Fantasyland Media

Fantasyland Media:

2012-02-09T23:20:00.003-05:00

The Independent UK:

"Leading neuroscientists believe that the UK Government may be about to sanction the development of nerve agents for British police that would be banned in warfare under an international treaty on chemical weapons.

A high-level group of experts has asked the Government to clarify its position on whether it intends to develop 'incapacitating chemical agents' for a range of domestic uses that go beyond the limited use of chemical irritants such as CS gas for riot control.

The Royal Society working group says the Government shifted its position to allow the development of more severe chemical agents, such as the type of potentially dangerous nerve gases used by Russian security forces to end hostage sieges.

The experts were commissioned by the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of sciences, to investigate new developments in neuroscience that could be of use to the military. They concluded that the Government may be preparing to exploit a loophole in the Chemical Weapons Convention allowing the use of incapacitating chemical agents for domestic law enforcement."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/07-4

-->The NY Times did not cover this story, although we are left to wonder what coverage this report would have gotten if it involved Syria or Iran. Even more ominously, we must consider what the US security state has in mind once the occupy movement hits the streets this spring.

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Common Dreams:

"Multinational agricultural biotech corporation Monsanto, known as the creator of chemical weapon Agent Orange, is attempting to infiltrate Vietnam once again - this time as GMO dealer.

Agent Orange, used for chemical warfare in the Vietnam War, is estimated to have killed 400,000, deformed 500,000 and sickened another 2 million. 'Between 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese were directly exposed to Agent Orange and other chemicals that have been linked to cancers, birth defects, and other chronic diseases during the war that ended in 1975, according to the Vietnam Red Cross,' Thanh Nienn News writes.

30 years after the war, three generations have suffered from the effects of Agent Orange. Now, as Monsanto seeks to reap profits in Vietnam once again, this time through agribusiness, many are speaking out against the corporation as well as the potential effects of the GM seeds and herbicides that Monsanto seeks to sell."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/07-5

-->Monsanto is somewhat of a darling when it comes to the NY Times. Who wants to drudge up old war stories when the future is so bright for genetically modified foods?

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Democracy Now:

"The unusual cold weather in eastern Europe has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of vulnerable people living in areas unprepared for the freezing conditions. Extreme weather events have been increasingly evident in recent years, and now scientests are fearful that the 'feedback loops' of climate change are occurring in ways that uphold predictions made by global warming models showing how seemingly unrelated occurrences, such as the melting of ice in the arctic, are noticeably changing weather patterns in faraway regions."

The Independent UK:

"Studies by scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have confirmed a link between the loss of Arctic sea ice and the development of high-pressure zones in the polar region, which influence wind patterns at lower latitudes further south. Scientists found that as the cap of sea ice is removed from the ocean, huge amounts of heat are released from the sea into the colder air above, causing the air to rise. Rising air destabilises the atmosphere and alters the difference in air pressure between the Arctic and more southerly regions, changing wind patterns.

Professor Rahmstorf said the Alfred Wegener study confirms earlier predictions from computer models by Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute, who forecast colder winters in western Europe as a result of melting sea ice.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/05-0

-->To The NY Times, none of the intense cold in Europe has anything to do with global warming. Our newspaper of record reported low temperatures and weather extremes in at least eight countries, concluding with a reassuring quote from a Londoner marveling at the snow, "It lends this amazing playfulness to the whole city." For a glimpse at our media's irresponsibility when it comes to informing the public about global warming, read the article on Europe's cold spell in The NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/world/europe/europe-struggles-to-deal-with-cold-and-snow.html?scp=1&sq=cold%20weather%20eastern%20Europe&st=cse

Fantasyland Media:

2012-02-02T23:04:00.001-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"It’s an impressive piece of art: the cover of this week’s New York Times Magazine. 'ISRAEL VS. IRAN,' spelled out in charred black lettering, with flame and smoke still rising from “IRAN,” as if the great war were already over. Below those large lurid letters is the little subtitle: 'When Will It Erupt?' -- not 'if,' but 'when,' as if it were inevitable. Though the article itself is titled 'Will Israel Attack Iran?', author Ronen Bergman, military analyst for Israel’s largest newspaper, leaves no doubt of his answer: 'Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012.'

...It’s almost a hymn of praise to what one Jewish Israeli scholar has called Iranophobia, an irrational fear promoted by the Jewish state because 'Israel needs an existential threat.' Why? To sustain the myth that shapes its national identity: the myth of Israel’s insecurity.

That myth comes out clearly in Bergman’s conclusion: Israel will attack Iran because of a 'peculiar Israeli mixture of fear -- rooted in the sense that Israel is dependent on the tacit support of other nations to survive -- and tenacity, the fierce conviction, right or wrong, that only the Israelis can ultimately defend themselves.'

Fear of what? Defend against whom? It doesn’t really matter. Israeli political life has always been built on the premise that Israel’s very existence is threatened by some new Hitler bent on destroying the Jewish people. How can Israel prove that Jews can defend themselves if there’s no anti-semitic 'evildoer' to fight against?"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/30-0

-- >Why would our most prestigious newspaper, The NY Times, give so much credibility to an Israeli military analyst who is urging war with Iran? Or is The NY Times a Zionist publication only pretending, at times, to serve the interests of the American public?

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Common Dreams and Times of India:
"Huge Protest in Pakistan Against US Drone Attacks. Over 100,000 Pakistanis rallied in Karachi Friday afternoon to protest US drone strikes on their country. The demonstrators also demanded that the Pakistani government continue the blockade on the NATO supply route to Afghanistan.

The Times of India reports:
DAVOS -- Pakistan's prime minister said today that there was 'a trust deficit' between Islamabad and Washington as he criticized the resumption of US drone strikes on his country's tribal belt.

Speaking the day after over 100,000 people massed in Karachi to protest the strikes, Yousuf Raza Gilani said they only served to bolster militants."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/28-1

-- >The Pentagon's choice of war crime is now its use of Drone assassinations. The US media does not like to call attention to the fury this causes in the rest of the world. The NY Times did not report this massive demonstration against US drone attacks in Pakistan.

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Daily Mail UK:
"U.S falls to 47th in press freedom rankings after Occupy crackdown.

Sweeping protests around the world made it an extremely difficult year for the media, and tested journalists as never before, the annual report into press freedom reveals. The annual report by Reporters Without Borders has been released, showing the United States fell 27 points on the list due to the many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests. The slide in the United States places it just behind Comoros and Taiwan in a group with Argentina and Romania...

'Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much,' the group said in a statement accompanying its report. But the important role journalists played put them in the cross hairs of repressive regimes, the report said, adding: 'Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous.' " http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2091948/U-S-falls-47th-press-freedom-rankings-Occupy-crackdown.html

-- >What crackdown on press freedom? No coverage of this story in The NY Times, although it was referred to in a number of blogs.

Fantasyland Media:

2012-01-26T23:36:00.003-05:00

Just Foreign Policy:
"Public-financed media PBS and NPR have recently promoted as if they were known fact claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program, even though no proof has been advanced that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Even Defense Secretary Panetta says, 'Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.'

As Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting has noted, on Monday, PBS NewsHour deceptively edited Panetta's comments on Sunday's Face the Nation to exclude his statement that Iran is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon. NewsHour then used his comments to try to suggest the opposite: that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon.

On NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, reporter Tom Gjelten said, 'The goal for the U.S. and its allies‚ (is) to convince Iran to give up a nuclear weapons program,' thereby implying that Iran already has a nuclear weapons program, which is not a known fact."
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/misleadingoniran

-- >PBS and NPR selling the war against Iran to the American people. Bad news for Iran, and for our publicly supported media.

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Common Dreams:
"After the Japanese government was presented with a worst-case scenario by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, they kept the report secret because 'it was so shocking' and would frighten the public, according to a report from Kyodo news.

After the document was shown to a small, select group of senior government officials at the prime minister's office in late March, the administration of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan decided to quietly bury it, the sources said. 'When the document was presented (in March), a discussion ensued about keeping its existence secret,' a government source said.

In order to deny its existence, the government treated it as a personal document of Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo, who authored it, until the end of December, the sources said."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/22-4

-- >High government officials kept deadly nuclear secrets from the Japanese people because they were "so shocking." We must wonder why The NY Times and most of the US media did not cover this story. It might remind readers of the collusion that exists between the US nuclear industry and our own government officials.

UPDATE: The NY Times finally did report this story, but left out some key details about how the Japanese government, with the help of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, hid a critical document.

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Guardian UK:
"The Palestinian children – alone and bewildered – in Israel's Al Jalame jail Special report: Israel's military justice system is accused of mistreating Palestinian children arrested for throwing stones.

The room is barely wider than the thin, dirty mattress that covers the floor. Behind a low concrete wall is a squat toilet, the stench from which has no escape in the windowless room. The rough concrete walls deter idle leaning; the constant overhead light inhibits sleep. The delivery of food through a low slit in the door is the only way of marking time, dividing day from night.

This is Cell 36, deep within Al Jalame prison in northern Israel. It is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. One 16-year-old claimed that he had been kept in Cell 36 for 65 days. The only escape is to the interrogation room where children are shackled, by hands and feet, to a chair while being questioned, sometimes for hours"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/22/palestinian-children-detained-jail-israel?INTCMP=SRCH

-- >Why no investigative reporting on the abuse of Palestinian children from our newspaper of record, The NY Times? The Guardian's story led to the UK's Foreign Office minister stating that he had "raised concerns about treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli detention." In America, the mistreatment of Palestine children is ignored both by our media and by our elected officials.

2012-01-20T08:56:00.000-05:00

Fantasyland Media:
http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Guardian, UK:
"The European Union should consider legislation to prevent or discourage companies and organisations in member states doing business which supports Israeli settlements, according to a confidential report drawn up by EU diplomats in Jerusalem.

The recommendation is contained in the EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem, which assesses the impact of settlement growth and other factors on the prospects for Jerusalem as the future capital of two states, Israel and Palestine. It describes the situation as 'deteriorating' and warns that 'the systematic increase in settlement activity... increasingly undermines the two-state solution'.

The 2011 report, leaked to the Guardian, was sent to Brussels on Monday following approval by EU diplomats last Friday. It builds on earlier annual reports, which were also highly critical of Israeli policies in East Jerusalem. It calls on the European commission to consider legislation 'to prevent/discourage financial transactions in support of settlement activity.' " http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/18/eu-report-israeli-settlement-growth

-- >The NY Times often does not print stories critical of Israel and its illegal settlements in the West Bank. This recommendation that the EU boycott settlement businesses was not covered by our newspaper of record.

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Daily Mail UK:
"One of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community has been placing its agents within the CIA to recruit operatives against Iran’s nuclear program, according to a new report.

Mossad officers posed as American CIA agents were recruiting for the Pakistani militant group Jundallah, the report says. The operation - often called a ‘false flag’ operation - occurred during the presidency of George W. Bush. In an explosive article by Foreign Policy, the magazine examines a series of CIA memos that detail the operation, citing six U.S. intelligence officers as sources of information. It details how Mossad officers were equipped with U.S. passports and money, recruiting extremists 'under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers.' " http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086570/Israeli-intelligence-agents-posed-CIA-recruit-operatives-Irans-nuclear-program.html

-- >An English newspaper reports proof that Israeli agents posed as CIA, but The NY Times doesn't cover the story. Again, the story is just too critical of Israel for publication. The NY Times obviously values Israel's image in the US more than it values its readership's right to know.

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Common Dreams:
"Growing Support for Global Robin Hood Tax; Obama, UK Obstacles.

Growing support across Europe this week for a new “Robin Hood tax” -- a Financial Transaction Tax-- has given hope to those who have been pushing for US President Obama to support the new tax. But the UK government and President Obama will need to get on board for a new global financial transaction tax to succeed.

Boosted by the Occupy Wall Street movement, two Democrats in the House and Senate -- Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) -- introduced a Financial Transaction Tax bill in Congress in November that would easily raise $350 billion over 10 years. DeFazio has said the big threat that the Wall Street apologists have always used to oppose a Financial Transaction Tax is, 'My God, all of our firms will move to Europe.' 'Occupy Wall Street has just reminded a large majority of the American people that our economy was destroyed by gambling on Wall Street. And that the people who destroyed our economy have been amply rewarded and not prosecuted,' said DeFazio." http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/15-1

-- >The NY Times sees no growing support in Europe for the Robin Hood Tax, describing it as "the most diplomatically fragile proposal..." No mention of the tax support here in the US either. Jeff Cohen writes, "What does it tell us about U.S. politics that the conservative president of France – on this issue and others – is way to the left of President Obama?" What does it say about The NY Times that refuses to even bring the issue up?

Fantasyland Media:

2012-01-13T00:23:00.000-05:00

The New York Times:

"Thanks to a $5 million donation from a wealthy casino owner, a group supporting Newt Gingrich plans to place advertisements in South Carolina this week attacking Mitt Romney as a predatory capitalist..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/us/politics/pro-gingrich-pac-plans-tv-ads-against-romney.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=pac%20ads&st=cse

-->But just who would that casino owner be, and why did he give millions to Gingrich? The NY Times furnishes his name, Sheldon Adelson, nine paragraphs later, and in paragraph 26, gives a hint about his motivation. Adelson, according to The NY Times, is a "supporter of conservative causes, including the Republican Jewish Coalition."

The NY Times corrected this omission the following day with a long article about Adelson's right wing Zionist connections and Gingrich's statements about Palestinians being an “invented" people. We are left wondering about the political pressures behind these two very different "news" stories.

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Guardian, UK:

"Palestinian Sesame Street falls victim to US Congress. With its colourful band of Muppets preaching tolerance and neighbourly love, the Palestinian version of the children's television programme Sesame Street had become a beacon of hope for children in a region ravaged by decades of unrest.

But the cast of peace-loving characters have now found themselves in the crossfire of a political dispute between Palestinian leaders and the US Congress, and episodes have been axed for 2012.

Sesame Street – known as Shara'a Simsim in Arabic – is one of many US-funded Palestinian shows suffering after Congress froze the transfer of nearly £130m to the US Agency for International Development in October. The suspension aimed to punish the Palestinians for appealing to the United Nations for membership."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/07/palestinian-sesame-street-us-congress

-->Not a word of this story in The NY Times, although a few newspapers in the US did report it. Our newspaper of record does not like to highlight Congress' slavish support of apartheid Israel.

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The New York Times:

"Iraq Turns Justice Into a Show, and Terror Confessions a Script...But to many Westerners, the rituals are inflammatory and even illegal, symptoms of a politically tainted justice system that still relies on confessions, many coerced, as much as physical evidence despite millions in American aid and legal training programs."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/world/middleeast/iraq-turns-justice-into-a-show-and-terror-confessions-a-script.html?scp=1&sq=iraq%20turns%20justice&st=cse

-->Despite all that American aid and legal training, Iraq is still relying on coerced confessions as opposed to physical evidence? Outrageous and barbaric! Of course, the US has kept prisoners for ten years without trial, and tortured them into making confessions. Those confessions are to be used if these prisoners ever come to trial, along with secret evidence and restricted access to legal counsel. None of this stops The NY Times from making pompous statements about the superiority of the US justice system.

Fantasyland Media:

2012-01-05T23:06:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Technorati:
"Protect Your Cell Phone from Prying Eyes in 2012. Cell phone monitoring is a big issue, and scandals like News of the World and CarrierIQ reveal how pervasive the issue is, and how easily it is for people and companies to monitor cell phones.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange warned cell phone users of this problem earlier this month when he released details of companies that are selling information they obtain through cell phone monitoring. According to Assange, more than 150 companies around the world have the ability to use cell phones as tracking devices to intercept messages and to listen to calls.

Don’t think it’s true and that Assange is just a nutcase? Then consider that Verizon Wireless, the largest cellular carrier in the U.S., is already monitoring cell phones and selling the information. In October, Verizon enrolled its entire customer base into its program to track customer usage and location, as well as browsing data, demographic info, and app usage. Customers can get out of all this by opting out through their account online. Although Verizon says that it’s only collecting and selling the information for marketing purposes, many people just don’t want their information to be tracked on their cell phones at all."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/31-0

-->The NY Times recently published an article about digital privacy, but strangely didn't mention any of the big telecom companies. Apparently, the huge corporations mining personal data aren't of much concern to our newspaper of record.

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LA Times:
"FBI Tracking Videotapers as Terrorists? The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force has recommended for many years that animal activists who carry out undercover investigations on farms could be prosecuted as domestic terrorists.

New documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by activist Ryan Shapiro show the FBI advising that activists – including Shapiro – who walked onto a farm, videotaped animals there and 'rescued' an animal had violated terrorism statutes.

The documents, which were first published on Will Potter’s website, Green Is the New Red, were issued by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2003 in response to an article in an animal rights publication in which Shapiro and two other activists...openly claimed responsibility for shooting video and taking animals from a farm.

The FBI notes discuss the videotaping, illegal entry and the removal of animals, then concludes with 'there is a reasonable indication that [Subject 1] and other members of the [redacted] have violated the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, 18 USC Section 43 (a).' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/31-1

-->This story didn't make it into The NY Times. The widespread description of political activists as "terrorist" by the FBI reveals too much about the fascist state the American Empire is becoming.

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Inter Press Service:
"Civil liberties groups and many citizen activists are outraged over language in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA) that appears to lay the legal groundwork for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial.

David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild, called it an 'enormous attack on the U.S. and our heritage' and a 'significant step' towards fascism, in an interview with IPS.

'For a very long time the U.S. has been moving towards what I personally think of as fascist - the integration of monopoly capital with state power, that's combined with an increased repression at home and greater aggression around the world. I don't think we're there yet, but I do see that we're going in that direction,' Gespass said. 'I think the... act is a significant step in that direction.'

'It's quite severe. If this continues, people will not be able to count on constitutional protections at all,' Debra Sweet, national director of the group World Can't Wait, told IPS."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/30-8

-->The NY Times coverage of this story falls into the usual pro and con statements of those in power. There is a White House assurance that the bill will "protect the American people," and very little is made of the government's vast assault on citizens' rights. Where is the alarm? It is as if nothing significant had really happened despite the revocation of citizen's rights - established as far back as 1215 with the Magna Carta.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-12-29T23:40:00.001-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Daily Mail UK:
"Two American missiles struck a village in south-west Iran early today. The news was given in a report by the country's Islamic Republic News Agency...

CORRECTION. This story was reported as news by InfoWars.com:
http://www.infowars.com/usuk-missiles-hit-iranian-village-day-before-hormuz-war-game/

But the actual date of the story in the Daily Mail was 2003. Thanks to a listener for catching this error.

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Inter Press Service:
" 'Haiti is open for business.' That's what President Michel 'Sweet Micky' Martelly said at a recent ceremony as he and former U.S. president Bill Clinton laid a cornerstone for a giant industrial zone being built in northern Haiti.

Across the country and abroad, Martelly, his government, and their advisors – like Clinton – have been pushing the island nation as a foreign investor's dream come true...

Factory owners claim they can't pay more because of they did, their international clients...would pick up and move out. And so the Haitian government – with the full backing of the U.S. government, as recent Wikileaked cables revealed – remains the lowest wage in the hemisphere-wide 'race to the bottom.'

A study by HGW of assembly workers' expenses in the capital and at the Haiti-Dominican Republic border revealed that on an average day, workers spend more than 50 percent of an average day's wages just getting to work and back and eating their midday meal.  A recent study by the U.S.-based Solidarity Center, which is linked to the AFL-CIO trade union federation, determined that a 'living wage' for a worker with two children is 749 dollars a month – almost five times the average monthly wage."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/21

-->Bottom feeder Bill Clinton extolling the race to the bottom in Haiti? Slave wages the result of US occupation? You won't read such stories in the US media, including The NY Times.

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The Australian:
"NEW YORK - Fourteen frustrated members of the UN Security Council pointed a finger at the US yesterday for blocking any condemnation of Israel's accelerated settlement construction in Palestinian territory.

In a move that Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin called historic, diplomats from almost all regional blocs represented on the council stepped to the microphone after closed council consultations on the Middle East to condemn the lack of progress towards a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mr Churkin, the council president, said the frustration over the impasse in Israeli-Palestinian talks spilled out in statements from the four European Union council members, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab group and the group of emerging powers that included India, Brazil and South Africa."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/21-4

-->The NY Times coverage of this story says a lot about our newspaper of record. Entitled "Israel Accuses 4 Countries of Meddling in Its Affairs," the news article stresses Israel's objections rather than the condemnations themselves. Hamas, as always, is characterized as "sworn to Israel's destruction." Why doesn't The NY Times characterize Israel as "sworn to expanding its apartheid state"?

Fantasyland Media:

2011-12-22T23:19:00.001-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Common Dreams:
"The US government should transfer Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) command of aerial drone strikes to the armed forces and clarify its legal rationale for targeted killings, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to President Barack Obama and in a questions and answers document. A dramatic increase in the use of CIA drone strikes underscores the need for the US to demonstrate that the CIA adheres to international legal requirements for accountability, Human Rights Watch said.

'CIA drone strikes have become an almost daily occurrence around the world, but little is known about who is killed and under what circumstances,' said James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch. 'So long as the US resists public accountability for CIA drone strikes, the agency should not be conducting targeted killings...'

'Unsupported claims by administration officials that all US agencies involved in targeted killings are complying with international law are wholly inadequate,' Ross said. 'By failing to adopt policies and practices that demonstrate compliance with international law, the US raises doubts among its allies about the lawfulness of its actions and creates a dangerous model for abusive governments.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/19-8

-->The NY Times only covers human rights reports when they are critical of Pentagon "enemies." Those reports critical of the US are routinely left out of print.

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Per Square Mile:
"Over the last 30 years, wealth in the United States has been steadily concentrating in the upper economic echelons. Whereas the top 1 percent used to control a little over 30 percent of the wealth, they now control 40 percent. It’s a trend that was for decades brushed under the rug but is now on the tops of minds and at the tips of tongues.

Since too much inequality can foment revolt and instability, the CIA regularly updates statistics on income distribution for countries around the world, including the U.S. Between 1997 and 2007, inequality in the U.S. grew by almost 10 percent, making it more unequal than Russia, infamous for its powerful oligarchs. The U.S. is not faring well historically, either. Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution.

To determine the size of the Roman economy and the distribution of income, historians Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen pored over papyri ledgers, previous scholarly estimates, imperial edicts, and Biblical passages. Their target was the state of the economy when the empire was at its population zenith, around 150 C.E. Schiedel and Friesen estimate that the top 1 percent of Roman society controlled 16 percent of the wealth, less than half of what America’s top 1 percent control."
http://persquaremile.com/2011/12/16/income-inequality-in-the-roman-empire/

-->The NY Times didn't cover these studies of gross income disparity in the United States. Most often, The NY Times is a newspaper for the 1%, not the 99%.

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Guardian UK:
"Chief executive pay has roared back after two years of stagnation and decline. America's top bosses enjoyed pay hikes of between 27 and 40% last year, according to the largest survey of US CEO pay. The dramatic bounce back comes as the latest government figures show wages for the majority of Americans are failing to keep up with inflation.

America's highest paid executive took home more than $145.2m, and as stock prices recovered across the board, the median value of bosses' profits on stock options rose 70% in 2010, from $950,400 to $1.3m. The news comes against the backdrop of an Occupy Wall Street movement that has focused Washington's attention on the pay packages of America's highest paid.

The Guardian's exclusive first look at the CEO pay survey from corporate governance group GMI Ratings will further fuel debate about America's widening income gap. The survey, the most extensive in the US, covered 2,647 companies, and offers a comprehensive assessment of all the data now available relating to 2010 pay."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/14/executive-pay-increase-america-ceos

-->Leave it to a foreign newspaper to outline how America's CEOs continue to rob the rest of us. Readers of The NY Times must go to the opinion page for such facts, like Paul Krugman's op-ed of November 24 entitled: "We Are the 99.9%."

Fantasyland Media:

2011-12-15T21:09:00.002-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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The Globe and Mail (Toronto):
"Pentagon spending bill includes sweeping detention measures. Even American citizens arrested in the United States could face perpetual detention in military prisons without charge or trial under draconian new presidential powers unless Barack Obama vetoes a massive Pentagon spending bill.

The sweeping new 'antiterrorist' measures could also ensnare Canadians or other foreigners picked up in the United States or overseas...

If Mr. Obama signs the legislation, it will make the United States 'an outlier in the international community,' legalizing indefinite detention without charge in military prisons for citizens and foreigners alike, said Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/pentagon-spending-bill-includes-sweeping-detention-measures/article2270056/

-->The NY Times ran an opinion piece criticizing this legislation. But why is there nothing in the news section about the imminent destruction of the Bill of Rights? Indefinite detentions in military prisons without charges means the end of America's rule of law. Maybe a little article about its passing might have been appropriate.

