All posts tagged: CNN

Open Thread: Trump-Putin Summit and Mounting Hysteria

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Yesterday, Trump and Putin met for a summit in Helsinki. The resulting hysteria, all throughout the mainstream media and in the minds of neocon and (self-described) “liberals” alike.

Just to be clear – it is not unusual for heads of state to meet. It is not unusual for leaders with different values or interests to discuss international politics. It’s the entire point of diplomacy.

The media at large appear to have forgotten this – giving thousands of column inches to insane ramblings employing words such as “traitor”, “treason”, “puppet” and “surrender”. Words which are rapidly losing their meaning.

Anthony Bourdain’s State Department Smorgasbord

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by Lorenzo, June 10, 2018 Anthony Bourdain’s suicide in June 2018 will cement his reputation as a progressive celebrity with a unique acumen for explaining the world to his fans. CNN’s obituary says that the most common sentiment in response to his death is “I feel like I’ve lost a friend.” You’d have to go back to the death of Steve Jobs to find a celebrity who provoked this kind of personal investment on the part of his fans. Bourdain’s reputation was built for this, because the chef could be relied on to impart a very specific view of the world, and more importantly, to not look like he was doing it. This was the most consequential part of his work—why he was hired by CNN—and it’s the part that will get discussed the least as the adulation pours in. The following was written a few months ago but it is offered today with minor changes. As of March 2018 Patrick Radden Keefe, a journalist who typically covers El Chapo and ISIS, can add to …

UN Security Team Still Won’t Let Inspectors Visit Douma

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by Jason Ditz, Anti-War.com, April 20, 2018 Inspectors on ‘Standby’ Waiting for Permission from UNDSS Two weeks after the alleged chemical attack in Douma, chemical inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are still in Damascus on “standby,” waiting for permission to enter Douma. Allegations continue to swirl around this delay. Britain blamed Russia, as usual. French officials on Friday also claimed Russia was “obstructing access” to the site. The OPCW, however, has made clear for days what is causing the delay. OPCW inspectors aren’t to be allowed into Douma until the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) security team clears them to visit. So far, UNDSS has refused to do so, saying they still have concerns after Wednesday’s visit. On a Wednesday visit, the UNDSS visited two Douma sites, but fled both times. They complained the first site was too crowded, and they were concerned about safety. There was a shooting incident at the second site, though the only casualty was a Syrian hired as extra security. Either way, …

Denying the Obvious: Leftists and Crimestop

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And thus the U.S. left leadership sits in the left chamber of the hall of mirrors, complaining about conspiracy theories while closing its eyes to actual conspiracies crucial to contemporary imperialism.” Graeme MacQueen, Beyond Their Wildest Dreams: September 11, 2001 and the American Left

The problem with modern “journalism” summed up in one story

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by Kit That a protest Facebook/twitter account focusing on the mistreatment of black people by American police was actually a fake account run by Russians to make the US look bad and spread division in the West…is one hell of a claim. If you were to make it, you’d probably be expected to supply evidence to back up your accusation. That’s only reasonable. Well, CNN don’t feel the need. Two days ago they reported this story verbatim, here. Under the headline: Exclusive: Fake black activist accounts linked to Russian government Now, the headline doesn’t say HOW these accounts were linked to Russia, or indeed who linked them. But that’s OK, because neither does the body of the text. There’s not a single link, source or piece of evidence cited at all. The only basis for the claim is: two sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN That’s it. In total. They never say who these two sources are (leaving the very real possibility they don’t even exist), they never say what their supposed “knowledge …

CNN Hires Top al-Qaeda Propagandist for Documentary

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by Jay Syrmopoulos, July 12, 2017, Free Thought Project Bilal Abdul Kareem, of On the Ground News, was contracted by CNN to film a documentary called Undercover in Syria.  Kareem is a self-proclaimed media activist living in rebel-held Syria and is considered “one of the top English-language propagandists for al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabat al-Nusra,” according to an Alternet expose on Abdul Kareem and his connections to terrorism and CNN. On June 16 Abdul Kareem went public with his intimate connection to CNN, and its documentary “Undercover in Syria”.  He relayed his frustration with the network, having essentially whitewashed him out of his credit for a documentary he had a large hand in creating for CNN, which won a prestigious Peabody Award. Abdul Kareem explained how CNN contracted him and his online news outlet, On the Ground News, to film the award-winning documentary. “This was with CNN and their correspondent Clarissa Ward, which I have big-time respect for, big-time respect as a journalist, as a person,” Abdul Kareem said. “This Undercover in Syria, you can Google it — it won the prestigious Peabody Award, and …

