+972 (Israeli newsletter): 

"Even Israel’s European allies aren’t buying its attacks on NGOs. On July 12, nine European governments declared that they had rejected Israel’s designation of six Palestinian civil society groups as “terrorist organizations.” The announcement is a major victory for the organizations themselves, political activists, and the Palestinian communities they serve.

Following the declaration by Defense Minister Benny Gantz outlawing the six NGOs last October, the European donor countries opened their own investigations to look into Israel’s allegations. Nearly nine months later, they concluded that “no substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy” toward the organizations, and as such, they would continue to fund and collaborate with the groups. ...

A close look at the NGOs targeted by Israel shows that they were not chosen by chance. Addameer, for example, provides legal advice and representation to Palestinian political prisoners; Al-Haq has filed submissions to the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity; the Union of Agricultural Work Committees helps farmers survive attempts to expel them from Area C of the West Bank; Defense For Children International-Palestine documents and conducts U.S. advocacy on Israel’s systematic arrests and abuses of children."

https://www.972mag.com/edition/israel-europe-ngos-palestinians/

-->This story was posted in July of 2022. Most US media has remained silent on the issue since then, preferring to let the attack on the six human rights organizations disappear from view. 

=====

Stop The Wall:

"On June 1, 2022 dozens of Israeli soldiers and JCB,  Volvo and Caterpillar  bulldozers raided the villages Al-Fakheet and Al-Markez and demolished seven residential tents and animal shacks, leaving families, along with their herds homeless. This is the second time these families lost their homes in less than a month. On May 11, 2022, the Israeli occupation, Volvo and JCB bulldozers  ... razed 19 homes and animal shacks to the ground. Insisting on [keeping] their land, the owners of the destroyed homes rebuilt them again; some of which were among the seven demolished homes yesterday. ...

Classified as a firing zone, the expulsion of the eight communities would be a culmination of decades-long apartheid and settler colonial practices in the area. The forcible expulsion of these communities paves the way for Israel to annex Masafer Yatta and further consolidate its illegal settlement enterprise.  Land confiscation, including through the pretext of ‘military needs’ has been highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the OPT in his latest  as one of the salient features of Israeli apartheid. Villages in Masafer Yatta, such as Um Al-Khair have been highlight as a case study, in Amnesty International’s groundbreaking report on Israeli apartheid. ...

JCB, the world’s third largest construction company is not only used to destroy Palestinian homes. The company’s exported equipment to Israel is also used to construct illegal settlements, settlement industrial zones and apartheid infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and Syrian Golan Heights. JCB machines were involved in the construction of the Apartheid Wall on stolen Palestinian Land. According to Who Profits, the British-based company’s track and wheel excavators and wheel loaders were documented during the construction of the wall near the Palestinian villages of Al-Walaja, Anata and Beit Jala."

https://www.stopthewall.org/2022/06/02/who-is-aiding-israel-corporate-complicity-in-masafer-yatta-ethnic-cleansing/

-->This story was printed in June of 2022, and revealed how complicit British and US companies are in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Since that time, the story just hasn't been picked up by European or American news media. That's why the Israeli ethnic cleansing goes relatively slowly, 10 families here and 15 families there. Its a gradual elimination of the Palestinian people, their homes and their culture, aided in part by our media which refuses to follow stories like these. 

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The Intercept:

"A REPUBLICAN-BACKED super PAC on Tuesday fell short in its bid to intervene in a Democratic primary against Pennsylvania state Rep. Summer Lee, a 34-year-old Black woman and rising star in the party, who fended off a tsunami of outside money to best anti-union attorney Steve Irwin. The spending, from a GOP-backed super PAC linked to AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — left Irwin behind by less than 1,000 votes. ...

Another super PAC in Oregon, funded by a cryptocurrency fortune and organized around the project of pandemic prevention, Protect Our Future, spent some $10 million to boost Carrick Flynn, while the super PAC linked to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority PAC, also dropped a million dollars into the race. It backfired, and local Democrats as well as national progressives — including the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC and the Working Families Party — rallied behind state Rep. Andrea Salinas, who appears poised for a victory. ...

