Daily Archives: January 29, 2021

2021-01-29: News Headlines

Geraldina Colotti (2021-01-29). UN Independent expert Alfred de Zayas: 'This is how the human rights industry works'. mronline.org Italian journalist Geraldina Colotti asks de Zayas about corporate media manipulation of Venezuela's human rights situation.

Staff (2021-01-29). Worldwide Anti-Science Movement Threatens Pandemic Response and Public Health. truthout.org The Biden administration has vowed to increase the rate of vaccinations as COVID-19 continues to spread uncontrollably across the entire U.S., with 90,000 people predicted to die in the next four weeks. President Biden announced plans to acquire another 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech and is devising ways to allow retired nurses and doctors to administer vaccines. Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Ho…

Alan MacLeod (2021-01-29). Corporate Media bash teachers unions for resisting school reopenings amid rising death toll. mronline.org Rather than attack the government for its poor handling of the COVID crisis, corporate media have opted for a return to a favorite pastime of theirs: union bashing.

_____ (2021-01-29). Corporate Media Bash Teachers Unions For Resisting School Reopenings. popularresistance.org The seven-day average COVID death toll hit an all time high yesterday, with over 3,400 Americans expected to die on any given day. Educator cases are on the rise. Studies have shown that children are as likely to contract and pass the coronavirus on as adults, making schools potential super spreading hotspots. As a result, European nations like the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands are shuttering schools, despite, in many cases, having lower infection rates than the U.S. | President Biden, however, is pushing forward with a new plan to achieve a near full reopening within his…

Ben Burgis (2021-01-29). The Left Should Oppose Censorship by Big Tech Companies. zcomm.org We should champion free speech online — and argue that the best way to protect it is with a socialist program that brings privatized social media platforms into public control…

_____ (2021-01-29). Is America an Enemy of Christianity? strategic-culture.org Rod DREHER | Though the US has separation of church and state, we have long been accustomed to American Christianity being consonant with American patriotism. But close Christian observers of American life have wondered for the last couple of decades — at least in my experience — if and when the day will come when being a faithful Christian will require one to oppose the US government and the American system. As America de-Christianizes, what was once unthinkable by conservative Christians is now fast moving from the fringes to the mainstream of our thinking. | Catholic World Report has published a bl…

RT (2021-01-29). 'It stinks of corruption': Texas AG calls out Robinhood, Discord, Citadel and others over GameStop stock throttling. rt.com Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has issued civil investigative demands to more than a dozen entities involved in blocking small investors from trading GameStop and other stocks, saying their behavior "stinks of corruption." | "Wall Street corporations cannot limit public access to the free market, nor should they censor discussion surrounding it, particularly for their own benefit," "

David Nasaw (2021-01-29). Does Christopher Hitchens Need an Authorized Biography? thenation.com Does Christopher Hitchens Need an Authorized Biography?

sputniknews (2021-01-29). Congress MP, Veteran Journalists Charged With Sedition Over 'Fake News' on Farmer's Death in Delhi. sputniknews.com A 26-year-old farmer protesting India's new farm laws was killed in central Delhi on 26 January after his tractor rammed into a barricade. Farmers at the site claimed that the killed farmer was shot by cops before the accident. Police in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state have said that they didn't find any gunshot mark on the farmer's body.

Nathan Locke (2021-01-29). How Trump Exacerbated Corporate Censorship. realprogressives.org When Donald Trump was kicked off Twitter following the determination that his speech had fomented violence, a heated debate began: Was this something that should have been done earlier, or is it a horrifying display of "Big Tech's" power showing they can shut down political speech they don't like? | On one hand, Donald Trump's Twitter feed was perhaps the most notorious and destructive misinformation campaign in American history — and one that arguably did incite violent behavior. In the days following the Capitol being stormed by a misled mob, we were all justifiably worried Trump was attempting a real c…

Caitlin A. Johnstone (2021-01-28). The pendulum of internet censorship swings leftward again. mronline.org There has been a purge of left-wing accounts from social media, with socialist organizations being targeted on Facebook and multiple Antifa-associated accounts suspended from Twitter.

WSWS (2021-01-28). Chicago teachers lead resistance to Biden's school reopening plan as pandemic enters deadlier phase. wsws.org Chicago educators are in the forefront of the resistance of educators across the US to the campaign by the Biden administration and the corporate media to reopen schools.