VIDEO: CNN caught again “enhancing” reality

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This is supposed to be a “spontaneous peace group” laying down a floral tribute following the alleged London Bridge attack. But as this video makes clear, it’s basically a movie set with the “actors” being put on their marks and carefully posed for maximum effect.

The Western media refute their own lies on Syria

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by Michel Chossudovsky, 7 April 2017, globalresearch.ca The Western media refute their own lies. Not only do they confirm that the Pentagon has been training the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons, they also acknowledge the existence of a not so secret “US-backed plan to launch a chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad’s regime”  London’s Daily Mail in a 2013 article confirmed the existence of an Anglo-American project endorsed by the White House (with the assistance of Qatar) to wage a chemical weapons attack on Syria and place the blame of Bashar Al Assad. The following Mail Online article was published and subsequently removed. Note the contradictory discourse: “Obama issued warning to Syrian president Bashar al Assad”, “White House gave green light to chemical weapons attack”. This Mail Online report published in January 2013 was subsequently removed from Mail Online. For further details click here The Pentagon’s Training of  “Rebels” (aka Al Qaeda Terrorists) in the Use of Chemical Weapons CNN accuses Bashar Al Assad of killing his own people while …

MSM and Selective Blindness

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The McCarthy-like witch-huntery is gaining momentum. Where it’s going is hard to gauge…but, where ever it is, it will get there fast. Currently in the media cross-hairs is Trump’s AG Jeff Sessions. He is accused of lying about talking to the Russian Ambassador when asked by the Senate, his defence being he didn’t speak to them about the election, which is how he understood the question. He contends that, as a Senator and member of the Armed Services Committee, it was not unusual for him to be contact with the Russian Ambassador’s office. Essentially, unless you’re inclined to believe that a career politician who, in over 30 years in public office, never had a kind word to say about either Russia or the USSR has actually s been a deep cover agent for the past few decades, it seems like a minor semantic misunderstanding. It probably means nothing…as an issue in and of itself. As a chess move relating to the crazy media storm and intelligence leaks trying to undermine the new administration, it means …

CNN using intentionally misleading headlines (again)

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This is CNN’s latest article on the all ways Trump is allegedly linked to Russia, Russian spies and Vladimir Putin. Above, a screen-grab of their headline. It seems intercepted communications show that members of Trump’s campaign were “in contact” with Russian officials. This is shocking and treason and stuff, so the CNN brought in “intelligence experts” to analyse what all this could mean. It’s all very serious. Buried half-way through the story is this: Officials emphasized that communications between campaign staff and representatives of foreign governments are not unusual. “Not unusual”. So what it could mean…is nothing. So that’s that then.

Pannell Beaters…

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by Mark Doran Various friends of mine — smart folks, every one of them! — are telling me that they expect Donald Trump to be ‘Grassy Knolled’ by elements of the US ‘deep state’ before he even graduates from ‘President-Elect’ to ‘President’ on 20 January. I myself don’t think that such an event is especially likely … as, to me, it appears far more probable that he and the people around him will be ‘disciplined’ by various powerful forces — not least those that act through state-corporate media — to the extent that his entire project simply mutates into another ‘cookie-cutter’ US administration dedicated to neo-imperial violence and corporate empowerment. The media-based ‘disciplining’ to which I refer actually has two aspects to it — and both of them can already be discerned without the slightest difficulty: first, there is the smacking; secondly, there is the silence. The ‘smacking’ is what you get when something you have done, or are merely said to have done, is used as something for which you can be hammered in …

