The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties
The controversies over the IRS and especially the AP phone records appear to have long-lasting effects By Glenn Greenwald, guardian.co.uk Barack Obama Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images Due to the controversies over the IRS and (especially) the DOJ’s attack on AP’s news gathering process, media outlets have suddenly decided that President Obama has a very poor record [...]
Argentina’s General Videla and the “war on terror”
By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla died May 17 at the age of 87 as the result of injuries suffered from a fall in a prison shower. He was remembered as the head of a savage military dictatorship that between 1976 and 1983 murdered and “disappeared” some 30,000 Argentine workers, socialist militants, [...]
By Chris Hedges Joe Sacco and I spent two years reporting from the poorest pockets of the United States for our book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.”We went into our nation’s impoverished “sacrifice zones”—the first areas forced to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace—to show what happens when unfettered corporate capitalism and ceaseless economic expansion [...]
PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary “Citizen Koch” To Appease Koch Brothers
By Brendan Fischer, PRWatch | Report “Citizen Koch,” a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in “public” television and raises [...]
Why Obama Will Walk Away Unscathed by the Current Political Scandals
by Pascal Robert, Black Agenda Report Don’t worry about Barack Obama. He’s far too useful to the rulers of America to be derailed by scandal, or even a combination of scandals. “Obama’s neoliberal government giveaways to private corporations and mercenary foreign policy already make him too valuable to the guardians of American empire to have [...]
Obama’s War on Free Expression
by Stephen Lendman It’s the most fundamental right. Without it all others are endangered. Obama’s waging war to destroy it. He’s done so throughout his tenure. He targeted AP. He did so unjustifiably. A previous article discussed it. Did you like this? Share it:
The Jesuit Pope – Who is Francis and who he pretends to be
Written by Esquerda Marxista editorial board Wednesday, 15 May 2013 The election of Pope Francis marks a turn in the prolonged crisis of the Catholic Church. It is important for revolutionaries to understand the reasons for the ongoing struggle within the Church. Far from moving to the left, Francis is trying to entrench the Church in [...]
Apple CEO defends multi-billion-dollar tax dodge
By Andre Damon, wsws.org Apple CEO Tim Cook used his appearance Tuesday at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations—called to investigate Apple’s evasion of billions of dollars in taxes—to call for a sharp reduction in the corporate tax rate. The senators on the committee, Democratic and Republican alike, agreed with Cook [...]
In War Horse, director Steven Spielberg treated his audience to a compelling case of historical fiction, grounding his World War I saga of a boy and his horse on a set of common facts including that the Germans and the United Kingdom were combatants and horses had a major role in the conflict. In The Grey, director Joe Carnahan makes up something out of whole cloth in his drama about stranded oil riggers who are hunted as intruders by a pack of wolves. Continue reading »
ABC’s anchor Diane Sawyer: One of the media’s “haute bourgeoisie” babes. Her runway looks helped her climb the “journalism” ladder (as others similarly blessed have and still do), and it doesn’t hurt to be married to Mike Nichols. Current annual comp: $11 million and counting.—Eds.
(You can watch the ABC segment below. We apologize for the damn ads these people impose on us for the privilege of using their toxic wares.)
The January 31 ABC World News broadcast featured a blatantly propagandistic report on the supposed threat from Iran.
The newscast focused on that day’s Senate testimony by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who told lawmakers that the U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran may be “now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.” Continue reading »
Editor’s Note:
Here’s the “rebuttal” to critics by Nancy Brinkner, head of the wildly successful Susan G. Komen cancer charity in the wake of the storm kicked up by her decision to drop Planned Parenthood from the SGK list of grantees. Even those who remain relatively innocent about the “work style” of highly paid corporadoes, which this woman certainly is (pocketing no less than $500,000 / year for her supposedly “indispensable” work), will recognize in this carefully coiffed statement the hand of p.r. hacks in full damage control mode. But all the smooth talk and “ambassadorial” pose cannot erase the fact that what Brinkner is saying is a lie. By caving in to—in fact collaborating with— the most backward and often unprincipled forces in American culture what this woman and her organization have done is despicable, and they deserve the fury of a public that put its trust in their organization. Continue reading »
by Stephen Lendman
Like other major media scoundrels, New York Times writers, op-ed commentators and editorials fail the test. They’re biased, shameless and irresponsible, especially on issues of war and peace.
Times tradition dates from 1896 when Ochs-Sulzberger family members took control. Thereafter, it’s played the lead print role distorting, censoring, and suppressing truth and full disclosure. Continue reading »