Thursday, December 26, 2019

Common Dreams:
"Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer worked behind the scenes through December in the Senate to defeat a bipartisan initiative to curb surprise medical billing, according to a new report Friday which details the lobbying victories won by the for-profit healthcare industry in 2019.

'The success shows how formidable the health-care industry remains.'
Reporting Friday by the Washington Post's Jeff Stein and Yasmeen Abutaleb points to Schumer, a New York Democrat, as a consequential figure in stopping the surprise billing measure from being included in an end-of-year spending bill.

As Common Dreams reported on Tuesday, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, effectively killed the bill last week by introducing a competing measure and pushing off the legislation until 2020."

-->The NYT reported the bill's failure, but omitted Schumer's role in killing it. Schumer's neoliberal agenda and collusion with big business never make it into print. 

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Common Dreams:
"'Bernie Blackout' Strikes Again? Despite Iowa Poll Average Showing Sanders in Solid 2nd, CNN Uses Old Poll to Show Him in 4th.

After CNN on Monday reportedly twice displayed a six-week-old poll from Iowa showing Bernie Sanders in fourth-place among hopefuls for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination to viewers, ignoring more recent polling showing the Vermont senator climbing to a strong second behind South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, progressives struck back. ... "They had to use a poll over a month old to mis-inform it's audience this morning. We have had over 15 Iowa polls released since then that have Bernie in 1st or 2nd. Still think this is not deliberate?"

The CNN poll wasn't the only instance of perceived bias against the Sanders campaign from the mainstream media, dubbed the "Bernie Blackout" by the senator's supporters."

-->Any real change in the direction of this country will have to overcome the neoliberal media. The NYT is famous for not covering Bernie except when the news is bad. Our supposed "liberal" media is really in bed with the large corporations, just like Trump is. 

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Common Dreams:
"Google co-founder and billionaire Larry Page is the subject of a report Wednesday from tech journal ReCode which shows how the Silicon Valley super-rich use workarounds in managing their private foundations that avoid direct contributions to actual charities. 

Page's Carl Victor Page Memorial Foundation pushed around $400 million in publicly announced Christmastime donations between 2015 and 2017, but none of it reportedly went directly to charity. 'This a very bad look for Larry Page,' tweeted National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy researcher Ryan Schlegel. ...

As a result of the DAF [donor-advised funds] system the money in the funds can remain, untaxed, forever. It's a clever tax workaround that uses the specter of altruism to mask a cold calculation over how to hoard capital."

 -->Billionaires cheating the tax system to hoard even more money. One would think that our "newspaper of record" might cover this story. But no, the NYT has always served the interests of the very rich.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Global Research:
" 'Progressive leftists' in the U.S., also known as liberals who claim to oppose U.S. Empire but tolerate all of its crimes, cannot be described as anything less than nauseating. Anything short of outright U.S. military invasion or bombing of a country is not worthy of their public condemnation, much less their activism. 

As explained  by the Black Alliance for Peace, 'The silence, lack of visible opposition, and outright support for the coup [in Bolivia] from across the Western world is yet another example of the cross-class white supremacist commitment to the imperialist project.' 

There are many examples of this but the most recent is the U.S. backed coup in Bolivia. The contradictions in liberal justifications for not vehemently opposing what is nothing short of a US backed coup against a popular government can be examined with Bolivia as a case study."

-->When it comes to the crimes of empire, the mainstream media is always out to lunch. And even the Democratic presidential candidates dance their way around the issue. Empire is the core of US foreign policy, and has been since World War II. But one has to read about it in a Canadian Publication. 

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Palestine Is Here:
"We shared with communities across the US that their local police departments, ICE and TSA agents, and even campus security are training in Israel. We have been promoting campaigns nationwide, supporting diverse coalitions – from Boston to LA – working to end these collaborations. This is a major step to demilitarize our cities. Together, we can work towards real security, built through fighting for racial and economic justice and defending our civil rights.

In recent weeks, Israeli security forces conducted waves of arrests of Palestinian students taken from their university campuses in broad daylight and arrested without trial. At the same time, Israel’s Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan has committed tens of millions of dollars and activated the Mossad, with ties to the CIA, to combat activism for Palestine at US universities putting students here at risk. 

Trump’s new executive order, intended to silence and criminalize advocacy for Palestinian rights, is a serious threat to faculty and students. As US universities collaborate with Israeli institutions complicit in the occupation, they prove again the deep ties between US-Israeli state repression and the necessity of a strong US-Palestinian movement to break them."

-->The mainstream media in the US has reported the friction between our racist President and his directives on freedom of speech on campuses. But It is hard to find a news source that makes the link between these assaults on US colleges and Israel itself. Track US-Israeli State Violence from Palestine to Your City. 

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Common Dreams:
" 'Astonishing' Trump Rule Could Let Banks Classify NFL Stadium Investments as Aid to Poor Communities. The financial institutions would get significant tax breaks for their investments, thanks to the 2017 Republican tax law.

Rule changes proposed by the Trump administration last week could let banks classify investments in professional sports stadiums as aid to the poor, and then give the financial institutions a significant tax break for their efforts.

The changes are part of an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) plan to overhaul the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which requires banks to invest in low-income communities. Both bank regulators are run by appointees of President Donald Trump."

-->Many of the astonishing abuses of Presidential power by Donald Trump have been covered by the NYT. But economic abuses that benefit the rich and powerful, not so much. Our "newspaper of record" didn't print this story.

