Thursday, June 25, 2020

The Intercept:
"Armed vigilantes antagonizing protesters have received a warm reception from police.

A former Albuquerque City Council candidate who ran on a tough-on-crime platform shot a protester at an anti-police brutality demonstration on Monday and was arrested alongside members of a right-wing militia group. The shooting is an extreme example of a trend that has played out across the country as armed vigilantes pledging to protect property have shown up at protests — in many cases with encouragement or even explicit collaboration from law enforcement. ...

'There’s a very close connection historically between the police and vigilantes in the United States,' said Noël Cazenave, a sociologist at the University of Connecticut and author of 'Killing African Americans: Police and Vigilante Violence as a Racial Control Mechanism.' Vigilante mobs tend to flare up in reaction to a perceived increase in the power held by Black people, he said. In the Jim Crow South, the trigger was abolition; today it is the movement for Black lives. 'Such violence is a way of keeping Black people in ‘their place,’ Cazenave added."

-->You would think that a newspaper with all the resources in the world like the NYT would expose these links between white nationalists and various police forces. But the wealthy elites who depend on the police for protection, also own the NYT.

=====

Common Dreams:
"After US Bullying, Every Mention of United States Stripped From UN Resolution Spurred by George Floyd Killing. ...

'The final resolution passed by the United Nations strips mention of the United States, where police kill people, particularly Black people, at alarmingly higher rates compared to other developed countries,' Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU's Human Rights Program, said in a statement. 'The United Nations needs to do its job—not get bullied out of doing it,'

Human Rights Watch, an advocacy organization based in the U.S., warned as the resolution was being finalized Thursday that stripping any mention of the United States from a resolution sparked by U.S. police violence would transform it into an 'all lives matter' text, and risk making it so vague as to be meaningless."

-->This is a sad story of how the empire uses its power to control the UN. And to control the US media; the NYT for example, didn't print this UN capitulation. The newspaper did report on George Fly's brother when he testified to the UN.

=====

The Guardian UK:
"US prosecutors have failed to include one of WikiLeaks’ most shocking video revelations in the indictment against Julian Assange, a move that has brought accusations the US doesn’t want its 'war crimes' exposed in public.

Assange, an Australian citizen, is remanded and in ill health in London’s Belmarsh prison while the US tries to extradite him to face 18 charges – 17 under its Espionage Act – for conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified information. ...

One of the most famous of the WikiLeaks releases was a video – filmed from a US Apache helicopter, Crazy Horse 1-8, as it mowed down 11 people on 12 July 2007 in Iraq. The video starkly highlights the lax rules of engagement that allowed the killing of men who were neither engaged with nor threatening US forces."

-->The NYT is so busy trying to smear Assange with negative stories, that "our newspaper of record" forgot to print this story. The empire has dictated that Assange is a traitor, and the empire's mouthpiece is only following orders. 

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Common Dreams:
"In Landmark Ruling, European Court of Human Rights Sides With BDS Movement Over French Government. This momentous court ruling is a decisive victory for freedom of expression, for human rights defenders, and for the BDS movement for Palestinian freedom, justice, and equality.

'Today's landmark decision sets a significant precedent that should stop the misuse of anti-discrimination laws to target activists campaigning against human rights violations perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians,' Marco Perolini, Amnesty International's France researcher, said in a statement.

-->The NYT goes out of its way to make Israel look good. It didn't print this story. What if freedom and justice for Palestinians broke out in the USA?

=====

Common Dreams:
"More than seven months after claims of fraudulent elections sparked an undemocratic coup that led to the ouster of Bolivian President Evo Morales, the New York Times late Sunday reported on new research showing the U.S.-led Organization of American States used flawed data and analysis to support its widely cited contention the voting was rigged.

'It was clear from the start, but now even the NYT is admitting: what happened in Bolivia was nothing short of a coup by the U.S. and its OAS puppet, deposing one of the most successful democratically elected leaders in modern Latin American history,' tweeted journalist Glenn Greenwald ...

-->But the NYT couldn't bring itself to admit that the newspaper had been part of a US coup to overthrow another democratically elected government. The NYT headline said it all: "A Closer Look at Bolivia's Election Muddies Tampering Claims." Muddies? It was a lie, reported as truth by our newspaper of record. The subheading is almost as good: "There was fraud - we just don't know where and how much." It is a typical NYT apology, full of half truths. Let's face it, the NYT was part of the coup in its initial reporting of electoral fraud. As always, it served as the empire's mouthpiece. 

