This issue's cover story puts to rest any doubts Americans may have about the media cartel's deplorable performance in providing relevant, reliable, truthful information. The way the media cartel knowingly under-reports, hides, and sometimes outright manufactures data on critical topics (including many more not covered here) makes it public enemy number one.
Nothing is more detrimental to a free and open society than an uninformed populace. The media cartel has devolved into nothing more than an overt propaganda machine that systematically manipulates Americans' thought processes to keep the masses docile and compliant in an ever-increasing authoritarian regime. The advances in technology afforded to us have proven to be a double-edged sword that further enables something like the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell's prophetic novel 1984. The good news is that if the people avail themselves of truth that is out there, they can break free of this assault of lies, misinformation, and propaganda. And, while Project Censored is a very valuable place to start, even that project has missed some critical under-reported topics and events. And so we share some of those with you below as a supplement to this cover story.
Press Coverage Vetted by the White House and Presidential Campaigns
A front-page New York Times article in July 2012 reported, "From Capitol Hill to the Treasury Department, interviews granted only with quote approval have become the default position." The article goes on: "The press office has veto power over what statements can be quoted and attributed by name. Most reporters, desperate to pick the brains of the president's top strategists, grudgingly agree. After the interviews, they review their notes, check their tape recorders, and send in the juiciest sound bites for review."
The article also points out that this is not strictly Obama's policy: "Romney advisers almost always require that reporters ask them for the green light on anything from a conversation that they would like to include in an article." So this is not a partisan problem; it is a prevalent problem. (Source: RCReader.com/y/censor1)
Documentary Showing Crackdown by U.S.-Backed Regime in Bahrain Silenced by CNN
CNN commissioned a documentary on the Arab Spring in Bahrain, which it later refused to air because it revealed the sheer brutality of a U.S.-backed regime. Amber Lyon, a former CNN reporter and part of the team that produced the documentary in Bahrain - at considerable risk to herself and her fellow team members - is now considered a whistle-blower for standing up to CNN on behalf of the Bahrain people, who are grateful for her courage to tell the truth about conditions there. (Sources: RCReader.com/y/censor2, RCReader.com/y/censor3, AmberLyonLive.com)
Executive Branch Now a Full-Blown Dictatorship
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 allows the president to indefinitely detain any American thought to be linked to al-Qeada, the Taliban, or "associated forces," permitting the Obama administration to detain Americans without due process - akin to the countless dictatorships throughout history that have operated without the rule of law. The language is so vague that it can be applied without a scintilla of proof or probable cause, a right to counsel, or a trial by jury or judge in a timely manner.
In January 2012, former New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges filed a lawsuit against Congress and Obama over the potential abuse of a provision in the NDAA that allows individuals to be detained indefinitely with no due process. Hedges, along with activist journalists Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg - who joined the lawsuit - argued that the NDAA could be interpreted by the U.S. federal government in a way that authorizes them to label journalists and political activists who interview or support outspoken critics of the Obama administration's policies as "covered persons," meaning that they have given "substantial support" to terrorists or other "associated groups." The group of journalists won their argument in August and again in September in the New York federal-court system, but on October 2, the the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ban on indefinite detention will not go into effect until a decision on the Obama administration's appeal is rendered. In other words, habeas corpus is suspended and anyone can be detained indefinitely by the federal government, with no public charges and no due process. The sad irony of all this is: How does one challenge the lawfulness of this when someone you know disappears under this NDAA "power"? How can one prove anything when you have no body? That is what habeas corpus means: Show us the body. (Sources: RCReader.com/y/censor4, RCReader.com/y/censor5)
TSA Abuse Grows, Despite Complete Lack of Results
While intermittent reports of TSA abuse (groping toddlers in their private areas, making breast-cancer survivors remove their prosthesis, detaining people from making their flights for filming or having a "bad attitude") do make it into the mainstream media, what has failed to be covered is the actual track record of this burgeoning unconstitutional agency.
On November 16, 2011, Congress released a 21-page report titled A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform. The report states: "Since its inception, TSA has lost its focus on transportation security. Instead, it has grown into an enormous, inflexible, and distracted bureaucracy, more concerned with human-resource management and consolidating power, and acting reactively instead of proactively."
Of course, if Congress had any courage, it would do more than issue a critical report. It would abolish TSA as the useless, abusive modern-day Gestapo that it has become. Perhaps, when people have finally had enough and en masse cease allowing themselves to be molested and irradiated, we will regain our dignity, not to mention sanity.
In the meantime, we do have the evidence of this report to work with:
· "The ability of TSA screeners to stop prohibited items from being carried through the sterile areas of the airports fared no better than the performance of screeners prior to September 11, 2001." - Richard Skinner, Former DHS Inspector General, January 26, 2005.
· "Since 2001, TSA staff has grown from 16,500 to over 65,000, a near-400-percent [sic] increase. In the same amount of time, total passenger enplanements in the U.S. have increased less than 12 percent."
· "Over the past 10 years, TSA has spent nearly $57 billion to secure the U.S. transportation network, and TSA's classified performance results do not reflect a good return on this taxpayer investment."
The even scarier part is that despite this massive costly failure, the motto "If you don't like TSA, then don't fly" is going by the wayside as the police-state control grid is being proliferated to include checkpoints on highways and at bus and rail stations, sporting events, music festivals, and even high-school dances. Soon, if the American people do not take action through peaceful civil disobedience, you will find yourself in a total police state, unable to travel without giving up all of the rights that your tax dollars are intended to protect. (Source: RCReader.com/y/censor6)
Your Checking Account May Not Be Safe
A judge ruled in favor of New York Bank Mellon, which sued to be first in line as the creditor for a $312-million loan it issued to Sentinel Financial, ahead of customers' segregated funds that Sentinel illegally used as collateral. The Chicago-based court's ruling says it all: "Perhaps the bank should have known that Sentinel violated segregation requirements," U.S. Circuit Judge John D. Tinder wrote for the panel, "but as the district court found, 'such a lack of care does not rise to the level of egregious misconduct necessary for equitable subordination.'"
This begs the question: Then what does? This means that no one's finances are safe, including bank accounts, CDs, and any securities and/or investment accounts, even if the funds are segregated and the company uses them improperly or illegally. (Sources: RCReader.com/y/censor7, RCReader.com/y/censor8)
