Advertisement

Gates of Hell

http://mattbors.com

The lethal media silence on Kent State's smoking guns

The 1970 killings by National Guardsmen of four students during a peaceful anti-war demonstration at Kent State University have now been shown to be cold-blooded, premeditated official murder. But the definitive proof of this monumental historic reality is not, apparently, worthy of significant analysis or comment in today's mainstream media.

After 37 years of official denial and cover-up, tape-recorded evidence, that has existed for decades and has been in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has finally been made public.

It proves what "conspiracy theorists" have argued since 1970---that there was a direct military order leading to the unprovoked assassination of unarmed students. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents show collusion between Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and the FBI that aimed to terrorize anti-war demonstrators and their protests that were raging throughout the nation.

It is difficult to overstate the political and cultural impact of the killing of the four Kent State students and wounding of nine more

Hillary's mother-f'ing tour business

Palast is the author of Armed Madhouse, released last week in a new, expanded edition, in paperback - the newest addition to the New York Times list of non-fiction bestsellers.

Before his untimely death in a plane crash, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown said,

"I'm not Hillary's mother-f****** tour guide!"

That wasn't a nice thing for a member of the President's cabinet to say about the First Lady, now my Senator, Hillary Clinton.

And it's probably not polite for me to bring it up now.  But if I don't, surely the Karl Rovarians will - if Senator Mrs. Clinton nails the Presidential nomination.

Bill Clinton used to say that, once he became president, he finally earned more money than his wife.  That was a carefully crafted bit of modesty to show Bill as an aw-shucks regular guy versus Richie Rich-kid George Bush.

But Bill's cute remark raised a question in my mind:  How did Hillary get that big ol' salary?  And another question arises:  how has she stayed out of prison?

On the media horizon: "We invest, you decide"

Predictably, some critics have decried the current efforts by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. to buy the Dow Jones company, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. But let’s imagine the dynamics that might emerge if Murdoch gains control of that newspaper.

Like viewers of his Fox News Channel, readers of The Wall Street Journal under Murdoch could look forward to jaw-dropping claims along the lines of “We invest, you decide.”

The Wall Street Journal would need to make some changes in order to be in sync with Murdoch-brand journalism. The Journal’s recent design make-over could provide a tidy framework for spreading the content of the editorial page to the rest of the newsprint pages.

But executives at News Corp. would swiftly face a dilemma. Investors and money managers -- prime demographic targets of The Wall Street Journal -- are apt to be intolerant of financial news reporting that’s unduly screened through an ideological mesh.

Slanted journalism may be fine for big commercial enterprises when news consumers largely base their outlooks on prevailing media

Cockburn got it a bit wrong...

I read Alexander Cockburn's column on your web site, and he got a bit of information wrong.  He wrote, "There isn't a Democrat who doesn't believe Ralph Nader sank Al Gore in 2000, whatever the actual truth may be."  Actually, this Democrat believes Nader had nothing to do with sinking Al Gore's candidacy in 2000.  Even Gore himself has acknowledged that he failed to convince enough voters to go with him over the Shrub.

At any rate, I think next year's primaries will produce some surprises as the anti-war movement gains even more strength.  Barack Obama lied during the first debate, saying there was "no dispute" that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and that Tehran has admitted such.  Except Reuters reported back in November that the White House had brushed off a CIA draft report saying there is no conclusive evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iran.  Tehran has consistently denied having a weapons program.  If the so-called front-runners are bent on channeling George W. Bush, they'll find their campaigns ending sooner rather than later, as voters turn away from militarist candidates.

Anti-U.S. uproar sweeps Italy

The U.S. government has proposed to make Vicenza, Italy, the largest US military site in Europe, but the people of Vicenza, and all of Italy, have sworn it will never happen.

As with the story of the Downing Street Minutes two years ago this week, a major news story and huge controversy in Europe right now is unknown to Americans, despite the fact that it is all about the policies of the American government. In February of this year, 200,000 people descended on the Northeastern Italian town of Vicenza (population 100,000) to march in protest. Largely as a result, the Prime Minister of Italy was (temporarily) driven out of power. Meanwhile, just outside Vicenza, large tents now hold newly minted citizen activists keeping a 24-hour-per-day vigil and training hundreds of senior citizens, children, and families every day in how to nonviolently stop bulldozers. The bulldozers they are waiting for are American. ?

Federal court orders first-ever halt to planting of a commercialized genetically-altered crop

Judge Orders Complete Environmental Review of Monsanto's Gene-Altered Alfalfa

San Francisco, CA - A Federal judge today made a final ruling that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) 2005 approval of Monsanto's genetically engineered (GE) "Roundup Ready" alfalfa was illegal. The Judge called on USDA to ban any further planting of the GE seed until it conducts a complete Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the GE crop.

In the decision, Judge Charles Breyer in the Federal Northern District of California affirmed his preliminary ruling, which echoed the Center for Food Safety's arguments in their lawsuit against USDA, that the crop could harm the environment and contaminate natural alfalfa. Today's ruling also requires Forage Genetics to provide the locations of all existing Roundup Ready alfalfa plots to USDA within 30 days. The Judge ordered USDA to make the location of these plots "publicly available as soon as practicable" so that growers of organic and conventional alfalfa "can test their own crops to determine if there has been contamination."

Trying to Catch Up with the Voters

Both Democratic and Republican politicians are becoming uncomfortably aware that they may have seriously miscalculated just how unpopular the war in Iraq is with a very large number of American voters. Fence-straddling on the war, let alone calls to "stay the course" are being seen as increasingly dangerous or fatal options.

            Take John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, former POW in Vietnam and, until recently, deemed a sound bet to win his party's nomination as presidential candidate. McCain saw his task as the simple one of banging the war drum more loudly than his rival, Rudy Giuliani, and deriding the Democrats as wimps and traitors to the flag.

Protest Bush's veto!

The president just vetoed a plan that would bring our troops home from Iraq this year. There's a huge amount of pressure right now on Democrats in Congress to compromise and give the president what he wants. We need to make sure Congress stands firm on a deadline to end the war--instead of sending another blank check. Can you help out by signing the petition at the link below? It'll only take a second. petition

The Crusaders

Sixteen words may be all that stand right now between the apparatus of government and the Founding Fathers’ worst nightmare. And those words are starting to give.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."

When George Bush, in the wake of 9/11, puffed himself into Richard the Lionheart and declared he would lead the country in a "crusade" against terrorism — you know, crusade, as in slaughter of Muslim infidels -- turns out . . . oh, how awkward (if you’re on White House spin duty) . . . he may have been speaking literally.

What’s certain, in any case, is that a lot of people in high and low places within the Bush administration -- and in particular, the military -- heard him literally, and regard the war on terror as a religious war:

"The enemy has got a face. He’s called Satan. He lives in Fallujah. And we’re going to destroy him," a lieutenant colonel, according to a BBC reporter, said to his troops on the eve of the destruction of that undefended city in post-election 2004.

Pages

Subscribe to Freepress.org RSS