Wednesday, August 28, 2019

FAIR:
"The battle for the Democratic presidential nomination is dominating the news cycle, and two of the three clear frontrunners in polls, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, draw their support from the resurgent left of the party. ... Across corporate media, the choice is being portrayed as between progressive idealism and a more credible pragmatism—not left vs. right, but left vs. realistic. ...

In the face of increasing public rejection of their definition of 'pragmatism,' corporate media have moved from skepticism to outright hostility. Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle savaged Warren, claiming it is embarrassingly 'self-evident' that her 'idealistic' plans are way 'out of the mainstream.' ...
Similarly, a New York Times headline asserted that 'Ahead of Debates, Pennsylvania Democrats Want Candidates to Stress Pragmatism.' "

-->Oh how the NYT loves "pragmatic" sellouts to the corporate establishment. One wonders if our mainstream media would prefer a fascist like Trump to a true reformer. 

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Common Dreams:
"A new ad by former Vice President Joe Biden released Tuesday that uses his personal story of familial loss as an attack line against Medicare for All is being panned by critics as a cynical ploy that obfuscates the similar kind of pain that millions of people could endure under a Biden plan that would leave them un- or under-insured.

Characterizing the commercial—in which Biden recounts losing his first wife and daughter in a 1972 car accident and his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015—as 'so manipulative' towards potential voters, writer Natalie Shure said on Twitter that the former vice president was using his life story to swipe at the Medicare for All proposal supported by his top Democratic primary rivals. ...

Journalist Chris Person was even harsher on Biden. 'This is easily the cruelest, dirtiest, and most manipulative thing Joe Biden has done so far,' said Person, 'dangling his son's cancer against the fight for Medicare For All.' "

-->The NYT take on this story is entitled "Why This Joe Biden Health Care Ad Stands Out." Our newspaper of record found the ad to be "an extraordinarily emotional appeal ... [that] reminds voters of the good will and empathy many have for the former vice president." No hint of criticism towards The NYT's corporate backed candidate of choice.

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Israel Palestine News:
"Survivors of the lethal 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty have been attacked, threatened, and bullied. Yet, they continue to speak out, and their fellow American veterans support them, one of the most decorated crews in US Naval history.

In 2017 the members of the American Legion passed a resolution calling for a full investigation of the Israeli attack. Despite this resolution, American Legion leaders continue to censor the Liberty, prohibiting them from having a booth at the national convention.

From a resolution supporting the Liberty survivors: 'At around 2 PM, local time, on June 8, 1967, while operating in international waters, properly marked as to her identity and nationality, and in calm, clear weather in the eastern Mediterranean, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) was the target of an unprovoked aerial and naval attack by Israeli forces, lasting over an hour, that killed 34 members of the Liberty’s crew and wounded 173.' "

-->The mainstream media has never touched this story since the very first day when it was published in the NYT. That's a 50 year media blackout on the death of 34 US sailors. 

Thursday, August 22, 2019

The Guardian:
"Federal law enforcement officials have all the tools necessary to address far-right violence proactively ...They have simply chosen as a matter of policy not to prioritize these cases. ...

There are currently 52 federal terrorism laws available to address entirely domestic acts of political violence. Congress has also passed five federal hate crimes statutes specifically designed to punish the types of violence white supremacists and other far-right militants often commit against vulnerable communities. ...

More troubling, recent reporting that revealed the active participation of police officers in white supremacist groups and racist social media activity by a small but significant number of police officers and border patrol officials makes clear that overt and organized racism continues to fester within agencies sworn to protect the public safety as well."

-->US law enforcement part of the white supremacy problem? The NYT thinks such stories are simply unfit to print. Our newspaper of record would rather have white supremacists on the street than to call into question our security state.

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Common Dreams:
"Kamala Harris, Who Just Clarified Her Rejection of Real Medicare for All, to Snub Climate Forum in Favor of Big Donors. [She now says she will attend the Climate Forum]

In the space of 24 hours, Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat running for the party's 2020 presidential nomination, made clear that when forced to choose between the interests of the donor class or progressives, she'd choose the former. 

On Sunday night, as Bloomberg reported, Harris attended a big money fundraiser in the Hamptons, telling the superrich attendees 'I believe in capitalism' and that she wasn't 'comfortable' with a comprehensive Medicare for All plan.' "

-->Kamala is the favorite of the NYT, simply because the newspaper also supports the big money fundraisers in the Hamptons. Don't expect anything from the NYT but negative stories about Sanders or Warren.

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Common Dreams:
"Sanders Says If Israel Wants to Ban Members of Congress, It Should Not Receive Billions in US Military Aid. 'The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage.' ...

