(2018-09-18). Is China Springing Debt Traps or Throwing a Lifeline to Countries in Distress? counterpunch.org Tales spun by Western corporate media and politicians about China devastating economies in Global South by luring them into debt traps have increasingly worn thin and become threadbare. The latest episode to debunk such false narrative is China giving a fresh loan of $5 billion to Venezuela on President Maduro's visit to Beijing last week. More
(2018-09-18). Who Owns California 2018: Big Oil and the Western States Petroleum Association. indybay.org Most of the news coverage by mainstream and alternative media of Jerry Brown's Global Climate Action Summit from September 12 to 14 and the big protests by indigenous and front line communities against Jerry Brown's policies of carbon trading and expanding oil drilling in California has neglected one huge issue: Big Oil and the Western State's Petroleum Association's grip on CA politics. | It's hard to report on the subservience of Jerry Brown and other politicians to the fossil fuel industry agenda without discussing how Big Oil & WSPA have captured the regulators, including so-called "marine protection" in Cali…
(2018-09-17). Facebook Censors a ThinkProgress Story on Kavanaugh After a Conservative Site Calls It "Fake News" democracynow.org 
Last week, ThinkProgress published a report by senior fellow Ian Millhiser headlined "Brett Kavanaugh said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no one noticed." But then a Facebook fact checker with the conservative outlet The Weekly Standard declared it "fake news," leading the piece to be targeted and demoted by the social media site. The Intercept then republished Millhiser's piece, with editor-in-chief Betsy Reed writing, "The story was effectively nuked from Facebook, with other outlets threatened with traffic and monetary consequences if they shared it." We speak with Ian Millhiser, a senior fello…
(2018-09-17). Al Qaeda & Hollywood: The American Film Industry Is Promoting War. iranian.com An exclusive Grayzone investigative documentary rips the cover off of the most sophisticated and expensive campaign of humanitarian interventionist propaganda in modern history. or decades, Western governments, corporate media and Hollywood have engaged in a project of mass deception to manufacture consent for military interventions. Waged in the name of lofty ideals like freedom, human […]
(2018-09-17). Silicon Valley's corrupt nexus: War, censorship and inequality. wsws.org The appearance of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the Air Force Association's annual conference embodies the fusion of America's technology monopolies with the apparatus of state repression.
(2018-09-17). US schools hiring private companies to spy on students' social media. wsws.org Monitoring students' social media accounts is a violation of privacy, revealing the partnership of the US government and tech companies in internet surveillance and censorship.
(2018-09-17). Facebook Censors Kavanaugh Story After a Conservative Site Calls It "Fake News" truthout.org Last week, ThinkProgress published a report by Senior Fellow Ian Millhiser headlined "Brett Kavanaugh said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no one noticed." But then a Facebook fact-checker with the conservative outlet the Weekly Standard declared it "fake news," leading the piece to be targeted and demoted by the social media site. The Intercept then re-published Millhiser's piece, with editor-in-chief Betsy Reed writing, "The story was effectively nuked from Facebook, with other outlets threatened with traffic and monetary consequences if they shared it." We speak with Ian Millhiser, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the justice editor for ThinkProgress. | TRANSCRIPT: | AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. | Last week ThinkProgress published a report by Senior Fellow Ian Millhiser that…
(2018-09-14). Google China Prototype Links Searches to Phone Numbers. theintercept.com Google built a prototype of a censored search engine for China that links users' searches to their personal phone numbers, thus making it easier for the Chinese government to monitor people's queries, The Intercept can reveal. | The search engine, codenamed Dragonfly, was designed for Android devices, and would remove content deemed sensitive by China's ruling Communist Party regime, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. | Previously undisclosed details about the plan, obtained by The Intercept on Friday, show that Google compiled a censorship blacklist that included terms such as "human rights," "student protest," and "Nobel Prize" in Mandarin. | Leading human rights groups have criticized Dragonfly, saying that it could result in the company "directly contributing to, or [becoming] complicit in, human rights violations." A central concern expressed by the groups is…
(2018-09-14). Obama's Imperial Presidency. counterpunch.org 
