TV News LIES

Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals.

This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."

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Former Minnesota governor and one-time professional wrestler Jesse Ventura has run afoul of the Huffington Post's no-conspiracy-theory policy, and he's not happy about it.

"I can't believe the Huffington Post today will practice censorship," Ventura says in astonishment. "I've got news for them. ... I won't ever write for 'em again."

Ventura had posted an item on Tuesday which took note of a recent conference at which "more than one thousand architects and engineers signed a petition demanding that Congress begin a new investigation into the destruction of the World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11." He also quoted a few paragraphs from his new book, American Conspiracies, to explain why some of those experts see signs of controlled demolition.

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After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday voted to approve a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the role of Christianity in American history and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 11 to 4, with 10 Republicans and one Democrat voting for the curriculum, and four Democrats voting against. The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest purchasers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has been diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.

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With little surprise, I learned of the recent refusal of Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon to meet with members of the U.S. Congress, whose institution provides Israel with the economic wherewithal to occupy the West Bank. Through astonishing ineptness, rather than principled policy, Israel is risking the anger of its bankroller.."

Rather than meet with them, Mr. Ayalon lashed out at J Street, the new lobby group that had scheduled the meeting. Mr. Ayalon would never reject a meeting arranged by the American Israel Education Foundation, an offshoot of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, because the organization has not been critical of Israel's subjugation of Palestinians in the West Bank.

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Europe's Catholic paedophile scandal now affects institutions in Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany.

Cardinal Schoenborn later clarified his comments saying it would be wrong to say that celibacy was a prime cause of sexual abuse.

"If celibacy is the problem, then without celibacy there should be no sexual abuse but unfortunately this is not the case. We know about cases inside the family," he said.

A senior advisor to the former American president, George Bush, has defended harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, saying he was proud of the intelligence the US gained by using them.

Karl Rove said the use of waterboarding had helped prevent further attacks against America and its allies after the September the 11th attacks in 2001. He said the technique - a form of simulated drowning - had been used only to break the will of three high-value terrorist suspects.

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After years of fighting in court, lawyers representing the city, construction companies and more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers have agreed to a settlement that could pay up to $657.5 million to responders sickened by dust from the destroyed World Trade Center.

The settlement was announced Thursday evening by the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special entity established to indemnify the city and its contractors against potential legal action as they moved to clean up the site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The deal, which still must be approved by a judge and the workers themselves, would make the city and other companies represented by the insurer liable for a minimum of $575 million, with more money available to the sick if certain conditions are met.

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Nobel Prize-winning economists and scientists will deliver a letter to the U.S. Senate today, urging lawmakers to require immediate cuts in global warming emissions. The letter was signed by more than 2,000 prominent U.S. economists and climate scientists, including eight Nobel laureates, 32 National Academy of Sciences members, 11 MacArthur "genius award" winners, and three National Medal of Science recipients.

"The nation's leading scientists and economists have joined together to tell policymakers we agree about the urgency of addressing climate change now," said James McCarthy, one of the letter's organizers and a biological oceanography professor at Harvard University. "The bad news is the science of climate change is indisputable. The good news is we can cost-effectively cut the emissions that are causing it."

McCarthy is a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the chairman of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) board, and a leader of the Nobel Peace Prize winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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