More “Unearthed” News from RFK Jr.

Here’s this week’s “Unearthed” news column from RFK Jr. (you can also listen to this report at the Ring of Fire radio website or watch it at GoLeft.tv):

UNEARTHED:

NEWS OF THE WEEK THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA FORGOT TO REPORT

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMelle

Huffington Post

 

Bush Regrets Legacy as “Guy Really Anxious for War”

President Bush told the UK newspaper The Times in an exclusive interview that he regrets his reputation as a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. Recognizing the bitter divisions both at home and abroad caused by the war, Bush suggested, “in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.” Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive,” Bush said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace.”

 
McClatchy Investigation Confirms Routine Torture At U.S. bases in Afghanistan

 

An eight-month investigation by McClatchy Newspapers confirmed the mistreatment and systematic torture of detainees in Afghanistan, starting in 2001 and lasting at least 20 months. Sixty-eight percent of former detainees interviewed by McClatchy say they were assaulted in Afghanistan, far surpassing the number of detainees with similar stories from Guantanamo Bay. Prison guards interviewed by McClatchy say they were deployed to run Afghan detention centers with inadequate training, a poor understanding of the rules of conduct, and an absence of supervision. “Everybody hit their boiling point,” according to one interviewee who described how he and fellow guards routinely beat detainees. Asked why they would abuse prisoners, one guard said “retribution for September 11, 2001,” indicating that many guards believed the detainees were terrorists, even though the vast majority of the detainees had little or no connection to al Qaeda.

“Whether they got in trouble or not, everybody struck a detainee at some point,” said Brian Cammack, an Army Reservist sentenced to three months in military confinement and a dishonorable discharge for hitting a detainee. Spc. Jeremy Callaway, another Army Reservist who admitted to striking numerous detainees in Afghanistan, told military investigators that he was ordered to “mentally and physically break the detainees.” He testified that, “I guess you can call it torture.”

 
Bush Administration Enables Oil Companies to Harass Already Threatened Polar Bears

The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently issued rules allowing seven big oil companies to harass and potentially harm polar bears in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea. The new regulations shield the seven companies, which include Shell Oil and ConocoPhillips, from any liability for harming polar bears while exploring for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea. The FWS argues that exploration in the midst of polar bear habitat would have a “negligible effect on the bears’ population,” a claim at odds with the Interior Department’s decision less than a month ago to list polar bears as a threatened species because of habitat loss due to global warming. Industrial activity is known to disrupt polar bears’ search for food and their efforts to raise cubs in dens protected from human disturbance.

 
Right Wing Talk Host Michael Reagan Calls for Murder of Anti War Activists

On June 13, talk radio host Michael Reagan, the adopted son of former president Ronald Reagan and occasional guest anchor on Fox News, called for the murder of anti-war activists who, according to Reagan, are sending letters to U.S. soldiers arguing that the U.S. government had a role in 9/11.

Reagan told his nationally-syndicated radio audience:

“Take em out and shoot em. . . . You take em out, they are traitors to this country, and shoot them. . . . Anybody who would do that doesn’t deserve to live. You shoot them. You call them traitors, that’s what they are. And you shoot em dead. I’ll pay for the bullets.”

 
Newt Gingrich Claims Supreme Court Decision Will ‘cost us a city’

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich echoed the extreme right wing rhetoric of Justice Antonin Scalia on Face the Nation June 15th, claiming that the Supreme Court’s recent decision restoring the habeas corpus rights of Guantanamo detainees would “cost us a city.” Justice Scalia wrote in his dissenting opinion that the Court’s decision “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Gingrich told the Face the Nation audience that “the debate ought to be about whether you’re prepared to lose an American city on behalf of five lawyers — it was a five to four decision… [and debate] whether or not you’re prepared to allow any random, nutcake district judge who has no knowledge of national security to set the rules for terrorists.”

 
Bush Impeachment Articles Presented to Congress by Dennis Kucinich

Ohio Democrat and former presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich presented thirty-five articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush to Congress last week.
Many of the articles deal with the Iraq war, including the first: “Article 1 – Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq.”

Other articles delve into GOP election fraud, such as Article 28, charging President Bush with “tampering with free and fair elections,” along with “corruption of the administration of justice.” Article 29 charges the Bush administration and the GOP with “conspiracy to violate the Civil Rights Act of 1965.”

Kucinich presented impeachment articles against Vice President Dick Cheney in April. Kucinich said at the time that “impeachment may well be the only remedy which remains to stop a war of aggression against Iran.”

 
Federal Judge Rules White House Can Keep Millions of Missing Emails Secret

A U.S. District Court judge ruled that the White House can keep secret its paper trail regarding millions of missing emails which could shed further light on the administration’s internal communications leading up to the war in Iraq. The judge ruled that the Office of Administration is shielded from Freedom of Information Act requests because it lacks “substantial independent authority” and its functions “are strictly administrative.” The office previously responded to FOIA requests ever since it was established in 1978, but the Bush White House reversed that policy last year when the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued the White House over its records concerning the missing emails. The ruling closes another door on public attempts to learn why the White House is so closely guarding information about the missing emails.

 
Supreme Court Rejects ExxonMobil Efforts to Avoid Human Rights Lawsuit

ExxonMobil’s efforts to appeal a 2001 human rights lawsuit fell on deaf ears at the Supreme Court, which rejected the company’s arguments for dismissing the case. Human rights advocates brought the suit against Exxon on behalf of 11 Indonesian villagers who allege that Exxon hired Indonesian military members to harass and abuse them near one of the company’s natural gas facilities.

