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A new (supposedly) NASA-funded study postulating that aliens may attack humans over climate change had all the ingredients for a perfect Fox faux controversy - it bolstered their anti-science narrative, painted their opponents as clownish radicals, and highlighted wasteful government spending on a supposedly liberal casue. Fox reported the "news from NASA" several times several times today, presenting it as official "taxpayer funded research." A chyron on Fox and Friends read: "NASA: Global warming may provoke an [alien] attack." But as Business Insider pointed out, they're "wrong" - "That report was not funded by NASA. It was written by an independent group of scientists and bloggers. One of those happens to work at NASA." NASA distanced itself from the report as well, calling reports linking the agency to it "not true." Host Megyn Kelly finally corrected the record this afternoon, saying, "I was making that up." But before she did, she was so bemused by the study that she directed her viewers to complete a poll on her website which asked how we should respond to the study: "Immediately increase efforts to curb greenhouse gases," "Develop weapons to kill the Aliens FIRST," or "Gently suggest scientists research how to create job." Not surprisingly, most suggested they research something else. But more than six times as many respondents (19 percent to 3 percent) said we should focus on building weapons to kill aliens before curbing greenhouse gases. Watch a compilation:

"Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power"

In response to the Harvard study documenting how newspapers labeled waterboarding as "torture" for almost 100 years until the Bush administration told them not to, The New York Times issued a statement justifying this behavior on the ground that it did not want to take sides in the debate. Andrew Sullivan, Greg Sargent and Adam Serwer all pointed out that "taking a side" is precisely what the NYT did: by dutifully complying with the Bush script and ceasing to use the term (replacing it with cleansing euphemisms), it endorsed the demonstrably false proposition that waterboarding was something other than torture. Yesterday, the NYT's own Brian Stelter examined this controversy and included a justifying quote from the paper's Executive Editor, Bill Keller, that is one of the more demented and reprehensible statements I've seen from a high-level media executive in some time (h/t Jay Rosen):

The Washington Post's contempt for readers: Prominent Time Warner employee writes a love letter to Time magazine

The Time is NOW! Manifesting our intended reality, in LOVE's Light for the Benefit of ALL IS happening in this HERE & NOW!! YOU DO make a

The New York Times this morning has a particularly lush installment of one of the American media's most favored, reliable, and self-affirming rituals -- it's time to mock and pity Those Crazy, Primitive, Irrational, Propagandized Muslims and their Wild Conspiracy Theories, which their reckless media and extremists maliciously disseminate in order to generate unfair and unfounded hostility toward the U.S.:

In a report for the New York Times' website about Al Gore's "24 Hours of Reality" event about climate change, ClimateWire lent a megaphone to Canadian climate contrarian Tom Harris. The reporter summarized Gore's event and then, ostensibly to provide balance, turned the rest of the article over to Harris, who thinks Gore's event spent "time and energy on something that's not true." ClimateWire quoted Harris' claims that the "amount of climate change impact that humans have is very small," and "This extreme weather thing is not a function of temperature," as well as his allegation that "90 percent of the important facts [in Gore's presentations] are wrong or misrepresented." The article offered no details to support this claim. Nor did mention that the vast majority of scientists agree that humans are changing the climate. And at no point did the article explain who Tom Harris is or why he was quoted evaluating statements about science instead of, say, a climate scientist.

Let me start by saying I'm a long-time admirer of Anthony Gregory's writing, and I'm as surprised as he is that this has turned into a significant disagreement.  Frankly, given our considerable areas of agreement, I'm having a hard time figuring out why my commentary piece ("Corporations are People?  So Was Hitler") set him off. Gregory's first objection, in "Contra Kevin Carson," is to my assertion that the profits of large corporations are disproportionately the result of state-enforced unequal exchange (monopolies, artificial property rights, entry barriers, etc.).

The March, 2011, Harper's Index expressed the point this way: "Number of American civilians who died worldwide in terrorist attacks last year: 8 - Minimum number who died after being struck by lightning: 29."  That's the threat in the name of which a vast domestic Security State is constructed, wars and other attacks are and continue to be launched, and trillions of dollars are transferred to the private security and defense contracting industry at exactly the time that Americans - even as they face massive wealth inequality - are told that they must sacrifice basic economic security because of budgetary constraints. 

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YOU can't beat doubt as a corporate strategy - especially if your product is life-threatening when used as directed. These days we don't have to speculate as to whether industries have manufactured doubt. They have admitted it too many times.

Ten years ago, when we first focused national attention on the dangers of the US media cartel, the situation was already grim, although in retrospect it may seem better than it really was. In the spring of 1996 Fox News was only a conspiracy (which broke a few months later). CNN belonged to Turner Broadcasting, which hadn't yet been gobbled by Time Warner (although it would be just a few months later); Viacom had not yet bought CBS News (although it would in 1999, before they later parted ways); and, as the Telecommunications Act had been passed only months earlier, local radio had not yet largely disappeared from the United States (although it was obviously vanishing). One could still somewhat plausibly assert, as many did, that warnings of a major civic crisis were unfounded, overblown or premature, as there was little evidence of widespread corporate censorship, and so we were a long way from the sort of journalistic meltdown that The Nation had predicted.

