Democracy: when the opposition is the Media
Nathan Raia | mronline.org | 2020-01-08
One more court case has been opened against the former Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa. The elite with the help of the corporate media are trying to get him behind bars. Also, a council has been created, by the executive, to control the judiciary, proving that there is no impartial process for the victims of lawfare. | Source…
mronline.org/2020/01/08/democracy-when-t…
'So far, so good!' Trump tweets of US military might, set to address Americans on Wednesday over Iranian strike
rt.com | 2020-01-08
US President Donald Trump has weighed in after a series of Iranian missile strikes on American bases in Iraq, noting that a damage and casualty assessment looks "good" so far. | "All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now," Trump said, adding that he would make a statement to the nation on Wednesday morning. | All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in t…
rt.com/usa/477686-trump-tweet-iranian-st…
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez Goes to Washington: AOC shamed into un-liking antiwar journalist's tweet, apologizing for wrongthink
rt.com | 2020-01-07
New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez learned the hard way about the phalanx of thought-police waiting to pounce on politicians' 'wrongthink' when she was shamed into un-liking a tweet from an antiwar journalist. | Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, for short) stepped a little too far outside the mainstream when she clicked 'like' on a tweet by journalist Rania Khalek about US fears of Iranian retaliation over the killing of General Qassem Soleimani. An army of blue-checks and their enforcers quickly encircled her to point out the error of her ways, gloating when she finally knuckled under and apologized. | Last ni…
rt.com/usa/477659-aoc-iran-strike-trolls…
Impeach Trump for Acts of War on Iraq, Iran and Elsewhere
Stephen Lendman | globalresearch.ca | 2020-01-07
Trump's legal team reportedly prepared their strategy to challenge articles of impeachment by House Dems — yet to be sent to the GOP-controlled Senate for trial. | According to Law Professor Jonathan Turley, "(b)y rushing the impeachment and forcing a vote | …
globalresearch.ca/impeach-trump-for-acts…
America Escalates Its "Democratic" Oil War in the Near East
Michael Hudson | peoplesdispatch.org | 2020-01-07
The mainstream media are carefully sidestepping the method behind America's seeming madness in assassinating Islamic Revolutionary Guard general Qassim Suleimani to start the New Year. The logic behind the assassination was a long-standing application of U.S. global policy, not just a personality quirk of Donald Trump's impulsive action. His assassination of Iranian military leader Suleimani was indeed a unilateral act of war in violation of international law, but it was a logical step in a long-standing U.S. strategy. It was explicitly authorized by the Senate in the funding bill for the Pentagon that it passed…
peoplesdispatch.org/2020/01/07/america-e…
52 Pick-Up: Trump's Deranged Threats to Bomb the Past
David Price | counterpunch.org | 2020-01-07
On January 4th, President Trump tweeted that his military response to any Iranian military reactions to his assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani could include attacks on "52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD." For an administration whose acts in the present routinely require Orwellian carpet-bombing campaigns on the past (consider Mike Pence's lie this week that Iran was involved in the 9/11 attacks), t…
counterpunch.org/2020/01/07/52-pick-up-t…
Propaganda Machine: The Military Roots of Cambridge Analytica's Psychological Manipulation of Voters
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-01-07
We continue our discussion of data harvesting, targeted advertising and voter manipulation — practices used by firms like Cambridge Analytica. The secretive data firm collapsed in May 2018 after The Observer newspaper revealed the company had harvested some 87 million Facebook profiles without the users' knowledge or consent to sway voters to support Trump during the 2016 campaign. A new trove of internal Cambridge Analytica documents and emails are being posted on Twitter detailing the company's operations, including its work with President Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton. We speak wit…
www.democracynow.org/2020/1/7/cambridge_…
The US propaganda machine justifies the assassination of Qassem Suleimani
wsws.org | 2020-01-07
To present with any degree of honesty the life of Major General Qassem Suleimani would require acknowledging the criminal role the United States has played in subverting the interests of the people of Iran and the entire Middle East for upwards of 70 years.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/07/pers…
Censorship in Canada? Vanessa Beeley's Talks on Syria
John Ryan | dissidentvoice.org | 2020-01-06
White Helmets Vanessa Beeley is a British journalist who was invited to Canada in the fall of 2019 to present talks in seven cities on the conflict in Syria. The sponsors of her speaking tour were several anti-war groups, including the Geopolitical Economy Research Group, the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, and Peace Alliance …
dissidentvoice.org/2020/01/censorship-in…
WhatsApp and fake news, or how to kill democracy
Eds. | mronline.org | 2020-01-06
Fears and anxieties are used to create and diffuse fake news and manipulate the electorate. This is what happened at the last Brazilian election. A group of researchers studied the case in order to develop a method to deal with fake news. | Source…
mronline.org/2020/01/06/whatsapp-and-fak…
Conservative satire as popular as mainstream news, journalists and cyberwarriors furious
rt.com | 2020-01-06
A satirical article claiming the Democratic Party is officially mourning the death of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani has been shared more times than most CNN and New York Times articles, annoying the joke police. | Soleimani, who commanded the Iranian military Quds Force, was killed in an American airstrike last week, an assassination which raised already high tensions between Washington and Tehran to boiling point. Democrats criticized Trump for ordering Soleimani's killing, prompting conservative satire site the Babylon Bee to put its own spin on events. | "Democrats call for flags to be flown a…
rt.com/usa/477584-babylon-bee-cnn-soleim…
The Top 5 Mainstream Media Myths That Perpetuate Income Inequality
Staff | therealnews.com | 2019-12-27
The Real News takes aim at the top 5 mainstream myths that bolster income inequality and tout the ultra-rich.
therealnews.com/stories/the-top-5-mainst…