The NYT:
In a recent NYT article entitled "These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In," our newspaper of record portrays a public worried about their healthcare. Will they be able to afford the insurance? Now, the NYT tells us the majority of even Republicans, are coming to believe that healthcare is a national responsibility.
The NYT gets credit for showing the shift in public thinking. But notice the omission of "single payer" or "universal healthcare" in the debate. Nowhere in the article does the concept of government actually paying for healthcare come into consideration. It is all about keeping Obama Care, or assisting Americans in buying insurance.
-->The NYT can't conceive of a world not dominated by the big insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. Our major media has always been in the pocket of corporate interests. It is one of the reasons we can't have what even many Third World Countries have achieved, universal healthcare.
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Haaretz:
"This week, however, the Netanyahu government made clear that it views family values in a diametrically different direction. Defending the effective ban on gay adoption, government representatives warned the High Court this week of 'the difficulty that is liable to be caused the child as the child of a non-routine family.' They also used the term 'irregular' as a euphemism for LGBTQ people.
It is the kind of statement that cannot be unheard. It is the kind of position which sparks fury and outrage and a profound sense of betrayal, which Netanyahu and his government have sparked among an ever-widening list of communities on an ever-expanding list of issues. The anger is immediate.
The rage and the sense of betrayal were particularly strong among gay Israelis who believed Netanyahu when he would assert, especially on trips abroad, that LGBTQ rights were an important part of the fabric of life in Israel. ... Leftist critics of Israel have long accused it of 'pinkwashing,' disingenuously exploiting the relative freedoms of LGBTQ people in Israel as a means of diverting attention from the abject discrimination and brutal repression of the occupation of the West Bank. This week, the criticism hit home. So did the discrimination."
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.802006 (readers must subscribe to Haartz)
-->The hypocrisy of pinkwashing the occupation comes home. Readers of the NYT and much of the mainstream media never got to read the story.
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The Intercept:
"THE CRIMINALIZATION OF political speech and activism against Israel has become one of the gravest threats to free speech in the West. In France, activists have been arrested and prosecuted for wearing T-shirts advocating a boycott of Israel. The U.K. has enacted a series of measures designed to outlaw such activism. In the U.S., governors compete with one another over who can implement the most extreme regulations to bar businesses from participating in any boycotts aimed even at Israeli settlements, which the world regards as illegal. On U.S. campuses, punishment of pro-Palestinian students for expressing criticisms of Israel is so commonplace that the Center for Constitutional Rights refers to it as 'the Palestine Exception' to free speech.
But now, a group of 43 senators — 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats — wants to implement a law that would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel, which was launched in protest of that country’s decades-old occupation of Palestine. The two primary sponsors of the bill are Democrat Ben Cardin of Maryland and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio. Perhaps the most shocking aspect is the punishment: Anyone guilty of violating the prohibitions will face a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison."
-->Yes, the Israel Lobby has the power to destroy our First Amendment right of freedom of expression. Yet our major media, including the NYT is silent. Our two NY Senators, among the highest paid by the Israel Lobby, are both cosponsors of this bill. Where in our national media can you read that?