By Ralph Nader & Carl J. Mayer New York Times, April 9, 1988 Our constitutional rights were intended for real persons, not artificial creations. The Framers knew about corporations but chose not to mention these contrived entities in the Constitution. For them, the document shielded living beings from arbitrary government and endowed them with the right to speak, assemble, and petition. Today, however, corporations enjoy virtually the same umbrella of constitutional protections as individuals do. They have become in effect artificial persons with infinitely greater power than humans. This constitutional equivalence must end. Consider a few noxious developments during the last 10 years. A group of large Boston companies invoked the First Amendment in order to spend lavishly and thus successfully defeat a referendum that would have permitted the legislature to enact a progressive income tax that had no direct effect on the property and business of these companies. An Idaho electrical and plumbing corporation cited the Fourth Amendment and deterred a health and safety investigation. A textile supply company used Fifth Amendment protections and barred retrial in a criminal anti-trust case in Texas. The idea that the Constitution should apply to corporations as it applies to humans had its dubious origins in 1886. The Supreme Court said it did "not wish to hear argument" on whether corporations were "persons" protected by the 14th Amendment, a civil rights amendment designed to safeguard newly emancipated blacks from unfair government treatment. It simply decreed that corporations were persons. Now that is judicial activism. A string of later dissents, by Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, demonstrated that neither the history nor the language of the 14th Amendment was meant to protect corporations. But it was too late. The genie was out of the bottle and the corporate evolution into personhood was under way. It was not until the 1970's that corporations

Another tragedy is unfolding. Another One!, I scream irately and angrily to the heavens. How can this be? How unfair and how are we going to, now, survive this, I desperately ask. I know here in New Orleans, where I now live (Crowley, Cajun country originally) we have had our share of hardship and difficulties. Many of us frighten, despaired and overwhelmed what we experienced nearing 5 years ago. Hurricane Katrina's anniversary is in August. And Hurricane Rita gust in without much delay, giving Louisiana no break or rest. It seems barley enough time to catch our breath, even though we sweat it out every hurricane season since. The experience of the "big one" has left many of us edgy, anxious and nervous. It has been a challenge for us all. Now here is once more another challenge. The oil spill in the gulf that threatens our, ecosystem, shoreline and seafood industries. For many of us, our distress are concentrated on our wetlands which have become more defenseless by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. I recognize I have. For us to undergo another "big one" our coast is the first line of defense to our survival. Ever since these potential, massive hurricanes, my intense coastal and wetland focus has been like a laser, zeroing on which is most important for Southern Louisiana's continued existence. However, the health and wellbeing for our future lies right now with-- us-- which are our local oil field experts and workers. The men on these oil rigs, the ones that will--and I have confidence--will plug the blowout and stop the damage--the bleeding--they are US. They are family and friends, mutual Louisiana citizens, who are well aware how important their job is, for us as well as for themselves and their family. Much is at stake to our livelihood, our environment and our way of life. more:

Last June, when Rolling Stone published Michael Hastings' article which ended the career of Obama's Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- an article which was just awarded the prestigious Polk Award -- the attacks on Hastings were led not by military officials but by some of Hastings' most celebrated journalistic colleagues.  The New York Times' John Burns fretted that the article "has impacted, and will impact so adversely, on what had been pretty good military/media relations" and accused Hastings of violating "a kind of trust" which war reporters "build up" with war Generals; Politico observed that a "beat reporter" -- unlike the freelancing Hastings -- "would not risk burning bridges by publishing many of McChrystal's remarks"; and an obviously angry Lara Logan of CBS News strongly insinuated (with no evidence) that Hastings had lied about whether the comments were on-the-record and then infamously sneered:  "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has."  Here's Jon Stewart last year mocking the revealing media disdain for Rolling Stone and Hastings in the wake of their McChrystal story.

The past three years have been a disaster for most Western economies. The United States has mass long-term unemployment for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, Europe's single currency is coming apart at the seams. How did it all go so wrong?

The 30-minute speech I gave last month at the Symphony Space in New York is now available on video, and is posted below in three YouTube segments (the first segment also contains the 4-minute introduction of my speech). The speech pertains to the evolution of my views on media criticism, the nature of media propaganda and what drives it, and what can be done to combat it. A DVD of the entire event -- featuring the three other speeches: from Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore -- is available at FAIR's website. I want to note one example, from today, that vividly illustrates many of the themes I discussed in that speech.  It is found in the following passage from this Reuters article on Obama's escalation of the covert war in Yemen and his targeting of U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki for assassination: A U.S. official confirmed to Reuters that a U.S. strike last Friday killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel al Qaeda operative, which followed last month's attempted strike against Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Whether Awlaki has any operational role in Al Qaeda at all is a matter of intense controversy.  The U.S. Government has repeatedly asserted that he does, but has presented no verifiable evidence to support that accusation.  But what is not in dispute is the notion that Awlaki is "the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."  He unquestionably is not, and never has been, as multiple Yemen experts have repeatedly noted.  The Reuters claim is factually and entirely false. Whatever one's views are on Obama's assassination program, targeting U.S. citizens without due process obviously raises extraordinary and vitally important questions.  As The New York Times' Scott Shane put it when confirming Awlaki's inclusion on Obama's hit list: "The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen. . . . It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an America