False Flag in Moscow!

Click here to access article by The Saker from his website.

Boris Nemtsov has been shot dead in Moscow.  He was one of the most charismatic leaders of the “liberal” or “democratic” “non-system” opposition in Russia (please understand that in the Russian context “liberal” and “democratic” means pro-US or even CIA-run, while “non-system” means too small to even get a single deputy in the Duma).  He was shot just a few days before the announced demonstration of the very same “liberal” or “democratic” “non-system” opposition scheduled for March 1st.

Then this blogger followed up this post with another interesting one that includes a short video featuring President Putin entitled "Nemtsov murder: Putin warned about exactly this type of “false flag” two years ago". 

See also "Who Killed Boris Nemtsov?" from Veterans Today.

Russia: US-Backed Opposition Leader Gunned Down in Moscow

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook. 

Martyrdom on demand: if not of use alive, perhaps of use dead? US-backed opposition groups in Russia have so far failed utterly to produce results. Their transparent subservience to Washington coupled with their distasteful brand of politics has left a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth of most Russians. Each attempt to spread the “virus” of color revolution to Moscow, as US Senator John McCain called it, has failed – and each attempt has fallen progressively flatter.

.... Nemtsov had led US-backed opposition protests for years. In 2012, he was caught literally walking into the US Embassy in Moscow to meet with then newly appointed US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul who had serve on the board of directors of Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

The significance of this cannot be overstated.

Bookchin: living legacy of an American revolutionary

Click here to access article which provides a transcript of an interview conducted by Federico Venturini and posted on Reflections on a Revolution.

Editor’s note: Below you will find an interview with Debbie Bookchin, daughter of the late Murray Bookchin, who passed away in 2006. Bookchin spent his life in revolutionary leftist circles, joining a communist youth organization at the age of nine and becoming a Trotskyist in his late thirties, before switching to anarchist thought and finally ending up identifying himself as a ‘communalist’ after developing the ideas of ‘libertarian municipalism’.

Bookchin was (and remains) as influential as he was controversial. His radical critiques of deep ecology and ‘lifestyle anarchism’ stirred up a number of heated debates that continue to this day. Now that his revolutionary ideas have been picked up by the Kurdish liberation movement, who are using Bookchin’s works to build a democratic, gender-equal and ecologically sustainable society in the heart of the Middle East, we are seeing a renewed interest in the life and thoughts of this great political thinker.  

How we must adjust our lifestyles to nature: Welcome to the 'Anthropocene', the human epoch

Click here to access article by Christian Schwagerl from The Independent.

This Berliner uses the new scientific concept of "Anthropocene age", to argue for a radically different orientation toward nature.

In the Anthropocene, there is no longer an "inside" and an "outside", no alien, antagonistic nature with which humans are faced. The environment becomes the "invironment", something with which humans are existentially interwoven. This is why it is far from sufficient to create "nature reserves" on a small percentage of the Earth’s land surface. Instead, we have to consider whether civilisation itself can act and perform within nature, with technologies that don’t act as parasites and destroy, but enrich the living world.

In such a world we can no longer speak of "nature" and "culture" as two separate spheres. 

In other words, we humans are in the very web of life on planet Earth, and we must now integrate our existence with the Earth's ecosystems in such a way as to preserve our place in it. However after constructing this radical vision, he argues that we need only to make adaptations to our economy and technology to integrate ourselves with nature! How reassuring (to capitalists) to know that capitalism which is based on exploitation of workers and the environment can be "adapted" to this new reality! And the remainder of the article continues this train of thought by declaring that these adjustments are already happening in his hometown of Berlin. 

This is a classic example of how liberal media handle the growing acknowledgement by the ruling class that a dramatic conflict exists for capitalism in the form of climate destabilization. It serves to reassure people that everything is under control--just trust the authorities.

If instead of being reassured and you want to face the hard truths of the insolubility of capitalism and survival, I advise you to watch the film "The Crisis of Civilization" by Nafeez Ahmed which I posted last September.

What’s Behind Ukraine’s Secret Weapons Deal with UAE

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from RINF Alternative News. 

This is another in the endless stream of bad news. Based on a report issued by a US media corporation, the Empire through its vassals in the Middle East is preparing to strengthen their Ukraine puppet's military in order to launch another war against eastern Ukraine. This is another major piece of evidence that the latest ceasefire was only agreed to by the Kiev regime because they were losing the war. Fascists like the Ukraine puppets, who came to power with the violent overthrow of the elected government, only believe in domination and control of societies through violence or the threat of violence. 

