Media

Stand Up for Independent Journalism

Amy Goodman and others were released, but the story is not over.

We need you to cosign our public letter demanding that press intimidation cease immediately, and that all charges be dropped. It will be delivered immediately to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, the RNC Host Committee and the local prosecuting attorneys. We need 10,000 signatures in the next 24 hours, so please take action now:

Sign the Letter: Drop All Charges Against Journalists

In addition to these arrests, police with firearms drawn raided a meeting of the video journalists' group I-Witness and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. We’re also receiving late-breaking reports of other arrests.

During the Democratic National Convention in Denver, a baton-wielding sheriff twice struck 24 year old protestor Alicia Forrest, knocking the hundred pound woman to the ground. She was jailed and bonded out at more than $500.

To the credit of the Denver Sheriff's Department, this incident is currently under investigation by their Internal Affairs Division. Below is one of the responses to an ADS member who protested the brutality.

Woodward's 'secret history' of Bush admin. to debut Sept. 8
RawStory.com

The suspense didn't quite compare to the identity of "Deep Throat," but we now know the name of Bob Woodward's fourth investigative work on the Bush administration, just three weeks before the book's release.

"The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008" will be published Sept. 8 by Simon & Schuster with an announced first printing of 900,000 copies. Simon & Schuster is keeping the book under strict embargo — although such embargoes are often broken — and had even held back the title.

"There has not been such an authoritative and intimate account of presidential decision making since the Nixon tapes and the Pentagon Papers," Woodward's longtime editor, Alice Mayhew, said Tuesday in a statement. "This is the declassification of what went on in secret, behind the scenes."

According to Simon & Schuster, Woodward's book "takes readers deep inside the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq.

Scott Horton Interviews Joe Lauria
Anti-War.com

Investigative reporter Joe Lauria discusses the series he co-wrote for the London Times about the Sibel Edmonds case, including the 30 year Washington connection to the A.Q. Kahn nuclear black-market operation, the difficulty in corroborating stories about such a secretive subject, the inability of American mainstream media to diverge from the status quo, how the Tinner family fits into the story and the history of the military-industrial-congressional complex as told in the new book he’s co-authored with former senator Mike Gravel, A Political Odyssey.

MP3 here. (50:50)

Joe Lauria is a New York-based investigative journalist. A freelance member of the Sunday Times of London Insight team, he has also worked on investigations for the Boston Globe and Bloomberg News. Joe’s articles have additionally appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Montreal Gazette, The Johannesburg Star, The Washington Times, New York Magazine, ARTnews

NY Times does it again: More 'Judy Miller' tapdancing
by Luke Ryland

A front page article "In Nuclear Net’s Undoing, a Web of Shadowy Deals" in Monday's New York Times by David Sanger and William Broad details the destruction of evidence by the US government in a case involving the nuclear black market.

The article highlights again that the New York Times continues to engage in 'Judy Miller reporting' by warmongering and acting as a mouthpiece for the government.

George Bush, finally the uniter
By Mikel Weisser | MohaveDailyNews.com

When Bob Costas interviewed George Bush for NBC's Olympic coverage on Aug. 10, attempting to take a hard line, Costas asked Bush to comment on the problems in our country. Bush replied, “I don't see any problems with our country.”

Following the immediate crowd reaction of everyone in the room yelling “get that man a *&%&$@# pair of glasses” at the TV set, I, like many in the American public, came the realization that from his point of view things in America probably do look pretty rosy. After all, Bush does not have to see any problems. His problems are seen to.

by Linda Milazzo

The above video, courtesy of the Minneapolis Star Tribune and videographer, Jeffrey Thompson, is one of the first behind-the-scenes views of the extreme dedication and depth of organization of CODEPINK, which like most PEACE and social justice groups, is comprised mainly of volunteers who work ceaselessly and selflessly to restore this nation to the rule of law and principles of freedom upon which it was built.