The justices are also expected to rule before the end of the month on whether ExxonMobil has to pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster. Exxon has waged a 14-year fight over its liabilities for the disaster since a jury in Alaska originally awarded $5 billion to Valdez fishermen and residents whose lives and businesses were devastated by the spill. An appeals court halved the award in 2006, and Exxon is asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the award entirely, claiming the company owes nothing beyond what it already spent cleaning up the spill. Justice Samuel Alito is recused from hearing both cases because he owns at least $100,0000 in ExxonMobil stock.

 
BBC Uncovers $23 Billion in Lost, Stolen and Unaccounted Iraq Funds

BBC journalists estimate the loss, theft or shoddy accounting of as much as $23 billion in U.S. spending in Iraq. Private contractors have collected massive profits throughout the Iraq war and rebuilding process, often winning no-bid contracts like the initial $7 billion give-away to Halliburton in the run-up to the invasion. Not a single U.S. contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanaged funds yet, primarily due to a gag order restricting discussion of the allegations that will likely remain in place until President Bush leaves office. Representative Henry Waxman, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, predicts that the enrichment of contractors “may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history.” Waxman told the BBC that the “waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, it’s egregious.”

 
White House Hinders EPA Scientists’ Assessments of Toxic Chemicals

In a move that could threaten the health of millions of Americans, the White House instituted policy changes to delay EPA’s scientific assessments of toxic chemicals, making it harder for the public to comment and limiting independent scientific review. The changes affect the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which tracks the health risks of hundreds of toxic chemicals and is used by EPA offices to set protective health standards for drinking water, air pollution and toxic waste cleanups.

Dr. Linda Greer, director of NRDC’s public health program, testified last week before a House Science subcommittee that the new White House policy “invites the injection of non-scientific considerations into the IRIS assessments, and further, it shields from public scrutiny the input from other parts of the government with a potential financial or political interest in the outcome of a particular assessment.”

The changes introduce three new opportunities for OMB and other non-health agencies to intervene in EPA’s health assessments – all three shielded from public view. Previously the IRIS process provided draft assessments to the public, OMB and non-health agencies at the same time. The new process injects polluting agencies such as DOD and DOE into the assessment process at an earlier stage, and with no public disclosure, and forces EPA staff to address the interests of the non-health focused agencies whether they are consistent with public health policies or not. Then the draft is finally made available to the public for comment, but a final intervention point before the assessment can be finalized requires EPA staff to resolve any outstanding concerns OMB and polluting agencies might raise. Dr. Greer told the House science subcommittee that “this new process is designed precisely to give the polluting agencies more access and more influence to what has historically been an objective scientific evaluation process — and to add at least two or more years to the review of mission critical chemicals.”

 

Send tips about other stories the mainstream media forgot to report: unearthednews@gmail.com

More Bush Administration Arrogance

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S UNFIT TO PRINT, EPISODE 3

Hot off the presses…the latest edition of RFK Jr’s “Unearthed” column, for the week ending May 9, 2008.

Here Kennedy covers a vast array of subjects – everything from the Siegleman case to Cheney and Ashcroft’s refusal to testify about U.S. torture tactics; from the head of the EPA being fired for political purposes to depleted uranium being dumped in Idaho; from hundreds of dead ducks turning up in Canada to right-wing talk radio’s domination of the U.S. airwaves; from the oil crisis to American contractors quite literally making out like bandits in Iraq — all with one common thread, the central underlying theme which ties these stories together:

More unprecedented ARROGANCE from the Bush Administration!

In a mad dash to cover their tracks while scooping up all the spoils they can possibly grab before we kick them out of the White House next January, the Bushies seem to be wholly unconcerned with how things look or smell at this point. (A new poll shows that Bush is now the most unpopular president in history, but ask him if he cares.) Yes, they’re openly farting in our faces, and we’re supposed to love it.

Laughing all the way to the bank, these criminals now feel certain that they will never face prosecution or impeachment, so hey – why not take all they can get? After all, we’ve given them a pass, carte blanche’ and a blank check for the past seven years, turning a blind eye to their crimes against humanity. (And that’s not to mention those High Crimes and Misdemeanors.)

So put on your seat belts and gas masks, America. The ride is only going to get rougher and smellier as Bush’s clock runs out.

Did you ever feel like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water as the heat is slowly being turned up hotter and hotter? Well, you know what happens then, don’t you?

We must take a stand. We must stop them before they kill again (looks like you’re next, Iran). We must fight back. We must prosecute. We must stop taking “I don’t recall” for an answer. Because if we don’t, we could all wind up as dead as those Canadian ducks RFK Jr. writes about.

It may be too late to impeach (as our Democratic brethren continue to insist) now, but it’s never too late to try them for war crimes at the Hague.

Oh…and there’s no statute of limitations on murder, either.

