28 February 2017 — The Real News Network
Trump’s infrastructure plan will privatize all the benefits for the financiers and make sure that the population at large gets zero benefit from it while paying the costs, says economist Michael Hudson (inc. Transcript)
28 February 2017 — The Real News Network
Michael Hudson, author of the newly released ‘J is for Junk Economics,’ says the media and academia use well-crafted euphemisms to conceal how the economy really works (inc. transcript)
27 February 2017 — Statewatch
ANALYSIS & BRIEFING
http://www.statewatch.org/analyses.htm
1. Analysis: Opaque and unaccountable: Frontex Operation Hera
2. EU: Briefing: EU-wide biometric databases, “soft targets”, cybersecurity and data protection: Commission’s 4th report on building the ‘Security Union
Continue reading
28 February 2017 — Housmans
NEWS
1. Confronting Rape Culture workshops at Housmans
2. Poet In Residence: Siana Bangura
3. Spark! 1917-2017 Russian Revolution Centenary event in Brixton
Continue reading
28 February 2017 — FAIR
For almost two years, the United States has backed—with weapons, logistics and political support—a Saudi-led war in Yemen that has left over 10,000 dead, 40,000 wounded, 2.5 million internally displaced, 2.2 million children suffering from malnutrition and over 90 percent of civilians in need of humanitarian aid.
27 February 2017 — Information Clearing House
Military Industrial Complex Wins
White House Calls for $54B Bump in “Defense” Spending, Sharp Domestic Cuts
By Alex Guillén, Sarah Ferris and Jeremy Herb
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney called it one of the “largest increases in history.”
27 February 2017 — Moon Of Alabama
Hollywood is all about fake. That is what movies are – fake depictions of a fake reality that only exist in the mind of scriptwriters, directors and a usually gullible audience. (Disclosure: I do like some movies.)
Hollywood has never been shy of plagiarizing. Every idea, tale of cinematographic trick that made a splash somewhere – and is thereby a potential money generator – will get copied again and again. Every successful make gets a remake. And another one. Continue reading
27 February 2017 — Global Research
And the Oscar for Best Documentary Short goes to…”ISIS – Al Qaeda”
By Alex Christoforou, Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett, and Patrick Henningsen, February 27 2017
It should come as no surprise that a film celebrating the White Helmets scooped up an Oscar for best short documentary. Might as well hand the Oscar to ISIS leader Ab? Bakr al-Baghdadi. Far from a humanitarian organisation, the White Helmets are an Al Qaeda staffed propaganda group that is embedded with brutal jihadists looking to overthrow the sovereign government of Syria.
24 February 2017 — Information Clearing House
Trump Relinquishes Control of Foreign Policy
By Mike Whitney
The war party is back in power and the odds of normal relations with Russia have dropped to zero. Continue reading
24 February 2017— FAIR
Janine Jackson interviewed Jessica Gonzalez about new FCC chair Ajit Pai for the February 17, 2017, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Jessica Gonzalez: “Our voices are making a difference, and making it more difficult for them and the administration to undo all of the important consumer protections that we fought so hard for.”
24 February 2017 — FAIR
This week on CounterSpin: Early morning deportation raids are stoking fear in immigrant communities, pulling parents from children and shipping people who’ve lived in the US for decades to places they don’t remember. Donald Trump talks about rounding up “drug lords” and murderers, but not only is that not who is being targeted, recently released executive orders expand the category of “criminal alien” to any immigrant who has been accused of a crime, or who someone thinks may have committed one.
24 February 2017 — Global Research
Trump: America’s Latest Warrior President, Surrenders to Wall Street and War Profiteers
By Stephen Lendman, February 23 2017
The hoped for antidote to Hillary appears no different when on policymaking – both subservient to monied interests at the expense of popular ones, both warriors, not peacemakers, both intolerant of challenges to America’s hegemonic aims, both hostile to all sovereign independent states, a deplorable situation, a dangerous one risking possible nuclear war.
24 February 2017 — Open Media
Can you imagine doing this at the airport? You take off your shoes, put your liquids in the x-ray tray… and then hand over your unlocked phone to a border agent for them to look through?
In the U.S., a disturbing proposal is on the table: Key U.S. politicians want to force every single traveller crossing the border to hand over their digital devices, unlock them, and provide their social media passwords.1
22 February 2017 — Black Agenda Report
Black Misleadership Class: High-Speed Sell-Outs
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
22 February 2017 — Global Research
By Regis Tremblay, Helen Caldicott, Ray McGovern, David Vine, Chris Hedges, and Colonel Ann Wright, February 20 2017
Filmmaker Regis Tremblay states what few others dare to say. Humanity is on the brink of extinction! Nuclear power is not safe. 48 of America’s nuclear power plants are leaking and there is no way to get rid of nuclear waste. America’s reckless provocations of both Russia and China, two nuclear-armed countries, risk a nuclear holocaust from which no one survives. Climate change and global warming, if not mitigated immediately, will end the human experiment on earth sooner rather than later.
22 February 2017 — Media Lens
In a recent media alert, we noted the occasional tell-tale signs of uncomfortable truths that slip through cracks in the propaganda façade of BBC News. Very occasionally, the propaganda nature is clearly highlighted and can be enjoyed for its directness and the flustered BBC response it provokes.
18 February 2017 — FAIR
Ajit Pai (photo: FCC)
This week on CounterSpin: “T-Mobile Very Pleased with Direction of Change under Trump Administration, CEO Says.” That headline tells you pretty much what you need to know about Ajit Pai, Trump’s choice of chair for the FCC—the entity charged with representing the public interest in the communications industry. The phone company exec is pleased, he says, because Pai’s appointment signals “an air of less regulation.”
17 February 2017 — Information Clearing House
Blood in the Water: the Trump Revolution Ends in a Whimper
By Mike Whitney
This isn’t about the law and it isn’t about the truth. It’s about bare-knuckle geopolitics and global hegemony. Continue reading
17 February 2017 — Media Lens
As corporate media continue to haemorrhage ad revenue to websites like Facebook, and credibility to social media activism, dissent seems to be increasingly viewed as a luxury the ‘mainstream’ can ill afford.
Where once a handful of dissidents was allowed to challenge the Grand Propaganda Narratives (GPN) of the day, modern leftists are tolerated only if they accept these narratives even as they talk radical change.
The New Dark Age 