Wednesday, January 02, 2019

Common Dreams:
"Following presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) official announcement on Friday that Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) will chair the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, progressives accused the Democratic leadership of moving ahead with a 'weak' congressional panel instead of listening to grassroots demands for a more bold and visionary Green New Deal Select Committee.

Justice Democrats—an advocacy group that helped organize recent mobilizations in support of a Green New Deal—declared in a statement that the Democratic leadership appears dead-set on taking the 'path of least resistance' when it comes to tackling the climate crisis."

-->Pelosi selling out the Green New Deal? The NYT was not interested in exposing Pelosi as another corporate shill. It didn't cover this story.

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Guardian UK:
"Palestinians decry rise in attacks by Israeli settlers. ... Settler violence against Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has been rising since the beginning of 2017, according to the UN. This year 60 incidents attributed to settlers have resulted in Palestinian casualties and 157 in damage to Palestinian property. This is a 175% increase since 2016 and the highest number since a peak four years ago. ...

According to the Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, of 185 investigations opened between 2014 and 2017 that reached a final stage, only 21, or 11.4%, led to the prosecution of offenders, while the other 164 files were closed without indictment.

Key among its concerns is the double legal system. Settlers who commit crimes are under the jurisdiction of Israeli law; Palestinians operate under a separate legal system, run by the military."

-->Yes, further proof of Israeli apartheid treatment of the Palestinians. The NYT wasn't interested in this story.

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The Intercept:
"Major Liberal Groups Sat on Sidelines as Senate Passed historic Resolution on Yemen War. ...

Backers of the effort approached the Center for American Progress, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the American Civil Liberties Union, and all declined to specifically endorse the resolution or become members of the activist coalition. And when a procedural vote on the resolution came to the House floor, it got the same kind of half-hearted support from Democratic leadership, falling just three votes short. ...

The issue is especially sensitive to the Center for American Progress, the most prominent Democratic think tank in Washington, because it has been criticized for accepting significant funding from the embassy of the UAE, one of the Gulf countries leading the war on Yemen. The UAE gave CAP between $500,000 to $999,000 in 2017, according to the organization’s website."

-->So called liberal establishment leans in favor of endless wars in the Middle East. The NYT would never report that to its "Love Me I'm a Liberal" readers.

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Center for Constitutional Rights:
"After legal threats and false allegations from Shurat HaDin-The Israel Law Center, the donation platform Donorbox has temporarily suspended the BDS National Committee’s account, disabling its ability to fundraise for its human rights advocacy at the height of the charity season.

Wikileaks revealed in 2013 that Shurat HaDin works in close coordination with the Israeli intelligence agency to pursue legal action against Israel’s critics. The group regularly uses litigation to harass individuals and groups worldwide who challenge Israel’s oppression of Palestinians or endorse boycott and divestment campaigns for Palestinian rights.

-->The NYT leaves it to others to cover stories about Israel's dirty tricks in other countries. The NYT didn't print anything about this campaign. 

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Common Dreams:
"After brushing aside the frenzied 2020 presidential hype and closely scrutinizing the public voting record of outgoing Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas), Capital & Main investigative journalist David Sirota published a detailed analysis on Thursday showing that the Texas congressman frequently voted to advance President Donald Trump and the GOP's right-wing agenda during his three terms in the House.

'Amid persistently high economic inequality and a climate change crisis, O'Rourke has voted for GOP bills that his fellow Democratic lawmakers said reinforced Republicans' tax agenda, chipped away at the Affordable Care Act, weakened Wall Street regulations, boosted the fossil fuel industry, and bolstered Trump's immigration policy,' Sirota wrote in his report, which was co-published by the Guardian."

-->Another Democratic presidential contender with a record of sellouts that rivals Barack Obama's. Leave it to the US mainstream media to hype him as the next great candidate. 

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Common Dreams:
"Food safety advocates are expressing sharp disappointment with the final federal GMO labeling rule, released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

While industry-friendly Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue asserted in a press statement that the new standard for foods produced using genetic engineering (GE or GMO) would boost 'the transparency of our nation's food system' and ensure 'clear information and labeling consistency for consumers about the ingredients in their food,' groups like the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)—and even food giants like Nestlé—say it does nothing of the sort.

'It is obvious that this rule is intended to hide, not disclose, information about genetically modified foods,' said IATP senior attorney Sharon Treat."

-->GMO labeling fraud? The NYT has always had a soft spot on its pages for GMO products. While touting GMO as the answer to the world's food problems, the NYT routinely refuses to print negative stories about Monsanto.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

NY Books:
"The Pro-Israel Push to Purge US Campus Critics. There are signs that we’ve reached a tipping point in US public recognition of Israel’s suppression of the rights of Palestinians as a legitimate human rights concern. Increasingly, students on campuses across the country are calling on their universities to divest from companies that do business in Israel. Newly elected members of Congress are saying what was once unsayable: that perhaps the US should question its unqualified diplomatic and financial support for Israel ...

