Telesur:
"On Tuesday, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez presented the 2025 Economic and Financial Budget Bill to the National Assembly (AN). The proposed budget amounts to $22.6 billion, with 77.7% of this total allocated to social investment.

'As we have stated and reaffirmed previously, this law was not drafted in an office. It was not prepared by the Ministry of Finance’s planning department. This is a law created with the people’s input. Over 100,000 assemblies defined the essential guidelines for formulating policies aimed at addressing the needs of Venezuelans,' the Bolivarian vice president stated. ...

'This will ensure that projects originating directly from the needs of the people, who are organized into communes and communal councils, are included in next year’s budget,' Rodriguez affirmed, highlighting that the budget proposal comes amid favorable expectations for her country’s economy."
https://www.telesurenglish.net/venezuela-allocates-78-of-the-2025-budget-to-social-investment

-->What a completely democratic way for selecting how a country spends its money. Contrast this with who makes the empire's decisions, the billionaires, of course. The NYT never carries stories like this, of course. News about South America is mostly Pentagon propaganda.

=====

Drop Site News:
"First, they banded together to block investing in overly political, woke businesses. Now, a coalition of state officials across the U.S. is using its power to allocate state funds to a political cause it cares about: Israel.

Since 2020, states and municipalities across the country have amassed a portfolio of  $1.7 billion in Israel Bonds—securities sold by the state of Israel to 'strengthen every aspect of Israel's economy, enabling national infrastructure development.' Since October 7th, 2023, $580 million of state and municipal investments have been invested in Israeli bonds.

In some cases, the state treasurers and comptrollers that purchased Israeli bonds are the very same officials who pushed for laws in their states against investing in firms that embrace environmental social governance (ESG), or investments based, at least superficially, on diversity, climate change, or any other criteria they deem 'woke.' Their argument: If a firm makes politically motivated investment decisions in accordance with ESG, then the firm has compromised its fiduciary duty to be a good steward of dollars and maximize returns for investors."
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-bonds-biden-gaza-moodys

-->Of course, investing in Israel is one of the stupidest things that state officials could do. These investments have already cost tens of millions in loses for municipalities and retirement programs. Don't look to the NYT to point out how politicians are investing in Israel rather than doing what is best for their public funds.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Israeli Siege Leaves 130,000 Kids Trapped and at Risk of Starvation in Northern Gaza. 'With no food, no clean water, and constant fear, both my children have developed rashes, and my daughter is passing blood, but there is no medicine, no help, and absolutely nothing I can do,' said one mother trapped in the area.

An estimated 130,000 children under the age of 10 have been trapped in areas of northern Gaza almost entirely cut off from aid assistance, food and medical supplies for 50 days, a major humanitarian group said Monday."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/northern-gaza-hunger-israel

-->The Gaza genocide has full support of the US media. Occasionally stories are leaked through. But for the most part, the starving children are well hidden.

Common Dreams:
"More than 1,000 doctors and nurses are among at least 44,211 people killed in Israel's 13-month assault on the Gaza Strip, officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave said Sunday.

'Over 310 other medical personnel were arrested, tortured, and executed in prisons,' Gaza's Government Media Office also said in a statement, according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency. 'The Israeli army also prevented the entry of medical supplies, health delegations, and hundreds of surgeons into Gaza.'

'Hospitals have been a declared target for the Israeli army, which bombed, besieged, and stormed them, killing doctors and nurses, injuring others after directly targeting them,' the office said. The statement came after the director of the main partially functioning hospital in northern Gaza was injured in an Israeli strike."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-has-killed-over-1000-doctors-and-nurses-in-gaza

-->Many news outlets in the rest of the world carried this story. But not the NYT or other major media in the empire. Does that make our media complicit in a genocide? Of course it does; it is such an important part in deceiving the American people.

=====

Mondoweiss:
"The Heritage Foundation got a lot of publicity during this election cycle for its infamous Project 2025. But that’s not the only project they intend to carry out now that Donald Trump is returning to the White House.