In North Carolina, the super PACs had better luck, spending $7 million against former state Sen. Erica Smith and Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam. The spending came from AIPAC, Democratic Majority for Israel, and Mainstream Democrats, the super PAC organized and funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman."

https://theintercept.com/2022/05/18/democratic-voters-deliver-stinging-rebuke-to-partys-manchin-sinema-wing/

-->This story back in May of 2022, exposes the hidden role of Israeli linked super PACs in promoting right wing candidates in the US. Other mainstream media have not followed this story since. I think it is a big deal how the Israel Lobby spends millions trying to get rid of progressive Democratic candidates. In fact, this spending reveals a much larger story that needs to be investigated and reported. The Israel Lobby is a hard right organization which spews Islamophobic ideas of racial superiority. It belongs in the category of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, dangerous enemies of democracy. 

The Intercept:

"A People-Powered Insurgency Threatened to Reshape the Democratic Party. Then Came AIPAC and Its Allied Super PAC, Democratic Majority for Israel. ...

Two groups — Democratic Majority For Israel, or DMFI, and Mainstream Democrats PAC — began spending millions pummeling [progressive candidates] on the airwaves. The two were effectively the same organization, operating out of the same office and employing the same consultants, though Mainstream Democrats claims a broader mission. ...

While DMFI is ostensibly organized around the politics of Israel, in practice, it has become a weapon wielded by the party’s centrist faction against its progressive wing. In fact, DMFI, Mainstream Democrats PAC, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have spent so much money that the question of Israel-Palestine now dominates Democratic primaries."

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/16/democratic-party-progressive-israel-aipac-dmfi/

--> Yes, the Israel Lobby is busy destroying the chances of progressive Democrats, in primaries and in general elections. The lobby will pour cash into any campaign, as long as it is pro Israel. Why is such a foreign lobby group allowed to bribe and threaten US candidates? Why isn't it registered as a Foreign Agent? And why doesn't the NYT cover this story at all?

=====

The Intercept:

"IF THE U.S. moves forward with a U.N.-proposed plan to send armed forces into Haiti, the Biden administration’s former envoy to Haiti warned, the result will be a predictable catastrophe. ...

[Former Ambassador Ron Foote] said Biden’s increasingly interventionist posture toward Haiti, which was evident even last year, was behind his decision to resign. 'The deportations were the straw that broke the camel’s back,' Foote said. 'But the major reason I resigned is because I saw U.S policy moving in exactly this direction, toward intervention, which is, as Einstein said — and I’ll paraphrase — trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insanity. And in Haiti, each time the international community has intervened without Haitian and popular support, the situation is stabilized temporarily, and then it becomes much worse over time.'

An armed intervention would likely produce a short period of calm, he said, but would fall apart sooner or later. 'It’s almost unfathomable that all Haitians are calling for a different solution, yet the U.S and the U.N and international [institutions] are blindly stumbling through with Ariel Henry,' he said."

https://theintercept.com/2022/10/19/haiti-armed-intervention-dan-foote-interview/

-->We don't get to read too much about the US and Haiti, so most people are unaware of the imperialist roles of the French and the Americans. Most of our media just advocates sending in the troops again. The NYT did better this time, with a perceptive opinion piece by Lydia Polgreen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/opinion/haiti-montana-accords-reparations.html

=====

The Guardian UK:

"Secret files suggest chemical giant feared weedkiller’s link to Parkinson’s disease. For decades, Swiss chemical giant Syngenta has manufactured and marketed a widely used weed-killing chemical called paraquat, and for much of that time the company has been dealing with external concerns that long-term exposure to the chemical may be a cause of the incurable brain ailment known as Parkinson’s disease. ...

But a cache of internal corporate documents dating back to the 1950s reviewed by the Guardian suggests that the public narrative put forward by Syngenta and the corporate entities that preceded it has at times contradicted the company’s own research and knowledge.

And though the documents reviewed do not show that Syngenta’s scientists and executives accepted and believed that paraquat can cause Parkinson’s, they do show a corporate focus on strategies to protect product sales, refute external scientific research and influence regulators."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/20/syngenta-weedkiller-pesticide-parkinsons-disease-paraquat-documents

-->Same old story. The chemical companies hiding evidence and trying to refute scientific research. As long as these companies can make a profit, they will sell anything. Like weed killers and opioids that ruin tens of thousands of lives. The NYT didn't cover the discovery of these secret files. The newspaper almost always puts corporate interests above reporting news. 

Common Dreams:

"Protests in 40+ US Cities Demand Deescalation as Poll Shows Surging Fear of Nuclear War. 'Anyone paying attention should be worried about the rising dangers of nuclear war, but what we really need is action,' said one organizer.

As new polling showed this week that Americans' fear of nuclear war has steadily grown since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, anti-nuclear campaigners on Friday called on federal lawmakers to take action to mitigate those fears and ensure the U.S. is doing all it can to deescalate tensions with other nuclear powers.