Sibel Edmonds Case: FBI Files "Formal Complaint" With Sunday Times
Last week, Scott Horton interviewed (audio) investigative journalist Joe Lauria. Lauria was one of the co-authors of the three-part (1, 2, 3) series on the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds for the UK's Sunday Times.

by Linda Milazzo

IS THIS REALLY WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE?!

by Linda Milazzo

At the very core of patriotism is the desire to preserve and enhance democracy. For true patriots - those who take their love of nation beyond the confines of their cushy sofas and wide screen TVs - there are no limits to their efforts to hold leaders accountable to uphold the Constitution and safeguard its inherent freedoms. Thus, for the past three days that I've been in Denver - in the hotbed of this mecca of "this is what democracy looks like," I've witnessed the GOOD and the NOT so good.

The GOOD are the thousands of Americans who have traveled from every part of this country to engage in actions to spread their personal messages of democracy: peace above conflict, government's responsibility to provide for its citizens, and an immediate stop to the constant rape of our resources and our once fine name by those who base success on the depth of their fortunes rather than the depth of their humanity.

New Pentagon Media Agency Seeks to Fill Top Job
By Walter Pincus | Washington Post.com

The Defense Department is looking for an "energetic and imaginative executive" to run its newly formed Defense Media Activity, according to an advertisement on the agency's Web site.

The executive would earn as much as $172,200 a year overseeing DMA, which since its establishment in January combines formerly separate Pentagon media organizations, such as the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, the Stars and Stripes newspaper, and the Pentagon Channel on television. It also includes the DefenseLink Web site and the military services' Web sites, the Bloggers Roundtable, and the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine magazines.

Fascism Anyone?
Laurence W. Britt | Free Inquiry.com

Free Inquiry readers may pause to read the “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” on the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

TODAY: Uncounted filmmaker David Earnhardt on The Peter B. Collins Show

Live from the Left Coast, 5-6pm PT

Listen LIVE online!

Ellen Theisen will join David and Peter for the second half hour to discuss the VotersUnite.org report, Vendors are Undermining the Structure of U.S. Elections.

O'Reilly Attacks Woman Who Connects Dots Between Hate Speech and Violence
Posted by Rory O'Connor, AlterNet

After Jenna Kern, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, decided to write an Op-Ed piece for Newsday questioning whether shock jocks and hate speech contributed to the recent murderous shooting spree in a U-U church in Tennessee, the haters started to come after her as well. The attacks started first in the comments section of Newsday. (”Hi Rory. Guess what?” Ms. Kern emailed. “Newsday has received 3,000 emails against my piece. The online forum comments at newsday.com have been 99% hateful… I actually had someone sitting in a car outside my house for a half hour. I got so freaked I called the cops!”)

The attacks then continued on the Newsbusters site — a project of the Media Research Center, “the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.” (Kern reports, “Wow, the blogs have gone crazy about the story I did. How did you handle all the nasty things! I don’t have the stomach for it, I’m afraid.”)

Nationally acclaimed scholar and author on Iran, Israel and the U.S. to Speak

When: Wednesday, September 24th, 7 p.m.

What: Dr. Trita Parsi will discuss and sign his book, Treacherous Alliance - The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States.

Where: Whitaker Campus Commons, Hood College, 401 Rosemont Ave., Frederick, MD 21701

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former U.S. National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, has called Dr. Pari’s book, “A penetrating, provocative, and very timely study that deciphers how U.S. policy in the Middle East has been manipulated both by Iran and by Israel even as relations between these two oscillated between secret collusion and overt collision.”

After Ron Suskind Reveals Bush Admin Ordered Iraq-9/11 Fakery, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers Opens Congressional Probe, Part 2"
Interview by Amy Goodman | DemocracyNOW.org
Video & Audio Links

Out Damned Blot: A Letter to Colin Powell
By Ray McGovern

August 15, 2008

Dear Colin,

You have said you regret the “blot” on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.

If you were blindsided, well, here’s an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around aimlessly muttering, Out damned spot...or blot.