The directors of the Empire are engaging in a very high risk strategy to draw Russia into the conflict (their propaganda already claim this) in a plan to effect a change of regime in Russia into one that takes orders from the Empire. Russia and its people will never come under the domination of anyone. So, the stage is set for one disaster after another as the Empire directors pursue this mad policy.

I recommend also an article from World Socialist Web Site entitled "Pentagon provocation on Russia’s border".

Keystone XL: The Opportunism that Infests Environmentalist Activism, for the Benefit of Capital

Click here to access article from The Wrong Kind of Green.

A fact sheet regarding well-funded "activist" organizations, big donors, the irrelevance of stopping one pipeline, etc., all leads to this conclusion: 

The second simple (and final) truth is—it’s the system. That no one wants to acknowledge this – doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. We kill capitalism—or capitalism kills us. It’s really that simple.

How Net Neutrality Came Back from the Dead

Click here to access article by Sam Gustin from Motherboard.

Let us celebrate a rare victory. But, I believe the vote on the FCC regulatory body was close (3 to 2); thus this may only be a temporary victory. 

...on Thursday, Wheeler—the former cable and wireless industry lobbyist—completed an astonishing year-long turn-around, and did what many had thought unthinkable. Under Title II authority, the FCC established its strongest-ever net neutrality protections, handing open internet activists (and their public interest allies) a once-in-a-generation victory.

Wheeler’s evolution from high-powered industry lobbyist to internet folk hero is one of the most unlikely tales in the history of modern regulatory policy.

Mossad contradicted Netanyahu on Iran nuclear programme

Click here to access article by Will Jordan and Rahul Radhakrishnan from Al Jazeera.

Less than a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 2012 warning to the UN General Assembly that Iran was 70 percent of the way to completing its "plans to build a nuclear weapon", Israel's intelligence service believed that Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons".

A secret cable obtained by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit reveals that Mossad sent a top-secret cable to South Africa on October 22, 2012, that laid out a "bottom line" assessment of Iran's nuclear work.

Ready for Nuclear War over Ukraine?

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews. (commentary modified at 6PM Seattle time)

The dramatic headline is more of a teaser to attract readers than what the article is actually about. Parry's main concern (and mine, and other than a nuclear war) is the shockingly Orwellian nature of US mainstream coverage of events in Ukraine. On second thought, maybe he sees this coverage as preparing us for a nuclear war. 

I have been observing and commenting on this mainstream media coverage for quite some time, and still don't quite know what to make of it. It's not only the topic of Ukraine that mainstream media is turning reality on its head, but includes a wide variety of topics. This acceleration of lying conveniently started after 9/11, the most dramatic and deceptive of all false-flag events in history.

On the other hand, maybe in the interest of truth this is all for the better. Maybe this transformation of Nazis into "good guys" and the rewriting of history, that the Empire's Ukrainian puppets are attempting, is actually revealing the truth about the Empire--it's governed by fascism (by and for the corporations with violent coercion) updated to fit with the 21st century's neoliberalism. Maybe the Empire's media is only trying to manage this transformation of Empire propaganda from their worn out lies about civil rights, democracy, and humanitarian concerns into more accurate values succinctly expressed as the "Empire über alles". 

"Millionen stehen hinter mir!" ("Millions stand behind me!")

Perhaps soon the directors of the Empire will drop elections as so much expensive nonsense--which of course they are--and appoint a Führer, and we will all be trained to shout "Sieg Heil!" in his/her presence (feminism is trendy). Then an earlier anti-fascist poster from Fascism 1.0 will come in handy--it can be easily Photoshopped to protest this latest version.

Why the rise of fascism is again the issue

Click here to access article by John Pilger from his website. 

The recent 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was a reminder of the great crime of fascism, whose Nazis iconography is embedded in our consciousness. Fascism is preserved as history, as flickering footage of goose-stepping blackshirts, their criminality terrible and clear. Yet in the same liberal societies, whose war-making elites urge us never to forget, the accelerating danger of a modern kind of fascism is suppressed; for it is their fascism. [my emphasis]

The Externality Trap, or, How Progress Commits Suicide

Click here to access article by Michael Greer posted on World News Trust. (Note: I am violating my rule that requires featuring posts from their original sites because this post is much more readable and it contains Greer's picture.)

