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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The Guardian UK:
"The most extremist power any political leader can assert is the power to target his own citizens for execution without any charges or due process, far from any battlefield. The Obama administration has not only asserted exactly that power in theory, but has exercised it in practice...
What has made these actions all the more radical is the absolute secrecy with which Obama has draped all of this. Not only is the entire process carried out solely within the Executive branch - with no checks or oversight of any kind - but there is zero transparency and zero accountability. The president's underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president - at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as "Terror Tuesday" - then chooses from 'baseball cards' and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark...
The core freedom most under attack by the War on Terror is the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process. It provides that 'no person shall be . . . deprived of life . . . without due process of law'. Like putting people in cages for life on island prisons with no trial, claiming that the president has the right to assassinate US citizens far from any battlefield without any charges or trial is the supreme evisceration of this right."
->This is probably the biggest story that has emerged from 9/11, the complete shredding of our Constitutional rights by both Republican and Democratic presidents. Most of our US media has been complicit in convincing Americans that they are still safe despite the president's sole authority to kill US citizens. Historians have long debated how Hitler assumed such power in the early 1930's. Perhaps they should be studying how Bush and Onama have done it in the beginning of the Twenty First Century.
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Common Dreams:
"New York could soon become the newest state in the union to allow hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the controversial technique used to enable shale oil and gas extraction. The green light from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo could transpire in as little as 'a couple of weeks,' according to journalist and author Tom Wilber.
That timeline, of course, assumes things don't take any crazy twists or turns. Enter a press conference today in Albany, where seven groups, including Public Citizen, Food and Water Watch, Frack Action, United for Action, Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, and Capital District Against Fracking, called for an Albany County District Attorney General investigation of the Cuomo Administration.
They are asking 'whether Lawrence Schwartz, Secretary to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, has a conflict of interest between his stock investments and his involvement in the state’s decision on whether to allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing for shale gas.'
Schwartz - dubbed 'the ringleader' of Governor Cuomo's administration - potentially has what these groups describe as a legal conflict-of-interest. A months-long DeSmogBlog investigation reveals that Cuomo's chief-of-staff actually has a direct financial interest in fracking going forward in New York state, potentially falling under the sphere of insider trading."
-->The NY Times didn't think this story was newsworthy. Corruption in high places has never been The NY Times' forte, especially when committed by those in power.
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Common Dreams:
"Israeli officials gave the final stamp of approval for hundreds of new settler homes in the West Bank over the weekend, signaling the country's refusal to cease its illegal expansion in the West Bank ahead of a recently scheduled visit by US president Barack Obama. The Israeli defense ministry on Sunday said it has given the green light for the construction of 346 new settler homes in two settlements in the southern West Bank.
'The defense ministry has approved plans for 200 housing units in Tekoa and 146 housing units in Nokdim,' the ministry said. Additionally, reports surfaced on Monday that Israel has given the final approval for 90 new homes in the Beit El settlement near Ramallah.
The moves, which defy condemnation from an ever growing international community, come days after the White House announced that Obama will visit Israel in March for the first time in his presidency in a bid to 'to reaffirm the deep and enduring bonds between the United States and Israel,' White House spokesman Jay Carney stated last week."
-->Why isn't The NY Times even reporting this story? Israel snubbing a US president by building settlements right before his state visit is no doubt newsworthy. But The NY Times can't really give up its role as the protector of Israel, even when it conflicts with honest reporting.
