We are part of a group of 27 Jewish scholars of Jewish studies who have filed an amicus brief in Harvard’s lawsuit against the Trump administration. We submitted the brief, drafted by the civil rights attorney Yaman Salahi, because we support the university’s fight against government overreach. Yet in doing so, the institution has committed a different kind of discrimination – one that violates federal civil rights law. We reject Harvard’s troubling assumption that being Jewish necessitates supporting Israel, or that criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza constitutes antisemitism. ...
Harvard’s own complaint and legal filings perpetuate a pernicious fiction: that protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza stem from prejudice against Jewish students rather than moral opposition to the systematic destruction of Palestinian life. This narrative relies on three false assumptions: that Jewish communities hold monolithic pro-Israel views, that Jewish students cannot tolerate different perspectives on Israel-Palestine, and that exposure to criticism of Israel constitutes a civil rights injury."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/12/harvard-jews-srael-discriminatory
-->Why do we have to read about this in The Guardian? Well, because no matter how you spin this story, it makes Zionists look bad. Like Joe McCarthy's famous lists of Communists in the government, antisemitism is has become a bogus claim, used to attack critics of the Gaza genocide.
=====
Common Dreams:
"Climate action, pro-democracy, and other civil society groups have warned for months that the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are intent on cutting essential programs that millions of Americans rely on while providing the richest households and corporations with at least $5 trillion in tax cuts and other benefits.
But while tech CEO Elon Musk has been highly visible since President Donald Trump took office and selected him to spearhead the administration's slashing of hundreds of thousands of federal jobs at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—an advisory board Musk has since left—other billionaires who are among the top people set to cash in from Trump's policies are less known to the public, even as they wield considerable influence over corporate regulations, privatization, and right-wing attacks on renewable energy.
In a report released Tuesday, the grassroots group Popular Democracy in Action details how six of the top beneficiaries of Trump's assault on social services and his xenophobic, pro-corporate, anti-science policies are cashing in while people across the U.S. struggle with the rising cost of living; fear the administration's mass deportation campaign; and brace for cuts to Medicaid, education, and Social Security.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-oligarchy
-->The NYT talks about election strategy, rather than outline the basic economic problem that both parties have: income inequality and rule by the very rich.
=====
Electronic Intifada:
"On 13 July 2024, nine months after Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza had begun, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, The Lancet, published a letter from Zion Hagay, Chairman of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA), and Malke Borow, the head of the IMA legal department. ...
'The number of health workers killed in Gaza is high because Hamas appropriated several healthcare facilities as command centres … where they stored and launched weapons, and even held hostages. In such a case, the hospital loses any protection afforded it by the Geneva Convention.'
In response, I and others submitted the following letter, as an ethically necessary corrective. 'In casting the Israeli military as essentially blameless, Hagay and Borow seek to use the international stature of The Lancet to distort the public record of the Gaza crisis. They dismiss en bloc the International Court of Justice regarding a finding of genocide, the International Criminal Court, United Nations, WHO and major humanitarian agencies'. ”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/taming-medical-journal-undermines-academic-freedom/50758
-->The Zionists will use any falsehood they can to hide the genocide. This story was planted in the lancet, a world recognized scientific publication. I don't see the story in the NYT.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Thursday, June 19, 2025
"Joined by retired military officers and national security experts, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen on Thursday launched a campaign targeting the nearly $900 billion Pentagon budget and the $100 billion spent on nuclear weapons and 'to get our country to start funding the American Dream instead of the death of millions of people.'
Standing near Union Station in Washington, D.C. beside a towering sculpture showing what $100 billion looks like, supporters of the Up in Arms campaign—a planned four-year public education and advocacy project 'to bring common sense to the Department of Defense and the country's budgetary bottom line'—chanted, 'Money for the poor, not nuclear war!'
'There will be no peace, there will be no security, until we start using our resources to provide for the needs of our people at home and around the world,' Cohen said at the event. 'And we have the money to do it, at no additional taxpayer expense. If we take half the money budgeted for the Pentagon and invested in the things people need and want, the American Dream can become a reality again.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/cohen-up-in-arms
-->The NYT won't be the first newspaper to promote a nuclear free zone where people's needs are met. Our newspaper of record has been in favor of the last 9 wars the US has waged.
=====
Electronic Intifada:
"Twenty months into its livestreamed and accelerating genocide in Gaza, it would hardly be controversial to conclude that Israel is one of the world’s most hated countries.
But a new global survey from the US-based Pew Research Center indicates just how unpopular it has become, especially in the North American and European states where Tel Aviv has always drawn its main sources of financial, military and political support.
'In 20 of the 24 countries surveyed, around half of adults or more have an unfavorable view of Israel,' Pew reported on 3 June. 'Around three-quarters or more hold this view in Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.'
Pew says it last asked the question in 10 of the countries included in its new survey in 2013. 'In seven of these countries, the share of adults with a negative view of Israel has increased significantly.' ”
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/revulsion-israel-surges-worldwide-new-survey-finds
-->Bad news for Israel and its war crimes. But you won't get to read about it in the NYT.
=====
Common Dreams:
"Hundreds of thousands of people dressed in red marched through the streets of The Hague on Sunday to demand more action against the "genocide" in Gaza.
NGOs such as Amnesty International, Save the Children, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), and Oxfam organized the demonstration, which ran through the city to the International Court of Justice. The protesters were all dressed in red, creating a 'red line'.
Organisers described it as the country's largest demonstration in two decades. Many waving Palestinian flags and some chanting 'Stop the Genocide', the demonstrators turned a central park in the city into a sea of red on a sunny afternoon."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/hundreds-of-thousands-form-red-line-around-the-hague
-->More bad news for apartheid Israel. But the NYT has failed to cover the story, again.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
"The beaches here in Israel are full. Just an hour’s drive away Palestinians are starving
June is here. Summer has arrived. And the beaches in Tel Aviv are full. Just an hour’s drive away, two million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation. The incongruity of those few words and the bizarre contrast of imagery – the busy beach in Tel Aviv, the dystopia in Gaza – are hard to digest, I imagine, for many in Ireland. They are perhaps shocking, incomprehensible, and sickening even. This, however, is the reality of life, and of course death, here in Israel and nearby Gaza.
Writing those words does not come with judgment. I am simply observing. I also went to the beach in Tel Aviv last weekend. My photograph accompanies the digital version of this article. I recently returned from a 10-day holiday in Spain with my two young daughters. As we descended into Ben Gurion airport, I was struck by the casual announcement of the El Al air stewardess when she politely requested passengers to donate to the spare change program to support children in need in Israel. I wondered if, when hearing those words, “children in need in Israel”, any of my fellow passengers thought for a moment about the estimated 18,000 Palestinian children dead in Gaza and the hundreds of thousands more on the brink of famine."
