Listen to today's Edition of Democracy Now! (links/stories)

[radio4progressives]

Today's edition of Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/ with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez packs a wallop of a punch on critically important stories..


IRS Audited Greenpeace At Request of ExxonMobil-Funded Group
Listen or Watch:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/24/150203

(excerpst of rush transcript)

(snip)


Well, we didn't know fully the connection until we -- until Steve from the Wall Street Journal called us, interviewing us about the story, but we got notified by the I.R.S. this past December that we were to be audited. Several years prior is when we saw that Public Interest Watch report, making all these erroneous claims about money laundering, very, you know, extreme charges with no factual basis for it. It was clearly propaganda.

(snip)

The government, meaning the Bush administration and ExxonMobil, who have been tied at the hip in denying, refuting the reality of global warming. Greenpeace has been countering that, been pushing hard on that. ExxonMobil and the Bush administration have been the real gridlock on action to stop global warming.

(snip)

They seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to overheat, and they all get money from ExxonMobil.” And Chris Mooney writes, "Mother Jones has tallied some 40 ExxonMobil-funded organizations that either have sought to undermine mainstream scientific findings on global climate change or have maintained affiliations with a small group of 'skeptic' scientists who continue to do so. Beyond think tanks, the count also includes quasi-journalistic outlets like TechCentralStation.com (a website providing 'news, analysis, research, and commentary' that received $95,000 from ExxonMobil in 2003),a FoxNews.com columnist, and even religious and civil rights groups.

In total, received more than $8 million between 2000 and 2003...

ExxonMobil and CEO Lee Raymond serves as vice of the board of trustees for the AEI," -- that's American Enterprise Institute -- "which received $960,000 in funding from ExxonMobil. The AEI-Brookings Institution Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, which officially hosted Crichton, received another $55,000. When asked about the event, the center’s executive director, Robert Hahn—who’s a fellow with the AEI—defended it, saying, ‘Climate science is a field in which reasonable experts can disagree.’ (By contrast, on the day of the event, the Brookings Institution posted a scathing critique of Crichton’s book, ).”

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The PsyOps War: A Look at the Lincoln Group and the U.S. Military's Planting of Stories in the Iraqi Press

Listen or Watch on line: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/24/150208

The Pentagon defends its policy of paying Iraqi news organizations to publish pro-American articles secretly written by the U.S. military. Its contractor, the Lincoln Group is being paid over a hundred million dollars to write and plant stories. We speak with reporter Andrew Buncombe of the London Independent and retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner.

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Mass Protests Continue in France to Oppose Controversial Labor Law

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/24/150215

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in France to oppose a controversial new law that makes its easier for employers to fire young workers. We go to Paris to speak with a student protester at the Sorbonne and a journalist who covers politics and social movements in France.

(includes rush transcript)