Fantasyland Media:

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 to keep from the public eye.

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MSNBC:

"The National Rifle Association (NRA) might not like it, but the majority of Americans believe in tougher gun control...a Pew poll found a minority of Americans interested in stricter gun laws—just 45%. But when other pollsters asked specific questions about restrictions, they found a different picture:

-86 percent believe in further background checks, regardless of where a gun is purchased (January 2011 American ViewPoint/Momentum Analysis poll) -63 percent want a ban on high capacity clips (January 2011 CBS News poll) -69 percent want to limit the number of guns a citizen can buy in a period of time (April 2012 Ipsos/Reuters poll) -66 percent want a National gun registry (January 2011 American ViewPoint/Momentum Analysis poll) -88 percent want to prohibit those on the terror watch list from buying guns (January 2011 American ViewPoint/Momentum Analysis poll)

And yet, Congress has been unable to pass stricter gun laws and a spokesman for President Obama said he would not be pursuing such laws in the wake of Friday's mass shooting in Aurora, Colo."

http://leanforward.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/23/12912461-most-americans-favor-gun-control-measures?lite

-->Mainstream media, including The NY Times, doesn't blame the NRA for the lack of gun control legislation in the US. According to a number of The NY Times stories printed after the latest massacre, it's the people's fault because they just don't want the government limiting their access to firearms. Reporting like this just another way to protect another corporate interests at the expense of the people's right to know.

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Examiner UK:

"A United Nations independent human rights representative on Friday accused Israel of placing Palestinian children in solitary confinement.

'According to testimony received, Israel uses solitary confinement against 12 per cent of Palestinian child detainees,' Ambassador Palitha T.B. Kohona of Sri Lanka said in a news release emailed to journalists. 'This is especially troubling when one considers that Israel arrests about 500 to 700 Palestinian children every year.'

'Israel’s use of solitary confinement against children flagrantly violates international human rights standards,' said Richard Falk, another UN representative.

'Witnesses informed the Committee that mistreatment of Palestinian children starts from the moment of detention,' Kohona said. 'Large numbers are routinely detained. Children’s homes are surrounded by Israeli soldiers late at night, sound grenades are fired into the houses, doors are broken down, live shots are often fired; no warrant is presented. Children are tightly bound, blindfolded and forced into the backs of military vehicles.'

Parents are not allowed to accompany the detainees, the UN representatives claimed, and that family members are insulted, intimidated and at times physically assaulted."

http://www.examiner.com/article/israel-accused-of-mistreating-palestinian-children

-->The NY Times routinely omits stories deemed critical of Israel. If this had happened in China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, etc., it would have made the front page. More than any other major newspaper in the world, The NY Times  covers up Israeli Apartheid, a record that will forever call into question its commitment to both honest reporting and basic human rights. 

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Guardian UK:

"Two-thirds of food for the billion-dollar US food aid programme last year was bought from just three US-based multinationals. The main beneficiaries of the programme, billed as aid to the world's poorest countries, were the highly profitable and politically powerful companies that dominate the global grain trade: ADM, Cargill and Bunge.

The Guardian has analysed and collated for the first time details of hundreds of food aid contracts awarded by the US department of agriculture (USDA) in 2010-11 to show where the money goes.

ADM, incorporated in the tax haven state of Delaware, won nearly half by volume of all the contracts to supply food for aid and was paid nearly $300m (£190m) by the US government for it. Cargill, in most years the world's largest private company and still majority owned by the Cargill family, was paid $96m for food aid and was the second-largest supplier, with 16% of the contracted volume. Bunge, the US-headquartered global grain trader incorporated in the tax haven of Bermuda, comes third in the list by volume, and was paid $75m to supply food aid.

Together, these three agribusinesses sold the US government 1.2m tonnes of food, or almost 70% of the total bought. Critics of the US system of food aid have complained for years that the programme is as much about corporate welfare for American companies as helping the hungry overseas."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/jul/18/us-multinationals-control-food-aid

-->Leave it to a foreign newspaper to expose the huge corporate welfare scam that is the US food aid program. The NY Times shows itself again incapable of investigating US corporate dominance over almost every aspect of the US government.

Fantasyland Media:

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 to keep from the public eye.

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School of the America's Watch:

"Honduras: The Struggle for Democracy, Independence and Self-Determination Continues.

The coup organized by SOA graduates that toppled President Manuel Zelaya in 2009 not only brought an end to a democratic government, but it has also turned Honduras into a nightmare, with the highest homicide rate in the world. 

Political repression is among the worst in the hemisphere: journalists, opposition activists, and LGBT activists have been murdered with impunity. Graduates of the SOA, who head state security forces under the illegitimate post-coup regime of Porfirio Lobo, work in complicity with private security forces to repress small farmers and cooperatives from defending the lands that provide their sustenance."

http://www.thenation.com/article/167994/honduras-which-side-us#

-->The NY Times prints stories about drug crime in Honduras, completely omitting the overthrow of Zelaya and the resulting political repression. To the mainstream media, US troops are there to fight drugs and not to secure another American supported dictatorship. All the news that the Pentagon sees fit to allow.