'One thing that is completely undeniable about Bernie Sanders is the enormous political courage he consistently wields on behalf of others,' tweeted Ocasio-Cortez. 'He's not just standing up for two members—he's standing for the integrity of the entire U.S. Congress.' ...

[Sanders also wrote] 'anti-Semitism is not some abstract idea to me. It is very personal. It destroyed a good part of my family. I absolutely reject Trump's disgusting efforts to exploit fear of anti-Semitism to attack my colleagues.' "

-->Bernie has integrity, the one thing lacking in the political reporting of the NYT. It didn't cover this story.

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Pitchfork:
"Agribusiness corporation Monsanto is the subject of a new report in The Guardian, based on court documents that were made public as part of the company’s ongoing legal battles related to their Roundup weed killer. According to the documents reviewed by The Guardian, Monsanto operated an 'intelligence fusion center' to monitor and gather data on journalists and other individuals critical of the company. One of those individuals was Neil Young, whose 2015 album The Monsanto Years lambasted the corporation. ...

At one point in [a revealed] memo, it’s stated that Monsanto’s 'fusion center' is also 'monitoring discussions' about the 30th Farm Aid concert. 'We have reached out to the legal team and are keeping them informed on Neil’s activities in case any legal action is appropriate,' it reads."

-->Making a play for the most evil company on the planet, Monsanto is now monitoring performers who question their right to spread cancer for profit. Why can't the NYT cover a story like this? In bed with the agrochemical giants?

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Mondoweiss:
"The charges against financier Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking are of course one of the biggest stories in the country these days, and Israel and its friends have been an ongoing theme in the case.

Epstein, a 66-year-old former hedge fund manager, supported many Jewish causes and Zionist organizations, and was on the board of the Wexner Foundation, which is devoted to Israel. He had friendships with many Israel supporters, from Alan Dershowitz to Howard Rubenstein to Ehud Barak to Larry Summers. And there is speculation that Epstein, a mysterious international figure, had links to Israeli intelligence.

Dershowitz, Epstein’s former lawyer, says Israel is a factor in the case. Two days ago Dersh published an op-ed for Newsmax aimed at preempting the New Yorker’s anticipated expose of his role in the case (one of Epstein’s victims says that she was compelled to have sex with Dershowitz."

-->The NYT is all over the Epstein story. All over it except for the Israeli connection that is. Even the background of Epstein's co sex trafficker, Ghislaine Maxwell, is erased, including creditable reports that her father was deeply involved with the Israeli Mossad. Was Epstein funded by the Mossad? Did he videotape high level leaders having sex with 15 year olds to blackmail them for the Zionist cause? Don't look to our newspaper of record for reporting on any of these ties. 

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Common Dreams:
"The United Nations' high commissioner for human rights on Thursday condemned the Trump administration's embargo against Venezuela and warned the far-reaching sanctions could deny food, medicine, and other necessities to millions of people.

'I am deeply worried about the potentially severe impact on the human rights of the people of Venezuela of the new set of unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. this week,'  U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said in a statement.

'I fear that they will have far-reaching implications on the rights to health and to food in particular,' Bachelet said, noting the sanctions will likely 'exacerbate the crisis for millions of ordinary Venezuelans.' "

-->The US media is in the Pentagon's pocket with Venezuela. Potential targets of US militarism never get a break, as our compliant media from NPR to the NYT beat the drums of war.

Wednesday, August 07, 2019

Common Dreams:
"Recently unearthed recordings of former President Ronald Reagan calling Africans 'monkeys' made the point that Trump is Reagan's ideological heir harder to deny.

The October 1971 comments, which were revealed Tuesday by historian Tim Naftali in an article for The Atlantic, concerned Reagan's anger that the United Nations voted to recognize the People's Republic of China. 

'Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did,' said Reagan to then-President Richard Nixon. 'To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes!' "

-->The NYT did not cover this story, although a Reuters article did make it to the NYT website. Why didn't our newspaper of record print it? Because it shows two recent presidents who were deeply racist. The NYT just doesn't want that image for our country, however true it is.

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Common Dreams:
"When some of the world's top scientists conclude an international summit in Geneva next week, they are expected to call for a major shift to vegetarian diets around the world in order to keep the warming of the globe under 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Simply focusing on reducing or eliminating carbon emissions from fossil fuel industries, factories, and vehicles will not be enough to avoid catastrophic climate change, according to a leaked draft of the report out of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summit. ...

'The consumption of healthy and sustainable diets, such as those based on coarse grains, pulses and vegetables, and nuts and seeds … presents major opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,' the draft reads, according to The Guardian."

