December 2016 - Special #6

Editor's Notes

Shocked, stunned, surprised: media reaction to Trump win

But none of that for True North Perspective

As a result of objective analysis we foresaw a Trump victory.  We penetrated the Clinton cabal's smokescreen of character assassination and revealed the substance of Trump's campaign. (More)

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For unadulterated Trump when he announced his bid for the U.S. presidency

What voters heard beyond blaring of Clinton propaganda machine click Here


Fidel Castro was no dictator. Under Fidel's leadership

Cubans overthrew the brutal dictator Batista in 1959

Castro founded and fostered a one-party democracy

The accusation that Fidel murdered 50,000 is pure nonsense. After open

court 500 Batista thugs, found guilty of evil mortal crimes, were executed

U.S. President John F. Kennedy authorized a CIA organized and financed 17 April 1961 attack on Cuba's south shore at the Bay of Pigs. A year and four months after the end of gangster control. The CIA, deceived by disgruntled Cubans hostile to Castro, believed that they would be welcomed. Instead, the local population rallied against the invaders. Since then the CIA tried to assassinate Fidel Castro. As many as 600 attempts, at last count. Even the most backward of hostiles should be able to understand that under such circumstances it made plain common sense that Castro would want to run a tight ship. He founded and fostered a one-party democracy.

There were good reasons for the population to support Castro — among them, freedom from the harsh, bloody repression of the Batista regime, land, food and, at least equal to any other, being taught how to read and write.

A Poem For Fidel

by Lisa Makarchuk

Lisa Makarchuk, a 22-year-old from Saskatchewan, Canada, arrived in Cuba in June, 1961, the Year of Literacy, about two months after the failed U.S. Bay of Pigs invasion. She worked as a newscaster, writer, and translator at CMCA, a long-wave English-speaking radio station and later at Radio Havana Cuba, Cuba's short-wave station. She was part of the team that produced the first issues of sections of Cuba's national newspaper in languages other than Spanish for the benefit of delegates attending the First Tricontinental Conference of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, which took place in Havana in 1966. Involved in solidarity work in favour of freedom for political prisoners in Spain and Portugal at the time of their dictatorships, she also took part in campaigns for nuclear disarmament, ending the war in Viet Nam and, later, freeing the Cuban Five. She co-coordinated the First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance in Toronto in 2009 and later, co-ordinated the third one in 2011.
 
In 1998, she was appointed by Canada's Prime Minister's Office as the Honorary Consul for Varadero where she served for about two years and is one of  several Canadians to be awarded the Medal of Friendship by Cuba's Council of State through the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).

For A Poem For Fidel click Here

For a full account of young Lisa Makarchuk's adventure in Cuba click Here


'Trump will get on a plane, talk to Putin' – Farage to RT

World will be safer: Trump not a military interventionist

Friday 25 November — Donald Trump will make the world a safer place by flying to Russia and speaking directly with President Vladimir Putin, UKIP interim leader Nigel Farage told RT.

Speaking on Sam Delaney’s ‘News Thing’ show, Farage said critics of the president-elect who claim he will make the world a more dangerous place are wrong because Trump is not a military interventionist. He wants to do business with the world; not make war.

(This was supported today by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban after a telephone conversation with Trump. Orban said that Budapest's position on Washington's foreign policy list has "improved remarkably". Hitherto, Washington has attempted to muscle Hungary into becoming an active opponent of Russia, to beat the sanctions drum, and to accept U.S. missiles aimed at Russia. However, Hungary gets 100% of its natural gas and 90% of its oil from Russia. It makes simple common sense that Hungary should not bite the proverbial hand that feeds it. The Washington elite was resentful to the point where Professional Viet Nam War Prisoner and U.S. senator John McCain called Orban another Hitler.)  (More)


Image: Graphic including Canada Post logo.

Door to door is back but where’s the postal bank?