Anti-war groups including Peace Action and RootsAction organized picket lines at the offices of U.S. senators and representatives in more than 40 cities across 20 states, calling on lawmakers to push for a ceasefire in Ukraine, the revival of anti-nuclear treaties the U.S. has exited in recent years, and other legislative actions to prevent nuclear catastrophe."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/14/protests-40-us-cities-demand-deescalation-poll-shows-surging-fear-nuclear-war

-->The US media is full of antiwar protesters, but all stories are about Russia. The NYT has more than a dozen reports about Russian soldiers deserting, protesting and leaving Russia. What about the movement to stop US warmongering? When will that pass the test of stories "fit to print." The US media is waist deep in pro-war propaganda. 

=====

Common Dreams:

"Corporate media outlets are mostly ignoring a Republican ploy to use the debt ceiling fight to gut Social Security and Medicare if the GOP regains control of Congress—a plot that one leading watchdog on Friday called 'perhaps the single most consequential story" of the midterm elections.'

'Social Security and Medicare are on the ballot next month,' said Media Matters for America senior fellow Matt Gertz. 'If the American public doesn't know that, it's in part because the press isn't telling them.'

Common Dreams reported earlier this week that Social Security and Medicare defenders are warning that the popular programs—which each serve tens of millions of older Americans—face 'grave danger' in the event Republicans retake control of Congress in January. The warning came after four House Republicans hoping to chair the lower chamber's budget committee told Bloomberg Government that 'Social Security and Medicare eligibility changes, spending caps, and safety-net work requirements are among the top priorities' if the GOP is back in charge."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/10/14/corporate-media-mostly-ignoring-gop-ploy-cut-social-security-and-medicare

-->Our media is corporate owned. Privatizing Social Security and vets benefits have long been on corporate wish lists. So you, the consumer of news stories, never get to hear about it. 

=====

Common Dreams:

"On Sunday, October 9, The New York Times published an article entitled 'An American in Ukraine Finds the War He’s Been Searching For.' It could just as easily be entitled 'The Media Finds the War It’s Been Searching For.' It is, sadly, a story of the corrupting influence war and profits have on everything, including the press, that very institution which is to keep a constant check on our government, particularly in affairs of war.

The article depicts the exploits of a 59-year-old American soldier, retired after 30 years of combat experience, working in the battlegrounds of Ukraine with his own start-up military training company called the Mozart Group, a 'saucy response to a Russian mercenary outfit' called the Wagner Group.

The language throughout the article is fawning, unquestioning, repeatedly glamorizing the soldier and his war. It’s Pentagon propaganda. The only question the journalist really raises is whether the soldier and his company can make a difference in helping the Ukrainians."

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/10/12/media-finds-its-war

-->Do the media outlets in the US know something that we the people do not? Have the Pentagon and their weapons making corporations already decided to go to war? Decided to risk a nuclear conflagration for some New Cold War objectives? What's happened to the Democratic Party, itching to arm Taiwan? 

Alliance for Global Justice:

“ 'We Want to Live in Peace!' The Speech of Honduran President Xiomara Castro before the United Nations. In 2009 a US backed military coup in Honduras shocked the region, sparking massive national and international outcry which demanded restoration of the democratic order. Nicaragua’s solidarity with the people of Honduras was clear and decisive. In support of international attempts to reverse the coup, United Nations General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto (formerly Nicaraguan Foreign Minister) accompanied President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras days after he was illegally ousted. The Honduran military blocked their plane from landing and fired on the crowds that had gathered at the airport to receive them. Nicaragua’s solidarity continued throughout the 13-year crisis that ensued.

On September 20, 2022, Honduran President Xiomara Castro addressed the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, speaking truth to power and establishing historical memory about the devastating impact of the 2009 US-backed coup, a coup that was finally reversed thanks to the courageous resistance of the Honduran people and international solidarity.

'Not only am I the first woman to have the honor of leading our Central American nation, but I also represent the first democratically elected government after going through 13 years of dictatorship, the 2009 coup d’état, full of cruel assassinations and death squads, two separate electoral frauds, a pandemic and two hurricanes. It is impossible to understand Hondurans and the great caravans of migrants without recognizing this context of cruel suffering that we have had to go through. ...

Thirteen years of a dictatorship, protected by the international community, led the country to multiply by six its public debt and reach a poverty rate of 74 percent, the highest rate in the history of Honduras.'  - Honduran President Xiomara Castro

https://afgj.org/nicanotes-10-06-2022

-->Another shameful US coup against an elected president, this time in Honduras. But our media doesn't have the stomach to remind people of the Democratic Party's  imperialism in Central America, masterminded by that Cold Warrior, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State at the time.