=====

Common Dreams:
"The Trump administration renewed its attacks on the International Criminal Court on Thursday with President Donald Trump issuing an executive order imposing economic sanctions against ICC staff involved in the ongoing investigations into alleged war crimes by U.S. and Israeli forces, with travel restrictions also imposed on those ICC court officials and their family members.

'President Trump is grossly abusing emergency powers to block one of the only avenues left for justice to victims of terrible American human rights violations,' Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said in response to the move. 'He has repeatedly bullied international organizations, and is now playing directly into the hands of authoritarian regimes by intimidating judges and prosecutors committed to holding countries accountable for war crimes.' "

--The worlds biggest bully trying to destroy the International Criminal Court. The NYT sometimes avoids stories like this because it makes the empire look too despicable. Our "newspaper of record" didn't cover Trump's executive order.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Common Dreams:
" 'No One Is Free When Others Are Oppressed': Thousands in Spain and UK Rally at US Embassies in Solidarity With America's Anti-Racist Uprising. ...

Thousands of Britons flooded the streets near the U.S. Embassy in London as demonstrators condemned both the killing of George Floyd and pervasive racism in their own country. Enormous crowds also gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, with demonstrators carrying signs that read 'Justice for George,' 'No One Is Free When Others Are Oppressed,' and 'Trump Fascista.'

'There's children of all ages and older adults here,' said 60-year-old Pauline Nandoo, who told Reuters she has been protesting racism in the U.K. since the 1970s. 'They are going to experience what we have experienced and we have to try to make that not happen.' "

-->Is this an international rebellion against the racism and brutality of the American Empire? The US media including the NYT has played down that possibility, pitching reform rather than a structural change to our neoliberal world order. Maybe real change is coming anyway.

=====

FAIR:
"The mass media, as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman documented decades ago, are structurally dependent on pre-ordained 'experts,' who play a decisive role in filtering the information reaching the public.

When it comes to Venezuela, one DC-based think tank has become the Western media’s go-to source for confirming the US elite’s regime change groupthink (FAIR.org, 4/30/19): the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).

Styling itself the 'leading source for independent analysis and commentary on Latin America,' WOLA is regularly cited in corporate media reporting on Venezuela across the media spectrum. Founded in 1974 and originally part of the progressive Central American solidarity movement, WOLA moved to the right in the 1990s, until by 2002 it was calling (12/02) for a negotiated and peaceful settlement to the 'political impasse' in Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez had been reelected with 60% of the vote two years earlier."

-->This is such a good article about how corporate think tanks push US media coverage towards invasions and coups. The NYT should be covering this story, but of course the NYT is doing most of the biased reporting. 

=====

Middle East Eye:
"Ben & Jerry's freezes when it comes to Palestine. Ice cream brand has been vocal advocate for Black Lives Matter movement, but refuses to halt operations in illegal Israeli settlements. ...

Case in point: Israel. Ben & Jerry's has conducted business in Israel with a licensee partner since 1987, with a manufacturing facility and two scoop shops they describe as located 'outside the occupied territories, just south of Tel Aviv.'

Thousands of individuals and almost 250 organizations in 20 countries have since urged Ben & Jerry's to stop sales in illegal Israeli settlements and publicly oppose Israel's occupation. In 2015, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) called for a boycott of the brand amid its refusal to alter its business practices."

-->Ben and Jerry is PEP, progressive except for Palestine, Should opposition to racism stop at our borders? The NYT doesn't do articles about PEP, since our newspaper of record is a prime example. 

Thursday, June 04, 2020

Reuters:
"HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist-run Cuba said this week that use of two drugs produced by its biotech industry that reduce hyper-inflammation in seriously ill COVID-19 patients has sharply curbed its coronavirus-related death toll.

Health authorities have reported just two virus-related deaths over the past nine days among more than 200 active cases on the Caribbean’s largest island, a sign they may have the worst of the outbreak under control. ...

It ascribes the recent reduction in deaths of severely ill COVID-19 patients largely to the use beginning in April of two drugs that appear to help calm the “cytokine storm,” a dangerous over response by the immune system in which it attacks healthy tissue as well as the invading virus."

-->Now do you think that the American media would ever print a story like this? Although impoverished by the US blockade, Cuba's medical system is far superior to ours, and has even come up with some medications that combat the disease. 

=====

The Guardian UK:
"Democrats in Washington are not just passively failing to mount an opposition to Trump. They are actively helping Republicans. 