Staff (2021-01-28). Dr. Peter Hotez: "Globalized Anti-Science Movement" Threatens Pandemic Response & Public Health. democracynow.org The Biden administration has vowed to increase the rate of vaccinations as COVID-19 continues to spread uncontrollably across the entire U.S., with 90,000 people predicted to die in the next four weeks. President Biden announced plans to acquire another 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech and is devising ways to allow retired nurses and doctors to administer vaccines. Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, says the Trump administration'

RT (2021-01-28). AOC throws weight behind GameStop hedge fund massacre, takes a dig at Wall Street's 'long history of treating economy as a casino'. rt.com Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has heaped mockery on Wall Street hedge funds who've taken a beating after a short-selling scheme on GameStop shares miserably backfired, accusing them of treating markets like a "casino." | The New York congresswoman took to Twitter on Wednesday night to poke fun at the "Wall Streeters" racking up major losses amid a push by online trolls to punish GameStop short-sellers, "Gotta admit it's really something…

RT (2021-01-28). GameStop controversy put AOC & Trump Jr on SAME PAGE against Wall Street — but panicked MSM smears Reddit traders as ALT-RIGHT MOB. rt.com The GameStop stock rebellion is playing out like a revealing Rorschach test, drawing political figures as divergent as Donald Trump Jr. and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez together, and prompting legacy media to demonize the uprising. | The former president's son responded to ruling-class efforts to crush the rally, including Thursday's move by trading app Robinhood to ban its users from buying shares of GameStop and other stocks targeted by grassroots investors, by saying, "This is what a rigged system looks like." Trump Jr. tweeted: "It took less than a day for Big Tech, Big Government, and the corporate media to s…

RT (2021-01-28). GameStop controversy put AOC & Trump Jr on SAME PAGE against Wall Street — but panicked MSM smears Reddit traders as ALT-RIGHT MOB. rt.com The GameStop stock rebellion is playing out like a revealing Rorschach test, drawing political figures as divergent as Donald Trump Jr. and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez together, and prompting legacy media to demonize the uprising. | The former president's son responded to ruling-class efforts to crush the rally, including Thursday's move by trading app Robinhood to ban its users from buying shares of GameStop and other stocks targeted by grassroots investors, by saying, "This is what a rigged system looks like." Trump Jr. tweeted: "It took less than a day for Big Tech, Big Government, and the corporate media to s…

RT (2021-01-28). Frank Biden touts his relationship to POTUS in Inauguration Day ad for Florida law firm. rt.com Joe Biden's brother Frank used the occasion of Inauguration Day to promote his relationship with the new president in an advertisement for the Florida law firm where he works as an adviser. | The ad appeared in the January 20 edition of Daily Business Review, a legal industry publication, and reportedly promoted Berman Law Group's work in leading a class-action lawsuit that accuses southern Florida sugar-cane growers of damaging the health of nearby residents through their controlled crop burns, CNBC News reported on Wednesday. | Frank Biden, who isn't a lawyer, says in the ad: "My brother is a model for how t…

_____ (2021-01-28). The 'Insurrection' And Its Discontents: 'American Exceptionalism' Revisited. popularresistance.org History is being written in the United States today. Even the most pessimistic about the prospects of American democracy have rarely ventured out this far while offering a bleak analysis of America's future, whether in terms of political polarization at home or global standing abroad. | As shocking and, certainly, telling as the images of thousands of American protesters taking over the symbols of America's federal, representative democracy in Washington DC on January 6, it was only a facet in a far more complex and devastating political trajectory that has been in the making for years. | While mainstream US medi…

Susan Price (2021-01-28). 'Brazil on Fire': How fake news, culture wars and the United States put a fascist in power. greenleft.org.au Once at the centre of the region's left turn, Brazil has for the past two years been governed by a far-right president. Michael Fox spoke to Green Left about the significance of recent events there.

Jiyuan Hui, Junfeng Feng, Yue Tu, Weituo Zhang, Chunlong Zhong, Min Liu, Yuhai Wang, Liansheng Long, Ligang Chen, Jinfang Liu, Chaohui Mou, Binghui Qiu, Xianjian Huang, Qibing Huang, Nu Zhang, Xiaofeng Yang, Chaohua Yang, Lihong Li, Rong Ma, Xiang Wu, Jin Lei, Yong Jiang, Liang Liu, Guoyi Gao, Jiyao Jiang, the LTH-1 Trial collaborators (2021-01-28). [Research Paper] Safety and efficacy of long-term mild hypothermia for severe traumatic brain injury with refractory intracranial hypertension (LTH-1): A multicenter randomized controlled trial. thelancet.com Long-term mild hypothermia did not improve the neurological outcomes. However, it may be a potential option in sTBI patients with initial ICP ‚â• 30 mm Hg.