=====

Jacobin:

"US officials are talking about responding to any future Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine with a conventional or even nuclear strike on Russia. What would that actually mean?

ANATOL LIEVEN

It would mean the end of civilization. As innumerable studies have shown, it would be exceptionally difficult in those circumstances to avoid escalation to total nuclear war. Even if we managed to avoid that, if the United States fired a nuclear missile into Russia, without any question whatsoever, Russia would send a missile into America. It depends on the scale of the missile and so forth, but even one missile would cause at minimum hundreds of thousands of American dead, more civilian dead than have ever died in the whole of US history. But as I say, it’s more likely at that point there would be full-scale nuclear exchange, and that would be the end of the world. Humanity as such would survive in extremely poor shape. America, Russia, Europe would not.

Incidentally, the argument here that this is necessary because it’s up to the Ukrainians — at this point, what is the first country that would be completely destroyed? Has anyone thought of asking ordinary Ukrainians if that is a price they think worth paying? Not now to defend the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainian independence, because at this point those have been secured, by Ukrainian victories with Western support. What we are talking about now is pretty typical postcolonial battles over limited amounts of territory in eastern and southern Ukraine. Anyone who thinks it’s worth risking potentially billions of lives — and people, by the way, all over the world, have never been asked for their opinion on this — has lost touch with certain elements of basic reality and sanity but also certain aspects of basic morality.

https://jacobin.com/2022/10/ukraine-russia-us-nuclear-war-putin?mc_cid=9cfedf7864&mc_eid=487355f8cb

-->Harsh words about the end of the planet, and possibly the end of our species. But the US media is just too preoccupied with the New Cold War to describe what World War III would really be like. In war, our media collapses into conformity with anything the Pentagon writes into the news cycle. 

=====

Common Dreams:

"Several seemingly disparate events in the past week come together to once again demonstrate the use of raw power by Israel and its supporters to force silence about their oppression of Palestinians from the river to the sea. 

The first of these events was the travel website, Booking.com caving in to massive Israeli pressure to rescind a travel warning they were intending to place on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Next, The Hill terminated their association with a presenter, Katie Halper, for attempting to air a monologue which defended Rep. Rashida Tlaib and made the self-evident case that Israel is an apartheid state. Finally, a small group of on-campus clubs at the UC Berkeley School of Law came under intense fire, complete with bogus charges of antisemitism, for their decision to adopt bylaws that support BDS and bar the appearance of 'Zionist speakers' at their clubs' events. 

Looking at each of these incidents and then putting them together, it becomes evident that the growing awareness of the apartheid nature of the Israeli regime is leading the Israeli propaganda machine to double down on draconian tactics that endanger the principle of free speech and even public safety. They're doing it because the facts, which have never been on their side, are becoming more widely understood, so they have no other tactics to turn to."

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/10/05/draconian-silencing-those-who-call-out-israeli-apartheid

-->The NYT doesn't talk about Israel's raw power and draconian tactics. Our supposed "newspaper of record" will go down in history as a key supporter of Israeli apartheid. 

The Intercept:

"EXECUTIVES AT A major broadcasting company stepped in this week to block the airing of a segment on Hill TV that defended Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., amid an ongoing controversy inside the Democratic Party. ...

[Katie] Halper’s monologue examined Tlaib’s claim that Israel has the characteristics of an apartheid state by exploring the definition of apartheid and quoting from human rights organizations such as Israel-based B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. She quoted former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak saying that Israel could become an apartheid state if it didn’t change course, and so on. Halper also made reference to Israeli laws that bar Palestinians from traveling freely or living in Israel proper even if they are married to an Israeli, as well as to laws that grant or exclude entry into the country specifically on the basis of religion or ethnicity. ...

Producers told Halper that perhaps a standard segment would work, but when Halper proposed to a Nexstar executive that she use her next appearance for such a segment, she was told her services would no longer be needed."

https://theintercept.com/2022/09/29/hill-tv-israel-apartheid-rashida-tlaib-censorship/

-->A major TV broadcaster fired for referring to apartheid Israel. And the rest of the mainstream media is so scared of the Israel Lobby, that it never even reported this incident of censorship. And the NYT didn't report the story at all.

