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Baltimore & Maryland
06.14 Public Can Make Summer 'Historical' at “Chautauqua 2007: Food for Thought” Health & Environment
06.01 Fixing Our Broken Food System Ref. : Environmental Health News Ref. : What is Global Warming, and what can citizens do about it? Ref. : Global Warming Links Ref. : Health & Nutrition Links Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Open Letters:
US News Media Criticism
07.02 Will the Press Idiocy Ever Stop? 07.02 Blacked Out by the Corporate Media, Impeachment Advances 06.30 USA Today's 'Sicko' Debate 06.28 Slandering the Dead: The American Massacre at al-Khalis 06.25 The Iraq-gate Cover-up Continues 06.19 Sunday Sun Hits New Low 06.19 Alliance With Atrocity: Bush's Terror War Partners in Ethiopia 06.12 Things Your Media Mama Didn't Tell You 06.12 Incendiary Weapons Are No 'Allegation' 06.11 Powell Belies 'Commander Guy' Bush 06.11 THINKING FLUFF 06.09 Romney's Iraq Gaffe Ignored 06.08 GOP/Media Rewrite Iraq War History 06.05 The New Assault on Al Gore 06.02 Bush's Global Warming Foot-Dragging 06.02 Can Democrats End the Iraq War? 06.01 Treated Like a Democrat 06.01 Journalists' Group Unmasks Sen. Jon Kyl as “Senator Secrecy” OP-EDs & Opinion
07.03 Terrorism As a Virus: Baudrillard's Post-2001 Significance 07.03 "Justice for All": Just a Sop for the Masses 07.03 Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution: It's Just Not Worth It 06.28 Congress Needs to Stop Playing in Bush's Court 06.28 Next Generation of 'Family Jewels'? 06.28 Why They Hate Us 06.28 One More Good Reason Why Rupert Murdoch Should Not Get Dow Jones 06.26 Research on Human Nature is Cause for Optimism 06.16 Dare We Call It Tyranny? 06.14 Unintended Uighurs 06.12 War Foretold 06.08 Impeachment on a Roll 06.01 The Hariri Case & Double Standards US Politics & Policy
07.03 The Libby Cover-up Completed 07.03 Beyond Recklessness 06.26 Nancy & Harry: Bringing Down the House (and Senate) 06.26 Thinking About Baggage 06.25 Goodbye to the city upon a hill and to its fabled economy 06.25 Is Obama Getting 'Colin-ized'? 06.22 Sen. Levin's False History & Logic 06.22 Which Candidate Do You Support? 06.21 Slap Doesn't Stick: Corrupted Congress Will Help Bush Escape Court Ruling 06.20 Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic 06.20 Iraqi Labor Leaders Blame US for the Bloodshed in Iraq and say Get Out! 06.19 The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand 06.19 Democrats in Congress: The Wheels are Coming Off 06.13 America's Fragile Republic 06.12 Congressional Failure and the Democrats' Last Chance 06.12 The Neocon Threat to World Peace and American Freedom 06.12 Sic Semper Tyrannis: A Slap in the Face of the Crawford Caligula 06.11 Everything They Say About Promoting Democracy Is, And Always Has Been, A Damnable Lie 06.09 Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran 06.07 Last Plamegate Worry for Bush-Cheney 06.06 Some democracy, America Economics
07.02 Thinking Upside Down 06.20 Reader response: Inflation? You'd Better Believe It! 06.18 THINKING INFLATION 06.11 Losing the Economy to Mythology 06.04 Thinking About Budgets—the “La-La” Land of Governmental Accounting Africa
06.13 'Kill Anyone Still Alive': American Special Ops in Somalia Middle East & Asia
07.02 Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran 06.30 The New Bush-Blair Vanity Play 06.19 Newly Discovered Nuances to the Camp David Accords 06.19 Crocodile Tears 06.07 Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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MEDIA CRITICISM:Blacked Out by the Corporate Media, Impeachment AdvancesWhen will the corporate media finally begin to honestly report on the impeachment story? And how will news organizations explain impeachment's seemingly magical appearance as a full-blown campaign in Congress?
