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Cenk Uygur Goes to Current: Al Gore Snaps Up Another Progressive (VIDEO)
That seems to be the move that Al Gore is making with Current to counter the corporatized, right-wing media agenda that has infected our sources of information and skews the issues with flat-out lies and propaganda fed to us by the corporate state. After all, who has encountered more propagandist garbage than Al Gore?
http://veracitystew.com/2011/09/21/cenk-uygur-goes-to-current-al-gore-snaps-up-another-progressive-video/That seems to be the move that Al Gore is making with Current to counter the... more-
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Budgets, Deficits, and Taxes; Myths and Facts
We all have opinions and ideas of our own about how the world should work. Well, the first part of the sentence is true. We seem to lack original ideas or have knowledge of the subject we have an opinion on.We all have opinions and ideas of our own about how the world should work. Well, the... more-
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One Year Ago: WikiLeaks, The ‘Afghan War Logs’ — and the Debate That Did Not Follow
– As a new debate builds over US policy on Afghanistan – in the wake of President Obama’s announcement of a rather-too-slow “drawdown” – it is useful to review the much-forgotten revelations that emerged from WikiLeaks’ massive “War Logs” release last July– As a new debate builds over US policy on Afghanistan – in the wake of... more-
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FCC Open Commission Meetings "Tell them Yourself !"
Washington D.C, the F.C.C has scheduled a series of open public meetings to let them know what you think of them (I know)...Now I think I know what you think of their work as of late... but why don't you let them here it from your lips or go to link and lets reform this media and give our Democracy its soul back!
Schedule of Open Commission Meetings
All meetings are scheduled to start at 10:30 am ET, except as noted.
2011
* Thursday, May 12
* Thursday, June 9
* Tuesday, July 12
* Tuesday, August 9
* Thursday, September 22
* Wednesday, October 19
* Thursday, November 17
* Tuesday, December 13Washington D.C, the F.C.C has scheduled a series of open public meetings to let them... more-
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Media Reform : News from the Movement
News of the movement for May 2, 2011-Media Reform Free press
Comcast Must Do Better on Local News to Meet Merger Promises A new Free Press report, "No News Is Bad News," reveals deep disparities between the amount of local news offered on Comcast's English- and Spanish-language stations.
Free Press
How the Bin Laden Announcement Leaked Out The nation's TV anchors and newspaper editors did not know, at first, that President Barack Obama would be announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, an extraordinary development in the nearly 10-year-long war against terrorism waged by the United States and its allies. But reporters in Washington suspected almost immediately that the announcement could be about bin Laden.
Brian Stelter, New York Times
Osama Bin Laden Dead, the Story Twitter Broke Word that Obama would be making an announcement started spreading around 10:30 p.m. But Keith Urbahn, chief of staff for the office of the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, appears to be the first to have broken the news that Osama bin Laden was dead -- via his @keithurbahn Twitter feed.
Tyler Gray, Fast Company
Stages of News in a Twitter and Facebook Era This evening, as we learn about the death of Osama bin Laden, we're seeing firsthand what happens when the real-time, immediate notifications of Facebook and Twitter meet real-world events. It's not the first time, but the death of Osama bin Laden is truly a global event in the way that Prince William and Kate Middleton's marriage was not, or even what the protests in Egypt and Libya are not.
Why Media's Excessive Royal Wedding Coverage Is Appalling and Wrong It has become fashionable to bash the saturation coverage of the royal wedding, but the the problem isn't with the amount of coverage, or even the expense, but with what it costs us. This spectacle illustrates the degree to which profit-driven "giving the people what they want" has undercut journalism's true purpose.
Colby Hall, Mediaite
FCC Offers Public a Chance to Chime in on AT&T-T-Mobile Deal If AT&T joins forces with T-Mobile, the number of top national wireless phone service competitors in the United States will shrink from four to three. The FCC wants to make sure that the move will be in the best interests of the people who keep these companies alive, which is to say, anyone who owns a cellphone. In that spirit, the government agency is turning to the public for opinions on the planned deal.
Adam Rosenberg, Digital Trends
Press Not Buying AT&T Spectrum Claims Even the normally unskeptical and pliable technology press is having a hard time buying any of AT&T's spectrum arguments
Karl Bode, Broadband Reports
Wireless Consolidation: How Did We Get Here? The wireless industry as we know it was built by consolidation, but as more and more people rely on mobile broadband, the stakes are much higher. Do we really want what is effectively a duopoly in wireless to mirror the duopoly we already have in wireline?
Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOM
Shed a Tear: The Age of Broadband Caps Has Begun AT&T has begun restricting more than 16 million broadband users based on the amount of data they use in a month. The No. 2 carrier's entry into the broadband-cap club means that a majority of U.S. broadband users will now be subject to limits on how much they can do online or risk extra charges as ugly as video store late fees.
Ryan Singel, Wired
CBS Plans to Keep Its Spectrum CBS has taken a slightly less adversarial tone toward the FCC's spectrum reclamation plan than the National Association of Broadcasters, group owners representing hundreds of TV stations and state broadcast associations. And since it says it is not going to be selling out its spectrum, or planning to share it with other stations, CBS put an emphasis on the FCC making sure those left behind are still in control of their own destiny.(aww what pals)
John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable
Ham Radio Volunteers Worry About Spectrum Plan Across Alabama, emergency communications systems fell silent this week when tornadoes knocked down antennas and cellphone towers. Amateur radio operators are helping to restore emergency communication in some of the areas hardest hit by the storms. But those volunteers say their ability to provide that help is threatened by a new bill in Congress.
Joel Rose, NPR
(Get involved in Media Reform all links for free press media reform at my site all links and content used by permission....get involved or shut up)News of the movement for May 2, 2011-Media Reform Free press Comcast Must Do Better... more-
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The Wavelength: Original Reporting—What’s it Worth? Plus: Tracking the AT&T/T-Mobile Merger
By Eric Arnold, Media Consortium blogger
Last week, the New York Times debuted a long-awaited paywall, and stats blogger Nate Silver used the launch as an opportunity to explore the value of a news organization based on the amount of original reporting it produces. While Silver’s rankings could be a valuable tool for news organizations, Mother Jones‘ Nick Baumann finds Silver’s methodology wanting.
“The results, as you might expect, made the Times [paywall] look like a pretty good value,” Baumann writes. But the real problems are in how Silver ranks “original reporting”– namely that online citations don’t always identify the outlet, and that larger, established news organizations sometimes get credit for breaking stories when smaller orgs actually had the scoop first. That’s not to say that rankings like this don’t have incredible value for media, but that they need to be explored in a deeper manner. Baumann writes:
It’d be nice to see a foundation interested in journalism—the Knight Foundation, say, or Google.org—invest some time and money to expand and rework the rankings. It would be great to see media outlets competing to produce more and better original reporting.
Ultimately, Baumann believes rankings like this, if done right, could be a valuable barometer for measuring quality in journalism. Let’s hope someone takes up his call to arms.
AT&T/T-Mobile Merger still a very bad idea
Free Press’s Tim Karr weighs in on the mega-merger with five reasons why it’s not so great for consumers. According to Karr, “consolidation of the scale being proposed by AT&T resembles the old railroad and oil trusts of the 19th century.”
Karr also notes that the merger would erode competition, result in higher prices and fewer choices for consumers, eliminate perhaps tens of thousands of jobs, stifle innovation in the tech sector, and threaten free speech.
How will the merger affect POC users?
The disappearance of T-Mobile, whose low-cost plans offering unlimited data appealed to low-income wireless users, could have a huge impact on communities of color who rely on unrestricted text and web plans, especially those who don’t own computers.
At Colorlines.com, Jamilah King notes that “Mobile broadband is fast becoming the future of the Internet, and it’s already an important way in which communities of color are helping to close the digital divide. ” Blacks and Latinos, she says, are among the biggest users of mobile technology, “and in many cases, it’s the primary way that they surf the Web.”
If unlimited data plans end, and prices for wireless service rise for current T-Mobile users if and when a merger is completed, the digital divide separating under served communities from customers who can afford higher fees will almost certainly widen. This could have a devastating ripple effect on everything from people who use phones for business to people who use phones for social networking — and may affect African Americans, Latinos, and immigrant populations disproportionately.
Impact of merger on Net Neutrality
How will the potential mega merger affect Net Neutrality? Truthout’s Nadia Prupis recently interviewed Free Press political adviser Joel Kelsey, who says the FCC’s December decision not to regulate wireless carriers now seems shortsighted. “[The FCC’s] justification was that you’re less likely to see some of the same types of anti-competitive actions for fear that a carrier would lose a large number of customers … looking at it through the lens of this merger, I think that justification has kind of gone out the window.”
