New York
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Video: Mercenaries and Private Security Companies on Contract with UN By grtv
Former Chairperson of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, José L. Gómez del Prado, explains how private military and security companies have created an association to counter the regulations called for by his working group. Continue reading
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Video: Greenwald: Is U.S. Exaggerating Threat to Embassies to Silence Critics of NSA Domestic Surveillance?
The Obama administration has announced it will keep 19 diplomatic posts in North Africa and the Middle East closed for up to a week, due to fears of a possible militant threat. On Sunday, Senator Saxby Chambliss, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the decision to close the embassies was based on… Continue reading
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Snowden's Asylum and Double Standards By Peter Hart
usat-snowdenNSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum by Russia, which has generated coverage focusing on the U.S. outrage at Russia’s decision. “Defiant Russia Grants Snowden Year’s Asylum” is the headline at the New York Times (8/2/13), where readers were told of the “risk of a breach in relations with the United States” and… Continue reading
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FAIR TV: Misreporting WikiLeaks, NYT Defines the "Center," MSNBC's Walmart "Debate" By Peter Hart
This week: The corporate media finally paid attention to the Bradley Manning trial–but NBC botched some of the history. Plus the New York Timestries to show how Democrats are moving ‘away from the center.’ But how do they define the center anyway? And we look at an MSNBC debate over Walmart and a living wage… Continue reading
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The Bradley Manning Verdict: Criminalizing the Exposure of Crimes By Joseph Kishore
manning On Wednesday, the day after the conviction of Bradley Manning was handed down by a military judge, the Washington Post published an article under the headline, “Manning’s Conviction Seen as Making Prosecution of WikiLeaks’ Assange Likely.” The Post noted that the prosecutors—that is, the Obama administration—specifically tailored their case against Manning to implicate the… Continue reading
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The Government Can't Prove Bradley Manning Hurt Anyone–but Joe Klein Knows By Peter Hart
As the Washington Post reported today (8/1/13), retired Brig. Gen. Robert Carr testified about the work that was done by his Information Release Task Force–a 125-person group that “operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week” at a cost of $6.2 million–all to establish the harm done by Manning. So what did they find? Continue reading
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The Government Can’t Prove Bradley Manning Hurt Anyone–but Joe Klein Knows By Peter Hart
As the Washington Post reported today (8/1/13), retired Brig. Gen. Robert Carr testified about the work that was done by his Information Release Task Force–a 125-person group that “operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week” at a cost of $6.2 million–all to establish the harm done by Manning. So what did they find? Continue reading
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They Know Much More Than You Think By James Bamford
Within days of Snowden’s documents appearing in The Guardian and The Washington Post, revealing several of the National Security Agency’s extensive domestic surveillance programs, bookstores reported a sudden spike in the sales of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984. On Amazon.com, the book made the “Movers & Shakers” list and skyrocketed 6,021 percent in a… Continue reading
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The Rolling Stone Cover and the 'New Ideological Threat' By Emily Masters
The fear mongers are up in arms, since the cover and the accompanying article exploring how Tsarnaev went from being “just like any other kid” to becoming an alleged mass murderer bucks their formula. To them, there is no use delving into his peaceful past to learn what turned him into a brutal killer. Continue reading
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Video: How the Pentagon Papers Came to be Published By the Beacon Press Told by Daniel Ellsberg & Others
Forty-one years ago, Beacon Press lost a Supreme Court case brought against it by the U.S. government for publishing the first full edition of the Pentagon Papers. It is now well known how The New York Times first published excerpts of the top-secret documents in June 1971, but less well known is how the Beacon… Continue reading
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Noam Chomsky is in Denial About 9/11 By Mark H Gaffney
During a recent interview on Democracy Now, Noam Chomsky stated that he believes Osama bin Laden was probably behind the attacks of September 11, 2001.i The statement was curious because in earlier interviews Chomsky described the evidence against bin Laden as thin to nonexistent,ii which was accurate and, no doubt, explains why the US Department… Continue reading
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Key Mistakes Sway Jury in Zimmerman Trial: Jury Prevented from Considering Race and “First Aggressor” By Marjorie Cohn
A Southern jury of six women – none of them black – found 28-year-old George Zimmerman’s shooting of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to be justifiable homicide because he acted in self-defense. The jurors were prohibited from considering race. They were instructed only on the parts of self-defense law that helped Zimmerman, and the chief police… Continue reading
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History Commons New 9/11 Timeline Entries
A large number of entries have been added to the Complete 9/11 Timeline at History Commons, most of which provide new details about the events of the day of September 11, 2001. Other entries are being posted in the US Civil Liberties project on campaign finance, voting laws, and the 2006 US Attorney purge Continue reading
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Questions surrounding 2011 triple murder point to government cover-up in Boston Marathon bombing By Thomas Gaist and Barry Grey
The New York Times published a front-page article Thursday (“In 2011 Murder Inquiry, Hints of Missed Chance to Avert Boston Bombing”) that raises new questions about the alleged perpetrators of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing and adds to the evidence of a government cover-up in the explosions that killed three people and wounded more… Continue reading
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Egypt: Staging a “Democratic” Military Coup By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
During the 2011 Egyptian uprisings, the military was jeered for cracking down on protestors and for the infamous virginity tests they conducted on detained female protestors. In June 2012, when Mohamed Morsi won the presidential race with 51% of the votes, crowds gathered in Tahrir Square to celebrate his victory, chanting : “God is great”… Continue reading
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Black Agenda Report 10 July 2013: Obama As Drone Ranger, Tim Wise Stamps Anti-Racist Ghetto Passes for TFA, If Zimmerman Goes Free
10 July 2013 — Black Agenda Report This week in Black Agenda Report The U.S. War Against the World by BAR executive editor Glen Ford The DNA of finance capitalism has foreordained its death – and soon. To forestall that inevitability, the U.S. war machine is prepared to turn out the lights on much of Continue reading
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Pentagon Orders Purge of Osama Bin Laden’s Death Files from Data Bank By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
A new wave of camouflage is underway at the Pentagon and the CIA. The bin Laden “death files” contained in the Pentagon’s data bank have become the object of controversy. Continue reading
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Washington Post’s WikiLeaks/Snowden/Greenwald Conspiracy Theory By Peter Hart
To Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus (7/9/13), something about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden just doesn’t smell right. Lucky for him he gets space in a prestigious newspaper to work out his hunch–apparently without any editors or factcheckers to get in his way. Continue reading