By Kevin Matthews
Canadian Union of Postal Workers

OTTAWA, 13 December 2016 While the parliamentary committee on the future of Canada Post is recommending the restoration of home delivery for some who lost it under the Conservatives, there’s no mention of a postal bank, which many said would be a good move for Canada Post to reinforce its profitability.

“We’re glad to see that about two-thirds of the people who lost home delivery might be getting it back. But we won’t be satisfied until they all get it back. And the idea of bringing back a postal bank did not get the fair hearing it deserves,” said Mike Palecek, National president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

Recommendation #23 of the Parliamentary Committee report “The Way Forward for Canada Post” is that Canada Post should continue the moratorium on ‘community mailbox’ conversion and develop a plan to reinstate door-to-door delivery for communities that were converted after 3 August 2015. However, many conversions happened earlier in 2015 and in 2014. The union estimates that hundreds of thousands of households would still have lost their door-to-door delivery.

Palecek said that the Minister told him she would obtain the secret postal banking study conducted and suppressed by Canada Post during the previous Conservative government. According to Palecek, staff at Foote’s office promised the union the study would be released, but that promise so far has been broken.

The Canada Post Review Task Force did release some promising figures, showing that 7% of Canadians said they would actually use a postal bank and another 22% of Canadians said they would probably use one. 27% of Indigenous people said they would certainly use a postal bank and 39% of businesses supported the idea. Postal banking is supported by well over 600 municipalities and, according to one poll, close to two-thirds of Canadians.

“We aren’t going to give up on postal banking,” said Palecek. 

From the Desk of Nick Aplin, Contributing Editor

Will Donald Trump keep his promises in the

eye of the CFR, TC, Davos, Bilderberg storm?

What David Rockefeller would tell The Donald, if David were honest

By Jon Rappoport

Friday 11 November —  All right. Hillary and Bill are gone. They’re back in their coffins and their supplies of blood are running low. That’s a good thing. That is a major outcome of the election.

But will Donald Trump now keep his promises?

I’ve framed this piece as a letter David Rockefeller, arch-Globalist-in-charge, might write to President-elect Trump. The updated “payoff” is in the last paragraph.

If Rockefeller were being honest, this is what he would write:

Donald:

I won’t waste time congratulating you. We both know you and America are in for a rough ride. That plucky little demon, George Soros, is already funding and orchestrating thuggish riots in American cities. They do induce a bit of chaos, and I take a certain delight in chaos.

The machinery of Washington DC is ready to chew you up, Donald. There are spies everywhere, and at least a few of them will infiltrate your Presidency at influential levels — if you yourself don’t bring them in because you believe you need them.

I represent and lead an international order, as you know. Our basic plan is to eliminate sovereign nations and erase borders. We must do this, so we can usher in our own global system. We are winning. Surely, you see this.

On the issue of borders and immigration, we want none in the first case and no limit on immigrants in the second case. We want to overwhelm infra-structure and communities with the greatest possible number of people who refuse to assimilate and yet demand special treatment and consideration. We want people who utterly reject America and yet insist on taking whatever they can get from America. Do you really think you or anyone else can stop this wave? (More)


Tommy Douglas: Where are you, now that we need you?

Justin Trudeau has plans for a giant corporate giveaway

A privatization spree in Canada could cost regular citizens billions,

erode democracy, and undermine the fight against climate change

By Martin Lukacs
The Guardian.com
 
Tuesday 22 November 2016 While prime minister Justin Trudeau flogged our public assets last  week, he had a soothing message: rest assured, we’ll be well-served by the private sector. Bankers and billionaires lined up to sound a note of confidence. “I think it’s unprecedented,” exclaimed Canada’s top business lobbyist John Manley. “A once-in-a-generation opportunity,” enthused Trudeau’s economic advisory council.

But many will question the Liberals' plan to deal with it: selling off existing public assets to raise money, and having private investors fund, build and operate new infrastructure. If they get their way, expect a wave of privatizations  — targeting public services and goods like roads, ports, airports, utilities, the post office, and more. According to Adam Vaughan, one of its Liberal architects, there simply isn’t an alternative: “to be afraid of the private sector when you’re trying to fix this country’s infrastructure is shortsighted…stupid, irresponsible.”