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Guardian UK:
"The British government has been ordered to secure the release of a Pakistani man captured by SAS soldiers in Iraq and held in Afghanistan's notorious Bagram jail without trial for more than seven years.

The appeal court, ordering a writ of habeas corpus, ruled that Yunus Rahmatullah, 29, was being unlawfully detained. The SAS handed Rahmatullah over to US troops in Iraq, from where he was rendered to Bagram.

The legal charity Reprieve, which has sought to secure the man's release, described the ruling as 'historic' and 'unique.' A spokeswoman said she expected British ministers to ask the US authorities to free Rahmatullah."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/06-0

-->The NY Times didn't cover this story of an English court upholding habeas corpus for a Pakistani man held by US troops in Iraq. Maybe that's because The NY Times won't cover the end of habeas corpus for US citizens in America.

------

Guardian UK:
"Prosecutors painted (the "Newburgh Four") as America-hating terrorists bent on slaughter. All four followed the instructions of Hussain, who meticulously organized the scheme: from getting the missile and bombs, to reconnaissance missions, to teaching the tenets of radical Islam.

The 'Newburgh Four' now languish in jail. Hussain does not. For Hussain was a fake. In fact, Hussain worked for the FBI as an informant trawling mosques in hope of picking up radicals.

Yet far from being active militants, the four men he attracted were impoverished individuals struggling with Newburgh's grim epidemic of crack, drug crime and poverty. One had mental issues so severe his apartment contained bottles of his own urine. He also believed Florida was a foreign country.

Hussain offered the men huge financial inducements to carry out the plot – including $250,000 to one man – and free holidays and expensive cars."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/12-6

-->The specter of the FBI paying an impoverished man a quarter million dollars to go along with a fake "terror" plot puts another stain on our system of criminal justice. Just how far will the FBI go with its entrapment schemes before Americans rise up in disgust? But our national media, including The NY Times, never covers these FBI abuses. We have to read about them in an English newspaper.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-12-09T14:15:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Agence France-Presse:
"Amnesty International on Thursday urged Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia to arrest former US president George W. Bush for violating international torture laws, during his African tour this week. Bush is touring the countries through to Monday to promote efforts to fight cervical and breast cancers, and Amnesty said the three nations have an obligation to arrest him under international law.

'All countries to which George W. Bush travels have an obligation to bring him to justice for his role in torture,' said Amnesty's senior legal adviser Matt Pollard. 'International law requires that there be no safe haven for those responsible for torture; Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia must seize this opportunity to fulfill their obligations and end the impunity George W. Bush has so far enjoyed.'
http://news.yahoo.com/amnesty-urges-african-nations-arrest-george-bush-161628253.html

-->The NY Times does a lot of reporting about Amnesty International, in places like China, Iran, Egypt, Rwanda, Nicaragua. But somehow our newspaper of record overlooked this recommendation to arrest George Bush in Africa. In fact, Amnesty International has recommended that Canada arrest our former president for war crimes. Another missed story by The NY Times.
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/waronterror/canada-should-arrest-and-prosecute-george-w-bush-on-visit/

------

Inter Press Service:
"The United States has become the major stumbling block to progress at the mid point of negotiations over a new international climate regime say civil society and many of the 193 nations attending the United Nations climate change conference here in Durban.

'The U.S. position leads us to three or four degrees Celsius of warming, which will be devastating for the poor of the world,' said Celine Charveriat of Oxfam International.

'They are proposing a 10-year time out with no new targets to lower emissions until after 2020,' Charveriat said."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/06-0

-->For The NY Times, "The biggest obstacle to global progress has been countries like China and India." And the role of the United States? "America should have taken a leadership role. It did not."

------

The San Francisco Chronicle:
"Some Democratic lawmakers say that, while President Barack Obama's plan to cut payroll taxes may strengthen the U.S. economy, it may have some unintended fallout: weakening Social Security.

The lawmakers and advocacy groups say they are concerned the tax cuts may undermine political support for the retirement program, which provides benefits to almost 55 million Americans and is funded by the payroll levies.

'I don't object to putting more money in people's pockets, and there are lots of ways to do that, but not with Social Security,' said Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, who said he will have a hard time supporting the White House plan."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/06-4

-->Obama purposely weakening Social Security so that he can privatize it in his second term? Why, The NY Times would never dwell on the fact that proposed tax cuts would undermine Social Security. That wouldn't favor the 1%, who want to make a killing gambling with the pensions of the working class.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-12-02T08:53:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

The Hill (Washington, DC):
"A top House Democrat is calling for a hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke following a report that the central bank secretly committed more than $7 trillion to save banks during the financial crisis.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings (Md.) sent a letter on Monday to panel Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) requesting the committee look into how banks 'benefitted from trillions of dollars in previously undisclosed government loans provided at below-market rates.'

'Many Americans are struggling to understand why banks deserve such preferential treatment while millions of homeowners are being denied assistance and are at increasing risk of foreclosure,' Cummings said.

The request comes on the heels of a Bloomberg report that said the Fed secretly committed more than $7 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the nation’s top financial institutions, and that these banks 'reaped an estimated $13 billion of income' on the below-market rates."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/28-4

-->Financial corruption on a scale unimaginable to the 99 percent. The fleecing of America by the financial sector may have been the biggest rip-off in US history. What a shame that The NY Times didn't cover Representative Cummings' request for a hearing.

------

The Australian:
"WIKILEAKS was last night awarded a Walkley for outstanding contribution to journalism for what was described by judges as a global publishing coup that achieved 'justice through transparency'.

'WikiLeaks applied new technology to penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup,' the Walkley trustees said.

'Its revelations, from the way the war on terror was being waged, to diplomatic bastardry, high-level horse-trading and the interference in the domestic affairs of nations, have had an undeniable impact.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/27

-->An award similar in stature to the Pulitzer Prize for Journalism goes to Wikileaks. Too bad the US media, including The NY Times, can't bring itself to tell the US public.

------

Deeplinks Blog:
"FBI Sanctioned for Lying About Existence of Surveillance Records.

An order from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has revealed the FBI lied to the court about the existence of records requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), taking the position that FOIA allows it to withhold information from the court whenever it thinks this is in the interest of national security. Using the strongest possible language, the court disagreed: 'The Government cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the Court...'

In issuing monetary sanctions against the DOJ, the court held, 'the Government’s deception of the Court was without any factual or legal basis and simply wrong.' The court noted issuing sanctions was necessary to 'deter the Government from deceiving the Court again.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/22-0

-->This important case (Islamic Shura Council of S. Cal. v. FBI) has uncovered a pattern of deception by the FBI when it comes to revealing surveillance documents. But The NY Times, often a staunch defender of the FBI, didn't report this story.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-11-18T09:01:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Gush Shalom:
"The bill to prohibit left-wing Israeli organizations from getting funding from foreign institutions, including governments, which Sunday got the backing of the government of Israel, is another link in the chain of anti-democratic legislation which became the hallmark of this government and its representatives in the Knesset...

The initiators of the bill argue that it is designed to prevent outside interference in the internal affairs of the State of Israel - and that while at the same time the government of Israel, through such organizations as the Israel Lobby in Washington (AIPAC) interferes openly and flagrantly in the domestic affairs of the United States, trying to determine who will be elected and who will not be elected to Congress and to the Presidency, and how elected officials should conduct the United States' policy. Until and unless the government announces the dissolution of AIPAC and ceases all interference in United States elections, assertions and complaints of 'foreign interference in the affairs of Israel' are the height of hypocrisy."
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/events/1321271743

-->The NY Times, always a supporter of AIPAC, did not draw such parallels for its readers. That task was left to Gush Shalom, Israel's biggest peace organization.

------

Inter Press Service:
"The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published by a Washington think tank Tuesday repeated the sensational claim previously reported by news media all over the world that a former Soviet nuclear weapons scientist had helped Iran construct a detonation system that could be used for a nuclear weapon.

But it turns out that the foreign expert, who is not named in the IAEA report but was identified in news reports as Vyacheslav Danilenko, is not a nuclear weapons scientist but one of the top specialists in the world in the production of nanodiamonds by explosives.

In fact, Danilenko, a Ukrainian, has worked solely on nanodiamonds from the beginning of his research career and is considered one of the pioneers in the development of nanodiamond technology, as published scientific papers confirm."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/09-5

-->Another phony story about Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Leave it to The NY Times to leave this pro-war propaganda unchallenged.

------

Common Dreams:
"Performing at what was probably the most secure place on the planet - an APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) dinner attended by President Obama and about 20 world leaders - Hawaiian musician Makana opened his suit jacket to reveal an “Occupy with Aloha” T-shirt and then spent 45 minutes repeatedly singing his terrific, newly released protest song, 'We Are the Many.' Makana's action was assisted by the Yes Lab and Occupy the Boardroom."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/11/14-2

-->The NY Times didn't print this story.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-11-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Citizens for Legitimate Government:
" 'Occupy Boston' protesters in the US have stormed the Israeli consulate in the city and held a brief sit-in in the building's lobby, Press TV reports. On Friday, activists gathered calling for the liberation of Palestine, angry at Israel for intercepting an aid flotilla on its way to the besieged Gaza Strip.

Protesters chanted slogans such as, 'not another nickel, not another dime! No more money for Israel's crimes' and 'Vive viva Palestina,' demanding the departure of Israeli consulate officials from the US."
http://www.legitgov.org/Occupy-Boston-takes-Israeli-consulate

-->Readers of The NY Times were never informed about this occupation of the Israeli Consulate. The role of The NY Times is to play down any US protest against Israel's apartheid tactics in the West Bank and Gaza.

------

Guardian UK:
"The Greek prime minister George Papandreou's loss of power is not surprising: the reaction of Greeks to the 27 October agreement with its new tranche of austerity measures and the further undermining of national independence was devastating for the government. The next day, a military parade was abandoned as protesters occupied the streets, and the president had to flee; parades elsewhere were similarly interrupted. The political elites, who felt unassailable for 30 years, now sense the popular anger and are unable to comprehend or contain it.

The call for a referendum was the irrational act of a regime that had lost touch with the people and was trying desperately to save its skin. Papandreou's gambit looked like a veiled threat to the eurozone authorities and was interpreted as such by leaders who have been strongly rebuffed in recent referendums by the French and the Dutch - where two of the core nations rejected the European constitution and ended aspirations for the creation of a European superstate based on neoliberal principles. 'Referendum', a dirty word in the corridors of Brussels, evoked the fear elites feel when the people momentarily enter the political stage."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/06/greek-spring-europe-contagion-resistance

-->So that's what is happening in Greece. Fury at the financial elite, who robbed the nation's assets and are now trying to destroy the wages and rights of working people. Why, it's just like Occupy Wall Street! But our nation's media, including The NY Times, would never make this connection for their readers. The media in the United States exists to promote the power of the 1%, not the 99%.

------

Guardian UK:
"A second Iraq war veteran has suffered serious injuries after clashes between police and Occupy movement protesters in Oakland.

Kayvan Sabehgi, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in intensive care with a lacerated spleen. He says he was beaten by police close to the Occupy Oakland camp, but despite suffering agonising pain, did not reach hospital until 18 hours later.

Sabehgi, 32, is the second Iraq war veteran to be hospitalised following involvement in Oakland protests. Another protester, Scott Olsen, suffered a fractured skull on 25 October."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/04/occupy-oakland-second-veteran-injured

-->The NY Times didn't bother covering this story of a second Iraq vet beaten by the Oakland Police and now in intensive care. All the news that's "fit to print," as long as it supports the narrative of corporate America. Sad that the real news of our country must be read in an English newspaper.

------

Mercury News:
Experts in police use of force shocked by Oakland video. A Youtube video depicts police firing without warning or apparent provocation at videographer Scott Campbell early thursday, Nov. 3, 2011.

A video clip is raising new questions about whether police used excessive force against Occupy Oakland participants during the fracas after last week's general strike...

Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminal justice professor who's an expert in police decision-making and use of force, said the video left him 'astonished, amazed and embarrassed.'

'Unless there's something we don't know, that's one of the most outrageous uses of a firearm that I've ever seen,' he said. 'Unless there's a threat that you can't see in the video, that just looks like absolute punishment, which is the worst type of excessive force.'
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_19284774

-->Again, absolutely no coverage by The NY Times.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-11-03T22:30:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Business Insider:
"Marine Says Oakland Used Crowd Control Methods That Are Prohibited In War Zones. As the events that led to Oakland protester Scott Olsen's head injury continue to unfold and investigations begin, we thought it important to offer some perspective.

This comment is from a former Marine with special operations in crowd control. He points out that shooting canisters such as those that likely hit Scott Olsen is prohibited under rules of engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan...

'How did a cop who is supposed to have training on his weapon system accidentally SHOOT someone in the head with a 40mm gas canister? Simple. He was aiming at him. I'll be the first to admit a 40mm round is tricky to aim if you are inexperienced but anyone can tell the difference between aiming at head level and going for range. The person that pulled that trigger has no business being a cop. He sent that round out with the intention of doing some serious damage to the protestors...' "
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-28/news/30331670_1_protester-gas-masks-lethal-force

-->Contrast this analysis to most of what the mainstream media gave us after Scott Olsen was stuck down. Perhaps the worst example is the coverage of the Washington Post after the attack. DC's premier newspaper carried a picture of an Oakland policeman patting a stray kitten.

------

IPS News:
"While the administration of Barack Obama vows to hold the Iranian government 'accountable' for the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of an FBI 'sting' operation...

Both that language and the absence of any statement attributed to Arbabsiar (the accused) imply that the Iranian-American said nothing about assassinating the Saudi ambassador except in response to suggestions by the informant, who was already part of an FBI undercover operation.

The DEA informant, as the FBI account acknowledges in a footnote, had previously been charged with a narcotics offense by a state in the U.S. and had been cooperating in narcotics investigations – apparently posing as a drug cartel operative – in return for dropping the charges. The document is notably silent on whether the conversation was recorded.

A former FBI official familiar with procedures in such cases, who spoke to IPS anonymously, said the FBI would normally have recorded all such conversations touching on the possibility of terrorism. The absence of quotes from any of those meetings suggests that they do not support the case being made by the FBI and the Obama administration."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105458

-->Another phony plot hatched by the FBI, with flimsy evidence and a witness trying to beat a drug rap. On such lies, the empire launches its illegal wars of preemption. Isn't it a crime that our nation's media, including The NY Times can't dig a little deeper into a story like this?

------

Think Progress:
"NYT Bureau Chief To Appear On Panel For Islamophobic Organization’s Film...The New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Ethan Bronner, has stirred up controversy over recent speaking engagements. But an announcement on the 92nd St. Y’s website shows that Bronner is now scheduled to appear on a panel hosted by the Clarion Fund, an Islamophobic organization, to discuss the 'threat of a nuclear Iran'...

Bronner and the 92nd Street Y are free to associate themselves with whatever organizations they choose. But the fact that the Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief is lending his name to a Clarion Fund event, and the promotion of a film which advocates for military action against Iran, raises further questions about Bronner’s growing record of engaging in activities which could produce the appearance of a conflict of interest or undermine the impartiality of his reporting.

The Clarion Fund...distributed the inflammatory anti-Muslim documentary 'Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West' to 28 million swing state voters before the 2008 presidential election."
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/10/26/353954/ethan-bronner-clarion-fund-islamophobic/

-->Ethan Bronner is one of The NY Times principal reporter on the Israel/Palestine conflict. He promotes islamophobia on the side. No conflict of interest there! At a Vassar appearance two years ago, he expressed admiration for the illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank, calling them "people who make history."

Fantasyland Media:

2011-10-28T11:24:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

NPR:
"Villagers in Afghanistan say they were forced to walk ahead of Afghan and U.S. Soldiers along roads in areas believed to be mined by the Taliban.

National Public Radio reports villagers said the Afghan and U.S. troops pulled them from their homes one evening in early September and forced them to walk in front of the troops for more than a mile in the Panjwai district, southwest of Kandahar city.
No one was injured, but if the incident happened, it would appear to violate the Geneva Conventions governing treatment of civilians, NPR said."
http://www.military.com/news/article/report-us-afghan-troops-forced-locals-to-walk-mined-road.html

-->The only recent mention of the Panjwai district in The NY Times is an op-ed article written by an Army Special Forces major and a visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security. The title of his piece is "This War Can Still Be Won."

------

Minnesota Independent:
"President Obama’s 2012 campaign has a new senior adviser — a former lobbyist for the company pushing the Keystone XL pipeline, who also lobbied for Comcast throughout the period that the media conglomerate was seeking approval for its merger with NBC-Universal.

The campaign hired Broderick Johnson of the lobbying firm Bryan Cave LLP this week. According to U.S. House of Representatives records, Johnson lobbied to 'support submission of a presidential permit for Keystone XL pipeline' in the final quarter of 2010.

Environmentalists are upset with the pipeline and with Pres. Barack Obama’s unwillingness to reconsider the project."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/25-5

-->The NY Time's coverage of this appointment was all about Mr. Johnson's wife temporarily leaving NPR. Mr. Johnson was described as an "ear to the ground for the campaign’s political and constituency operations.” What pipeline lobbying?

------

Globe and Mail:
"WINTERTHUR, Switzerland - Here’s a gift to Occupy Wall Street protesters around the world: you now have scholarly proof that banks control the world.

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, also known as ETH, have published a paper that argues just 147 companies account for a large chunk of the total economic value of all the transnational companies around the world. No exact dollar figures, but it’s obviously a vast sum.

Among the top 50 corporations, 45 operate within the financial industry. Barclays PLC is the most powerful, according to the ETH study, followed by such well-known names as JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG, and Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. The United States takes home first prize with 24 companies cracking the researchers’ top 50 list"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/25-2

-->The NY Times, a staunch supporter of the rich as well as the international banking system that serves them, would never print a story like this.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-10-20T23:18:00.001-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Citizens for Legitimate Government:
"The United States has deployed hundreds of troops along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan's tribal region, Press TV reported. Reinforced with gunships and heavy weaponry, some 500 of the forces had been stationed near Afghanistan's border with Pakistan's North Waziristan region, a senior Pakistani government official told our correspondent on condition of anonymity on Sunday. The official went on to explain that the motive behind the move was yet unknown, but that the deployment could be part of a military drill to later launch a ground assault against the Taliban-allied Haqqani network of militants."
http://www.legitgov.org/US-mobilizes-forces-along-Pakistan-border

-->Another country about to get invaded by US forces. Obama has spread his "War on Terror" into so many countries that counting them becomes a chore. And the job of The NY Times has been, as always, to hide these attacks before they happen, and then to create public support once US troops go in. The NY Times did not cover this story.

------

Guardian UK:
"Israel plans new settlement of 2,600 that will isolate Arab East Jerusalem. Britain, the EU and the UN condemn Israel's decision as provocative and a further threat to the peace process"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/16/israel-settlement-isolate-arab-jerusalem

-->Isabel Kershner's article in The NY Times, described these settlement plans as "awkwardly timed," and went on to describe Netanyahu's reasoning for building in Arab East Jerusalem. Then came a paragraph by the spokeswoman for Israel’s Interior Ministry. No mention of Britain, the EU, or the UN condemning the new settlements.

------

The NY Times:
"President Obama said Friday that he had ordered the deployment of 100 armed military advisers to central Africa to help regional forces combat the Lord’s Resistance Army, a notorious renegade group that has terrorized villagers in at least four countries with marauding bands that kill, rape, maim and kidnap with impunity.

The deployment represents a muscular escalation of American military efforts to help fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, which originated as a Ugandan rebel force in the 1980s and morphed into a fearsome cultlike group of fighters. It is led by Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed prophet known for ordering village massacres, recruiting prepubescent soldiers, keeping harems of child brides and mutilating opponents."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/africa/barack-obama-sending-100-armed-advisers-to-africa-to-help-fight-lords-resistance-army.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=us%20troops%20uganda&st=cse

-->The NY Times has identified another Hitler like monster in Central Africa. Send in the US Troops! Turns out there has been a lot of oil discovered in Uganda, but why include that in any NY Times analysis? The empire only wages war for the most idealistic of reasons, at least according to our newspaper of record.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-10-14T12:54:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

The NY Times:
"A man named Hero was here. So was Germ. There was the waitress from the dim sum restaurant in Evanston, Ill. And the liquor store worker. The Google consultant. The circus performer. The Brooklyn nanny.

The hodgepodge Lower Manhattan encampment known as Occupy Wall Street has no appointed leaders, no expiration date for its rabble-rousing stay and still-evolving goals and demands. Yet its two weeks of noisy occupation has lured a sturdily faithful and fervent constituency willing to express discontentment with what they feel is an inequitable financial system until, well, whenever.

They arrived by design and desire. Or by sheer serendipity."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/nyregion/wall-street-occupiers-protesting-till-whenever.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=wall%20street%20protest&st=cse

-->Nothing like The NY Times for smug condescension. Our newspaper of record has refined it to a fine art when reporting on any social movement that questions the dominance of the filthy rich and Wall Street. This story is not news; it is propaganda for the ruling class.

------

Guardian UK:
"Occupy Wall Street protest: NYPD accused of heavy-handed tactics Force criticised by protesters, who claim they were deliberately led on to road before being penned in and arrested

The New York police department has come under criticism for heavy-handed tactics during the Occupy Wall Street march over Brooklyn bridge, after more than 700 protesters were held for several hours.

Activists, as well as commentators following the protest against inequality and corporate excess, claim the response of the city's police force to the peaceful event was vastly out of proportion. Almost 1,000 people have been arrested in two weeks – substantially more than the number of financiers who led the world into the 2008 economic meltdown.

As Salman Rushdie put it in a tweet: 'The world's economy has been wrecked by these rapacious traders. Yet it is the protesters who are jailed.' "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/02/occupy-wall-street-nypd-tactics

-->Newspapers in other countries often do not serve the elites. And how much more news their readers actually get. First The NY Times avoided any stories of the Wall Street movement. Then came the ridicule. Readers of The NY Times should know what comes next: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” -Mahatma Gandhi

------

River Keeper
"New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation's Rush to Fracking Continues with Release of Draft Regulations. DEC retracts previous commitment to allow fracking environmental review to inform draft regulations.

This week, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”) released draft regulations for industrial gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale by means of high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” These come on the heels of DEC’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (“SGEIS”) on fracking released earlier this month.

A core principle of the state’s environmental review statute is for environmental reviews to inform draft regulations...By issuing regulations at the same time as the SGEIS, DEC is depriving the public of the right to have their input on the mitigation measures suggested in the SGEIS fully considered before the agency proposes the regulations that would implement them.
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/09/30

-->The NY Times didn't cover this story which involves the DEC's capitulation to the fracking industry.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-09-29T20:40:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Antiwar.com:
"During August recess this year, 81 members of Congress went on a junket to Israel funded by the Israel lobby group AIPAC (well, funded by the American Israel Education Fund, but they are really one and the same) to " learn first-hand about one of our closest friends and allies." While the representatives insist they got a balanced view, their itinerary belies that claim: 95% of their time was spent hearing the Israeli government point of view, with only one token meeting with Palestinian reps.

CODEPINK has filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee stating that these trips—and the upcoming ones scheduled for December–violate the Congressional prohibition on traveling with a lobby group. We feel these Potemkin voyages are part of AIPAC’s grand plan to control and monopolize Congress, which is not just unethical, but dangerous. Their bias reinforces a disastrous U.S. policy of unconditional support for Israel that obstructs peace and runs counter to our national interests."
http://original.antiwar.com/mbenjamin/2011/09/16/congress-sees-middle-east-through-aipac-colored-glasses/

-->The NY Times would never run a story about an ethics complaint against AIPAC. In fact, our newspaper of record consistently slants stories to favor Israel and its powerful US lobby.

------

The NY Times:
"When members of the loose protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street began a march from the financial district to Union Square on Saturday, the participants seemed relatively harmless, even as they were breaking the law by marching in the street without a permit.

But to the New York Police Department, the protesters represented something else: a visible example of lawlessness akin to that which had resulted in destruction and violence at other anticapitalist demonstrations, like the Group of 20 economic summit meeting in London in 2009 and the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999...

So even as the members of Occupy Wall Street seem unorganized and, at times, uninformed, their continued presence creates a vexing problem for the Police Department.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/nyregion/wall-street-demonstrations-test-police-trained-for-bigger-threats.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=Anthony%20Bologna&st=cse

-->"Vexing problems" for the NY Police is how The NY Times characterizes the beatings and pepper spraying that have been used on Wall Street demonstrators over the last week. This, of course, follows days of absolute silence in our nation's media about a protest many times the size of any Tea Party rally. The NY Times regularly put Tea Party protests on the front page.

------

The Telegraph:
"Protesters hit with pepper spray by NYPD officer.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters have been marching on and occupying parts of Lower Manhattan's financial district since the 17th of this month. The group are trying to bring attention to the behaviour of banks and financial institutions and what protesters say is their role in creating the problems the US economy is facing now.

