John McCain Makes Stuff Up.

Does anybody want this guy running the country? Pleeeeez...

By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted June 14, 2008.

For years now, the U.S. political press corps has traveled with John McCain on his “Straight Talk Express,” buying into his image as a paragon of truth-telling. But the real truth is that McCain routinely makes stuff up, as he did on June 11 in lying about Barack Obama’s “bitter” comment.

During a political talk in Philadelphia, McCain claimed that Obama had described “bitter” small-town voters as clinging to religion or “the Constitution” – when the second item in Obama’s comment actually was “guns.”

MORE HERE:   http://www.alternet.org/election08/88101/

U.S. Soldiers Kill Iraqi Governor's 17-Year Old Son

By Ahmad al-Taii, Azzaman. Posted July 22, 2008.

The killing by U.S. troops of the son and cousin of the Governor of Saladin Province is likely to disturb the relative quiet this once violent region has enjoyed recently.

The provincial authorities have warned of "immediate measures" to avenge the killing and Governor Hamad al-Qaisi has said the "murder" of his son "will not go in vain."

MORE HERE:   http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/92391/?ses=5f754d64833fd8d0d58e9ce9254a8567

Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Bush?

By Ray McGovern, Consortium News. Posted June 20, 2008.

Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox -- in the form of air and missile attacks -- begin.

This time it will be largely the Air Force's show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.

Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind:

"We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House."

Does that sound like a man concerned that Bush is just bluff and bluster?

A member of Olmert's delegation noted that same day that the two countries had agreed to cooperate in case of an attack by Iran, and that "the meetings focused on 'operational matters' pertaining to the Iranian threat." So bring 'em on!

A show of hands please. How many believe Iran is about to attack the U.S. or Israel?

You say you missed Olmert's account of what Bush has undertaken to do? So did I. We are indebted to intrepid journalist Chris Hedges for including the quote in his article of June 8, "The Iran Trap."

We can perhaps be excused for missing Olmert's confident words about "Israel's best friend" that week. Your attention -- like mine -- may have been riveted on the June 5 release of the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding administration misrepresentations of pre-Iraq-war intelligence -- the so-called "Phase II" investigation (also known, irreverently, as the "Waiting-for-Godot Study").

Better late than never, I suppose.

Oversight?

Yet I found myself thinking: It took them five years, and that is what passes for oversight? Yes, the president and vice president and their courtiers lied us into war. And now a bipartisan report could assert that fact formally; and committee chair Jay Rockefeller could sum it up succinctly:

"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."

But as I listened to Senator Rockefeller, I had this sinking feeling that in five or six years time, those of us still around will be listening to a very similar post mortem looking back on an even more disastrous attack on Iran.

My colleagues and I in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) issued repeated warnings, before the invasion of Iraq, about the warping of intelligence. And our memoranda met considerable resonance in foreign media.

We could get no ink or airtime, however, in the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) in the U.S. Nor can we now.

In a same-day critique of Colin Powell's unfortunate speech to the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003, we warned the president to widen his circle of advisers "beyond those clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

It was a no-brainer for anyone who knew anything about intelligence, the Middle East, and the brown noses leading intelligence analysis at the CIA.

Former U.N. senior weapons inspector and former Marine major, Scott Ritter, and many others were saying the same thing. But none of us could get past the president's praetorian guard to drop a memo into his in-box, so to speak. Nor can we now.

The "Iranian Threat"

However much the same warnings are called for now with respect to Iran, there is even less prospect that any contrarians could puncture and break through what former White House spokesman Scott McClellan calls the president's "bubble."

By all indications, Vice President Dick Cheney and his huge staff continue to control the flow of information to the president.

But, you say, the president cannot be unaware of the far-reaching disaster an attack on Iran would bring?

Well, this is a president who admits he does not read newspapers, but rather depends on his staff to keep him informed. And the memos Cheney does brief to Bush pooh-pooh the dangers.

This time no one is saying we will be welcomed as liberators, since the planning does not include -- officially, at least -- any U.S. boots on the ground.

MORE HERE:  http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/88786/

Conservative Lawyers Urge Bush To Issue ‘Pre-Emptive Pardons’ To Officials Involved In Illegal Programs

The New York Times reported this weekend that “[f]elons are asking President Bush for pardons and commutations at historic levels as he nears his final months in office, a time when many other presidents have granted a flurry of clemency requests.” However the Times noted that despite commuting Scooter Libby’s prison sentence, applicants “should expect to be disappointed” because Bush “has made little use of his clemency power” compared to past presidents.