=====

The Intercept:

"LEAKED CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN Brazilian officials reveal the inner workings of a secretive collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice on a sprawling anti-corruption effort known as Operation Car Wash. The chats, analyzed in partnership with the Brazilian investigative news outlet Agência Pública, show that the Brazilians were extremely accommodating to their U.S. partners, going out of their way to facilitate their involvement in ways that may have violated international legal treaties and Brazilian law.

Operation Car Wash, or Lava Jato in Portuguese, rocked Brazil’s political and business establishment, leading to the imprisonment of former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva — a move that barred him from reelection and paved the way for a win for far-right Jair Bolsonaro. It also led to massive fines and economic and reputational harm for some of Brazil’s most important companies. Yet the investigation itself has been mired in controversy, especially after reporting by The Intercept and partners revealed clear misconduct and political bias by the judge and prosecutors who handled the case against Lula."

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/12/united-states-justice-department-brazil-car-wash-lava-jato-international-treaty/

-->The US Department of Justice was involved in putting former Brazilian president Lula in jail on false charges. Why wan't this big news? Isn't this the type of interference in foreign affairs that the US always claims to be innocent of?

=====

Common Dreams:

"Titled Billionaire Enabler States: How U.S. States Captured by the Trust Industry Help the World's Wealthy Hide Their Fortunes, the new report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) estimates that the United States is host to $5.6 trillion in trust and estate assets belonging to super-wealthy elites, both foreign and domestic.

'The concept of the 'offshore' tax haven has very much washed ashore,' says the report, which exposes how 13 U.S. states 'shield the fortunes of the world's richest people.'

'The clandestine world of financial secrecy stretches around the world, all the way back to the United States,' says the report, which comes one year after the groundbreaking Pandora Papers investigation revealed how the U.S. has become a major player in the international wealth-hiding system.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/28/new-report-reveals-how-13-us-states-shield-fortunes-worlds-richest-people

-->Not one to publish news that makes Billionaires look bad, our own NYT didn't print this story. The newspaper is part of the problem of the exploding wealth of the few.

Common Dreams:

"Report Warns US Militarized Response to Russia Could Provoke Nuclear War. While Ukrainian forces continue to make advances against Russian invaders nearly seven months into the war, an expert at Brown University warned Thursday that the United States boosting military spending in response to Russia could lead to a nuclear confrontation.

Visiting professor Lyle Goldstein authored a report—titled Threat Inflation, Russian Military Weakness, and the Resulting Nuclear Paradox: Implications of the War in Ukraine for U.S. Military Spending—for the Costs of War Project at Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

'Russian aggression in Ukraine requires an international response. However, it does not justify increased U.S. military budgets, which could ultimately escalate tensions with Russia and once again lead us down a dangerous path,' said Costs of War Project co-director Stephanie Savell in a statement."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/15/report-warns-us-militarized-response-russia-could-provoke-nuclear-war

-->It seems like our major media is really pushing us to this nuclear showdown. NPR and the NYT run endless anti Russian stories, omitting completely the crying need to slow the conflict down and negotiate.

=====

Common Dreams:

"Anti-War Voices Warn US Bill on Taiwan Will Make War Much More Likely. 

A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday approved a bill to dramatically boost American military support for Taiwan, a move that prompted warnings from both China and anti-war voices in the United States that such a policy increases the likelihood of armed conflict. ...

The bill comes during a period of heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing and follows U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi 's (D-Calif.) provacative trip to Taiwan last month, a visit the Chinese government answered by suspending climate and military cooperation with the United States and forging closer ties with Russia. ...

China vigorously protested the proposed legislation. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said during a Wednesday press conference in Beijing that 'if the bill continues to be deliberated, pushed forward, or even signed into law, it will greatly shake the political foundation of China-U.S. relations and cause extremely serious consequences to... peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.' "

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/15/anti-war-voices-warn-us-bill-taiwan-will-make-war-much-more-likely

-->The prospects of a nuclear war with Russia and China are here, although our media can't take time to comprehend this existential danger to all life on earth. In fact, the NYT and NPR seem to be rallying public hate towards both countries. Alan Chartock, that self proclaimed long time friend of Pete Seeger, is almost blind with righteous anger. 

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FAIR:

"Both the US and British governments supported the rise of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. ... The US Department of Justice was a crucial partner in the Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation, which resulted in the prosecution and jailing of Brazil’s left-leaning former president Luiz Inácio 'Lula' da Silva. The politically motivated legal campaign against Lula served to prevent his participation in the 2018 presidential election, in what Gaspard Estrada calls 'the biggest judicial scandal in Brazilian history.'