UNEARTHED:

NEWS OF THE WEEK THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA FORGOT TO REPORT

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Brendan De Melle

The Huffington Post

EPA Official Ousted For Offending Dow Chemical

At the request of Dow Chemical, the Bush administration forced out one of its own hand-picked EPA regulators on May 1st because she naively attempted to do her job by enforcing the law against Dow. EPA officials told Mary Gade, the federal agency’s top Midwest regulator to step down from her post or be fired by June 1. Bush appointed Gade in 2006, but Gade ran afoul of the White House when she pressured Dow Chemical to clean up dioxin pollution extending 50 miles downstream from the company’s Michigan headquarters. Dow asked EPA headquarters to intervene. In response EPA chief Stephen Johnson’s top deputies repeatedly grilled Gade about the case. When she refused to lay off Dow, they stripped her of her authority and told her to quit or be fired. “There is no question this is about Dow,” Gade said. “I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I’m proud of what we did.”

Gade was formerly a loyal George W. Bush supporter and adviser. In 2000, she praised then-governor and candidate Bush for his “fresh approach” and “strong leadership.” But her loyalty couldn’t shield her from an administration bent on insulating its chemical industry cronies from public health laws.
Bush’s Misleading Claims About the Arctic Refuge Denied by Federal Officials

President Bush last week repeated his claim that if only Congress had approved his 2002 plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge it “would likely mean lower gas prices” today. However, oil industry experts and Bush’s own Energy Department officials say that Bush is greatly exaggerating the theoretical impact that opening the refuge would’ve had on current gas prices. They explained that it takes over a decade to find and develop a new oil field. Furthermore, the oil available in ANWR — even under the most optimistic projections — could supply less than 2% of U.S. demand, an amount that would have a negligible impact on prices at the pump.
Green Construction Could Drastically Slash North American Energy Dependence

Employing existing and emerging green construction practices could cut North America’s deadly fossil fuel dependence faster and more cost-effectively than any other measure, according to a new study by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a panel erected by the United States, Canada and Mexico. Green construction has immediate paybacks, including “reduced energy costs and water costs as well the indoor health environment and increased productivity of the inhabitants of those buildings,” according to John Westeinde, an advisor on the report. The report found that North America’s buildings release more than 2,200 megatons of CO2, or about 35 percent of the continent’s total. If the construction industry rapidly adopted current and emerging green technologies, that number could be cut by 1,700 megatons by 2030, the report found.
Hundreds of Ducks Die at Canadian Oil Sands Mine

Hundreds of ducks made a fatal landing recently in a tailings pond filled with a witch’s brew of oil and toxic sludge at a northern Alberta tar sands mine. Regulators are investigating why Syncrude Canada — the country’s largest tar sands producer — failed to deploy a system designed to scare off waterfowl. Alberta’s tar sands development has been heavily criticized for huge carbon dioxide emissions, destruction of the boreal forest, and the potential for tailing ponds to contaminate local rivers and waterways.

 
Feds Acknowledge Error On Attempts to Muzzle Siegelman

Former Alabama Governor Don Siegleman, who was falsely imprisoned by Alabama cronies of Karl Rove, and is now released on appeal, was recently placed on a “special offender” list to restrict his right to travel. Siegelman was notified by federal probation officers of the new restriction shortly after he traveled to Washington to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, and appeared on 60 Minutes, the Tavis Smiley Show, and Dan Abrams’ Verdict.

The federal “special offender” designation applies to “Individuals identified or associated with traditional or non-traditional organized crime such as the Mafia, outlaw motorcycle gangs, Asian gangs, prison gangs, etc., persons identified as potential terrorists, kidnappers, members of a supremacy group, major bookmakers, major drug or weapon traffickers, pornographers, sex offenders, armed bank robbers, offenders of high notoriety, or cases similar nature.”

“This basically means I can’t travel out of Birmingham or Montgomery without a lot of red tape, and long delays. For example to travel in some places requires at least 30 days advance approval,” Siegelman said.

But on May 2, federal court officials acknowledged that they erred in classifying Siegelman as a special offender.

“They made an honest mistake,” Redmond said, acknowledging that the restrictions were illegal. “They were giving him conditions for a special offender under probation. He’s not. He’s pretrial.”
Cheney refuses to cooperate with Congressional Torture Investigation, claiming Congress has no authority over vice-president

The lawyer for U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney said Cheney would refuse to allow David Addington, the vice president’s chief of staff, to testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay. The privilege asserted by Cheney’s office recalls his attempt last year to evade rules for disclosing classified documents by claiming that the vice president’s office is a hybrid branch of government that is neither executive nor legislative.
Ashcroft and Yoo Refuse to Testify About Torture

In another imaginative legal claim with dubious constitutionality, two other witnesses sought by Congressman John Conyers, former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft and former U.S. justice department lawyer John Yoo, claim that their involvement in civil lawsuits related to harsh torture allows them to avoid appearing before Congress. “I am aware of no basis for the remarkable claim that pending civil litigation somehow immunizes an individual from testifying before Congress,” Conyers wrote.
Karl Rove Resists Congressional Request to Testify on His Siegelman Mischief

“The House Judiciary Committee threatened last Thursday to subpoena former White House adviser Karl Rove if he does not agree by May 12 to testify about former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman’s corruption case.

“In a letter to Rove’s attorney, committee Democrats called it ‘completely unacceptable’ that the Republican political strategist has rejected the panel’s request for sworn testimony even as he discusses the matter publicly through the media and op-eds and magazine interviews with tame reporters at GQ, and appearances with the administration’s media poodles on Fox News.

On April 7, MSNBC anchor Dan Abrams reported that Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, said Rove would agree to testify if Congress issues a subpoena to him as part of an investigation into the Siegelman case.

