Daily Archives: May 27, 2020

2020-05-27: News Headlines

Lawrence Davidson (2020-05-27). National Values: Reality or Propaganda? counterpunch.org Joe Biden, presumptive Democratic Party presidential candidate, thinks he knows what American values are. Here are some of them: "inclusivity, tolerance, diversity, respect for the rule of law." Biden defines these as among the "democratic values that define us." Actually, what Biden is describing are practices that allegedly reflect American values. And, indeed, these are the sort

Sara Flounders (2020-05-27). U.S. tries to deflect COVID fiasco onto China. workers.org A growing world confrontation is roaring onto the political and economic scene. Not a day goes by without the corporate media in the U.S. carrying totally distorted and negative news attacks on the People's Republic of China. Republicans and Democrats are trading barbs over who is "soft" on China. Business . . . |

Melanie Amna Abas, Helen Anne Weiss, Victoria Simms, Ruth Verhey, Simbarashe Rusakaniko, Ricardo Araya, Dixon Chibanda (2020-05-27). The effect of co-morbid anxiety on remission from depression for people participating in a randomised controlled trial of the Friendship Bench intervention in Zimbabwe. thelancet.com There is a lack of data from low- and middle-income countries on whether anxiety independently predicts a more chronic course for depression.

Finian Cunningham (2020-05-27). From Open Skies to Open Season for Nukes. thealtworld.com Washington is destroying trust and integrity by deliberately creating insecurity in order to achieve its geopolitical objective of controlling China. | Another one bites the dust. In less two years, President Donald Trump has now binned three major arms-control treaties — quite a record for undermining decades of international security architecture. First there was the nuclear accord with Iran (2018), then the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (2019), and now the Open Skies Treaty. | There is growing concern that the Trump administration will let the last-remaining arms-control treaty fall — th…

Terrace (2020-05-27). Co-op Has A Plan To Democratise Large Parts Of The Internet. popularresistance.org Around 5% of all websites use the .org domain, with the most popular being Wikipedia. These websites represent around 6% of the top 1000 websites and 7% of the top 100 000 domains. The domain itself has been controlled by ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is part of the non-profit Internet Society. In 2019 a private equity firm, Ethos capital, approached ICANN with an offer of buying the .org registrar for $1.6 billion. | As the deal seemed likely to pass, the opposition to the deal mobilised a massive campaign to stop it. ICANN received 3,252 comments, with only 6 in favour o…

Rosemary Frei (2020-05-27). Fog Around COVID-19 Made Thicker by New Ontario Rules for Handling Deaths. globalresearch.ca Alarming COVID-19 death statistics from seniors' facilities continue to be in the spotlight in Ontario and elsewhere. | However, all is not as it seems in the mainstream-media reports of those statistics. | Procedures that came into effect in Ontario one month …

WSWS (2020-05-27). Sweden's "herd immunity" policy produces one of world's highest fatality rates. wsws.org Sweden's policy has been praised by reactionary political forces and the corporate media internationally to bolster their criminal back-to-work campaigns.

Alan MacLeod (2020-05-26). The power of propaganda: Americans think Trump's COVID-19 performance better than China's. mronline.org Americans rate their own government's response, along with that of the UK and Italy, higher than that of China despite those countries having much higher death and infection rates.

Ed Sykes (2020-05-26). If only the MSM had held Cummings and co to account this much *before* the 2019 election. thecanary.co The mainstream media is rightly holding Too late to do your jobs now. The damage…

Project Censored (2020-05-25). Episode 86 — COVID Chronicles: San Francisco. projectcensored.org Along the Line, is a member of the Demcast network, brought to you by the Media Freedom Foundation. On today's episode hosts Nicholas Baham III (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan…

Project Censored (2020-05-25). Episode 88 — COVID Chronicles: New Orleans. projectcensored.org Along the Line, is a member of the Demcast network, brought to you by the Media Freedom Foundation. On today's episode hosts Nicholas Baham III (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan…

Project Censored (2020-05-25). Episode 87 — COVID Chronicles: Miami. projectcensored.org Along the Line, is a member of the Demcast network, brought to you by the Media Freedom Foundation. On today's episode hosts Nicholas Baham III (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan…

Project Censored (2020-05-25). Episode 90 — COVID Chronicles: Santa Clara. projectcensored.org Along the Line, is a member of the Demcast network, brought to you by the Media Freedom Foundation. On today's episode hosts Nicholas Baham III (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan…

Project Censored (2020-05-25). Episode 89 — COVID Chronicles: Worcester. projectcensored.org Along the Line, is a member of the Demcast network, brought to you by the Media Freedom Foundation. On today's episode hosts Nicholas Baham III (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan…

Eoin Higgins, staff writer (2020-05-27). Local TV Stations Pilloried for 'Shamelessly' Passing Off Amazon-Scripted Propaganda as News. commondreams.org "Jeff Bezos can run as many scripted news segments he wants. It still doesn't change the fact that he made $34.5 billion over the course of this pandemic while putting his workers in harm's way and shirking on their hazard pay." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files…

Andrey Areshev (2020-05-26). How Many Dead Yemenis Does It Take to Equal One Washington Post Contributor? strategic-culture.org The War Nerd dissects reporting on Saudi Arabia to show how the corporate media cares more about a dead Washington Post columnist than a quarter of a million Yemenis killed in a Western-backed war. | Gary BRECHER | The headline here is not a joke, unfortunately. It's a question you can't help asking if you've followed the war in Yemen. | You probably noticed that on