Did ISPs buy anti-Net Neutrality votes?
Speaking of Net Neutrality, Crunchgear had an eye-opening article outlining the amount of money donated by ISPs over the last four election cycles to the 15 members of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology who opposed Net Neutrality. The article’s findings perhaps aren’t that surprising, but are revelatory: “Looking at the 15 congressmen who voted against Net Neutrality, the top three ISPs gave their campaigns some $868,024 over the past four election cycles. You can interpret that as, well, they were able to knock down Net Neutrality for less than $1 million, which is pretty much a drop in the bucket for these companies.”
Oh, Canada – Why Can’t America Be More Like You?
The AT&T merger is dominating the media policy news cycle, but we shouldn’t let it distract us from an interesting ruling for media made by our neighbors to the north. As Yes! Magazine’s Dave Saldana reports, a Canadian law which prohibits broadcast news from knowingly spreading disinformation—an anti-lying law—was recently upheld by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
Saldana writes: “With little fanfare, the CRTC last month scrapped a proposal to revoke or relax a rule on ‘prohibited programming content’ that includes ‘broadcasting false or misleading news.’ The CRTC withdrew the plan when a legislative committee determined that the rule does not run afoul of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which like the U.S. Constitution, guarantees press freedoms.”
He goes on to raise the obvious question: If Canada can do this, why can’t the United States? After all, there have been cases where journalists have been pressured into knowingly inserting false statements into stories under orders from executives, in order to protect big business interests engaged in harmful practices.
Unfortunately, the media’s legal right to lie is protected by the First Amendment. But if Canada can ban false reporting without violating freedom of the press, why can’t we choose truth over truthiness?
New Study Details Women in Media Globally
Inter Press Service’s Andrea Lunt reports on a recently completed a study of women in news media covering more than 170,000 people in 500 companies across 60 countries. The study was produced by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).
Lunt says the study shows that gender inequality in the media sphere has been institutionalized. The good news is that the gap appears to be closing, especially at the executive level, where women have more than doubled their presence in the past fifteen years. A 1995 study showed women 12% of the top management positions in 239 nations, yet the IWMF report shows women now hold 26% of the governing and 27% of the top management jobs.
Progress? Certainly. But there’s still a long way to go.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about media policy and media-related matters by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. To read more of the Wavelength, click here. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Eric Arnold, Media Consortium blogger Last week, the New York Times debuted a... more-
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The Wavelength: What does proposed AT&T and T-Mobile Merger Mean?
By Eric K. Arnold, Media Consortium Blogger
Welcome to the Wavelength, your bi-weekly field guide to the world of media policy. Over the next four months, we’ll be compiling great content, connecting the dots, building context, and reporting how media policy impacts the lives of everyday people. From the ongoing battle over Net Neutrality to the wild world of Internet regulation, from partisan crusades to media accountability, the Wavelength is here to keep you in the know.
This week, we’re focusing on major mergers, holding telecom giants accountable, and the revolving door at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
So, without further ado, let’s take a spin through the media zone.
AT&T to Absorb T-Mobile?
On Sunday, AT&T announced it had reached an agreement with T-Mobile to buy the mobile phone service provider for $39 billion. As reported in the New York Times, the deal would “create the largest wireless carrier in the nation and promised to reshape the industry.”
The immediate upshot is that the number of nationwide wireless carriers would drop from four to three, with Sprint Nextel running a distant third behind AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon. Another impact could be higher rates for current T-Mobile customers. Advocates of the deal suggest it could improve AT&T’s oft-criticized service, resulting in fewer dropped calls. However, critics note that the roughly $3 billion in projected annual cost savings will likely come at the expense of workers at the hundreds of retail outlets expected to close, if the deal goes through.
Both the Justice Department and the FCC have to sign off on the merger before it can be approved, a process that could take up to a year.
House adds insult to NPR’s injury
On St. Patrick’s Day, the Republican-controlled House voted 228-192 to end federal funding for NPR. The move came on the heels of a secretly recorded video from conservative activist James O’Keefe that purportedly showed NPR fundraiser Ronald Schiller expressing support for Islamic fundamentalism and disavowing the Tea Party as “racist” — leading Schiller and NPR CEO Vivian Schiller (no relation) to resign. The video was later revealed to be excerpted and heavily edited from a longer video which places Schiller’s remarks in context.
