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Russ Baker

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Author, investigative journalist, editor-in-chief at WhoWhatWhy.com

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AFG_mineral_map_44, From ImagesAttr
(14 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, September 10, 2012
The Real Reason For The Afghan War? Some of the least likely candidates for insight are waking up. To quote Alan Greenspan: "I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Who will say the same about Afghanistan and its mineral wealth?
PHO-09Nov30-190627, From ImagesAttr
(21 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 13, 2011
The Military and Those Strange Threats to Obama Small, bad things seem to (almost) happen to Obama; they get little sustained attention from reporters or the public. But there's something odd about them, and they're worrisome for the White House. The corporate media will dismiss it as nothing at all. Yet there's a disturbing military/security thread running through it all--and as we approach the 50th anniversary of JFK's demise, we'd be smart to err on the side of caution.
biden-gaffe, From ImagesAttr
(22 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 17, 2012
CloseReading: Are Joe Biden's "Gaffes" Accidental? Or Brilliant? The media either doesn't get how this works, or is reticent to spell it out. Either way, the latest Biden BooBoo is yet another example of how the public is the last to understand what is going on -- and how it continues responding, on cue, to manipulation...not substance.
slideshow_1226115_203249_Tropical_Weather_Del, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Tea Party Types say: Next Overboard, Lifeguards! There were 13 people who died at a single San Diego beach on a single day back when there were no lifeguards, and 25 such deaths in the whole country in an entire year after there were. Those of you who are trivializing lifeguards -- keep an extra close eye on your kids, because if you have your way, you'll be on your own.
Ppl-0003, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, November 29, 2011
NY Times' Umbrella Man Exposed It's time to stop treating the New York Times as the slightly daffy uncle who is hard of hearing. There's something more insidious going on, and every single person who works there and refuses to care bears some responsibility. Ditto with the rest of the media, which still takes this institution as its guide on what to cover -- and what not to uncover.
c54e70c7c73d, From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 6, 2011
JFK Umbrella Man -- More Doubts ikely, it was exactly what it appeared to be: a method of signaling shooters, perhaps that JFK had been hit, perhaps that he still seemed to be alive, perhaps to keep shooting. The fact that the New York Times and the establishment in general have never considered the umbrella worthy of real, serious inquiry, tells us that if the umbrella was part of a plot, it was not so bad a choice.
U.S. President George W. Bush (L) and Saudi Arabia's Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, brother of King Abdullah, watch a traditional celebration dance outside the Al Murabba Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 15, 2008., From ImagesAttr
(9 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 21, 2013
Saudi-Sized Cracks In The 9/11 Wall Of Silence If the media were to do its job and create the kind of wall-to-wall coverage it bestows upon, say, inter-spousal murder trials, Obama might feel he had to release the full 9/11 report. He'd have to concede there is a public right to know, or at least explain in detail why he doesn't think so. Either way, there would be major fireworks. But we're not betting on either the president or the media doing the right thing.
images, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, November 17, 2011
We Are All Rupert Murdoch Now With the non-stop revelations about Rupert Murdoch and his news outfits, it's easy to divide the media between the bad guys and everybody else. Except that the good guys don't look so good themselves.
ron-paul-ronald-reagan, From ImagesAttr
(18 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Ron Paul and God Paul explained how his beliefs in limited government and even his opposition to the Federal Reserve had their foundations in scripture, combined with his study of the Constitution. In stark contrast to how he campaigned four years ago, Paul has made a concerted push during this presidential campaign to emphasize how religion has shaped his policy ideas.
fox_news_1004, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 26, 2011
What Rupert Murdoch Means For You Personally By the generally inferior product produced, with a few exceptions, by the majority of the news outlets he controls and the tawdry methods sponsored by many of them, Murdoch has eroded the public's confidence in media in general, tarnishing its belief even in those outfits whose work deserves to be taken seriously.
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 19, 2012
More Questions regarding Twitter's New Censorship Policy What constitutes "a valid legal request" to quash a tweet? Isn't saying anything against the existing government illegal in many countries? And if so, isn't Twitter just enabling oppression and illegitimate governments? And what about comments regarding rich and powerful individuals, companies and entities?
untitled, From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 25, 2011
Fed Economists Urged DC to Help Homeowners Directly Granting homeowners on the verge of losing their houses $400-$800 sounds like a better way of stabilizing the economy than the current "solution," giving an average of $1,000 through payroll tax reductions to people who already have jobs and houses.
From Images
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Jeb Scenario: Can You Say "President Bush" Again? The Bush clan is the ultimate representative of the game plan of the one percent of the one percent. What they stand for in private is much, much more troubling than most Americans know. What I learned in the five years I spent investigating them -- as they were going out of power the last time -- shook me to my core.
