Tag Archives: Barrie Zwicker

Truth and consensus: jury still out on Griffin's new 9/11 expert panel

By Craig McKee

Maybe we should start calling it the 9/11 Consensus Movement.
Recent developments in the struggle to widely expose the truth about the fake “terrorist attacks” of Sept. 11, 2001 have focused on apparent efforts to overcome divisions between different factions in the movement. Ironically, these attempts at consensus have themselves been highly controversial.
The latest, and possibly most consequential, move towards consensus is the creation of a collection of experts in a panel called “Consensus 911: The 9/11 Best Evidence Panel.”
The group, announced in September, was put together by prolific 9/11 researcher and author David Ray Continue reading →

Journalists would be thrilled to break 9/11 'inside job' story, if there was one: Kay

Jonathan Kay would suggest that this man is delusional and has too much time on his hands.


By Craig McKee
Jonathan Kay lives in a truly wonderful world.
In this world, journalists are just dying to break any story that would show that 9/11 is an inside job. And any who did would surely be rewarded with wealth, fame, and maybe a Pulitzer Prize.
Too bad for them there isn’t a shred of evidence for this ridiculous “conspiracy theory.” If there were, we’d have hundreds of ambitious scribes fighting and scratching to find out who could get that April Gallop interview first. Somebody heard bombs going off in the towers before the planes hit? 60 Minutes would have been there. A big plane got sucked into an impossibly tiny Continue reading →

Teach kids conspiracy theories are ‘bad for society’: an interview with Jonathan Kay

By Craig McKee
It’s a challenge to interview someone you’d rather be debating. That was the case when I interviewed Canadian writer and journalist Jonathan Kay this week. Kay, an editor with the National Post, is the author of Among the Truthers, which attempts to examine and explain the world of conspiracy theorists. Why do these otherwise intelligent people believe the “bullshit” that they do, he wonders? He sees the 9/11 Truth movement as being ridiculous and based on arguments that “even an eight-year-old” would see through. I chose to try and cover as much ground in 45 minutes as I could rather than getting into an in-depth debate on any one point. I did find things in his arguments that cry out for further argument , and I will offer my analysis of his remarks in a subsequent post. I encourage readers to offer their own comments at the end of this article.
CM: What is the difference between a conspiracy theorist and someone who does legitimate research to unearth a real conspiracy?
JK: I define according to the method of argumentation of the people who advance the theory in question. I give the example of Iran/Contra, Teapot Dome, the Sponsorship Scandal or Watergate, which of course were real historical conspiracies. If you’re advancing something like this, one person will advance evidence and the other person will refute it, and by that method you Continue reading →

CIT would likely have said no to ‘fixed’ Toronto 9/11 hearings: Ranke

By Craig McKee

Citizen Investigation Team would almost certainly not have participated in the Toronto 9/11 hearings last month even if invited, CIT’s Craig Ranke said in an interview.
“We knew they weren’t going to give us a fair hearing, even in the unlikely event that some of our evidence was addressed,” Ranke says.
“If we had been invited, it would have been foolish for us to automatically accept knowing that we’d be walking into a rigged situation where all aspects of the discussion, and even the final report, were controlled by our detractors and their associates.”
Ranke says it’s apparent to him that one of the major goals of the hearings all along was to marginalize CIT’s evidence that a large plane approached, but did not hit, the Pentagon Continue reading →

Toronto 9/11 hearings navigate Pentagon minefield with 'consensus'

By Craig McKee

For Graeme MacQueen, the word is – or should be – consensus.
MacQueen, a member of the steering committee for the Toronto 9/11 Hearings (Sept. 8-11), says the event was conceived as an opportunity to reach people who are not yet convinced that 9/11 was an inside job, and to show how the evidence does not support the official story. He says the fight over whether a 757 did or did not hit the Pentagon should be put on the back burner so that the hearings Continue reading →

Has credibility of Toronto 9/11 hearings been hurt by pressure?