Photo Source The U.S. Army | CC BY 2.0 | Could Donald Trump already be the worst of all American presidents? In less than two years his record on the world scene has been frightening enough: U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accords, scuttling of the Iran nuclear treaty, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, unjustifiably punitive sanctions against Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, terror bombing of Mosul and other Iraq cities, bombastic threats against friends and enemies alike — not to mention a $54 billion gift to the Pentagon and stepped-up nuclear "modernization". Hard to imagine much worse. | One article of faith among liberals and the corporate media is that Trump's presidency stands alone as a house or horrors, unprecedented in its fascistic authoritarianism, crazy pronouncements, and ideological blend of xenophobia, racism, sexism, and sheer extremism. Those in the "resistance"
(2018-09-14). As Trump Commits to Endless War, Corporate Media Obsess Over Anonymous Op-Ed. fair.org 
Corporate media obsessed over the whodunit of an anonymous op-ed published by the New York Times ( 9/5/18). | The anonymous New York Times op-ed ( 9/5/18), purportedly written by a senior Trump administration official, coupled with the release of Bob Woodward's new book, Fear—itself full of White House back-stabbing and anonymous quotes—unleashed a veritable tsunami of breathless press speculation last week. But lost amidst the deluge was a Trump administration story that will have deadly, far-reaching consequences long after the Times op-ed is forgotten and Woodward's book hits the discount pile. That's because Trump effectively endorsed endless US war in Syria last week, and almost no one in the press noticed. | There were a few lonely exceptions. The Washington Post ( 9/6/18) spelled out the new Trump administration policy quite clearly, though the banality with which US foreign…
(2018-09-14). Fake hurricane Florence image depicts Sharknado scenario. rt.com 
Ever wonder what happens to the thousands of evacuees who flee the state to wait out an impending natural disaster, while fretting about what will be waiting for them when they return? Why they create fake news, of course. |
(2018-09-14). Careful what you wish for: ThinkProgress gets censored by Facebook fact-checkers. rt.com 
Left-wing opinion site ThinkProgress has found itself censored by Facebook's 'fact checkers,' just weeks after calling on the social network to censor right-wing polemicist Alex Jones.
(2018-09-13). Senior Google Scientist Resigns Over "Forfeiture of Our Values" in China. theintercept.com The specialist said that the plan to resume the censored search engine project in China could endanger dissidents and encourage online repression elsewhere.
(2018-09-13). Hillary Clinton bashes Kavanaugh with debunked fake news claim. rt.com 
Hillary Clinton came out swinging against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, bashing the judge for his hardline statements against contraception. The problem: he never said them. |
(2018-09-11). Leaked Clips from Censored Documentary on Israel Lobby Reveal Attacks on US Activists. therealnews.com 
Excerpts of the censored Al Jazeera undercover film on the Israel lobby in the US have started to be leaked. The Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah and the Grayzone Project's Max Blumenthal explain how these clips show the Israeli government backing attacks on American pro-Palestinian activists and Black Lives Matter
(2018-09-07). By Inviting and Disinviting Bannon, New Yorker Fell Into Its Own Trap. fair.org 
Steve Bannon (New Yorker, 5/1/17) | Corporate media just can't stop cluelessly digging their own grave. | The New Yorker on September 3 announced it had invited white nationalist grifter Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist and former head of the racist conspiracy theory website Breitbart, to a top spot at the annual New Yorker Festival, the magazine's high-profile celebration of art, media and politics. It's not surprising that sharing a platform with the likes of Bannon impelled many of the other speakers to threaten to cancel their slots at the festival in protest, along with hordes of attendees asking for their money back. By mid-afternoon, the New Yorker had pulled the plug on Bannon's appearance. | Bannon was to be interviewed by editor David Remnick, who said he was hoping to
(2018-09-05). Censored Documentary Exposes the Israeli Government's Attack on Black Lives Matter. grayzoneproject.com Exclusive footage from the censored Al Jazeera documentary, "The Lobby — USA," shows Israeli government officials taking credit for attacks…
(2018-08-29). Leaked Scenes from Censored Documentary Reveal Israel Lobbyist Noah Pollak Astroturfing an Anti-Palestinian Protest. grayzoneproject.com Exclusive leaked scenes from Al Jazeera's "The Lobby — USA" documentary show how Emergency Committee for Israel Executive Director Noah…
(2018-08-24). Big Tech Corporations Are Now Banning Iranian Social Media Accounts — A Censored Student Journalist Speaks out. grayzoneproject.com Google, Facebook, and Twitter are removing social media accounts of real life Iranians who are falsely dubbed as "government trolls."…