From ImagesAttr
(16 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, June 5, 2013
FBI: Knew About Saudi 9/11 Hijacker Ties -- But Lied To Protect "National Security" The FBI's practice of finding evidence tied to Saudi Arabia, then denying it had such evidence, then reluctantly admitting that it did (but only as a way of blocking still more disclosure) is telling. The apparent willingness of the FBI to brazenly lie and then reverse itself -- seemingly with no consequences -- is now beginning to look like standard operating procedure.
From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, June 2, 2013
New York Times Warning: Trust Authorities On Boston Bombing, Or You're Nuts There are people who live in the real world and are not blind to nuance, people who don't buy what the kook machines have to sell, but also recognize that the establishment media (compromised by, among other things, its financial dependency on the corporate elites) can't be trusted to get to the real bottom of things.
enquirer_edwards, From ImagesAttr
(14 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, May 17, 2012
Something Stinks: John Edwards and a Thirty Year Jail Term? Does no one else find the fact of John Edwards being on trial curious? Does no one else wonder about the criminal basis for the prosecution? Not all politicians are created equal. And not all are treated equally. Therein lies an issue deserving a much, much closer look: whether vulnerable Democrats, chiefly of the liberal persuasion, are targeted for destruction. Or at least helped along to their doom by a double standard.
From Images
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Original Investigation: Who - and What - Are Behind the "Official History" of the Bin Laden Raid? We have this president, this one who according to the magazine article didn't ask about the core issues -- why this man was killed, who killed him, under whose orders, what would be done with the body. Well, he may not want answers. But we ought to want them. Otherwise, it's all just a game.
gaddafi-goldman_300x165, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Libya: Connect the dots--you get a giant dollar sign Qaddafi is one of a long string of foreign leaders who insisted on an independent course, including requisite regional big-footing, and got in trouble. This, as in the case of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, is compounded by the fact that he sits on massive oil reserves. Add in his brutality, avarice and bizarre manner, and you've got an attractive target, and an easy one for his enemies' publicity departments.
From Images
(23 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, May 5, 2012
Osama, Obama, and Us: A Shocking Display of Propaganda from NBC Why even offer this purported exclusive insight into the raid? Because it was nothing of the sort. Because it was propaganda to make these people look good, to quell reasonable doubts about what really happened that day, and to get the president and his team re-elected.
090822_jfk_assassination, From ImagesAttr
(11 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 30, 2011
The NY Times' Ostrich Act on JFK Assassination Getting Old Reporters and editors know that the JFK assassination is just "too hot to handle," that it is a kind of electrified third rail that can destroy a journalism career. But even well-founded fear -- of being ridiculed, marginalized, demoted, or otherwise penalized -- is no justification for this unrelenting pattern of behavior at an institution that promotes itself as a "paper of record."
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 4, 2010
"Obama's Wars": The Real Story Bob Woodward Won't Tell Just one year before the publication of "Obama's Wars," Bob Woodward became a player in his own book-in-progress. He morphed into his true identity: Warrior Bob. Actually, there's an even deeper persona, Agent Woodward -- but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
From Images
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Justifying War with Iran A growing body of evidence points to a concerted campaign to prepare Americans and the world for war against Iran. This is not idle speculation. It fits a pattern that repeatedly preceded previous hostilities.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 17, 2012
Body of Evidence: Osama bin Laden, Stratfor, WikiLeaks, and Journalism That Isn't The kerfuffle over Osama's body got impetus recently when WikiLeaks began publishing a vast trove of e-mails from the private US security company Stratfor. The moral of this story is that private "establishment" outfits that are gung ho parts of the military-industrial complex, such as Stratfor (and there are many others), should be viewed with great wariness.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, January 27, 2013
Explainer: Fiscal Cliff's Secret Gifts To Corporations Closer to the looming fiscal cliff deadline, i.e., in November and December, a bunch of other interests got into the act, landing $205 billion in tax breaks. Stoller lists various tax subsidies that benefited corporations and banks in general -- many of whom preferred Romney to Obama.
leonardo-dicaprio-jfk-assassination-movie, From ImagesAttr
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, January 23, 2012
The Deaths of JFK, RFK -- and the Silence of the Lambs Nearly half a century after the death of a president who took bold steps against abuses by the one percent of the one percent, we are still in denial about how and why he died. Our leading institutions and individuals are not only scared to talk about the truth, but glad to cynically profit from tired lies and evasions.
From Images
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 17, 2011
America and Nuclear: Obama's Forgotten Track Record You may be pro-nuclear, or anti-nuclear, pro-Obama, anti-Obama or somewhere in the middle. But with the developments in Japan, the only thing safe is ... to start paying close attention to developments here at home. To complex technical matters we leave to "experts" without knowing if we can really trust them. And to money in politics, and how harmful it can be -- indirectly and even sometimes directly -- to our health.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 24, 2012
The JFK Factor: Bill O'Reilly on the Assassination, Then and Now What sort of answer will O'Reilly provide to the fundamental and extremely controversial question about why Kennedy died? Will he perpetuate the mainstream media's near-constant advocacy of the lone-nut scenario? O'Reilly did not even hint at how he would handle it or whether he has any new information.