Project Esther is a new proposal from Heritage that claims to lay out a plan to combat antisemitism in the United States. In fact, it aims to destroy the Palestine solidarity movement as a first step in a crusade to, ultimately, restrict activism against American policy of all sorts, foreign and domestic. .

It’s not a new enterprise, of course. Disingenuous accusations of antisemitism have been weaponized by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel for a century or more but Project Esther means to unify and coordinate the cynical use of the fight against real antisemitism in order to completely destroy the movement for Palestinian rights.

But that is only its initial ambition. As the full plan makes clear, the people who produced this scheme see it as the key to devastating movements against both American imperialism abroad and white supremacy domestically."
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/inside-project-esther-the-right-wing-action-plan-to-take-down-the-palestine-movement/

-->Baby steps to a fascist state, where protesters are beaten and locked up. Can our country's democracy survive its military empire? This is obviously not something the NYT want to discuss. It didn't report this story.

=====

The Intercept:
"In 2002, President George W. Bush signed a bill into law that gave the U.S. president the power to invade the Netherlands — or anywhere else on earth — in order to liberate an American citizen or citizen of a U.S. ally being detained for war crimes at the International Criminal Court, based in the Dutch city of The Hague.

While no president has yet made good on this military threat, it serves as shorthand for the U.S. relationship to the international institution of justice. (President Joe Biden, then a senator, opposed the amendment authorizing a Hague invasion before ultimately voting for the bill.) 

The law was meant to fend off the specter of American troops standing trial for atrocities committed during the fledgling 'war on terror,' but the U.S. horror of The Hague has its roots in the longstanding policy of unconditional support for Israel.
That same year Bush and his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, withdrew the U.S. and Israeli signatures from the Rome Statute, the treaty that formed the ICC. U.S.-Israel opposition to any attempt by the court to hold Israel accountable for possible international law violations has been ironclad ever since."
https://theintercept.com/2024/11/21/icc-netanyahu-arrest-us-war-crimes/

-->The Intercept makes the NYT look like Pentagon propaganda. Where is this back story in our "newspaper of record"?

The Guardian UK

"The family of Malcolm X, the militant civil rights leader who was assassinated almost 60 years ago, filed a $100m federal lawsuit on Friday that accuses the FBI, the CIA and the New York police department (NYPD) of allowing his murder. The lawsuit, brought by Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz and other family members, alleges the law enforcement agencies concealed evidence they knew of the plot to kill him but did not act to stop it.

'We believe that they all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X, one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th century,' Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who is representing the family, said at a press conference.

The wrongful death lawsuit was announced at a memorial center on the site in New York City where Malcolm X was killed in 1965. It seeks to answer questions surrounding the assassination, and paint an accurate history of the events, Crump said."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/malcolm-x-murder-lawsuit

-Why isn't this being covered by the NYT? Of course, the US was involved in the murder. Just like Fred Hampton and Martin Luther King. Maybe our newspaper of record wants to keep us in the dark for as long as it can. 

UPDATE: It took a few days to print this story in the NYT. But the newspaper got around to publishing it on page 32. 

=====

Common Dreams:

" 'The complicity of international corporations and governments in fueling Israel's war machine represents the latest chapter in a long history of fossil fuel companies enabling genocide and mass atrocities,' said one campaigner.

On the fourth day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP29, in Azerbaijan, green groups highlighted how fossil fuel companies 'enable and profit from Israel's genocide in Gaza,' continuing 'a long history of the industry's complicity in mass atrocities worldwide.'

'The fossil fuel industry is culpable in death and destruction around the world, not only through the climate crisis they cause but through the violence they fuel,' Oil Change International said in a statement Thursday." 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/fossil-fuels-gaza-genocide

-->The NYT had a different story, entitled "Oil Giants Pump Their Way to Bumper Profits." Something missing you say? Why, the story omits any mention of the Israel/US genocide in Gaza.

