emails. Julian Assange of Wikileaks said recently on TV that it wasn’t Russian hackers who intercepted the emails, as the Hillary Clinton campaign has alleged; instead, any one of a number of staffers within the DNC could have leaked them.

(RPT)

Government Overeach via Wickard v. Filburn ~ Clark Neily

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Video Descripton)

Dennis Prager interviews Clark Neily, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, about government overreach. Clark has a new book entitled, “Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government” (http://tinyurl.com/o5u9n8l). Clark talks briefly about the watershed case, Wickard v. Filburn, allowing the Federal government the ability to over-step its enumerated reach.

For more clear thinking like this from Dennis Prager… I invite you to visit: http://www.dennisprager.com/

See more: http://thefilburnfoundation.com/opinions.html

Quick Interview with David Mamet

Published by Papa Giorgio

I was headed over — literally — to buy “Demonic” (Ann Coulter’s book). Most of the time I listen to talk radio when I drive, and David Mamet was being interviewed about his book “Secret Knowledge.” I ended up getting his book instead. By the way, I cannot recommend this book enough… it has been a pleasure to read the40 or so pages so far. (By-the-way, I made my boys get me “Demonic” for Fathers Day.)

Some MAMET quotes:

There is a Liberal sentiment that it should also punish those who take more than their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? (Shakespeare suggests that each should be treated not according to his deserts, but according to God’s mercy, or none of us would escape whipping.)

The concept of Fairness, for all its attractiveness to sentiment, is a dangerous one (cf. quota hiring and enrollment, and talk of “reparations”). Deviations from the Law, which is to say the Constitution, to accommodate specifically alleged identity-group injustices will all inevitably be expanded, universalized, and exploited until there remains no law, but only constant petition of Government.

We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law’s treatment.

But “fairness” is not only a nonlegal but an antilegal process, for it deals not with universally applicable principles and strictures, but with specific cases, responding to the perceived or proclaimed needs of individual claimants, and their desire for extralegal preference. And it could be said to substitute fairness (a determination which must always be subjective) for justice (the application of the legislated will of the electorate), is to enshrine greed—the greed, in this case, not for wealth, but for preference. The socialistic spirit of the Left indicts ambition and the pursuit of wealth as Greed, and appeals, supposedly on behalf of “the people,” to the State for “fairness.”….

….But such fairness can only be the non-Constitutional intervention of the State in the legal, Constitutional process—awarding, as it sees fit, money (reparations), preferment (affirmative action), or entertainment (confiscation)….

….”Don’t you care?” is the admonition implicit in the very visage of the Liberals of my acquaintance on their understanding that I have embraced Conservatism. But the Talmud understood of old that good intentions can lead to evil—vide Busing, Urban Renewal, Affirmative Action, Welfare, et cetera, to name the more immediately apparent, and not to mention the, literally, tens of thousands of Federal and State statutes limiting freedom of trade, which is to say, of the right of the individual to make a living, and, so earn that wealth which would, in its necessary expenditure, allow him to provide a living to others….

…. I recognized that though, as a lifelong Liberal, I endorsed and paid lip service to “social justice,” which is to say, to equality of result, I actually based the important decisions of my life—those in which I was personally going to be affected by the outcome—upon the principle of equality of opportunity; and, further, that so did everyone I knew. Many, I saw, were prepared to pay more taxes, as a form of Charity, which is to say, to hand off to the Government the choice of programs and recipients of their hard-earned money, but no one was prepared to be on the short end of the failed Government pro-grams, however well-intentioned. (For example—one might endorse a program giving to minorities preference in award of government contracts; but, as a business owner, one would fight to get the best possible job under the best possible terms regardless of such a program, and would, in fact, work by all legal and, perhaps by semi- or illegal means to subvert any program that enforced upon the pro-prietor a bad business decision.)*

Further, one, in paying the government to relieve him of a feeling of social responsibility, might not be bothered to question what in fact constituted a minority, and whether, in fact, such minority contracts were actually benefiting the minority so enshrined, or were being subverted to shell corporations and straw men. †

*No one would say of a firefighter, hired under rules reducing the height requirement, and thus unable to carry one’s child to safety, “Nonetheless, I am glad I voted for that ‘more fair’ law.”

† As, indeed, they are, or, in the best case, to those among the applicants claiming eligibility most capable of framing, supporting, or bribing their claims to the front of the line. All claims cannot be met. The politicians and bureaucrats discriminating between claims will necessarily favor those redounding to their individual or party benefit—so the eternal problem of “Fairness,” supposedly solved by Government distribution of funds, becomes, yet again and inevitably, a question of graft.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 116-117, 122, 151, 154.

If there is indeed a social revolution under way, it shouldn’t stop with women’s choice to honor their [own] nature. It must also include a newfound respect for men. It was New York City’s firemen who dared to charge up the stairs of the burning Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. The death tally of New York City’s firefighters was: men 343, women 0. Can anyone honestly say you would have wanted a woman coming to your rescue on that fateful day?

Suzanne Venker & Phyllis Schlafly, The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say (Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2011), 181-182.

* “The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders…. Dr. Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furor over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.” (David Rose, The Daily Mail, January 24, 2010)

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), [FN] 161.

But it is the free individual who alone can provide sustenance for the group. For if there is no effort, no use (called “exploitation”), no reward for initiative (called “greed”), where will the food come from? Malthus, before the invention of the improved plow and before scientific agriculture, “proved” that the world must soon starve.