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/06/07/as-palestinians-starve-an-hours-drive-away-in-gaza-here-in-israel-everyone-went-to-the-beach/
-->Reporting on Gaza is pretty straight forward in the United States. The TV networks hardly report anything at all. Sometimes The NYT will print a groundbreaking story like that of professor Maura Finkelstein who was fired for speaking out about Palestine. But readers in the United States are never presented with their lack of caring while tens of thousands of children starve. We are never reminded of our amorality. We have to go to the Irish Times to express that.
=====
Common Dreams:
"Professors Express Outrage Over UMich's Use of Investigators to Surveil Gaza Student Protestors. 'My university has no business doing this,' wrote one professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Multiple professors expressed outrage on Friday in response to reporting from The Guardian, which found that the University of Michigan is making use of undercover investigators to keep tabs on pro-Palestinian groups on campus.
'My university has no business doing this. I love the University of Michigan, and this is not how we should operate,' said University of Michigan Law School professor Sam Bagenstos, writing from his personal Bluesky account.
The Guardian spoke to several unnamed students who said that they have been followed, recorded, or eavesdropped on private investigators. Students who spoke to the outlet tracked dozens of investigators who have trailed them around campus."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/michigan-gaza-surveillance
-->The big story here is the lack of any coverage of the US Government spying on students. You can even find the story in Israeli newspapers. But not here. Is the political surveillance by our government so pervasive that no one gets upset?
=====
Common Dreams:
"Devastating Report Details an Occupied Palestine on 'Edge of Erasure ...
The world is witnessing Israel relentlessly starve and bomb Palestinians with total impunity,' said one humanitarian worker in the region.
A new report by a leading Quaker social justice organization urges observers of Israel's bombardment and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and its accelerated annexation of the West Bank to see the 'escalating violations' not as isolated pushes for control of the occupied territories but something much more sinister and profound.
According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), SC), the policies and violence Israel is perpetrating on people across the territories are 'systematic and risk the erasure of Palestinians.'
The group joined leading humanitarian organizations that have spent years providing aid and services to Palestinians in Gaza—only to have their work impeded and made deadly by the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) attacks—in releasing The Edge of Erasure, a comprehensive look at the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/palestine-occupation
-->The Western media isn't too interested in the erasure of the Palestinian people. There was very little coverage of this story.
Thursday, May 29, 2025
Common Dreams
"Experts Warn Trump Attack on Nuclear Regulator Raises Disaster Risk. 'Simply put,' said one critic, 'the U.S. nuclear industry will fail if safety is not made a priority.'
U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed a series of executive orders that will overhaul the independent federal agency that regulates the nation's nuclear power plants in order to speed the construction of new fissile reactors—a move that experts warned will increase safety risks.
According to a White House statement, Trump's directives 'will usher in a nuclear energy renaissance,' in part by allowing Department of Energy laboratories to conduct nuclear reactor design testing, green-lighting reactor construction on federal lands, and lifting regulatory barriers 'by requiring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to issue timely licensing decisions.' The Trump administration is seeking to shorten the yearslong NRC process of approving new licenses for nuclear power plants and reactors to within 18 months."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/nuclear-regulatory-commission-trump
-->One more environmental disaster after another. Yet the NYT didn't cover this important story. The paper has always been pro nuclear energy.
=====
Orinoco Tribune:
"Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello confirmed the arrest of a group of 38 mercenaries involved in a conspiracy seeking to sabotage Venezuela’s legislative and regional elections scheduled for May 25.
In a press conference held this Monday, May 19, Minister Cabello also explained that of the 38 new detainees—including explosives experts, coyotes, and mercenaries—17 are foreigners (from Colombia, Mexico, and Ukraine) and 21 are Venezuelans.
'A few days ago, we received information that I warned about. I confirm it, explosive attacks specifically targeting embassies in Venezuela. They say in their meetings that if they bomb an embassy, the whole world will find out, and there will be talk of the government’s ‘weakness.’ People who have no scruples whatsoever,' he said."
https://orinocotribune.com/venezuela-minister-cabello-confirms-arrest-of-38-mercenaries-amid-new-terrorist-plot/
-->Foreign plots to overthrow Venezuela. The plots are hatched in the US, and then covered up by the US media. All the news that's fit to print never involves plots by the CIA.
=====
Truthout:
"A new analysis has found that nearly $80 trillion in wealth has been redistributed from the bottom 90 percent of Americans to the richest 1 percent over the past 50 years, as neoliberal policies have come to roost and billionaires are poised to use their vast power to worsen wealth inequality in the coming years.
Five years ago, researchers for RAND found that roughly $47 trillion earned by the working class between 1975 and 2018 was instead given to the richest 1 percent, in 2018 dollars. This calculation was based on calculations of the growth of the bottom 90 percent in the decades after World War II, when income distribution held steady between groups.
In a new analysis published last month by RAND extending the analysis to 2023, RAND found that that figure is now $79 trillion in 2023 dollars, with inflation accounting for roughly $10 trillion of the growth."
https://truthout.org/articles/sanders-1-percent-has-sapped-79t-in-wealth-from-bottom-90-percent-since-1975/
-->No sign of this story in the NYT. Why wouldn't readers of the NYT be interested in how their news is being manipulated?
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
"There are now credible reports from many sources that the levels of extermination and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza strip is higher than officially released and in 19 months could be over 250,000 [1]. ... Over 200,000 are already out of the Gaza strip (enriching pockets of Egyptian officials who demanded $5000-10,000/person for exit) and 95% of the remaining population homeless. Perhaps that is why Trump is now speaking about taking one million (who are left) Palestinians to Libya after Israel finished cleaning them from all areas of Gaza towards the south concentration camp of Rafah.
The bad news may lead some to despair and tell us we are entering a new dark age [5]. Yet, candles in this darkness are far too many to snuff out by the Zionist/imperial/colonial juggernaut [6]. Actually hundreds of millions of good people acting positively for sustainability, peace and justice. Look around you for these positive initiatives and support them and create more. Organize.
Afterall, every social positive movement came from such people action: there are thousands of examples from women right to vote to civil rights to Zapatista empowerment to Rohingya to Algeria and Vietnam independence. Even in the heart of the empire today, the movement is tremendous. Look at student movements at universities or even common people in Palestine and how they resist. These are the true heroes. The profiteers (oppressors) will be swept to the dustbin of history. They are the few, we the oppressed are the many and must organize better (it is an existential threat). Action based on knowledge is the best antidote for despair.
https://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2025/05/dustbin-of-history.html
-->These numbers are not being reported in our mainstream media. Nor is there an awareness of a growing movement in the empire to end predatory wars against the world's indigenous peoples
=====
The Intercept:
"Before signing its lucrative and controversial Project Nimbus deal with Israel, Google knew it couldn’t control what the nation and its military would do with the powerful cloud-computing technology, a confidential internal report obtained by The Intercept reveals.