By responsible and far-sighted, does Vaughan mean the result of past Canadian experiments in privatization? Unsafely constructed schools. Packed, dangerous prisons. Water treatment systems flooded with sewage. Super hospitals built with faulty wiring in emergency rooms. Senior care homes over-run with inedible food and filth.  (More)


From the Desk of Ray Sullivan, Executive Director, CCOC

Debbie Barton wins Outstanding Leadership Award

at Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association conference

Image: Centretown Citizen Ottawa Corporation’s Debbie Barton celebrated with a Leadership Award. From left: Peter Altobelli, Vice President, Yardi Canada Ltd., Debbie Barton, Rental Department Manager, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, Meg McCallum, ONPHA’s President and Manager, Membership and Communications, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, Sharad Kerur, ONPHA’s Executive Director.

Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation’s Debbie Barton celebrated with a Leadership Award. From left: Peter Altobelli, Vice President, Yardi Canada Ltd., Debbie Barton, Rental Department Manager, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, Meg McCallum, ONPHA’s President and Manager, Membership and Communications, Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation, Sharad Kerur, ONPHA’s Executive Director. — With thanks to Lisa Timoshenko for photo and background copy.

TORONTO, November 8, 2016 — Debbie Barton, Rental Department Manager at Centretown Citizens Ottawa Corporation (CCOC), received the Sybil Frenette Outstanding Leadership Award at the 2016 annual conference of the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association. For achievement celebration awards please click (More).


Bernie Sanders says Democratic candidates must

stand firm with the working class against Wall Street

Sanders wasn't suggesting Democrats "ditch" identity politics or separate class from race, but rather the opposite

Liberals have begun scolding Bernie Sanders for challenging identity politics in a speech at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston on Sunday night.

When an audience member asked him how she could become the second Latina senator in U.S. history, Sanders said her gender and ethnicity don’t entitle her to votes.

“I have to know whether that Latina is going to stand up with the working class of this country and is going to take on big money interests,” Sanders said. “It is not good enough for somebody to say, I’m a woman, vote for me. No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry.

“In other words, one of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics,” he continued. “I think it’s a step forward in America if you have an African-American CEO of some major corporation. But you know what, if that guy is going to be shipping jobs out of this country, and exploiting his workers, it doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot whether he’s black or white or Latino," or to what gender he lays claim to.  (More)


A view from the political right

Populist-Nationalist tide rolls on

A commentary by Patrick J. Buchanan

Tuesday 29 November —  Now that the British have voted to secede from the European Union and America has chosen a president who has never before held public office, the French appear to be following suit.

In Sunday's runoff to choose a candidate to face Marine Le Pen of the National Front in next spring's presidential election, the center-right Republicans chose Francois Fillon in a landslide.

While Fillon sees Margaret Thatcher as a role model in fiscal policy, he is a socially conservative Catholic who supports family values, wants to confront Islamist extremism, control immigration, restore France's historic identity and end sanctions on Russia. (More)


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Carl Dow, Editor and Publisher, True North Perspective.

True North Perspective
Vol. 12, No. 15 (375)
Special Edition 06
December 2016

Editor's Notes

Shocked, stunned, surprised: media reacts to Trump win

Image: True North Perspective Editor and Publisher Carl Dow. Photo by the Phantom Phographer.

But none of that for True North Perspective.

As a result of objective analysis we foresaw a Trump victory.  We penetrated the Clinton cabal's smokescreen of character assassination and revealed the substance of Trump's campaign. Trump (like Bernie Sanders) appealed directly to the profound anxiety that Americans have about their economic security. How fed up they are with continuous war. How dissatisfied they are with the Washington elite who are shameless liars and puppets of the war machine against which latter General and President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans in his final address to the nation.