At TAPPED, Lindsay Beyerstein watched the entire two hour video, and notes that:
"O’Keefe’s provocateurs didn’t get what they were looking for. They were ostensibly offering $5 million to NPR. Their goal is clearly to get Schiller and his colleague Betsy Liley to agree to slant coverage for cash. Again and again, they refuse, saying that NPR just wants to report the facts and be a nonpartisan voice of reason."
As reported in the Washington Times, the Democratic-controlled Senate is unlikely to pass the bill, making NPR’s federal funding safe—for now. However, the timing of the vote suggests that House Republicans are essentially endorsing O’Keefe’s questionable tactics, showing that their dislike of the so-called liberal media is of greater concern.
Telecoms add ramming to their list of illegal practices
A recent AlterNet story by David Rosen and Bruce Kushnick details sneaky, unethical, and possibly illegal telecom tactics, the most recent of which is “ramming.”
“Ramming” happens “when a phone company‘s customer is put on a service plan or package s/he did not need or want or cannot even use.” According to the article, “An estimated 80 percent of phone company customers have been overcharged or are on plans they did not need or even order. These and other scams can cost residential customers $20 or more a month extra and small business customers up to thousands of dollars a month.”
These practices are insidious because modern telephone bills are so cryptic that it’s not easy for even the most astute customer to figure out they’ve been duped.
Powell’s next move
Last Tuesday, former FCC chair Michael Powell announced that he has taken over as president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Leading media advocacy organization Free Press snarkily congratulated Powell via a statement from Managing Director Craig Aaron:
"If you wonder why common sense, public interest policies never see the light of day in Washington, look no further than the furiously spinning revolving door between industry and the FCC.
Former Chairman Michael Powell is the natural choice to lead the nation’s most powerful cable lobby, having looked out for the interests of companies like Comcast and Time Warner during his tenure at the Commission and having already served as a figurehead for the industry front group Broadband for America."
AT&T imposes monthly usage caps
Finally, we’ve got more bad news for those unlucky enough to have AT&T as their Internet and cable service provider. As Truthout’s Nadia Prupis recently reported, AT&T customers who use the company’s U-Verse cable TV service and DSL hi-speed Internet services in the United States can expect a bump in their monthly bills if they exceed a new usage cap – 50GB for DSL customers and 250 GB for U-Verse users. Those who exceed the storage fee will be charged $10 extra for every 50GB over the limit.
Surprisingly, the telecom behemoth continues to insist their price-gouging moves are in the consumer’s best interests. According to an AT&T press release: “Our new plan addresses another concern: customers strongly believe that only those who use the most bandwidth should pay more than those who don’t use as much.”
Personally, I don’t spend too much time thinking about how much bandwidth other people are using, as long as I’m getting the download speeds I’m paying for.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about media policy and media-related matters by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint and repost. To read more of The Wavelength, click here. For the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Eric K. Arnold, Media Consortium Blogger Welcome to the Wavelength, your... more-
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Yikes! You won't believe the real jobless numbers
Yikes! You won't believe the real jobless numbers
Federal docs contradict 8.9% hyped by media
Posted: March 04, 2011
2:09 pm Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
The real U.S. unemployment rate may be 22.1 percent for February, not the 8.9 percent reported by the government, according to economist John Williams, author of the "Shadow Government Statistics" website, who has argued for years that the federal government manipulates the reporting of economic data for political purposes.
Read more: Yikes! You won't believe the real jobless numbers http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=270957#ixzz1FslhydEv
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=270957Yikes! You won't believe the real jobless numbers Federal docs contradict 8.9%... more-
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Washington's Sudden Embrace of Al Jazeera
by Jeremy Scahill
If it weren't for Al Jazeera, much of the unfolding Egyptian revolution would never have been televised. Its Arabic and English language channels have provided the most comprehensive coverage of any network in any language hands-down. Despite the Mubarak regime's attempts to shut it down, Al Jazeera's brave reporters and camera crews have persevered. Six Al Jazeera journalists were detained briefly on Monday, their equipment seized. The US responded swiftly to their detention with the State Department calling for their release. "We are concerned by the shutdown of Al Jazeera in Egypt and arrest of its correspondents," State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley tweeted. "Egypt must be open and the reporters released."
....
For people who have followed Al Jazeera's history with the US, the fact that it is now perceived by the White House and the American public as a force for democracy and freedom is an ironic, some would say hypocritical, development. The contrast between Washington's posture toward Al Jazeera from the Bush era to the Obama presidency could not be more stark.