Capture, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Viral Video That Could Wound Obama -- And The Hidden Agenda Behind It This election season has seen the emergence of a cadre of deep-pocketed players eager to influence voters using whatever works. These tactics have ranged from Super Pac media buys to open letters in which CEOs warn employees of downsizing if Obama is re-elected.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, April 6, 2013
RFK Assassination Legal Case Update If the public were to learn to distrust the official version of yet another assassination that changed the course of American history, where would this all end? Before long, people might wonder what happened to Martin Luther King, to labor leader Walter Reuther, to all of the leading lights that were extinguished one after another in the last century.
cell-phone-booth, From ImagesAttr
(10 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, June 3, 2011
Cell Phones, Cancer, and You It's hard to talk about the dangers of cell-phone radiation without sounding like a conspiracy theorist. This is especially true in the United States, where non-industry-funded studies are rare, where legislation protecting the wireless industry from legal challenges has long been in place, and where our lives have been so thoroughly integrated with wireless technology that to suggest it might be a problem-maybe, eventually
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(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Trayvon vs. Tyrone: Why Racial Stories Are a Bad Idea While the Trayvon Martin story is tragic and worth studying, we made a mistake by allowing it to dominate our news cycle for an extended period to the exclusion of so much else. Such incidents are, by definition, anecdotal, and do not necessarily warrant treatment as the defining issue of the moment. Issues like this can morph in unpredictable ways and push us toward more, not less, conflict.
President John F. Kennedy prepares to deliver remarks, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, February 4, 2016
Breaking News: List of Withheld JFK Assassination Documents The government has promised to release as many documents as possible in October, 2017, the 25th anniversary of the JFK Records Act, in which Congress mandated that all efforts be made to release everything in Washington's possession unless an overriding case can be made for withholding in the national interest.
PoppyTheBells, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 28, 2012
Times/HBO: A Flower For "Poppy" Bush The problem, which neither HBO nor The Times will mention, is that Poppy Bush is only a "gracious" man in his public manners, not in his (largely deniable) actions -- the most odious of which have never been reported to the American people by either the establishment media or the so-called "alternative" (liberal) media.
1303931438_back_stabber_300x300, From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 7, 2012
Ben Franklin on Justifiable Assassination Benjamin Franklin felt that political assassination was justified in some cases. Political assassination and impeachment have long been closely tied, as both involve removal of a leader outside of elections. We could all stand to do less finger (and dagger) pointing, and make more of an effort to get a cool reading on just who is doing what -- and why.
142753314WC011, From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, July 21, 2012
Did You Hear About the Shooting? We live in a country where firepower, both that held by individuals and by the state, is, frankly, pretty deranged. No other country on earth so bristles with means of killing--and no other country thinks it is quite so healthy an entertainment for us and our children to sit at a console for hours and try to "kill" other people--including civilians.
581e4_exp_tsr_robertson_libya_viagra_cnn_640x480, From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Did Qaddafi Really Order Mass Rapes? Or is the West Falling Victim to a Viagra-strength Scam? Is Muammar Qaddafi trying to save his government -- and his life -- by encouraging mass rape? Does that make sense? Personally speaking, if I had the world already against me, and was hoping to retain whatever support I could among my own people, that would not be my preferred course of action.
From Images
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, January 2, 2012
Obama's Only Friend Left? The Times resolutely insists on never going beyond a brief mention of Mr. Wolf -- never bothering to consider what it means that a powerful banker, and one from an especially problematical bank, should be one of the only people who Obama will spend time with.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 9, 2015
The Poppy Cover-Up Book? To this day labeling George H.W. Bush as a master-spook sounds like lunacy, because "everyone knows" he's an affable fellow who owes his successful public career to little more than a series of curious accidents. But those who make an effort to get the history of the Bush clan, unfiltered, from unendorsed sources -- and I am one of them -- know better.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Do Republicans Lie More Than Democrats? Here's What's Circulating... In most cases, when we receive an e-mail with seemingly alarming information, it is about a Democrat. And when we look into it...it is hardly ever true. Just some angry sounding thing with a bunch of made-up stuff, being frantically forwarded by people who like the sentiment and don't apply any kind of logic to see if it might be legitimate.
mitt-romneys-barber-wants-him-to-loosen-up, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, December 18, 2011
Operation "Save Romney" The public only knows what it is told -- and it gets most of its info filtered by self-serving ads or by news organizations. Thus, Romney will sink or swim based on whether people like and trust him.
ap_obama_secret_service_090120_ssh1, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 30, 2012
A Closer Look at the Secret Service Secret Service? We continue to let this agency off the hook. We forgot that even LBJ, a direct beneficiary of the agency's sloppiness with his former boss, trusted the outfit so little himself that he inquired at one point whether he could have the FBI protect him instead.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 17, 2014
A Rumination on the Bilderberg Group Bilderberg is considered by more than a few vocal critics as a kind of steering committee for global domination by an elite, a bit like Yale's secret society, Skull and Bones, perhaps sans the oaths and weird induction ceremonies. It is, at minimum, an exclusive club.