=====

The Intercept:

"For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee had been an influential presence on Capitol Hill, working behind the scenes to lobby politicians and their staffers in support of Israel. But ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, AIPAC made a decision that would fundamentally alter its purpose and the contours of American politics. 

After 60 years of issues-based lobbying, AIPAC for the first time opted to spend directly on campaigns. Flush with millions of dollars from loyal donors, among them Republican billionaires and megadonors to former President Donald Trump, AIPAC embraced a new strategy. It would use its vast funds to oust progressive members of Congress who have criticized human rights abuses by Israel and the country’s receipt of billions of U.S. dollars in military funding. 

Just two years after it started pouring money into campaigns, AIPAC has become one of the largest outside spenders in congressional elections. The Intercept has chronicled AIPAC’s power through coverage of individual races, but never before has AIPAC’s massive outflow of money been analyzed in sum. This project uses records from the Federal Election Commission — submitted by the lobbying group’s federal political action committee, AIPAC PAC, and its super PAC, United Democracy Project — to map how much money has been spent on behalf of Israel, where these groups are doling out money, and what impact those funds are having on the balance of power in Congress."

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/24/aipac-spending-congress-elections-israel/

-->The NYT would be in a perfect position to do an in depth article about how Israel bribes our elected leaders. The facts are all there, but the NYT often resists reporting on just how millions are spent buying up our Congress. Our flagship newspaper is just another pro-genocide rag.

 Common Dreams:

"The Biden Administration's THAAD Deployment and the Path to War 

Far from being a stabilizing force, the deployment of these missiles raises the stakes for everyone involved, including American military personnel and bases stationed in the region.

This month, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin authorized the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to Israel, along with American personnel to operate it. According to observers, between October 14 and 21, a record 26 U.S. military transport flights landed in Israel, delivering personnel and equipment to set up the THAAD system. Satellite images confirm that the system is now fully operational, with all its components, including radar and missile launch platforms, positioned and ready. By placing U.S. troops and assets in a volatile conflict zone, the Biden administration risks exposing American military personnel to potential attacks, and further destabilizing the Middle East, all without explicit congressional authorization for such combat missions. ...

The United States should resist this reckless course of action. It is not in America’s interests to get entangled in another Middle Eastern war, especially one undertaken without public debate, congressional approval, or a clear exit strategy. Instead of sending more weapons and further fueling escalation, the U.S. should push for a ceasefire in Gaza, which remains the key to defusing the broader regional conflict. A ceasefire would halt the immediate bloodshed and prevent the cycle of retaliation from dragging the entire region into war."

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/thaad-israel-iran

-->The beginning a regional, and perhaps a world war. It's not what the people want, of course, but that makes no difference to the two war and genocide parties run by the billionaires and their Zionist religious fanatics. Why no national debate about WW III? Our pentagon controlled media won't allow it. 

=====

The Intercept:

"The chief legal officer of the European Union’s foreign service advised the department’s top official that a new opinion by judges in The Hague does not require EU states to ban goods imported from Israeli settlements, according to a leaked analysis.

Legal experts said that the analysis contradicts the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, ruling that states should end all support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a seven-page memo, Frank Hoffmeister, the director of the EU foreign service’s legal department, argued that while European law required the labeling of settlement products, a ban on their import and sale was still up for debate. ...

The legal advice, which ... was sent to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on July 22, three days after the ICJ decided that states must not 'render aid or assistance in maintaining' Israel’s illegal occupation. ... 'The ICJ has made clear that ‘all aid and assistance’ of any kind by all states to the settlement project must cease. It is my assessment that this requires the EU to revise its policy to end any and all trade, funding or other assistance that in any way supports the Israeli occupation,' said Susan Akram, the director of Boston University School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic.

https://theintercept.com/2024/10/23/eu-israel-settlements-trade-gaza/

-->It is not just the US that is braking its own laws to perpetuate the slaughter in Gaza. The European Union also has blood on its hands. But you wouldn't learn that by reading our mainstream news. Another disappeared story.