This post requires an update. In it, I expressed outrage at the appearance that a change was being made to the roster of Toronto witnesses based on pressure from the group that regularly attacks Citizen Investigation Team and ridicules the idea that no 757 hit the Pentagon. It turns out that while pressure was certainly applied, this change was at the request of the person whose name was removed from the schedule (April Gallop). Despite the fact that I said people should be angry “if” she was removed due to pressure and didn’t state this as a fact, the impression left was unfair to the organizers of the hearings.–Craig McKee

By Craig McKee

It appears that the organizers of the Toronto 9/11 hearings have utterly caved to pressure and thrown fairness and common sense under the bus in the process.
April Gallop, who was injured in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 along with her infant son, has been removed from the list of witnesses at the upcoming hearings (Sept. 8-11), to be replaced by an “unconfirmed” witness. If that replacement is assigned to make the case that a 757 did, in fact, hit the Continue reading →

Eyes on the Pentagon: new Toronto event independent of 9/11 hearings

Witnesses in CIT film describe flight path to the north of the official one.

By Craig McKee

The Toronto 9/11 hearings are no longer the only game in town.
The 9/11 research group Citizen Investigation Team, which contends that no commercial airliner hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, has announced it will present a screening of its documentary National Security Alert on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in Toronto. The Sept. 11 event will also Continue reading →

Will Toronto 9/11 Hearings ignore Pentagon to avoid ‘controversy’?

By Craig McKee

While most eyes will be on New York City on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in September, the real news could be made north of the border.
To coincide with the anniversary, the International Centre for 9/11 Studies is organizing The International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001 in Toronto, Canada. These hearings, to be held at Ryerson University Sept. 8-11, will address the evidence from 9/11 and will produce a final report that could become a very valuable document in getting the truth out to the world.
Some of the most prominent names in the 9/11 Truth movement will be participating. Notable are author David Ray Griffin (who has written more books on the subject that anyone), Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and physicist Steven Jones. Other familiar Truth movement names include Peter Dale Scott, David Chandler, Jonathan Cole, Kevin Ryan, and Niels Harrit. Check out their bios on the Hearings site here.
But there could be a problem. And that problem could arise because not everyone agrees on what constitutes the weakest link in the official government story of 9/11 – and what constitutes strong evidence. Continue reading →

Gage ignores challenge by truthers to justify Pentagon reversal

By Craig McKee

Richard Gage had a lot to say in February about what did and didn’t happen at the Pentagon on 9/11. But in recent weeks he’s been sticking to more familiar territory – the twin towers.
The founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has declined to respond to a letter signed by 27 members of the 9/11 Truth movement criticizing his stance on the Pentagon and Citizen Investigation Team (which contends that no commercial airliner hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001). In his statement he withdrew his support of CIT and its film National Security Alert.
The film features a number of interviews with people who were working near the Pentagon that day – including two Pentagon cops. The interviewees recounted that a large commercial plane approached the Pentagon to the north of the Citgo gas station, which is located across the street. If accurate, their accounts would mean that the downed light pole evidence must have been planted.
There continues to be a relentless and seemingly co-ordinated attack by some 9/11 Truthers (or people who purport to be Truthers) against CIT and its supporters. CIT’s position is ridiculed, and its research methods are Continue reading →

New book mocks the psychology of 9/11 truthers while avoiding facts

By Craig McKee

Ever wonder why those curiosities known as “conspiracy theorists” believe the wacky things they do? Lucky for all of us, a conservative journalist from my native Canada has found all the answers.
Jonathan Kay, managing editor of Canada’s National Post, has released Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Conspiracist Underground (Actually, the Canadian edition has an even more obnoxious title: Among the Truthers: A Journey into the Growing Conspiracist Underground of 9/11 Truthers, Birthers, Armageddonites, Vaccine Hysterics, Hollywood Know-Nothings and Internet Addicts.)
Apparently, people who don’t believe what Mr. Kay believes are relegated to a kind of curious but colourful collective “underground.” Kay seems to feel if you question the honesty of your government on any issue, you should be lumped together, psychologically analysed, and then dismissed without even a brief look at Continue reading →