Group items tagged

Fact checking and how journalists find new ways of investigating factual content.

Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. The US military recently arrested Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who may have passed on the video to Wikileaks. Manning's arrest and the hunt for Assange have put the spotlight on the Obama administration's campaign against whistleblowers and leakers of classified information. We speak to Daniel Ellsberg, who's leaking of the Pentagon Papers has made him perhaps the nation's most famous whistleblower; Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament who has collaborated with Wikileaks and drafted a new Icelandic law protecting investigative journalists; and Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com. [includes rush transcript]

"Glen Greenwald, political blogger for Salon.com, discusses U.S. President Barack Obama's speech announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq with the CBC's Erica Johnson"

"The U.S. should take note. As it prepares to engage with Africa more intensely than at any time since the Cold War, in part by the Pentagon's establishment of a new Africa Command headquarters to coordinate military and security interests, the U.S. will be competing on an increasingly flat information playing field."

This older article highlights the immorality of much that is called U.S. foreign policy and journalism. The lesson learned here is not what it should be, that people on the grassroots are fighting against authoritarian violent governments funded by the U.S. Rather it is a bland, neoimperialist comment about what the U.S. propaganda machine has to deal with in future interventions.

Glenn Greenwald is an attorney and the author of three books: How Would a Patriot Act?, A Tragic Legacy, and Great American Hypocrites. In 2009, he received an Izzy Award by the Park Center for Independent Media for his "pathbreaking journalistic courage and persistence in confronting conventional wisdom, official deception, and controversial issues." He also received an Online Journalism Award in 2010 for Best Commentary for his coverage of U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning. Greenwald is a columnist and blogger at Salon.com and has contributed to several newspapers and political news magazines. You may learn more about this event on the Lannan website. Right click here to download. Length: 1:01:51; Size: 751 MB

"Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."- John F. KennedyThere's one thing for sure: 2008 isn't anything like politics as usual.The corporate media (with their unerring eye for the obvious point) is fixated on the narrative that, for the first time ever, Americans will likely end this year with either a woman or a black man headed for the White House. Bloggers are telling stories from the front lines of primaries and caucuses that look like something from the early 60s - people lining up before dawn to vote in Manoa, Hawaii yesterday; a thousand black college students in Prairie View, Texas marching 10 miles to cast their early votes in the face of a county that tried to disenfranchise them. In recent months, we've also been gobstopped by the sheer passion of the insurgent campaigns of both Barack Obama and Ron Paul, both of whom brought millions of new voters into the conversation - and with them, a sharp critique of the status quo and a new energy that's agitating toward deep structural change.There's something implacable, earnest, and righteously angry in the air. And it raises all kinds of questions for burned-out Boomers and jaded Gen Xers who've been ground down to the stump by the mostly losing battles of the past 30 years. Can it be - at long last - that Americans have, simply, had enough? Are we, finally, stepping out to take back our government - and with it, control of our own future? Is this simply a shifting political season - the kind we get every 20 to 30 years - or is there something deeper going on here? Do we dare to raise our hopes that this time, we're going to finally win a few? Just how ready is this country for big, serious, forward-looking change?Recently, I came across a pocket of sociological research that suggested a tantalizing answer to these questions - and also that America may be far more ready for far more change than anyone really believes is possible at this moment. In fac

At the Netroots Nation conference, the base has a go at the administration

A whopping 70,000 questions poured into Change.gov over the past week, in response to the Obama transition team's call for citizen queries to the President-Elect. After votes from about 100,000 people, the top ranked question asks Obama whether he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture and illegal surveillance by the U.S. government. I've been working with activist Bob Fertik to organize support for the question, and several progressive bloggers urged readers and Obama supporters to vote for it last week. Digby, who has written extensively about the Bush administration's abuse of the rule of law, recently reported on the progress:

Conservative blogger asks if there is a culture of violence in the Met.

Glenn Greenwald studied law and spent ten years as a litigator in federal and state courts across the country. Now he's a big two-fisted progressive blogger and columnist for Salon.com. And he's out with a blistering critique of what has happened to American law. We've stopped applying it to everyone, says Greenwald. We've carved out an exemption for Americans in the halls of power. We've created what Greenwald calls a "lawless elite" that is running roughshod over our economy and national policy. Over American law. This hour On Point: Glenn Greenwald, and liberty and justice for some.

Las Vegas Shooting - A Man In A Pig Mask Opens Fire At Bellagio Hotel Shooter wearing a pig mask open fire and sends people running for their lives at Las Vegas in a popular US tourist hotspot. http://bit.ly/2n2uxMZ

from News Watch Reviews http://bit.ly/2o0udiN via newswatch http://bit.ly/2o14BT1

from News Watch Reviews http://bit.ly/2o3tEoD via newswatch http://bit.ly/2o3FGym

http://bit.ly/2nO41c6 from News Watch Reviews http://bit.ly/2nO41c6 via newswatch http://bit.ly/2nOfvwi