Except perhaps if you participated in any illegal activity involving the Bush administration’s controversial counterterrorism programs. According to the Times, “several members of the conservative legal community” in Washington D.C. are urging Bush to issue “pre-emptive pardons” to those involved so as to “not be exposed even to the risk of an investigation and expensive legal bills”:

Such a pardon would reduce the risk that a future administration might undertake a criminal investigation of operatives or policy makers involved in programs that administration lawyers have said were legal but that critics say violated laws regarding torture and surveillance.

Some legal analysts said Mr. Bush might be reluctant to issue such pardons because they could be construed as an implicit admission of guilt. […]

“The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations,” said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. “If we don’t protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances.”

Stuart Taylor, Jr., a constitutional law fellow at Brookings, agrees, saying in a recent Newsweek column that investigations into the Bush administration’s “high level ‘war crimes’” are a “bad idea” and instead called for a “truth commission“:

A criminal investigation would only hinder efforts to determine the truth, and preclude any apologies. It would spur those who know the most to take the Fifth. Any prosecutions would also touch off years of partisan warfare. […]

Absent pardons, pressure to go after GOP “war criminals” would make it very hard to unite Americans of all stripes behind solutions to the many economic and social challenges facing the country.

In fact, the conservative D.C. lawyer circuit may just get its wish. The White House “would not say whether the administration was considering pre-emptive pardons, nor whether it would rule them out.” (HT: Dan Froomkin)

Source:   http://thinkprogress.org/

Wells Of Mass Deception

Note: The team that brings you The Progress Report is heading to the Netroots Nation conference in Austin, TX this week. There will be no Progress Report July 16-18, but we will resume again on Monday, July 21. In the meantime, check out our blog ThinkProgress.org for news and updates throughout the day. (By the way, if you're planning to be in Austin, please join us for our media training workshop, "The Pundit Project: How To Outtalk The Talking Heads," on Thursday at 9:00 AM or 1:00 PM CST. Members of The Progress Report team, along with progressive commentators Cliff Schecter and Matthew Yglesias, will be hosting the session.)

Yesterday, citing the "squeeze of rising prices at the pump," President Bush rescinded the presidential moratorium on offshore drilling. The moratorium on lease sales in the Outer Continental Shelf was established in 1990 by his father, George H.W. Bush, in response to the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill and extended by President Clinton. Bush's action pressures Congress to follow him in "capitulation to the oil companies" by lifting their moratorium, which must be renewed annually. In response, Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) said at a press conference that Bush "is invoking the specter of another WMD: wells of mass deception." At the Huffington Post, activist Martin Bosworth wrote, "Americans are smarter than we are often given credit for, and many of us do realize that destroying precious environmental resources and wildlife reserves to allow more domestic drilling is a psychological panacea -- a placebo to make us feel like 'something is being done.'" However, polls show increasing support for expanded offshore drilling. Conservatives are preying on Americans' concern over skyrocketing gas prices by propagating false myths that drilling for oil off our coasts will allow us to "pay less" at the pump, that it's "environmentally safe," and that drilling is already underway by communist China. Because "only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land," their political allies must resort to selling falsehoods.

MYTH #1 -- 'DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW, PAY LESS': Newt Gingrich's 527 organization, American Solutions, is promoting a "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less" campaign, collecting over one million signatures on its petition to Congress to "act immediately to lower gasoline prices" by "authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves" off our coasts. American Solutions is funded by right-wing Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who wants Americans to place another bad bet on oil drilling. As the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has explained, "access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030." But because United States demand for oil far outstrips production -- we consume 25 percent of the world's supply but have two percent of the proven reserves -- further exploitation of domestic resources will not have a long-term impact either.  After 2030, the EIA found, "any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant."  There are numerous ways to immediately affect prices, from use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to improved oversight of the oil markets. Over the long term, we must fight global warming and break our addiction to oil through modern technology like plug-in hybrids and smart growth planning.