I've always had difficulty taking any person seriously when they dress up in a silly costume. In the case of Greer I also haven't found his writing particularly insightful. However, this article has a lot of merit because it directs ones attention to concrete illustrations of real economic problems that people can easily understand. Yet, I was disturbed by the naiveté expressed near the end in which he seems to be completely oblivious to social-economic class power and seems to suggest that it is all a matter of society choosing. His conclusion appears only tentative, so that hopefully in future articles he will explain his position more clearly.

...a society that chose to stop progressing technologically could maintain itself indefinitely, so long as its technologies weren’t dependent on nonrenewable resources or the like. The costs imposed by a stable technology on the economy, society, and the biosphere would be more or less stable, rather than increasing over time, and it would therefore be much easier to figure out how to balance out the negative effects of those externalities and maintain the whole system in a steady state. Societies that treated technological progress as an option rather than a requirement, and recognized the downsides to increasing complexity, could also choose to reduce complexity in one area in order to increase it in another, and so on -- or they could just raise a monument to the age of progress, and go do something else instead. 

Architecture of Impunity

Click here to access an excellent graphic from Transnational Institute website.

The graphic illustrates how one major oil corporation (Chevron corp.) can exercise so much control over societies in which it functions. It also serves as an introduction to many interesting articles posted by this website. Most of these articles are from academics whose examinations of capitalist operations are sometimes a bit muted because academia is, like all major institutions, under considerable control of the capitalist ruling class. Still there are gems to be found, and this graphic is one of them.

Corporate crime is not due to a few´bad apples´ but to an architecture of impunity and a structure of power that puts corporate rights above human rights. An infographic from the State of Power report 2015.

Canada targets tar sands critics in new criminalization of dissent

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

Canada’s Harper régime has invented the new crime of being a member of an “anti-Canadian petroleum movement,” and equating such a stance with terrorism. Evidently believing it is in danger of losing the fight against pipeline projects intended to speed up Alberta tar sands production, its response is to place environmentalists under surveillance.

A secret report prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the country’s national police agency, claims that public activism against the problems caused by oil and gas extraction is a growing and violent threat to Canada’s national security.

Behind the Great Western Firewall Is the Ugly Truth

Click here to access article by Jeff J. Brown from his website 44 Days. (a must-read article)

Wow! I just noticed that I have spent so much time on this article and website that I've passed my publishing deadline of 12 noon. That is evidence of how much I was impressed with the article and his very interesting website. Because of time constraints I'll have to severely limit my comments to this very impressive article, and simply urge you to read it.  

Brown has traveled a long way both geographically and politically after a career in corporations followed by teaching. In the article he describes his journey from an average brainwashed American to a critical-thinking and politically aware world traveler.

Being outside of the West for the last 4.5 years has afforded me the opportunity to leave the Matrix and its iron fisted control of the Washington-London-Paris consensus. As a born scientist, I am in a never ending quest for the truth, as uncomfortable as it may be to discover. All my research has allowed me the luxury of unlearning and relearning humanity’s ancient and modern history, up to our resulting current events. I am not sure, if I were still living in the West, if I could have broken my brainwashed chains and set myself free from the bondage of its suffocating conventional narrative.

Ukraine War: A Reverse Cuban Missile Crisis

Click here to access article by William R. Polk from ConsortiumNews. 

What may be obvious to those of us who follow world affairs, but the hyper-aggressive policies now being pursued in Ukraine and the military buildup in nearby areas by the current directors of the Empire is leading us down the path of a nuclear war holocaust. This is not an argument advanced by some hysterical alarmist--it is the thesis argued in this article by Polk who was an Empire insider and a key player in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Leading Climate Denier and Harvard Scientist Took $1.2 Million Bribe From Oil Companies

Click here to access article by Mihai Andrei from ZME Science. 

Wei-Hock Soon, an aerospace engineer and a part-time employee at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is one of the few respected scientists who spoke against the general consensus that human activity is a significant contributor to climate change. He has published 11 papers on climate change since 2008. However, it was recently shown that he received $1.2 million from oil companies in exchange for his “science”. According to leaked documents, the  papers were simply “deliverables” that he completed in exchange for their money.

Funny how I haven't noticed this bit of news in my local corporate media, but it is covered in the Science section of the NY Times . We certainly heard about hacked emails among some British climate scientists back in 2009 which supposedly revealed that climate change data was manipulated. That was on mainstream media for weeks. 

Here’s Where Ocean Acidification Will Hit the U.S. Hardest

Click here to access article by Brian Kahn from Climate Central.