Generally the protests have been peaceful but a video posted on YouTube from Saturday's event appears to show a uniformed NYPD officer calmly approaching a small group of penned in female protesters and dousing them with pepper spray before walking away.

The women immediately begin screaming and holding their faces.
Some activist websites have now named this man and are calling on supporters to email the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg to demand he face charges."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8790877/Protesters-hit-with-pepper-spray-by-NYPD-officer.html

-->Wouldn't it be amazing if The NY Times could present exactly what had happened, and why the protesters were marching? But our newspaper of record is run by Wall Street interests and often sacrifices the people's right to know what is happening in their own city.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-09-29T20:38:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Daily Mail/UK:
"UK Unions Plot a Winter of Discontent as They Ballot More Than a Million Workers for Biggest General Strike Since 1926.

Millions of workers including police, firefighters, health workers, teachers and prison officers could strike over bitter pension row Unions describe potential walk-out as 'unprecedented' in scale and 'the biggest fight of our lives' Unison says they will be 'vilified' for striking but urges members to 'stay strong'...

Mr Prentis accused the Government of an 'unprecedented' attack on workers with its 'audacious and devious' pension reforms.
Mr Prentis said that exhaustive talks had not worked for the unions: 'We've been patient, we've co-operated, but there comes a time when we say enough is enough because, if we don't, they'll be back for more.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/09/14-3

-->The corporate championing NY Times doesn't do many articles about labor unrest. Readers of The NY Times are routinely kept in the dark about the strength and persistence of the the labor movement worldwide. Stories like this one might fire up America's working people to resist the destruction of their wages, pensions and standard of living.

------

The Independent/UK:
"America's homeless crisis washes up in Obama's birthplace. Some live in tents, others in cars – but Hawaii would rather their extreme poor lived on the mainland. Guy Adams reports from Honolulu on a crackdown the US doesn't want the world to see.

Beverly Paracuelles wakes up each morning to a view of palm trees, golden sands, and azure tropical seas. She spends her days wandering along the world-famous beaches of Oahu's northern shore. But don't go telling her that life must be a dream.

Home for the 54-year-old former nursing assistant is neither one of the ocean-view mansions, nor the $600-a-night hotel rooms which dot Hawaii's most populated island. Instead, it's a battered Toyota van. Inside, in an area that measures six by eight feet, she must eat, sleep, and store all of her worldly goods..".
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/americas-homeless-crisis-washes-up-in-obamas-birthplace-2356870.html

-->The NY Times generally avoids the brutal ramifications of the class war being waged against working people in America. Since its pages are full of advertisements geared towards the winners of this class war, the very rich, The NY Times prefers pictures and stories of Honolulu's sunny beaches and spectacular views.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/travel/return-to-kailua-hawaii.html?scp=2&sq=Honolulu%20homeless&st=cse

Fantasyland Media:

2011-09-15T22:51:00.004-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

The NY Times Book Review:
Eric Ormsby reviews a new book about Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, whose king had visions of "spearheading a holy war to topple Islam, recover Jerusalem from the 'the infidels' and establish himself as the 'King of Jerusalem.'"

Ormsby writes that, "Da Gama shared these dreams, but like his hard-bitten crew, rouges, or criminals to a man, he coveted the fabled riches of the East..."

In all, Ormsby describes the Western contact with the Muslim world as a "dismal record of greed, savagery and fanaticism, especially - but not exclusively -on the part of European explorers."

But such admissions of Western greed and savagery are reserved for 1497. He concludes his review with a tribute to enlightened Western morals. "Nevertheless, the real clash today is not between Christianity and Islam, nor between opposing civilizations, but between our own resolutely secular and consumerist culture and a rigid and absolutist mindset outraged by the prosperity Western 'infidels' enjoy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/books/review/holy-war-by-nigel-cliff-book-review.html

-->The Muslim world doesn't hate us because we are stealing their oil and making the Middle East a living hell. They hate us because we can go to McDonald's and buy a Big Mac. Even in the Book Review, The NY Times must uphold the ridiculous lies of the American empire.

------

Salon:
"The ACLU decided to use the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attack to comprehensively survey the severe erosion of civil liberties justified in the name of that event, an erosion that -- as it documents -- continues unabated, indeed often in accelerated form, under the Obama administration. The group today is issuing a report entitled A Call to Courage: Reclaiming Our Liberties Ten Years After 9/11; that title is intended to underscore the irony that political leaders who prance around as courageous warriors against Terrorism in fact rely on one primary weapon -- fear-mongering: the absence of courage -- to vest the government with ever-more power and the citizenry with ever-fewer rights.

Domestically, the 'War on Terror' has been, and continues to be, a war on basic political liberties more than it is anything else. The particulars identified in this new ACLU report will not be even remotely new to any readers here, but given the organization's status among progressives as the preeminent rights-defending group in the country, and given the bird's-eye-view the report takes of these issues, it is well worth highlighting some of its key findings."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/09/07-6

-->The NY Times has been uninterested in the looking at America's "War on Terror" in this way. Ever supportive of the empire, our newspaper of record didn't even print the ACLU's ten year report.

------

The Guardian:
"SNS, a prominent business-funded think tank, issued a report last Wednesday that sharply reversed its normal pro-market stance. The entry of private operators into state-funded education, it argued, had increased segregation and may not have improved educational standards at all.

'The empirical evidence showing that competition is good is not really credible, because they can't distinguish between grade inflation and real gains,' Dr Jonas Vlachos, who wrote the report on education, told the Observer.

The report had a huge impact. It was a top story on Swedish television, and was hotly debated the next day in the newspapers. How the debate plays out will be watched carefully by education experts in the UK, where 24 free (private) schools, built on the Swedish model, opened this year."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/10/sweden-free-schools-experiment

-->This report on Swedish education was not picked up by The NY Times. Why is the story important? Because the destruction of public education and the handing over of schools to private corporations is worldwide. The NY Times and NPR, ever eager to please their corporate sponsors, have been big supporters of corporate or "charter" schools here in the US. Studies that cast doubt on the wisdom of privatizing public schools is routinely ignored.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-09-08T22:14:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Guardian:
"Shock video of UN soldiers apparently raping a Haitian teenager raises questions about why these 'peacekeepers' are there at all

The video is profoundly disturbing. It shows four men, identified as Uruguayan troops from the UN mission in Haiti (Minustah), seemingly in the act of raping an 18-year-old Haitian youth. Two have the victim pinned down on a mattress, with his hands twisted high up his back so that he cannot move. Perhaps the most unnerving part of the video is the constant chorus of laughter from the alleged perpetrators; to them, apparently, it's just a drunken party."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/03/minustah-un-haiti-abuse#history-link-box

-->The NY Times avoids stories about the occupation of Haiti and the desperate living conditions of the population. Keeping the workers of Haiti in abject poverty benefits too many large US corporations.

------

Guardian:
"Secret Libyan files claim MI6 and the CIA aided human rights violations. Intelligence helped Gaddafi regime track and apprehend dissidents, according to files seized from Tripoli offices.

Files found in Tripoli offices claim MI6 and the CIA were complicit in human rights violations by the Gaddafi regime. British and US intelligence agencies built up close links with Muammar Gaddafi and handed over detailed information to assist his regime, according to secret files found in Libyan government offices.

The documents claim that MI6 supplied its counterparts in Libya with details on exiled opponents living in the UK, and chart how the CIA abducted several suspected militants before handing them over to Tripoli."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/03/secret-libyan-files-mi6-cia

-->If the US is in Libya to protect the Libyan people, why was the CIA handing over information on dissidents to Gaddafi? The NY Times, ever eager to promote the official Pentagon version of events, did not cover this story.

------

Huffinton Post:
"The (Center for American Progress) report, 'Fear Inc: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,' demonstrates that a small group of self-proclaimed experts, Frank Gaffney, David Yerushalmi, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and Steve Emerson, backed by a host of foundations and donors, many of which also fund the (Israeli) lobby, have put Islamophobia on the map.

To put it simply, without these 'experts,' their donors, and Fox News (their media mouthpiece) you would never have heard that a Muslim community center (the 'Ground Zero Mosque') was being constructed in New York City. And the center certainly would not have become a major news story. Nor would Republican (and even a few Democratic) candidates for president, Congress, and even village councils be called upon to condemn Islam and 'Sharia Law' or face being labeled a supporter of terrorism. Nor would Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum have made hatred of American Muslims such an integral part of their campaigns...

But it's also very dangerous, as the Norway slaughter attests. The strangest thing about the killings is that they happened in Norway. Reading this report, you have to wonder why it hasn't happened here. Yet."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/who-funds-all-the-muslim-_b_937979.html

-->When it comes to hate mongering from the Israeli Lobby, the NY Times is nowhere in sight. It didn't cover this report.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-09-01T20:57:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Politico:
"We may never know for sure, but there is a growing consensus that a natural gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing is linked to earthquakes. For example, Arkansas has experienced a swarm of earthquakes in the aftermath of hydraulic fracturing (also called “fracking”) for natural gas. Other regions of the country where fracking is taking place, Texas, West Virginia, and New York, have also witnessed a series of quakes in the vicinity of these drilling sites.

In the process of fracking, water and toxic fluid is injected deep underground at high pressure into rocks in order to actually create micro-earthquakes. These mini-quakes, in turn, release the gas trapped deep in the rock, allowing it to bubble to the surface.  The United States Geological Survey thinks the earthquake swarms that follow are caused less by the fracking itself than by the reinjection of wastewater from fracking, blasted under high pressure into the ground. The wastewater can act as a lubricant, while also providing pressure that can lead to a quake."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/25-3

-->The NY Times has not explored fracking and the resulting propensity for earthquakes in areas that have been drilled. But then again, The NY Times has defended nuclear energy for decades, primarily because large business interests are behind it.

------

Common Dreams:
"US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced today that he will introduce legislation when Congress reconvenes to strengthen and preserve Social Security.

Since it was signed into law 76 years ago this month, Social Security has kept millions of senior citizens, widows, orphans, and the disabled out of poverty. To keep Social Security strong for another 75 years, Sanders’ legislation would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year.
Joined at a press conference by leaders of Vermont seniors organizations, Sanders also cautioned that Social Security may be in jeopardy as a powerful new congressional 'super committee' looks for ways to cut deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next decade."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/25-8

-->There is no more dishonest debate in America than the one over Social Security. The NY Times did not cover this simple solution introduced by Bernie Sanders. Tax the wealthy a little more for Social Security and the supposed problem with the program disappears.

------

Pro Publica:
"With housing prices dropping sharply, and foreclosure filings against more than 1 million properties in the first half of this year, the Obama administration is scrambling for ways to help homeowners.

One place they won't be looking: An estimated $30 billion from the bailout that was slated to help homeowners but is likely to remain unspent.

Of the $45.6 billion in Trouble Asset Relief Program funds meant to aid homeowners, the most recent numbers available show that only about $2 billion has actually gone out the door.

The low number reflects how little the government's home loan modification and other programs have actually helped homeowners deal with the foreclosure crisis."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/25-11

-->When it came down to helping Wall Street or Main Street, Bush and Obama were on the same page. The NY Times did not cover this story that clearly demonstrates how both major parties work against the interests of the middle class.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-08-25T22:31:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Politico:
"The FCC gave the coup de grace to the fairness doctrine Monday as the commission axed more than 80 media industry rules.

Earlier this summer FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski agreed to erase the post WWII-era rule, but the action Monday puts the last nail into the coffin for the regulation that sought to ensure discussion over the airwaves of controversial issues did not exclude any particular point of view. A broadcaster that violated the rule risked losing its license...

Monday’s move is part of the commission’s response to a White House executive order directing a 'government-wide review of regulations already on the books' designed to eliminate unnecessary regulations.

...Genachowski said in a statement that the move was aimed at promoting 'a healthy climate for private investment and job creation.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/22-7

-->The FCC and Obama killing off the Fairness Doctrine wasn't newsworthy enough to make it into The NY Times, despite the fact that our newspaper of record describes every betrayal of working people as necessary for investment and job creation.

------

ZietNews:
"Ok, those Germans are just showing off now. Not only has the nation announced plans to shut down all of its nuclear power plants and started the construction of 2,800 miles of transmission lines for its new renewable energy initiative, but now the village of Wildpoldsried is producing 321% more energy than it needs! The small agricultural village in the state of Bavaria is generating an impressive $5.7 million in annual revenue from renewable energy...

The village’s green initiative first started in 1997 when the village council decided that it should build new industries, keep initiatives local, bring in new revenue, and create no debt. Over the past 14 years, the community has equipped nine new community buildings with solar panels, built four biogas digesters and installed seven windmills with two more on the way. In the village itself, 190 private households have solar panels while the district also benefits from three small hydro power plants, ecological flood control, and a natural waste water system.

All of these green systems means that despite only having a population of 2,600, Wildpoldsried produces 321 percent more energy than it needs – and it’s generating 4.0 million Euro (US $5.7 million) in annual revenue by selling it back to the national grid. It is no surprise to learn that small businesses have developed in the village specifically to provide services to the renewable energy installations."
http://www.zeitnews.org/energy/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs.html#.TlC9ZPDkoU8.facebook

-->The NY Times is not interested in such ecological scenarios for the future of America. There are few stories printed about alternatives to big oil.

------

Ralph Nader for Common Dreams:
"It was only a matter of time before the 'pull down' NAFTA and WTO trade agreements on U.S. wages and jobs would be followed by 'pull down' contract demands by U.S. corporations on their unionized workers toward levels of non-unionized laborers...

Mr. Lowell McAdam (Verizon's CEO) would surely have trouble feeling the pain of his workers who brave the elements storm or shine to afford him a salary of over 1.5 million dollars PER MONTH plus perks and benefits.

Watching Verizon profits soar year after year, noticing Verizon stock rise faster than its competitors, knowing that the company's top five executives took in over $250 million between them in the last four years, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) took their members on strike on August 7, 2011...

These workers pay their taxes. While the tax lawyers for their bosses have figured out how to turn Verizon into a vast tax escapee. According to the super-accurate Citizens for Tax Justice, Verizon Communications made a total of $32.5 billion dollars in pretax U.S. profits during 2008, 2009, 2010. Far from paying the maximum federal corporate income tax rate of 35 percent on these ample profits, Verizon's federal income tax was negative $951 million or negative 2.9 percent!"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/23-5

-->The NY Times contribution to this ripoff of Verizon's workforce? Full page ads, paid for by Verizon, that claim worker contracts should "reflect the changing times." Like US corporations making billions while workers get nothing.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-08-18T21:41:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

McClatchy Newspapers:
"WASHINGTON — When congressional cost-cutters meet later this year to decide on trimming the federal budget, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could represent juicy targets. But how much do the wars actually cost the U.S. taxpayer?

Nobody really knows. The National Priorities Project estimates the total financial cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars at over $1.23 trillion (http://costofwar.com. Nobody really knows.

Yes, Congress has allotted $1.3 trillion for war spending through fiscal year 2011 just to the Defense Department. There are long Pentagon spreadsheets that outline how much of that was spent on personnel, transportation, fuel and other costs. In a recent speech, President Barack Obama assigned the wars a $1 trillion price tag.

But all those numbers are incomplete. Besides what Congress appropriated, the Pentagon spent an additional unknown amount from its $5.2 trillion base budget over that same period. According to a recent Brown University study, the wars and their ripple effects have cost the United States $3.7 trillion, or more than $12,000 per American."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/16-3

-->Most American's know that our federal and state budgets are terribly out of balance. This Brown University study explains why our government is broke, and it's the war, stupid. The NY Times did not cover this story.

------

National Security Archive:
"TOP SECRET CIA 'OFFICIAL HISTORY' OF THE BAY OF PIGS: REVELATIONS...In perhaps the most important revelation of the entire official history, the CIA task force in charge of the paramilitary assault did not believe it could succeed without becoming an open invasion supported by the U.S. military. On page 149 of Volume III, Pfeiffer quotes still-secret minutes of the Task Force meeting held on November 15, 1960, to prepare a briefing for the new President-elect, John F. Kennedy: 'Our original concept is now seen to be unachievable in the face of the controls Castro has instituted,' the document states. 'Our second concept (1,500-3000 man force to secure a beach with airstrip) is also now seen to be unachievable, except as a joint Agency/DOD action.'

This candid assessment was not shared with the President-elect then, nor later after the inauguration..."
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/index.htm

-->Interesting to learn that the CIA lied to President Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs invasion. Just how many of our foreign policy decisions are made by the CIA rather than by our elected officials? The question will never occur to readers of the NY Times; our newspaper of record didn't print this story.

------

Free Press:
"AT&T's plan to take over T-Mobile is about gouging consumers, destroying a competitor and firing an estimated 20,000 American workers.

We at Free Press have warned about this from day one. Now, one of AT&T's own lawyers has confirmed it. He inadvertently leaked a letter that reveals the merger has nothing to do with expanding AT&T's coverage to 97 percent of the country – the main argument the company has made to gain Washington’s support – and everything to do with eliminating the cheaper T-Mobile option from the marketplace (and laying off half of its workforce) to pad company profits.

The truth is out. Every AT&T argument about the supposed benefits of this merger has now been proven wrong. As AT&T's case unravels, we must keep up the pressure and urge Washington to stop supporting a deal that is so harmful to workers, consumers and our economy."
http://act2.freepress.net/go/5575?akid=2759.8935889.ToPRpf&t=3

-->The NY Times is not interested in narratives that are critical of giant corporations. Nor is NPR. The coverage by both "liberal" news sources is heavily weighted by AT&T's official statements on the merger.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-08-11T23:14:00.001-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

There is no more dishonest reporting in the US media than what we have witnessed in the past month regarding the budget crisis. News about the nation's deficit is written by the Wall Street propagandists and passed off as reasonable analysis. Progressive voices are marginalized, so that working people are never reminded of the real reasons behind our nation's financial troubles.

Reason one: in the 1950's and 1960's, for every tax dollar collected from individuals, $1.50 was collected from corporations. At the present, for every dollar collected from individuals, $.25 is collected from corporations. Many of our largest, most profitable corporations pay nothing at all.

Reason two: in the 1950's and 1960's, the top tax rate paid by wealthy Americans was 91%. At the present, the very rich pay a top rate of 35%. Dividends and capital gains, the source of income for most multimillionaires, is pegged at 15%.

Reason three: the bailout of Wall Street speculators and the banks was closer to three trillion than the 750 billion reported in our media. Some has been repaid, but the worldwide give-away to the world's financial institutions is only now coming to light.

Reason four: the continuing wars in the Middle East and our nation's empire will cost three trillion in the decade, far more than is reported in the Pentagon budget.

None of this has anything to do with Social Security, Medicare, Pell Grants, teacher salaries, or the costs of environmental protections. In fact, all four reasons represent a type of criminal capitalism that will only get worse.

The very rich control Obama, the Congress, and almost all the media. There is no reason to think that corporations or the very wealthy will have to pay their fair share of taxes. In fact, the Estate Tax, is under continued assault by our nation's lawmakers. Billionaires want to leave all their obscene wealth to their children, while most of the nation's children face minimum wage or unemployment.

Since the very rich control US decision making, there is little chance that future Wall Street speculation will be regulated. In fact, the US is 96th out of 135 countries of the world in terms of income distribution, closest to Mexico and Iran. Unlike more progressive industrialized countries, the richest Americans have billions to speculate with, and virtually no incentive to restrain themselves. All will be bailed out by the US Treasury, so why worry?

Finally, endless wars mean endless profits to those in the criminal capitalist system. Haliburton is an example of a company that makes obscene profits from the wars the company creates and perpetuates. From Lyndon Johnson to Dick Cheney, Halliburton has had a hand in shaping foreign policy. The same is true of other corporations, like big oil, that profit from occupying foreign countries and exploiting their natural resources.

What will change any of this short of national rebellion?

------

The NY Times:
"Now, coming off one of his worst weeks since taking office, Mr. Obama is nearing a decision on whether he really meant that. Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election?

The Federal Reserve’s finding on Tuesday that there is little prospect for rapid economic growth over the next two years was the latest in a summer of bad economic news. One administration official called the atmosphere around the president’s economic team 'angry and morose.'

'The problem for Obama is that right now, the United States is either at a precipice or has fallen off it,' said David Rothkopf, a Commerce Department official in the Clinton administration. 'If he is true to his commitment to rather be a good one-term president, then this is the character test. In some respects, this is the 3 a.m. phone call.' "
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/us/politics/10obama.html?hp

-->Leave it to the NY Times to frame Obama's sellout of working people as a noble attempt to administer "disagreeable medicine" for the common good.

------

Daily Mail:
"Tony Blair is to face scathing criticism from the official inquiry into the Iraq War for the role he played in leading Britain into one of its biggest foreign policy fiascos in modern history. The Mail on Sunday has been told that the former Prime Minister will be held to account on four main failings:

Bogus claims that were made about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Not telling the British public about his secret pledge with George Bush to go to war. Keeping the Cabinet in the dark by his ‘sofa government’ style. Failing to plan to avoid the post-war chaos in Iraq."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2020625/Iraq-inquiry-Tony-Blair-held-account-Chilcot-report-war.html

-->Not only did the NY Times omit this story in its print edition, but our newspaper of record has never brought up the failure of our current administration in investigating Bush era lies and war crimes. In the "land of the free," the media, the Pentagon, and both parties conspire to protect the empire from bad publicity.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-07-28T22:59:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Politisk.tv2:
"The Foreign Minister was met with calls that Norway must recognize a Palestinian state when he visited the Labour Youth League summer camp Thursday.

During the second day of Labour Youth League summer camp at Utøya the Labour Party's young hopefuls got a visit by Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store.

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Sidsel Wold and Norwegian People's Aid Kirsten Belck-Olsen, discussed the deadlock between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with the Foreign Minister.

'The Palestinians must have their own state, the occupation must end, the wall must be demolished and it must happen now, said the Foreign Minister to cheers from the audience.'
http://politisk.tv2.no/nyheter/st%C3%B8re-om-israel-palestina-konflikten-%E2%80%93-okkupasjonen-ma-opph%C3%B8re-muren-ma-rives-og-det-ma-skje-na/

-->What was going on at that Norwegian youth camp before Breivik's murderous attack? Why were its participants chosen for assassination? The US media, including The NY Times doesn't mention a word about the camp's pro Palestinian events that week. In fact, Breivik's numerous pro-Zionist statements are also completely ignored. The NY Times' article about Breivik's influences doesn't mention Zionism, BDS or Israel even once. Yet Breivik's numerous references to Israel tell a different story. "A public statement in support of Israel against Muslim aggression should be issued, and the money that has previously been awarded to Palestinians should be allocated partly to Israel's defense..."

---------

Salon:
"For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates...

Now that we know the alleged perpetrator is not Muslim, we know, by definition, that Terrorists are not responsible; conversely, when we thought Muslims were responsible, that meant, also by definition, that it was an act of Terrorism. What it says is what we've seen repeatedly: that Terrorism has no objective meaning and, at least in American political discourse, has come functionally to mean: violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/23/nyt/index.html

-->The NY Times quoted Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation. "If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from al-Qaida." So, if what happened in Norway is not Terrorism, just local "political extremism," it is still the fault of al-Qaida.

---------

Common Dreams:
"Congressman Dennis Kucinich took to the House floor again today to defend seniors from unfair attempts to cut Social Security benefits. Kucinich has previously pointed out that Social Security is financially sound and should not be connected to the federal deficit debate.

'The latest attack on elderly beneficiaries of Social Security is a scheme by which seniors' Cost-of-Living benefits would be cut through something called a Chained Consumer Price Index. The C.P.I., chained, involves a formula which recalculates the Cost-of-Living.

'The theory behind the Chained C.P.I. is that as the Cost-of-Living goes up, consumers, in this case seniors, buy cheaper products. For example, if poor seniors cannot afford to buy and eat steak, but can only afford to buy cheaper cat food, their Cost-of-Living benefit would be chained to the cost of the cat food, because it's cheaper than steak.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/07/22-2

-->There is no more dishonest media stores than the ones describing the need to cut Social Security to trim the deficit. As if Social Security were draining the governments coffers, rather than supporting the wars in the Middle East and tax cuts for the wealthy. Workers pay in much more Social Security taxes than goes out to retirees, and they have since the middle of the 1980's. Obama is proposing to take even from working people's retirement payments to fund his continuing wars. Of course, Obama's dream is to hand Social Security to Wall Street, what Clinton and Bush tried to do before him.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-07-22T11:39:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

KGW News Channel 8 in Portland:
"A Seattle nuclear watchdog group is accusing the federal government of failing to keep the public informed of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
In the days following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the U.S. began monitoring radiation from Japan's leaking nuclear power plants.