Hillary Clinton, Queen of Smut, failed to understand that the sophistication of Americans has risen above that of mid-20th century Sunday School morality. As one woman interviewed on national television put it, "We all have a womanizer in the family." The fact that Clinton is creeping ahead in the national vote, means that too many women voted according to gender prejudice, blinded as they were by the smokescreen of Clinton's silly sex war. The mainstream media kept many talking about Trump's crude behavior while keeping Clinton's crimes out of the public mind.

The crimes of Hillary Clinton could hardly be contained to a list the length of this article, but beyond the more major ones, such as complicity in the deaths of 400,000 civilians in Syria, more than 1,000,000 in Iraq, and thousands of citizens of Libya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Haiti, more directly attributable roles can be found in the Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, Benghazi and personal email server scandals of recent years and years past. Clinton testified numerous times before Congressional committees and to the FBI, each time she did so, it appears vital information was either obfuscated, omitted or completely lied about.

If you were paying attention to True North Perspective you would know that Clinton was offering only more of the same, except when she pretended to support causes advanced by Bernie Sanders. On the other hand Trump was offering jobs and peace and explaining how he would do it.

This is what Bernie Sanders represented. The Democratic National Committee shot themselves and the party in their proverbial feet by using dirty tricks to prevent Sanders from achieving his goal. (More)

Op Ed

Perilous perspective

By Kenneth Pole, Co-Editor
Environment Policy & Law
environmentnews.ca

Global warming evidently is still debatable in the Conservative Party of Canada, at least as far as the multi-candidate leadership race is concerned, but most likely at grassroots levels, too.

During a candidates’ debate, Ontario MP Michael Chong criticized government-funded “green” programs as little more than corporate welfare. “This is not the Conservative way to reduce emissions,” he said. “Climate change is a real threat and . . . we have to have a credible market-based conservative solution.”

He predictably elicited boos and shouts of “no!” for suggesting revenues from carbon pricing be used “to introduce one of the largest income tax cuts in Canadian history and get . . . rid of all the green regulations, green subsidies and green programs.”

Saskatchewan MP Brad Trost drew applause and laughter when he said he didn’t believe climate change is a real threat. The US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, which has been monitoring since 1979, has said the combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces in September was the second highest for the month on record.

It was 0.04°C cooler than 2016’s record, which was due to one of the strongest El Niños in 50 years. But the average temperature across land was 1.29°C higher than the 20th century average and the highest ever in September, besting 2015’s record by 0.11°C.

Warmer- to much-warmer-than-average conditions were found across most of the world's land surfaces, with records broken around the Great Lakes. Preliminary data suggest Ontario may have had one of its 10 warmest Septembers since records began in 1900, 2°C above average.

Back to the CPC leadership race. A third candidate, former foreign affairs minister Chris Alexander, insisted after the debate that only Trost dismisses climate change. Maybe so among the leadership hopefuls, but too many people still prefer to ignore the science – at our collective peril.


The Binkley Report

Alex Binkley is a foremost political and economic analyst, whose website is www.alexbinkley.com. Readers will be aware that his columns in True North Perspective have foreseen political and economic developments in Canada. In this edition ...

A reminder about food prices

High cost of housing and low incomes

are source of leap in use of food banks

By Alex Binkley
True North Perspective

Image: Cover of Humanity's Saving Grace, a novel by Alex Binkley. Click to purchase at Amazon.caThursday 01 December — The annual report from Food Banks Canada (FBC) makes a key point the agrifood industry should not be shy about repeating.

The high cost of housing and low incomes, not the cost of groceries, are the main reasons that the number of people accessing food banks have increased for the third consecutive year. Trips to food banks now are at least 28% higher than before the 2008-2009 recession.