=====

Green Party:

"Earlier today, Jill sat down for an interview with celebrated journalist Tavis Smiley. As the interview began, Tavis read an email written to him on behalf of the DNC that was sent with the intention of coercing him into asking their outrageous gotcha questions to Jill as if they were his own!

Tavis Smiley is a real journalist who holds himself to high ethical standards. He wasn’t going to allow the DNC to dictate how he conducts interviews. So he did indeed read off the accusations disguised as questions that the DNC had sent him, while all along making clear that he was doing this to give Jill the opportunity to respond to the anti-Democratic Party’s preferred narrative of fear-mongering about 'spoilers' instead of what they clearly had in mind – using him as a mouthpiece to advance their narrative.

It begs the question of how many interviews have Jill and Butch done in good faith, only to have the DNC meddling behind the scenes? Might this explain why we’ve been seeing the same hostile narrative from the mainstream press over and over again? Not all journalists conduct themselves with Tavis Smiley’s integrity. We’re grateful to him for blowing the cover off of the way they try to rig the media against us."

https://www.gp.org/bombshell_revelation_from_tavis_smiley

-->The US media and the two major parties are in bed together. We only smell the stench when a story like this breaks through.

 Al Jazeera:
"The use of human shields in war is not a new phenomenon. Militaries have forced civilians to serve as human shields for centuries. Yet, despite this long and dubious history, Israel has managed to introduce a new form of shielding in Gaza, one that appears unprecedented in the history of warfare.

The practice was initially revealed by Al Jazeera but, subsequently, Haaretz published an entire expose about how Israeli troops have abducted Palestinian civilians, dressed them in military uniforms, attached cameras to their bodies, and sent them into underground tunnels as well as buildings in order to shield Israeli troops. ...

The Israeli army’s treatment of Palestinian civilians as expendable might not come as a surprise given the racialised form of colonial governance to which they have been subjected for decades. The deep-seated racism explains the ease with which Israeli President Isaac Herzog publicly claimed that there are “no innocent civilians” in the Gaza Strip as well as the prevailing indifference among Israel’s Jewish public to the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have been killed."
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/20/israel-has-taken-human-shields-to-a-whole-new-criminal-level

-->What would happen if the NYT followed such Israeli war crimes as they happen? Maybe even more Americans would oppose Israel's genocide in Gaza. Maybe candidates in the two major political parties would even talk about it.

=====

Common Dreams:
"73% of Young US Voters Eager to Support Candidates With Bold Climate Agenda
Over three-quarters in a new survey endorsed the idea that the 'future is frightening' and 62.9% agreed that 'humanity is doomed.'

More than half of young people in the U.S. are 'very or extremely worried' about the climate crisis and an even larger percentage are motivated to do something about it, including at the ballot box.

The data came from a poll published on Thursday in The Lancet Planetary Health, which found that concerns about the climate crisis were impacting young people's decisions about their personal and public lives, with 52.3% saying they were 'hesitant to have children' and 72.8% planning to vote for candidates who back ambitious climate policies.
'Climate change is causing widespread distress among U.S. youth and affecting their beliefs and plans for the future,' the study authors concluded. 'These effects may intensify, across the political spectrum, as exposure to climate-related severe weather events increases.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/youth-concerned-climate-us

-->Why didn't this story appear in the NYT? I think its because neither Trump nor Harris talk about saving the environment. Like the Israeli genocide, our political system reflects what the very rich believe, not what is really happening in the world.

=====

Common Dreams:
"An Oxfam report published Wednesday estimates that war-fueled hunger is likely killing as many as 21,000 people per day in dozens of countries as parties to global conflicts weaponize starvation against children and other vulnerable people in Gaza, Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, and elsewhere.