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Guardian UK:

"Here’s an odd question: Is it possible that the U.S. military is present in more countries and more places now than at the height of the Cold War?  It’s true that the U.S. is reducing its forces and giant bases in Europe and that its troops are out of Iraq (except for that huge, militarized embassy in Baghdad).  On the other hand, there’s that massive ground, air, and naval build-up in the Persian Gulf, the Obama administration’s widely publicized “pivot” to Asia (including troops and ships), those new drone bases in the eastern Indian Ocean region, some movement back into Latin America (including a new base in Chile), and don’t forget Africa, where less than a decade ago, the U.S. had almost no military presence at all.  Now, as Nick Turse writes in 'Obama’s Scramble for Africa,' U.S. special operations forces, regular troops, private contractors, and drones are spreading across the continent with remarkable (if little noticed) rapidity...

So here’s another question: Who decided in 2007 that a U.S. Africa Command should be set up to begin a process of turning that continent into a web of U.S. bases and other operations?  Who decided that every Islamist rebel group in Africa, no matter how local or locally focused, was a threat to the U.S., calling for a military response?  Certainly not the American people, who know nothing about this, who were never asked if expanding the U.S. global military mission to Africa was something they favored, who never heard the slightest debate, or even a single peep from Washington on the subject."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/15-2

-->The NY Times does little to enlighten the American people about our empire's expansion into Africa. Times readers get the usual double talk about Africom's mission as "training and assisting" democratic forces, "improving HIV awareness," and "removing land mines." 

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The Telegraph UK:

"Concerns are growing about the reliability of oil prices, after a report for the G20 found the market is wide open to 'manipulation or distortion'.

Traders from banks, oil companies or hedge funds have an 'incentive' to distort the market and are likely to try to report false prices, it said.

Politicians and fuel campaigners last night urged the Government to expand its inquiry into the Libor scandal to see whether oil prices have also been falsely pushed up.

They warned any efforts to rig the oil price would affect how much drivers pay at the pump, which soared to a record high of 137p per litre of unleaded earlier this year.

Robert Halfon, who led a group of 100 MPs calling for lower fuel prices, said the matter 'needs to be looked at by the Bank of England urgently'."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/fuel/9401934/Libor-scandal-Was-the-petrol-price-rigged-too.html

-->The NY Times didn't print this potential scandal about oil price rigging by banks, oil companies and hedge funds. Why worry people with more bad news about corporate corruption? 

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Guardian UK:

"How the NYPD overstated its counter-terrorism record.

The NYPD has repeatedly claimed it has thwarted 14 terrorist plots against New York since 9/11. Is it true? In a word, no...

A review of the list shows a much more complicated reality — that the 14 figure overstates both the number of serious, developed terrorist plots against New York and exaggerates the NYPD's role in stopping attacks."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/10/nypd-counter-terrorism-record

-->Why can't our newspaper of record do this type of investigative reporting about the NYPD overstating its counter-terrorism arrests? Because The NY Times rarely questions official governmental pronouncements when it comes to the so called "war on terror."

Fantasyland Media:

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 to keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:

"'This is just the beginning,' warns Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, of what life with the impacts of climate change will look like. His message follows a week in which 2000 heat records were matched or broken and the month of June in which over 3200 heat records were matched or broken.

Yet during that time, with little exception, there was no mention of climate change during weather broadcasts in which viewers were told to expect little relief from steamy temperatures.

Speaking on Democracy Now! on Tuesday, Masters said, 'I think it’s important for the public to hear that what we’re seeing now is the future. We’re going to be seeing a lot more weather like this, a lot more impacts like we’re seeing from this series of heatwaves, fires and storms. And we better prepare for it. We better educate people what’s going on, give the best science that’s out there on what climate change is doing and where it’s likely to head. I think we’re missing a big opportunity here—or our TV meteorologists are—to educate and tell the population what is likely to happen. This is just the beginning, this kind of summer weather we’re having.' "

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/07/03-1

-->The NY Times, like most of the US media, seldom makes the connection between extreme weather and global warming. Too many business executives on The NY Times Board of Directors.

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Guardian UK:

"British and European foreign ministers are preparing to defy Washington at talks over an arms trade treaty, amid fears the US will use its diplomatic clout to water down proposals for the first comprehensive laws governing weapons sales.

More than 150 countries have sent delegations to the UN for the special month-long session that begins on Monday, with many hoping that 15 years after the idea of an arms trade treaty was first mooted by Nobel peace prize winners, and seven years after the UK took an unexpected lead on the issue, the UN is now close to an agreement that could transform the $1tn arms industry.

A draft of the treaty, agreed this year, states that governments must not approve arms sales to countries where there is a 'substantial risk of a serious violation' of human rights...

But the US wants the wording of this key component of the draft treaty changed to say governments need only 'consider' factors such as human rights records before authorising weapon sales."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/02/human-rights-arms-trade-treaty

-->The NY Times covered this story in its typical way. It blamed any number of countries for widely differing views on arms control, and ended with two extended quotes, one from the Heritage Foundation about potential "damage" to US foreign policy, and one from Senator Rand Paul warning of "gun-grabbers" on the National Association for Gun Rights website. Fair and balanced reporting from the Gray Lady.

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/guns-bullets-human-rights-on-agenda-at-arms-treaty-talks/