At the same time, discussions on college campuses about the complexities of freedom, history, and belonging in Israel and Palestine are under increasing pressure and potential censorship from right-wing entities. In fact, new policies adopted by the US and Israeli governments are intended to eliminate any rigorous discussion of Israeli–Palestinian politics in university settings. Not since the McCarthyite anti-Communist purges have we seen such an aggressive effort to censor teaching and learning on topics the government disfavors. 

Especially chilling, the US Department of Education recently adopted a new definition of anti-Semitism, one that equates any criticism of Israel with a hatred of Jews."

-->When is the pro apartheid NYT going to cover the new McCarthyism on college campuses? There is so much to talk about, yet our "newspaper of record" sticks to the Zionist script.    

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Common Dreams:
"As Grassroots Momentum Surges, Over 300 Local Officials From 40 States Declare Support for Green New Deal. With support for a Green New Deal growing rapidly at the grassroots, in Congress, and among potential 2020 presidential candidates, over 300 local elected officials from 40 states threw their support behind the bold proposal in an open letter released on Friday, declaring that it is 'time to end the era of fossil fuel production and build our clean energy future together.' ...

The decision by dozens of mayors, state legislators, and city council members to back a Green New Deal comes as people in the United States and around the world are pressuring their leaders to abandon incremental approaches to the climate crisis and adopt ambitious policies that are in line with the latest science."

-->To the the NYT, the "Green New Deal" isn't even worthy of one story. It leaves over news sources like AP to cover popular movements to save our planet. The NYT remains part of the problem rather than part of the solution on climate change.

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Common Dreams:
"The United States was a near global outlier Monday at the United Nations General Assembly in rejecting a framework to bolster international cooperation on refugees.

Only Hungary—headed by far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose administration has been accused of carrying out 'a full-frontal assault on migrants and refugees'—joined the U.S. in voting 'no' on the Global Compact on Refugees (pdf). One hundred eighty-one nations voted to approve it, while three—the Dominican Republic, Eritrea, and Libya—abstained. ...

According to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, the compact 'provides long overdue recognition that countries hosting large numbers of refugees provide a huge service to our shared humanity and sets out ways through which the rest of the world can help share the load.' "

-->The NYT has long considered itself the cheerleader for the image of the US abroad. It didn't cover this story. All the propaganda that is "fit to print"?

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Vox:
"French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new gas tax earlier this year that will increase the price of fuel by about 30 cents per gallon and will continue to rise over the next few years. ...

But Macron, a former investment banker, isn’t using the tax to support or expand social welfare benefits — quite the opposite, in fact. It’s part of his broader plan to reform the French economy to make it more pro-business.
He’s been cutting spending to popular, longstanding social welfare programs and has been scaling back labor protections. For instance, he’s made it easier for companies to hire and fire employees and fought unions to end subsidies for certain sectors. ...

So, to recap, the protesters are mostly working-class folks who are angry at what they see as an out-of-touch elitist president whose policies favor the wealthy and corporations at the expense of working-class French people."

-->But a recent front page headline in the NYT tells a different story. "French Protests Reveal Clash: Heathy Climate vs. Lower Tax." Gone are the cuts in social programs and labor rights. Gone is Macron's favoring the rich and corporations over the working class. Our "newspaper of record" is blind to the working class and chooses to reframe issues to protect the corporate elite.   

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Common Dreams:
"One of the best parts of Ocasio-Cortez's arrival in D.C. as a new leader is that she notices, and is revolted by, the corrupt, corporatist rituals that are so embedded in D.C. culture that most politicians and journalists barely notice them. ...

Pulling back the curtain on the ostensibly 'bipartisan' orientation for newly elected members of Congress at Harvard's Kennedy School in Boston, Reps.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) informed the public through live social media updates on Thursday that—contrary to the ideologically neutral advertising—the private conference featured a heavy dose of speeches by corporate CEOs and completely shut out organized labor and members of the progressive community.

'Our 'bipartisan' congressional orientation is co-hosted by a corporate lobbyist group,' Ocasio-Cortez noted, likely referring to the Koch-funded American Enterprise Institute, which is co-sponsoring the event. 'Other members have quietly expressed to me their concern that this wasn't told to us in advance. Lobbyists are here. Goldman Sachs is here. Where's labor? Activists? Frontline community leaders?' "

-->Where indeed is the NYT? Corporate influence oozing from the seams of Congress, yet the NYT decided not to carry this story. 

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The Guardian UK:
"She sings. She sparkles. And she’s made by women paid just 1p [about 1.3 cents] for each doll that shimmers off shop shelves. This Christmas, tens of thousands of children the world over will excitedly tear the wrapping paper off an Ariel doll – Disney’s Little Mermaid – secure in the knowledge that it was made for them by Santa’s happy elves at the north pole.