Ten days later, committee members invited Rove to appear, citing among other things Rove’s interview with GQ magazine. In that interview, Rove hurled insults at CBS News for airing a 60 Minutes segment on the Siegelman case, called his chief accuser a “lunatic” — but didn’t specifically deny any of the accusations.

In an April 29 letter back to the committee, Luskin changed his position[PDF], arguing that Rove would only appear under the following conditions: “Mr. Rove is prepared to make himself available for an interview on this specific issue with Committee staff. Mr. Rove would speak candidly and truthfully about this matter, but the interview would not be transcribed nor would Mr. Rove be under oath.”

 
Hate-filled Right Wing Radio

Racial slurs abound these days on right wing radio, particularly among the right’s leading shock jocks Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Neal Boortz, Michael Savage and Lou Dobbs. During his May 5 appearance on FOX News, Rush Limbaugh referred to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), who is Hispanic, as a “shoe shine guy.”

A 2007 study of talk radio conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that in the second quarter of 2007, when right wing radio resorted to spreading fear and hatred in order to defeat immigration reform. Immigration was the #1 topic – representing 16% of all airtime on right wing radio – led by Limbaugh, Hannity, and Savage. Neal Boortz chipped in too, urging listeners to help defeat “this illegal alien amnesty bill” and “yank out the welcome mat.” Speaking of undocumented immigrants he said, “Give ’em all a little nuclear waste and let ’em take it on down there to Mexico. Tell ’em…it’ll heat tortillas.” Michael Savage encouraged his listeners to “burn a Mexican flag” and to “tell them to go back to where they came from.”

Bigotry and Hatred is Good Business

Propped up by the conservative bias among corporate media barons who control the airwaves, right-wing radio now claims 91 percent of U.S. radio airspace. Salon.com reported that “Talk like Savage’s, or Limbaugh’s or O’Reilly’s, has become routine, even systematic, and certainly a big business. According to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, the top five radio station owners that control the 45 most powerful, 50,000-watt or more radio stations broadcast 310 hours of nationally syndicated right-wing talk. But they broadcast only a total of five hours of countervailing talk.” Meanwhile the public popularity of progressive talk is growing.
Thanks to Right-Wing Corporate Owners Right-Wing Hate Talk Dominates Airwaves

While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, right-wing talk reigns supreme on America’s airwaves. Some key findings:

— In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.

— Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk–10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

— 76 percent of the news/talk programming in the top 10 radio markets is conservative, while 24 percent is progressive.
Bush Is the Least Popular President in History

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of President Bush’s job performance, making him the most unpopular president in modern American history, even less popular than Richard Nixon just prior to his resignation.

“Bush’s approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s,” Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director said. “The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952.”

A January poll – conducted on the five-year anniversary of Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment on board the USS Abraham Lincoln – found the percentage of Americans who think the U.S. is making progress in Iraq stood at 50 percent. That number has since dropped to 39 percent.

 
Radioactive waste being shipped from Kuwait for Disposal in Idaho

6,700 tons of sand contaminated with depleted uranium and lead is currently being shipped by rail from Longview, Washington to a hazardous waste disposal site in Idaho. The radioactive sand – which was shipped from Camp Doha, a U.S. Army Base in Kuwait – was contaminated with uranium after military vehicles and munitions caught fire during the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. The contaminated sand is destined for burial at American Ecology’s dumping grounds in the Owyhee Desert 70 miles southeast of Boise. The Kuwaiti government wanted no part of the waste which it considered a danger to the Kuwaiti people. Kuwait’s Ministry of Defense contracted Texas-based MKM Engineers Inc. to package and transport the waste back to the United States. MKM then subcontracted with American Ecology to dispose the military waste at its Idaho facility.
Whistleblowers Say Private U.S. Contractors Looted, Stole and Ran a Prostitution Ring

In an investigative report largely ignored by the mainstream media, Mother Jones reports the shocking testimony of three whistleblowers who recently appeared before the Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee (DPC). The whistleblowers told the committee that U.S. private contractors routinely looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor.

Barry Halley, a former project manager for Worldwide Network Services, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that was working on subcontract for DynCorp, testified that his site manager in Iraq, who he said was employed by a “major defense contractor,” moonlighted as the leader of a prostitution ring serving American contractors in Iraq. The sex business sideline indirectly caused the death of a colleague. “A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was traveling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission,” he told the committee. “I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by a manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad.”

Frank Cassaday, a former contract employee of disgraced Cheney-connected firm KBR told the committee about an ice-stealing operation the company ran “cheating the troops out of ice at the same time that [the foreman in charge was] trading the ice for DVDs, CDs, food, and other items at the Iraqi shops across the street.”

Cassaday also detailed how he was jailed in his tent for two days by KBR security and later transferred to a laundry job because he had reported to KBR superiors that his colleagues were stealing equipment from the U.S. military, including refrigerators, artillery round detonators, two rocket launchers, and about 800 rounds of small arms ammunition.

