Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Common Dreams:
"Anti-corporate activists, organic farmers, Indigenous peoples, environmental groups and others took to the streets across six continents and over 400 cities on Saturday in a global grassroots march against bioengineering giant Monsanto. 'The fight against corporate control of our food is global,' a food sovereignty campaigner with UK-based nonprofit Global Justice Now rallied the crowd marching in London. ...

This year's march takes place amid allegations of collusion and industry rigging of the regulatory processes surrounding the company's toxic weedkiller Roundup and GMO crops in Europe and the United States. The campaign, based in the U.S., described why so many are fighting the chemical behemoth in a statement:

Monsanto has infiltrated various agencies within the United States government, and as a result both public health and the health of our environment has suffered greatly.

Glyphosate, the cancer-linked herbicide that is an essential component in the expansion of GMO crops, is already being banned around the world over safety concerns. Here in the United States, glyphosate is consistently being discovered in everything from hospital feeding tubes and tampons to the breast milk of nursing mothers."

-->If there is an evil company in the world, then Monsanto is it. But The NYT always gives its corporate buddies a pass. It didn't print this story about the worldwide march. 

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Common Dreams:
"Pentagon officials tasked with protecting whistleblowers have lied under oath, illegally destroyed documents, and gone out of their way to ruin people's careers and lives for attempting to raise concerns about government abuses of power, according to a high-ranking Department of Defense (DoD) official, John Crane, who went public with his story on Sunday.

Crane's explosive revelations are being released in coordination by the Guardian, Der Spiegel, and Newsweek Japan.

'We need iron-clad, enforceable protections for whistleblowers, and we need a public record of success stories,' whistleblower Edward Snowden responded to Crane's revelations in the Guardian. 'Protect the people who go to members of Congress with oversight roles, and if their efforts lead to a positive change in policy—recognize them for their efforts. There are no incentives for people to stand up against an agency on the wrong side of the law today, and that's got to change.' "

-->This story makes the Pentagon, the FBI, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton look like liars. There is no way that Snowden could have followed established channels to expose governmental wrongdoing. Our newspaper of record covers things up quite nicely by not reporting the story.

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Common Dreams:
"Pro-Clinton Democrats join Big Pharma and state Republicans in fighting to defeat first-in-the-nation ballot measure for statewide single-payer plan.

Highlighting the divisions in the Democratic party this election, Colorado's ballot measure for a universal, single-payer healthcare plan is facing unexpected resistance from the very same party that has been calling for such a healthcare plan since the 1990s.

'There is a disconnect between the powers that be and the people,' said state senator Irene Aguilar, a former doctor and the chief architect of the statewide 'Medicare-for-all,' called ColoradoCare, in an interview with the Guardian. 'The powers that be are incrementalists. There hasn't been a courage of conviction to try and deal with [healthcare coverage].' "

-->The NYT did report this story, but the emphasis was not on Democrats working with the insurance industry and Big Pharma to defeat universal healthcare. That story is too close to the truth, and too supportive of Bernie Sanders' run for the nomination.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Common Dreams:
"Verizon Calls in SWAT Team to Keep Exploited Overseas Workers Under Wraps. 'It seems Verizon is going to great lengths to try to hide their strategy of outsourcing middle-class American jobs in favor of poverty wages abroad.'

Representatives from the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the union whose members are currently engaged in a weeks-long strike against Verizon for its 'corporate greed,' say they discovered this week that the communications behemoth has publicly lied about the extent of its offshoring of jobs. …

'Terrified that the public might find out about what has happened to the good middle-class jobs the company has shipped overseas, Verizon sent private armed security forces after peaceful CWA representatives and called in a SWAT team armed with automatic weapons,' the CWA said. 'Presumably, it is difficult to justify paying workers $1.78 an hour when the company's CEO made $18 million last year,' wrote the CWA, 'and the company has piled up $1.5 billion a month in profits for the past 15 months.' "

-->Our newspaper of record can be counted on not to cover stories about labor injustices, including the outsourcing of jobs overseas. It didn't print this story.

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Guardian UK:
"In a hard-hitting Holocaust memorial day speech on Wednesday evening, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) deputy chief of staff, Maj Gen Yair Golan, made remarks that he felt compelled to clarify overnight on Thursday, insisting he had not 'intended to compare Israel to Nazi Germany'. ...

'Because if there is anything that frightens me in the remembrance of the Holocaust, it is discerning nauseating trends that took place in Europe in general, and in Germany specifically back then, 70, 80 and 90 years ago, and seeing evidence of them here among us in the year 2016.'

'After all, there is nothing simpler and easier than hating the foreigner, there is nothing easier and simpler than arousing fears and intimidating, there is nothing easier and simpler than becoming bestial, forgoing principles and becoming smug.'

-->The NYT did cover this story, but avoided any mention of racism or violence directed at Palestinians. No, The NYT focused on how the Israeli public wants more protection from terrorism and that is creating a crisis in the high moral standards of the IDF. This focus is a subtile but effective way of avoiding the real issues of apartheid and occupation. 

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Common Dreams:
"As Wealthy Surge, U.S. Poor and Middle Class Incomes Have Gone Backward. Middle- and low-income households in the U.S. made less money in 2014 than they did in 1999 as the middle class lost ground in almost 90 percent of the country's metropolitan areas, a new analysis by the Pew Research Center released Wednesday has found.

The report looked at 229 of the 381 federally designated 'metropolitan statistical areas' in the U.S., from Seattle to Boston, which accounted for 76 percent of the nationwide population in 2014. It found that poorer households saw their income drop from a median of $26,373 in 1999 to $23,811 in 2014, while middle-class incomes fell from $77,898 to $72,919 in that same time period. …

'The current and future status of the American middle class continues to be a central issue in the 2016 presidential campaign. Moreover, new economic research suggests that a struggling middle class could be holding back the potential for future economic growth. The national trend is clear—the middle class is losing ground as a share of the population, and its share of aggregate U.S. household income is also declining.' "

-->The NYT let the Associated Press worry about this story. It didn't print this survey showing a remarkable reversal in the American Dream. Too close to covering any news that supports Bernie Sanders.
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