The report makes explicit the extent to which the tech giant understood the risk of providing state-of-the-art cloud and machine learning tools to a nation long accused of systemic human rights violations and wartime atrocities. Not only would Google be unable to fully monitor or prevent Israel from using its software to harm Palestinians, but the report also notes that the contract could obligate Google to stonewall criminal investigations by other nations into Israel’s use of its technology. And it would require close collaboration with the Israeli security establishment — including joint drills and intelligence sharing — that was unprecedented in Google’s deals with other nations.
A third-party consultant Google hired to vet the deal recommended that the company withhold machine learning and artificial intelligence tools from Israel because of these risk factors.
Three international law experts who spoke with The Intercept said that Google’s awareness of the risks and foreknowledge that it could not conduct standard due diligence may pose legal liability for the company. The rarely discussed question of legal culpability has grown in significance as Israel enters the third year of what has widely been acknowledged as a genocide in Gaza — with shareholders pressing the company to conduct due diligence on whether its technology contributes to human rights abuses."
https://theintercept.com/2025/05/12/google-nimbus-israel-military-ai-human-rights/
-->The NYT did a story about Google and Israeli contracts. But the paper didn't print this confirmation that Google is, in fact, involved in committing war crimes.
=====
Palestine Chronicle:
"The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), the country’s largest labor federation, has voted in favor of a comprehensive boycott of Israel, including a ban on trade and investment with Israeli companies. The decision was passed with an overwhelming 88 percent majority during LO’s national congress, held in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, from May 8 to 9, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
The Palestine Committee of Norway also announced the move on its Instagram page, saying the LO 'will introduce an economic boycott of Israel, with 240 votes for economic boycott, and 69 votes against.'
It said the resolution 'means that LO now requires that the State Pension Fund abroad, Norwegian companies and financial institutions withdraw from companies that contribute to the Israeli occupation. ... The resolution shows strong support among LO’s one million members to introduce boycott, divestment and sanctions,' it added."
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/overwhelming-majority-norways-largest-trade-union-votes-for-boycott-of-israel/
-->BDS? you won't read about it in our corporate controlled media.
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
"Warnings Grow Over US and Israel-Backed Plan for Gaza Aid. The plan 'contravenes basic humanitarian principles,' said a spokesperson for the United Nation's children's agency.
United Nations aid officials have rejected a U.S. and Israel-backed plan for aid delivery in Gaza that reportedly involves the use of a private foundation and U.S. military security contractors to deliver far less humanitarian assistance than the besieged enclave needs.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), warned Friday that the agency 'will not participate.'
'There is no reason to put in place a system that is at odds with the DNA of any principled humanitarian organization,' Laerke told the BBC.
Since early March, Israel has blocked aid from entering Gaza, compounding widespread misery and hunger in the besieged enclave as Israel continues to mount a deadly military campaign there. U.N. officials have decried the fact that aid is close at hand but is not being allowed in."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-aid-gaza-humanitarian-foundation
-->Food is gone for millions of Palestinians. But so is the news coverage by the genocide's newspaper, The NYT. It didn't cover this story.
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Common Dreams:
"Democrats' Bill Would Extend Social Security and Medicare Solvency 'As Far as the Eye Can See.' 'Working-class seniors pay into Social Security and Medicare their whole careers so they can enjoy a dignified retirement, but they end up paying a much larger share of their income in taxes than billionaires because the tax code is rigged in favor of the rich."
Social Security and Medicare protect tens of millions of American senior citizens from poverty and medical bankruptcy each year, but economic justice advocates have long said the programs would be strengthened and remain fully solvent for as long as possible if the richest Americans contributed more to them—and on Thursday two Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to ensure they do.
The bicameral bill, the Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, was reintroduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), with the aim of requiring people with yearly incomes of more than $400,000 to contribute a fairer share of their wealth to the two programs."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/social-security-medicare-2671925476
-->I don't see this dramatic defense of Social Security in the NYT. The truth is, our newspaper of record has always favored Wall Street's plans to privatize Social Security.
=====
The Guardian UK:
"Netherlands urges review of EU-Israel trade deal over ‘catastrophic’ Gaza aid block
Foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp tells top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas he believes Israel is in breach of rights obligations linked to trade agreement.
The Dutch government, seen as one of Israel’s most loyal allies in the European Union, is calling for an urgent review of the EU Israel association agreement, the basis for the EU-Israeli free trade agreement, the Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp told the Guardian.
Veldkamp described the Israeli ban on the supply of aid into Gaza as 'catastrophic, truly dismal' and in clear breach of international humanitarian law. He has written to the head of the European Union foreign service Kaja Kallas requesting an urgent review, saying he believes Israel is now in breach of the association agreement."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/07/netherlands-urges-review-of-eu-israel-trade-deal-over-catastrophic-gaza-aid-block
-->Israel is now in breach of international humanitarian law. But readers of the NYT will never have to ponder Israel's role in starving tens of thousands of children to death. the NYT didn't print this story.
Thursday, May 08, 2025
"New York University School of Law barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students — deemed 'personae non grata,' or PNG — don’t renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams.
'You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property,' says the so-called 'Use of Space Agreement' sent to the students, which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school’s 'exam period.'
The law students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school, are accused of participating in sit-ins, a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU policy. The sit-ins on March 4 and April 29 took place, respectively, at the school’s Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean. ... Barring the students from campus and demanding they refrain from protesting represents a dramatic escalation against NYU students involved in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza — breaking with school policy and upending precedents for disciplinary procedures, said seven of the PNG students who spoke with The Intercept, as well as other NYU students and faculty.
https://theintercept.com/2025/05/03/nyu-law-students-protests-gaza-palestine-israel/
-->The NYT hasn't covered this story yet. Chances are it will come out buried somewhere where people won't complain about it. This fascist assault on the rights of students makes NYU a willing participant in the end of free speech in the US.
=====
Consortium News:
"I [Chris Hedges] am sitting in the auditorium at The New York Times. It is the first time I have been back in nearly two decades. It will be the last. The newspaper is a pale reflection of what it was when I worked there, beset by numerous journalistic fiascos, rudderless leadership and myopic cheerleading of the military debacles in the Middle East, Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza, where one of the Times contributions to the mass slaughter of Palestinians was an editorial refusing to back an unconditional ceasefire. Many seated in the auditorium are culpable.
I am here, however, not for them but for the former executive editor they are honoring, Joe Lelyveld, who died earlier this year. He hired me. His departure from the Times marked the paper’s steep descent. ... On the front page of the program of the memorial, the year of his death is incorrect — emblematic of the sloppiness of a newspaper that is riddled with typos and errors. ...
Lelyveld came back for a brief interim. But the senior editors who followed were of little improvement. They were full-throated propagandists – Tony Judt called them 'Bush’s useful idiots' – for the war in Iraq. They were true believers in the weapons of mass destruction."
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/04/17/chris-hedges-requiem-for-the-nyt/
-->The NYT hasn't had a story about Gaza for several days now. Plenty on Ukraine. of course. Young boy killed by an Islamophobic right winger, and the boat to Gaza attacked. But nothing beyond that. So maybe Hedges is correct. The genocide won't be televised.