During the Bush administration, nothing contradicted the absurd claim that the US invaded Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East more decisively than Washington's ceaseless attacks on Al Jazeera, the institution that did more than any other to break the stranglehold over information previously held by authoritarian forces, whether monarchs, military strongmen, occupiers or ayatollahs. Yet, far from calling for its journalists to be respected and freed from imprisonment and unlawful detention, the Bush administration waged war against Al Jazeera and its journalists.
The US bombed its offices in Afghanistan in 2001. In March 2003, two of its financial correspondents were kicked off the trading floor of NASDAQ and the NY Stock Exchange. "In light of Al-Jazeera's recent conduct during the war, in which they have broadcast footage of US POWs in alleged violation of the Geneva Convention, they are not welcome to broadcast from our facility at this time," said NASDAQ's spokesperson. Later NASDAQ backed off that claim and said the networks accreditation had been revoked for "security reasons."
In April 2003, US forces shelled the Basra hotel where Al Jazeera journalists were the only guests and killed Jazeera's Iraq correspondent Tareq Ayoub a few days later in Baghdad. The US also imprisoned several Al Jazeera reporters (including at Guantánamo), some of whom say they were tortured. Among these was Sami al-Haj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who spent seven years at Guantanamo and was repeatedly interrogated by US operatives attempting to falsely link Al Jazeera to al Qaeda. In addition to the military attacks, the US-backed Iraqi government periodically banned Al Jazeera from reporting in Iraq. Indeed Al Jazeera was shut down in Iraq under both Saddam Hussein and the US-backed government.
Then in late November 2005 Britain's Daily Mirror reported that during an April 2004 White House meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, George W. Bush floated the idea of bombing Al Jazeera's international headquarters in Qatar. This allegation was based on leaked "Top Secret" minutes of the Bush-Blair summit. At the time of Bush's meeting with Blair, the Administration was in the throes of a very public, high-level temper tantrum directed against Al Jazeera. The meeting took place on April 16, at the peak of the first US siege of Falluja, and Al Jazeera was one of the few news outlets broadcasting from inside the city. Its exclusive footage was being broadcast by every network from CNN to the BBC.
The Falluja offensive, one of the bloodiest assaults of the US occupation, was a turning point. In two weeks that April, thirty marines were killed as local guerrillas resisted US attempts to capture the city. Some 600 Iraqis died, many of them women and children. Al Jazeera broadcast from inside the besieged city, beaming images to the world. On live TV the network gave graphic documentary evidence disproving US denials that it was killing civilians. It was a public relations disaster, and the United States responded by attacking the messenger.
Just a few days before Bush allegedly proposed bombing the network, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Falluja, Ahmed Mansour, reported live on the air, "Last night we were targeted by some tanks, twice... but we escaped. The US wants us out of Falluja, but we will stay." On April 9 Washington demanded that Al Jazeera leave the city as a condition for a cease-fire. The network refused. Mansour wrote that the next day "American fighter jets fired around our new location, and they bombed the house where we had spent the night before, causing the death of the house owner Mr. Hussein Samir. Due to the serious threats we had to stop broadcasting for few days because every time we tried to broadcast the fighter jets spotted us we became under their fire."
On April 11 senior military spokesperson Mark Kimmitt declared, "The stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children are not legitimate news sources. That is propaganda, and that is lies." On April 15 Donald Rumsfeld echoed those remarks in distinctly undiplomatic terms, calling Al Jazeera's reporting "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.... It's disgraceful what that station is doing." It was the very next day, according to the Daily Mirror, that Bush told Blair of his plan. "He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere," a source told the Mirror. "There's no doubt what Bush wanted to do--and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it."
Al Jazeera's real transgression during the "war on terror" was a simple one: being there. That is what Al Jazeera is doing today in Egypt and why it is so dangerous to the Mubarak regime. While critical of US policy, Al Jazeera is not anti-American—it is independent. In fact, it has angered almost every Arab government at one point or another and has been kicked out of or sanctioned by many Arab countries (the one country which Al Jazeera arguably does not cover independently is its host nation of Qatar). It was the first Arab station to broadcast interviews with Israeli officials and is hardly the Al Qaeda mouthpiece the Bush Administration wanted us to believe it was. Now that is abundantly clear to Americans who over the past week have come to depend on Al Jazeera for accurate news on the developments in Egypt.
