Amber Lyons reveals how CNN “news” coverage is bought

Amber Lyons recently lost her job as a reporter for CNN. The problem is that she is a reporter who simply reports what she sees, and lets the chips fall where they may. This is much too inconvenient for CNN, which allows subjects of news reports buy favorable coverage. Let that sink in. Here is an eleven minute video where Lyons reveals the extent of the problem, referring to the censorship of her reports regarding the regime in U.S.-ally Bahrain. Her message is even much broader, however, and applies to the willingness of the lapdog media to encourage needless war against Iran. This is really eye-opening information. This story also points to the incredible importance of preserving net neutrality, because you won't hear about this mainstream media corruption on the mainstream media.

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Excluded issues and excluded candidates: The charade we call our presidential debates

How the Democrats and Republicans manage to keep excluding third-party and fourth-party candidates from the debates, even after the corporate media has excluded them from the entire campaign? Amy Goodman of Democracy Now discusses this topic with the Green Party's Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. These two candidates also offer their own views on the issues, views not considered by Mr. Romney or Mr. Obama. Goodman calls her exploration of this issue "Expanding the Debate."

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Leaking information to the public now appears to be a federal crime.

Glenn Greenwald comments on some disturbing information recently obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request.

It seems clear that the US military now deems any leaks of classified information to constitute the capital offense of "aiding the enemy" or "communicating with the enemy" even if no information is passed directly to the "enemy" and there is no intent to aid or communicate with them. Merely informing the public about classified government activities now constitutes this capital crime because it "indirectly" informs the enemy. The implications of this theory are as obvious as they are disturbing. If someone can be charged with "aiding" or "communicating with the enemy" by virtue of leaking to WikiLeaks, then why wouldn't that same crime be committed by someone leaking classified information to any outlet: the New York Times, the Guardian, ABC News or anyone else? In other words, does this theory not inevitably and necessarily make all leaking of all classified information - whether to WikiLeaks or any media outlet - a capital offense: treason or a related crime?

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Unjustified take-downs in the news

Good article by Public Citizen's "Consumer Law & Policy Blog" regarding recent unjustified take-downs. This is going to be a more and more prominent issue. It is one reason I have my own blog, because I don't trust private for-profit companies like Facebook to give me (or anyone) free rein to express critically important political ideas.

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