In fact Shawn Peg, Director of Policy and Research at FBC, gives farmers and others in the agrifood supply chain full marks for helping food banks meet the growing demand for food although even more could be done. (More)


From the Desk of Dennis Carr LEED® AP, Contributing Editor

Quito, host of UN Habitat III, is a microcosm

of challenges facing cities in an urbanizing world

Monday 07 November 2016 — United Nations Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador, featured thousands of sessions on every imaginable topic relating to planning, financing, housing, accessibility, culture and women’s right to the city and public spaces.

The UN Habitat III conference in Quito will be the first time in 20 years (and the third since 1976) that the international community reinvigorates its commitment to the sustainable development of towns, cities and other human settlements, both rural and urban.

The product of that renewal is the New Urban Agenda. That agenda will set a new global strategy around urbanization for the next two decades.

Nestled at an altitude of 2,850 metres in a valley surrounded on all sides by Andes foothills and volcanos, Quito and its surroundings are full of historic, cultural and environmental treasures. (More)

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British Columbia will battle on pipeline approvals

By Elizabeth McSheffrey
National Observer

Thursday 1 December The reaction is pouring in swiftly and relentlessly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's triple pipeline announcement Wednesday  afternoon.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson expressed profound disappointment in the federal announcement, which included approval of Kinder Morgan's controversial Trans Mountain expansion proposal. He called it a "missed opportunity" in Canada's path towards a clean energy fu

"Approving Kinder Morgan’s heavy oil pipeline expansion is a big step backwards for Canada’s environment and economy," he said in a press statement. "This project was approved under a flawed and biased Harper-era regulatory process that shut out local voices and ignored climate change and First Nations concerns.

"I – along with the tens of thousands of residents, local First Nations, and other Metro Vancouver cities who told the federal government a resounding ‘no’ to this project – will keep speaking out against this pipeline expansion that doesn’t make sense for our economic or environmental future." (More)


Mexico roundup by Isabella Tandutella, Contributing Editor, Mexico City

Mexican police find nine severed heads

and 32 bodies in secret mass graves

Friday 25 November (AP) Investigators searching clandestine graves have found 32 bodies and nine human heads in a municipality in southern Mexico where rival drug gangs have been engaged in a wave of extortion, kidnappings and turf battles, authorities said on Thursday 24 November.

Guerrero, the largely rural, impoverished state had 1,832 reported homicides in the first 10 months of 2016. If that rate continues unabated, Guerrero would be on track to have a homicide rate of about 60 per 100,000.

That would rival the recent peak year of violence in the state, in 2012, when there were about 68 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. (More)


 

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From the Desk of Darren Jerome

A continuing update on the war against WikiLeaks transparency

Please be advised that the below is not just the same old thing. By clicking on it you'll find the petition in support of Julian Assange and discover fascinating on-going reports and videos related to one of the most important events in modern history, and the desperate attempts to put a lid on information that everyone should know. Don't miss this special opportunity to stay informed.

There can be no life without laughter

Imperialists use strange language

the ‘tyranny of majority’ What ?

Ex-British Prime Minister John Major: Brexit terms can’t be decided by the ‘tyranny of majority’. Yet another former prime minister has come out arguing Brexit does not necessarily mean Brexit and that the referendum result could still be overturned. — RT Friday 25 November 2016.

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The bizarre minds of Democrat/Republican leaders

John Kerry tries to save U.S. funded 'rebels' from Trump(!)

By Carl Dow

Professional Viet Nam War Prisoner and U.S. Senator, John McCain, was crying out in an unhinged voice that Russia was committing genocide in Aleppo and should cease hostilities. This was supported by U.S. ambassador to the UN, Samantha Powers, who insisted that the need for the Russians to cease and desist was a ‘no-brainer’. Then we have news of John Kerry, U.S. secretary of state, (please see below) making an ‘unbelievable effort' to cut a deal with the Russians to save U.S. financed moderate beheaders from Donald Trump(!).

These are the efforts and words of people who not only have screws loose but screws missing. The facts are that the Russians held off bombing for four weeks and offered a path for civilian escape but the moderate beheaders, funded by the U.S., machine-gunned anyone who tried to escape. Since September Moscow waited for the U.S. to fulfill it’s agreement to identify the moderates. Nothing doing.