The real threat Al Jazeera poses to authoritarian regimes is in its unembedded journalism. That is why the Bush Administration viewed Al Jazeera as a threat, it is why Mubarak's regime is trying to shut it down and that is why the network is so important to the unfolding revolutions in the Middle East. It is the same role the network plays in reporting on the disastrous US war in Afghanistan.
Part of why Al Jazeera has become acceptable is that, unlike throughout much of the Bush era, it now has a full 24-hour English language news channel filled with veteran reporters who came to the network from CNN, the BBC and other Western news outlets. When it was an Arabic language only network, it was a lot easier to demonize and malign because fact-checking US officials' fabrications and pronouncements required a real effort.
At the end of the day, the real test of whether there is a substantive change in Washington's stance toward independent, unembedded journalists and journalism will likely not involve Al Jazeera, but some other news outlet or journalist. And that test will be real only when that journalist or media outlets' rights are in direct conflict with Washington's agenda.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/01-1 (first published by the nation)
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2006/11/2008525121029775483.html (image)by Jeremy Scahill If it weren't for Al Jazeera, much of the unfolding Egyptian... more-
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As Wall Street Tries to Strong-arm Consumers, Will WIKILEAKS Bring One of the Biggest Banks it to Its Knees?
AlterNet http://ow.ly/3u5kr
By Joshua Holland
December 22, 2010 |
Wall Street has worked hard to keep its inner workings from seeing the light of day. But one of the worst offenders in the financial crisis may be about to face the kind of public disrobing that government regulators, the corporate media and transparency activists are incapable of performing. If the rumors that have been swirling around in recent months prove true, Bank of America's dirty secrets may soon be exposed for the world to see, courtesy of the whistle-blower site Wikileaks.
The banks prefer not to give out information, even when required to do so by law. Consider their potentially illegal response to a campaign by the service employees union, SEIU called, “Where's the Note?” that helps homeowners request a copy of their mortgage-holder's proof that it actually holds the note on their properties. According to SEIU – and confirmed anecdotally by others – borrowers who take advantage of SEIU's system have faced retaliation in the form of lower credit ratings: they send in the request, and see their credit scores fall. It's a likely violation of the Fair Lending Act, and as Roosevelt Institute fellow Mike Konczal noted, it's a serious threat:
In the middle of a foreclosure fraud crisis where people aren’t sure who owns their mortgage, a simple ask of “can you show me the contract I signed with you, just to make sure it is there if there is a dispute” is being used to threaten someone’s credit score.... Since credit scores impact everything else in your life, from being able to turn on your lights and electricity to renting an apartment to purchasing things, this is a serious threat, one of the more grievous ones a private company can deliver.
David Dayen at Firedoglake adds that the heavy-handed response to SEIU's campaign “is part of a broader trend, where the servicers and big banks, having been exposed by the foreclosure fraud crisis, are now lashing out at their critics.”
The St. Petersburg Times reported that one company, Nationwide Title clearing, has taken to using legal bullying tactics to stifle its critics. The company filed an injunction against Sarasota lawyer Christopher Forrest “to remove videotaped depositions he had posted of three Nationwide Title employees describing an assembly-line process of signing mortgage-related documents.” The ACLU of Florida filed an emergency appeal of the injunction, calling it a "gag order" and a restraint of free speech.
The company then sued Matthew Weidner, a St. Petersburg lawyer who defends homeowners against wrongful foreclosures, for defamation and libel after he reposted the videos and added some commentary.
Barbara Petersen, the president of Florida's First Amendment Foundation, told the Times that Weidner had played a pivotal role in exposing serious issues in the foreclosure process, “including court hearings from which the public was barred.” "I've been working with Matt on trying to open the foreclosure process and we've made great strides that have a lot to do with his activism," she said. "He's bringing a great deal of national attention to what's going on in Florida."
Nationwide Title claimed that Weidner defamed the company by including the widely used term “robo-signers” in his posts. The charge will be hard to prove, but as Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith noted, the act of suing a lawyer with a small practice “throws a wrench in their operation” as “it takes time to deal with litigation, and often money, plus the stress is also a considerable distraction.” She adds: “Of course, the hope is no doubt that this sort of risk will also deter other lawyers and critics.”