Most of the public attention went to the air monitoring which showed little or no radiation coming our way. But things were different on the rain water side.
'The level that was detected on March 24 was 41 times the drinking water standard,' said Gerry Pollet from Heart of America Northwest. He reviewed Iodine 131 numbers released by the Environmental Protection Agency last spring.

'Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded.When in fact the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards,' said Pollet."
http://www.kgw.com/home/Group-says-feds-downplayed-radiation-in-NW-rainwater-125419388.html

-->The NY Times didn't bother reporting this story, probably because it involved our government understating the effects of Fukushima on the American public. However, The NY Times has its own bias in favor of Nuclear energy which can be seen in its reporting over the last twenty years. "The New York Times continues to be, as it was a half-century ago when nuclear technology was first advanced, a media leader in pushing the technology, which collapsed in the U.S. with the 1979 Three Mile Island and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accidents. The Times has showered readers with a variety of pieces advocating a nuclear revival, all marbled with omissions and untruths."
-Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the SUNY, and media critic on nuclear energy coverage.

---------

Inter Press Service:
"When weeklong negotiations on the control and regulation of the global arms trade were concluded last week, there was one missing link in the proposed treaty: riot control equipment used recently against peaceful demonstrators in the streets of Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Jordan.

The Arms Trade Treaty, which is expected to be finalized and signed next year, is either ambiguous or excludes weapons of repression, including rubber bullets, water cannons, tear gas canisters, and high voltage electric-shock stun guns...

The London-based Amnesty International (AI) warned that if certain types of security and police equipment such as non-military firearms, including riot guns, crowd control vehicles, shotgun ammunition and tear gas, are not clearly covered by the ATT, 'many governments will not prevent such arms being supplied and used for serious violations of human rights.'
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/18-7

-->The NY Times did not cover this failure of the Arms Trade Treaty to cover weapons used to suppress peaceful demonstration. Of course, The NY Times covers very few peaceful demonstrations in the world, unless they are endorsed by the Pentagon.

---------

The Hill - Washington, DC:
"One out of more than 800 Palestinian children charged with throwing stones in the West Bank over a six-year period was acquitted, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

Ninety-three percent of the 834 under-18s who were convicted were given prison sentences by the Israeli military courts, including 19 children aged 12 and 13. The sentences ranged from a few days to 20 months. The imprisonment of Israeli children under the age of 14 is not allowed...Most of the minors were aged 16 and 17, but 255 were 14 or 15, with 34 under 14.

Only five cases were brought to a full trial compared to 624 which ended with a plea bargain. 'Judges order the vast majority of minors to be held in custody until the end of the criminal proceedings, forcing plea bargains. This is because even if the minor is eventually acquitted, he will spend a longer period of time in custody during the course of a full trial than the length of punishment if he pleads guilty in a plea bargain,' said B'Tselem.

B'Tselem interviewed 50 Palestinian minors for the report. Many described being arrested in the middle of the night, denied access to their families or lawyers and mistreatment. Only two of the children interviewed for the report, No Minor Matter, had an adult present during questioning."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/18/israel-detained-835-palestinian-minors

-->The NY Times didn't report this study by B'Tselem, the Israeli peace group. The abuse of Palestinian children by Israel is not something The NY Times wants its readers to know. All the news that fits the pro Israel slant of our newspaper of record.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-07-14T23:34:00.002-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Guardian UK:
"The family of Rachel Corrie, the US activist killed in Gaza while protesting against house demolitions in 2003, on Monday claimed the Israeli military authorities withheld video evidence during the Corries' civil lawsuit and misled US officials on crucial details.

Craig Corrie, Rachel's father, told a press conference in Jerusalem that the footage from a surveillance camera near the scene of his daughter's death submitted to the court was "incomplete". Additional video material obtained by the family showed Rachel's body in a different spot to the place identified by some military commanders, he said.

He also alleged that the Israeli military had misled US officials on the position of Rachel's body when she was killed.

Rachel, from Olympia, Washington state, was killed while attempting to protect the home of a Palestinian family in the Rafah area of Gaza from being demolished by Israeli troops in March 2003. Her family and other activists who witnessed the incident say she was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/corries-accuse-israelis-death
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/04-0

-->The NY Times didn't report this story. Any other trial of foreign soldiers accused of killing an American citizen would certainly have gotten more notice in our newspaper of record. But Israel is a special case for The NY Times, and both its reporters have special relationships to the apartheid state.

---------

Committee to Stop FBI Repression:
"With a courtroom packed so there were no empty seats, Carlos Montes plead 'Not Guilty' to six felony charges in court on July 6, 2011. Defense attorney Jorge Gonzales said the Los Angeles District Attorney is using 'selective enforcement' to target Carlos. The U.S. government is using a 42-year-old charge from 1969 to prosecute Carlos Montes today for a weapon and an ammunition charge, and four charges of perjury on his weapons permits.

The FBI and LA Sheriff’s SWAT team broke down the door and raided Carlos Montes’ home in May. It is clear from the statements of local police and law enforcement officials on July 6 that the FBI is leading the charge in targeting Carlos. Carlos Montes said outside court, 'This attack on me is a pretext. They are using it to attack me because of my political activity – denouncing U.S. intervention in Colombia, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in Palestine.' "
http://www.stopfbi.net/2011/7/9/carlos-montes-pleads-“not-guilty”-next-court-date-set-august-12

-->The NY Times has never covered the arrest and prosecution of Carlos Montes, even though the facts of the case point to FBI harassment and selective enforcement of various laws. Our newspaper of record usually waits at least a decade before this type of news becomes fit to print.

---------

The Hill - Washington, DC:
"The Social Security Administration estimates that a proposal floated by the Obama administration would put 245,000 people into poverty, according to an analysis released by liberal senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Saturday.

That level of impact would be felt by 2050 if a proposal to change the way inflation is measured is adopted, Sanders announced. The change to the way SSA would calculate the Consumer Price Index has been floated in debt ceiling talks between Congress and the White House. The White House has suggested revising CPI for both the tax code, in order to generate more revenue, and for benefits.

Social Security Administration’s Office of Retirement Policy estimated that by 2030, according to the report prepared for Sanders, there would be 173,400 more people living in poverty in the United States. Benefits for those who are 80-89 would drop by $960 a year. Benefits for women would fall by 3.5 percent overall while men’s benefits would drop by 2.9 percent. By 2050, seniors in the 80-89 age bracket would see benefits fall by $1,200 a year.

'I am especially disturbed that the president is considering cuts in Social Security after he campaigned against cuts in 2008,' Sanders said. 'The American people expect the president to keep his word.'
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/10

-->The NY Times didn't report this study by Burnie Sanders. In general, The NY Times has shied away from explaining how much Obama's Social Security changes would hurt senior citizens. And stating the obvious, that Obama is not keeping his word to the American people, would never sit well with The NY Times corporate board of directors. Wall Street, of course, stands to gain billions by robbing working people of their retirement incomes.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-07-07T20:50:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Inter Press Service:
"WASHINGTON - Data on attacks by armed opposition forces and U.S. combat casualties since the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan was completed last summer provide clear evidence that the surge and the increase in targeted killings by Special Operations Forces have failed to break the momentum of the Taliban.

The Taliban and allied insurgent organisations launched 54 percent more attacks and killed or wounded 56 percent more U.S. troops over the nine months from last October through May than in the comparable period a year earlier, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Defense and by the highly-respected Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO).

The nearly 1,571 attacks in May recorded by ANSO, which exceeded the previous monthly peak total of 1,541 attacks in September 2010, was achieved four months earlier in the fighting season than the previous peak."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/04-0

-->The NY Times did not cover this discouraging data about the failure of the "surge" in Afghanistan. As a major supporter of US wars in the Middle East, The NY Times just doesn't report much bad news.

---------

Army Times:
"NAIROBI, Kenya — U.S. military forces landed in Somalia to retrieve the bodies of dead or wounded militants after a U.S. drone strike targeted a group of insurgents, Somalia's defense minister said Friday.

The operation is at least the second time U.S. troops have landed in Somalia after a targeted strike, though no forces have been stationed there since shortly after the "Black Hawk Down" battle that left 18 Americans dead in 1993...

U.S. officials have increased their warnings that the threat from Somalia's al-Shabab militant group is growing and that militants are developing stronger ties with the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
Incoming Pentagon chief Leon Panetta told lawmakers last month that as the core al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan undergoes leadership changes, with the killing of Osama bin Laden, the U.S. needs to make sure that the group does not relocate to Somalia."
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/07/ap-somalia-us-took-bodies-militants-after-strike-070111/

-->The NY Times did not report the landing of US military forces in Somalia. In fact, our newspaper of record has not seemed to notice US forces in Libya, Pakistan, or Yemen either. Let's call this omission Pentagon friendly, since most Americans are against the use of military forces in an ever expanding number of Third World countries.

---------

The NY Times:
Ethan Bronner, that master of pro-Israeli spin, had a recent article in Sunday's edition entitled, fittingly enough, "Setting Sail on Gaza's Sea of Spin." Why is the Freedom Flotilla "transporting basic aid, food and cement, when it is no longer needed?" he asks. Gazans "need many things, (but) basic supplies are not among them" he writes later, only to follow up with, "There is no shortage of food in Gaza."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/sunday-review/03flotilla.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=spin%20gaza&st=cse

-->A UNICEF report in April tells a different story. "In 2010, 11 out of 100 under-five children suffered from chronic malnutrition (11.3 per cent in the West Bank and 9.9 per cent in Gaza)."

In January, a similar report stated that: "10.3 percent of children under five are stunted (low height for age), a steadily increasing trend over recent years. Stunting is usually attributed to a chronic lack of protein and micronutrients, including iron and essential vitamins." The report also cites the fact that, "Roughly two-thirds of the population - 50 percent of whom are under 18 - is deemed food insecure, according to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

Yet Mr. Bronner adheres to the Zionist spin that no one goes without food in Gaza because of the Israeli blockade. Why is he still reporting for a newspaper that claims it delivers all the news that's fit to print?

Fantasyland Media:

2011-06-30T21:50:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Firedoglake:
"A few days ago, rallies were held in cities all over the United States in support of veteran Chicano activist Carlos Montes, who had his home raided by the FBI on May 17. The rallies coincided with Montes’ arraignment hearing for felony charges, which were filed against him by the LA County Sheriffs and FBI after the raid.

The target of an ever-expanding government investigation into antiwar and international solidarity activists, Montes demanded that his charges be dropped. The District Attorney denied his request. Montes asked to see the search warrant and police report on the raid of his home. The District Attorney initially refused the request but then agreed to release heavily edited versions of the documents. Montes was also told he would not be allowed to show the documents to the press.

Tom Burke, a spokesperson for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression and a subpoenaed activist, explains that Montes allegedly was found to be in possession of a weapon that was not properly registered. Burke believes that if Montes hadn’t been a political activist or organizer he would have been contacted about a problem on the gun permit. But, the LA sheriffs chose to make an example of Montes.

Burke also notes, like twenty-three other activists subpoenaed thus far, Montes has a link to the organizing of marches at the 2008 Republican National Convention."
http://my.firedoglake.com/kgosztola/2011/06/18/obama-dojs-war-on-free-speech-activism/

-->The NY Times avoids stories that make the US look like a police state. Carlos Montes' arrest and the subsequent rallies against FBI harassment were never reported on.

---------

The Guardian UK:
"Israel steps up campaign to stop flotilla sailing to Gaza in defiance of blockade...

One ship, the Juliano, is being repaired after a suspected underwater sabotage attack. The ship's propeller shaft was partially sawed while it was docked at the Greek port of Piraeus. Another ship, the Audacity of Hope, has been banned from leaving port until Greek authorities agree it is seaworthy.

'We can't say for certain that Israel was responsible for the sabotage but no one else wants to stop us sailing,' said Arraf (Flotilla organizer)...

In another incident, government staff circulated a video purporting to be made by a gay rights activist whose offer to join the flotilla had been rejected. The activist said he was rejected because the organisers were associated with Hamas which was homophobic and antipathetic to human rights.

When the video was exposed as a hoax, the Prime Minister's office said the video was promoted by an intern, Guy Seemann."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/28/israel-gaza-flotilla-campaign

-->The NY Times does it's best to protect Israel from bad publicity. Our newspaper of record did not report the attack on the Juliano, a Swedish ship, nor the attempt by the Israel to slander the Freedom Flotilla using a fake video. UPDATE: The NY Times finally did report the sabotage, on the very last line of a story on an Israeli group's efforts to block the flotilla. Instead of a "partially sawed" propeller shaft, The NY Times reported it to be "severed," a way to avoid the fact that the terrorists who did this intended the shaft to fail at sea, when passengers' lives would be at risk.

---------

Guardian UK:
"Climate Sceptic Willie Soon Received $1m from Oil Companies, Papers Show. Documents obtained by Greenpeace show prominent opponent of climate change was funded by ExxonMobil, among others.

Dr Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, is known for his view that global warming and the melting of the arctic sea ice is caused by solar variation rather than human-caused CO2 emissions, and that polar bears are not primarily threatened by climate change.

But according to a Greenpeace US investigation, he has been heavily funded by coal and oil industry interests since 2001, receiving money from ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Insitute and Koch Industries along with Southern, one of the world's largest coal-burning utility companies. Since 2002, it is alleged, every new grant he has received has been from either oil or coal interests.

In addition, freedom of information documents suggest that Soon corresponded in 2003 with other prominent climate sceptics to try to weaken a major assessment of global warming being conducted by the UN's leading climate science body, the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/28-12

-->Rather than printing this story about corporate funding of climate skeptics, The NY Times chose to put it on the Times Topics blog where it would get less attention. In fact, The NY Times has given the well paid Dr. Willie Soon's conclusions far more respect than they deserved, even quoting Dr. Soon in 2008 as saying that "most influential forecasts of polar-bear populations violate at least 73 of the 90 relevant principles of scientific forecasting." The Guardian UK exposed some of Dr. Soon's funding back in 2008; why not our newspaper of record?

Fantasyland Media:

2011-06-23T23:55:00.001-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

The New York Times:
"Public Unions Take On Boss to Win Big Pensions: Government unions are using their influence and campaign contributions to stave off cutbacks."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/business/22union.html?_r=1&hp

-->NY Times exposés about big salaries and pensions usually involve supposed union abuses. What if The NY Times had front page pictures of our nation's CEOs who make an average of $11,000,000 per year, a 23% increase since 2010 (S&P 500 Companies). How about Viacom's Philippe Dauman who made $84,500,000, Oracles's Lawrence Ellison who made $70,000,000, or IBM's S.J. Palmisano who made $31,700,000? Our newspaper of record would prefer its readers concentrate on the union lifeguard in Laguna Beach, CA who earns $84,000 per year. For those interested in doing the math, the lifeguard gets .0009% of what Viacom's CEO brings home each year.

"According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. corporations held a record $1.93 trillion in cash on their balance sheets in 2010. But they are not investing to expand their companies, grow the real economy or create good middle-class jobs. Corporate CEOs are literally hoarding their company’s cash—except when it comes to their own paychecks." -from Executive Paywatch

The trouble is that many Board of Directors of The New York Times are themselves high paid executives of venture capital, investment, pharmaceutical, and other large corporate enterprises. When is the last time The NY Times ran a story supporting unions, or explaining their importance in winning higher wages for all working people?

---------

Common Dreams:
"Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi parliament speaker, has told Al Jazeera that the amount of Iraqi money unaccounted for by the US is $18.7bn - three times more than the reported $6.6bn.  Just before departing for a visit to the US, al-Nujaifi said that he has received a report this week based on information from US and Iraqi auditors that the amount of money withdrawn from a fund from Iraqi oil proceeds, but unaccounted for, is much more than the $6.6bn reported missing last week.  "There is a lot of money missing during the first American administration of Iraqi money in the first year of occupation. 'Iraq's development fund has lost around $18bn of Iraqi money in these operations - their location is unknown. Also missing are the documents of expenditure.'  The Bush administration flew in a total of $20bn in cash into the country in 2004. This was money that had come from Iraqi oil sales, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food programme and seized Iraqi assets."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/201161962910765678.html

-->$18bn stolen from Iraqi oil sales, UN oil for food programs, and seized Iraqi assets didn't bother The NY Times enough to print this story. It had spent the early part of the last decade selling this war to the Americans as a way to improve the lives of the Iraqi people.

---------

The Guardian UK:
"Tim DeChristopher is scheduled to be sentenced in a Salt Lake City courtroom by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson on July 26. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine for fraudulently bidding in December 2008 on parcels of land, including areas around eastern Utah’s national parks, which were being sold off by the Bush administration to the oil and natural gas industry. As Bidder No. 70, he drove up the prices of some of the bids and won more than a dozen other parcels for $1.8 million. The government is asking Judge Benson to send DeChristopher to prison for four and a half years.

His prosecution is evidence that our moral order has been turned upside down. The bankers and swindlers who trashed the global economy and wiped out some $40 trillion in wealth amass obscene amounts of money, much of it provided by taxpayers. They do not go to jail. Regulatory agencies, compliant to the demands of corporations, refuse to impede the destruction unleashed by the coal, oil and natural gas companies as they turn the planet into a hothouse of pollutants, poisoned water, fouled air and contaminated soil in the frenzied quest for greater and greater profits. Those who manage and make fortunes from pre-emptive wars, embrace torture, carry out extrajudicial assassinations, deny habeas corpus and run up the largest deficits in human history are feted as patriots. But when a courageous citizen such as DeChristopher peacefully derails the corporate and governmental destruction of the ecosystem, he is sent to jail."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/20-11

-->The NY Times doesn't care about moral orders turned upside down, as long as corporations continue to profit. It didn't cover this story.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-06-16T20:34:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia):
"This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled funding for reconstruction in postwar Iraq.

But despite years of investigations, US defense officials still cannot say what happened to $US6.6 billion ($6.3 billion/Australian) of the cash. Federal auditors are now suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error.

After the US-led invasion in March 2003, the Bush administration flooded Iraq with so much cash that a new unit of measurement was born.

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $US2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $US100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash followed by 20 other flights by May 2004 in a $US12 billion haul that US officials believe to be the biggest ever international cash airlift.

Stuart Bowen, special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, said the missing $US6.6 billion might be 'the largest theft of funds in national history.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/13-3

-->Stories about the extreme corruption of the US empire never make much of an appearance in the US media. The Sydney Morning Herald thought this story was fit to print, but not The NY Times.

---------

The Guardian UK:
"The Gaza Strip enters its fifth year of a full Israeli blockade by land, air and sea on Tuesday with unemployment at 45.2%, one of the highest rates in the world, according to a UN aid agency report.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) found that by the second half of 2010, real wages had fallen 34.5% since the first half of 2006, when sanctions were imposed by Israel after Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip, won a Palestinian legislative election. The UN says the strict blockade began a year later.

'These are disturbing trends,' said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness, 'and the refugees, who make up two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million population, were the worst hit.'

He said: 'It is hard to understand the logic of a man-made policy which deliberately impoverishes so many and condemns hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people to a life of destitution.' "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/14/un-unrwa-report-blockade-gaza-unemployment

-->In the heart of the empire, few stories about apartheid Israel see the light of day. The NY Times, in particular, censors out information critical of Israel's blockade of Gaza. It didn't print this story. UPDATE: The NY Times printed this story several days later, under the heading of "U.N. Charts High Jobless Rate in Gaza, Despite Israel’s Easing of Blockade." The story by Ethan Bronner, whose son served in the Israeli Defense Force, does its best to obscure the reason behind the unemployment figures. Most of The NY Times story talks about Hamas. Of course, the UN spokesman's quote about Israel "deliberately" impoverishing so many people was deemed unfit to print.

---------

Common Dreams:
"On May 17, 2011 at 5:00 AM the SWAT Team of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and members of the FBI raided the home of Carlos Montes, a long time Chicano activist and active member of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. The SWAT Team smashed the front door and rushed in with automatic weapons as Carlos slept. The team of Sheriffs and FBI proceeded to ransack his house, taking his computer, cell phones and hundreds of documents, photos, diskettes and mementos of his current political activities in the pro-immigrant rights and Chicano civil rights movement. Also taken were hundreds of historical documents related to Carlos Montes’ involvement in the Chicano movement for the past 44 years.

Carlos was arrested on one charge dealing with a firearm code and released on bail the following morning. His first court appearance is set for June 16, 2011.

This attack on Carlos Montes is part of the campaign of FBI harassment taking place against the 23 peace and justice activists which has until now been centered in the Midwest. Carlos Montes’ name was listed on the subpoena left in the office of the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee last September 24. When Carlos Montes was placed in the LA County Sheriff's car, an FBI agent approached and asked him questions about the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
http://stopfbi.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8b7315d854bc40ca9fa6dd227&id=74805d70be&e=5c238101f1

-->FBI crackdown on dissent? Peace and social justice activists harassed and arrested? Our newspaper of record, The NY Times, would never sully itself by printing stories about our emerging police state.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-06-09T22:52:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Business Insider:
"A Wikileaks post published on The Nation shows that the Obama Administration fought to keep Haitian wages at 31 cents an hour.

It started when Haiti passed a law two years ago raising its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour. According to an embassy cable:

This infuriated American corporations like Hanes and Levi Strauss that pay Haitians slave wages to sew their clothes. They said they would only fork over a seven-cent-an-hour increase, and they got the State Department involved. The U.S. ambassador put pressure on Haiti’s president, who duly carved out a $3 a day minimum wage for textile companies (the U.S. minimum wage, which itself is very low, works out to $58 a day)."
http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6

-->All those Americans who gave disaster relief to the poor in Haiti were just throwing their money away because the state department, pressured by US corporations, cut the minimum wage in half. Good thing The NY Times didn't publish this story, the ugly face of the US occupation.

---------

Democracy Now:
"The Nation magazine, in partnership with the Haitian weekly newspaper, Haïti Liberté, has launched a series of reports based on more than 19,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks. Called 'The PetroCaribe Files,' the series begins with an exposé of how the United States—with pressure from Exxon and Chevron—tried to interfere with an oil agreement between Haiti and Venezuela that would save Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, $100 million per year.

'It’s really amazing to see an ambassador pushing around a president, and all his officials telling them what to do, that they don’t understand this, they don’t understand that, trying to tell them what Haiti’s interests are. It’s the epitome of arrogance,' says the report’s co-author, Kim Ives."
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/3/wikileaks_cables_reveal_secret_history_of

-->Again, US corporations cheating the impoverished Haitian people. This is what US imperialism in Haiti looks like. Is it any wonder that Latin America sees the US as its greatest threat to peace and prosperity? Thankfully, readers of The NY Times are spared any knowledge of how their brutal empire works.

---------

Common Dreams:
"In January, the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged.

The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to combat the three deadly pandemics in 150 countries. 'This mean-spirited policy,' the Cuban government said, 'aims to undermine the quality of service provided to the Cuban population and to obstruct the provision of medical assistance in over 100 countries by 40,000 Cuban health workers.'

Most of the funds are used to import expensive AIDS medication to Cuba, where antiretroviral treatment is provided free of charge to some 5,000 HIV patients."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/30-1

-->Has Obama changed the cruelty and arrogance of US policy in Latin America? Readers of The NY Times may think so, but that is because our newspaper of record just doesn't run stories critical of the empire. This story never made it to print.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-06-02T20:14:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Guardian:
"David Cameron (British Prime Minister) has stepped down as a patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in a move pro-Palestinian campaigners claim is a result of pressure but which Downing Street insists is part of a general review of the prime minister's charity connections...

The JNF was originally set up to buy land in Palestine to establish Jewish settlements before the creation of the state of Israel. Now it is a global charity which describes itself as the 'caretakers of the land and people of Israel,' specialising in planting forests. Critics say it expropriated land belonging to Palestinians and has obliterated pre-1948 Arab villages by planting forests and parks. The JNF is involved in the demolition of Bedouin villages in the Negev desert as part of an afforestation plan.

Sofiah Macleod of the UK-based Stop the JNF Campaign said the organisation's lobbying had led Cameron to withdraw. 'There has been a change in public opinion and awareness about Israel's behaviour and there was specific pressure on [Cameron] to step down from the JNF,' she said. 'We believe he has stepped down as a result of this political pressure. Given the establishment support that the JNF has received, it's not a decision he will have taken lightly.' "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/29/david-cameron-resigns-patron-jnf

-->Somehow, English politicians can move away from supporting apartheid Israel and its stranglehold on millions of Palestinians. US politicians from Obama on down simply can't, and an active media in this country would have explored this issue long ago. Of course, The NY Times never covered this story.

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Common Dreams:
"US State Department Warns US Boat to Gaza and new U.S. Coast Guard Special Notice on the Gaza Maritime Area

On May 23, 2011, a delegation from the U.S. Boat to Gaza, the Audacity of Hope, advised State Department officials that a U.S. flagged ship would be in the June, 2011 Gaza flotilla.