Because of this history, and because Brazil is a hard country to explain concisely, I was weary to learn that the British and US state-affiliated media outlets BBC and PBS had co-released a documentary about Jair Bolsonaro only a few weeks before this year’s Brazilian presidential election (10/2–30/22). It didn’t fail to disappoint. ...

The fact that US and British state-affiliated media outlets would promote misleading narratives less than a month before the most complicated Brazilian presidential election in modern history is another sad example of the long tradition of Western media facilitating imperialist meddling in Latin American elections."

https://fair.org/home/pbs-and-bbc-team-up-to-misinform-about-brazils-bolsonaro/

-->This is a big story, and worth reading about. It is about the BBC, PBS, and Fox news siding with Bolsonaro. PBS's documentary about Brazil is the most fascinating example of US propaganda. It ends with a pep talk for imperialism by Steve Bannon. It doesn't get much better than that in the empire. 

Truthout:

"Community organizers and their supporters are celebrating that after years of local resistance, South Louisiana Methanol won’t complete a stalled $2.2 billion petrochemical complex in a region known as 'Cancer Alley.' In a statement Friday, the environmental law organization Earthjustice and groups it has represented in challenges to the project — RISE St. James, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, and the Sierra Club — highlighted a letter to the company from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ).

As the letter details, the LDEQ in July notified South Louisiana Methanol (SLM) that its application to modify permits for the complex in St. James Parish would be withdrawn from review unless the company provided the department with necessary information by August 19.

'No response from SLM was received. Accordingly, LDEQ hereby withdraws the aforementioned application from review,' the letter states, adding that new authorization would be required to start or resume construction."

https://truthout.org/articles/community-organizers-celebrate-defeat-of-petrochemical-complex-in-cancer-alley/

-->This is a real victory against corporate polluters that have targeted Black communities. Cancer Alley is a relic of Jim Crow. Too bad the NYT didn't cover this important story. 

 

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Stanford Internet Observatory:

"Stanford Internet Observatory collaborated with Graphika to analyze a large network of accounts removed from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in our latest report. This information operation likely originated in the United States and targeted a range of countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. ...

Our joint investigation found an interconnected web of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and five other social media platforms that used deceptive tactics to promote pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and Central Asia. The platforms’ datasets appear to cover a series of covert campaigns over a period of almost five years rather than one homogeneous operation. 

These campaigns consistently advanced narratives promoting the interests of the United States and its allies while opposing countries including Russia, China, and Iran. The accounts heavily criticized Russia in particular for the deaths of innocent civilians and other atrocities its soldiers committed in pursuit of the Kremlin’s 'imperial ambitions' following its invasion of Ukraine in February this year."

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/sio-aug-22-takedowns

-->Congratulations to the NYT and Washington Post for covering this story. At least the empire's "fake news" gets exposed in some US media. What about NPR, that bastion of anti-Russian propaganda? No mention of this story on Public Radio.

=====

Democracy Now:

"Leaders of the African People’s Socialist Party say the FBI carried out a violent raid on its properties with flash grenades and drones early Friday morning in Missouri and Florida. The pan-Africanist group has been a longtime advocate for reparations for slavery and a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy. ...

'And then we heard this loud racket outside, this noise from loudspeakers demanding that the residents of this property should come out with our hands up and nothing in our hands. And as this was being said, loud flashbang grenades were exploding all around the house and, I was later to learn, in the back stairwell of the house. So, I asked her [his wife] to allow me to leave first, and to get on the phone to call people to let them know that we were being raided. And she tried but was unable to do it because they had jammed our phones. ...'

They had already knocked out the windows in the house, in my house. They had knocked some doors loose from the hinges. They had come to the back stairwell, as I mentioned. They used flashbang grenades in the rear of my house, plaster all over everything. ... So, clearly, you know, we’ve been targeted. They stole cellphones. They stole laptops. They stole iPads. They stole something like 40 years of archives that we have in that building in St. Petersburg, Florida, of the history of our movement, of our party and the struggle there in St. Petersburg. And they also detained — they went to the residence of Akilé Anai, who is a young woman who oversees most of our communications work. And they told her a lie that someone was breaking into her car, to draw her outside of the house.' -Omali Yeshitela

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/10/black_socialist_chairman_fbi_raid_response

-->Omali Yeshitela has been on Activist Radio twice in the last couple of years. But why wasn't this political raid covered in the NYT? This stuff is right out of the Jim Crow days of COINTLPRO. Shame on the NYT for keeping this political raid on a Black activist community secret.