Tag Archives: media blackout

With Trump Pushing Regime Change in Venezuela, Critics Warn News Outlets Failing US Viewers Once Again

“If the US had a major state TV network it would sound exactly like this. 100% pure, uncritical cheerleading.”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 2-18-2019

Marco Rubio at Citizens United Freedom Summit. Photo: Michael Vadon/flickr

Ahead of a speech in Miami on Monday in which President Donald Trump promoted the ouster of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro, progressive media critics continued their warnings that corporate news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and others are carrying water for the White House’s regime change policy in the country despite interventionist failures like the invasion of Iraq in 2002, the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011, and the long U.S. history of backing bloody coups and civil wars in Latin America going back to the 1980s.

Leading the charge is journalist Adam Johnson, a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and host of the Citations Needed podcast, who recently warned that the “same U.S. media outlets that have expressly fundraised and run ad campaigns on their image as anti-Trump truth-tellers have mysteriously taken at face value everything the Trump White House and its neoconservative allies have said in their campaign to overthrow the government of Venezuela.” Continue reading

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How the United States Kept Arms Flowing into South Sudan

South Sudan faces several arms embargo. How has the government continued to get weapons?

By Edward Hunt. Published 12-12-2018 by FPIF


Salva Kiir (Utenriksdepartementet UD via Flickr)

During the South Sudanese Civil War, which has claimed nearly 400,000 lives, the United States helped the main belligerent in the war continually acquire arms through Uganda, a close U.S. ally in the region. For years, the Ugandan government channeled arms, ammunition, and military aircraft to the regime of President Salva Kiir, according to multiple reports by Conflict Armament Research and the U.N. Panel of Experts on South Sudan.

“Uganda remains the main transit point and facilitator for arms and ammunition to the regime,” former U.S. diplomat Payton Knopf reported in September. Continue reading

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Media Mum as Congress Readies Largest Foreign Military Aid Package in US History

The “aid” package gives $38 billion to Israel over the next ten years, which amounts to $7,230 per minute, or $120 per second, and equals about $23,000 for each Jewish Israeli family of four.

By Alison Weir. Published 11-29-2018 by MintPress News

President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the United Nations General Assembly. Photo: White House

In an astounding case of media negligence, U.S. news media are failing to tell Americans that Congress is about to enact legislation for the largest military aid package to a foreign country in U.S. history.

This aid package would likely be of interest to Americans, many of whom are cutting back their own personal spending.

The package gives $38 billion to Israel over the next ten years, which amounts to $7,230 per minute to Israel, or $120 per second, and equals about $23,000 for each Jewish Israeli family of four. A stack of 38 billion one-dollar bills would reach ten times higher than the International Space Station as it orbits the earth. Continue reading

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After Cutting All UNWRA Humanitarian Aid, US to Award Israel with $3.3B/Year in Military Aid

The bill, combined with even more aid given to Israeli missile defense, would give $38 billion to Israel over the next ten years, roughly equivalent to $23,000 for every Jewish family living in Israel over the next decade.

By Whitney Webb. Published 9-14-2018 by MintPress News

President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the United Nations General Assembly. Photo: White House

A massive spending bill, which would deliver $3.3 billion dollars in military aid to Israel over the next year, passed the House on Wednesday under cover of a media blackout. The U.S. Senate had passed a different version of the same bill in early August, a vote that also went largely unreported.

Now, after the House’s passage of a slightly altered version of the Senate’s spending bill, officially titled the “Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018,” all that remains is for the two chambers of Congress to reconcile their versions before the product is sent to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law. According to Skopos Labs, the bill now hasa 90 percent chance of being enacted. If enacted, the bill will be the largest aid package in American history. Continue reading

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‘We Will Stay!’ West Virginia Teachers Vote to Occupy State Capitol Until Demands Met

While some have called the West Virginia teachers’ strike “the most important story in the country right now,” MSNBC and other outlets have almost completely ignored it.

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 3-2-2018

As the demonstrations raged on in the state capitol, West Virginia lawmakers voted against bringing a teacher pay raise bill to the Senate floor for immediate consideration, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported on Friday. (Photo: Jacobin/Twitter)

Though you may not know it from the corporate media’s coverage—or lack thereof—West Virginia teachers are still striking in an effort to win both a pay raise and a permanent fix to their soaring health insurance premiums, and on Friday they voted to occupy the state capitol until their demands are met.