Thursday, December 12, 2019

The Guardian UK:
"The residents of JP Nagar have no way to escape their ghosts. This ramshackle neighbourhood, on the outskirts of the Indian city of Bhopal, stands just metres away from the chemical factory which exploded just after midnight on 2 December 1984 and seeped poison into their lives forever. The blackened ruins of the Union Carbide plant still loom untouched behind the factory walls.

It remains the world’s worst industrial disaster, which saw 40 tons of toxic gas released into the air, killing over 3,000 instantly and condemning hundreds of thousands to a future of prolonged pain, cancer, stillbirths, miscarriages, lung and heart disease and the drawn out deaths of everyone around them. ...

This week marks the 35th anniversary of the disaster yet the injustice suffered by the people of Bhopal remains stark and unrelenting. Approximately 575,000 people were poisoned that night and over 20,000 people have died since from related conditions. No one from Union Carbide was ever tried for the gross negligence that led to the gas explosion, despite multiple criminal charges being brought against them in India. No cleanup operation of the chemical waste – which was already being dumped into the local community before the explosion – has ever been conducted."

-->The US media has a short attention span when it comes to murders committed by our corporations abroad. Only Vice and the Guardian covered this story.

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The Guardian UK:
"Is the Republican party actually trying to get the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar killed? If the question sounds outrageous, consider what has happened in the last couple of weeks alone.

While soliciting campaign contributions through email, George Buck, a Florida Republican candidate who is running for Congress, called for Omar’s execution, then denied doing so, then suggested it again later that same day. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, Danielle Stella, a Republican candidate attempting to unseat Omar from her congressional post, was suspended from Twitter for twice suggesting that the Muslim congresswoman be tried for treason and hanged.

And in western New York, Patrick W Carlineo Jr pleaded guilty recently to threatening to assault and murder Omar. He called her DC office last spring, stating that he was a Trump-loving patriot and asking a staffer, 'Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood?' "

-->Right wing idiocy or fascism? The murdering of opponents goes all the way back to Hitler's Brown Shirts. Why doesn't the NYT point out this deadly form of domestic terrorism while Americans can still do something about it?

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Common Dreams:
"Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the first two Muslim-American women elected to Congress, have been the target of a sustained campaign of far right hate and lies originating from a shadowy Israeli group, according to an investigation published Thursday by The Guardian. ...

The report details how a jewelry salesman and 'online operator' from the Tel Aviv area named Ariel Elkaras and others were part of a vast coordinated effort that utilized '21 far-right Facebook pages across the U.S., Australia, the U.K., Canada, Austria, Israel, and Nigeria' to spread malicious lies about the two congresswomen." 

-->Is the racism and Islamophobia flooding the US organized in Israel? Readers of the NYT will never hear about it. The newspaper didn't print this story.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Jewish Voice for Peace:
"Microsoft is feeling the heat. Nine weeks after we launched our campaign to pressure Microsoft to drop AnyVision, NBC News published a devastating article where FIVE SOURCES confirmed Microsoft has invested millions in a company running a secret military surveillance project monitoring Palestinians, in direct violation of their fundamental rights! 
     
Then last week Microsoft hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to determine if the investment violated their own ethical principle 'not to deploy facial recognition technology… where we believe there are inadequate safeguards to protect democratic freedoms and human rights.' ...

AnyVision is headed by former Israeli Defense Force security officials and advised by CIA-equivalent Mossad officers. It’s hard to believe that Microsoft didn’t have some concerns about investing in a facial recognition tech company field-tested on Palestinians under military occupation."

-->Why wouldn't our newspaper of record print this story? If it makes Microsoft and Israel look bad, then the NYT often chooses to keep its readers in the dark.

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Common Dreams:
"Former President Barack Obama reportedly told advisers behind closed doors earlier this year that he would actively oppose Sen. Bernie Sanders if the progressive senator from Vermont opened up a big lead in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race. ...

Progressives viewed Obama's comments as further evidence that the former president, who was elected in 2008 on the soaring promise of 'hope and change,' is now using his influence on the Democratic Party to undercut the grassroots push for transformational policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. ...

David Dayen, executive editor for The American Prospect, wrote last week that Obama's attacks on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party 'are music to the ears of the wealthy and powerful.' "

-->Our sellout "newspaper of record" is still protecting the former sellout, President Obama. Both the NYT and squishy Barak Obama talk about change, but only do what the corporate elite tell them to.

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Common Dreams:
"Progressives on Monday criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for reportedly leaving a broadly popular bill boosting union membership on her desk for months while pushing for the passage of one of President Donald Trump's legislative priorities, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, by Christmas. ...

It's not the first time Pelosi's leadership of a Democratic-controlled House has led to the shelving of labor-friendly legislation. In 2009, the chamber failed to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would have passed through the then-Democratic Senate and ended up on President Barack Obama's desk. 
The parallels to this House bill are clear, The District Sentinel cohost Sam Knight said on Twitter. 

'In 2009, EFCA was cosponsored by a majority of members when Dem leaders refused to even bring it up for a vote,' said Knight. 'Pelosi is so utterly devoted to serving her donor class friends.' "

-->Yes, the Democratic Party establishment spends its time doing what the donor class tells it to. The NYT, never one to insult the donor class, didn't print this article.

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