Living in the Pacific Northwest, I am well aware of the fact that the acidification of the ocean due to the excessive burning of fossil fuels is a huge problem for shellfishery companies. This science oriented website calls attention to the problem; but the implications they draw about corrective actions falls far short of what is required. Are they like the Post Carbon Institute dependent on corporate-connected foundations for their support? The author leaves us with a quote from a researcher calling for more studies and community actions to adapt to this problem. 

“Developing these types of studies that bring the results into a greater community context is extremely valuable to policymakers that need to make decisions for their areas,” Jeremy Mathis, director of ocean and environmental research at Pacific Marine Environmental Lab, said.

“Now is the time to start planning. We don’t want to wait until there is a disruption. These documents provide that incentive for communities to start developing adaptation strategies now that will hopefully provide for them in the future.”

Local communities can create adaptations to a world-wide problem that will save the shellfisheries??!! And to do this "especially if we want scallops, oysters and other shellfish to keep appearing on our dinnerplates"?

Former Ambassador Robert Ford [to Syria] Admits "Conspiracy Theorists" Were Right - Jihadists Are Majority Of Rebels

Click here to access article by Brandon Turbeville from Activist Post.

Death squad operative Robert Ford has turned a number of heads recently with his surprising indictments of the so-called “moderate” rebels operating in Syria. Ford, who has long been one of the most vocal cheerleaders of the jihadists – having played a crucial role in organizing and arming them early on – is now openly admitting much of what many in the alternative media have been saying since the beginning of the crisis in 2010 – that al-Qaeda, Nusra, and other jihadist forces make up the overwhelming majority of the alleged “rebellion.”

Of course, there never was anything remotely “moderate” about any of the “rebels” operating under Ford’s tutelage or NATO’s direction.

So if he knows, you can bet that the Obama administration along with the hidden directors of the Empire also know. Meanwhile, they continue to arm and support the ISIS terrorist gang in the name of fighting terrorism (see this and this).

Turkey, Terrorism, and the Global Proxy War

Click here to access article by Eric Draitzer from New Eastern Outlook.

Although I missed this article which was published earlier this month, I am posting it now because I think Draitzer correctly identifies the key motives behind what appears to be rather renegade actions (e.g., see this) of the Turkish ruling class as directed by President Erdogan and Prime Minister Davutoglu. Turkey appears to be pursuing its own independent agenda (much to the irritation of Empire directors) which Draitzer identifies as "Neo-Ottoman", while doing so the Turkish capitalist gang is also pursuing actions that correspond with the Empire's strategic interests of checking both Chinese and Russian capitalist gangs. As long as they continue to do so, Empire directors will no doubt tolerate their other more independent policies.

The Anti-Empire Report #137

Click here to access article by William Blum from The Anti-Empire Report.

This uncompromising (with the truth) American historian gives us some more history lessons along with some lessons in hypocrisy that have been so pervasive in the rise of the post-war American Empire. He visits the current crisis in Greece, cites some typical lies issued by State Department flunkies, reviews the many past lies about US relations with Iraq and Cuba, and reports on a new US propaganda minister.

Subprime Pump-and-Dump Frenzy Heats Up

Click here to access article by Wolf Richter from Wolf Street.

Richter has been following a new pump-and-dump strategy being perpetrated by an informal consortium of auto-lenders, private equity firms selling "securitized" auto loan packages, and rating agencies. Does this sound familiar to you? Well, capitalist scammers got away with it before, so why not again? To be fair, the players are facing some prosecution by government bodies, but according to Richter the scams continue to grow bigger. 

The Assassination of Greece

Click here to access article by James Petras from his website.

This is by far the best analysis of the debt crisis facing the Greek people that I have seen on the web. By understanding what is currently going on in Greece, one can understand the global impact that neoliberal policies are having on the living standard of workers in many parts of the world including the US. Capitalism is following its inevitable trajectory toward a goal of a few rich creditors amidst oceans of poor debtors. This retired professor of sociology obviously knows of what he writes having been an adviser to Greek Prime Minister Papandreou for three years (1981-84). 

Petras starts with a history of debt accumulation under Papandreou, and continues with an examination of how the loans were actually used to enrich Greek elites instead of investments that could have resulted in paying off the loans, an examination of the various components of the Syriza party and the trend toward elite control, and the stakes that European capitalist classes have that inform their insistence that ordinary Greeks and the Greek state must sacrifice more to pay off these illegitimate debts.