So the Russians and Syrians finally moved. The militants have been split in half, their supply routes have been closed, and 28,000 civilians have been liberated along with a secure route to send in food and other human necessaries. The Russians are shipping in hundreds of thousands of tons and Samantha Powers is telling the UN that it is a “no brainer” that the Russians should stop. Well, whose side is she on? Washington is in the control of the very stupid or the very dishonest. Come to think of it, apparently a mix of both with a stubborn streak.


Classic Quiz

By Mark Kearney and Randy Ray

Mark Kearney of London, Ont. and Randy Ray of Ottawa are the authors of nine books about Canada, with best-seller sales of more than 50,000. Their Web site is: www.triviaguys.com

Big Book of Canadian Trivia cover

Questions

1. According to Environment Canada, which Canadian provincial capital has the coldest average temperatures?

  1. Winnipeg  b) Edmonton c) Saskatoon  d)  Quebec City

2. Which NHL franchise has gone the longest without winning the Stanley Cup – the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Vancouver Canucks?

3. The Bruce Peninsula is also known by another name. Is it

a) the Georgian Peninsula  b) the Huron Peninsula c) the Saugeen Peninsula d) the Maitland Peninsula

Answers

_______________________________________________
 
Randy Ray, publicist / speaker agent / author
www.randyray.ca  www.triviaguys.com

 (613) 425-3873 - (613) 816-3873 (c)


Electoral College pulling down American democracy

By Nigel Aplin
Contributing Editor
True North Perspective
 
1 December 2016 — For the second time in the past 16 years, the winner of the U.S. presidential election received fewer votes than their main opponent. This is possible because of the Electoral College, an arcane institution whose members are the only ones who actually cast votes to choose the president. Electoral College votes are allocated to each state based roughly on population and the actual voters are sent to the Electoral College by each state as a block in favour of one candidate based on the winner of the vote (with two minor exceptions, Nebraska and Maine that each allocate their Electoral College votes proportionally based on the popular vote). Win a state and get all the Electoral College votes for that state regardless of how close the vote was. The Electoral College should be scrapped because it allows outcomes that are unfair, at least based on national popular vote results. Democrats, whose presidential candidates won the popular vote in 2000 and in 2016, but lost the presidency each time, will surely agree.
 
That’s the obvious reason to abandon the Electoral College. But there are other even more compelling reasons to do so — reasons that have had significant negative impacts on American democracy in each and every presidential election for at least the past several decades. (More)

Media Watch

News York Times advocates Internet censorship

While it ignores its own 'fake news' publishing
 
See three examples of NYT page-one fake news

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

Monday 21 November The New York Times wants a system of censorship for the Internet to block what it calls “fake news,” but the Times ignores its own record of publishing “fake news”.

In its lead editorial on Sunday 20 November, The New York Times decried what it deemed “The Digital Virus Called Fake News” and called for Internet censorship to counter this alleged problem, taking particular aim at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for letting “liars and con artists hijack his platform.”

As this mainstream campaign against “fake news” quickly has gained momentum in the past week, two false items get cited repeatedly, a claim that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump and an assertion that Trump was prevailing in the popular vote over Hillary Clinton. I could add another election-related falsehood, a hoax spread by Trump supporters that liberal documentarian Michael Moore was endorsing Trump when he actually was backing Clinton.

But I also know that Clinton supporters were privately pushing some salacious and unsubstantiated charges about Trump’s sex life, and Clinton personally charged that Trump was under the control of Russian President Vladimir Putin although there was no evidence presented to support that McCarthyistic accusation.

The simple reality is that lots of dubious accusations get flung around during the heat of a campaign — nothing new there — and it is always a challenge for professional journalists to swat them down the best we can. What’s different now is that the Times envisions some structure (or algorithm) for eliminating what it calls “fake news.”