State Department officials responded with the Travel Warning from the Bureau of Consular Affairs. The travel warning states 'U.S. citizens are advised against traveling to Gaza by any means, including via sea. Previous attempts to enter Gaza by sea have been stopped by Israeli naval vessels and resulted in the injury, death, arrest and deportation of U.S. citizens…The Israeli defense Forces (IDF) strictly controls the crossing points between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and has essentially sealed the border. The security environment within Gaza and along its borders, including its border with Egypt and tis seacoast, is dangerous and volatile.'

The U.S. government offensive against the flotilla sailing continued with the comment that the U.S. Coast Guard was publishing a new notice about Gaza waters, but they did not yet have a copy."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/30-0

-->The NY Times, along with much of the US media, has created a wall of silence around the Audacity of Hope. 50 Americans are going to break the sea blockade of Gaza this June, and our newspaper of record can't bring itself to print one word about it. Zionist sympathies have always trumped the American people's right to know.

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The Hill:
"An increasingly war-weary House will vote this week on legislation that would halt the U.S. military intervention in Libya. The vote comes just days after lawmakers nearly approved a measure to expedite the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday the House would take up a resolution introduced by anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that directs the president to remove U.S. armed forces from Libya. The liberal Democrat is acting under authority of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which enables legislators to force a vote on troop withdrawal measures under certain conditions.

Kucinich has used the mechanism to force votes on withdrawing forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, most recently in March, but this will be the first such vote on the two-month-old Libya mission."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/30-1

-->Congress weary of the continuing Obama wars? Never happened for readers of The NY Times. All the news that's fit to print, as long as it supports US aggression abroad.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-05-26T22:18:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Alternet:
"The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world. The reason is very simple. Across the region, an overwhelming majority of the population regards the United States as the main threat to their interests.

In fact, opposition to U.S. policy is so high that a considerable majority think the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons. In Egypt, the most important country, that’s 80 percent. Similar figures elsewhere. There are some in the region who regard Iran as a threat—about 10 percent.

Well, plainly, the U.S. and its allies are not going to want governments which are responsive to the will of the people. If that happens, not only will the U.S. not control the region, but it will be thrown out. So that’s obviously an intolerable result."
-Noam Chomsky
http://www.alternet.org/story/150907/noam_chomsky%3A_'the_u.s._and_its_allies_will_do_anything_to_prevent_democracy_in_the_arab_world'/

-->These words, spoken at the 25th anniversary of FAIR, will never be printed in The NY Times. The analysis is just too close to the truth for a publication that spends most of its efforts justifying US occupations abroad. Of course, The NY Times didn't report the poll of Middle Eastern citizens either.

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McClatchy Newspapers:
"Buried in FBI laboratory reports about the anthrax mail attacks that killed five people in 2001 is data suggesting that a chemical may have been added to try to heighten the powder's potency, a move that some experts say exceeded the expertise of the presumed killer.

The lab data, contained in more than 9,000 pages of files that emerged a year after the Justice Department closed its inquiry and condemned the late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, shows unusual levels of silicon and tin in anthrax powder from two of the five letters...

The existence of the silicon-tin chemical signature offered investigators the possibility of tracing purchases of the more than 100 such chemical products available before the attacks, which might have produced hard evidence against Ivins or led the agency to the real culprit.

But the FBI lab reports released in late February give no hint that bureau agents tried to find the buyers of additives such as tin-catalyzed silicone polymers."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/19/114467/fbi-lab-reports-on-anthrax-attacks.html

-->The NY Times recently ran a story on its Times Topics blog about Bruce Ivins. No mention of the evidence overlooked by the FBI. Nothing about Ivins made it into the print addition.

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Common Dreams:
"Justice Department Withholding Information on Controversial Legal Theory.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit against the Department of Justice (DOJ), demanding the release of a secret legal memo used to justify FBI access to Americans' telephone records without any legal process or oversight.

A report released last year by the DOJ's own Inspector General revealed how the FBI, in defending its past violations of the Electronic Privacy Communications Act (ECPA), had come up with a new legal argument to justify secret, unchecked access to private telephone records. According to the report, the DOJ's Office of the Legal Counsel (OLC) had issued a legal opinion agreeing with the FBI's theory. That legal opinion is the target of the FOIA lawsuit filed Thursday...

'Congress is currently debating how to reform surveillance statutes like the PATRIOT Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act,' said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. 'If the FBI is claiming that it has the right to secret, unchecked access to Americans' communications records, Congress and the American public need to know that now.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/05/20-0

-->The NY Times obviously doesn't believe that Congress and the American public need to know about increased FBI surveillance of telephone records without legal process or oversight. Our newspaper of record didn't cover this story.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-05-22T21:32:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Press TV:
"A review of the Afghan military documents revealed more than 1,100 instances of US-led forces -- including Danish troops -- having used white phosphorus (WP) grenades, rockets and bombs, the Danish daily Information reported.

According to one document, US-led forces fired 20 to 50 WP rockets at a single target. Many of the WP munitions have often been used in residential areas.

White phosphorus is a substance that burns upon coming into contact with human flesh; it sticks to the skin and continues to burn as long as there is oxygen. The result is severe and possibly lethal chemical burns.

According to international conventions the use of white phosphorus is to be restricted exclusively to areas that are not densely populated.

However, the leaked documents from Afghanistan indicate that the WP has been used as an attack weapon in populated areas, including zones where the Danish troops are deployed."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179875.html

-->The NY Times avoids stories about American war crimes like the use of white phosphorus in civilian areas. All the news that the Pentagon thinks is fit to print.

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Guardian UK:
"Transgressions by the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian territories will be disclosed by a group of former soldiers in an internet campaign aimed at raising public awareness of military violations.

Video testimonies by around two dozen ex-soldiers - some of whom are identifying themselves for the first time - will be posted on YouTube. The campaign by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former soldiers committed to speaking out on military practices, launches with English subtitles on Monday.

Some of the former soldiers describe the "neighbour procedure", a term for the use of Palestinian civilians, often children, as human shields to protect soldiers from suspected booby traps or attacks by militants. The procedure was ruled illegal by Israel's high court in 2005. Others speak of routine harassment of civilians at checkpoints, arbitrary intimidation and collective punishment."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/16/former-israeli-soldiers-break-silence

-->The NY Times, like most mainstream media, likes to avoid any mention of the IDF abusing Palestinians. It's just the wrong narrative. But then again, our newspaper of record didn't even cover the Winter Soldier Testimony, a three day event in Washington DC that involved hundreds of Irag War vets.

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ACLU:
"A few top congressional insiders are aiming to sneak new worldwide war authority in to a 'must pass' piece of legislation: the Defense Authorization bill.

This new war authority would give the president — any president — the power to unilaterally take our country to war wherever, whenever and however he or she sees fit. It would essentially declare a worldwide war without end.

It is shocking that Congress is entertaining such legislation at a time when many are looking to see an end to escalating conflict and abuses of power in the name of fighting terrorism."
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3195&s_subsrc=110511_AUMF&JServSessionIdr004=44caaegcy1.app220a

-->Although The NY Times did run and editorial critical of the National Defense Authorization Act, this story should have been front page news. The law's enactment would destroy another Constitutional limit on the Executive Branch, putting us ever closer to an imperial presidency.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-05-05T20:45:00.002-04:00

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Press TV:
"The Egyptian foreign minister has called on the US to recognize Palestine as a state, as Palestinian factions are preparing to sign a unity deal.

Nabil al-Arabi urged the visiting US Congressman Steve Chabot on Sunday to 'press Washington to recognize Palestine as a state' in line with previous statements by the US administration about a two-state solution, Egypt's official news agency, MENA, quoted him as saying.

The issue came into view as Hamas political leader, Khaled Meshaal, will meet Fatah leader and acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas at the Arab League headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on May 4 to sign the Egyptian-brokered deal."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177763.html

-->The NY Times avoids printing stories that have to do with the international movement to recognize Palestine as a state. It didn't cover this story.

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Common Dreams:
"Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who has repeatedly challenged the Obama Administration’s policy on Libya, today made the following statement after a Libyan spokesman announced that a NATO missile attack on a residence in Tripoli killed Saif al-Arab, the youngest son of Colonel Gaddafi, and three of Gaddafi’s grandchildren. According to the spokesman, Gaddafi and his wife were in the home, but survived the attack. Saif al-Arab was reported to be a 29 year-old student and a civilian.

'NATO's leaders have blood on their hands. NATO's airstrike seems to have been intended to carry out an illegal policy of assassination. This is a deep stain which can never fully wash. This grave matter cannot be addressed with empty words. Words will not bring back dead children. Actions must be taken to stop more innocents from getting slaughtered.'

'Today’s attack underscores that the Obama Doctrine of so-called humanitarian intervention appears to be a cover for regime change through assassination and murder,' said Kucinich."
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/04/30

-->The NY Times did not cover Kucinich's remarks, nor even bother naming Saif al-Arab, the son killed in the assassination attempt.

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The New York Times Dec. 17, 1890:
"The Death of Sitting Bull - Story Of The Old Medicine Man's Last Fight. The Desperate Struggle to Resist Arrest That Ended In The Killing Of The Wily Old Plotter And His Son, With Other Indians.

Fort Yates, N.D., Is is evident that there was, cruel as it may seem, a complete understanding, from commanding officer to the Indian police, that the slightest attempt to rescue Sitting Bull should be a signal to send the old medicine man to the happy hunting grounds.

Major MLaughlin and Capt. Fechet had been informed by Gen. Miles on Saturday that the time to strike had come, and on Sunday Troops F and G Eighth Cavalry, and a company of infantry, proceeded by about twenty of the Indian police, started to the southwest to capture the chief of the recalcitrants...

The camp was already astir; at least 100 of the savages were stripped and in battle array and their ponies painted and bridled. The police were immediately surrounded by a jabbering, threatening band of reds, and the outlook for a massacre was excellent. The leader of the police, however, quieted the Sioux warriors to some extent by insisting that they had merely come down to camp to parley with Sitting Bull and fix up a general settlement of all difficulties. After talking with the old medicine man a few minutes, the police suddenly formed a cordon around Bull, gave a signal to the troops, leveled their Winchesters at the savages, and started on a run. They succeeded in getting him on a horse and moved off northward toward the cavalry.

The Indians were at first confused, and did not open fire on the police at the outset, else every one of the officers would have been killed. Very quickly, however, under the leadership of Blackbird, the son of Sitting Bull, the Sioux, with a hideous yell, charged on the police. Three of the police fell dead, and several others others were so badly wounded that they have since died.

About this time a detachment of cavalry rode up at a gallop and opened a furious fusillade upon the charging savages, who were quickly stampeded and run westward to the Grand River. Sitting Bull fell at the first volley, the shot having been fired by one of the police. As soon as he saw the Indians moving toward him Bull made a desperate attempt to join them, but the police, obeying their instructions to the letter, made a good indian of him without delay. The police then ran to cover, and the cavalry began firing at the reds with a Hotchkiss and a Gatling gun, the savages having retreated out of reach of the small arms. There were seven Sioux killed, among them Blackbird and Crowfoot, sons of Sitting Bull, the latter being a boy of but twelve years..."

-->Another time and another place in US history. But the assassination bears an eerie resemblance to our own troubled time. When will those savages ever learn?

Fantasyland Media:

2011-04-28T23:14:00.002-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Guardian UK:
"Numerous US officials are calling for a resurrection of the US Espionage Act as a tool for prosecuting WikiLeaks. The dusting-off of the old law is all but certain. But the outcome of the constitutional dust-up that is sure to follow will result in triumph or tragedy for the US bill of rights.

In 1917, in the midst of a war hysteria, the United States passed the Espionage Act. The law has nothing to do with prosecuting spies. From its inception, it had everything to do with suppressing dissent. The Great War was unpopular with many Americans, very like today's engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Make no mistake about it. The Espionage Act targeted political dissidents...

The Espionage Act wreaked havoc on the American political left, destroying the young American Socialist party and one of its most progressive unions, the Industrial Workers of the World. Many others, including intellectuals, journalists, film producers and pacifist religious figures were also prosecuted. Prison terms were long, and some political prisoners died in federal jails. The abuses under the law were legendary, and mark a sad day in US history."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/dec/15/wikileaks-us-espionage-act

-->The US media, including The NY Times has written very little about the impending use of the US Espionage Act. Free speech in America is of much less interest to our corporate controlled press.

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Independent UK:
"A New Jail for Bradley Manning – But the Controversy Rages On...

The last straw may have been a letter due to appear in the next issue of The New York Review of Books, signed by almost 300 US and foreign legal scholars. It denounces Pte Manning's treatment as a violation of the US Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on 'cruel and unusual punishment', and on the Fifth Amendment guarantee against punishment without trial.

As a former professor of constitutional law, it notes, Mr Obama of all people should be aware of these dangers: 'The question now is whether his conduct as Commander-in-Chief meets fundamental standards of decency.'

It also gives a graphic description of how Pte Manning was held at Quantico, locked alone in his cell for 23 hours each day: "During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question 'Are you OK?' verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again, 'Are you OK?' every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face.

At one point, he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell for a week. In the day, he also had to undress and wear a kind of smock – all because Pte Manning was considered a suicide risk, a claim that the prisoner himself and military psychiatrists have disputed."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/21-0

-->Readers of The NY Times might wonder what controversy was being reported on. The letter signed by 300 US and foreign legal scholars was not covered. Nor has The NY Times done a very good job specifying the degrading treatment of Bradley Manning while in prison.

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Foreign Policy in Focus:
"A secret operation to run guns across the border to Mexican drug cartels — overseen by U.S. government agents — threatens to become a major scandal for the Obama administration.

The operation, called 'Fast and Furious,' was run out of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) office in Phoenix, Arizona. ATF sanctioned the purchase of weapons in U.S. gun shops and tracked the smuggling route to the Mexican border. Reportedly, more than 2,500 firearms were sold to straw buyers who then handed off the weapons to gunrunners under the nose of ATF.

But once across the border, the agency seemed to lose track of the weapons. Hundreds of AK-47s and Barrett .50 caliber rifles — favorites of warring drug cartels —made it easily into the hands of some of Mexico’s most ruthless crime organizations."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/20-11

-->The NY Times did not cover this story, although the events have been well documented by "CounterPunch" on the left and Fox News on the right. Perhaps the story was seen as damaging to US relations with Mexico. Foreign policy objectives of the empire routinely trump the readership's right to know.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-04-21T19:51:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
"The budget proposal released last week by Rep. Paul Ryan includes tax cuts for the wealthy, tax hikes for the middle class, drastic cuts in spending and a radical restructuring of Medicare that would shift most of the cost of healthcare to seniors. Its dubious claims of deficit reduction rely on fatally flawed assumptions and inexplicable projections (Center for Budget & Policy Priorities)

But much of the media coverage about the plan has presented Ryan's proposal as a serious solution to long-term budget problems, or at least the starting point of a serious conversation about the topic...

In Time magazine, readers learned that Paul Ryan--described as having 'jet black hair and a touch of Eagle Scout to him--has unveiled an ambitious package of huge budget cuts designed to dig the country out of its crippling debt crisis. For Ryan, reining in spending is nothing less than an act of patriotic valor'...  He's been making the media swoon for months now, as the January 25 New York Times made clear: 'He is the guy with the piercing blue eyes, love for heavy metal on his iPod and a reputation among Democrats, including President Obama, as a Republican who has put forward budget ideas that are thoughtful and serious, if not in sync with their own.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/04/12-8

-->Our nation's corporate media simply loves the far right, especially when it comes to cutting workers' benefits to support tax cuts for the rich.

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The Guardian, UK:
"A senior United Nations representative on torture, Juan Mendez, issued a rare reprimand to the US government on Monday for failing to allow him to meet in private Bradley Manning, the American soldier accused of being the WikiLeaks source and held in a military prison. It is the kind of censure the UN normally reserves for authoritarian regimes around the world.

Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said: 'I am deeply disappointed and frustrated by the prevarication of the US government with regard to my attempts to visit Mr Manning.'

Manning's supporters claim that the US is being vindictive in its treatment of Manning, who is held at the marine base at Quantico, Virginia, in conditions they describe as inhumane."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/11/bradley-manning-juan-mendez-torture

-->The NY Times didn't print this story, nor mention Juan Mendez's comments. Government torture is often given short shrift by the official publication of the empire.

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Public Citizen:
"Plastic surgeons cover up new evidence of human cancer from implants.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery hosted a members only webinar essentially urging members to inaccurately downplay the risks of breast implant related cancer when speaking to female patients...

'Yes, it's classically a malignant tumor, but...when we were discussing ways to talk to the media, we decided that we would call this a condition...I would recommend that you use the same terms with your patients rather than disturb them by saying this is a cancer, this is a malignancy. The best word is this is a condition...' "

-->The NY Times did a health story on March 21 entitled "A Decade of Boosting Breast Size." No mention of the efforts by plastic surgeons to mislead their clients on the dangers of breast cancers.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-03-31T20:43:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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NPR:
WAMC/NPR interviewed Professor David Courtwright this Monday on US involvement in Libya. Dr. Courtwright assured listeners that our cause was just, and that "protecting innocent civilians" had the backing of world opinion. And since the US had no other motive for instituting a no fly zone in Libya, our government had to act. No question about it.

While Dr. Courtwright had worries about a protracted civil war in Libya, he never went back to his initial conclusion that the US had a moral imperative to initiate military action.

-->Dr. Courtwright's analysis is part of what Chris Hedges calls "the death of the liberal class," which is the title of his latest book. As a professor of history, Dr. Courtwright could certainly have come up with some other US motives in Libya, including controlling the oil, establishing of more US bases in the Middle East, and getting rid of an old enemy, Colonel Gaddafi. But the good professor could not, at least while maintaining his comfortable position as an NPR expert. Such is the sellout of our academic, liberal class to the military, industrial, corporate complex. NPR itself spends most of its time supporting the twin deceptions of American political life, that we live in a vibrant democracy, and that US wars abroad are always waged for moral reasons.

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Veterans Today:
"Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey has announced her country is developing a project to open up all crossings to the Gaza Strip, which has been suffocating for the last five years from an Israeli blockade.

She also said if Egypt would agree to open the Rafah crossing to bring in building materials and commodities, her country would be ready to restore it.

The statements came Monday during a meeting with several high-profile politicians in Europe staged by the European-Palestinian relations council.

Discussions included British MP Lord Andrew Phillips, member of European Parliament Alexandra Faith, MEP Derek Vaughan from Wales, and Swiss MP Geri Müller.

For his part, Lord Andrew Phillips, who headed the delegation, said world silence was to blame for Israel's obstinacy, saying that Tel Aviv understands that silence over recent attacks has provided a green light for more attacks."
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/03/24/swiss-president-announces-plans-to-break-gaza-siege/

-->The NY Times included a story about the Swiss President recently, but it involved the preservation of a 14th Century Chateau in Geneva. No mention of the preservation of 1.5 million Palestinians. The US media, complicit in the blockade of Gaza, would never let US citizens know of the international resistance to these war crimes.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education:
"The international campaign for an academic boycott of Israel claimed its first success on Wednesday when the University of Johannesburg Senate voted to pull out of a two-year-old joint research project with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev to battle algae that are infesting the South African city's reservoir.

The vote means that the University of Johannesburg is the first academic institution in the world to formally cut ties with an Israeli university as a result of pressure by supporters of the international boycott campaign...

The University of Johannesburg's Petition Committee, which led the campaign, said in a prepared statement that the Senate had also found 'significant' evidence that Ben-Gurion's research and other projects supported the Israeli military and, in particular, its occupation of Gaza."
http://chronicle.com/article/South-African-University-Is/126882/

-->Although the Chronicle mostly quoted Israeli professors who were opposed to the boycott, at least the story was covered. What is the excuse of The NY Times? Here is what the Guardian UK had to say: "Leading advocates of an academic boycott of Israel have stepped up their campaign calling for an 'outing' of Israeli universities which support their government's policy on the occupied territories.

Nearly 300 academics from around the world have published an open letter calling for leaders of Israeli universities to lay their political cards on the table and reveal whether they support the government's policies on the border conflict..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/mar/25/highereducation.uk

Fantasyland Media:

2011-03-24T22:39:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Reuters:
"Israel's expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem and eviction of Palestinians from their homes there is a form of ethnic cleansing, a United Nations investigator said on Monday.

United States academic Richard Falk was speaking to the UN Human Rights Council as it prepared to pass resolutions condemning settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The 'continued pattern of settlement expansion in East Jerusalem combined with the forcible eviction of long-residing Palestinians are creating an intolerable situation' in the part of the city previously controlled by Jordan, he said.

This situation 'can only be described in its cumulative impact as a form of ethnic cleansing,' Falk declared.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/21-3

-->Ethnic cleansing only makes the pages of The NY Times when it concerns a regime the US government considers hostile to its interests. A long time protector of Israel's image in America, our newspaper of record would never cover this accusation, despite the fact that it was made by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights.

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The Guardian, UK:
"The face of Jeremy Morlock, a young US soldier, grins at the camera, his hand holding up the head of the dead and bloodied youth he and his colleagues have just killed in an act military prosecutors say was premeditated murder.

Moments before the picture was taken in January last year, the unsuspecting victim had been waved over by a group of US soldiers who had driven to his village in Kandahar province in one of their armoured Stryker tanks.
According to testimony collected by Der Spiegel magazine the boy had, as a matter of routine, lifted up his shirt to reveal that he was not hiding a suicide bomb vest.

That was the moment Morlock, according to a pre-arranged plan, threw a grenade at the boy that exploded while other members of the rogue group who called themselves the 'kill team' opened fire."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/afghanistan-trophy-photos-us-soldier

-->Although The NY Times covered this story, specifics about the killings were sanitized. The "boy" lured to his death becomes a "civilian...who appears to be dead." The photos of the victims are "inflammatory" because the faces of the soldiers "look disconcertingly satisfied." Perhaps the headline says it all: "Photos Stoke Tension Over Afghan Civilian Deaths," as if this were all a problem in public relations.

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NPR:
This week, WAMC/NPR covered a story about America's nuclear fears by interviewing a psychologist at George Washington University. The psychologist concluded that Americans are subject to these unreasonable fears because radiation cannot be seen and lends itself to hysterical responses. In addition, the US public can't separate nuclear bombs from nuclear energy, a totally different concept.

What to do to allay these irrational fears? The psychologist recommends desensitizing the public with field trips to nuclear reactors. That way, people will get used to this form of energy and their fears will diminish.

Perhaps local elementary schools around the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant would be interested. Their baby teeth already have greater concentrations of radiation then children living 100 miles away from the facility. Why not see first hand the plant that is spreading radiation in their bodies?

Leave it to NPR to treat citizens' fears of nuclear energy as pathology.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-03-17T22:01:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

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Guardian UK:
"In Europe, Israel has historically enjoyed a high level of support, not least because it was perceived as a progressive democracy in a sea of Arab backwardness. At the same time, most Europeans knew very little about the Israel-Palestine conflict: as recently as 2004, the Glasgow University Media Group found that only 9% of British students knew that the Israelis were the illegal occupiers of Palestinian land...

However, according to a new poll by ICM for the Middle East Monitor, Europeans' perception of Israel has changed decisively, and their understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict, while still giving some cause for concern, has improved significantly. The survey of 7,000 people in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain reveals only a small minority (10%) now believe their countries should support Israel rather than the Palestinians...

This decisive shift appears to be primarily a consequence of Israel's violation of international law, specifically its actions in Gaza, the 2010 attack on the humanitarian flotilla, its settlement expansion programme, and the construction of the separation wall."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/14/europe-israel-palestine-european-disconnect-public

-->The NY Times did not cover this story of growing European awareness of Palestinian rights. Readers of The NY Times have often had to go elsewhere for knowledge of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

----------

Vanity Fair:
"CNBC's Larry Kudlow: 'Human Toll' vs. 'Economic Toll'

Earthquake. Tsunami. Nuclear meltdowns. But, more importantly, what about your investment portfolio?
In these tough economic times, isn’t it nice to know that calamitous natural disasters needn't have an adverse affect on your investment portfolio? After the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan failed to induce a market nosedive, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow expressed his relief in terms that seemed to appall even his fellow cheerleaders for capitalism: 'The human toll here,' he declared, 'looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that.' "
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/03/larry-kudlow-devalues-human-life-with-japan-earthquake-freudian-slip.html

-->Larry Kudlow later used his Twitter account to apologize for his comment, writing that he had "flubbed the line." But the financial empire has always treated human suffering as a very minor impediment to the pursuit of profit.

----------

Associated Press:
"Promises, Promises: Obama Rebuffs Invites to Stand with Workers. Will Workers Stand with Obama Again in 2012?