~AlterNet http://ow.ly/3u5kr By Joshua Holland December 22, 2010 | Wall... more-
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Calls to Boycott Amazon Spring Up Over Hosting of WikiLeaks Servers
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Amazon-for-Dumping-Wikileaks/174975139187861
As we reported yesterday, in the hours before WikiLeaks published its latest cache of secret government files, a hacker tried to shut it down with a cyber attack (something a Chinese hacker seems to have succeeded at today). Fortunately for WikiLeaks in the previous hacking case, it's website is hosted on several different worldwide servers, including those owned by Seattle's own Amazon.com, which meant WikiLeaks could move its traffic and avoid a more crippling attack. This isn't sitting well with some folks and calls for an Amazon boycott are now springing up on the internet like mushrooms after a rain storm.
A majority of the boycott demands seem to be coming from conservative websites like WyBlog(http://wyblog.us/blog/tech/boycott-amazon-over-wikileaks.html), ConservativeHideout(http://conservativehideout.com/info/index.php/component/content/article/34-conservative-sites/683-boycott-amazoncom-theyre-now-hosting-wikileaks) and Geobent(http://geobent.blogspot.com/2010/11/boycott-amazon.html).
But PI blogger Charlette LeFevre (who seems to have no obviously public political leanings) posted a demand for a boycott early this morning(http://blog.seattlepi.com/capitolhill/archives/230196.asp?source=rss).
She writes:
I wonder would Amazon have published a list of underground railroad sites in the days of slavery? Would Amazon have published Schindler's list? Would Amazon also publish the names of all their own current employees and their foreign connections?
Besides drawing an obvious false equivalency between slavery and holocaust era information and the embarrassing-at-best, dangerous-at-worst nature of WikiLeaks latest dump, LeFevre goes on to say that "I am a consumer and can exercise my consumer buying power by boycotting Amazon and sending a message."
A boycott would indeed hurt Amazon. It's highly unlikely that it would hurt WikiLeaks, however, as the site has several mirror servers in Sweden, France and elsewhere and could likely find a new company to host it, should Amazon give it the boot.
But being that no one can seem to find WikiLeaks top dog Julian Assange and have him answer for his controversial disclosures, it's not surprising that some are aiming at a much easier target.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Amazon-for-Dumping-Wikileaks/174975139187861http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Amazon-for-Dumping-Wikileaks/174975139187861... more-
- toyotabedzrock
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Pentagon Ban on Guantanamo Reporters Called Illegal
A coalition of major news organizations is challenging as unconstitutional Pentagon rules that were used in May to ban four reporters from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.A coalition of major news organizations is challenging as unconstitutional Pentagon... more-
- The_Global_Report
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Free Press’ mediaFail site a bad idea from a good organization
Free Press' mediaFail site lets you “Expose the Worst of American Media. Find It. Post It. Fail It." And this is supposed to produced a "better media system"? Kill this site. Now.Free Press' mediaFail site lets you “Expose the Worst of American Media.... more-
- Denny_Wilkins
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- 1 year ago
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Now They Want to Cut Off Free TV
Big media consolidation is almost complete, and when free television has disappeared, control of all information sources will have been achieved. All hail Big Brother!Big media consolidation is almost complete, and when free television has disappeared,... more-
- Progresshiv
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- 2 years ago
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Israel has nuked itself?
UK, September 17, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)- Could anyone imagine as a result of your own actions you are killing your own troops and your own population? This is now the case in Israel.
Many weapons used by the IDF in Gaza contained uranium components and upon impact set off huge volumes of aerosol particles that then drifted back over the border into Israel with devastating results.
It has been some time since the Israelis bombed Lebanon and the Gaza Strip and in both cases the weapons used left behind a trial of misery for all those that lived downwind. We can now start to see the results of those actions and I must say the term "What goes around comes around" rings true in the ears of the residents of Israel. Some interesting health statements have been released that prove when you play with dirty weapons it can all come back to you. It would now appear that we have a situation whereby Israelis are killing Israelis.
In May this year we saw the following headline appear in the Haaretz:
"Quality of Israeli sperm down 40% in past decade" The quality of Israeli sperm has declined alarmingly in the last decade, according to recent research conducted at Jerusalem's Hadassah University Hospital, Mount Scopus. The cause for the decline is not known, but it's believed by some researchers to be connected to the exposure of children and pregnant women to hormones and other contaminants in food and water.
This month started to see some more statistics appear out of Israel which again indicates that contamination by DU may well be the cause. The next headline was even more alarming: "More women diagnosed with cancer in Israel than in Europe" Israel's health ranking is dropping compared to those of developed European nations, the Israel Medical Association said yesterday. Israel lags behind the European average in disease prevention.