Socialist Europe is held up as a model of “just behavior”; but the Left forgets that for seventy-five years America defended Europe from the Communist threat, and bore the cost, which would have bankrupted Europe, and which, in the event, bankrupted Communism. The Left looks at the peace of Europe since World War II and forgets that it was not only ensured, but created by American military strength and determination.* And now the Left has elected a President who thinks it good to go to Europe and apologize for our “arrogance,” who proclaims the benefits of appeasement both at home and around the world.

This appeasement, called the antiwar movement, the antinuclear movement, One-Worldism, Code Pink, “the end to American Exceptionalism,” is, to the Left, another example of the Correct Thinking of the never-involved. They believe that our enemies, like the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are, will be so moved by some unnamable but real excellence on our part, that they will forswear their desire for our destruction (recognizing it, now, as an unnecessary expenditure of effort) and beat their swords into plowshares.

But the Left does not stop to consider that if we, the most prosperous country in the history of the world, choose neither to exploit nor to defend our property, someone else will take it, and if we announce, indeed, proclaim our passivity, we will only advance that bad day.[1]

* And funded by the Marshall Plan, which is to say, by the surplus of American Industrial Stength.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 44-45.

One might say that the politician, the doctor, and the dramatist make their living from human misery; the doctor in attempting to alleviate it, the politician to capitalize on it, and the dramatist, to describe it.

But perhaps that is too epigrammatic.

When I was young, there was a period in American drama in which the writers strove to free themselves of the question of character.

Protagonists of their worthy plays had made no choices, but were afflicted by a condition not of their making; and this condition, homosexuality, illness, being a woman, etc., was the center of the play. As these protagonists had made no choices, they were in a state of innocence. They had not acted, so they could not have sinned.

A play is basically an exercise in the raising, lowering, and altering of expectations (such known, collectively, as the Plot); but these plays dealt not with expectations (how could they, for the state of the protagonist was not going to change?) but with sympathy.

What these audiences were witnessing was not a drama, but a troublesome human condition displayed as an attraction. This was, formerly, known as a freak show.

The subjects of these dramas were bearing burdens not of their choosing, as do we all. But misfortune, in life, we know, deserves forbearance on the part of the unafflicted. For though the display of courage in the face of adversity is worthy of all respect, the display of that respect by the unaffected is presumptuous and patronizing.

One does not gain merit from congratulating an afflicted person for his courage. One only gains entertainment.

Further, endorsement of the courage of the affliction play’s hero was not merely impertinent, but, more basically, spurious, as applause was vouchsafed not to a worthy stoic, but to an actor portraying him.

These plays were an (unfortunate) by-product of the contemporary love-of-the-victim. For a victim, as above, is pure, and cannot have sinned; and one, by endorsing him, may perhaps gain, by magic, part of his incontrovertible status.

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 134-135.

*In my family, as in yours, someone regularly says, “Hey, you know what would be a good idea … ?” And then proceeds to outline some scheme for making money by providing a product or service the need for which has just occurred to him. He and the family fantasize about and discuss and elaborate this scheme. Inherent in this fantasy is the unstated but ever-present truth that, given sufficient capital and expertise or the access to the same, the scheme might actually be put into operation (as, indeed, constantly, throughout our history, such schemes have), bettering the lives of the masses and bringing wealth to their creators. Do you believe such conversations take place in Syria? In France?

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), [FN] 120.

Let us squint for a moment, to see if we may blur the particulars and perceive a familiar outline in an unfamiliar act. A young wealthy woman puts on vaguely military garb and travels to a far-off, less-developed land to participate in adventure. She meets there the more primitive indigenous people, admires their hunting abilities, and, in fact, poses with one of their large guns, famous for having bagged many trophies.

Q. What is she doing? A. Going on Safari.

Essentially, yes. The woman, however, would be appalled had the big gun been used to kill an elephant. But it has not. It has been used to kill American fliers.

Jane Fonda’s Adventure Tourism is, then, incorrectly, identified not as a safari but as “Ending the War.”

This was a no-cost, exhilarating adventure, all the more attractive because it took place in the purlieus of danger, but contained no danger; and it could be described as “humanitarianism,” which is an edifying title, rather than “slumming,” which is perhaps less so.

Ms. Fonda did not choose to take her wish for adventure into the veldt, where, after all, the beasts might strike back, but to Hanoi in 1969. At the height of the Vietnam War—to pose with the enemy, secure in the knowledge that her (largely inherited) position would protect her from prosecution for what was, arguably, an act of treason.

In her reliance upon this protection she was, of course, availing herself of that same privilege and culture whose destruction she was endorsing in posing by the gun.

Her pilgrimage, as Mr. Hollander points out, was not unique. Intellectuals through the twentieth century have traveled see the Potemkin Villages of Stalin’s “Workers Miracle,” the happy children of China, and the grinning, sun-drenched Campesinos [peasants] of the Island Paradise. They have believed what they were shown.

From the Webbs, and Bertrand Russell, to Susan Sontag, Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and various movie stars of our day, these happy dupes reward themselves for feeling superior to their own country, from which country they were free to travel, and to which they were free to return, while the smiling folk they visited were locked in slave states.

See also the brave actors who endeavored to boycott, and so close, the 2009 Toronto Film Festival because it offended by showing films from Israel.

This “visiting” and political pilgrimage differs from safari in that one does not here toy with danger. It more closely resembles the Victorian practice of “going among the poor.”

It used to be called “passing out tracts.”

David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (New York, NY: Sentinel Publishing, 2011), 96-98.