Urgent to [US] Progressives: Stop Fueling the Anti-Russia Frenzy

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by Norman Solomon, via Antiwar.org This week began with a mass email from the head of the Democratic National Committee, who declared: “By now, Americans know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Russian government orchestrated a series of cyberattacks on political campaigns and organizations over the past two years and used stolen information to influence the presidential campaign and congressional races.” DNC chair Donna Brazile went on: “The integrity of our elections is too important for Congress to refuse to take these attacks seriously.” The importance of election integrity had eluded Brazile when she was a regular on CNN, posing as neutral in the Clinton-Sanders battle.  “Brazile is not apologizing for leaking CNN debate questions and topics to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary,” the Washington Post reported last month.  “Her only regret, it seems, is that she got caught.” Many big factors affect any presidential race, and the Russian government may have tried to be one of them for the 2016 election – though it’s hardly the slam dunk that agencies like …

British Govt-Funded Outlet Offered Journalist $17,000 a Month to Produce Propaganda for Syrian Rebels

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by Rania Khalek, via AlterNet Emails reveal that a popular source for mainstream Western media is a U.K.-backed propaganda outlet. The Revolutionary Forces of Syria (RFS) media office, a major Syrian opposition media outfit and frequent source of information for Western media, is funded by the British government and is managed by Westerners operating out of Turkey, according to emails provided to AlterNet by a Middle East reporter RFS tried to recruit. The outlet stirred controversy this November when it released a video at the height of the Mannequin Challenge, a pop culture craze in which people compete for how long they can freeze in place on video.  The RFS video depicted a staged rescue by the White Helmets, the Western-funded rescue group that operates exclusively in rebel-held territory.  RFS quickly removed the video and issued an apology out of apparent concern that the staged rescue could raise questions about the authenticity of other videos by the White Helmets. Over the summer, the Middle East reporter, who asked not to be named, was contacted by an American acquaintance …

VIDEO: CNN cuts Congressman off 3 seconds after he mentions Wikileaks

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Poor CNN seem to be having more technical problems. Here we see Congressman Chris Collins having the satellite feed cut literally only three seconds after he says Wikileaks: CNN have had trouble with their satellite feeds before, their temperamental equipment has cut off reporters who bring up Clinton’s past: …and then prematurely ended interviews with African-American voters who endorse the “wrong” candidate: And this isn’t the only problem CNN have had working around “the W word” recently. A clip of the same host – Chris Cuomo – recently went viral when he claimed it was illegal for members of the public to view the wikileaks files, but that it was “different for the media”. CNN falstely states that it unlawful for the public–but not for CNN–to search WikiLeaks #PodestaEmails pic.twitter.com/sZMoM9iT2i — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 16, 2016 Cuomo goes on to say: Everything you learn about [wikileaks], you’re learning through us.” You wish, CNN. EDITORS NOTE: This post was modified 1/5/2018 to replace a video that had been removed from youtube.

Well, that didn’t take long…

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by Kit The past two weeks, the ten days following our article predicting a marked increase in a pro-Syrian war rhetoric…there has been marked increase in pro-war rhetoric. The Guardian, CNN and the Washington Post have all published editorials decrying the West’s “lack of action” in Syria, and especially in Aleppo. In the Guardian, Janine di Giovanni declares that: The West cannot stand back and let Aleppo be destroyed” …although she is rather vague on what she would have “the west” do about it. A little background on Janine de Giovani: She is the middle-east editor for Newsweek, a fellow of the New America Foundation and a frequent speaker and author for The Council of Foreign Relations. No prizes for guessing the general tone of her article. She repeatedly compares Syria with Yugoslavia – maintaining the myth that the illegal NATO bombings were “humanitarian”, and neglecting to mention that the conflict nearly escalated into hostilities with Russia. She quotes “experts” from notionally non-partisan NGOs such as the Carnegie Institute and The Atlantic Council. One such …

Ukraine’s ‘October Surprise’ – may be coming in September

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by Justin Raimondo, from antiwar.com When a Russian FSB agent and a Russian soldier were killed by a team of Ukrainian saboteurs, and one of the captured Ukrainians was shown on Russian media in handcuffs, US ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt tweeted: US government has seen nothing so far that corroborates Russians allegations of a ‘Crimea incursion’ & Ukraine has strongly refuted them.” Apparently two dead Russians don’t count for much in Pyatt’s book: perhaps Putin personally killed them, and the whole thing is a set up. And how has Ukraine “strongly refuted” this accusation? According to the Ukrainian authorities, the captured would-be saboteur, one Yevgeny Panov, was “kidnapped” from his home town in Zaporizhia – a distance of some 200 miles – by the Russians and transported to Crimea. The Ukrainian police have solemnly announced that “We are taking all necessary measures to promptly, fully and impartially investigate all circumstances of this crime.” One has to admire the ability of the Ukrainian authorities to utter the most portentous absurdities with the perfect aplomb of …