=====
UltimasNoticias:
"On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 'Liberation of Saigon,' when communist troops from the North entered the presidential palace of South Vietnam in 1975 and ended the war, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, expressed his admiration for the people of Vietnam, for being a beacon of inspiration for countries around the world.
In this context, the President described Vietnam's victory as a catastrophic defeat for the American empire, as their courage demonstrated that 'when a people want to be free, they achieve it, and Vietnam defeated the greatest military machine on planet Earth.'
He also said that Ho Chi Minh's heroic war was an example of the struggles against colonialism and imperialism and against all forms of foreign domination.
In a document issued this Wednesday by the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, it was recalled that this historic date marked the end of the war and the definitive victory over colonialism and imperialism, which allowed for national reunification under the luminous legacy of Comrade Ho Chi Minh."
https://en.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/politica/presidente-saludo-al-pueblo-de-vietnam-a-50-anos-de-la-derrota-del-imperialismo-estadounidense/
-->If we had a free press, it would have carried this story. Won't we ever get sick of this warmongering propaganda?
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
"Multiple credible sources – including UN agencies, 12 major international NGOs, and journalists on the ground – report that most of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are now surviving on just one meal per day or less due to Israel’s total blockade on food and other essentials since March 2.
The CEOs of 12 major aid organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children, CARE, NRC, and others, said in a joint statement on April 17, 2025: “Survival itself is now slipping out of reach and the humanitarian system is at breaking point.
Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive. That lifeline has been completely cut off since a blockade on all aid supplies was imposed by Israeli authorities on 2 March. We have supplies ready. We have trained medical staff. We have the expertise. What we don’t have is the access – or the guarantee by Israeli authorities that our teams can safely do their jobs.”
https://substack.com/@ryangrim/note/c-110594748
-->This Sunday, the NYT has a front page that covers stories about the Pope's death to cooking mango buns. Gaza doesn't make the front page at all, except for an article on Israel's use of AI on the battlefield. The NYT is still the Empire's newspaper.
=====
Mondoweiss:
"Last week, without much fanfare, U.S. President Donald Trump announced his nominee for the position of Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. The man he picked was Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, an ultra-orthodox member of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a long-time friend of Miriam and the late Sheldon Adelson, and a leading Trump campaigner and fundraiser in the far-right sector of the American Jewish community.
Kaploun is certain to deepen the Trump administration’s efforts to criminalize even the most minor criticism of Israel, let alone any objection to its ongoing genocide in Gaza and escalating atrocities in the West Bank. He is a strong supporter of the crackdown on free speech and freedom of education by the Trump administration, and, in his new role, is certain to redouble his efforts to advocate for coercive and restrictive measures in defining antisemitism as criticism of Israel and little else.
Ironically, his nomination—which still requires confirmation in the Senate—has already gone a long way toward demonstrating the fact that antisemitism emanates not from Palestine advocates but, overwhelmingly, from the same place it always has: the extreme right, the sector of American society that, like Kaploun himself, so passionately supports Donald Trump."
https://mondoweiss.net/2025/04/meet-trumps-radical-new-antisemitism-envoy/
-->The NYT didn't cover this story. What a shame too, since it exposes where antisemitism in this country is really coming from.
=====
Common Dreams:
"Study Estimates Fossil Fuel Giants Have Inflicted $28 Trillion in Climate Damage Worldwide. As people around the world cope with the worsening effects of planetary heating, 'the veil of plausible deniability doesn't exist anymore scientifically' for fossil fuel giants.
As planetary heating has fueled increasingly damaging hurricanes, wildfires, and dangerous heatwaves, fossil fuel giants have long been shielded by plausible deniability: Despite scientists' consensus that oil, gas, and coal extraction are polluting the planet and causing global temperatures to rise, they couldn't prove that specific corporations were to blame for worsening climate destruction.
A study published on Wednesday could change that.
Using modeling techniques that have been utilized for more than a decade to explain how climate change is fueling weather disasters, researchers at Dartmouth College estimated that 111 of the world's largest fossil fuel companies have caused $28 trillion in heat-related climate damages so far—slightly less than the value of all goods and services produced in the United States last year."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/polluter-pays-principle
-->Well, the "veil of plausible deniability" is still going strong at the NYT. It didn't cover this story.
Thursday, April 24, 2025
"Weeks after the Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution to form a 'mutual defense compact' with other Big Ten schools, at least four other schools have pushed forward their own proposals. ... aiming to band together with other universities to protect from the Trump administration's attacks on academic freedom and free speech.
Labor unions, Palestinian rights groups, and other advocacy groups on Thursday held rallies and events to mark the Day of Action for Higher Education, with students and faculty at more than 150 schools demonstrating against President Donald Trump's funding cuts; attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; targeting of academic freedom; and deportation operations in which a number of student organizers have been rounded up in recent weeks. ...
Like the mutual defense compact proposal that's now gained traction at several schools, the day of action is partially a response to Trump's demand that universities collaborate with the administration to punish students who took part in nationwide Palestinian solidarity protests last year."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/campus-protest
-->Don't look to the NY Times to cover student resistance to Turmp's fascist aspirations. The fact that colleges are now resisting Trump is big news, but not to the Empire's newspaper.
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Drop Site:
"On March 25, Francine Katsoudas, an executive at an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate, Cisco, announced new 'guardrails' restricting internal discussions and debates on the Middle East—and specifically on Palestine. 'Some topics are just simply too hard, too painful, too divisive, and they take our focus away from our ability to drive Cisco business, and one example specifically would be the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,' Katsoudas said in a company-wide call. 'We have made the decision that this topic cannot be discussed, cannot be debated in company or organization-wide meetings,' she added.
Hours after the group call with Katsoudas, an employee who was outspoken on Palestine was fired. The reason given for termination, they described to Drop Site, was that their 'comments contribute to a harmful work environment and harms other employees'—but that the company added it was not due to her 'personal viewpoint.' They provided Drop Site with an HR email and notes corroborating their account, but requested anonymity to minimize risk to their future employment and general safety. A week later, Cisco deleted the largest pro-Palestine WebEx chat room, Bridge To Humanity (B2H), and its associated educational website. Cisco did not respond to a request for comment."
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/cisco-israel-tech-internal-speech-palestine-gaza
-->There is no free speech for Cisco employees. Why wouldn't more US media carry this story of corporate censorship?
=====
Common Dreams:
"With Nationwide Actions on Saturday, Anti-Trump Protests Show No Sign of Slowing Down. Events on Saturday included marches as well as direct community-oriented actions, including neighborhood cleanups and food drives.
Two weeks after millions of people attended 'Hands Off' protests across the United States, expressing outrage over President Donald Trump's unlawful deportation operation, abandonment of due process for hundreds of migrants, and spending cuts in the interest of enriching the wealthiest Americans, organizers with the '50501' movement called for 11 million people to take to the streets again on Saturday—and early reports suggested the public remains mobilized against the administration.
