Thursday, April 18, 2013

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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ProPublica:
"The long-troubled military trials at Guantanamo Bay were hit by revelations earlier this year that a secret censor had the ability to cut off courtroom proceedings, and that there were listening devices disguised as smoke detectors in attorney-client meeting rooms.

Now, another potential instance of compromised confidentiality at the military commissions has emerged: Defense attorneys say somebody has accessed their email and servers.

'Defense emails have ended up being provided to the prosecution, material has disappeared off the defense server, and sometimes reappeared, in different formats, or with different names,' said Rick Kammen, a lawyer for Abd Al Rahim Al Nashiri, who is accused of plotting the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole."

-->The NY Times doesn't worry too much about these sham trials at Guantanamo Bay. Listening in on attorney/client conversations, stealing defense information. What does it matter? Our newspaper of record didn't print this story.

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Guardian UK:
"In order for the US to permit citizens of a foreign country to enter the US without a visa, that country must agree to certain conditions. Chief among them is reciprocity: that country must allow Americans to enter without a visa as well. There are 37 countries which have been permitted entrance into America's "visa waiver" program, and all of them - all 37 - reciprocate by allowing American citizens to enter their country without a visa.

The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) is now pushing legislation that would allow Israel to enter this program, so that Israelis can enter the US without a visa. But as JTA's Ron Kampeas reports, there is one serious impediment: Israel has a practice of routinely refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country or the occupied territories it controls; it also bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights. Israel refuses to relinquish this discriminatory practice of exclusion toward Americans, even as it seeks to enter the US's visa-free program for the benefit of Israeli citizens.

As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel's membership in the program while vesting it with a right that no other country in this program has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance."

-->The NY Times doesn't cover stories like this about Israel violating American rights. All the news that Israel considers fit to print.

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Common Dreams:
"While President Obama's new budget proposal has drawn widespread criticism for its cuts to Medicare and Social Security, another lesser known provision within the austerity heavy plan has caused great alarm from food safety advocates—a cutback on food inspection, most notably in the meat and poultry industries.

In Obama's budget, far less money would be allocated for federal food safety regulators, leaving room for a scheme promoted by Obama earlier this year in which industry employees are assigned to regulate themselves.
'The Obama Administration’s proposed cuts to the FY 2014 budget for USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) pave the way for an ill-conceived proposal to remove government inspectors from slaughter facilities and turn over their responsibilities to company-paid employees,' Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch stated Thursday."

-->Obama talks food safety, but does the exact opposite. Our newspaper of record doesn't care about Obama's pro-corporate lies and didn't cover this story.