The reality would come as a cruel surprise. For elves, read Chinese factory workers. For the north pole, read the city of Heyuan. And for happy, read miserable – from illegally long working hours and exhaustion to wages too low to support a family.

An investigation published on Thursday by rights groups Solidar Suisse and China Labor Watch, in partnership with the Guardian, found evidence of excessive and illegal overtime, basic pay rates as low as 85p [a little over a dollar] an hour, no holiday or sick pay and high levels of exhaustion among the largely female workforce making Disney toys and products for other international toy companies including Mattel’s Fisher Price brand."

-->The NYT and most of the US media rarely carries stories about Disney and Fisher Price abusing workers in foreign countries. Hey, it's not befitting the holiday spirit of unfettered greed.

Wednesday, December 05, 2018

Common Dreams:
"'A Staggeringly Bad Idea: Outrage as Pelosi Pushes Tax Rule That Would 'Kneecap the Progressive Agenda. ...

Nearly three-quarters of the American public and a historic number of Democratic lawmakers support Medicare for All, but the House Democratic leadership is considering using its newly won majority to impose a rule that would 'recklessly betray' the grassroots forces that put them in power by making single-payer and other progressive priorities impossible to enact. ...

According to a list of Democratic proposals obtained by the Washington Post, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—who is currently fighting back against efforts to prevent her from becoming House Speaker—is pushing for a rule that would 'require a three-fifths supermajority to raise individual income taxes on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers.' "

-->A Pelosi knife in the back for Medicare for All. The Insurance industry pays most of Pelosi's bills, and it is payback time. Readers of the NYT were not informed of her backroom betrayal. 

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As the nation's media play its fulsome praises of George H Bush, I thought that Activist Radio should step in with our favorite story of this great patriot. He was a serial fondler of young women, especially at photo ops when he could get in real close. He always told the same joke as he was groping, that his favorite magician was “David Cop-a-Feel.”

The Intercept:
"He ran a racist election campaign. The name of Willie Horton should forever be associated with Bush’s 1988 presidential bid ... He made a dishonest case for war. Thirteen years before George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction to justify his invasion and occupation of Iraq, his father made his own set of false claims to justify the aerial bombardment of that same country ... He committed war crimes. Under Bush Sr., the U.S. dropped a whopping 88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, many of which resulted in horrific civilian casualties ... He refused to cooperate with a special counsel. The Iran-Contra affair, in which the United States traded missiles for Americans hostages in Iran, and used the proceeds of those arms sales to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua ... He escalated the racist war on drugs."

-->Why praise a racist, CIA spook who never did anything in office beside bombing helpless countries in the Middle East and Central America? It is the propaganda of empire; all our elected leaders are made into heroes. It goes with the big lie of America's benevolent foreign policy.

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Common Dreams:
"CNN has parted ways with contributor Marc Lamont Hill after a speech the college professor made on Israel and Palestine at the United Nations. A CNN spokesperson confirmed Hill was no longer under contract. The network did not give a reason, but the move came amid objections to Hill’s speech by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other groups.

Hill, a professor of media studies at Temple University in Philadelphia who had been a recurring political commentator on CNN, defended his speech in social media posts, saying he did not support antisemitism or violence against Jewish people and had fought against this.

Speaking on Wednesday, he called for countries to boycott and divest from Israel in a speech given for the UN’s International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People."

-->The NYT took the easy way out when it came to this story of censorship at one of our top news media networks. The firing of Hill was carried on the NYT webpage as an AP story, but didn't make it into print.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

FAIR:
"NPR Infomercial for Its Sponsor Amazon Omits Labor and Environmental Criticisms. It would be good if a radio station, ostensibly set up to serve the public, could mention these inconvenient realities.

There are dozens of reports detailing how Amazon’s shipping policies negatively effects both the environment and workers, but one wouldn’t have any idea either was a concern after  listening to NPR’s sexed-up report (Morning Edition, 11/21/18), 'Optimized Prime: How AI and Anticipation Power Amazon’s 1-Hour Deliveries.'

The report, detailing the 'Artificial Intelligence' behind Amazon’s delivery systems, relies entirely on interviews with Amazon flacks. The only people NPR speaks to are Brad Porter, the head of robotics for Amazon operations; Jenny Freshwater, director of software development; and Amazon VP Cem Sibay. No outside parties were sought for comment, let alone anyone remotely adversarial, such as labor organizers or environmental activists."

-->Yes, that old Morning Edition, always ready to celebrate the corporate vision of America.

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Common Dreams:
"Big Pharma's Worst Nightmare': Experts Champion Sanders-Khanna Bill That Could Lower Drug Costs by More Than 40%.