With Trump intensifying his attacks on federal workers, the environment, freedom of speech, and migrants in recent weeks, organizers said hundreds of events were planned on Saturday—and the protests reflected the wide array of policies that have left Americans angry and fearful about who could be victimized next by the administration."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/50501-movement-protest
-->Always aware the rich people don't like rallies, The NYT hasn't been covering these rallies so much. And when the newspaper does, it is more about Bernie Sanders than about his egalitarian ideas.
Thursday, April 10, 2025
" 'I think when we talk about America is a democracy, I think we should rephrase it, call it a pseudo-democracy.' That's what Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday morning in response to questions from CBS News about the state of the nation, with President Donald Trump gutting the federal government from head to toe, challenging constitutional norms, allowing his cabinet of billionaires to run key agencies they philosophically want to destroy, and empowering Elon Musk—the world's richest person—to run roughshod over public education, undermine healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and attack Social Security.
Taking a weekend away from his ongoing 'Fight Oligarchy' tour, which has drawn record crowds in both right-leaning and left-leaning regions of the country over recent weeks, Sanders said the problem is deeply entrenched now in the nation's political system—and both major parties have a lot to answer for.
'One of the other concerns when I talk about oligarchy,' Sanders explained to journalist Robert Acosta, 'it's not just massive income and wealth inequality. It's not just the power of the billionaire class. These guys, led by Musk—and as a result of this disastrous Citizens UnitedSupreme Court decision—have now allowed billionaires essentially to own our political process. So, I think when we talk about America is a democracy, I think we should rephrase it, call it a 'pseudo-democracy.' And it's not just Musk and the Republicans; it's billionaires in the Democratic Party as well.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-2671682239
-->Sanders is one of the visionaries of our nation's turn from being a democracy to being an oligarchy. Like most visionaries, the NYT rarely prints what Bernie Sanders actually has to say. How often does the NYT report what Noam Chomsky has to say? The NYT is the newspaper of the empire.
=====
Global Delinquents:
"On March 13th, the UN Human Rights High Commission published a horrifying report exposing in oft-emetic detail how the Zionist entity has employed 'sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians' on an industrial scale since the Gaza genocide erupted in October 2023. The UN concludes these hideous acts are a central component of Israel’s 'broader effort to undermine [Palestinians’] right to self-determination,' their systematic nature pointing unambiguously to endorsement by Tel Aviv’s military and political leaders.
The report records, 'sexual and gender-based violence is by no means a new element of the Israeli occupation.' However, in the wake of October 7th, there has been a 'sharp increase in sexual violence against Palestinian women and men', both by Zionist Occupation Forces and settlers. The UN encountered no obstacles collecting voluminous highly incriminating evidence of this vile abuse. In addition to a welter of victim and witness testimony, perpetrators often voyeuristically captured themselves and their confederates openly committing these crimes on camera.
Frequently, these abhorrent images were pridefully posted on the culprits’ personal social media accounts. Such actions amply attest to the culture of total impunity in which ZOF soldiers literally rape and pillage. 'Despite the abundance of witness and digital evidence of Israeli soldiers committing crimes in Gaza,' the UN found 'there have been no meaningful efforts by Israel to hold the perpetrators accountable.' Requests submitted to Tel Aviv for clarity on investigations into sexual violence committed by Occupation Forces have been ignored."
https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/un-exposes-systematic-israeli-rape
-->The NYT role in the holocaust of the Palestinian people is to leave out stores like this. Maybe it is just too condemning of this genocidal regime. Our newspaper of record will always be known for its role in covering up Israel's slaughter.
=====
Common Dreams:
"Emails Show Trump Official Targeted Maine Social Security Services as Political Revenge. 'Trump is clearly comfortable weaponizing Social Security for political purposes, and we fear that this is only the beginning,' said one critic.
The top Democrat on the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Wednesday led calls for the resignation of acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Leland Dudek following the revelation of internal emails confirming that the SSA canceled contracts with the state of Maine as political payback after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills publicly defied President Donald Trump in support of transgender student athletes.
The emails—which were obtained by House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)—show that Dudek ordered the cancellation of enumeration at birth and electronic death registration contracts with Maine, even though SSAd subordinates warned that such action 'would result in improper payments and potential for identity theft.'
'These emails confirm that the Trump administration is intentionally creating waste and the opportunity for fraud.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/leland-dudek-resign
-->The NYT didn't print this story. The paper rarely comes out in favor of Social Security. Let's face it, Wall St. is dying to get its hands on the trillions in this program.
Wednesday, April 02, 2025
"Who is Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist who broke the Signal leak scandal? Though exactly how Jeffrey Goldberg ended up on a Signal group chat to discuss what were meant to be secret plans to bomb Yemen remains a mystery, posterity may render it one of recent US history’s most serendipitous chance encounters.
Had the fates been conspiring to add a journalist to the forum whose presence would inflict the maximum discomfort to Trump and his circle, they could hardly have chosen a more fitting candidate. ... At the same time Goldberg is also widely criticized by some on the left of US media and politics for his views on Israel, his past record serving in the Israeli military and his hawkish views on Iran and his support for the US invasion of Iraq.
However, since becoming the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief in 2016, he has built a track record of unearthing stories that have managed to specifically get under Trump’s skin with the type of journalism loathed by the president’s 'Make America Great Again' (Maga) followers.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/who-is-jeffrey-goldberg-atlantic-signal-chat-leak
-->Again we have to go to the Guardian for the complete story. Goldberg served in the IDF and has been a consistent champion of the US wars in the Middle East. Since 2016, His journalism has upset some Maga followers. Why does the NYT leave all this out of its coverage?
=====
Common Dreams:
"Jewish Groups Denounce Latest 'Cynical' GOP Hearing Equating Criticism of Israel With Antisemitism. 'Israel is a nation state, not a Jewish person, said Rabbis for Cease-Fire. 'Criticism of Israel's genocidal assault is not equivalent to antisemitism.'
Following the Republican Party's latest hearing on antisemitism on college campuses—part of a campaign in which discrimination against Jewish people has been conflated with calls for Palestinian liberation and opposition to Israel's U.S.-backed killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza—the rights organization Rabbis for Cease-Fire on Thursday said it rejected 'the basic premises' of the hearing.
The hearing held by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Thursday, titled 'Antisemitic Disruptions on Campus: Ensuring Safe Learning Environments for All Students,' was part of an effort to 'instrumentalize concern for Jewish safety to shield Israel from accountability,' said the group.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/congress-antisemitism
-->The NYT did cover statements by Rabbis for Cease-Fire, but conveniently left out any mention of the group's warning about conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
=====
Mondoweiss:
"Colonial violence is on display from Gaza to U.S. universities
As global attention is drawn elsewhere, Israel has resumed its full-scale assault on Gaza. Tareq Hajjaj reports on the deepening catastrophe: water and electricity have once again been cut off to over 2 million Palestinians, plunging Gaza into darkness pierced only by the flash of Israeli bombs. On the ground, Palestinians face a grim ultimatum: death or displacement. Chris Hedges describes it as the 'final stage of genocide'—a campaign of total erasure.