Food Wars, published to mark World Food Day, finds that nearly 278 million people across 54 war-torn countries faced crisis-level hunger last year. That population accounts for 99% of the people facing crisis-level hunger worldwide.
War, according to the new report, was a 'major cause of food insecurity' in each of the 54 countries examined, 'although in some of them, weather extremes or economic shocks may have been the principal driver.'

'As conflict rages around the world, starvation has become a lethal weapon wielded by warring parties against international laws, causing an alarming rise in human deaths and suffering,' said Emily Farr, Oxfam's food and economic security lead. 'That civilians continue to be subjected to such slow death in the 21st Century is a collective failure.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/global-hunger-report

-->Again, The NYT leaves an important story out. Perhaps that's because starvation is one of the most commonly used war crimes in US sponsored wars abroad. Yes, we are starving thousands of children in Gaza. We know it, and we pay for it. That is why, when justice finally comes, most recent US presidents will be judged to be war criminals.

Middle East Monitor:
"In a statement to the UN General Assembly, Lisa Doughten from OCHA warned of the dire humanitarian situation in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, saying the besieged Strip 'is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history'. ‘Each day 10 children are losing 1 or both of their legs,' she said, adding that women are 3 times more likely to suffer miscarriages as a result of Israel's bombing campaign. ...

'We cannot claim ignorance to what is happening — nor can we afford to look away,' she emphasised, repeating calls for the Council and Member States to act, adding: 'These atrocities must end.'

She warned that the systematic and permanent targeting of the health sector has deprived more than two million people in the Gaza Strip of receiving basic health services, where more than 50,000 pregnant women are deprived of maternity care."
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241011-un-gaza-home-to-largest-number-of-amputee-children-in-modern-history/

-->Hard facts like this are often missing in our pro-Zionist media. The NYT didn't cover this story, but did have a comprehensive report this Sunday from doctors and nurses in Gaza.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Corporate agribusinesses are playing fast and loose with the rules by choosing friendly compliant certifiers—and when they are caught in the act, the USDA often fails to take action.

Some of the oldest and largest U.S. Department of Agriculture-accredited certifiers have partnered with corporate agribusiness to change the working definition of organics, allowing large livestock factories; certified, uninspected imports; and soilless hydroponic produce grown in giant industrial greenhouses to be certified organic.

Organic certifiers are mixing lobbying, marketing, and activism with their certification responsibilities, and taking payola from the clients they certify. They are also certifying 'producer groups' in Eastern Europe, Central America, and Asia without inspecting and certifying each individual farm. This is against the law and an egregious conflict of interest—and it’s crushing U.S. farmers in the marketplace while raking in billions of dollars in profit for these large certifiers."
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/organic-certification-corruption

-->The NYT and most of our major media didn't cover this story, although the New Yorker did. I think this news makes our USDA regulatory system look bad, not something that our corporate controlled press worries too much about.

=====

Common Dreams:
"The Israeli military has over the past year released triumphant videos of airstrikes in Gaza that are linked to hundreds of civilian deaths, according to an investigation published Wednesday by Sky News and Airwars, a watchdog group.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted videos of 1,219 strikes between October 7, 2023 and August 31—the period studied—nearly half of which came from the first month of the war. The IDF often overlays captions citing Hamas targets. Most of the videos are grainy, with people on the ground not visible, deaths not directly evident, and locations unclear.

Airwars used geolocation data to match 17 of the strikes to specific incidents in which Palestinians were reported killed or injured. The newly released investigation includes detailed reports on each of the 17 strikes, which together killed 448 civilians.
'This is incredible work by Airwars clearly showing how Israeli targeting practices are way below acceptable legal standards,' Alonso Gurmendi, a human rights fellow and war expert at the London School of Economics and Political Science, wrote on social media."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/airwars-idf-tweets-videos-strikes

-->This story was not reported in the NYT. Nor was it printed in any of the US major media. Actual studies of Israel's war crimes are hard to find in the US.