QQ截图20111207164432, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 9, 2011
The Saudi Arab Spring Nobody Noticed How much is apathy, and how much is Saudis realizing that no one will come to their aid if they risk throwing off their shackles? They cannot count on the handy boost the West gave to revolutions in nearby countries. Nor can they count on the Western media, which brays about its independence and initiative, but, increasingly, shows neither where the West's precious oil supplies are involved.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, May 31, 2012
Is the Government Holding Back Crucial Documents? Next year will be a half-century since the death of JFK. And the Obama Administration thinks we need to keep secret the records on the matter...a little longer yet. Believe it or not, more than 50,000 pages of JFK assassination-related documents are being withheld in full. And an untold number of documents have been partially withheld, or released with everything interesting blacked out.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Exclusive -- Hastings "Unauthorized Cremation" Mega-Rumor False, Family Says According to a member of Michael Hastings's family, a widely circulated story that the investigative journalist's body was cremated by authorities without the family's permission is flat-out untrue. The story that the cremation was unauthorized -- further stoking credible suspicions aroused by Hastings's strange death in a fiery one-car crash, complete with a dramatic explosion -- has raged across the Internet for weeks.
twitter-censored, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, February 3, 2012
CLOSE READING: The Saudis, a Twitter Investment, and the End of Arab Spring? When our ability to safeguard or increase our freedoms is dependent on people taking money from tyrants who wish to suppress speech, we've got a problem.
MNB110526-01a, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, June 4, 2011
Our Energy Future, Japanese Style By 2014, Japan may be home to the most advanced eco town in the world. Communication systems linked to each household and each home's appliances will manage the energy needs to balance what is coming in with what the occupants require, drawing on the battery systems to help with load management.
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, May 30, 2011
How Do You Support Your Troops--Regular, Special Or Super? As we celebrate Memorial Day, it can be hard to remember that this is not principally intended as a day off from work for most of us, but as an occasion to honor dead soldiers who were once actual living persons, with many years of expected life ahead of them. While contemplating the reality of all these dead young people, we would do well to ponder why soldiers are currently dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
George H. W. Bush Marks 90th Birthday by Skydiving, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, September 4, 2014
An Enduring Mystery About Bush 41's WWII Escape from Death George H.W. Bush, known to family and friends as "Poppy," celebrated his 90th birthday this year parachuting from a helicopter, one of several jumps he's made to mark his birthdays with a nod to his career as a WWII naval aviator. He made his first jump on Sept. 2, 1944, when the plane he was flying got hit by Japanese fire over the Pacific.
syria_picnik, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 9, 2012
Everything They're Telling Us About Syria...is False? While the Western media simply ignores statements from the Syrian establishment, it functions as the flip side of the Syrian government press agency, publishing a relentless stream of declarations from the establishment trying to bring Assad down. There's a growing body of evidence that we Americans are being lied to by our government, with nary a peep from the people's representatives in the press.
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 14, 2012
Occupy's 99 Pledge The establishment and its advocates in talk radio and elsewhere have painted the participants in the "Occupy" movement as a shiftless bunch, unfocused, with no clear purpose or agenda. This video presents a very different picture.
Daily+Mirror+1988+12+23+Lockerbie, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Burying the "Lockerbie Bomber" -- And the Truth On some level, all but the very stupidest journalists know how things really work. But they aren't permitted to tell the rest of us. Thinking of digging deeper when that's strongly (albeit implicitly) discouraged? There's a simple choice: your conscience or your job.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 26, 2012
Dallas Diminishes JFK, His Legacy, And Those Who Care About Democracy Many of the crusades that Kennedy set in motion -- restricting offshore tax shelters, regulating monopolies, doing something about the corruption of politics by big money, tackling Wall Street influence and the Federal Reserve, controlling militarism and reining in the national security apparatus -- are still being successfully resisted by entrenched interests.
