TV News LIES

Despite the new era of transparency and open government President Obama promised three years ago, "his administration has been just as secretive—if not more so—than his predecessors, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has become the prime example of his administration’s lack of progress," the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noted last month.

The suppression of Blair's criminality and that of his administrations is described in Gareth Peirce's Dispatches from the Dark Side: on torture and the death of justice, published in paperback this month by Verso. Peirce is Britain's most distinguished human rights lawyer; her pursuit of infamous miscarriages of justice and justice for the victims of state crimes, such as torture and rendition, is unsurpassed. What is unusual about this accounting of what she calls the "moral and legal pandemonium" in the wake of 9/11 is that, in drawing on the memoirs of Blair and Alistair Campbell, Cabinet minutes and MI6 files, she applies the rule of law to them.

When it comes to natural gas extraction via “fracking,” TV journalism has some serious competition: energy industry commercials.

Like ads for political candidates that run concurrently with broadcast news coverage of the presidential race, ads promoting natural gas (and other fossil fuels) have long been running in concert with news segments about the topic, most recently touting the prospect of a “boom” made possible by the controversial extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing of the shale sprawling beneath more than 30 U.S. states.

The concern that hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas is contaminating groundwater is overstated, claims a new report. Charles "Chip" Groat, associate director of Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, led the study.

Fracking, though, has become highly controversial, with claims that the pressurised fluids can find their way into water courses and drinking supplies, and also trigger small earthquakes.

The phrase, “That Don’t Make No Sense.” from the Coen brothers’ movie O Brother Where Art Thou?, comes to mind every single time I read news from the U.S. Amnesty International: Time For Stricter Controls on Taser Use
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/amnesty-international-time-stricter-c

According to data collected by Amnesty International, at least 500 people in the USA have died since 2001 after being shocked with Tasers either during their arrest or while in jail.

The most powerful man on the planet dropped into visit the people in Iowa who helped launch his climb to power. No, I don’t mean President Obama, I mean Vice President Xi Jinping (shee jeen ping). In a year he will ascend to the Presidency, or as he’s known in China, Comrade Chairman of Communist Party Central Committee.

Despite a heavy diplomatic schedule, Comrade Xi insisted on stopping to visit the farm family in Iowa who put him up in their spare room for two nights in 1985. He was a minor party official from a remote agricultural province back then, seeking to improve pork production in China. He succeeded, and next year he will begin overseeing a five year plan that will leapfrog the People’s Republic past the United States as the world's dominant economic power.

These are strange, devolutionary times, with moves underway to crank back the calendars and clocks to the 1800s and earlier.  One of the movements is to plant religion back inside public schools, to ensure that Creationism is taught alongside science.

We could also stand around in the parking lot, pretend to be running a competitive race with the rest of the world, too -- but, why bother with that?  We can do make-believe right inside schools, cut right to the chase!

I became further saddened from this case, when Patrick Kennedy of the State Department during Congressional hearings, admitted that Umar was a known terrorist, was being followed, and the U.S. allowed him into the U.S. so that it could catch Umar’s accomplices. I was once again shocked and saddened when Michael Leiter of the National Counter terrorism Center admitted during these same hearings that intentionally letting terrorists into the U.S. was a frequent practice of the U.S. Government. I cannot fully explain my sadness, disappointment and fear when I realized that my government allowed an attack on me intentionally.