RSN: The Feds Want to Give $14 Million in Taxpayer Money to a Koch Brother's Coal Mine, Hundreds Take Over Michigan Capitol in Protest Over Flint Water Crisis,

Corporate Media Propaganda has done it again, spewing a BOGUS TALE, blaming Iran and then changing its story to one even less credible. 

The US provoked Iran! 

This incident highlights the importance of supporting INDEPENDENT MEDIA to sort the MEDIA PROPAGANDA! 

Reader Supported News | 16 January 16

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Glenn Greenwald | The US Radically Changes Its Story of the Boats in Iranian Waters to an Even More Suspicious Version 
 
Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept 
Greenwald writes: "It is, of course, theoretically possible that this newest rendition of events is what happened. But there are multiple reasons to suspect otherwise." 
READ MORE

hen news first broke of the detention of two U.S. ships in Iranian territorial waters, the U.S. media — aside from depicting it as an act of Iranian aggression — uncritically cited the U.S. government’s explanation for what happened. One of the boats, we were told, experienced “mechanical failure” and thus “inadvertently drifted” into Iranian waters. On CBS News, Joe Biden told Charlie Rose, “One of the boats had engine failure, drifted into Iranian waters.”

Provided their government script, U.S. media outlets repeatedly cited these phrases — “mechanical failure” and “inadvertently drifted” and “boat in distress” — like some sort of hypnotic mantra. Here’s Eli Lake of Bloomberg News explaining yesterday why this was all Iran’s fault:

Iran’s handling of the situation violated international norms. … Two small U.S. sea craft transiting between Kuwait and Bahrain strayed into Iranian territorial waters because of a mechanical failure, according to the U.S. side. This means the boats were in distress.

Lake quoted John McCain as saying that “boats do not lose their sovereign immune status when they are in distress at sea.” The night the news broke, Reuters quickly said the “boats may have inadvertently drifted into Iranian waters” and “another U.S. official said mechanical issues may have disabled one of the boats, leading to a situation in which both ships drifted inadvertently into Iranian waters.”

The U.S. government itself now says this story was false. There was no engine failure, and the boats were never “in distress.” Once the sailors were released, AP reported, “In Washington, a defense official said the Navy has ruled out engine or propulsion failure as the reason the boats entered Iranian waters.”

Instead, said Defense Secretary Ashton Carter at a press conference this morning, the sailors “made a navigational error that mistakenly took them into Iranian territorial waters.” He added that they “obviously had misnavigated” when, in the words of the New York Times, “they came within a few miles of Farsi Island, where Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps has a naval base.” The LA Times conveyed this new official explanation: “A sailor may have punched the wrong coordinates into the GPS and they wound up off course. Or the crew members may have taken a shortcut into Iranian waters as they headed for the refueling ship, officials said.” The initial slogan “inadvertently drifted” — suggesting a disabled boat helplessly floating wherever the ocean takes it — has now been replaced in the script by “inadvertently strayed,” meaning the boats were erroneously steered into Iranian waters without any intention to go there.

It is, of course, theoretically possible that this newest rendition of events is what happened. But there are multiple reasons to suspect otherwise. To begin with, U.S. sailors frequently travel between Bahrain and Kuwait, two key U.S. allies, the former of which hosts the Fifth Fleet headquarters; these were familiar waters.

Moreover, at no point did either of the ships notify anyone that they had inadvertently “misnavigated” into Iranian territorial waters, a significant enough event that would warrant some sort of radio or other notification. “U.S. defense officials were befuddled about how both vessels’ navigational systems failed to alert them that they were entering Iranian waters,” reported the Daily Beast’s Nancy Youseff on Tuesday night. Carter sought to explain this away by saying, “It may have been they were trying to sort it out at the time when they encountered the Iranian boats.” Not one sailor on either of the boats could communicate the “error”? Beyond that, “misnavigating” within a few miles of an Iranian Guard Corps naval base is a striking coincidence (the LA Times summarized an exciting and remarkable tale of how the boats were perhaps running out of gas, entered Iranian waters merely as a “shortcut,” experienced engine failure when they tried to escape, and then on top of all these misfortunes, experienced radio failure).

What we know for certain is that the storyline of “mechanical failure” and “poor U.S. boat in distress” that was originally propagated — on which Lake exclusively relied to blame the Iranians — was complete fiction. At least according to the government’s latest version, the boats were working just fine. But, as always, the bulk of the U.S. media narrative was built around totally unverified, self-serving claims from the U.S. government, which, yet again, turned out to be completely false.

Perhaps there are valid reasons why the U.S. military — while the sailors were still in Iranian custody — would falsely claim that the boats experienced “mechanical failure” and were in “distress,” as that would excuse an otherwise intentional act (one of the sailors in the video taken by Iran claimed they were “having engine issues”). But the fact that there is a good reason for the U.S. government to make false claims does not excuse the U.S. media’s uncritical regurgitation of them nor the construction of a narrative based on them depicting Iran as the aggressor; it may be shocking to hear, but the U.S. government and U.S. media are supposed to have different functions.