Karl Grossman (2021-01-28). The Leadership Institute: PR School for Right-wingers. counterpunch.org We're familiar with Fox, the TV propaganda arm of the Trump administration remaining a far right-wing outlet under Rupert Murdoch and his mission of using media to push an arch-conservative agenda. And we're becoming aware of other radical right efforts to use media to indoctrinate people. There's the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group seeking to buy

WSWS (2021-01-27). The Chicago teachers' rebellion and the fight to contain the pandemic. wsws.org Acutely aware of the militancy among educators, the corporate media and political establishment are engaged in a frenzied propaganda campaign to vilify teachers and distort science.

WSWS (2021-01-27). WSWS's fight against Facebook censorship draws international support. wsws.org Statements of support, social media posts and shares, news reports and messages sent directly to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denouncing the political censorship of the socialist left played a decisive role in the restoration of the University of Michigan IYSSE Facebook page and the accounts of leading members of the SEP.

RT (2021-01-27). Bill Gates shocked by Covid conspiracy theories about him and Fauci, suggests social media firms may help censor such 'evil' talk. rt.com Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is looking to possibly enlist the help of Big Tech to help censor offending online voices after he and US Covid-19 czar Anthony Fauci were victimized by "evil" conspiracy theories. | "Nobody would have predicted that I and Dr. Fauci would be so prominent in really kind of evil theories about — did we create the pandemic, are we trying to profit from it? — and on and on," Gates Gates, whose foundation has committed upward of $1.75 billion to he…

Steve Topple (2021-01-27). The corporate press just ran to protect Boris Johnson. thecanary.co The right-wing establishment corporate media just fell over itself to protect Boris Johnson. Its behaviour is a stain on the UK. And as sociologist Gayle Letherby

RT (2021-01-27). US eases ban on security investments that finance Chinese military companies. rt.com The Biden administration has reversed Trump-era restrictions and reauthorized most US investments in companies owned or controlled by the Chinese military, according to a Treasury Department notice. | In mid-November, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting American investments in Chinese companies linked to the country's military, forcing US stock exchanges to delist companies. | Reversing the previous president's action, Biden has moved to authorize most investments in companies "whose name closely matches, but does not exactly match, the name of a Communist Chinese military company…

RT (2021-01-27). 'They just want to defend Biden,' The Scoop co-founder tells RT after Facebook ban, accusing platforms of anti-conservative bias. rt.com Steeve Strange — co-founder of the conservative news site The Scoop, whose personal page was banned on Facebook over an anti-Biden group — has told RT that he flouted no rules and was swept up in a broader anti-conservative purge. | Facebook permanently disabled Strange's account together with that of The Scoop's other co-founder, Cameron Shizznit, for violating "community standards" earlier this week. | It came shortly after the Mark Zuckerberg-owned platform yanked the duo's group, called "Patriots Against Joe Biden." In a message justifying the deletion, Facebook said that any "pages that are ha…

_____ (2021-01-27). While America Was Sleeping. popularresistance.org After four years of Donald Trump's fitful tenure, America is awakening from a long, troubled sleep to discover, like the fictional character Rip Van Winkle, that the world it once knew has changed beyond all recognition. | In that classic American tale by Washington Irving published in 1819, an amiable but shiftless farmer strolls out of his colonial village to go hunting in the Catskill Mountains. There he happens upon a group of mysterious men, drinks deep from their keg of liquor, and falls into a long sleep. He awakens to find that he's grown a white beard down to his belly and his youth has withered into an…

Emily Kirkland (2021-01-27). Kyrsten Sinema Is Wrong to Defend the Senate Filibuster. commondreams.org Unless the filibuster is abolished, Democratic candidates in 2022 will have to tell voters that, despite controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, they were unable to pass the popular policies that they campaigned on. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files…

Dean Baker (2021-01-27). Thomas Friedman: The Donald Trump of the New York Times. cepr.net Donald Trump is a person who glories in his own ignorance. He seems to know little about anything and clearly doesn't care. Any evidence that contradicts his pronouncements is simply "FAKE NEWS." Thomas Friedman seems to have the same attitude as he makes grand pronouncements about the economy that are transparently absurd. I discovered this …