-->The NYT, like most US media, is not really focused on global warming as the climate collapses around us. It didn't print this story.

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FAIR:
"The Reagan administration in 1982 coerced National Public Radio (NPR) to cover more favorably the US terrorist war then being waged against Nicaragua. ... NPR promptly buckled under pressure, reassigning reporters viewed as 'too easy on the Sandinistas,' and hiring conservative pundit Linda Chavez to provide 'balance.'

Today, NPR needs no state coercion to toe Washington’s regime change line on Venezuela. NPR published an exclusive interview on May 30 with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, in which the self-proclaimed 'interim president' was described as 'a fugitive in his own country' confronting 'authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro.' ...

When it comes to covering Venezuela’s elected Maduro government, it appears that NPR’s favorite adjective is 'authoritarian.' The public news network has referred to President Nicolás Maduro and his administration as 'authoritarian' and/or a 'regime' no less than 26 times since December, with no explanation why the Venezuelan government merits an editorialized moniker that ideologically justifies US intervention."

-->The same is true for the NYT's coverage of Maduro's election victory. The electoral fraud accusation made by NPR are straight from the empire's playbook. Weapons of mass destruction anyone?

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Common Dreams:
"A new Public Citizen analysis shows that over the past five years—as rising global temperatures repeatedly set records—national television news networks and the 50 most widely circulated newspapers in the United States increased their coverage of right-wing think tanks denying the climate emergency...

The study focuses on coverage of the Heartland Institute and the four other think tanks associated with the conference—the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation...

The analysis shows that across all 50 newspapers, the right-wing think tanks were cited or published a total of 528 times on the climate crisis. Only 17 percent of those mentions included an acknowledgement of the think tank's ties to the dirty energy sector, and 60 percent 'presented arguments or comments by think tank representatives as legitimate views.' "

-->If you care to look at one such omission, check out the NYT recent article entitled "Record Heat Melts Europe, and Relief is Scarce." This front page story is all about the European need for air conditioning. Climate change gets three sentences. 

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FAIR:
"MSNBC’s Anti-Sanders Bias Makes It Forget How to Do Math. When MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah (7/21/19) said that Bernie Sanders 'made [her] skin crawl,' though she 'can’t even identify for you what exactly it is,' she was just expressing more overtly the anti-Sanders bias that pervades the network.

MSNBC made a handy graphic for a poll on July 7 that showed 2020 match-ups against Trump among Democratic voters. The list was in descending order of candidates’ polling numbers—except for Bernie Sanders, whose name is placed under Warren’s and Harris’s, though he polls higher than both of them.

Lest you think this was an isolated incident, MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki placed Sanders’ name below Warren’s on July 15, when he was 'reporting' on a poll put out by the Washington Post and NBC (MSNBC’s parent company.) Once again, the order of the names is descending by poll numbers—except for Bernie Sanders’, which is, once again, placed below where it should be."

-->This extensive article gives so many examples of this bias that few newspapers or TV news programs are left unscathed. The nation's media is so in bed with the corporate state that any reporting on Bernie can't really be trusted. 

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The Peace Report:
"Neutrality is an easy concept to understand: don’t invade other countries and don’t take sides in other people’s wars. Yet, Irish Neutrality has for decades aided the U.S. military in transporting troops and weapons to and from combat zones throughout the world. 

This violation of Irish Neutrality [makes] Ireland complicit in any war crime the U.S. commits. Recently, two U.S. veterans attempted to stop an aircraft at Shannon Airport and as a result were thrown in jail for two weeks and had their passports seized as they await an unknown trial date. This incident occurred over four months ago in March 2019 and they have yet to return home to the United States. This incident highlights the larger issues of Irish capitalism, US, British, and EU imperialism which exposes the semi-colonial state of Ireland."

-->Most countries that hold US citizens against their will are at least reported in the mainstream media. Can you imagine if this happened in Iran or Venezuela? But Ireland is playing ball with the US empire, and our compliant media plays along by refusing to carry this story. Free veterans Tarak Kauff and Ken Mayers!

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

The New York Times:
Our "newspaper of record" did cover Israel's recent demolition of a Palestinian housing block, but the story had all the earmarks of a coverup. In the first two paragraphs, readers learn that:

The housing block was "built to close" to Israel's "security" barrier. The housing was "abutting" another Israeli annexed area. The block was "illegal" and "mostly uninhabited." An Israeli court had ruled that the block was "a severe security threat" and that it provided cover to "suicide bombers and other terrorists hiding among civilian populations."