Demonstration in Washington, D.C. organized by Teens For Gun Reform in the wake of shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida., From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Sunday, February 25, 2018
Another Modest Proposal: Let's Help Trump By Surrounding Him With Gunslingers More guns. Yup! Trump thinks the way we can stop the murderous wave that has overtaken America is by putting weapons into the hands of amateur sheriffs -- who, he insists, will stop the marauders in their tracks.
images, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, October 17, 2011
Who Ya Gonna Believe: Would You Buy A Used Iran Terror Plot From The Man? When the US leadership has wanted to justify military action, it has always found a way -- and had no reservations about creating false incidents and narratives. These never fooled the "enemy" -- only the American people and a perennially captive and cooperative establishment media.
Libya Burning, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 28, 2014
Here's Why Libya Is Burning -- Again Since the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, we've scarcely discussed Libya except in the context of a predictable partisan effort to affix blame for a single if tragic event: the deaths of the American ambassador and several others in Benghazi nearly two years ago.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 7, 2013
The Jonathan Pollard Spy Case: Plot Thickens Perhaps no spy case in recent decades has more sharply divided opinion than that of Jonathan Pollard, the American accused of spying on the US for Israel. Pollard is described in the subtitle of one book as "one of the most notorious spies in American history" and by others as no actual threat to the United States at all.
From Images
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 31, 2011
Iowa: Watch!...Watch!...Watch!... Why Are You Watching? Following months of endless horserace reporting on the upcoming GOP caucuses in Iowa, they are now publishing warnings that...it is all virtually meaningless. The takeaway from this is that the media are essentially admitting that they fill your free time with political "reporting" that is about as relevant as watching televised poker matches.
Romney-2012-Blog-Image-950-Regulation, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Romney vs. Obama on Regulation and Big Money As much as Romney and Obama are similar on so many of the biggest issues, it's usually in matters that represent at least a partial amelioration of the way that the powerful can and do repeatedly hoodwink the rest of us -- where we can see a difference.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 15, 2013
WHO In Boston: Bombing Story Mysteries What about the Boston Marathon bombing, in which innocent people died seemingly at the hands of anti-American monsters? It's important to ask the tough, even unpopular questions. The Boston story, as we previously noted, is full of question marks and high-stakes implications -- all the more reason to dig beneath the screen of official handouts.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 16, 2011
Factchecking the Media: More Questions About the Libyan Sex Atrocity Reporting A rapidly spiraling scandal involves the allegation that the embattled Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi ordered his troops to commit mass rape--and gave them Viagra to help fortify them in this atrocity. There's scant evidence that it is true--at least at this point.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 27, 2012
Fact-Checking Wayne LaPierre LaPierre's even raising the issue of Feinstein's bill was a red herring -- a distraction from the substance of what NBC's David Gregory was saying. Thus, while it was true that Feinstein's bill did not prevent the carnage at Columbine, the proposal Gregory was referring to...very likely would have.
new-york-times, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, January 9, 2012
An Open Letter to NYT Staffers: Leave the Plantation and Join Us New York Timesians, welcome to the real world. In the end, the problem is the ownership of the media. In the end, you work on a plantation. Granted, it is a plush plantation, and there are many benefits, not the least of which is the status it accords.
u8_China-paper-defends-Syria-veto-doubts-West-motive, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, February 15, 2012
But Syriasly, Folks... Ho-HO! It's our old friends, the Saudi-connected, staunchly pro-Sunni Al Qaeda. That's right. The same enemies of the American people whose leader needed to be very publicly hunted down and killed by those Navy SEALs in that strange raid whose media coverage never made any sense. Now, everyone's on the same side.
Davis_History_House_Romney_WV_2012_04_30_02, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Meaningless and Misleading Campaign Reportage: Landlord Romney The only thing we should be looking at is: who's really driving Romney's train? Who, if anyone, has a real vision of what his presidency can or should be? Pretty clearly, that's not Mitt. He's another ambitious and lucky guy who wants to be president because he can be.
(7 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Media's Belated "Acknowledgment" of Saudi 9/11 Story Suddenly, the "Saudi-9/11 connection" is on the table for the media. But it certainly wasn't, for the longest time. We know they ignored it because we know them, and we sent it to them. And we heard that it would be and was being ignored. They were only willing to do maudlin, "human interest" stories for the 10th anniversary of this monumental and still-mysterious event.
offshore_tax, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, August 24, 2012
Obama's Buds Sunstein and Wolf Overboard! Our political system is so bad that the alternative to the Obama-Wolf relationship is Romney, who both is -- and openly embraces -- big money, and wants to "unshackle" big money further. And whose own widespread use of offshore banking and other devices to pay lower tax rates than the rest of us makes him a far less likely candidate than Obama to do anything about it.
From ImagesAttr
(6 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 19, 2013
The Marathon Bombing: What The Media Didn't Warn You About When an event like the Boston bombing gives rise to wall-to-wall coverage, it fills our bandwidth. It exhausts us. It blocks out our ability to focus on anything else. At least, if we're going to give up on everything else, is it too much to ask that the coverage contain some useful information?