Marko Marjanoviƒá (2020-05-26). New York Times Sabotages Its Emotional Blackmail Story by Including a MURDER Victim in 1000 'Covid Victims' List. anti-empire.com When you turn yourself into emotionally blackmailing propaganda arm of a doomsday cult… …but you can't even do that right: | Now waiting for a similar list highlighting 1000 individuals who died as a result of the unnecessary lockdown, which is sure to follow, right? | Here's a little bonus, Slavsquat comments: "As a connoisseur of post-9/11 garbage journalism, I can say with a high degree of confidence that we have officially entered the Dumpster Fire Dark Ages. That's the actual image they used for their op-ed, btw. lol." | And another:…

Staff (2020-05-27). Trump Threatens to "Close" Twitter for Fact Checking His Tweets on Voting. truthout.org President Donald Trump is threatening that his administration "will strongly regulate, or close" social media sites that attach disclaimers to inaccurate or misleading content, following an incident in which Twitter fact-checked his tweet about mail-in voting. | On Tuesday, a tweet from Trump that included an unsubstantiated claim about voter fraud and mail-in voting was examined by Twitter and later featured a disclaimer from the site at the bottom of it. | "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In B…

The Canary (2020-05-27). Twitter adds fact-check warnings to Donald Trump tweets. thecanary.co Twitter has flagged tweets from US president Donald Trump with a fact-check warning.The social media site added a warning phrase to two of Trump's tweets in which he called postal voting "fraudulent" and predicted that "mail boxes will be robbed".Under the tweets, there is now a link reading "Get the facts about mail-in ballots" that guides users to a Twitter Moments page with fact checks and news stories about Trump's unsubstantiated claims.RT (2020-05-27). 'Obsessive partisanship': Pew Research blasted for misleading tweet casting Dem districts as doing better on Covid-19 deaths. rt.com The Pew Research Center is being criticized on social media for appearing to spin a graphic depicting deaths from the coronavirus outbreak in favor of Democrats — despite the actual data painting a very different picture. | "Covid-19 deaths have declined in Democratic congressional districts since mid-April, but remained relatively steady in districts controlled by Republicans," the research body tweeted on Wednesday. | While the statement was technically true, it didn't quite match up with the data presented. According to Pew, and based on numbers from Johns Hopkins University (JHU), Democratic district…

RT (2020-05-27). Come on! Dominic Cummings' name didn't trend on Twitter… because of anti-porn filters. rt.com He may have remained relentlessly in the news for the past week, but Boris Johnson's embattled chief adviser Dominic Cummings still hasn't managed to trend on Twitter, despite being the subject of ample social media trolling. | That's because Twitter's anti-porn filters have prevented his full name in its correct form from appearing in the trends, according to the Guardian. | Cummings has been subjected to intense scrutiny since it emerged that the UK prime minister's top aide had made a 260-mile trip from London to Durham with his ill wife during the height of Britain's Covid-19 lockdown, when the government…

RT (2020-05-27). Australia-New Zealand 'travel bubble is possible' as coronavirus cases fall. rt.com Falling numbers of active coronavirus cases in Australia and New Zealand are paving the way for an easing of travel restrictions between the two countries, according to health officials. | In Australia, active Covid-19 cases have dropped below 500 people, while New Zealand's last coronavirus patient was discharged from hospital on Wednesday. | "The trans-Tasman bubble is certainly a possibility," Australia's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said. "If we look at the countries that are doing extremely well in controlling this Covid-19 problem, New Zealand is if anything a bit better than us. They have ver…

RT (2020-05-27). Trump threatens to SHUT DOWN social media after spat with Twitter over mail-in voting criticism. rt.com The US president has threatened to heavily regulate, or even shut down, social media platforms that "silence conservative voices" after Twitter marked his posts with a fact-check notice implying they contained misinformation. | "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservative voices," Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday. "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can't let a more sophisticated version of that happen again." ….happen again. Just like we can't let large scale Mail-I…

RT (2020-05-26). 'Justice for Carolyn': Resistance claims Trump KILLED INTERN, figuring fake news will force Twitter to nuke his Morning Joe tweets. rt.com After Twitter refused to censor President Donald Trump for suggesting former Congressman and TV host Joe Scarborough may have played a role in the death of his intern, Trump critics launched a murder conspiracy of their own. | There is no one named Carolyn Gombell, but her name was trending on social media on Tuesday, along with the hashtag #JusticeForCarolyn, after a Twitter account calling itself 'God' posted a thread accusing the current US president of murder. | "He strangled her because he'd gotten her pregnant and was threatening to tell the press. Then he bribed NYPD Police Chief Bernie Kierik to cover…

RT (2020-05-26). Trump accuses Twitter of election meddling after it bows to outrage mob & 'fact-checks' his tweets about mail-in ballots. rt.com For the first time ever, Twitter has tagged tweets by US President Donald Trump with a link to their 'fact check,' based on a collection of mainstream media reporting on the subject of mail-in ballots and voter fraud in the US.

RT (2020-05-26). CDC quietly DOWNGRADED Covid-19 death rate and media IGNORED good news. Elon Musk wonders why. rt.com The latest estimates show that Covid-19 is nowhere near as lethal as early models claimed, yet the mainstream media have been mum on the subject, prompting some prominent lockdown critics to ask why that might be the case. | According to the "current best estimate" scenario

RT (2020-05-25). Verification purge? Multiple Twitter accounts lose blue checks after interviewing 'wrongthinkers'. rt.com Twitter has purged the blue "verification" checks from the accounts of journalists and podcasters who posted interviews with subjects considered controversial in the ever-narrowing centrist-liberal mainstream. | Mediaite journalist August Takala was stripped of his coveted blue check just an hour after tweeting an interview with former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson, he tweeted on Friday to his 4,000-plus followers. The following day, Wrong Opinion podcaster Josh Lekach tweeted that he, too, had had his blue check revoked after interviewing conservative provocateur (and now congressional candidate) Laura Loomer…