Union leaders urged Vice President Joe Biden during a White House meeting last month to go to Wisconsin and rally the faithful in their fight against Gov. Scott Walker's move to curtail collective bargaining rights for most public employees.

Request rebuffed, they asked for Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. So far, however, the White House has stayed away from any trips to Madison, the state capital, or other states in the throes of union battles. The Obama administration is treading carefully on the contentious political issue that has led to a national debate over the power that public sector unions wield in negotiating wages and benefits.."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/13

-->Obama giving labor another kick in the teeth while he relaxes on the golf course? The NY Times doesn't like to remind its readers of how national politicians have betrayed the labor movement. It didn't carry the story.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-03-10T22:17:00.002-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

San Francisco Chronicle:
"They have received little attention in the United States, but a set of WikiLeaks disclosures of confidential documents has caused an uproar in Europe by showing that U.S. officials pressured Germany and Spain to derail criminal investigations of Americans.

The more than 2,500 State Department cables that the anti-secrecy group has provided to news organizations since November include accounts of three cases that shed new light on U.S. responses to allegations of wrongdoing by its agents abroad...

After German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents allegedly involved in el-Masri's abduction (he was taken to Afghanistan, tortured and injected with drugs), a February 2007 cable quoted the deputy U.S. chief of mission in Berlin as advising a German diplomat to 'weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S.' if the agents were prosecuted.

The German government withdrew the warrants five months later."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/07-0

-->Stories about how the US pressures its "allies" seldom get much coverage in this country, even when verified by Wikileaks. Preserving the public's idealism about US foreign policy always trumps the public's right to know.

----------

The Independent, UK
"Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi. The Saudi Kingdom, already facing a 'day of rage' from its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community on Friday, with a ban on all demonstrations, has so far failed to respond to Washington's highly classified request, although King Abdullah personally loathes the Libyan leader, who tried to assassinate him just over a year ago.

Washington's request is in line with other US military co-operation with the Saudis. The royal family in Jeddah, which was deeply involved in the Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, gave immediate support to American efforts to arm guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980 and later – to America's chagrin – also funded and armed the Taliban."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/americas-secret-plan-to-arm-libyas-rebels-2234227.html

-->The NY Times has avoided this story, in part because it shows how we use the dictatorships we control in the Middle East to expand our empire.

----------

PoliticusUSA:
"America is not broke.

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the super-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again: 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer .bailout. of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true..."
-Michael Moore at a labor rally in Wisconsin
http://www.politicususa.com/en/michael-moore-wisconsin-rally

-->This is probably the biggest domestic lie being repeated endlessly in the US media. That we are broke and that it doesn't have anything to do with the rich and the corporations not paying taxes. Our media is owned by those same rich people, and papers like The NY Times have become part of the pro-billionaire assault on all working people.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-03-04T09:57:00.001-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Pakistan Observer:
"The United States, Britain and France have sent several hundred 'defence advisors' to train and support the anti-Gadhafi forces in oil-rich Eastern Libya where 'rebels armed groups' have apparently taken over.

According to an exclusive report confirmed by a Libyan diplomat in the region the three Western states have landed their 'special forces troops in Cyrinacia and are now setting up their 'bases and training centres' to reinforce the rebel forces who are resisting pro-Qaddafi forces in several adjoining areas.

A Libyan official who requested not to be identified said that the U.S. and British military gurus were sent on February 23 and 24 night through American and French warships and small naval boats off Libyan ports of Benghazi and Tobruk."
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=78009

-->The US and English media have not even hinted at special forces operating in Libya. At least our media should let the public know of these reports.

----------

The Guardian UK:
"This past Saturday morning, across the street from a busy Bank of America branch in midtown Manhattan, an excitable 'tax avoidance specialist' was on hand, giving the assembled crowd of roughly 100 people some quick and easy tips on how to avoid paying their taxes as the 15 April federal tax deadline looms.

Protesters gathered outside of Bank of America branch in Manhattan as part of a nationwide action against the large financial institution. US Uncut is a new organization inspired by a movement in the UK that has held similar actions across Britain. The question now is: what impact can it have on the larger economic conversation in the US?"
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/28-4

-->Our newspaper of record, The NY Times, has given this nationwide movement against big banks no coverage at all. Contrast this to the endless coverage of the "Tea Party" movement. Of course, the Tea Party is funded by the same billionaires who call the shots for our national media. Stories about rage against big banks will never be considered "fit to print."

----------

Firedoglake:
"More than 18,000 Firedoglake activists signed our letter to PayPal asking to restore access to Bradley Manning's defense fund. After intense pressure from you and other Manning advocates, PayPal caved and restored access to the Bradley Manning Support Network's account.

The Bradley Manning Support Network's Jeff Patterson had this to say about your efforts. 'Thank you to all of our supporters – many of whom contacted PayPal individually or signed the petition hosted by Firedoglake – who helped us restore our account:

'We are extremely grateful to everyone who raised their voice today. Your actions were crucial in continuing to allow the Bradley Manning Support Network to defend Bradley. This is a huge victory for people over corporate intimidation.' "
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/m/5958d534/45929c58/63e797e9/3dc6412d/2207380073/VEsC/

-->Those reading The NY Times will never be aware of this attempt at corporate intimidation. Maybe that's because our newspaper of record has a long history of doing similar favors for the Pentagon. There was a brief reference to this story in the "Times Topics," a blog run by The NY Times. Nothing appeared in print.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-02-25T00:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Woodstock Weapons Watch:
"According to a newly-released WikiLeaks cable from the US Embassy in Cairo dated October 6, 2009, 'the Egyptian Ministry of Defense verified that it received 75 Electrical Rotron Fans from Ametek Rotron/Rheinmetall Defence Italia for use in the Skyguard Air Defense System.'

Ametek Rotron is Woodstock's own weapons manufacturer (and the town's biggest employer). It's hardly surprising that Rotron was supplying this particular dictatorship, since it ships components for many standard weapons systems all over the world. Indeed, it's highly likely that the F-16 warplanes that buzzed the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square contained Ametek Rotron components -- likewise the Abrams tanks that lined the square. But it's only occasionally that a corner of the curtain is lifted and we glimpse specific details of the unsavory business of arming dictatorships -- and Woodstock's bit part in it.

Quite probably these Woodstock weapons parts were paid for by US taxpayers as part of our massive military aid to the Egyptian regime. Ametek Rotron also supplies weapons components to the Israeli government -- again paid for by US taxpayers."
http://woodstockweaponswatch.blogspot.com/

-->The US media would never cover a story that linked American weapons manufacturers to dictators and human rights abuses in the Third World. It is another example of how our media obscures the machinery of empire. And what about the Woodstock Times? Are stories like this not fit to print?

----------

The Nation:
"This Is What Democracy Looks Like in Wisconsin, as Largest Crowd Yet -- 80,000 -- Opposes Union Busting.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker finished a bad week with a misstep that emphasized his inability to generate support for his attempt to strip the state’s public employees of collective bargaining rights.

First, the governor’s radical proposal went to such extremes in its anti-labor bias that it sparked a protest movement so large, so steady and so determined in its demands that it is now commonly compared with the protests that have rocked Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/20

-->Mainstream media would never suggest that the huge rallies in Wisconsin actually have anything to do with protests in the Middle East. The NY Times, for example, runs stories about Scott Walker as a populist motorcycle cycle rider, unafraid of union power. Yet labor rights is a form of human rights, and in America, the dictatorship being protested is the control of large corporations over our political process.

----------

Free Press:
"Yesterday, the House voted to block the FCC from protecting our right to access an open Internet. If successful, the move would give phone and cable companies absolute, unrestricted power over the Internet.

In the Senate, Republicans have introduced a 'resolution of disapproval' that would strip the FCC of its authority to protect our right to free speech online. Both of these moves come at a time when phone and cable giants are already restricting our ability to connect with others and share information...

A House vote is on the books. It's now up to the Senate. If it doesn't stop this resolution, the FCC would be barred from enforcing its already weak Net Neutrality rule, and from acting in any way to protect Internet users against corporate abuses by AT&T, Comcast and Verizon."
http://www.freepress.net/press-release/2011/2/17/house-votes-stop-fcc-enforcing-net-neutrality-punishes-public-servant

-->The only NY Times reference to this vote was in a reader's comment.

----------

"A modern American president-Republican or Democrat-operates as the messenger-servant of the country's corporations, defending them against their critics and ensuring that no obstacles are placed in their way. Since the right to profit is considered sacrosanct, any serious alternative is automatically rejected. This is the permanent tension that lies at the hart of a capitalist democracy and is exacerbated in times of crisis. In order to ensure the survival of the richest, it is democracy that has to be heavily regulated rather than capitalism. The inhuman exigencies of the system preclude policies that would obviously benefit a majority of the populations."
-From "The Obama Syndrome" by Tariq Ali

Fantasyland Media:

2011-02-17T22:06:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

The NY Times:
"Neither party has put forward specific proposals to begin grappling with the most pressing long-term budget problem: the huge costs in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs as the population ages and medical costs rise, a bill that could overwhelm the government and crimp the economy if not addressed."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/us/politics/15obama.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=jachie%20calmes&st=cse

-->The NY Times doesn't shy away from the big lie when it comes to Social Security; it is always "broke" or "going broke." This despite the fact that the federal government has made money on Social Security since the 1980's, taxing the working class (those making under $106,000) much more than was necessary to support this program. The result is that the federal government owes Social Security over a trillion dollars, money it has spent on wars and tax cuts for the very wealthy. Social Security would be solvent for the next 50 years if the income level for payroll taxes were raised from $106,000 to $120,000. But Wall Street wants this money to speculate with, and our newspaper of record is not about to let truth about Social Security get in the way.

----------

Institute for Public Accuracy:
“So, less than two months after signing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans into law, Obama proposes a budget that attacks programs that help the working poor and the most needy heat their homes, expand their access to graduate-level education, put their kids in Head Start, [and fund] summer jobs for youth, career development, after-school programs, child care, GED programs, affordable housing through cuts in Section 8 vouchers and public housing assistance, homelessness prevention, housing court advocacy, food pantries, access to tax credits, senior programs and more.”
http://web001.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/02/14-11

-->The NY Times, of course, never refers to the specifics of Obama's budget cuts, preferring generalities like "an array of domestic programs, including community services and environmental protections." Very little is said about Obama's tax giveaways to the very wealthy that made these cuts necessary.

----------

Guardian:
"Three large energy companies have been carrying out covert intelligence-gathering operations on environmental activists, the Guardian can reveal.
The energy giant E.ON, Britain's second-biggest coal producer Scottish Resources Group and Scottish Power, one of the UK's largest electricity-generators, have been paying for the services of a private security firm that has been secretly monitoring activists.

Leaked documents show how the security firm's owner, Rebecca Todd, tipped off company executives about environmentalists' plans after snooping on their emails. She is also shown instructing an agent to attend campaign meetings and coaching him on how to ingratiate himself with activists. The disclosures come as police chiefs, on the defensive over damaging revelations of undercover police officers in the protest movement, privately claim that there are more corporate spies in protest groups than undercover police officers."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/14/energy-firms-activists-intelligence-gathering

-->US media, including The NY Times, didn't cover this story of corporate spying on environmental activists in England. Maybe that's because it doesn't want to call attention to major US energy corporations doing the same.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-02-10T22:33:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Independent UK:
"Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama's envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator's own Egyptian government.

Mr Wisner's astonishing remarks – 'President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy' – shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama's judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a 'personal capacity.' But there is nothing 'personal' about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises the Egyptian military..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/revealed-us-envoys-business-link-to-egypt-2206329.html

-->The NY Times covered this story on their blog, but not in print. Why let too many people know that the corporations run US foreign policy?

----------

PressTV:
"US embassies in the Persian Gulf states are using low-level staff whose employers illegally confiscate their passports and provide them with poor living conditions.

An internal US State Department report says employers who provide gardeners, maids, cooks and local guards to embassies in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates put the workers at risk of human trafficking.

Over three-quarters of the scores of workers at the embassies in question told investigators that they were forced to pay fees to get their jobs, which for more than 25 percent of them was equal to over a year of their salary, AP reported.

Some workers also told investigators they had not been paid wages.

All of the surveyed contractors held the passports of their workers, who were mostly from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, the Philippines and Sri Lanka."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/164269.html

-->US embassies treating third world workers like dirt? Not something the US media would ever explore. The NY Times, predictably, ran a story about immigrant worker abuse in Dubai without mentioning exploitation by US embassies.

----------

PressTV:
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed US plans to set up permanent bases in his country, enabling its troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline.

The decision comes after negotiations between Karzai and US officials and senators on a range of strategic issues, including the establishment of permanent military bases in Afghanistan, DPA reported.

'Yes they want this (permanent bases) and we have been negotiating with them,' Karzai said at a press conference in his presidential palace on Tuesday."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/164268.html

-->Permanent military bases all over the Middle East? The US media never never gets around to informing the US public about our country's imperial ambitions.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-02-03T19:19:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Common Dreams:
"Rotten News? 2010 P.U.-Litzer Prizes for Bad Journalism (FAIR's 2010 P.U.-litzer Prizes Recognize the Worst of U.S. Journalism)...

On October 22, ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer introduced a report on WikiLeaks' exposure of thousands of classified documents from the Iraq War. ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz summarized the contents of the WikiLeaks files: 'Deadly U.S. helicopter assaults on insurgents trying to surrender.... The Iraqi civilian death toll far higher than the U.S. has acknowledged.... Graphic detail about torture of detainees by the Iraqi military.' After Raddatz's report, Sawyer offered this followup: 'I know there's a lot of outrage about this again tonight, Martha. But tell me, anything more about prosecuting the WikiLeaks group?'
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/30-7

-->Mainstream media is always for prosecuting those exposing corruption, torture and the killing of civilians by the US military. How about exposing the empire that creates these conditions in the first place?

----------

"New Low in Wartime Propaganda Award: Time magazine  In the wake of a release of damning WikiLeaks documents about the state of the Afghan War, Time magazine's August 9 cover sought to turn the debate over the war around. The photo was of an Afghan woman's maimed face, headlined 'What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.'

The implication couldn't be clearer: The Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. The fact that this particularly atrocity--whose connection to the Taliban has been questioned--happened with U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan complicates Time's argument."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/30-7

-->When will Time Magazine cover the the atrocities that the empire commits in Afghanistan or Iraq? When will US media like Time free themselves from being conduits of Pentagon war propaganda?

----------

"Am-I-Reading-The-Onion Headline Writing Award: Washington Post.

For its April 26 story, "Amid Outrage Over Civilian Deaths in Pakistan, CIA Turns to Smaller Missiles."  Honorable mention goes to the New York Times, whose Nov. 11 story explained the U.S. plan to remain in Afghanistan for at least three years longer than advertised. The headline: 'U.S. Plan Offers Path to Ending Afghan Combat.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/30-7

-->Maybe it's funny the lengths that our major newspapers will go to cover up the lies and atrocities behind US occupations abroad. But beneath the amusement, we have to realize that our media stands firmly behind the worst excesses of empire.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-01-27T23:33:00.001-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Guardian UK:
"British intelligence helped draw up a secret plan for a wide-ranging crackdown on the Islamist movement Hamas which became a security blueprint for the Palestinian Authority, leaked documents reveal. The plan asked for the internment of leaders and activists, the closure of radio stations and the replacement of imams in mosques.

The disclosure of the British plan, drawn up by the intelligence service in conjunction with Whitehall officials in 2004, and passed by a Jerusalem-based MI6 officer to the senior PA security official at the time, Jibril Rajoub, is contained in the cache of confidential documents obtained by al-Jazeera TV and shared with the Guardian. The documents also highlight the intimate level of military and security cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli forces.

The bulk of the British plan has since been carried out by the West Bank-based PA security apparatus which is increasingly criticised for authoritarian rule and human rights abuses, including detention without trial and torture."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/25/palestine-papers-mi6-hamas-crackdown

-->British complicity in human rights abuses directed at Palestinians? Not news worthy for publication by The New York Times.

----------

Jewish Voice for Peace:
"The recent release by Al Jazeera and the Guardian of some 16,000 documents related to nearly 20 years of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations sadly substantiates what Jewish Voice for Peace has said publicly for years- that the U.S. is not the neutral broker it claims to be.

The United States' unconditional support for Israel has helped to perpetuate the occupation by promoting endless negotiations that have enabled Israel to expand settlements while claiming to work towards peace.

Israel's lack of interest in ending the occupation and being a partner to peace is now nakedly revealed in documents which show its reaction to he Palestinian Authority's unprecedented concessions, shocking because they far exceed the requirements of international law. Israel offered an intransigent 'no' to every concession, with the U.S. looking on in approval."

-->These leaks prove that Israel, with the backing of the US, has no interest in reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians. The peace "talks" have been nothing but show while Israel steals more land on the ground in the occupied territories. Amazingly, The New York Times covered this story with generalizations like, "The documents, a mix of friendly banter and sharp exchanges illustrating the complex interpersonal relations between top Israelis and Palestinians." No hint of Israel's inflexibility. Ethan's Bronner, NYT correspondent, is a master at providing readers with a pro-Israeli narrative.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/world/middleeast/25mideast.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=palestinian%20talks%20leak&st=cse

----------

Guardian UK:
"The Obama administration has privately made clear that it will not allow any change of Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, the leaked papers reveal, let alone any repetition of the Hamas election victory that briefly gave the Islamists control of the Palestinian Authority five years ago.

That is despite the fact that the democratic legitimacy of both the Palestinian president and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and prime minister, Salam Fayyad, is strongly contested among Palestinians, and there are no plans for new elections in either the West Bank or Gaza.

"The new US administration expects to see the same Palestinian faces (Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad) if it is to continue funding the Palestinian Authority," the then assistant secretary of state David Welch is recorded as telling Fayyad in November 2008. Most of the PA's funding comes from the US and European Union."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/24/us-threat-palestinians-leadership-funds

-->Leaked documents that reveal the administration's bribing the Palestinian Authority to keep the same corrupt officials? It never happened for readers of The NY Times.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-01-20T22:20:00.001-05:00

"According to press reports on Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission announced its decision, by a vote of 4-1, to approve the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, one of the largest media mergers in history...

The FCC endorsed the deal despite pledges by Barack Obama during the last presidential campaign to oppose greater media consolidation. In June 2008, President Obama said, 'I strongly favor diversity of ownership of outlets and protection against the excessive concentration of power in the hands of any one corporation, interest or small group. I strongly believe that all citizens should be able to receive information from the broadest range of sources. I feel that media consolidation during the Bush administration has had the effect of eliminating a lot of the diversity of information sources available to persons who have to rely on more traditional information sources, such as radio and television broadcasts and newspapers.' "

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/18-5

-->The NY Times treats sell-outs like this with gentle omissions. Its article was filled with assurances from establishment talking heads, and only gave a one line reference to Obama. No quotes to show just how he had let down the voters yet again.

----------

The Guardian, UK:

"The United States was advised to adopt a policy of 'covert sabotage' of Iran's clandestine nuclear facilities, including computer hacking and 'unexplained explosions', by an influential German thinktank, a leaked US embassy cable reveals.

Volker Perthes, director of Germany's government-funded Institute for Security and International Affairs, told US officials in Berlin that undercover operations would be 'more effective than a military strike' in curtailing Iran's nuclear ambitions.

A sophisticated computer worm, Stuxnet, infiltrated the Natanz nuclear facility last year, delaying Iran's programme by some months. The New York Times said this week that Stuxnet was a joint US-Israeli operation."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/18/wikileaks-us-embassy-cable-iran-nuclear

-->This Wikileaks story doesn't seem to have made it into The NY Times, although its story referred to "clues" suggesting a joint US and Israeli effort. Why not offer proof? Maybe the Pentagon doesn't like the idea of following the advice of a German think tank.

----------

Daily Mail Online:

"Tony Blair misled Parliament and the public about the legality of the Iraq War, according to explosive documents released last night.

Former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said the then prime minister’s claims that Britain did not need a UN resolution explicitly authorising force were not compatible with his legal advice.

In testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry, made public for the first time yesterday, Lord Goldsmith said Mr Blair based his case for invasion on grounds that ‘did not have any application in international law’...

Asked whether ‘the Prime Minister’s words were compatible with the advice you had given him’, he replied: ‘No.’

The shattering testimony is a watershed moment for the Iraq Inquiry, as it is the first time that Lord Goldsmith has directly contradicted Mr Blair. The claims will form the centrepiece of Mr Blair’s second grilling by the inquiry on Friday."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348083/Iraq-inquiry-Tony-Blair-misled-MPs-legailty-war-says-law-chief.html

-->Why does an explosive story about Blair lying before the invasion of Iraq get no coverage in The NY Times? Or in the rest of the US media? Could it be that Americans might start wondering why Bush and Cheney are not being questioned about their many lies by a US inquiry?

Fantasyland Media:

2011-01-14T00:10:00.005-05:00

----------

Truth-Out.org:

"Since the June 2009 coup and throughout Lobo's tenure (in Honduras), widespread human rights abuses such as the targeted killings of journalists, the removal of opposition judges, mass arrests, beatings and torture have been thoroughly documented by human rights organizations...

These serious accusations have been largely ignored by the United States mainstream press, leaving the American public in the dark about the true color of a regime that now has the support of US diplomats. Amnesty International released three reports about various abuses to the public and to journalists between August 2009 and June 2010, yet none received any notable mainstream media attention in the United States...

Human Rights Watch, the largest human rights organization based in the United States, has released 20 publications — a variety of reports, press releases and statements — documenting a wide range of abuses in Honduras between the date of the coup and September 10, 2010.

Amazingly, elite national publications in the United States have paid no attention to these reports. The New York Times has published 53 articles about Honduras since the coup in mid-2009, and Human Rights Watch was only mentioned in one of them — a September 29, 2009 article about two media stations being closed down..."

http://www.truth-out.org/media-distortions-legitimize-honduras-regime65395

-->Human rights is simply treated as a propaganda tool by the Pentagon, using the The NY Times as its chief media outlet. China gets all the attention, along with Iran and Venezuela. Brutal dictatorships like the one in Honduras, put in place and supported by the Pentagon, supposedly don't have human rights abuses. That is if you depend on The NY Times for all the news that's fit to print.

----------

TomDispatch.com:

"Have you noticed that Lockheed Martin, the giant weapons corporation, is shadowing you? No? Then you haven't been paying much attention. Let me put it this way: If you have a life, Lockheed Martin is likely a part of it.

True, Lockheed Martin doesn't actually run the U.S. government, but sometimes it seems as if it might as well. After all, it received $36 billion in government contracts in 2008 alone, more than any company in history. It now does work for more than two dozen government agencies from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. It's involved in surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Pentagon, the Census Bureau, and the Postal Service.

...Naturally, the company produces cluster bombs, designs nuclear weapons, and makes the F-35 Lightning (an overpriced, behind-schedule, underperforming combat aircraft that is slated to be bought by customers in more than a dozen countries) -- and when it comes to weaponry, that's just the start of a long list. In recent times, though, it's moved beyond anything usually associated with a weapons corporation and has been virtually running its own foreign policy, doing everything from hiring interrogators for U.S. overseas prisons (including at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq) to managing a private intelligence network in Pakistan and helping write the Afghan constitution."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175339/tomgram%3A_william_hartung%2C_lockheed_martin%27s_shadow_government/#more

-->When is the last time The NY Times ran an article about Lockheed Martin's domestic spying programs? The only reference this past year in The NY Times was a story about a $200M cost overrun to put cameras in the NY City subways.

----------

Press TV:

"The US administration is ramping up a 'secret war on terror groups' in hot spots around the globe by establishing a new military targeting center, officials say...

'The new center would be a significant step in streamlining targeting operations previously scattered among US and battlefields abroad and giving elite military officials closer access to Washington decision-makers and counter-terror experts,' the officials revealed to the Associated Press...

The revelation comes while the US military has already increased the number of special operations and commando raids in Afghanistan.

'We've gone from 30-35 targeted operations a month in June 2009 now to about 1,000 a month,' said NATO spokeswoman Maj. Sunset Belinsky."

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158849.html

-->Assassination centers in numerous foreign countries is not something The NY Times would ever see fit to print. It is literally the establishment of world wide death squads by the US military. No reason to alarm the US public by reporting it in the US media.

Fantasyland Media:

2011-01-06T19:25:00.004-05:00

"As Washington gears up for a fight over federal spending and the national debt, lawmakers may want to consider some new polling figures.

A survey from CBS News' "60 Minutes" and Vanity Fair magazine shows that most Americans, given a set limited choices for balancing the national budget, would prefer to see taxes increased for the wealthy.