This push is not just military. Qassam Muaddi unpacks Israel’s latest plan to facilitate the 'voluntary emigration' of Palestinians from Gaza—another euphemism for ethnic cleansing. The world must not be fooled by the language of bureaucracy.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces are intensifying violence, turning refugee camps into battlefields. Felix Nobes documents how even Palestinian sports, a source of pride and resistance, are being systematically dismantled."
https://newsletters.mondoweiss.net/emails/webview/59730/150219247528707703
-->Mondoweiss coverage of Palestine is an example of how a free press should operate. The NYT coverage is the exact opposite. The paper offers readers pages on Ukraine, but disturbingly little on the hunger and slaughter going on in Gaza as well as the West Bank. Soon, we will see the broken bodies of Palestinians being starved to death. They are the same pictures that came to us from Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau. They are America's shame, and its no wonder that the NYT would try to divert our attention.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
The New York Times:
"Serving Sushi Amid Artillery Strikes in a Frontline Town."
-->This is on page 4, after the IDF has spent the weekend slaughtering hundreds of civilians in a calculated assault to continue the genocide. But the sushi story is about Ukraine. So is the next story about Ukraine's nuclear power plants. And the next: "Ukraine Attacks Air Base, home to Russian Bombers." And the next: "Russia's Public its War-Weary, But Still Wary of Concessions." Then we go to a story about egg prices in Hungary. Next story is about Syrians who were wanted by the Assad Regime. And the next is about Iran releasing a French Citizen. This is followed by a story of Trump saying he will annihilate the Houthis. Only then is the absolute slaughter of two million Palestinians described to readers of our "Newspaper of Record."
And the title of this story is pure Israeli propaganda: "Hamas Fires Rockets at Tel Aviv." In the minds of the scripted NYT reporters, Palestinians always start the bloodshed and the IDF always responds. Sadly, the NYT is still talking about the "a full scale war," and not of an internationally recognize genocide of he Palestinian People. Then we get the description of an aerial bombardment and an IDF statement that the attack "had targeted Hamas." Nine paragraphs in, we find out that 500 people were killed "including scores of children." But it is not really scores of children butchered by this new assault, it is hundreds.
-->The NYT will own the genocide of the Palestinian people, just like the United States will. The newspaper has been exposed again and again for its pro Israel bias. But like the IDF, the NYT is shameless and purposely ignorant.
=====
Jacobin:
"President Donald Trump’s environmental regulators are advancing a proposal to block states from warning consumers about herbicides and other agricultural products in their food, according to federal documents reviewed by the Lever. Among the substances that could now go undisclosed is a widely used chemical that some studies have linked to cancer and that Trump’s own health secretary has called a 'poison.'
Last month, Trump issued an executive order mandating agencies 'fully address the growing health crisis in America.' But the initiative from Republican attorneys general — which would usurp state labeling authority — is now being moved forward by Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The measure would declare that any label citing scientific findings not acknowledged by Trump’s EPA would 'constitute misbranding.' "
-->Where is the NYT story on Trump's hiding cancer warnings on agricultural products? Our newspaper of record has had a long standing love affair with Roundup, owned now by one of the largest chemical companies in the world.
https://jacobin.com/2025/03/trump-epa-pesticides-regulations-health
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Common Dreams:
" 'Columbia's capitulation to fascist government intervention is so severe when you really look at the details,' wrote an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Columbia University received a wave of criticism on Friday after it agreed to a number of demands from the Trump administration as part of negotiations over $400 million in federal grants and contracts that the Trump administration had pulled due to the school's alleged 'inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.'
The school agreed to a ban on masks and to appoint a senior vice provost with broad power to oversee both the department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies and the school's Center for Palestine Studies, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Also, Columbia has hired over 30 'special officers' who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and arrest them, per the memo from the school announcing the update.
On Friday evening, writer Ross Barkan wrote on X, 'I confess I don't get Columbia folding. Don't they have an endowment worth many billions? Very rich alumni? Alumni who hate Trump? They could do a massive resistance fundraiser to make up for lost federal dollars. Very odd and very weak.'" Others echoed this sentiment."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-columbia-demands
-->Where is the NYT on this story? The newspaper did have an editorial entitled: "The Chilling Consequences of Going Along With Trump." But no mention of Columbia in the article! Has the NYT buckled just like Columbia University?
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Guardian UK:
"The US state department will use artificial intelligence to revoke visas of foreign students who it perceives as supporters of Hamas, Axios reported on Thursday, citing senior state department officials.
Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to combat antisemitism and has pledged to deport non-citizen college students and others who took part in pro-Palestinian protests that have been ongoing for months amid Israel’s military assault on Gaza after Hamas’s October 2023 attack.
The AI-fueled 'catch and revoke' effort will include AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts, Axios reported. Officials will also check news reports of previous demonstrations against Israel’s policies and Jewish students’ lawsuits highlighting foreign nationals allegedly engaging in antisemitism."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/foreign-student-visas-pro-palestinian-ai
-->The Times of Israel reported this story too, but not the NYT. Was it because using AI to turn in students seems too much like the dystopia that we in "the land of the free" are now facing?
=====
Mondoweiss:
"On Tuesday, voters across the state of Vermont passed a number of non-binding resolutions declaring their towns and cities 'apartheid-free communities.'
The effort, organized by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), passed in Brattleboro, Winooski, Newfane, Plainfield, and Thetford. The question appeared on nine ballots on Town Meeting Day. Vermont is the first state in the country where municipalities have voted to cut economic ties with Israel.
The pledge affirms a commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people, opposes all forms of bigotry, and pledges toward ending 'support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.' The language on the ballot measure comes from the Apartheid-Free Communities initiative, which is backed by a global network of almost 500 congregations, businesses, and Palestine solidarity organizations."
https://mondoweiss.net/2025/03/vermont-towns-vote-to-cut-ties-with-israeli-apartheid/
-->The NYT didn't cover this interesting story. Maybe the story was judged to have used some of the NYT's forbidden words, like occupation or genocide.
=====
CAIR:
"The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) recently released a new report analyzing the deterioration of students’ First Amendment rights on college campuses across California.
'The Erosion of Free Speech on California’s Campuses' examines the history of student movements in the U.S. and how they paved the way for recent pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses. It also highlights the growing restrictions imposed by government and university officials in an effort to crack down on protected speech.