Aljazeera:
"Forces from the US Central Command (CENTCOM), the military command responsible for US forces in the Middle East, 'conducted strikes on 15 Houthi targets in Iranian-backed Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen today', it said on X on Friday.

Four strikes targeted Sanaa and seven hit Hodeidah, according to the Houthi-run Al Masirah TV network. Correspondents with the AFP news agency also reported hearing loud explosions in both cities. ...

Footage on social media verified by Al Jazeera’s fact-checking agency showed large plumes of smoke resulting from the strikes in Hodeidah. ... On Friday, thousands of people took to the streets of Sanaa to express solidarity with the Palestinians and Lebanese people amid intensified attacks by Israel.

'The aggression on the capital and Yemeni governorates after the … solidarity marches with Lebanon and Gaza is a desperate attempt to terrorise our people,' Houthi official Hashem Sharaf told Al Masirah. 'Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in confronting the enemies with all its strength.' "
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/4/houthis-say-us-air-strikes-target-several-cities-across-yemen

-->The NYT didn't cover this story. With US bases in 800 locations throughout the world, how can one newspaper report all the wars and occupations our troops are involved in, especially when they take place in the Middle East? In fact, our newspaper of record my be purposely leaving out US military action since there is so very much of it.

=====

Common Dreams:
" 'I'm afraid first about my safety and about my family's safety because there's no safe place in Lebanon now,' said one physician.

The head of the United Nations World Health Organization said Thursday that Israeli forces killed 28 healthcare workers in Lebanon over the previous 24 hours, and that 73 medical personnel are among the nearly 2,000 Lebanese killed during Israel's bombing and invasion of its northern neighbor.

'In southern Lebanon, 37 health facilities have been closed, while in Beirut, three hospitals have been forced to fully evacuate staff and patients, and another two were partially evacuated,' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva. 'And yet healthcare continues to come under attack. In Lebanon alone, 28 health workers have been killed in the last 24 hours.' ...
 

Hundreds of Palestinians working in the health sector have been killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, who have deliberately targeted medical workers. Israeli troops have also allegedly tortured doctors and other medical workers after kidnapping them from the coastal enclave."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/lebanon-health-workers-killed

-->This is how Israel wages war, in an attempt to kill as many Palestinians as possible. Maybe that is why the NYT did not cover this story. The foremost newspaper in the US just happens to be a pro genocide rag, determined to make Israel look less like the failed state then it is.

=====

Savage Minds on Substack:
"My naïveté was believing in the law. When push comes to shove, laws are just pieces of paper, and they can be reinterpreted for political expediency.

They are the rules made by the ruling class more broadly. And if those rules don’t suit what it wants to do, it reinterprets them or hopefully, changes them, which is clearer? In the case of the United States, we angered one of the constituent powers of the United States, the intelligence sector, the security state, the secrecy state.

It was powerful enough to push for a reinterpretation. The US Constitution, the US First Amendment seems pretty black and white to me. It’s very short. It says the Congress shall make no law, restricting speech or the press. ...

Ultimately if it got to the Supreme Court of the United States, and I was still alive in that system, I might have won, depending on what the makeup was of the US Supreme Court. But in the meantime, I had lost 14 years, on the house arrest, embassy siege and maximum security prison.

So I think this is an important lesson that when a major power faction wants to reinterpret the law, it can push to have the element of the state, in this case, the US Department of Justice do that. And it doesn’t care too much about what is legal. That’s something for a much later day. In the meantime, the deterrent effect that it seeks, the retributive actions that it seeks, have had their effect."  -Julian Assange
https://savageminds.substack.com/p/my-naivete-was-believing-in-the-law

-->Julian gets to the heart of the matter. The US Constitution be damned. If the US security/secrecy state wants you, law means nothing. The Department of Justice becomes an agency for suppressing freedom of speech. But why haven't the major media in this country bothered to print Assange's speech? More censorship, of course. You can't report on US war crimes.