Watch teachers chant “We will stay!” shortly following the vote: Continue reading

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Where’s Tillerson? Secretary of State Ducking Press Amid Reports of Being Sidelined

‘Your decision to travel without reporters sends a dangerous signal to other countries about the U.S. commitment to freedom of the press’

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-11-2017

Photo: YouTube

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will embark on his first trip to Asia next week, visiting Japan, South Korea, and China. In what some journalists are calling an unprecedented move, he will not travel with members of the press.

“Not only does this situation leave the public narrative of the meetings up to the Chinese foreign ministry as well as Korea’s and Japan’s, but it gives the American people no window whatsoever into the views and actions of the nation’s leaders,” a dozen Washington bureau chiefs from major news organizations wrote in a letter to the State Department earlier this week.  Continue reading

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Protests in Mexico Push Country to Brink of Revolution and Nobody’s Talking About It

By Nick Bernabe. Published 1-10-2017 by The Anti-Media

Photo: paola/Twitter

San Diego, CA — Long-simmering social tensions in Mexico are threatening to boil over as failing neoliberal reforms to the country’s formerly nationalized gas sector are compounded by open corruption, stagnant standards of living, and rampant inflation.

The U.S. media has remained mostly mute on the situation in Mexico, even as the unfolding civil unrest has closed the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, California, several times in the past week. Ongoing “gasolinazo” protests in Mexico over a 20 percent rise in gas prices have led to over 400 arrests, 250 looted stores, and six deaths. Roads are being blockaded, borders closed, and government buildings are being sacked. Protests have remained relatively peaceful overall, except for several isolated violent acts, which activists have blamed on government infiltrators. Continue reading

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‘This Is My Act of Love’: Climate Activists Shut Down All US-Canada Tar Sands Pipelines

Coordinated show of resistance executed in solidarity with those fighting against Dakota Access pipeline

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-11-2016

Michael Foster, 52, pictured here, said, "All of our climate victories are meaningless if we don’t stop extracting oil, coal and gas now." (Photo: Shutitdown.today)

Michael Foster, 52, pictured here, said, “All of our climate victories are meaningless if we don’t stop extracting oil, coal and gas now.” (Photo: Shutitdown.today)

Five activists shut down all the tar sands pipelines crossing the Canada-U.S. border Tuesday morning, in a bold, coordinated show of climate resistance amid the ongoing fight against the Dakota Access pipeline.

The activists employed manual safety valves to shut down Enbridge’s line 4 and 67 in Leonard, Minnesota; TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline in Walhalla, North Dakota; Spectra Energy’s Express pipeline in Coal Banks Landing, Montana; and Kinder-Morgan’s Trans-Mountain pipeline in Anacortes, Washington. Continue reading

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Dakota Access Pipeline Police Celebrate Columbus Day by Continuing Brutal Tradition

By Nick Bernabe. Published 10-10-2016 by The Anti-Media

Water Protectors with prayer and burning sage at a roadblock with riot police and military style armored vehicles outside St Anthony, ND on Oct 5 2016. Photo: Sacred Stone Camp/Facebook

Water Protectors with prayer and burning sage at a roadblock with riot police and military style armored vehicles outside St Anthony, ND on Oct 5 2016. Photo: Sacred Stone Camp/Facebook

North Dakota — Militarized Dakota Access Pipeline police celebrated Columbus Day in truly fascistic fashion when they descended upon peaceful protesters and began mass arresting as many of them as possible. According to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, 27 water protectors were arrested Monday, two of whom were charged with felonies for chaining themselves to pipeline construction equipment.

The mass arrests of Native American protesters and allies on Columbus Day comes just a day after the U.S. Court of Appeals denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for an injunction to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Continue reading

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Media Coverage of Oregon Militia Standoff Raises Eyebrows — and Ire

Despite the extreme nature of the demonstration, both media and law enforcement response appears muted, especially in comparison to other recent protests

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-3-2016

Ammon Bundy. Photo: Facebook)

Ammon Bundy. Photo: Facebook

After members of a rightwing militia—many armed with assault rifles—seized the headquarters of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon on Saturday afternoon, observers questioned the corporate media’s treatment of the event, pointing to a double standard in coverage compared to other recent protests.

The Oregonian reported Saturday that Ammon Bundy, the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was the leader of a notorious standoff over cattle grazing rights last year, had “joined with hard-core militiamen Saturday to take over the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, vowing to occupy the remote federal outpost 30 miles southeast of Burns for years.” Continue reading

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