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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DeSmogBlog:
"... Yesterday the Obama Department of Energy (DOE) announced a conditional approval of the second-ever LNG (liquefied natural gas) export terminal.
LNG is the super-chilled final product of gas obtained - predominantly in today's context - via the controversial hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") process taking place within shale deposits located throughout the U.S. ...
The name of the terminal: Freeport LNG. Freeport LNG is 50-percent owned by ConocoPhillips and located in Freeport, Texas, an hour-long car ride south of Houston. The export facility is the second one approved by the Obama DOE, with the first one - the Sabine Pass terminal, owned by Cheniere and located in Sabine Pass, Louisiana - approved in May 2011.
DOE gave its rubber stamp of approval to Freeport LNG to export up to 1.4 billion cubic feet of LNG per day from its terminal."
-->The NY Times mentioned this approval in an opinion piece by Joe Nicotra, who quoted the Wall Street Journal's analysis of fracking: " 'This newly found gas (offers) a historic opportunity to strengthen the economy, increase national competitiveness and create jobs.' I couldn’t have said it better myself." When it comes to making money for the oil giants, our newspaper of record simply becomes a cheerleader for global warming.
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The NY Times:
In a story yesterday, Eduardo Porter asks why austerity is still the rule in Washington. He makes some excellent points. The Harvard study of austerity has been pretty much discredited for its poor methodology and inaccurate results. Some calls for austerity were based on a "virtue of thrift" conservative morality rather than actual numbers. Recent experience around the globe has proven that "excessive thrift will make us all poorer." And, it was probably the banks that were pushing austerity all along in the "interest of moneyed creditors and lenders …"
What to do now with all this enlightenment? Amazingly, Mr. Porter goes on to advocate a long term cut of Social Security and Medicare. Has Mr. Porter learned nothing from reading Paul Krugman all these years? Social Security has absolutely nothing to do with the country's deficit, and it doesn't add one cent to government spending. Moreover, cutting Social Security would lead to an even greater income disparity than we already have. Its payments represent a large percentage of the yearly income of millions of retired workers in the US.
Can't Mr. Porter think of anything else to cut? Like the trillions spent on wars in the Middle East? Or the trillions given to the big banks? Or the huge tax cuts to the very rich? Or the license given to the large corporations to pay no taxes at all?
All the news that Wall Street sees fit to print. Mr. Porter, ever eager to sell his intellect in the service of the 1%, answers his own question. Austerity is still the rule because the corporate controlled media wants it that way.
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Guardian UK:
"Hunger strikers at Guantánamo Bay are being threatened with body cavity searches before they can see their legal representatives, a leading human rights lawyer has claimed in a letter to British foreign secretary William Hague.
Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of legal group Reprieve, represents various detainees in Guantánamo, the controversial US military detention camp in Cuba used to house terrorism suspects. ...
In the letter to Hague, seen by the Guardian, Smith said US guards insist on a body search before any detainee can contact their lawyer, either via an in-person interview at the base or with a phone call. 'The US military has started directly abusing prisoners who want to contact their lawyers to tell them what is happening. So anyone who wants to see a lawyer, or have a legal phone call, must have his fingers put up his anus and his genitals touched,' Smith wrote."
-->The NY Times has no interest in the continuing sexual humiliation going on at Guantanamo. It is "see no evil" in the pages of The NY Times when the empire is responsible.