Key findings from the report show that colleges and universities selectively enforce free speech policies and time, place, and manner (TPM) regulations to censor pro-Palestinian activism on campuses. TPM regulations include limiting noise levels, restricting signs on government property, or dictating protest times. At several universities across California, TPM restrictions were unequally enforced during student protests, and the degree of university or law enforcement intervention varied depending on the racial identity of the protesters."
https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-ca-releases-new-report-examining-the-suppression-of-students-first-amendment-rights-on-college-campuses/
-->The NYT ran a story entitled: "New Training and Tougher Rules: How Colleges Are Trying to Tame Gaza Protest." But nothing was printed about how unevenly these guidelines are being applied, or how Islamophobic they really are.
SONG: Buffy Sainte-Marie, Running for the Drum ... America the Beautiful 3:01)
Monday, March 10, 2025
Haaretz:
" 'Major Step to Full Sovereignty': Bill to Annex West Bank Settlements Near Jerusalem Set to Pass. The bill proposes the creation of 'metropolitan Jerusalem,' which would incorporate nearby West Bank settlements, fully annexing them to Israel. According to the bill's explanatory notes, 'The law will restore it as the heart of the Jewish people.'
The bill says that 'The law, jurisdiction and administration of [Israel] will apply to the territory of the Jerusalem Metropolitan Area.' It also prescribes that Jerusalem's mayor will be the metropolitan area leader and that the heads of the local settlements will be the directors of the various municipal authorities.
But Illouz [author of the bill] added that the bill has a larger underlying principle: enacting Israeli sovereignty over the entire West Bank. 'Israel has to act according to its interests and without fear. This law is a major step towards full sovereignty [of the West Bank].' "
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-02-28/ty-article/.premium/step-to-full-sovereignty-law-to-annex-west-bank-settlements-near-jerusalem-set-to-pass/00000195-4c3f-d79a-abfd-fdff5ab10000
-->Why didn't the NYT print this story? Doesn't it illustrate the extent of the planned ethnic cleansing of the whole West Bank? Maybe that is something that the NYT isn't ready to tell its readers.
=====
The Guardian UK:
"A US-based nonprofit organization has urged the international criminal court to investigate former president Joe Biden and two of his cabinet members for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The request, submitted by the Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn) last month but made public by the group on Monday, urges the ICC to investigate Biden, as well as former secretary of state Antony Blinken and former defense secretary Lloyd Austin, for their 'accessorial roles in aiding and abetting, as well as intentionally contributing to, Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza'. ...
One passage from the submission alleges that 'by continuously and unconditionally providing political support and military support to Israel while being fully aware of the specific crimes committed by Netanyahu, Gallant, and their subordinates, President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Secretary Austin contributed intentionally to the commission of those crimes while at least knowing the intention of the group to commit the Israeli crimes, if not aiming at furthering such criminal activity'. "
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/24/icc-biden-gaza-war
-->Finally an admission of the war crimes committed by Biden and Blinken. Except the story was printed in the UK's Guardian, and not the NYT? Why is The Guardian so much better at informing the American people?
=====
Z Network:
"Journalists working at Britain’s most prestigious newspapers and TV channels have expressed concern at pro-Israel bias inside their organisations. Speaking exclusively to Declassified, half a dozen current and former staff at the BBC, Sky, ITN, the Guardian and the Times have disclosed the extent of anti-Palestinian prejudice in their newsrooms.
All of the journalists requested anonymity for fear of professional reprisals. Despite working for a range of outlets from across the political spectrum, they painted a consistent picture of the obstacles faced by reporters who want to humanise Palestinians or scrutinise Israeli government narratives. ...
One journalist at Sky News suggested there are a whole set of unwritten journalistic rules that apply exclusively to Israel. 'It’s a continuous battle to report the truth,' they said. 'We would see the raw footage being sent to us from Gaza – we’re all well aware of the carnage. Yet you can’t describe what your eyes are seeing.' "
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/battle-for-the-truth-pro-israel-bias-inside-uk-newsrooms-revealed/
-->Yes, the media of England and the US routinely suppress stories critical of Israeli war crimes. In some future world, the media in both countries will be charged with aiding and abetting the genocide being committed every day
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Common Dreams:
" 'Unconscionable' for EU to Roll Out Red Carpet for Israeli Foreign Minister, Says Amnesty. 'Discussions on the E.U.'s future relationship with Israel should above all be premised on an insistence that Netanyahu and Gallant face justice at the ICC for the crimes they are alleged to have committed.'
Amnesty International is calling out the European Union for planning to welcome Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar to Belgium next Monday even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant face arrest warrants for Israel's genocidal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The human rights group joined historians, political leaders, and United Nations experts in condemning Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide in December—just two weeks after the International Criminal Court (ICC) formally issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/gideon-saar
-->Where is the NYT when it comes to reporting on criticisms of the EU for its allegiance to Israel? In fact, The NYT often hides the strength of the Israel Lobby, both here and in the EU.
=====
Common Dreams:
"After addressing more than 3,400 Nebraska residents in Omaha Friday evening, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday made his second stop on his National Tour to Fight Oligarchy—telling Iowa City, Iowa residents that 'Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the D.C. Beltway.'
'For better or worse, that is not going to happen,' said the Vermont Independent senator, whose broadly popular policy proposals have long been dismissed by Democratic leaders as unrealistic and radical while President Donald Trump has increasingly captured the attention of the working class Americans who would benefit most from Sanders' ideas.
'It will only be defeated by millions of Americans in Iowa, in Vermont, in Nebraska, in every state in this country, who come together in a strong grassroots movement and say no to oligarchy, no to authoritarianism, no to kleptocracy, no to massive cuts to programs that low-income and working Americans desperately need, no to huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country,' said Sanders."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-donald-trump
-->The NYT carried this story, but from a very different perspective. Bernie's first quote is 'I am 83 years old. I do not think I’m going to be running for president [in 2028]." The graphic used in the Common Dreams story is of thousands of people crowding into an enormous room, waving their arms in support. The NYT? A picture of Bernie alone in a row of tall shrubbery, with his head pointed down. For social change is the last thing our newspaper of record ever wants, even when faced with a real fascist takeover.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/us/politics/bernie-sanders-iowa-trump.html
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Intercept:
"Larry Ellison has been at Donald Trump’s side since he took office last month. The man Trump referred to as 'one of the most serious players in the world' was front row at the inauguration, and then watched as the president signed an executive order on artificial intelligence — a major business interest for tech giant Oracle.
And Ellison, Oracle’s billionaire co-founder, was sitting next to Rupert Murdoch in early February when Trump created a fund to facilitate the purchase of TikTok. His presence was no accident.
Last month, after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok, Oracle emerged as a leader in the race to take control of the Chinese-owned short-form video platform. While the campaign against TikTok was led by China hawks in Washington, it was the ire of pro-Israel activists that perhaps best explains why Oracle is such a natural choice to take over the social media app."
https://theintercept.com/2025/02/18/oracle-tiktok-israel-palestine-gaza/
-->The NYT didn't think this story was newsworthy. Was it the strength of the pro-Israel Lobby that moved Larry Ellison and Trump? Put down that capitalist rag and read the Intercept!