Another KBR whistleblower, Linda Warren, testifying about her time in Baghdad in 2004, said she was shocked by the number of contractors involved in criminal activity. “KBR employees who were contracted to perform construction duties inside palaces and municipal buildings were looting,” she said. “Not only were they looting, but they had a system in place to get contraband out of the country so it could be sold on eBay. They stole artwork, rugs, crystal, and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots.” Like Cassaday, KBR superiors punished Warren for speaking up, taking her vehicle away, monitoring her movements, cutting off her access to phones and the Internet, and ultimately transferring her out of Baghdad.
Iraqi Interpreters Who Helped U.S. Are Being Tossed Under the Bus By Bush Administration

The Bush administration is ignoring the plight of Iraqi interpreters who have risked their lives to provide essential help to U.S. soldiers. Interpreters have been kidnapped, tortured and assassinated by insurgents punishing them for working with the U.S. The Bush administration promised them refugee status to bring them here to safety, but has not delivered, leaving them at lethal risk.
Rockefellers Call on Exxon Mobil to Spend More on Oil Alternatives

Descendants of company founder John D. Rockefeller want Exxon Mobil to spend more money on alternative fuels and bar the CEO from also serving as chairman. Sixteen Rockefeller family members are urging fellow shareholders to support four resolutions on the environment and corporate governance at the company’s May 28 annual meeting.
More Record Profits for Oil Barons

Astounding profits in the oil industry are becoming as routine as the anguished looks of motorists filling up their gas tanks, the AP reports.

ExxonMobil, Shell and BP netted almost $13 million an hour combined in the first quarter amid the steepest increase in oil prices since 2000.

Exxon’s revenue climbed 34 percent to $116.9 billion, but Exxon’s 17 percent profit increase lagged behind the gains of 25 percent and 63 percent by Shell and BP. Chevron put yet another exclamation point on the oil patch’s long run of prosperity Friday with a first-quarter profit of $5.17 billion. That was up 10 percent from net income of $4.72 billion last year.

It was the second-highest quarterly profit in the company’s 129-year history and marked the most money that it has ever made during the January-March period. That puts the No. 2 U.S. oil company on track for its fifth straight year of record earnings.

BP posted a 63 percent surge in first-quarter net profit to $7.6 billion, while Shell reported a 25 percent rise, to a record $9.08 billion. ConocoPhillips reported a 16 percent rise in net income to $4.14 billion. Like BP and Shell, the third biggest U.S. producer far outpaced industry expectations.

Republicans Block Federal Aid to Wind and Solar

Tom Friedman of the New York Times reports:

Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again — which often happens — investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That’s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies.

The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush — showing not one iota of leadership — refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years.

“It’s a disaster,” says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. “Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ‘Congressional risk.’ They say if you don’t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.”

If the wind and solar credits expire, said Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won’t be made.

While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America’s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany — 540 high-paying engineering jobs — because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not.

 

Send tips about other stories the mainstream media forgot to report: unearthednews@gmail.com

RFK Jr: Pentagon Propagandists Hyped The Case for Iraq War

In our second installment of RFK Jr.’s most recent “Unearthed” column, we learn more about the Pentagon propagandists who sold us on this illegal, idiotic occupation of Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.

UNEARTHED: NEWS OF THE WEEK THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA FORGOT TO REPORT

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMelle

The Huffington Post

Menage a Trois – A Criminal Act

The Pentagon announced that it has suspended its illegal Retired Military Analyst Program. The program described in The New York Times exposé involved an illegal ménage a trois including: 1) the corporate television news broadcasters; 2) media military analysts employed by arms dealers and military, and 3) neocon Pentagon big wigs. The program violates federal “covert propaganda” laws.

Despite the official suspension of the illegal program, Fox News is continuing to feature these compromised mercenaries in its war mongering propaganda broadcasts. Last Sunday, a week after the Times published its finding, Fox aired jingoistic commentary by disgraced pundit Thomas McInerney without disclosing his affiliation to the illegal Pentagon group or the war profiteering arms dealers that pay his salary.

McInerney is a director of NetStar Systems, a technology firm which described itself in 2005 as “a prime contractor for the Department of Defense.” NetStar lists government clients including:
* Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
* Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
* National Security Agency (NSA)
* Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
* Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
* Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
* Department of the US Army
* Marine Corps Intelligence Association (MCIA)
* Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

In 2000, McInerney founded his own arms dealership firm called “Government Reform Through Technology (GRTT)” to market advanced weapons and government agencies.

McInerney appeared April 28, 2008 on the 11am hour of FOX NEWS LIVE. On April 23, another compromised contractor Robert H. Scales promoted the war on the 6:00 PM “FOX Special Report with Brit Hume.” Thousands of Americans are calling on Congress and federal prosecutors to launch criminal investigations and Congressional hearings and hold accountable the Pentagon criminals and corporate media moguls who staged this propaganda pitch.

Samples of the high quality analysis offered to Fox News viewers by Pentagon’s propaganda poodles

The Pentagon’s military media mercenaries who continue to appear shamelessly on Fox News played key roles in marketing the Iraq War to the U.S. public. Some samplings:

During a February 3, 2003, edition of On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Robert H. Scales claimed that since “this operation is going to go so quickly,” and would “be over so fast,” the U.S. military wouldn’t have to worry about “suicide attack[s] or even a conventional defense, for that matter.” Additionally, Scales asserted that “[o]nce the campaign starts,” it would last “weeks, certainly not months,” and “[t]he only thing that would cause the campaign to last any length of time are the distances that are involved” between Iraqi cities.

During the December 20, 2002, edition of Fox’s On the Record, Thomas McInerney predicted that, should U.S. forces invade, “I think he’s [Saddam] going to use chemical weapons and biological” weapons on the Iraqi people because “he wants the collateral damage on his own people.” During the January 3, 2003, edition of On the Record, McInerney declared that “in the final analysis, France and Russia roll in” to assist in the Iraq war “even if it’s outside the U.N.” He concluded: “There’s no question if it’s inside the U.N., they’ll be there.”