Decrying America's shameful status as the only industrialized nation on Earth that lets pharmaceutical giants hike drug prices without restraint, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Tuesday unveiled legislation that would crack down on Big Pharma's government-granted monopolies by requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to approve far cheaper generic competition if companies refuse to bring drug prices into line with international standards.

'No other country allows pharmaceutical companies to charge any price they want for any reason they want. Somebody in America today can walk into a pharmacy and find out that the medicine they have been using for years can double, triple, or quadruple literally overnight. That needs to change,' Sanders declared in a statement. 'The greed of the prescription drug industry is literally killing Americans and it has got to stop.' "

-->The NYT decided not to print this story of Big Pharma's greed and Bernie's bill that would lower costs. It just doesn't fit the corporate view of America.

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Common Dreams:
"After years of empty promises and demands from frustrated members of Congress, the Pentagon finally conducted its first-ever comprehensive audit—and unsurprisingly failed it, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan revealed Thursday.

Although a 1990 federal law requires all U.S. government agencies to conduct annual financial audits, the Pentagon put it off until launching this one last December. Critics of the United States' astronomical military spending said the findings were precisely why lawmakers and the public have demanded Defense Department audits for decades.

'This is exactly why we must AuditThePentagon,' tweeted Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). 'The unchecked waste, fraud, and abuse at the Pentagon is an insult to the American people.' "

-->The NYT often avoids having to print stories like this by putting a Reuters version on the NYT webpage. That is what our newspaper of record did this time too.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting):
"Three cheers for the moderates. Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin (11/7/18) had some familiar-sounding advice for Democrats based on the results of the midterm elections. ... 'Move to the right' is always corporate media’s advice for Democrats—win or lose. But did the 2018 midterms really demonstrate the virtues of moderation?

Well, the worst news for Democrats on Tuesday was the loss of three Senate seats held by incumbent Dems: North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, Indiana’s Joe Donnelly and Missouri’s Claire McCaskill. As it happens, these are the Democrats who vote second-, third- and fifth-most often in line with Donald Trump’s preferences.

Heitkamp ran an ad bragging that she 'voted over half the time with President Trump.' A Donnelly spot featured Trump saying, 'Sen. Donnelly, thank you very much.'  A McCaskill ad declared that she was 'not one of those crazy Democrats.' They sound pretty 'moderate,' right? Yet they not only lost, they lost big—by 11-, 7- and 6-point margins, respectively."

-->Our mainstream media is always pushing the Democratic Party to the right, so that the corporations will be happy. It turns out that corporate sponsored Democratic candidates don't win elections. When will Hillary come back and save us from the Socialists?

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Common Dreams:
"Israel Denounced for 'Cowardly' Attack After Late-Night Raid and Bombing of Gaza Kills 7 Palestinians. Just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted—despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary—that he wants to 'avoid' military conflict with the Palestinians, a unit of Israeli soldiers flagrantly violated a ceasefire agreement Sunday night by invading the occupied Gaza Strip and killing at least seven Palestinians before fleeing under the cover of airstrikes.

Six more Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were later killed after a firefight, which prompted the Israeli unit to call in airstrikes for cover to escape. One Palestinian witness said Gaza was slammed with as many as 40 airstrikes in less than an hour as the Israeli team fled the besieged Gaza Strip, which is in the midst of a severe humanitarian crisis due to decades of brutal Israeli occupation.

'Imagine if Palestinians crossed into Israel and killed [seven] Israelis, all hell would break loose but Palestinians are expected to just accept this,' Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, wrote on Twitter."

-->NBCNews is a good example of how our mainstream media obfuscates which side started the attack. Its headline reads: "Hamas threatens to step up attacks as Israel-Gaza border ignites." The NYT headline states "Israelis and Militants Trade Fire" and describes the Israeli assassinations as a "botched intelligence mission."

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Common Dreams:
"As conservative pundits and self-interested corporate Democrats predictably attempted to spin this week's midterm election results as a win for so-called moderates and proof that the Democratic Party should tack to the center, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) dismissed this 'absurd line' in an interview on Thursday and called the incoming crop of newly elected House members 'the most progressive freshman class in the modern history of the United States.'

'Many of these folks are not just women, not just people of color, who campaigned on Medicare for All, raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks, campaigned on making public colleges and universities tuition-free, on undoing Trump's tax breaks for billionaires,' Sanders told Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi in response to one Washington Post columnist's claim that Sanders-style progressives 'scare' voters.

'I think the Washington Post is going to be very surprised at who shows up on the first day of Congress and gets sworn in,' Sanders said. 'The political establishment notwithstanding, the future belongs to progressives.' "

-->The NYT, proving that it is stuck in the rut of corporate sponsored Democratic hacks, didn't even carry this story. Our newspaper of record never prints anything positive about Bernie, or the progressive movement either for that matter.

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