2020-09-23: News Headlines

_____ (2020-09-23). As Assange Faces Extradition, the State of U.S. Prisons Grows Worse. strategic-culture.org John KIRIAKOU | The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is in a state of chaos. Leadership changes, Covid-19, and criminal activity on the part of BOP officers and staff members has plunged the Justice Department's largest and best-funded bureau into a scandal that, while it has not made the mainstream media, has harmed thousands of prisoners. | [The issue was raised last week in the hearing of Julian Assange in London as the state of mental health care for prisoners, cited in a BOP report, came up in witness testimony in the defense's argument against sending Assange to the U.S. to face time in a U.S. prison.] Micha…

_____ (2020-09-23). 'Confirmed' Has Become a Meaningless Word in Mainstream News Reporting. strategic-culture.org Caitlin JOHNSTONE | Last week Politico published a The claim was nonsensical on its face; the idea that Iran would see the assassination of some random ambassador to an irrelevant country as a proportionate…

Ben Norton (2020-09-23). Leaked docs expose massive Syria propaganda operation waged by Western govt contractors and media. thegrayzone.com Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders, planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network. By Ben Norton Leaked documents show how UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria's political and armed opposition. Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their …

Workers World Party (2020-09-23). Workers World Party demands "Stop Censoring Palestinian Resistance!" workers.org Sept. 23 — Today, three media platforms, Facebook, Zoom and YouTube, collaborated to censor a Palestinian program featuring Palestinian revolutionary Leila Khaled and U.S. political prisoners. Workers World Party condemns this censorship and expresses its solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for self-determination and freedom. The WWP Facebook . . . |

Brijana Prooker (2020-09-23). In Covering the West Coast Fires, We Can't Ignore People with Chronic Illnesses. progressive.org My autoimmune disease symptoms are flaring uncontrollably from the smoke, and I'm not alone in my plight.

The Global Research Team (2020-09-23). The Critical Importance of Independent Media. globalresearch.ca Never before has the need for independent, honest voices and sources of information been so dire. We are — as a society — inundated with a flood of unrelenting unreliable information. The mainstream media, concentrated in the hands of a …

James O'Neill (2020-09-23). Australia Ill-Equipped to Face the Challenges of the Emerging New World Order. dissidentvoice.org The American writer Mark Twain once observed that there were three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics. In the 21st century that list might usefully be added to and include lies of omission. The modern mainstream media do not so much write and broadcast actual lies, although it is not difficult to detect …

Mark Gruenberg (2020-09-22). House panel subpoenas NLRB documents on ethics violations. peoplesworld.org WASHINGTON—Add the National Labor Relations Board to the list of Trump-controlled agencies that defy congressional oversight. It thus joins an infamous crowd, headed by GOP Oval Office occupant Donald Trump's Justice Department. Following 18 months of rebuffs and refusals to testify from NLRB Chair John Ring—a former right-wing GOP congressional aide infamous for drafting anti-worker …

_____ (2020-09-22). The Propaganda Campaign Against Russia Is Gathering Momentum. strategic-culture.org Up above us there is a scientific laboratory circling the earth in a truly warming example of world-wide cooperation. The International Space Station (ISS) is an impressive scientific venture which for the last ten years has relied entirely on Russian Soyuz spacecraft and rockets for transportation of crews and materiel to and from the station in orbit. All launches and landings are from the Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome which is leased from Kazakhstan.

_____ (2020-09-22). Coming Soon to a U.S. Neighborhood Near You? Regime-Change Foot Soldiers Parading as Social Justice Warriors. strategic-culture.org Is the 'Trump regime' about to get a taste of the color revolution tactics that America has employed in the past against "illiberal" foreign governments that refused to toe the neoliberal globalist line? It's looking highly likely. | Despite great efforts by the mainstream media to play it down, an increasing number of Americans are being subjected to a level of aggression, intimidation and street violence that the authorities seem unable or unwilling to control. This is no accident. | Since 2016, a series of actions by the political left indicate that the chaos unfolding on the streets of America is no grassroot…

Project Censored (2020-09-21). Principles of Journalism on Trial/2020 Banned Books Week. projectcensored.org Mickey's guest for the first half of the program is Kevin Gosztola, managing editor of www.shadowproof.com who is covering the UK extradition trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The Trump Administration…

David William Pear (2020-09-21). The Last Stalinist of the Soviet Union. dissidentvoice.org In 2005 Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko was dubbed "the last dictator in Europe" by President George W. Bush's Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The name has stuck in the West. The U.S. foreign policy establishments pretend that "dictator" is a dirty word to them. They actually only use it for propaganda purposes. The U.S. has …

Eds. (2020-09-21). In Bolivia, Washington has replicated past fascist horrors. mronline.org The campaigns from imperialist propaganda operatives to brand Bolivia's coup regime as some sort of example of progressive governance, or as in any way superior to the Morales government on human rights, have been pure smoke and mirrors.

Joe Glenton (2020-09-21). Defence minister launches propaganda blitz ahead of Commons war crime debate. thecanary.co The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has launched a propaganda blitz ahead of a Commons debate on a controversial war crimes bill. Critics say the bill could decriminalise torture, damage human rights, and help authoritarian regimes. | Due to be The Tories have been trying to loosen the laws which govern war throughout their time in power, fram…

news.un (2020-09-21). Spain violated inclusive education right of child with disabilities, independent committee finds. news.un.org Spain violated the right to inclusive education of a child with disabilities, an independent UN human rights committee has found, calling on the country to end any educational segregation of students with disabilities in both special education and mainstream schools.

_____ (2020-09-21). Sweden's COVID-19 Response Is Nothing To Envy. popularresistance.org From Djurgà•rden, I walk along the water on Strandvà§gen — a rising fall whips in a determined wind across the water, slicing at remnants of summer and carving pathways around centuries-old buildings. Colors like Nordic interior design catalogs look like they've been stirred among clouds — a muted vibrance that evokes a calm and stoic resolve. | Albeit quieter than a typical early fall day, there's a bustle. People are out and their faces are bare. Buses and trolleys roll by and not a mask can be seen inside. Scuffed and faded stickers on the street remind people to keep their distance yet t…

Eric Zuesse (2020-09-21). Why It Is Likelier that the U.S. Government Had Alexei Navalny Poisoned. "Immense Propaganda Asset to US" globalresearch.ca The poisoning of Alexei Navalny has created intensified support by pro-U.S., and especially pro-NATO, officials in the European Union, to block the nearly completed NordStream 2 natural-gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, and to import into the EU, instead, far …

_____ (2020-09-20). Venezuela Blasts 'Politicized' Report By UN 'Ghost Mission'. popularresistance.org The Venezuelan government rejected a recent report by a United Nations (UN) human rights mission. | "It's a report ridden with falsehoods, written from afar, with no methodological rigor whatsoever," Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza wrote on Twitter. He went on to emphasize that the report had been written by a "ghost mission" which had not set foot in Venezuela. | "This illustrates the perverse practice of playing politics with human rights," Arreaza concluded, accusing the authors of the report of being "controlled" by US-allied governments.