McInerney also asserted during the same episode that invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam would actually improve public opinion of America in the Arab world, and predicted that the “jubilation in Mosul, Basra, and Baghdad” after the invasion “will silen[ce] the Arab street.” According to McInerney: “There has not been a family in Iraq who has not been hurt by that man [Saddam], and so, once that is opened up, once those weapons of mass destruction that are exposed over there, once all this evil that this man has done, they’re going to go dead quiet, as will the critics in the United States.” Further, McInerney claimed on the February 3, 2003, edition of On the Record that the Iraq war would last “at the most one month,” but it would “probably [be] a two-week campaign.”
Rumsfield Propaganda Push Violates Federal Anti Propaganda Statutes

Donald Rumsfeld’s military analyst program violated federal anti propaganda statutes. Federal law prohibits the use of federal funds to propagandize the American people.

According to laws officially enacted in 1951 and affirmed by every appropriations bill since, “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States.”

The Government Accountability Office’s definition of “publicity or propaganda” includes [PDF] “‘covert propaganda‘ (i.e., the communication does not reveal that Government appropriations were expended to produce it).”

The White House’s own Office of Legal Council further clarified the law in a 2005 memorandum following the controversy over the Armstrong Williams scandal (when it was discovered that the Bush administration had actually paid willing to publicly endorse its No Child Left Behind Law):

“covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties” would run afoul of restrictions on using appropriated funds for “propaganda.”

As Sheldon Rampton points out, the key passage here is the phrase, “covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties.” As David Bartow’s excellent New York Times report demonstrated in detail, the Pentagon’s military analyst program did exactly that.
1. It was covert. As Barstow’s piece states, the 75 retired military officers who were recruited by Donald Rumsfeld and given talking points to deliver on Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and MSNBC were given extraordinary access to White House and Pentagon officials. However, “The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.”
2. It was an attempt to mold opinion. According to the Pentagon’s own internal documents (which can be downloaded and viewed from the New York Times website), the military analysts were considered “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who would deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.” According to one participating military analyst, it was “psyops on steroids.”
3. It was done “through the undisclosed use of third parties.” In their television appearances, the military analysts did not disclose their ties to the White House, let alone that they were its surrogates. The military analysts were used as puppets for the Pentagon. In the words of Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and for Fox News military
analyst, “It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you.”

In a February 1, 1988 memorandum by the White House Office of Legal Council. Conservative lawyer Charles Cooper (then head of the OLC), explaining the legal limitations to White House efforts to win support for the Contra War in Nicaragua. Cooper declared that the Reagan Administration “can make available to private groups, upon request, printed materials that explain and justify the Administration’s position on Contra aid. These materials must be items that were created in the normal course of business and not specifically produced for use by these private groups.” Cooper continues:
It would be unwise, however, for the Administration to solicit the media to print articles by or interviews with anyone not serving in the government. And, of course, the Administration cannot assist in the preparation of any articles or statements by private sector supporters, other than through the provision of informational materials as described in the preceding paragraph.

In the case of the current Pentagon pundit scandal, however, the Pentagon clearly was assisting in the preparation both of articles and statements by private sector supporters. It did not simply provide “informational materials” that had been “created in the normal course of business.” Rather, it sat down with the retired military analysts, many employed by arms dealers in business with the Pentagon and worked closely with them to draft talking points and script language to deploy them as message amplifiers and surrogates without disclosure.

Rumsfeld knew he was breaking the law

Donald Rumsfeld was evidently told by advisors that his propaganda program was illegal and insisted to go forward anyway. In a transcript of one his meetings with his propaganda team of military media analysts, Rumsfeld complains that he has been warned that his “information operations” directed at U.S. citizens are “illegal or immoral“:
“This is the first war that’s ever been run in the 21sth Century in a time of 24-hour news and bloggers and internets and emails and digital cameras and Sony cams and God knows all this stuff. … We’re not very skillful at it in terms of the media part of the new realities we’re living in. Every time we try to do something someone says it’s illegal or immoral, there’s nothing the press would rather do than write about the press, we all know that. They fall in love with it. So every time someone tries to do some information operations for some public diplomacy or something, they say oh my goodness, it’s multiple audiences and if you’re talking to them, they’re hearing you here as well and therefore that’s propagandizing or something.”

This transcript demonstrates that Rumsfeld was aware of federal prohibitions on domestic propaganda operations. Although it is illegal to target propaganda at the America people, the law does not forbid propaganda aimed at foreign audiences. Rumsfeld has been warned, however, that in today’s world with “bloggers and internets and emails,” even information operations overseas reach “multiple audiences” including U.S. citizens who are “hearing you here as well and therefore that’s propagandizing.” Rumsfeld, however, made these statements during a conference with military pundits whom he had recruited specifically for information operations targeting U.S. audiences. Yet he went ahead and did it anyway. In another part of the transcript, he explained why. In fighting the war on terror, Rumsfeld said, the “center of gravity’s here in Washington and in the United States.” In other words, he intended specifically to break the law by targeting the American public to put pressure on Washington law makers to go along with his war. That transcript alone provides the smoking gun with clear enough evidence for any prosecutor to convene a grand jury.

 

The News According to RFK Jr.

ALL THE NEWS THAT’S UNFIT TO PRINT, PT. II

Bobby’s back with another installment of “Unearthed: News the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report” on the Huffington Post this week.