This happens over and over. A significant incident occurs, such as the U.S. bombing of an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The U.S. government makes claims about what happened. The U.S. media uncritically repeat them over and over. And then the U.S. government just blithely changes its story repeatedly, implicitly admitting that the tales it originally told were utterly false. But the next time a similar event happens, there is no heightened skepticism of U.S. government claims: its media treat them as Gospel.

Headline from The Guardian. (photo: The Intercept)

The behavior of the U.S. media in this case was downright embarrassing, even by their standards. CNN’s Erin Burnett openly and repeatedly suggested that this was a calculated move by Iran to humiliate the U.S. and Obama during his State of the Union address (as though Iran hypnotized the sailors into entering its territorial waters on cue). And more generally, this unauthorized trespass into Iranian territorial waters was continuously depicted as an act of Iranian aggression (contrast that with how the U.S. government suggested it would be in Turkey’s rights not only to intercept but to shoot down any Russian jet that even briefly traverses its airspace). Article 25 of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea, titled “Rights of protection of the coastal State,” states that “the coastal State may take the necessary steps in its territorial sea to prevent passage which is not innocent.”

All you need to know about the U.S. media is this: Just imagine what they would be saying and doing if two Iranian ships had entered U.S. territorial waters with no warning or permission, and then the Iranian government lied about why that happened. And that’s to say nothing of the massive apologia that spewed forth in 1988 when, in roughly the same areas as these ships “misnavigated” into, the U.S. Navy blew an Iranian civilian jet out of the sky, killing 290 passengers, 66 of whom were children, and then tried to cover up its responsibility.

So, to recap the U.S. media narrative: when the U.S. Navy enters Iran’s territorial waters without permission or notice, and Iran detains them and then releases them within 24 hours, Iran is the aggressor; andthe same is true when Iran aggressively allows one of its civilian jets to be shot down by the U.S. Navy. And no matter how many times the U.S. government issues patently false statements about its military actions, those statements are entitled to unquestioning, uncritical treatment as Truth the next time a similar incident occurs.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34634-the-us-radically-changes-its-story-of-the-boats-in-iranian-waters-to-an-even-more-suspicious-version

Clinton's Lead Is Evaporating, and Anxious Democrats See 2008 All Over Again 
Paul Kane, The Washington Post 
Kane writes: "What seemed to be a race largely controlled by Clinton has turned into a neck-and-neck contest with voting set to begin in less than three weeks." 
READ MORE

Hundreds Take Over Michigan Capitol in Protest Over Flint Water Crisis 
Emily Lawler, MLive 
Lawler writes: "A crowd of protesters circled through the hallways of the Michigan state capitol on Thursday, toting jugs of dirty water and calling for action on a drinking water crisis that has rocked the city." 
READ MORE

More than 150 protestors from Flint and Detroit chant in solidarity in the main lobby, asking 

for the resignation of Governor Rick Snyder in relation to Flint's water crisis on 

Thursday, January 14, 2016, at the Capitol in Lansing. (photo: Jake May/MLive.com)

 crowd of 150 protesters circled through the hallways of the Michigan state capitol on Thursday, toting jugs of dirty water and calling for action on a drinking water crisis that has rocked the city.

Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in the city earlier this month, but the water crisis emerged more than a year ago when the city switched water sources in April of 2014.

House Democratic Leader Tim Greimel told the protesters, who rode in on buses from Flint and Detroit Thursday, that their representatives had been fighting for them on the water issue.

"The administration has turned a deaf ear to what they and others have been saying for months," Greimel said.

He called for Gov. Rick Snyder's resignation if he knew about the situation in Flint and didn't do anything about it.

Some at the protest said Gov. Rick Snyder had to have known about it.

"The concerned pastors came to Lansing with the lead test results in February and showed them to his assistant, so he knew about this thing," said Flint resident Lathan Jefferson, who came to the capitol to protest on Thursday.

For a year and a half he's been calling federal agencies looking for help.

"They blow you off. They keep giving you different numbers to call," Jefferson said.

R.L. Mitchell said he came from Flint today because when Gov. Rick Snyder was in Flint earlier this week he couldn't get in the room. He's worried about the long-term effects of the water.

"Every person I know in Flint has problems with the water. There's brown stuff coming out right now and they put filters on it and they don't know how to work it. And in a whole lot of filters black stuff comes out and they still drink it, put it in their ice cubes," Mitchell said.

Earlene Love is worried about the health effects too, but when she went to her doctor for a blood test the doctor told her it didn't affect old people.

"I just looked at him like he had lost his mind. Because if I had drank the water, then it's going to affect me too," Love said.

Elected officials came to the protest in solidarity with Flint residents.

"There have been few events in the history of our nation where government has let people down like this has," said Genesee County Clerk John Gleason. "My God, they poisoned the kids."

State Reps. Sheldon Neeley, D-Flint, and Phil Phelps, D-Flushing, came to show their support as well.

Protesters left the state capitol building and headed for the Romney Building, which houses the governor's office. Michigan State Police officers stopped them in the lobby, where they chanted and waved bottles of dirty water for around 20 minutes.