The corporate media are disgracing themselves even further, if that is possible, on the impeachment story.On Thursday, three more members of Congress signed on to Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney (H Res 333), bringing the total number of co-sponsors of the bill to 10. That in itself would be national news, but there is more to it than simple numbers. The new sponsors include two freshman, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, who ran for office calling for impeachment, and Hank Johnson, who took over the seat of pro-impeachment Rep. Cynthia McKinney (McKinney filed her own bill of impeachment against President Bush in the waning days of the last Congress), but the group also includes Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA).
In a related development, Kucinich’s bill, which was filed back on April 24, amid an almost complete news blackout, and which has languished for over two months, with the House Judiciary Committee, headed by Conyers (D-MI) taking no action on it, suddenly was referred this week to a Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, chaired by US Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)—a sign that it will be taken up by the full Judiciary Committee. Despite all these breaking developments in the impeachment story, Friday’s and Saturday’s news reports around the nation had little or nothing on impeachment. The New York Times, whose front pages and national pages influence the news decisions of editors across the country, has ignored the story completely, as has the Washington Post, which is supposed to be covering Washington—both astonishing examples of corporate media censorship. Even in Washington, Minnesota and Georgia, the main local papers only ran short briefs on the actions of their local Congress members. But despite this journalistic lockdown, it is clear that the national grassroots impeachment is gaining power and momentum by the day. Washington impeachment activists had long been pressing McDermott to join the impeachment campaign, but had been unsuccessful until this week. His switch on the issue seems to have been the result of that pressure from his constituents, as well as from the latest actions of and revelations about the vice president. A powerful series of news articles that ran in late June in the Washington Post has disclosed that the vice president was the driving force behind President Bush’s decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and to illegally deny international protections to captives in what he has called the War on Terror, including captives from Afghanistan and Iraq, and to establish a program of torture of captives. Cheney also made the ludicrous assertion this week that he did not have to respond to Congressional subpoenas and requests for information about the activities of his office because as vice president, he is president of the Senate, and thus is not a part of the executive branch, (It is a claim that is contradicted by his own earlier assertions of “executive authority” in refusing to respond to Congressional requests for information.) The Post's silence about McDermott and about impeachment developments is particularly peculiar, given that the latest developments are in part due to the paper's articles on Cheney's actions. Normally, newspapers are quick to point to or even grab credit for the results of their scoops and investigative reports. While other representatives who have signed on the H Res 333 have done so relatively quietly, or in Rep. Maxine Waters’ case, in a press conference, McDermott made his move with a public speech in the House. In that Thursday evening address, he said the vice president should “resign or face impeachment,” saying, “The vice president holds himself above the law, and it is time for the Congress to enforce the law.” In addition to citing Cheney’s role in deceiving Americans and Congress into supporting an invasion of Iraq, and threatening war with Iran, which are the charges in Kucinich’s impeachment bill, McDermott cited Cheney’s claim to be exempt from Congressional investigation and his refusal to comply with rules for the handling of classified information as grounds for his impeachment. It is not clear whether he intends to file his own impeachment bill on those issues, or to have them added to Kucinich’s bill. Johnson also cited the vice president’s refusal to submit materials in his office to control by the Information Oversight Security Office as a reason for his decision to back impeachment. So far, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), has not changed her position that “impeachment is off the table.” Rep. Conyers, for his part, has not spoken in favor of the Kucinich bill either. But with seven members of Congress signing on to the Cheney impeachment bill over the past month, and more likely to do so in coming days and weeks, and with polls showing that the public both wants impeachment and is losing patience with the timidity and inaction of the Democratic Congress, it seems increasingly likely that their hands will be forced. An interesting question will be when the corporate media will finally begin to honestly report on the impeachment story, and how news organizations will explain its seemingly magical appearance as a full-blown campaign in Congress. About the author: Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff is co-author, with
Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office. His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net.
Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Chronicle. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on July 2, 2007. |
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