Kennedy and co-blogger Brendan De Melle covered a mind-boggling array of news you won’t hear anywhere else in the latest column. So much news, in fact, it’s all rather difficult to digest in just one sitting…so we’ve decided to break it up into separate shorter stories which will run over the next few days here on this blog.

Here’s the first installment of this week’s “Unearthed” report:

UNEARTHED: NEWS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA FORGOT TO REPORT

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Brendan DeMelle

The Huffington Post

Crimes Against Nature
Junk Science/Wolf Slaughter

At least 37 wolves have been killed in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming since the Bush Administration illegally delisted gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act, on March 28. The death toll could be even higher since kills are not required to be reported immediately. With the abolition of federal protection, the wolves are now being targeted under state laws that still classify wolves as “vermin” and allow unregulated wolf killing anywhere, anytime, for any reason. A dozen conservation groups have asked a federal court to immediately reinstate Endangered Species Act protections and to declare illegal the federal government’s wolf delisting decision which was based on manipulated, outdated and fraudulent science and which threatens the long-term survival of the species.

“Until now the reintroduction of gray wolves to the Northern Rockies was one of our greatest endangered species success stories,” said Louisa Willcox, Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) office in Livingston, MT. “Today it’s a national disgrace. The region has become a killing field for wolves, just as we predicted.”

The first casualty in the orgy of lupicide was “Hoppy” the eight-year-old celebrity wolf nicknamed for a limp (caused by an injury from a fight with another wolf pack). A rare black wolf Hoppy was one of the most recognizable members of Yellowstone’s famous Druid Peak pack. People snapped his photograph and shot video as he and his pack mates played, hunted and snoozed. Later, he became the first wolf to step foot into Utah in over 75 years and established his own pack in Grand Teton National Park. He was shot the day after delisting on an elk feeding ground in Wyoming.

“In delisting the wolves, the Bush Administration simply ignored the country’s leading wildlife biologists and two decades of scientific evidence showing that wolf populations are still too fragmented to survive. According to NRDC scientist, Dr. Sylvia Fallon, a minimum population of 2,000 to 5,000 animals is needed to ensure the genetic diversity necessary for the grey wolf’s long-term survival. At the time of delisting there were about 1,500 wolves in the region. All but 300 can be killed under President Bush’s current minimum recovery standard virtually assuring the gray wolf’s ultimate extinction.

The reintroduction of wolves by the federal government 12 years ago has been widely hailed as a major success story. It has measurably improved the natural balance in the Northern Rockies and benefited bird, antelope and elk populations. Many thousands of visitors flock to Yellowstone National Park each year to see and hear wolves in the wild, contributing at least $35 million to the local economy each year.

Thousands of gray wolves roamed the Rocky Mountains before being slaughtered and eliminated from 95 percent of the lower 48 states by the 1930s. The gray wolf was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1973. Reintroduction efforts placed 66 wolves in Yellowstone National Park and part of Idaho in 1995-96.

Hundreds of Federal Scientists Ordered to Lie by Bush Administration

Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey conducted by the Center for Survey Statistics & Methodology at Iowa State University, commissioned by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

One half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work.

The report said 60 percent of those responding, or 889 scientists, reported personally experiencing political interference in their work over the last five years. Nearly 400 scientists said they had witnessed EPA officials misrepresenting scientific findings, 284 said they had seen the “selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome” and 224 scientists said they had been directed to “inappropriately exclude or alter technical information” in an EPA document. Nearly 200 of the respondents said they had been in situations where they or their colleagues actively objected to or resigned from projects “because of pressure to change scientific findings.” The University sent an online questionnaire to 5,500 EPA scientists and received 1,586 responses, a majority of them senior scientists who have worked for the agency for 10 years or more. The survey included chemists, toxicologists, engineers, geologists and experts in the life and environmental sciences.

The highest number of complaints about political interference came from scientists who are directly involved in writing regulations and those who conduct risk assessments such as determining a chemicals cancer risk for humans.

“The investigation shows researchers are generally continuing to do their work, but their scientific findings are tossed aside when it comes time to write regulations,” UCS said.

In the survey, the EPA scientists described an agency suffering from low morale as the agency’s political appointees and the White House Office of Management and Budget frequently second-guess scientific findings and change work conducted by EPA’s scientists.

EPA managers initially instructed employees not to participate in the survey, but the EPA’s general counsel’s office later sent an e-mail to employees saying they could participate in their private time.

White House Gives Industry More Influence over Science Process

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chastised the Environmental Protection Agency for giving industry the ability to directly input information into the EPA’s influential database that catalogues chemical risk information, known as the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). The new process lets “the White House and federal polluters derail EPA’s scientific assessment of toxic chemicals,” she charged. The new policy, announced April 10 on the agency’s website, will allow industry to contribute its own biased information to the IRIS database, which was previously compiled solely by agency scientists. The new policy also allows for earlier and more extensive involvement by the White House and federal agencies that pollute the environment, such as the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

According to the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the changes mean that:
• Affected corporations will be intimately involved in each step of EPA’s risk assessment and will be able to know what staff are assigned to which work, making the agency “research plan” vulnerable to political manipulation through the appropriations process;
• The Defense and Energy Departments, two of the world’s largest polluters, will have a formal role on how pollutants, such as the chemical perchlorate, are evaluated. In addition, these agencies could declare a particular chemical to be “mission critical” that would allow them to control how “data gaps” are to be filled. All their alterations will be made in secret. All intra-and inter-agency communications on risk assessments are deemed “deliberative” and thus confidential.