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Aljazeera:
"The Israeli military forced an 80-year-old Palestinian man to act as a human shield in Gaza by tying an explosive cord around his neck and threatening to have his head blown off, an investigation by the Israeli outlet The Hottest Place in Hell has found.
A senior officer from the army’s Nahal Brigade tied the explosive cord around the man’s neck before he was ordered to scout houses. After eight hours, soldiers ordered the man to flee with his wife from their home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood in May, said +972 magazine, which reported the piece. ...
The man was forced to act as a human shield for eight hours, before he was ordered, along with his wife, to walk towards the so-called 'humanitarian zone' in southern Gaza. But the soldiers did not care to tell nearby Israeli divisions that the couple was going to pass through the area, according to the testimonies. ... [W]hen another Israeli battalion spotted the elderly couple on the street, they were shot dead on the spot, according to Israeli soldiers present at the scene."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/16/israeli-soldiers-used-80-year-old-palestinian-as-gaza-human-shield-report
-->The utter depravity of the IDF comes through when stories like this are reported. But you won't find these stories from our mainstream media, like the NYT. This is not a story that makes the Empire look very good.
=====
The Times of India:
"Did the US government actively work to destabilize Bangladesh using taxpayer-funded programs? Former US State Department official Mike Benz has made explosive claims that USAID and affiliated organizations orchestrated efforts to undermine the Bangladeshi government in a bid to secure American strategic interests. [Was it] regime change for a military base?
Speaking about US foreign policy planning, Benz laid out a hypothetical—but eerily specific—scenario: 'Let’s say it is vital to US national interest to build a military base in Bangladesh to counter China, but the Bangladeshi Prime Minister refuses. Our foreign policy planners then decide that regime change is necessary.'
Benz explained that once such a decision is made, 'all options to destabilize the country' come into play. These range from backing opposition forces to orchestrating a color revolution, a reference to past US-backed uprisings where leaders have been ousted, sometimes fleeing in helicopters."
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/how-usaid-was-used-for-regime-change-in-bangladesh-former-us-state-dept-official-mike-benz-reveals/articleshow/118118878.cms
-->Is USAID used for CIA undercover operations in the Third World? Of course it is, but the US media is so lockstep that you will never read about it in the US. Now that is some control of the media! A whole week of talking about the USAID, but nothing said about its role is supporting the Empire.
=====
Common Dreams:
"U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders urged Europeans on Saturday to 'stand tall against right-wing extremism' after the American vice president scolded the continent's leaders for not accommodating parties like the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, which appears poised for a strong performance in the approaching general election.
'European friends: Do not accept lectures on democracy and freedom of speech from an administration that denies the 2020 election results and is now suing and intimidating news outlets whose reporting they don't like,' Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a social media post after U.S. Vice President JD Vance used his address at the Munich Security Conference to blast Germany's 'firewall' against Alternative for Germany, also known as AfD.
Vance's speech was praised by AfD leader Alice Weidel—with whom the vice president met on Friday—and U.S. President Donald Trump, who called his second-in-command's remarks 'very brilliant' as they sparked revulsion and open condemnation from European leaders."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-germany-far-right
-->Bernie Sanders, like Noam Chomsky, lives in perpetual censorship when it comes to the NYT. The best minds of our nation are are always kept from our corporate controlled media.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
The Intercept:
"Forensics Experts Challenged the FBI. So the FBI Tried to Censor Their Conference. ... Within the world of forensic science, the FBI’s laboratory has enjoyed an elevated status as a premiere facility — even though it has simultaneously endured criticism, as past practices in some forensic disciplines have been pilloried in the criminal legal system. In short, the FBI lab is not immune to the issues that have long plagued forensic science writ large. To date, false or misleading forensic evidence has been implicated in nearly 30 percent of the nation’s wrongful convictions.
Many consider standard forensic practices — like fingerprint examinations, ballistics and toolmarks comparisons, or blood pattern analysis — to be foolproof. But these practices were developed by law enforcement agencies for law enforcement, and not by scientists first subjecting them to standard, rigorous testing processes designed to ensure they stand on a solid scientific foundation.
That was the dirty little open secret of forensics in the criminal legal system until 2009, when a groundbreaking report from the National Academy of Sciences laid it bare: With the exception of standard DNA analysis, the report read, “no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source.”
https://theintercept.com/2025/02/06/fbi-academy-forensic-science-law-enforcement/
-->The FBI is still trying to hide this valid criticism, and has recently tried to suppress the evidence. Still, this is a story that interested very few national media outlets.
=====
The Electronic Intifada:
"Israeli troops were ordered to shoot and kill captive Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023, Israel’s then defense minister admitted this week. The order to carry out Israel’s so-called Hannibal Directive was issued 'tactically' and 'in various places' next to Gaza, Yoav Gallant told Israel’s Channel 12 on Thursday. ...
Contrary to Gallant’s statement that the Hannibal Directive was unevenly applied in different areas, Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported in January 2024 that at midday on 7 October, an unambiguous order was given from the high command of the Israeli military to invoke the Hannibal Directive across the entire region.
Israel’s response [to the attack] was to reactivate and unleash the Hannibal doctrine, extending it to Israeli civilians, as well as soldiers. Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately unleashed, in a failed attempt to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who would then be later exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. Roughly 1,100 Israelis were killed. It is still unclear exactly how many of these were killed by Israelis and how many by Palestinians. One year on, an investigation by The Electronic Intifada found that at least 'hundreds' were killed by Israel."
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/army-was-ordered-kill-israelis-7-october-defense-minister-confirms
-->This was not a popular story in the US media, which still does its best to make Hamas look bad and Israel look innocent.
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Middleeasteye:
In April 2024, 13 members of the Princeton University community, including 12 students and one post-doctoral researcher, were arrested for participating in a pro-Palestine sit-in at a building on the main campus in Princeton, New Jersey.
At the time, a wave of pro-Palestine protests against Israel's bombardment of Gaza was sweeping university campuses across the US, including at Princeton, where hundreds of students had set up an encampment to call on the university to cut ties with companies profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestine and its war on Gaza.
The university's refusal to negotiate with students spurred 13 activists on 29 April to collectively occupy Clio Hall, home to the graduate centre, and force administrators to the table. The Clio 13 - as they became known - were immediately arrested and temporarily banned from campus. Those living in university housing were reportedly evicted and stripped of access to medical care. They were also slapped with a four-year academic probation, which will leave a permanent stain on their academic records. ...
'Within the last year, Princeton’s administration has restricted free speech and increased surveillance on campus, including monitoring cell phone calls and summoning students for arbitrary interrogations with campus police.' Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest said in a statement."
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/how-princeton-university-tried-scapegoat-phd-student-over-pro-palestine-protest
-->Campuses across the country are playing 1984 with their students. This is the final takeover of the Israel Lobby, whose millions of dollars in bribes have bought off most college administrators. Don't bother looking for this story in our mainstream media.