These are bleak days for America’s progressive movement. The Democratic primary process handed the party’s nomination to the candidate with the most conservative record. Corporate-friendly politicians like the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, are using the pandemic to [burnish] their images and install billionaires to run things. Progressive lawmakers in Congress are being steamrolled, even by their own party’s leadership. And a recession is battering the state and local budgets that fund progressive priorities like education and the social safety net. ...

This corporate counter-revolution is easiest to see in Democrats’ enthusiastic support for Republicans’ legislative response to the coronavirus crisis. ... Thanks to that, Trump appointees and the Federal Reserve can now hand out $4tn to politically connected corporations as they lay waste to our economy and steamroll progressive reforms."

-->You will have to go to a foreign country to get an honest assessment like this one. For the US media is in lockstep with the corporate Democrats; giving billions more to billionaires is what Pelosi and Schumer do best.  

=====

The New York Times:
"The ‘Liberal World Order’ Was Built With Blood. If you read the commentary coming out of New York and Washington, or speak with elites in Western Europe, it’s easy to find people panicking about the loss of 'American leadership.' ...

But as we move deeper into the 21st century, Americans are going to need to confront the darker side of American hegemony — because much of the rest of the world already has. Part of the reason the current order is so fragile is because so many people around the world know, indeed can physically feel in their bodies, that Washington used brutality to construct it."

-->How often does the NYT talk about the millions killed in Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, or Iraq to make the world "safe" for US capitalism? Granted, we don't hear about current US atrocities in Honduras, Haiti and Venezuela, but it's a start, and a big one for the mouthpiece of the empire. 

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Common Dreams:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday warned the United States not to interfere with a shipment of oil bound for Venezuela after the South American nation said it would provide an armed escort for the tankers.

In a statement posted on his website, Rouhani said the United States had created 'unacceptable conditions' in different parts of the world, but that Iran would 'by no means' be the one to initiate conflict. ...

Venezuela said Wednesday that planes and ships from the nation’s armed forces will escort the tankers in case of any U.S. aggression."

-->Imminent war, but the US media, including the NYT, is not reporting on the confrontation. Our media does not like to highlight how reckless and provocative our military is in the rest of the world. 

=====

Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science:
"Carnegie Mellon University researchers have discovered that much of the discussion around the pandemic and stay-at-home orders is being fueled by misinformation campaigns that use convincing bots.

To analyze bot activity around the pandemic, CMU researchers since January have collected more than 200 million tweets discussing coronavirus or COVID-19. Of the top 50 influential retweeters, 82% are bots, they found. Of the top 1,000 retweeters, 62% are bots. ...

'Conspiracy theories increase polarization in groups. It’s what many misinformation campaigns aim to do,' Dr Carley [professor in the School of Computer Science] said. 'People have real concerns about health and the economy, and people are preying on that to create divides. ... Spreading conspiracy theories leads to more extreme opinions, which can in turn lead to more extreme behavior and less rational thinking.' "

-->You would think that the widespread use of bots to divide citizens and encourage conspiracy theories would be covered by our "newspaper of record." But the NYT is often missing in action when it comes to reporting on AI manipulation of the internet.  

=====

Common Dreams:
"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing new criticism after the Associated Press reported Friday that a state directive led to over 4,300 still recovering coronavirus patients being sent to New York's 'already vulnerable nursing homes.'

'It was a death sentence,' tweeted Daniel Choi, a doctor at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He called the directive a 'horrendous idea' and 'definitely not something any doctor taking care of nursing home patients would have signed off on.'

The state health department directive, issued March 25, barred nursing homes from requiring patients deemed 'medically stable' from being tested for Covid-19 prior to admission. Cuomo, a Democrat, rescinded the order May 10, but not before thousands of infected patients likely entered nursing homes and contributed to the coronavirus's spread."

-->The NYT has done several stories about the appalling death rate in the state's nursing homes, but criticism of Cuomo is always left out. He has become the darling of the neoliberal Democrats. 

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Common Dreams:
"Big Oil Taking $1.9 Billion in CARES Act Tax Breaks Aimed at Helping Small Businesses in 'Stealth Bailout' Report. ...

Reporting Friday from Bloomberg News showed that '$1.9 billion in CARES Act tax benefits are being claimed by at least 37 oil companies, service firms, and contractors'—what watchdog group Documented senior researcher Jesse Coleman described as a 'stealth bailout' of the climate-killing industry.

'In the name of small business, we're shoveling out billions of dollars to big corporations and rich guys,'  Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told Bloomberg. 

-->This discouraging news was kept from readers of the NYT, a newspaper that always gives Big Oil a break in its reporting.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Esteemed medical journal The Lancet on Friday took an unusual step towards calling on American voters to remove President Donald Trump from office in November, condemning the Trump administration's 'incoherent' response to the coronavirus pandemic and expressing shock at the CDC's inability to cope with the public health crisis.

