by Mike Whitney

The easiest way to understand the institutional bias of western media is to analyze reporting from the developing world. The economic summit in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the coverage and decide whether such partiality exists. Although tens of thousands of working people came to protest George Bush and his suspiciously-named “free trade” economic policies; they were invariably smeared by the corporate media as “Leftists” or “radicals”; eliminating the possibility that they were simply concerned citizens participating in the democratic process. This is the familiar tactic of the media to marginalize ordinary people whose interests don’t correspond to those of the ruling elite...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Whitney1107-2.htm

by Mike Whitney

No man in the 200-year history of the United States has embodied the “banality of evil” as thoroughly as Dick Cheney, a dumpy, mid-level bureaucrat who ascended the political ladder through hardnosed calculation and cold-blooded vindictiveness. Cheney would be fine behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant snarling at the help and flaunting his authority, but as Vice President he’s been a dead loss. His appearance on Capitol Hill last week only confirms his moral vacuity and contempt for decency. Cheney addressed the Senate in a closed-door session and made an “impassioned” plea to continue the “cruel, degrading, and inhumane” treatment of prisoners detained in American concentration camps. His arguments follow the twisted logic of Harvard attorney Alan Dershowitz, who claims that state-sponsored atrocities like torture can be justified if they produce greater security. Cheney’s appeal should be seriously considered. After all, this is the warped rationale that underscores the entire war on terror: the end justifies the means. We can see where this thinking inevitably leads by the appalling photos from Abu Ghraib and the reports of starving victims at Guantanamo Bay. These are the fetid sites where Cheney’s theories are put into practice...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Whitney1107.htm

by Jason Leopold

Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity? That’s one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It’s unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned -- not under oath -- about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it. The five-count criminal indictment handed up by a grand jury last month against Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. Months after Plame’s identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Leopold1107.htm

There's a new narrative emerging in the mainstream media we're more than happy to echo.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051107/republicans_in_trouble.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/opinion/07mon3.html

by Francis X. Clines, The New York Times

In four years, Bush's actions to expedite mountaintop removal coal mining will devastate an area the size of Delaware.

http://www.tompaine.com/

The Wal-Mart 22

by Jonathan Tasini, TomPaine.com

With Democrats lining up to support Wal-Mart, why should voters believe they have any intention of challenging corporate power?

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051107/the_walmart_22.php

The New York Times: The five-year, $54 billion budget proposal is headed for a floor vote this week, disguised as an overdue act of fiscal responsibility and government savings. In truth, it is so over-the-top in its inequities and giveaways that embarrassed moderates are actually rebelling and withholding support unless some of the more outrageous measures - like despoiling the Alaska wildlife refuge with oil drilling - are killed.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110705F.shtml

George W. Bush sometimes seems to be in a Murphy's Law period of his presidency, when everything that can go wrong will go wrong. So after one of his most miserable weeks at the White House, things did not get a lot better on his messy four-day trip to Latin America.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110705D.shtml

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was not at the Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing last week, but he was the central topic, as Congress continued to probe what some call one of this generation's most outrageous political scandals. Abramoff helped fuel conservative successes, but his dealings could lead to powerful ethical fallout.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110705B.shtml