The new policy gives polluters power to determine which chemicals get assessed and how those assessments are conducted. It also formalizes a new process to be run by the White House and polluters behind closed doors and exclude the public.

Federal, state and international agencies use these assessments to create public health protections, including drinking water standards, toxic waste cleanup levels, air pollution limits, controls on dangerous chemicals in food and consumer products, worker protections and other safeguards.

Green Building: Applause for Seattle’s Mayor

Seattle is now the nation’s leader in green building with 41 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified buildings. LEED buildings, which are certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, are designed to use less water, energy and building resources, and often incorporate recycled materials. Besides Seattle, the top five cities with the most LEED certified projects include Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Grand Rapids, MI. Ten of Seattle’s LEED certified buildings are owned by the City of Seattle, demonstrating the city’s commitment to lead in this area. In February, Mayor Greg Nickels announced an effort to make Seattle America’s Green Building Capital by improving energy efficiency in all commercial and residential buildings by 20 percent.
RIGHT WING NEWS

Flat Earth Family

Demonstrating that deliberate ignorance may be genetic, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told a group of several hundred business people in Texas that he is skeptical that humans are causing global warming. Bush accused those who advocate action to fight climate disruption of acting like religious zealots. “I don’t think our policies should be based on emotion; they should be based on sound science.” Bush’s two terms as governor ended in 2007. His successor, Republican governor Charlie Crist has said Florida should become a leader on this issue because its low elevation makes it vulnerable to sea level rise.

Stay tuned for more of “The news according to RFK Jr.” – and don’t forget to catch his weekly report on Air America radio and GoLeft.tv.

ABC News Can’t Keep Their Kennedys Straight

ABC’s WONDER BLUNDER

From the “if it weren’t so sad, it would almost be funny” department…

Apparently the overpaid geniuses at ABC News (and I use the word “news” very, very loosely) can’t keep their Kennedys straight.

In a piece posted May 1 on the “Political Radar” blog (“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Family Members Are Wrong In Supporting Obama”), ABC News’ Eloise Harper clearly did not know the difference between JFK and RFK.

Our presumably college-educated reporter seems to believe, quite incredibly, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the son of John F. Kennedy.

Go figure.

Quoting Madame Harper’s original story:

Introducing Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in Jeffersonville, IN, Robert Kennedy Jr. had some pretty harsh words for his family members who are backing Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president.

“There are some members of my family who’ve decided to do the wrong thing, support Senator Obama,” he said of the Democratic presidential fight.

…Kennedy went on to speak about the attacks that Sen. Clinton received while in office saying, “she came in after enduring one of the most savage beatings of a public figure during my lifetime with people like Ken Star going spending 40 million dollars going after her relentlessly with billionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife and his whole right wing machine that sent out hundreds of millions of letters to American citizens going after her relentlessly.”

Trying to connect the attacks Clinton pushed off to similar criticism President John F. Kennedy endured more than 40 years ago. “She had to endure the same kind of attacks that my father had to endure which was being called a carpetbagger when she came into New York.” Kennedy pointed to Clinton’s work in the upstate parts of New York to make his point saying that she”transformed those counties, which not even my father could do…..”

OH, WHAT’S HIS NAME?

Incredibly, none of the ABC copy or web editors noticed the error.

Even more incredibly, none of the readers did, either.

Finally…five days and 187 comments after the story’s original publication, one astute reader named Art Glick posted the following observation:

“Doesn’t it bother ANYBODY that JFK was NOT RFK Jr’s father?!?! And that the quote above likely refers to RFK???

Don’t they teach history in the schools anymore? Can anybody write copy for a news outlet???

Does no one proof the copy???

Am I really THAT old, that I’m the only one who remembers???

Posted by: Art Glick | May 5, 2008 12:04:20 PM

MEMO TO ABC COPY EDITORS

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not the son of President John F. Kennedy.
• The reason his name is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is…(wait for it!)…because his father was Robert F. Kennedy Sr.
• The only son of John F. Kennedy is deceased. (please reference your own obituary files for 1999.)
• President John F. Kennedy was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, not New York State.
• The President’s brother, Robert served as Senator from New York, 1964-68.
• Senator Robert F. Kennedy was never President of the United States.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the son of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. (Can’t believe I’m actually having to explain this, but just wanted to cover this territory one more time to make sure we’re on the same page…)
• Oh…and one more thing: The correct spelling of Ken Starr’s name is with two R’s. (Please reference your own archival database from 1998.)

PARDON MY RANT

It would be one thing if this were Joe Blow’s Blog. Even a local newspaper with a limited staff of editors I could easily understand, but ABC News?

At one of this nation’s big three flagship news networks, an error of that magnitude is absolutely unacceptable. When neither the reporters, editors, or the majority of readers know the difference between JFK and RFK, I’m deeply troubled. We all should be.

Why? Because, as the network’s corporate slogan says, “more Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source.”

When five days elapse without a correction to the story being posted, it speaks that basic newsgathering and editing skills are no longer required to get a job in the “news” industry.

Way to go ABC News. With top-drawer journalism like this, no wonder Americans are(as RFK Jr. likes to say) are “the most entertained and least informed people on the planet.”

 

Copyright RFKin2008.com.