This extensive article, written by longtime Israeli apologist, Isabel Kershner, does include other voices, but they come later. Kershner never questions Israel's narrative, stating that everything is just too complicated to assign guilt. She simply blames "the legal complexities and human difficulties caused by the absence of internationally recognized boundaries and competing authorities."  

-->How can the NYT can continue to employ Kershner to write news stories about Palestine? She and her husband are both immigrants to Israel. Her son was a member of the Israeli IDF, and her husband works for an Israeli linked PR group. What a blight Kershner's reporting is on the reputation of the NYT. Defending Israel is simply more important than good journalism. 

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Common Dreams:
"Global outcry erupted on Monday—with one critic condemning the move as 'ethnic cleansing with impunity'—after Israeli forces demolished dozens of homes in Sur Baher, a Palestinian village that straddles East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

'These demolitions are a flagrant violation of international law and part of a systematic pattern by the Israeli authorities to forcibly displace Palestinians in the occupied territories; such actions amount to war crimes,' Saleh Higazi, deputy Middle East and North Africa director for Amnesty International, said in a statement Monday.

'Israel must immediately end its cruel and discriminatory policy of home demolitions and forced displacement,' added Higazi. 'Instead of destroying families' homes Israel must dismantle parts of the fence/wall built inside the occupied Palestinian territories, including in parts of Sur Baher, in violation of international law.' "

-->The bitter truths that our mainstream media always distorts or hides from the American public.

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Common Dreams:
"A new Gallup poll showed that Bernie Sanders is the most favorably viewed contender for the Democratic presidential ticket.

Gallup released the results of the poll on Friday. It was conducted July 1-12, after first round of Democratic debates, and measured 10 Democratic White House hopefuls.

Sanders led the pack, with 72 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters viewing him favorably. Former Vice President Joe Biden followed at 69 percent. Rounding off the top half of the pack were Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 59 percent, Sen. Kamala Harris at 54 percent, and Sen. Cory Booker at 44 percent."

-->Good news for Bernie, although readers of the NYT won't be aware of it. Wall Street and its stooge publication, the NYT, never have a good word to say about the most progressive Democratic candidate running for president.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Jacobin:
"New York Times reporter Sydney Ember has a problem with Bernie Sanders — which may be why the paper has her cover him.

Ember is supposed to write reported articles, not op-eds, but she consistently paints a negative picture of Sanders’s temperament, history, policies, and political prospects in the over two dozen pieces she’s done on him. This makes sense, given the New York Times’s documented anti-Sanders bias, which can be found among both editors and reporters alike. ...

But for the sake of time and length, this piece focuses on her selection and misrepresentation of sources, which have already drawn scrutiny. Brad Johnson, a political analyst with a background in climate science, pointed out that Ember quoted a source without mentioning that she’s a corporate lobbyist; journalist Zaid Jilani noted that Ember failed to disclose that another source was a senior advisor for a Hillary Clinton Super PAC. Education scholar Diane Ravitch devoted a blog post to the reporter’s 'shameful' reporting on Sanders’s education policy, questioning the authority of her sources."

-->Yes, it is no secret that the corporate wing of the national media, the NYT, wants anyone but Bernie. The NYT is even willing to violate journalistic standards to get its pro-corporate agenda out. Sort of the same way the newspaper covers Israel.

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Common Dreams:

"Billionaire mega-donor Haim Saban said Wednesday that he loves every 2020 Democratic presidential candidate—before quickly correcting himself. 'No, minus one. I profoundly dislike Bernie Sanders, and you can write it,' Saban told The Hollywood Reporter. ...

Saban—who told the New Yorker in 2010 that he is 'a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel'—expressed fury at Sanders last year for spearheading a letter that called for humanitarian aid to the occupied Gaza Strip."

-->This would have been an interesting story for the NYT to report on. But our newspaper of record shies away from linking Israeli billionaires to the funding of the Democratic party. It didn't carry this story.

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Common Dreams:
"The majority of American veterans and members of the general public agreed in two new surveys that the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the U.S. military campaign in Syria were all 'not worth fighting.'

The Pew Research Center, for the pair of polls published Wednesday, asked all respondents to consider the costs versus the benefits to the United States in their analysis of whether each conflict was worthwhile.

Roughly two-thirds of both veterans and members of the public told Pew that the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq wasn't worth it, and nearly 60 percent said they felt the same way about the ongoing 18-year war in Afghanistan—the longest in U.S. history."

--The NYT, a persistent warmonger when it comes to US military interventions, did not cover this story. Maybe the newspaper is too busy urging attacks on Iran and Venezuela.

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