But, with a stunning lack of self-awareness, the Times fails to acknowledge the many times that it has published “fake news,” such as reporting in 2002 that Iraq’s purchase of aluminum tubes meant that it was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program; its bogus analysis tracing the firing location of a Syrian sarin-laden rocket in 2013 back to a Syrian military base that turned out to be four times outside the rocket’s range; or its publication of photos supposedly showing Russian soldiers inside Russia and then inside Ukraine in 2014 when it turned out that the “inside-Russia” photo was also taken inside Ukraine, destroying the premise of the story.

These are just three examples among many of the Times publishing “fake news” — and all three appeared on Page One before being grudgingly or partially retracted, usually far inside the newspaper under opaque headlines so most readers wouldn’t notice. Much of the Times’ “fake news” continued to reverberate in support of U.S. government propaganda even after the partial retractions. (More)

———————

Bernie Sanders:

'I was stunned by the corporate media

blackout during the Democratic primary'

The mainstream media largely ignored Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign

 
DemocracyNow!
 
29 November 2016 — When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders first launched his campaign, the mainstream media called him a fringe candidate and largely ignored his campaign. But during the Democratic primary, the independent, self-identified socialist shocked the nation by winning 22 states and about 45 percent of pledged delegates while challenging Hillary Clinton, who began her campaign with the support of the entire Democratic Party establishment.
 
Many Sanders supporters now wonder if he would have been the stronger candidate to face Donald Trump in the general election. On Monday night, Bernie Sanders sat down with Amy Goodman for an interview in front of a live audience at the Free Library of Philadelphia and spoke about the corporate media, the Democratic primary and when he began to "feel the Bern." (More)

_______

With Hillary routed, Kerry makes ‘unbelievable effort’

to save U.S. Syrian rebels from Trump, Russia confirms

Monday 28 November (RT) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has significantly intensified contacts with Russia on Syria, the Kremlin confirmed, substantiating a report that Kerry wants to seal a deal with Moscow before Donald Trump assumes the U.S. presidency in January.

A ceasefire in Aleppo on Kerry’s terms may be a hard bargain to sell. For once, Russia insists that U.S. failure to separate moderates from terrorists, which was a key point of the truce negotiated by Moscow and Washington in September, was the reason that ceasefire collapsed.

The Syrian government operation to retake eastern Aleppo from armed groups also appears to be progressing, with latest reports saying that the militants lost a third of their territories to the advancing army. Stopping the siege now may give those fighters time to regroup, rearm and mount a counteroffensive.

Moscow appears to be reluctant to strike any significant deal with the outgoing administration and is waiting for Trump to present all the key figures in his future government.

“We will patiently wait for that team to take their seats and then we are interested in having intensive dialogue with them,” Ushakov said.  (More)


‘In French presidential elections

it will be Marine Le Pen’s to lose’

Monday 21 November 2016 (RT)National Front (FN) leader Marie Le Pen is speaking to the issues that people are concerned about. In other words, the declining standard of living, the lack of real job creation, Jack Rasmus, Professor of Political Economy at St. Mary's College, told RT.

The French political landscape is heading for some dramatic changes as former Prime Ministers Alain Juppe and Francois Fillon are heading for the second round of the Republican primaries following a national vote.

Ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy has already been eliminated from the running.

Meanwhile, polls in the build-up to the primaries showed National Front (FN) leader Marie Le Pen ahead in the first round of next year’s vote. (More)


Health

Death toll from freak ‘thunderstorm asthma’

rises in Australia, up to 8,500 people hospitalized

Sunday 27 November 2016 (RT) — A sixth person has recently died from asthma complications allegedly linked to a rare weather phenomenon, as a thunderstorm coincided with a high pollen count in Australia, officials said. Up to 8,500 people have been affected by ‘thunderstorm asthma.

A thunderstorm in Melbourne, the second most populous city in Australia, has been causing widespread respiratory issues among asthma and hay fever sufferers since Monday.  (More)


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