MYTH #2 -- CHINA ON OUR COASTS: Conservatives from Rudy Giuliani to Dick Cheney have repeatedly claimed that the United States needs to start drilling for off-shore oil because China is taking "American oil" off the coast of Cuba, just "60 miles off the coast of Florida." Cheney exhorted, "Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply." That same day, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) wrote that Castro was allowing drilling "45 miles from the Florida keys." Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) have also raised the specter of Chinese drilling just off U.S. shores. However, this modern invocation of the Red Scare the claim is completely false. As Cheney was forced to acknowledge, "no Chinese firm is drilling" off Cuba's coast. Talking Points Memo has recorded the large number of conservatives hyping the false story.  The Washington Post’s Ben Pershing said the China/Cuba oil drilling claim is the "myth that keeps on giving," calling it "just too juicy not to repeat."

MYTH #3 -- 'NOT A DROP WAS SPILLED': Offshore drilling advocates know that the specter of oil-slicked beaches would doom their campaign, so they are desperate to wish its environmental impact away. Yesterday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claimed "not a drop of oil was spilled during Katrina or Rita." This myth has been told again and again by the likes of Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA), Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Mike Huckabee, George Will, and Bill O'Reilly. There were, in fact, major onshore and offshore spills due to the hurricanes. According to the official Minerals Management Service report, the hurricanes caused 124 offshore spills for a total of 743,700 gallons, six spilling 42,000 gallons or more. The largest of these spills dropped 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a "major spill." In addition, the hurricanes caused disastrous spills onshore throughout southeast Louisiana and the rest of the Gulf Coast as tanks, pipelines, refineries and other industrial facilities were destroyed, for a total of 595 different oil spills. The nine million gallons reported spilled were comparable with the Exxon Valdez's 10.8 million gallons, but unlike the Exxon Valdez, they were distributed throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Gulf Coast states, many in residential areas.

Source:  http://pr.thinkprogress.org/

New Safe Detox for Mercury Amalgam Fillings

PSR Security Program in Print

Michael McCally, Executive Director of PSR, "Clean, reliable, cost-effective: nuclear power none of these," The Hill, October 5, 2007

Dr. Peter Wilk, PSR Security Chair, “Say No to New Nuclear Weapons,” The Portland Press Herald, August 6, 2007

Angela Crowley-Koch, Executive Director of PSR Oregon, “Nuclear Spill Sends Warning,” The Oregonian, August 6, 2007

Dr. Robert Dodge, PSR National Board Member, “Remembering the Dawn of the Nuclear Age,” Ventura County Star, August 5, 2007

Douglas Shaw, PSR Security Program Director, “Nuclear Materials for the Asking,” Washington Post, July 24, 2007, page A14

Dr. Catherine Thomasson, PSR President, letter to the editor, The Washington Times, June 29, 2007

Douglas Shaw, PSR Security Program Director, “Trusting and Verifying,” The Washington Times, June 21, 2007, page A15

Dr. Michael McCally, PSR Executive Director, “Use diplomacy, not nuclear weapons in dealing with Iran,” USA Today, June 15, 2007, page 24A

Negotiating with Iran

Policy Shift Seen in U.S. Decision on Iran Talks. The Bush administration’s decision to send a senior American official to participate in international talks with Iran this weekend reflects a double policy shift in the struggle to resolve the impasse over the country’s nuclear program. New York Times (07/17/08)

US plans to station diplomats in Iran for first time since 1979. The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush. The Guardian (07/17/08)

Preventing War on Iran

Tehran open to US Interests. Despite opposition from some hardline factions in Iran, the government of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has responded positively to a proposal by the United States that it open a US Interests Section in Tehran - its first formal diplomatic presence since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Asia Times (07/18/08)

Keep cool on Iran. After Iran test-fired nine missiles Wednesday near the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil passes, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wisely refused to overreact. International Herald Tribune (07/11/08)

You're not going to believe what FOX is up to now-we could hardly believe it ourselves. Not only are they smearing Michelle Obama with racist stereotypes, but then they offer a feeble apology that they believe gives them the right to slander her again. That's what happened when FOX called Michelle and Barack Obama's fist bump a "terrorist fist jab," apologized, and then less than a week later referred to Michelle Obama as Barack's "Baby Mama."

FOX's long history of racism is nothing new, but it has been particularly egregious when it comes to their coverage of the Obamas. Racism and fearmongering have no place in our country or its politics, despite what FOX would have you believe. That's why we put together this video, FOX Attacks Michelle Obama.

Watch the video and sign the petition.