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, July 23, 2013
MONDAY MORNING SKEPTIC: Is Snowden The Criminal -- Or Is It The System? Around the mediascape, we hear a lot of talk about Edward Snowden being a criminal, and needing to return home to face "justice." But what about the possibility that people like Snowden actually are the forces of justice, while the criminals are the ones in charge of the system?
From ImagesAttr
(4 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, March 28, 2013
How To Survive A Coup: Lessons From David Petraeus Petraeus' proclivities and vulnerabilities were well known among those with a reason to care. It is also worth studying the man who, in some respects, was his chief competitor: John O. Brennan. Within hours of Obama's re-election, Petraeus was somehow selected for the world's attention. The take-down was never properly scrutinized for the role played in it by intelligence-connected figures, the FBI, and other shadowy figures.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 1, 2012
The Post-Election Project: Should America Have A National Popular Vote? The person with the most popular votes actually has garnered the most electoral votes and been installed in the White House in 51 out of 55 elections. But even assuming those four exceptions don't trouble you, it's worth considering another issue: How the current Electoral College makeup distorts the campaigns themselves.
2011, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, November 7, 2011
Corporate Media Stumped On How To Cover The Occupy Movement The posture of these two men is akin to asking what the serfs could possibly be upset about. It's treating Americans who are poor or fed up like they're some exotic species just discovered.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Someone Would Have Talked? Someone Would Be Crazy Whistleblowers are quickly discredited, suppressed, or worse. From time to time people even come out of the national security establishment to testify to such wrongdoing, but they almost always pay a heavy price -- which of course discourages others from bearing witness.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 8, 2015
Paris and Boston: That Other, Missing, Comparison In both cases, the understandable reaction is fury and a desire for retribution and closure. The result in both cases will almost certainly be a decision to grant further authority to the security state in both countries to do "whatever is necessary" to protect us.
neil, From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, December 7, 2012
Innovation Alert: Kinder, Gentler (Cheaper?) Medical Care? The idea is that a more flexible, more humane, and more responsive medical practice is actually a money-saver. If primary care physicians are more attentive to the needs of patients, and more emphasis is placed on prevention, the thinking goes, insurers' outlays to expensive specialists will drop.
Torture, waterboarding, From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 4, 2014
CIA Blocks More Inquiries This would not be the first time in recent memory that an organization that is all about subterfuge has moved to prevent the truth from getting out by shuffling key personnel between it and other parts of the Executive Branch.
0621-syria-rebels-cia_full_600, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, June 26, 2012
The Hijacking of Arab Spring, and the Media's Complicity When almost no media anymore question these barely disguised coups against uncooperative standing governments, we are in very deep trouble. Because if we can't count on the media to tell us what is going on in far-off places, what may we expect of them closer to home? We are witnessing a crisis for journalism that is nothing less than a crisis for democracy itself.
inspector_clouseau_pi, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Mitt's Advisors: He Has No Clue On Foreign Policy How did we end up with a situation in which one of our two choices in November is a man who seems to know, or care, so little about the world? How is it possible that, with just weeks before the election, there is no dominant person or clique in Romney's camp to articulate a vision of what the United States can and should do in an incredibly complex and explosive world?
16sld3, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 20, 2012
CLOSE READING -- About that "surprise" attack: Ka-Bull! The US military "has discovered" that Afghanistan is sitting on, oh, about a trillion dollars of untapped mineral deposits--so much that Afghanistan could become a world leader in mining. The advantage of this surprising attack getting our surprised response--is that it is likely to justify more, not less, continued presence of foreign troops and operatives in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. KACHING!
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, March 23, 2013
NYT's Rhodes To Nowhere: A Cipher In The Oval Office Once we start asking questions about Benjamin Rhodes, this leads to questions about Obama, about the Times and CBS and journalism in general. And it leads to questions about how much we, the most smugly self-assured people on earth, understand about how anything of significance actually works.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Why The "All Government Is Bad" Movement -- Is Bad Almost every day, members of Congress, that much-maligned institution, are actually proposing measures to deal with real problems that affect our well-being, and employees of federal agencies are working to establish rules and procedures to implement those measures. We believe strongly that the government apparatus must represent us.
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 5, 2012
Obama: "Yes, I'm in a Can" To stay in the game, he must to some degree play the game the way it is being played. But he can howl hard about how unhappy he is with it. And he can speak directly about ways in which as a second-termer he is going to lead the charge in fundamentally challenging the corruption.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, December 11, 2012
The Post-Election Project: The Establishment Pillories Susan Rice Beyond Milbank's point that the Clintonites don't like Rice for perceived transgressions and indignities, they probably also would prefer that Hillary not be followed by another woman who might outshine her in concrete diplomatic breakthroughs, of which there have been not so many thus far under Obama.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Oil Companies Bribing Gulf States To Ignore Spill? Recently, Gulf area legislators have been pushing to get their states a larger share of government income from offshore drilling. We're told that they need the extra revenue to improve flood protection. We don't have a media that can afford to just tell it to us straight -- in such a way as to make us care, and make us want to actually do something about it.
