http://www.fantasylandmedia.org
Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.
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The Hill (Washington, DC):
"A top House Democrat is calling for a hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke following a report that the central bank secretly committed more than $7 trillion to save banks during the financial crisis.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings (Md.) sent a letter on Monday to panel Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) requesting the committee look into how banks 'benefitted from trillions of dollars in previously undisclosed government loans provided at below-market rates.'
'Many Americans are struggling to understand why banks deserve such preferential treatment while millions of homeowners are being denied assistance and are at increasing risk of foreclosure,' Cummings said.
The request comes on the heels of a Bloomberg report that said the Fed secretly committed more than $7 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the nation’s top financial institutions, and that these banks 'reaped an estimated $13 billion of income' on the below-market rates."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/28-4
-->Financial corruption on a scale unimaginable to the 99 percent. The fleecing of America by the financial sector may have been the biggest rip-off in US history. What a shame that The NY Times didn't cover Representative Cummings' request for a hearing.
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The Australian:
"WIKILEAKS was last night awarded a Walkley for outstanding contribution to journalism for what was described by judges as a global publishing coup that achieved 'justice through transparency'.
'WikiLeaks applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup,' the Walkley trustees said.
'Its revelations, from the way the war on terror was being waged, to diplomatic bastardry, high-level horse-trading and the interference in the domestic affairs of nations, have had an undeniable impact.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/27
-->An award similar in stature to the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism goes to Wikileaks. Too bad the US media, including The NY Times, can't bring itself to tell the US public.
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Deeplinks Blog:
"FBI Sanctioned for Lying About Existence of Surveillance Records.
An order from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has revealed the FBI lied to the court about the existence of records requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), taking the position that FOIA allows it to withhold information from the court whenever it thinks this is in the interest of national security. Using the strongest possible language, the court disagreed: 'The Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court...'
In issuing monetary sanctions against the DOJ, the court held, 'the Government’s deception of the Court was without any factual or legal basis and simply wrong.' The court noted issuing sanctions was necessary to 'deter the Government from deceiving the Court again.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/22-0
-->This important case (Islamic Shura Council of S. Cal. v. FBI) has uncovered a pattern of deception by the FBI when it comes to revealing surveillance documents. But The NY Times, often a staunch defender of the FBI, didn't report this story.