The report gave a clear message that something in the environment may be causing these dramatic increases. The comparison gave the number of new female cancer patients as follows: 290 per 100,000 compared to an average of 179 in Europe. The report went of the say that for men the average was much the same but again was showing a steady rise since 2005.
When you think you have heard the last of the bad news you are then confronted with another shocking headline from the IMA: Hodgkin's lymphoma is a distinct primary solid tumour of the immune system that shows wide variation in incidence among different geographic regions and among various races. It was previously suggested that susceptible people living in certain parts of Israel had a higher risk of HL because of exposure to unidentified environmental factors in these regions. Compared with other parts of Israel, these regions were characterized by a higher proportion of Israeli-born Jews.
A total of 4812 Jewish cases of HL were reported to the Israel Cancer Registry during the study period 1960-2005. There has been a persistent increase in the age-standardized incidence rate of HL, all subtypes pooled, in Israeli-born Jews in both men and women. The age distribution pattern in both genders was bimodal in all periods. The highest incidence was observed in the 20-24 year age group: for women (9.13 per 100,000 per year) during the period 1988-1996, and for men (6.60 per 100,000 per year) during the period 1997-2005.UK, September 17, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)- Could anyone imagine as a result of your own... more-
- Ihatethemall
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- 2 years ago
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King Chavez and the Latin Left: Muzzling the Media?
Talk like a communist, walk like a democrat. That has been the paradoxical strategy pursued by Latin America's new radical left - at least until now. Venezuelan President Hugo ChÁvez will gush effusively in the presence of Fidel Castro one moment, then just as earnestly he'll remind the world that he submits to the kind of free elections and free speech that Castro and his brother, Cuban President RaÚl Castro, still forbid.
But in recent months, ChÁvez and his allies from Argentina to Nicaragua have taken steps that critics say make them walk too Cuban for comfort - especially when it comes to independent media, an institution critical to the region's modernization. ChÁvez's socialist Bolivarian Revolution recently revoked the broadcast licenses of 32 private radio stations and two television stations - it plans to take more off the air soon - and just passed a sweeping and often vague new education law outlawing media material that "produces terror in children" or "goes against the values of the Venezuelan people."
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More at the link.
Really? So vague is the idea of "Produces terror in children" that they could banned Bozo the Clown from showing in syndication there.
He elimated term limits. haha.....KING ChavezTalk like a communist, walk like a democrat. That has been the paradoxical strategy... more-
- J_Jammer [removed]
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Free Press Presents New Policies to Save the News | Free Press
New report calls for national strategy to contend with the crisis in journalism.-
- peoplesmovement
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Free Press SummerFest rocks and takes a few bizarre turns...
Chris Gray from Rocks Off reviews the great music and surreal happenings at SummerFest...
Big attendance, great bands and mysterious visitors. Enjoy.Chris Gray from Rocks Off reviews the great music and surreal happenings at... more-
- zenfilm
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Ben Stein Axed from Times
While the recent, apparent conflict of interest may justify Stein losing his column in the Times, his earlier dismissal as a commencement speaker (because he refused to deny he believes in Intelligent Design) shows that both sides of the "liberal" / "conservative" fence are willing to use censorship to restrict the free flow of ideas. The only way for a democracy to survive is to encourage (not just allow) the expression of differing viewpoints.While the recent, apparent conflict of interest may justify Stein losing his column in... more-
- Progresshiv
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UK Journalist Surveillance: "TREAT AS RESTRICTED"
Solicitors acting on behalf of the National Union of Journalists have issued a letter of complaint to the new information commissioner Christopher Graham after the Metropolitan Police failed to deliver all files held on five UK journalists.
Data Protection requests were issued nearly eight months ago. The Metropolitan police have repeatedly denied they hold files of UK journalists on the criminal intelligence or other databases.
Evidence has emerged that files are being held but have not been released despite repeated requests. The NUJ letter now calls on the information commissioner to investigate the matter and confirm that the Meptropolitan police will not delete files before being made public.
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http://current.com/items/89837373_im-a-photographer-not-a-terrorist.htm
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http://current.com/items/90077324_police-forcibly-detain-press-photographer.htmSolicitors acting on behalf of the National Union of Journalists have issued a letter... more-
- JasonNParkinson
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