TV News LIES

The cable news networks rushed to report on the high court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act, but initially got the news wrong; UPDATE: CNN then issues a formal correction.

The cable news networks reported that the Supreme Court had struck down the individual mandate at the center of the Affordable Care Act, the formal name for what has become to be known as Obamacare, the president's stab at universal healthcare and the signature policy accomplishment in his first term. Both on air and online, CNN ran graphics and headlines that read that the court had invalidated the mandate. Fox also ran a headline on the air saying the mandate was invalidated.

New Zealand's High Court has ruled that the police raid on Kim Dotcom’s house was unlawful along with seizure of the hard drives that were later cloned and illegally taken from New Zealand to the US by the FBI.

­The warrants issued to search Dotcom’s mansion were general and did not clearly describe the offences they stipulated, ruled Justice Helen Winkelmann.

Several weeks back, Israel was rocked by a night of right-wing race-riots targeting African refugees in Tel Aviv. The thuggery was frightening – refugees were attacked, African-owned businesses and stores were vandalized and a community was forced to hunker down behind closed doors in fear for their lives.

Perhaps more disturbing still was that the riots, which began with an anti-immigrant demonstration, were incited by Israeli politicians representing the increasingly influential hard-right. They fired up the crowd, calling the refugees “infiltrators,” and a “cancer,” and accusing them of violence and rape. It was a classic example of “othering” – eliminationist rhetoric that led directly to action by the xenophobic crowd.

Google has revealed it removed about 640 videos from YouTube that allegedly promoted terrorism over the second half of 2011 after complaints from the UK's Association of Police Officers.

The news was contained in its latest Transparency Report which discloses requests by international authorities to remove or hand over material. The firm said it terminated five accounts linked to the suspect videos. However, the firm said it had rejected many other state's requests for action.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown lambasted Rupert Murdoch before Britain's media ethics inquiry on Monday, claiming the media mogul had lied under oath to the inquiry and saying that a Murdoch tabloid had undermined the British war effort in Afghanistan.

In an often bitter attack, Brown directly contradicted Murdoch's claim that Brown had vowed to "make war on your company" during an abusive phone call after Murdoch's The Sun tabloid switched its support from Brown's Labour Party to the rival Conservatives.

Over the next several days, more than a hundred of the most powerful people on the planet will attend a secret conference at a hotel in Chantilly, Virgina. Some of the biggest names in politics and business will be there. The hotel is going to be completely locked down and will be swarmed by hordes of security guards carrying machine guns.

This conference is so important that even the U.S. Secret Service is rumored to be involved in providing security.