From Images
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, October 21, 2011
Obama And Interventionism (Everywhere) The US's mandate abroad, both stated and internally understood, is to advance the American "national interest." Humanitarianism should perhaps be a legitimate goal, yet in reality it almost never is. But wherever US troops go, valuable minerals and other resources, and the interests of large American corporations, aren't far away.
Occupy-ALEC-Action-SantaFe-1_25_2012_imp, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 13, 2012
"Smart ALECs" Get Their Due It's clear that the corporations' reaction is no more than a public relations move in the face of a scorching hot controversy. It's too steamy in that particular kitchen. For now. The reality is that many big corporations just looove ALEC. In fact, they are ALEC. ALEC is a front for corporate capital and its corrupting influence on the democratic process.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, February 11, 2013
US Media Double Standard -- On Uprisings In Syria And Uprisings In...The US we must be very, very suspicious about the enthusiasm which the American establishment exhibits for rebellion abroad -- very selectively, only in certain countries, and not in others. Either we want real democracy and freedom of expression, or we don't.
clinton_syria, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, April 2, 2012
How War Reporting in Syria Makes a Larger Conflict Inevitable If indeed the Syrian government is arming one group in the country, that is because the government is besieged -- and those being armed are members of the same minority sect as the ruling Assad clan. Syria managed for decades without internecine warfare. It is the uprising itself that has massively exacerbated animosity and fear between religious groups.
QQ截图20121110122032, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, November 10, 2012
Meanwhile, Back In The Middle East... That Panetta would announce the deployment of American troops in the fall of 2012 just as the nation was distracted by the presidential horserace is significant. In fact, American troops have been operating out of the same Jordanian base for almost a year and a half, a tell-tale sign of the West's direct involvement in supporting if not creating the Syrian uprising in the first place.
stop-sopa-bill-300x300, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, January 21, 2012
So Pa, So Good ... But Must Activists Always Align With Corporations to Win? Indefinite detention of citizens, even the remote threat of it, is surely as important a threat to our liberties as legislation that curtails our freedom to use copyrighted material on the Internet. Yet what corporations were troubled enough to join the ACLU and other liberties groups in opposing NDAA?
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, August 10, 2013
New Obama Disclosure Block Washington's hunger to know everything about its citizens seems to be matched only by its reticence in revealing its own activities to its citizens. The latest move to prevent us from knowing what is going on relates to so-called transparency policies whose fine print instead does the opposite -- by effectively blunting the stated intent of the regulations.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, September 5, 2012
For Hayward, BP Stands For "Back In Play" Wealthy Turks are horning in on the Iraq oil situation. Could the desire to evict the Assad regime and install a Western-friendly regime, with the likely military bases there, be driven, in part, by a desire to keep watch over those valuable oil properties in Iraq?
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, October 18, 2012
Unstacking The Deck: The Status Quo, Third Parties, And You We have had times in this country when the differences between two nominees were openly asserted and clear to all. Think Richard Nixon and George McGovern, or Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. We no longer have that -- perhaps because the two parties know not to nominate anyone with too distinctive a set of views.
An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi late on Sept. 11, 2012., From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Benghazi: Cover-Up By Both Parties? The continued finger-pointing between the GOP and the Obama Administration over "what really happened in Benghazi" may be obscuring a much more disturbing narrative -- a story in neither party's interest. Sometimes, to be sure, such events as the Benghazi "uprising" are as they appear: spontaneous acts of anger and passion. But often enough, there is more to the story.
From ImagesAttr
SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 22, 2012
Connecting The Dots On Syria: Fooling Enough Of The People Enough Of The Time" Let's think about this logically. The president of Syria is struggling to stay in power and he's looking to attack other countries? Countries far stronger than he is? Countries whose allies would immediately retaliate against Assad, guaranteeing he would be driven from power and probably killed?
Wolf-Terrorist-415x300, From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Only "Lone Wolves" Commit Terror? The use of deadly "false flag" operations to gain strategic political advantage is not exclusive to regimes of any particular ideology. The lone wolves, meanwhile, are certainly out there, but they're not all as solitary as they might appear.
E19EF429-9BA6-49A1-9B51-DA7E8AE4D543_w640_r1_s, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Syria: We Can Learn A Lot From The "Small Stuff" Who is responsible for this descent into chaos? We are. Our taxes and our government fuel the revolt in Syria, and so, whether or not we might feel the revolt itself worthy of support, we ought to at least acknowledge that the crime wave and attendant terror did not just happen, nor was it caused by the Assad regime.
