Common Dreams:
"Bernie Sanders, thank God, is still here, and still speaking up for what's right. Yesterday, he took to the Senate floor during a health care debate to lambast the deranged toddler-elect for (surprise!) lying about how he'd never ever cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits, which he's now (surprise again!) talking about doing. Bernie brought a prop to his presentation: A huge poster of one of Trump's own bull... tweets. Dated May 2015, it reads, 'I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.'
Noted Bernie, 'Millions of people voted for him on the belief that he would keep his word,' said Bernie. 'If he was sincere, then I would hope that tomorrow or maybe today he could send out a tweet and tell his Republican colleagues to stop wasting their time and all of our time' - and either not cut benefits, or admit his pathological tendency to say whatever it took to win so hugely he could think people liked him."
-->Straight talk from Bernie Sanders on one of the most serious issues of our time. The NYT, however, is keeping its blackout on Bernie. It didn't cover the story.
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Common Dreams:
"As many suspected, President-elect Donald Trump's web of business conflicts is much more complicated than he has let on. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal published Thursday found that the incoming president owes at least $1.85 billion in debt to as many as 150 Wall Street firms and other financial institutions.
According to the examination of legal and property documents,'Hundreds of millions of dollars of debt attached to Mr. Trump's properties, some of them backed by Mr. Trump's personal guarantee, were packaged into securities and sold to investors over the past five years,' thus 'broadening the tangle of interests that pose potential conflicts for the incoming president's administration.' ...
'As a result,' wrote WSJ reporters Jean Eaglesham and Lisa Schwartz, 'a broader array of financial institutions now are in a potentially powerful position over the incoming president.' Put more directly, as Think Progress's Judd Legum did: 'As president, Trump will be responsible for regulating entities that he also owes money to.' "
-->1.5 billion conflict of interest? The NYT wasn't interested in carrying the story. Meryl Streep's speech, however, provoked lots of commentary.
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Common Dreams:
"In a 'truly extraordinary' and evidently unprecedented act, a former prosecutor of Native American activist Leonard Peltier, now 72, ill, and in his 41st year in prison for a shooting he has unceasingly denied committing, has joined the decades-long demands of legal experts, indigenous leaders and rights advocates to free one of this country's most high-profile political prisoners. ...
Peltier remains in prison despite years of legal battles and repeated claims that federal agents lied, coerced witnesses and withheld evidence at his trial; ultimately, the prosecution admitted they couldn't prove who shot the agents. Peltier attorney and former federal prosecutor Cynthia Dunne calls the FBI’s case 'yesterday’s equivalent of a Trump tweet that has lasted for 40 years.' Calling his ongoing imprisonment 'one of the greatest injustices in the American justice system,' Dunne and other attorneys filed a clemency request last year to President Obama in hopes he will include Peltier in a final flurry of pardons. Their plea was one of many on behalf of Peltier, from Amnesty International to Standing Rock Sioux Chief Dave Archambault. If Obama fails to act, his attorneys say Peltier will die in prison. ...
In 'The Standing Rock People are My People,' Peltier himself described watching the occupation unfold 'with both pride and sorrow...Pride that our people and their allies are standing up and putting their lives on the line for the coming generations...Sorrow (our) people are suffering.' Many indigenous leaders likewise cite the parallels between Peltier and Standing Rock: Both, they say, stand for life and justice, have paid a steep price, and play a key part in the ongoing war against Native-Americans."
-->Who cares about a political prisoner who has spent over 40 years in jail? Certainly not the NYT, which didn't cover this story.