As many as 61 percent said they would prefer increasing taxes on the rich over three other options: cutting defense spending, cutting Medicare or cutting Social Security. Another 20 percent chose cutting defense spending as the best option. Just 4 percent said they would cut Medicare, and just 3 percent said they would cut Social Security."

-Poll by "60 Minutes" and "Vanity Fair"

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/01/04-1

-->The NY Times, like our new Governor Cuomo, talks endlessly about the need to cut social spending, rather than make the rich tax pay their fair share of taxes. The billionaire hedge fund managers pay a lower percentage of their taxes than the average school teacher. Exxon Mobile pays no taxes at all. Where is the outrage? Certainly not on the pages of our newspaper of record.

----------

Press TV:

"A senior Republican senator has suggested that the US should devise a plan to permanently keep American troops in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, told NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday that Republicans would push for indefinite US stay in Afghanistan in the years ahead.

'We have had air bases all over the world and a couple of air bases in Afghanistan would allow the Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban in perpetuity. It would be a signal to Pakistan that the Taliban are never going to come back. In Afghanistan they could change their behavior. It would be a signal to the whole region that Afghanistan is going to be a different place.' "

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158355.html

-->The NY Times didn't cover Graham's recommendations. Maybe that's because this deeply unpopular war is wholeheartedly supported by Obama and both political parties. Only the American people want to end the war. Why make them uncomfortable about their children and grandchildren dying in Afghanistan?

----------

Fiscal Policy Institute:

"The Path Not Taken: How New York State Increased the Tax Burden on the Middle Class and Cut Taxes for its Highest Income Taxpayers by Over $8 Billion a Year...

Since the late 1970s, New York State has pursued an income tax policy that has meant higher than necessary income taxes for middle income families and huge tax cuts for the best-off 5% of state taxpayers - many of whom are actually residents of other states (primarily Connecticut and New Jersey) who commute into New York City to work...

At the other end of the spectrum are the big winners. A family earning $500,000 is now paying $22,000 a year less than they would be paying...At the $1 million level, this savings is about $63,000 and at $2 million, it is about $145,000.

Why has New York State pursued such an attack on the middle class just to provide huge benefits to those who have the least difficulty in making ends meet? Has this been a conscious effort at class warfare? or, Have our policy-makers just been oblivious to the impact of the state's misguided tax policies?"

http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/taxhistory2.htm

-->The specifics about how NY Sate favors the very rich are often absent from the pages of The New York Times. It didn't cover this report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-12-30T23:09:00.000-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Aljazeera:
"The cold war ended two decades ago, but dreams of an impenetrable missile shield from Ronald Reagan - who once called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" - are firmly back on the US national security agenda.

Late on Wednesday, the US tested its newest round of interceptors, spending $100m to blast a missile from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean towards California.

The anti-ballistic missile system failed, as the kill vehicle designed to blow the projectile out of the sky missed its target, adding to a long-list of unsuccessful tests for the expensive weaponisation scheme.

Since the end of the cold war the US has spent 'approximately $100bn' on missile defence systems, Richard Lehner, a spokesman for the Missile Defence Agency, told Al Jazeera.

Wednesday’s failed long-range test was important because it involved an attempt to intercept a dummy warhead, rather than the usual testing scheme of just maneuvering the missile to a particular point in space, said Ian Anthony, the research coordinator for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think-tank in Sweden."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/20101217172028248218.html

-->The NY Times gave a brief history of US missile defense efforts in November. The story didn't mention the complete failure of such systems to intercept incoming missiles, and the huge cost borne by the American people. And our newspaper of record made no mention of this latest failure.

----------

The Guardian, UK
"The United Nations is investigating a complaint on behalf of Bradley Manning that he is being mistreated while held since May in US Marine Corps custody pending trial. The army private is charged with the unauthorised use and disclosure of classified information, material related to the WikiLeaks, and faces a court martial sometime in 2011.

The office of Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture based in Geneva, received the complaint from a Manning supporter; his office confirmed that it was being looked into. Manning's supporters say that he is in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day; this could be construed as a form of torture. This month visitors reported that his mental and physical health was deteriorating...

In an interview with MSNBC, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, described Manning as a political prisoner and called on human rights organisations to investigate."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/23/un-treatment-leaks-bradley-manning

-->No mention by The New York Times of the UN investigation of Bradley Manning's mistreatment. The victims of the US police state are off limits when it comes to all the news that's fit to print.

----------

Miami Herald:
"It was three months into Barack Obama's presidency, and the administration -- under pressure to do something about alleged abuses in Bush-era interrogation policies -- turned to a Florida senator to deliver a sensitive message to Spain:

Don't indict former President George W. Bush's legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees, warned Mel Martinez on one of his frequent trips to Madrid. Doing so would chill U.S.-Spanish relations.

Rather than a resolution, though, a senior Spanish diplomat gave the former GOP chairman and housing secretary a lesson in Spain's separation of powers. 'The independence of the judiciary and the process must be respected,' then-acting Foreign Minister Angel Lossada replied on April 15, 2009."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/25/v-fullstory/1988286/wikileaks-how-us-tried-to-stop.html#ixzz19YeC4vgg

-->The NT Times didn't cover this Wikileaks story. Maybe it put Barak Obama in too bad a light. Maybe it showed the US empire doesn't give a damn about human rights.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-12-23T23:32:00.002-05:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Committee to Stop FBI Repression:

"The FBI came unannounced to knock on doors at two apartments in Chicago this morning. FBI agent Robert Parker, under orders from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, delivered a subpoena to Maureen Murphy. Murphy, like several other individuals served subpoenas, is an organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago.

This continues the repression unleashed by Fitzgerald on the anti-war movement since September 24th, when fourteen subpoenas were delivered to anti-war, labor, and solidarity activists in coordinated raids involving more than 70 federal agents. Armed FBI agents raided homes, taking computers, phones, passports, documents, notebooks, and even children’s artwork. A total of 23 subpoenas have been served to activists around the country."

http://www.stopfbi.net/

-->Back to the bad old days of FBI political oppression of dissent. This time, advocating for Palestinian human rights seems to be the offense. Can free speech survive the FBI? Congress had real doubts about this when the FBI was formed about a hundred years ago. Nor has anything the FBI done since the Palmer Raids given us much reassurance. And our media shows little interest in this latest assault on civil liberties.

----------

Common Dreams:

"We are deeply disappointed that the chairman chose to ignore the overwhelming public support for real Net Neutrality, instead moving forward with industry-written rules that will for the first time in Internet history allow discrimination online. This proceeding was a squandered opportunity to enact clear, meaningful rules to safeguard the Internet’s level playing field and protect consumers.

The new rules are riddled with loopholes, evidence that the chairman sought approval from AT&T instead of listening to the millions of Americans who asked for real Net Neutrality. These rules don't do enough to stop the phone and cable companies from dividing the Internet into fast and slow lanes, and they fail to protect wireless users from discrimination. No longer can you get to the same Internet via your mobile device as you can via your laptop. The rules pave the way for AT&T to block your access to third-party applications and to require you to use its own preferred applications."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/21-9

-->The NY Times puts a happy face on the FCC decision, characterizing the ruling as "a classic Washington solution — the kind that pleases no one on either side of the issue." Obama is portrayed as "fulfilling a campaign promise" rather then selling out to big business. What else is new?

----------

Human Right Watch:

"This report consists of a series of case studies that compare Israel’s different treatment of Jewish settlements to nearby Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. It describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.

The report highlights Israeli practices the only discernible purposes of which appear to be promoting life in the settlements while in many instances stifling growth in Palestinian communities and even forcibly displacing Palestinian residents. Such different treatment, on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin and not narrowly tailored to meet security or other justifiable goals, violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under human rights law."

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/95059/section/2

-->Israel violating basic human rights in the occupied territories? Isn't that conclusion supporting terrorism, or speech that goes against what the US government wants us to believe? Maybe that is why The NY Times covered several recent Human Rights Watch reports on China, and none on Israel. It did print a letter, however, by Eli Wiesel, Alan Dershowitz and others criticizing Human Rights Watch's "focus on Israel."

Fantasyland Media:

2010-12-09T21:48:00.003-05:00

FireDogLake.com:

"Saturday the White House announced that the following noble protectors of American workers endorsed the NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade agreement:

US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue; President of the National Association of Manufacturers John Engler; Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit; JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon; Amway CEO and top Republican funder Dick DeVos; Big Bank lobby group Financial Services Roundtable President Steve Bartlett; and more.

That's an impressive array of people who are dedicated to protecting the ultra-rich and not giving a damn about real working Americans or American jobs. How could the Obama White House top that?

Here's the second round of endorsements from the White House for NAFTA-style Korea Free Trade; mind you the White House is actually bragging about these names:PhRMA, Wal-Mart, RIAA, AT&T, Mitch McConnell

It's like a party for the Corporate Axis of Evil, and Obama's throwing a kegger."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/05-2

-->One has to read alternative media to understand what the "free trade" agenda all about: multinational corporate profits at the expense of workers and the environment. But that point of view would never make it into the pages of The NY Times.

------------

Guardian UK:

"A scandal involving foreign contractors employed to train Afghan policemen who took drugs and paid for young 'dancing boys' to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try and 'quash' the story, according to one of the US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks.

In a meeting with the assistant US ambassador, a panicked Hanif Atmar, the interior minister at the time of the episode last June, warned that the story would 'endanger lives' and was particularly concerned that a video of the incident might be made public.

The episode helped to fuel Afghan demands that contractors and private security companies be brought under much tighter government control. However, the US embassy was legally incapable of honouring a request by Atmar that the US military should assume authority over training centres managed by DynCorp, the US company whose employees were involved in the incident in the northern province of Kunduz."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys

-->Perhaps a story about "dancing boys" was too off-color for readers of The NY Times. It didn't cover the story. But most stories that put the US occupation of Afghanistan in a bad light are censored by our newspaper of record.

------------

Inter Press Service:

"WASHINGTON - A diplomatic cable from last February released by Wikileaks provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the Iranian ballistic missile programme refuted the U.S. suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

A key Wikileaks document which should have resulted in stories calling into question the thrust of the Obama administration's ballistic missile defence policy in Europe based on an alleged Iranian missile threat has produced a spate of stories supporting the existing Iranian threat narrative. In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North Korea.

But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned those key facts about the document.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles - supposedly called the BM-25 - from North Korea. Neither newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the BM-25 from the U.S. side."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/30-6

-->Did The NY Times come clean after being exposed by Wikileaks? Not really. In a recent article entitled: "Wider Window Into Iran’s Missile Capabilities Offers a Murkier View," there are references to differing opinions on Iran's missile capabilities. No mention of the Russian evidence. Is The NY Times selling war on Iran the same way it sold war on Iraq? Whipping up hysteria for military intervention by reporting what the Pentagon says as the whole truth? Of course it is.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-11-18T23:28:00.003-05:00

------------

Inter Press Service:
"A special envoy from President Barack Obama raised the possibility in a secret meeting with senior Iraqi military and civilian officials in Baghdad Sep. 23 that his administration would leave more than 15,000 combat troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official familiar with the details of the meeting.

But the White House official, Puneet Talwar, special assistant to the president and senior director for the Gulf States, Iran and Iraq on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the deployment would have to be handled in a way that was consistent the president's pledge to withdraw U.S. troops completely from Iraq under the 2008 agreement, the official said.

Talwar suggested that the combat troops could be placed under the cover of the State Department's security force, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/16

-->Another peace promise being broken by our peace prize president? The NY Times didn't think this latest betrayal of the antiwar movement even worth reporting on.

------------

Reuters:
"GENEVA - The new U.N. torture expert urged the United States on Tuesday to conduct a full investigation into torture under the Bush administration and prosecute offenders as well as senior officials who ordered it.

Juan Ernesto Mendez told Reuters he also hoped to visit Iraq to probe a 'very widespread practice of torture' of detainees with the help of coalition forces, revealed in confidential U.S. files issued by Wikileaks.

He will also try to visit the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo -- on condition that he is granted private interviews with prisoners still being held by the Obama administration, he said in his first interview with an international media organisation since taking up the independent post two weeks ago.

'The United States has a duty to investigate every act of torture. Unfortunately, we haven't seen much in the way of accountability,' said Mendez, himself a former torture victim, in the wide-ranging interview at the United Nations in Geneva."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/16-7

-->Stories like this make the empire look bad. Of course The NY Times wouldn't report it.

------------

The Hill:
"Anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) says he will force a vote on a hard date for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan on the heels of reports they could remain there at least through 2014.

Kucinich said Wednesday that he will force a vote via privileged resolution at the beginning of the next Congress on ending the war in Afghanistan by the end of 2011...

His announcement comes after The New York Times reported that the Obama administration has stressed that it will leave troops in place at least through the end of 2014 in an effort to persuade Afghans and the Taliban the U.S. intends to complete its mission."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/11-5

-->The NY Times doesn't report on Congressional initiatives to end the war. Major news sources in the US still overwhelmingly support the wars in the Middle East, even though the American people do not.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-11-11T23:50:00.001-05:00

The Media Consortium:

"Last week, the Federal Reserve announced a plan to buy an additional $600 billion worth of Treasury bonds in an attempt to stimulate the economy. On Democracy Now!, economist Michael Hudson argues that the $600 billion T-bill buy will help Wall Street at the expense of ordinary Americans.

The Fed justifies the purchase as an infusion of cash into the U.S. economy. The buy-up will certainly be an infusion of cash into U.S. banks. In effect, the Fed will help the government pay back the banks that lent money to finance deficit spending. The hope is that these banks, suddenly flush with cash, will help the U.S. economy by lending money to finance projects that will create wealth and jobs (i.e. opening factories and hiring more workers).

However, as Hudson points out, there’s no guarantee that the banks are going to use the windfall to build wealth in the U.S. On the contrary, he argues, there’s every reason to suspect that they’ll invest the money overseas in currency speculation deals."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/09-3

-->Another 600 billion for the banks to speculate with, with nothing going to the average American worker. Try to find this analysis in the mainstream media. The NY Times, as usual, obscured the give-away in an article entitled: "Fed to Spend $600 Billion to Speed Up Recovery."

------------

Agence France Presse:

"GENEVA - The United States faced a barrage of calls to investigate allegations of torture and shut down Guantanamo Bay detention centre on Friday in its first review by the UN's top human rights assembly.

European countries joined appeals for a halt to the death penalty, and there was trenchant criticism of Washington's recent human rights record during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the detention and interrogation of terror suspects."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/05

-->Not much in mainstream media about this condemnation by the UN Human Rights Assembly. I guess Obama was supposed to change things, and newspapers like The NY Times don't really want readers too upset with business as usual in the US Empire.

------------

The Patriot-News:

"Tracking the Twitter activity of law-abiding citizens was part of the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security’s intelligence surveillance program.

According to internal Homeland Security e-mails produced through a Right-To-Know request, one of the targets of such surveillance was the Berks Peace Community, a 50-year-old group of Quaker-affiliated senior citizens. They gather on the Penn Street Bridge in Reading every Friday and quietly hold signs questioning America’s 'war habit.'

The e-mails also indicate that monitoring the tweets of law-abiding citizens was 'part of the intelligence effort that is conducted daily... on behalf of the PA Office of Homeland Security.' "

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/11/big_brother_monitored_tweets_t.html

-->Why bother reporting on the eavesdropping of our national security state when the President can decide who to assassinate without charges or trail. Does free speech exist when one's life can be taken away by the state without judicial process? Maybe that is why The NY Times didn't cover this story.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-11-04T21:10:00.001-04:00

Citizens for Legitimate Government:

"The Obama Effect: The Demise of the Democratic Party and a Gift to the Country By Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. 11 Dec 2009

The decision to escalate Afghanistan War should put the final nail in the coffin of "change" and "hope" that Democrats and others crawled into when they supported Obama. The evidence that Obama is every bit the representative of the corporate oligarchy and no less a corporate shill than the rest has been mounting for nearly a year-or well before the election for the cognoscenti. Only fanatics could have heard Obama's speech on Afghanistan and failed to hear the resonances of Bush. But the writing was on the wall over a year ago when Obama supported the bailouts of the banks and brokerage firms that leveraged their destruction of the economy on the foreclosures of homes. Few could miss the fact that the health care reform bill, should it ever pass, will be another unwarranted and gratuitous bailout-this one of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies... Only a working-class majority can overcome the power elite and end the wars.

http://www.legitgov.org/Michael-Rectenwald-Only-working-class-majority-can-overcome-power-elite-and-end-wars

-->Why can't the mainstream media come up with such an analysis? Instead, we hear this week that Obama is too far to the right. Don't trust the talking heads paid for by the corporate media. They can be counted on to always advise a move to the right, with less government regulation, and more tax cuts for the very rich.

------------

Inter Press Service:

"WASHINGTON - The revelation by Wikileaks of a U.S. military order directing U.S. forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as yet another case of lack of concern by the U.S. military about detainee abuse.

But the deeper significance of the order, which has been missed by the news media, is that it was part of a larger U.S. strategy of exploiting Shi'a sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the U.S. war.

And Gen. David Petraeus was a key figure in developing the strategy of using Shi'a and Kurdish forces to suppress Sunnis in 2004-2005.

The strategy involved the deliberate deployment of Shi'a and Kurdish police commandos in areas of Sunni insurgency in the full knowledge that they were torturing Sunni detainees, as the reports released by Wikileaks show."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/01-6

-->The US military responsible for the sectarian violence that still plagues Iraq? Americans will never see that part of Wikileaks in the major US media, which often serves to support such US occupations in the Third World. The best The NY Times can do is run "People Magazine" like articles attacking the Jullian Assange, as in: "WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil."

------------

WAMC/NPR:

Marketplace offered a special segment last week on controlling the federal deficit. The head of the Columbia School of Business Administration was there to claim that the problem is really with Social Security. This despite the fact that Social Security has run surpluses for decades, billions of dollars owed retiring American workers. The surpluses all went to funding US wars and giving tax cuts to the very rich. Social Security is still running a large surplus and will so for the foreseeable future. But Wall Street wants its cut, like the insurance companies wanted their cut of healthcare. So the mainstream media, including WAMC/NPR, must constantly distort the facts about Social Security. How else to rob the majority for the benefit of the richest?

http://www.classwars.org/socialsecurity.htm

Fantasyland Media:

2010-10-21T20:49:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Common Dreams:

"It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans...

Washington says nothing can be done. There’s no money left.

No money? The marginal income tax rate on the very rich is the lowest it’s been in more than 80 years. Under President Dwight Eisenhower (who no one would have accused of being a radical) it was 91 percent. Now it’s 36 percent. Congress is even fighting over whether to end the temporary Bush tax cut for the rich and return them to the Clinton top tax of 39 percent.

Much of the income of the highest earners is treated as capital gains, anyway — subject to a 15 percent tax. The typical hedge-fund and private-equity manager paid only 17 percent last year. Their earnings were not exactly modest. The top 15 hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion.

Congress won’t even return to the estate tax in place during the Clinton administration – which applied only to those in the top 2 percent of incomes.

It won’t limit the tax deductions of the very rich, which include interest payments on multi-million dollar mortgages. (Yet Wall Street refuses to allow homeowners who can’t meet mortgage payments to include their primary residence in personal bankruptcy.)...

The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that’s raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work."

-Robert Reich

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/19-1

-->The perfect storm threatening our democracy will not be a subject of our national media, which is owned by that tiny minority of US citizens who are so egregiously abusing America's working class.

------------

Common Dreams:

"Take the comparative news and feature coverage of Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington, D.C. on August 28 with the rally at the same place a month later, organized by 400 progressive labor, religious, civil rights, student and environmental groups.

In the Washington Post, it was not even close. For the progressive rally of comparable size, representing tens of millions of Americans, the Post devoted a short article presaging the event and a regular news story that day on page 3, which cited Mr. Beck’s preposterous estimate of 500,000 for his meeting (A CBS-retained consulting firm estimated Beck’s rally drew just under 90,000).

For the Beck rally, the Post went all out. A huge page one story spilled generously onto the inside pages. The FOX network talkers’ assembly got articles proceeding and after the gathering. The Times, while not so gushing, did manage to give Beck a startling ego-inflating headline—'Where Dr. King Once Stood, Tea Party Claims His Mantle.' And Beck is a TV media man promoting political action, a role that formerly was taboo.

The op-ed pages showcase the news media’s rightwing bent even more than the news articles. The op-ed pages of the Post are over-represented with war-mongering columnists and contributors. The media watchdog FAIR reported in their monthly magazine Extra that, in one nine-month period during 2009, the ratio of op-ed’s supporting wars and interventions outnumbered op-ed’s by the anti-interventionists by ten-to-one. This in an overwhelmingly liberal Democratic city, no less."

-Ralph Nader

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/18-6

-->For the "Perfect Storm" threatening our democracy, we get a media obsessed with right wing propaganda and war talk. To change America, we must end the dominance of the corporate based national media.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-09-30T20:01:00.002-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Salon:
"At this point, I didn't believe it was possible, but the Obama administration has just reached an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record. In response to the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki's father asking a court to enjoin the President from assassinating his son, a U.S. citizen, without any due process, the administration late last night, according to The Washington Post, filed a brief asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without hearing the merits of the claims.

That's not surprising: both the Bush and Obama administrations have repeatedly insisted that their secret conduct is legal but nonetheless urge courts not to even rule on its legality. But what's most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is 'state secrets': in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are 'state secrets,' and thus no court may adjudicate their legality." -Glenn Greenwald
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/26-5

-->Why doesn't The New York Times express outrage at this further shredding of the US Constitution? The story printed by The NY Times was very balanced, with some quotes supporting extrajudicial assassinations and some against. Our newspaper of record did not see fit to make this a subject of an editorial, and didn't bother quoting Mr. Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer who has written two books on the abuse of executive power.

(UPDATE: On Sept 30, The New York Times finally published an editorial condemning Obama's civil liberties record.)

------------

Huffington Post:
"The war on dissent, rather than terrorism, continued full steam with FBI SWAT teams breaking down doors at 7 am Friday (Sept 24) morning and raiding the homes of several anti-war leaders and activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and possibly a couple other Midwest cities. Members of the FBI's 'Joint Terrorism Task Force' spent a few hours at each Minneapolis residence, seizing personal photographs and papers, computers and cell phones as well as serving Federal Grand Jury subpoenas on the various activists.

Obviously the scathing review of post 9-11 FBI 'terrorism investigations' targeting various peace and social justice groups completed by the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) and just issued four days ago gave no pause to the FBI to reflect before continuing to do more of the same. Nor did accompanying media revelations about the FBI having improperly conducted surveillances of an antiwar rally in Pittsburgh; the Catholic Worker peace magazine; a Quaker activist, the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh, of members of the environmental group Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and of a small student group of anti-war activists in Iowa City, Iowa who were targeted for 9 months in 2008.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/inspector-general-critici_b_738932.html

-->The New York Times reported the FBI break-ins, but failed to link them to the Department of Justice's highly critical report of other FBI "Terrorism Investigations."

------------

Haaretz Newspaper
"Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be the winner of the construction-freeze crisis: The 10-month suspension of building in the settlements will not be extended and the prime minister has given up nothing. Peace talks with the Palestinians will continue, the coalition is as strong as ever, and the government enjoys some freedom of movement regarding the settlers and the U.S. administration.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, his threats to the contrary, will not scuttle the peace talks that have barely begun just because Netanyahu isn't extending the freeze. U.S. President Barack Obama, preaching for the moratorium to continue, can't force it on Netanyahu on the eve of the congressional elections when his party's leaders are calling for negotiations to continue without regard to the settlements."
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-winner-in-the-settlement-row-is-netanyahu-1.315719

-->Refreshing analysis by the Israeli newspaper of the left. It is too bad that the American media can't seem to focus on Obama's inability or unwillingness to demand an end to the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-09-23T23:08:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

WAMC/NPR:
A special report from the national NPR described the effectiveness of trade sanctions against Iran. There were some successes, according to the report. But real progress is still a long way off. The report cited Turkey and China as major obstacles in "stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons."

-->Notice how the debate in the US media has gone from whether Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons to how best to stop them from building the bomb. It is an important step to take, at least from the Pentagon's point of view. Establishing a nuclear weapons program in Iran is like establishing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before that misguided invasion.

Reading or listening to US media, one can understand the direction of US interventions in the Third World. First, the big lie. And then the US media repeating that lie again and again until most people consider it the consensus of informed opinion. But how did our media become the conduit for Pentagon propaganda? And how long has our "free press" been feeding us what the government wants us to believe?

------------

Common Dreams:
"Israeli Company Hired by State Government to Spy on Pennsylvanians and Other Americans.

The surprise disclosure that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through its state Homeland Security Agency, along with a number of local police departments in the state, have been employing a private Israeli security company with strong links to Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force grows increasingly disturbing when the website of the company, called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, is examined...