Mike Mullen, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Friday, April 29, 2016
How The New York Times Helped Hillary Hide The Hawk Clinton's principal reason to claim she is so qualified to be president -- aside from being First Lady and senator -- is her four years as Secretary of State. What kind of a legacy did she leave? Perhaps her principal role was to push for military engagement -- more soldiers in existing conflicts, and new wars altogether.
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, May 8, 2013
READ THIS -- Our Common Wealth: The Hidden Economy That Makes Everything Else Work Throughout the United States and the world, we see examples of innovations in the commons, from the opening of downtown public spaces to the spread of farmers markets to the enlivening of neighborhoods where families voluntarily tear down back fences to create larger shared spaces.
_45361314_05_kiir_ap, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Two Million Dead -- Now What's That South Sudan Independence About? Those "freedom-lovers" in the USA who -- starting under Bush -- made the South Sudanese cause a priority, also managed, as a side by-product, to wrest more oil from largely-hostile hands into friendly ones.
From ImagesAttr
(8 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, April 11, 2013
Just Asking: Media Outfoxed On Spate Of Bizarre Shootings? The idea that the United States is the only country where ferocious financial and political interests would never consider using surrogates to achieve a larger purpose is both statistically impossible and just plain ridiculous. The press frames both individual events and the longer arc of history not as an honest broker but as an integral part of a dangerous fantasy-making machinery.
article_3d2c7bef8d897ed4_1342172654_9j-4aaqsk, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Monday, July 16, 2012
Syria, The Movie: Monsters and Defectors Any regime considers itself authorized to do whatever it takes to put down insurrection. And when foreign powers are helping the uprising, the regime believes it has even greater cause for muscular action. That's the basic issue in Syria. Yet, because the West, which wants the Assad regime gone, does not have a policy of generally supporting uprisings against authoritarian, repressive regimes it cannot invoke that argument.
From ImagesAttr
(5 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, October 11, 2012
Privacy Watch: An Orwellian Bargain The consequences of the steady slide into complete consumer commodification are staggering. Not only are we tagged and labeled like cattle. The long-range implications aren't hard to see: Anyone with ill intentions would be able to track our movements and locate us in a second. They would know where we go, what we do, what we eat, and perhaps who we are with.
Syria-protests-young-child, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Syria: The Dangers of One-Sided Reporting The bottom line is that without journalists verifying, it's not journalism. And it's not worth rushing to report one-sided claims under pressure to scoop the competition instead of waiting for more reliable information.
From ImagesAttr
(3 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, January 10, 2013
Talk About Politicizing Intelligence! Meet John Brennan, CIA Chief Designee The Senate hearings on Brennan's nomination at CIA will likely focus only on bite-sized, partisan controversies like the death of America's ambassador to Libya. We're not likely to witness Brennan opening up about the highly delicate topics of recent vintage. Why not at least broaden the inquiry to quiz Brennan on current policy toward murky security matters that are still unresolved decades later?
From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, December 20, 2012
Get Your Pink Rifle At Dick's! America's Love Affair With Money And Violence The day of the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School, Dick's Sporting Goods announced a special cash dividend because the company is just bursting with funds. So, who believes Dick's (or any other gun dealer) is going to stop selling "modern rifles" (for hunting or otherwise) a second longer than it must to survive the current p.r. nightmare?
SHARE More Sharing        Thursday, June 30, 2011
Libya Update, Featuring Media and Congress as Daffy Duck Bottom line -- a majority in the House doesn't want to authorize continued US operations in Libya, but neither does it want to block it outright. We have a chaotic bipartisan free-for-all, with some pro-Obama Democrats going along with whatever he wants to do, and some war-oriented Republicans abandoning partisanship and saying, "why sure, bombs away!"
xtrayvon_20120325100125_320_240, From ImagesAttr
(1 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The Trayvon Effect: Americans as Tragedy Addicts The public has trouble focusing on more than one story or one issue at a time. So that means that every week we have a Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman affair, or a Tyler Clementi/Dharun Ravi controversy, or even a Rush Limbaugh/Bill Maher brouhaha, we're unable to focus on things like the constant loss of civil liberties for all, the growing crisis for life on earth, and the destruction of democracy by corporate capital.
From ImagesAttr
(2 comments) SHARE More Sharing        Saturday, December 29, 2012
Explainer: How Poor Timing Buries Important News Timing is everything in the news business. That's why those seeking maximum impact typically seek to make announcements when people are paying attention and when there's little competing news. A lot of those rules went out the window with the arrival of the 24-hour cable news cycle and the subsequent rise of the instantaneous posting culture on Twitter and other social media.

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