The journal's frustration with Trump centered on the president's downplaying of the pandemic and his refusal to coordinate a robust national effort of social distancing, lockdown orders, and a testing regime to stem the Covid-19 outbreak.

'The administration is obsessed with magic bullets—vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear,' wrote the editors. 'But only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency" ".

-->Why wouldn't this call by one of the most influential medical journals in the world be covered by the NYT? Yes, it gets a one sentence commentary in an opinions piece, but that is hardly sufficient. As much as the NYT hates Trump, our "newspaper of record" thinks it more important to protect America's image in the world. 

=====

Vice:
"The US Senate has voted to give law enforcement agencies access to web browsing data without a warrant, dramatically expanding the government’s surveillance powers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The power grab was led by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell as part of a reauthorization of the Patriot Act, which gives federal agencies broad domestic surveillance powers. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Steve Daines (R-MT) attempted to remove the expanded powers from the bill with a bipartisan amendment.

But in a shock upset, the privacy-preserving amendment fell short by a single vote after several senators who would have voted 'Yes' failed to show up to the session, including Bernie Sanders."

-->The NYT covered this story with the headline: "Senate Approves Surveillance Bill With Sharper Privacy Safeguards." Sharper privacy safeguards? So much for the NYT being interested in web privacy. 

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Common Dreams:
"Public education advocates on Wednesday rejected New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's pledge to work with billionaire entrepreneurs like Microsoft founder Bill Gates to 'reimagine' his state's school systems once the coronavirus pandemic subsides.  ...

Critics including New York State Allies for Public Education, Class Size Matters, and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy were wary of handing the state's education system over to Gates, who previously launched—among other 'education reform' projects—a $1 billion initiative in three states to improve 'teacher effectiveness' which policy think tank RAND found did 'more harm than good' for students. 

'Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation have promoted one failed educational initiative after another, causing huge disaffection in districts throughout the state,' wrote the three organizations in a letter to the governor. 'Whether that be the high-handed push by the Gates Foundation for the invalid Common Core standards, unreliable teacher evaluation linked to test scores, or privacy-violating data-collection via the corporation known as inBloom Inc., the education of our children has been repeatedly put at risk by their non-evidence based solutions, which were implemented without parent input and despite significant public opposition.' "

-->We have a governor who is so enamored by the billionaires he wants them to help him dismantle public education. Don't the people get any say at all? The NYT wasn't interested in printing this story, although its webpage carried the Reuters article.  

=====

Common Dreams:
"Five major U.S. corporations that have laid off thousands of workers in recent weeks have simultaneously dished out hundreds of millions of dollars in cash dividends to wealthy shareholders, drawing outrage from Sen. Bernie Sanders and others who say the companies should be using the money to keep people employed.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that manufacturing giant Caterpillar, toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker, clothing company Levi Strauss, office furniture company Steelcase, and World Wrestling Entertainment have paid out a combined $700 million in cash dividends to shareholders while they shutter operations and lay off employees as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravage the U.S. economy. ...

[Quoting Sanders] 'Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on dividends to enrich wealthy shareholders, Caterpillar, Black & Decker, Levi Strauss, and other corporations should be using this money to compensate the thousands of workers they laid off.' "

-->Even Apple got a huge payout from the government and bought back their own stock, giving their shareholders hundreds of millions. But our "newspaper of record" just can't bring itself to cite these ripoffs, much less expose the two top Democrats, Pelosi and Schumer, who resisted efforts to limit what corporations can do with Covid-19 bailout money. 

=====

Common Dreams:
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has thrown her support behind a proposal to allow corporate lobbying groups to receive bailout money from a Covid-19 relief program meant for small businesses, a move one critic bluntly described as the 'dumbest political maneuver you could possibly make right now.' ...

Pelosi's support for a lobbyist bailout comes as she is facing pressure from outside progressives, including nurses, to advance a bold Covid-19 stimulus package and stop rubber-stamping piecemeal legislation that provides insufficient relief to frontline workers, the unemployed, and states and localities.
In a blog post on Thursday, David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, offered a scathing assessment of both Pelosi's leadership and the refusal of Congressional Progressive Caucus leaders to raise their voices in dissent."

-->The NYT does not do stories about top Democrats selling out to the corporations, and now even to the various lobbying groups in Washington. Our media promotes the fantasy that our two corporate controlled parties are a functioning democracy. 

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)