The description for the Tactical Advantage course, which the website says was designed for military, law enforcement and security personnel, describes the program as 'intense, dirty, aggressive and based on Israeli Counter-Terror Schools policy.' It says 'This course pushes trainees to the physical and mental edge.' American organizations which engage in protests and rallies, hearing that reference to the Israeli Counter-Terror Schools policy, might recall the IDF’s handling of the aid flotilla that was boarded on the high seas by IDF troops as they read these lines."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/19-1

-->An Israeli security company with links to their secret service is spying on political activists in Pennsylvania. But our newspaper of record, The NY Times, is disinterested in stories critical of Israel's power in the United States. Perhaps the newspaper has its own links to Mossad.

------------

The Raw Story:
"That the Food and Drug Administration is opposed to labeling foods that are genetically modified is no surprise anymore, but a report in the Washington Post indicates the FDA won't even allow food producers to label their foods as being free of genetic modification.

In reporting that the FDA will likely not require the labeling of genetically modified salmon if it approves the food product for consumption, the Post's Lyndsey Layton notes that the federal agency 'won't let conventional food makers trumpet the fact that their products don't contain genetically modified ingredients.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/19-0

-->The NY Times ran a story about GM salmon the same day. But the piece avoided any mention of the labeling controversy. When it comes to corporate policies that threaten human health, The NY Times can be counted on to toe the business line. Just look at the last decade's worth of positive articles on nuclear energy.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-09-16T20:43:00.003-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Common Dreams:
"Washington, D.C., is leading the transformation of urban public education across the country—at least according to Time magazine, which featured D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee on its cover, wearing black and holding a broom. Or perhaps you read it in Newsweek or heard it from Oprah, who named Rhee to her 'power list' of 'remarkable visionaries.'

But there’s nothing remarkably visionary going on in Washington. The model of school reform that’s being implemented here is popping up around the country, heavily promoted by the same network of conservative think tanks and philanthropists like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton Family Foundation that has been driving the school reform debate for the past decade. It is reform based on the corporate practices of Wall Street, not on education research or theory. Indications so far are that, on top of the upheaval and distress Rhee leaves in her wake, the persistent racial gaps that plague D.C. student outcomes are only increasing...

Rhee continues to target career teachers, in action and words. In the spring and summer of 2009 the district hired more than 900 new teachers—three times the usual number of summer hires. Then, in October, Rhee announced that a newly discovered budget shortfall required that 266 teachers be laid off. Because the layoffs were budget related, principals were free to ignore the 'last hired-first fired' rules in the union contract. According to the union, a substantial number of the laid-off teachers were older, more senior teachers, rather than those who had been hired the previous spring and summer. Students and parents protested as beloved teachers and counselors were yanked out of buildings."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/13-5

-->Very little in the US media questions "education reform" as presented by Bush and now Obama. But it involves the corporatization of public schools, and even to the firing of older, higher paid professionals. All the abuses of corporate America brought into the classroom.

------------

Guardian/UK:
"The bulk of the media often gets pulled along for the ride when the United States government has a serious political and public relations campaign around foreign policy. But almost nowhere is it so monolithic as with Venezuela. Even in the run-up to the Iraq war, there were a significant number of reporters and editorial writers who didn't buy the official story. But on Venezuela, the media is more like a jury that has 12 people but only one brain...

The 'all bad news, all the time' theme was overwhelmingly dominant even during Venezuela's record economic expansion, from 2003 to 2008. The economy grew as never before, poverty was cut by more than half, and there were large gains in employment. Real social spending per person more than tripled, and free healthcare was expanded to millions of people. You will have to search very hard to find these basic facts presented in a mainstream media article, although the numbers are hardly in dispute among economists in international organisations that deal with statistics...

Whatever happens, we can expect complete coverage of one side of the story from the media. So keep it in mind: even when you are reading the New York Times or listening to NPR on Venezuela, you are getting Fox News. If you want something more balanced, you will have to look for it on the web."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/12-4

-->How is it that a free society does not have a free press? Why does The NY Times continue to slander countries according to the Pentagon's enemies list? Like reporting on Nicaragua in the 1980's, there is no difference between what The NY Times reports and what the government wants you to read.

------------

Guardian/UK:
"Israel has snubbed five senior European foreign ministers, including the British foreign secretary, William Hague, by refusing to receive them for a planned visit to Jerusalem, according to reports in the Israeli press.

The respected Haaretz newspaper reported today that the visit, planned for Thursday, was officially rejected by the Israeli foreign ministry because of the date's proximity to the Jewish religious holiday, Yom Kippur, which begins on Friday evening. However, a senior Israeli official told Haaretz that the real reason was concern that EU ministers wanted to pressure Israel to extend its settlement construction freeze. The 10-month partial freeze is due to expire in two weeks.

The EU meeting is reported to have been initiated by the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and his Spanish counterpart, Miguel Moratinos, after discussions between them over the EU's efforts to promote the Middle East peace process. Hague would have been a member of the delegation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/12/israel-refuses-eu-foreign-ministers

-->Of course, The NY Times would not cover that highlighted the illegal settlements or made Israel look bad. Here there is very little difference between what The NY Times reports and what the Israeli government wants you to read.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-09-09T23:24:00.001-04:00

RobertReich.org:

"President Obama reportedly will propose two big corporate tax cuts this week.

One would expand and make permanent the research and experimentation tax credit, at a cost of about $100 billion over the next ten years. The other would allow companies to write off 100 percent of their new investments in plant and equipment between now and the end of 2011 at a cost next year of substantially more than $100 billion (but a ten-year cost of about $30 billion since those write-offs wouldn't be taken over the longer-term).

The economy needs two whopping corporate tax cuts right now as much as someone with a serious heart condition needs Botox.

The reason businesses aren't investing in new plant and equipment has nothing to do with the cost of capital. It's because they don't need the additional capacity. There isn't enough demand for their goods and services to justify it. Consumers aren't buying because they're trying to come out from under a huge debt load, including mortgage debt; they have to start saving because their nest eggs are worth substantially less; and they've lost or are worried about losing jobs and pay.

In any event, small businesses don't have enough profits against which to use these tax credits and deductions, and large corporations are sitting on over a trillion dollars of profits and don't need them."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/07-8

-->Why isn't our media presenting these massive business tax cuts for what they are? Perhaps because big business controls big media.

------------

BoingBoing.net:

"Today, the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) filed a lawsuit challenging the government's claimed authority to search, detain, and copy electronic devices ≠ including laptops, cell phones, cameras, etc. ≠ at the country's international borders without any suspicion of wrongdoing.

We carry a lot of private information on those devices, including pictures, personal emails, work-related documents, and much more. Normally, the Fourth Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant before sifting through this information, and the First Amendment protects this information from unwarranted government scrutiny. The Fourth and First Amendments should also bar the government from rummaging through all that information and detaining the devices indefinitely without any suspicion, just because a person is crossing the border.

The plaintiffs are Pascal Abidor, a 26 year-old U.S.-French dual citizen and a Ph.D. student at McGill University in Montreal who was taken off an Amtrak train in upstate New York and whose laptop was detained and searched (including through personal materials like family photos and chat logs with his girlfriend) for 11 days; NACDL, an organization of approximately 10,000 attorneys with members who often travel overseas for work with documents protected by the attorney-client privilege; and the National Press Photographers' Association (NPPA), an organization of about 7,000 photojournalists."

http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/aclu-challenges-laptop-searches-and-seizures-border

-->The Wall St. Journal covered this story. But not The NY Times.

------------

Montreal Gazette:

"Quebec - The Harper government has quietly presented a bill in the House of Commons that would give U.S. officials final say over who may board aircraft in Canada if they are to fly over the United States en route to a third country.

'Canadian sovereignty has gone right out the window,' Liberal transport critic Joe Volpe told The Gazette in recent telephone interview. 'You are going to be subject to American law.'

Bill C-42 amends Canada's Aeronautics Act to allow airlines to communicate passenger information to 'a foreign state' for flights over that country without landing.

At present, airlines are only required to give passenger information to the U.S. government on flights landing in the United States."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Canada+says+Uncle+wants+your+data/3214360/story.html

-->No mention in the US media of this proposed spying on US citizens abroad.

------------

NPR's "51 Percent" likes doing programs about Afghanistan. The script is much like women's rights reporting on Iraq before the US invasion. The Pentagon sees these issues as a rallying cry for imperial occupations, a version of the Brits bringing "civilization" to their colonies. Wednesday's "51 Percent" report ended on a typical note: how "destructive" it would be if the West were to leave Afghanistan at this point, now that women are winning their rights. How much reporting does 51 Percent do on women's rights in Middle Eastern dictatorships supported by the US? Don't ask.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-09-02T20:40:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Inter Press Service:
"NEW YORK - Two of the nation's most influential human rights organizations have filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to carry out 'targeted killings' of U.S. citizens located far from any armed conflict zone.   The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charge that the authority contemplated by the Obama administration is far broader than what the Constitution and international law allow.  The organizations claim that, 'outside of armed conflict, both the Constitution and international law prohibit targeted killing except as a last resort to protect against concrete, specific, and imminent threats of death or serious physical injury. An extrajudicial killing policy under which names are added to CIA and military kill lists through a secret executive process and stay there for months at a time is plainly not limited to imminent threats.' "
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/31-6

-->The NY Times discussed these issues in an Aug. 3 article, but has yet to report this lawsuit. The assassination of US citizens without trial should be the biggest story of the year. But most Americans seem unaware that their Constitutional rights are slipping away under President Obama. It is not something they see on TV or read about in the press.

------------

Guardian/UK:
"Dozens of Israeli actors, playwrights and directors have signed a letter refusing to take part in productions by leading theatre companies at a new cultural centre in a West Bank settlement, prompting renewed debate over the legitimacy of artistic boycott.

More than 60 have joined the protest over plans by Israel's national theatre, the Habima, and other leading companies to stage performances in Ariel, a settlement 12 miles inside the West Bank. The letter, to Israel's culture minister, Limor Livnat, says the new centre for performing arts in Ariel, which is due to open in November after 20 years in construction, would 'strengthen the settlement enterprise'.

'We want to express our dismay with the intention of the theatres' managements to perform in the new auditorium in Ariel and hereby declare that we will refuse to perform in the city, as in any other settlement.' Israel's theatre companies should 'pursue their prolific activity inside the sovereign territory of the state of Israel within the boundaries of the Green Line.' "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/actors-boycott-west-bank-theatre

-->Israeli actors boycotting the West Bank because of illegal settlements? The story appeared in some readers' letters, but not as an actual story in our newspaper of record.

------------

In These Times:
"Like other workers around the country, employees say they're getting squeezed. They're expected to do more with less: fewer supplies, fewer breaks, and less money. Like the vast majority of American workers, they're not unionized. Company-wide profits, however, seem to be doing okay.

But in a move rarely seen since the Great Depression, Embassy Suites workers went on strike early this month over alleged lost wages. Although as nonunion workers they had few legal rights to protect their actions, they were united and angry. On August 9, workers walked off the job and formed a picket line at the hotel's entrance.

It was the latest in a series of bold actions by workers affiliated with UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union, this summer. In May, organizers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago were denied access to hotels to speak with workers; in response, the workers staged a brief wildcat walkout.

Last month, almost a thousand UNITE HERE workers and community supporters were arrested in civil disobedience actions around the country—many in cities where such actions had not occurred for decades—against the Hyatt corporation. And now the Embassy workers in Irvine walked off the job despite a lack of union recognition."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/26-2

-->Unions beginning to fight back when American workers are being screwed? Just like they did during the last Great Depression? Readers of the NY Times will never be made aware of corporations cheating workers in the US, or of union and nonunion employees fighting back. It didn't cover this story.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-08-26T23:12:00.000-04:00

http://www.fantasylandmedia.org

Each week, we cover the stories that are just left out of the US propaganda machine. News that the people in charge, the corporations and your government want keep from the public eye.

---------

Guardian/UK:
"Jerusalem rail firm planning to segregate carriages along gender lines.
Pressure from city's ultra-orthodox Jews has already led to some bus lines confining women to the rear of vehicles...

Under pressure from the influential and growing ultra-orthodox community, some bus lines in Jerusalem have introduced segregation, with women confined to the rear of the vehicle.

The segregation proposal is the second point of tension between the CityPass consortium and the council within a week. The company earlier distributed a consumer survey asking Jerusalem residents if they were 'bothered' that the light railway is to include stops in Arab neighbourhoods en route to connecting to Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/23/jerusalem-segregated-train-carriages

-->Women's rights under attack in Jerusalem's city center? The NY Times didn't cover this story because it is about Israeli policy, not about Taliban mistreatment. After all, The NY Times has a war to promote, and an imperialist ally to protect. Notice also that stops in Arab neighborhoods were being questioned. Like whites only buses in the deep south during Jim Crow.

------------

Inter Press Service:
"BOGOTA, Colombia - An unknown number of agribusiness owners and public employees at all levels, as well as far-right paramilitaries, have a common link with rural people who have been forced off their farms or killed in Colombia: the land stolen from the latter group in the armed conflict.

'It was a conspiracy. There were the ones doing the killing, others who would follow behind, buying up the land, and the third wave, who would legalize the new ownership of the land,' said former paramilitary chief Jairo Castillo or 'Pitirri,' who has lived in exile for 10 years and is serving as a key protected witness in the trials of legislators and other political leaders implicated in the 'parapolitics' scandal for their ties to the paramilitary groups."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/22-0

-->Our media rarely covers stories about corruption and death squad murders under governments that the US government supports with billions of military aid. Columbia has received the most such aid in South America, and its human rights record is by for the worst. Yet, most US citizens are never told about this. The Pentagon has dictated that Chavez is the enemy, and publications like The NY Times are all to willing to provide the propaganda.

------------

Huffinton Post:
"Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity...

Afghanistan's embattled president Hamid Karzai said on Sunday that U.S. taxpayers were indirectly funding "mafia-like groups" and terrorist activities with the American government's support of private contractors inside his country.

In a rare U.S. media appearance, Karzai continued to press for the removal of the vast majority of U.S. private contractors by the end of this year. He argued that their continued presence inside Afghanistan was 'an obstruction and impediment' to the country's growth, a massive waste of money, and a catalyst for corruption among Afghan officials."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/22-2

-->The NY Times covered this story, but omitted references to "mafia-like groups" and terrorist activities being conducted by US contractors. In one story, Karzai favors a "four-month phaseout of all private security companies in Afghanistan." No mention of why at all. Another story suggests that Karzai is simply covering up his own corrupt regime by a reference to an "economic Mafia" of private contractors.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-08-19T21:24:00.004-04:00

"The Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence has posted more photos of IDF soldiers abusing or humiliating Palestinian prisoners to prove what many of us suspected - that similar pictures posted earlier on Facebook are the norm, not the exception. Israeli activists say such pictures reflect the inevitable dehumanization wrought by the Occupation. More 'trophy' pictures here. Graphic.

'It encapsulates precisely the feeling among soldiers serving in the territories. At some point, they stop seeing these handcuffed people as human beings.' said Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence."

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2010/08/17-4

-->The NY Times didn't cover this story of IDF abuse of Palestinian detainees. Stories critical of Israel are often just left out.

------------

Guardian/UK

"NATO and the United Nations are cautiously considering a Taliban proposal to set up a joint commission to investigate allegations of civilians being killed and wounded in the conflict in Afghanistan, diplomats in Kabul have told the Guardian.

The Taliban overture, which came in a statement posted on its website, will revive a divisive debate about whether to conduct any formal talks with insurgents who are responsible for the majority of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and whose assassination campaign now kills one person a day on average.

The Taliban statement called for the establishment of a body including members from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, UN human rights investigators, Nato and the Taliban."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/16-6

-->The Taliban trying to cooperate with NATO to limit the killing of civilians? That is not something The NY Times would consider helpful to the US war effort. Instead, we get a front page article on the Taliban stoning a couple to death for infidelity.

------------

Haaretz:

"Israel is to deploy three submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

According to the Times report, one submarine had been sent over Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, and in the possession of Syria and Hezbollah, could be used to hit strategic sites within Israel, such as air bases and missile launchers.

Dolphin, Tekuma, and Leviathan, all German-made Dolphin class submarines of the 7th navy Flotilla, have been reported as frequenting the Gulf in the past, however, according to the Sunday Times report, this new deployment is meant to ensure a permanent naval presence near the Iranian coastline."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/report-israel-to-deploy-nuclear-armed-submarines-off-iran-coast-1.293005

-->A nuclear confrontation in the Persian Gulf, brought on by nuclear missiles in Israeli submarines. This is the stuff of nightmares, and thankfully, The NY Times didn't trouble their readers with the story.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-08-12T21:10:00.001-04:00

Al Jazeera:

"Arab opinion of the United States and its president Barack Obama has dimmed in the past year, while the popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has skyrocketed, according to an annual survey released by the US-based Brookings Institution on Thursday.

The survey found that a majority of Arabs continue to believe that peace between Israel and the Palestinians will never happen and that - unlike in past years - a larger number are identifying as Muslims, rather than as Arabs or citizens of a particular country.

The poll of nearly 4,000 people, done in conjunction with Zogby International, was conducted between June 29 and July 20 in six Middle Eastern countries...

Of those surveyed, 62 per cent said they had a negative view of Obama, compared with 23 per cent a year ago."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/08-3

-->Obama very unpopular in the Middle East after his first year as president? A Middle East policy devoted to war and support of Israel already a failure? You wouldn't know it if you depended on The New York Times, which didn't cover the story.

-----------------

Guardian/UK:

"The White House was accused today of spinning a government scientific report into the amount of oil left in the Gulf of Mexico from the BP spill which had officials declaring that the vast majority of the oil had been removed.

As BP workers finished pouring cement into the well as a first step to permanently sealing it today, environmental groups and scientists - including those working with government agencies to calculate the scale and effects of the spill - said White House officials had painted far too optimistic a picture of a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) into the fate of the oil.

'Recent reports seem to say that about 75% of the oil is taken care of and that is just not true,' said John Kessler, of Texas A&M University, who led a National Science Foundation on-site study of the spill. 'The fact is that 50% to 75% of the material that came out of the well is still in the water...' "

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/06-3

-->Obama spinning tales of oil disappearing from the Gulf? Of course he is. He wants a return to offshore drilling to please one of his largest campaign contributors, British Petroleum. The New York Times helped with the coverup by not reporting this story.

-----------------

The Independent/UK:

"Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/24-0

-->The New York Times would never carry a story like this. US war crimes are rarely judged to be "fit to print."

-----------------

The NY Times:

"There’s a class war coming to the world of government pensions."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/your-money/07money.html?scp=1&sq=class%20war&st=cse

-->The NY Times printed this story about "class wars" on Aug. 6. Only the classes described in the article were state pensioners versus holders of 401K retirement accounts. No mention was made, of course, of the billionaires and their "tax cuts" so favored by the Republicans and Democrats. A continuation of tax cuts for billionaires would drain the treasury of 700 billion over the next 10 years. Now that is class war, waged by the very rich on everyone else. A war that The NY Times can't bring itself to cover.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-07-23T10:41:00.002-04:00

Common Dreams:

"According to the Washington Post today, the U.S. intelligence system, in the years since 9/11, has become so massive and lacking in oversight that it is impossible to know how effective it is. The America Civil Liberties Union has long warned about the civil liberties implications of expanding secret government intelligence programs without oversight.

In 2007, Congress created an independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board with some significant powers for overseeing anti-terrorism efforts, but the Obama administration has failed thus far to appoint anybody to that board.

'The intelligence system that is supposed to protect the nation's security now presents a grave threat to our liberties and our democracy. A sprawling and largely unaccountable complex of government agencies and private corporations now controls a huge amount of information about ordinary Americans, monitors their telephone calls and emails and administers a slew of secret watchlists. The unchecked growth of this intelligence system is endangering the very fabric of American democracy.' "

-Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/19-14

-->Bloat and erosion of civil liberties under the Obama administration? The NY Times did not print this story.

-----------------

OpenLeft.com:

"Liz Fowler, a key staffer for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the Obama administration to help implement the new law...

Fowler headed up a team of 20-some Senate Finance Committee staffers who helped draft the bill in the Senate. She was Baucus' top health care aide from 2001-2005 and left that job in 2006 to become an executive at WellPoint, the nation's largest private insurer. She was vice president of public policy at WellPoint, helping develop public-policy positions for the company. In 2008, she rejoined Baucus to work on health reform legislation."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/14-7

-->Few reporters in Washington even report on this stuff anymore. The revolving door between corporations and government is so ubiquitous that newspapers like The NY Times don't consider it news at all.

-----------------

Madre:

"On Monday, Sabbar Kashur, a young Palestinian man from East Jerusalem, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for something called 'rape by deception.' Apparently, Mr. Kashur had consensual sex with a Jewish Israeli woman after assuring her that he was also Jewish. When she found out that he had lied to her, she went to the police.

Imagine living in a society where you can say, 'I wish I had never slept with you. I’m going to the cops.' Only it’s not funny because Sabbar Kashur will probably go to jail for a year and a half. Meanwhile, efforts to combat actual sexual violence are undermined by a cynical distortion of the term rape. The real crime here, of course, is miscegenation. Anyone from the US should recognize the Jerusalem District Court’s ruling for what it is: an anti-miscegenation measure on par with the now-defunct US laws against 'race mixing' that were once used to uphold white supremacy...

In the US, anti-miscegenation laws were on the books until 1967, when the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional. That was the same year that Israel began its occupation of Sabbar Kashur’s home in East Jerusalem. Since then, Israelis have fine-tuned their own obsession with racial purity."

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/21-19

-->Judgements making interracial marriage and interracial sex illegal in Israel don't get coverage in The NY Times, the newspaper that is the special guardian of Israel's public image in America.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-07-15T21:36:00.001-04:00

Guardian UK: National Security Archive

"It is more than 35 years since he was shunted out of office, but the thought of Richard Nixon's finger on the nuclear trigger still has the power to terrify.

Now it has been revealed that the highly erratic president's metaphorical digit was hovering even closer than was widely realised as his administration laid plans for an atomic strike against North Korea in 1969 following the shooting down of a US spy plane.

According to newly revealed government documents, Nixon is even believed to have ordered nuclear bombers to be put on standby for an immediate strike after North Korean jets downed the American plane as it flew over international waters collecting electronic and radio intelligence..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/nixon-north-korea-nuclear-strike

-->The evidence of Nixon's finger on the nuclear trigger may well terrify those readers in other countries whose media is less censored. But in the US, there is little mention of this story, despite the fact that the National Security Archive is a university based American research institute.

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FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

"Many PBS stations around the country will begin airing a three-part, three-hour documentary tonight (7/12/10) about Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz. According to the New York Times, the unusually lengthy, completely uncritical tribute is partially sponsored by corporations linked to Shultz's corporate career.

The special, Turmoil and Triumph, was funded by the Stephen Bechtel Fund and Charles Schwab. Shultz was a board member at both companies, and was president of the Bechtel Corporation from 1975 to 1982.

According to reviews, the documentary takes an overwhelmingly positive, even gushing stance. The Times' Alessandra Stanley points out, 'There is no mention that Mr. Shultz was a cheerleader for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while still on the board of Bechtel, a construction and engineering firm that won huge contracts that were later criticized by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.' "

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4114

-->PBS, like much of "public" broadcasting has had to relay on corporate money for a long time. The result were predictable, documentaries made to glorify right wing militarism and weapons manufactures.

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Haaretz:

"Presbyterian leaders strongly backed a proposal Friday calling for the U.S. government to end aid to Israel unless the country stops settlement expansions in disputed Palestinian territories. The move was immediately criticized by Jewish groups....

The report is meant as a guide for the denomination's more than 2 million members in many facets of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. It was approved with 82 percent of the vote during the church's annual general assembly in Minneapolis.

'We feel we've brought together people who previously had trouble talking about some of these issues together,' said the Rev. Karen Dimon of Northminster Presbyterian Church in North Syracuse, N.Y., and chairwoman of the committee that produced the 172-page report."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/u-s-presbyterians-urge-government-to-end-israel-aid-over-settlements-1.301071

-->Even though this story is about the US Presbyterian church, The NY Times declined to cover it. The NY Times is more protective of Israel's image than newspapers published there.

Fantasyland Media:

2010-07-15T21:35:00.002-04:00

Guardian UK: National Security Archive

"It is more than 35 years since he was shunted out of office, but the thought of Richard Nixon's finger on the nuclear trigger still has the power to terrify.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/07/nixon-north-korea-nuclear-strike

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FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4114

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Haaretz:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/u-s-presbyterians-urge-government-to-end-israel-aid-over-settlements-1.301071

-->Even though this story is about the US Presbyterian church, The NY Times declined to cover it. The NY Times is more protective of Israel's image than newspapers published there.