Snyder spokesperson Dave Murray said the Governor's office understood the frustration.

"We understand people are frustrated. The health and safety of Flint residents is a priority, both now and long into the future," he said. 

"Gov. Snyder acted aggressively as soon as he became aware of the elevated blood lead levels on Oct. 1, with an action plan announced quickly aimed at health and safety, and the reconnection to the Great Lakes Water Authority announced just days later," Murray said. 

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34632-hundreds-take-over-michigan-capitol-in-protest-over-flint-water-crisis

The Phony Debate About Political Correctness 
Erica Hellerstein and Judd Legum, ThinkProgress 
Excerpt: "The use of the term 'political correctness,' particularly in the Republican presidential primary, does not have a specific definition. Rather it functions like a swiss army knife - it is the answer to every kind of issue that a candidate might confront. It's a 'get out of jail free card' for bigotry, sexism and lying." 
READ MORE

Penn on El Chapo: 'My Article Failed' 
CBS News 
Excerpt: "Sean Penn said he believes the Mexican government released information about him in part because they wanted to see him blamed and to encourage the cartel to put him in their crosshairs." 
READ MORE

The Threat of a Free Haiti 
Samuel Farber, Jacobin 
Farber writes: "The Haitian Revolution sent shivers through European possessions across the Caribbean and Latin America, and into the newly independent United States. It became a tremendous symbol of hope for slaves throughout these countries, and one of tremulous fear for their masters, particularly those living in the colonies." 
READ MORE

The Feds Want to Give $14 Million in Taxpayer Money to a Koch Brother's Coal Mine 
Katie Herzog, Grist 
Herzog writes: "Today in WTF News, we learned that billionaire industrialist William Koch - brother of arch conservatives Charles and David Koch - may be getting a $14 million royalty refund after his coal mine on leased federal property in Colorado shut down. And that $14 mil would come compliments of the American taxpayer." 
READ MORE

The federal government will stop issuing new coal leases on some 570 million acres of federal 

land, under a new plan being released Friday. In this photo from 2013, coal is loaded onto 

a truck at a mine built on federally controlled land in Montana. (photo: Matthew Brown/AP)

amn, it feels good to be a billionaire.

Today in WTF News, we learned that billionaire industrialist William Koch — brother of arch conservatives Charles and David Koch — may be getting a $14 million royalty refund after his coal mine on leased federal property in Colorado shut down. And that $14 mil would come compliments of the American taxpayer.

When coal is mined from underground on federal land, the federal government is entitled to an 8 percent royalty. But coal-mining companies can claim they face trying economic conditions and ask for a “royalty rate reduction,” Reuters reports. One of Koch’s companies did just that. It’s not a big surprise that a greedy fossil fuel billionaire would ask for an extra government handout. What’s crazy is that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management wants to grant the request.

Put another way, to make it sound even crazier: The Obama administration is proposing to hand $14 million to a billionaire Koch brother to subsidize his past coal-mining efforts on public land, after he already shut down the mine and laid off the workers.

More from Reuters:

Oxbow Mining, a subsidiary of Koch-controlled Oxbow Carbon LLC, closed its Elk Creek site in western Colorado two years ago after setbacks such as a fire and partial collapse made working the underground mine too costly, according to the company and regulatory paperwork. …

“Although production at the mine has been idled indefinitely since the end of 2013 … the royalty rate reduction would be retroactive,” the Bureau of Land Management wrote in an opinion to Colorado officials, who have a say in the decision since they share coal revenue.

The rebate would come in the form of a “royalty rate reduction” going back to 2012 and lower the government’s take to 5 percent from the usual 8 percent of coal sales.

Why would the government ever agree to this? As Reuters explains, “Reducing royalty rates has been a tool used by the federal government for decades when maximizing coal production was part of a national energy policy.” At the same time, “Royalty rate reduction has been criticized for decades, and an Interior Department review in 2013 found that officials often lacked the financial expertise to determine whether a coal company needed a lower rate.”

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Obama emphasized the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy: “Rather than subsidize the past,” he said, “we should invest in the future — especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet.”

It would seem that the bureaucrats at the BLM haven’t been listening to the president lately. Perhaps someone from the White House ought to give them a call and catch them up on the latest?

William Koch — while not as notorious as his election-purchasing brothers — is still very, very rich. And not a little weird: He built his own private ghost town in Colorado, complete with saloon, jail, church, stable, train station, and, for a bit of a modern touch, a water-treatment system. “Known as ‘Wild Bill’ to his friends,” wrote the New York Post, “Koch has amassed an impressive collection of period memorabilia. He owns the former possessions of several iconic figures, such as Jesse James’ gun, George Custer’s flag and Sitting Bull’s rifle. He also paid $2.3 million for the only known photograph of Billy the Kid.”

Sounds like he’ll put that extra $14 million to good use.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34628-the-feds-want-to-give-14-million-in-taxpayer-money-to-a-koch-brothers-coal-mine

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