“A System Rigged against Voters”

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by Eric Zuesse Even for the post of U.S. President, the preferences of the American people have only a marginal, if any, impact upon the selection of the person to occupy that post. In Colorado’s Republican race to win delegates to the Republican National Convention for selecting the Republican Presidential nominee, there was no primary, and there was no caucus.  As the Republican magazine National Review headlined on April 11th, attempting to justify what a Republican wag had just headlined as “Cruz Celebrates Voterless Win”: “Donald Trump Laid a Colorado Goose Egg because He Was Disorganized and Amateurish.”  Their argument (since they campaign for any Republican but Trump) was: he lost “because he was disorganized and amateurish” — not because he had been cheated by the Party-hierarchy. National Review explained that in the process which had been set up by the Colorado Republican Party (it’s set up by each individual state’s Republican Party, not by the National Republican Party), “delegates to the national convention would be selected at congressional-district conventions and the Republican’s [sic] state convention”, and this was done in …

Sanders Campaign gets Sparks and Sparkle

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by Bryan Hemming On February 12th this year Dan Froomkin, the influential Washington Editor of the Intercept, used an article slamming Hillary Clinton’s slavish adherence the doctrines of Henry Kissinger to solicit likely names for a ‘dream foreign policy team’. Taking up the challenge, I dashed off an email expressing grave doubts as to whether there were anywhere near enough politicians in the U.S. political establishment possessing sufficient knowledge of foreign affairs to form a whole team. Having said that, I do believe there is one politician eminently qualified to lead a dream foreign policy team, and she might even get to do it. “I cannot remain neutral any longer; the stakes are too high.” Using those words Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her post as vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee on February 28th to endorse the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. Announcing her resignation on NBC’s Meet the Press she cited her main reason as being that members of the committee were proscribed from expressing their opinions in the primaries. And Gabbard has plenty of opinions, particularly on the abysmal failure of …

The Caesar Photos and Impunity in Syria

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by Steven Chovanec Western media are reporting headline claims that “new evidence supports claims about Syrian state detention deaths”, saying that “a leading rights group has released new evidence that up to 7,000 Syrians who died in state detention centres were tortured, mistreated, or executed”, noting that this information is a moral wakeup call and demanding that officials being held to account should be “central to peace efforts.” However, as is usually so, not everything is quite as it seems.  So let’s take a look at the facts. First the timing. As has been commonplace the timing of the reports like these have almost always coincided with important diplomatic meetings or just after important UN resolutions are passed. For example, beginning in mid-March claims began to pour in that Assad had been using chlorine bombs against his opponents.  Media reports would cite the fact that only 2 months later the government had already been accused of using chlorine 35 times.  What they failed to mention however was that no claims were made for an entire …

The Fakery of ‘The Free World’

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by Eric Zuesse 13 October 2015 is the release-date of the report from the fake investigation –by the governments of Ukraine, Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, and later Malaysia — into who and what and why caused the shoot-down of the Malaysian MH17 Boeing airliner over the conflict-zone in Ukraine on 17 July 2014. That’s the plane which, at the last moment, was inexplicably instructed by the Ukrainian Government’s Air Traffic Control to go off the normal course avoiding the Ukrainian civil war zone over the east, and to go instead right into the war-zone. The airliner got shot down with all 298 aboard dead. Obama and his coup-installed Ukrainian Government blamed Russia immediately, and the European Union (which knew that he had actually taken Ukraine in a bloody February 2014 coup that was staged to look like a ‘revolution’) promptly caved to Obama’s demand to hike the anti-Russia sanctions that had been instituted in March 2014, when Crimea rejected Obama’s Ukrainian-coup-imposed government and held a referendum which resulted in Crimea’s switching to become again a part …