It seems that European elites and their American Empire associates are greatly at risk if the Greeks decided to "bite the bullet" and default on the debts. (I just had a nasty thought that I will share with you: this would seem to be a golden opportunity for Russian-Chinese elites to exact some revenge against the Empire's aggressive actions toward both countries by offering assistance to Greece so that they could opt out of the European Union and survive.)

The ruling financial and business elites in Europe and the US prospered through the crises and depression, by imposing cuts in social budgets and wages and salaries. To concede failure in Greece, would reverberate throughout North America and Europe, calling into question their economic policies, ideology and the legitimacy of the ruling powers. The reason that all the EU regimes back the EU insistence that Greece must continue to abide by an obviously perverse and regressive ‘austerity’ policy and impose reactionary “structural reforms” is because these very same rulers have sacrificed the living standards of their own labor force during the economic crises....

Amusing the World: Media Consumption and Culture

Click here to access article by Vincent Emanuele from Telesur.

Entertainment-culture is gaining momentum worldwide. Throughout the last twenty years, more and more individuals around the globe have been fully metabolized into the psychosphere of technological-spectacle: TV, Hollywood, video games, sporting events, and so forth. For many, these activities represent leisure-time and a way to connect with the larger, outside world. However, this rapidly spreading global phenomena of technological-spectacle is having a tremendously negative impact on society's collective ideologies, culture, and overall health. Most importantly, the rest of the world is now consuming media at the same pace, and in the same forms, as those living in the United States. 

I think that no one has yet to accurately assess the influence of American movies and television have had on people throughout the world. I was first alerted to this phenomenon when traveling in the German Democratic Republic ("East Germany") in 1984. While traveling by rail, I struck up a conversation with some young Germans in my compartment. I was rather astonished at how casually they made reference to American cultural items such as major league baseball teams. Since then this awareness grew by frequently noticing in foreign films characters watching American films and TV programs. 

So now I ask myself these questions: Could this inundation of American cultural products which advertised glowing features of "the American way of life" as purveyed by Hollywood and Wall Street throughout the world account for the easy transference of allegiance from former satellite countries (e.g., Poland, Latvia, Lithuania) of the Soviet Union to that of NATO? Could this phenomenon account for the easy conversion of the flawed Soviet form of socialism into a rabid form of capitalism in Russia and to the easy absorption of the GDR by the Federal Republic of Germany? 

Pro-9/11-truth director denied “Best Film” at Oscars

Click here to access article by Kevin Barrett from Veterans Today.

Who is the best working director in America today?

If you ask the usual Hollywood suspects, they’ll give you a top-ten list featuring the usual Hollywood schlockmeisters. Sure, some are good at what they do. A few have occasionally produced breakthrough works of cinematic art. But even the “best filmmakers in Hollywood”  tend to keep their heads firmly ensconced in Hollywood – that “plastic asshole of the universe” in the immoral words of William Faulkner. 

Peter Oborne opens a media can of worms

Click here to access article by Jonathon Cook from his blog.

The can of worms the title refers to is the old problem of media serving a capitalism ruling class. Cook makes reference to this problem surfacing again with disclosures made by the former chief political commentator at a prominent British newspaper, The Telegraph, which has temporarily rocked the British media world.

...revelations last week by the Daily Telegraph’s former chief political commentator Peter Oborne that his newspaper spiked stories that upset advertisers to avoid losing lucrative ad revenue....

Cook correctly identifies the problem as an old one, as old as capitalism itself. (If you have any doubts, read The Brass Check by Upton Sinclair published nearly a century ago.) A capitalist ruling class, like any ruling class, will always insure that every institution serves them. This problem is a particularly egregious one in relation to information (think media, education, and even entertainment) that people depend on to navigate their world. That is the significance of ruling classes. Ruling classes always privilege certain groups over the rest of society, and that is precisely why we must eliminate ruling classes--it has been a scourge to humans ever since civilization began 10,000 years ago, and now it is threatening the very existence of humans. Equality is no longer something that is desirable, it is now essential to the survival of humans and many other species.

Cook also correctly predicts that the issue will once again be swept under the rug or deflected toward other causes (e.g., The Flat News book cited by Cook) by the directors of the same contemporary ruling class because it threatens the legitimacy of their system, the goose that lays for them the golden eggs of wealth and power.

Ukraine... It's a Heist!!!

Click here if you wish to access article this 13:50m video posted by the Saker on his website The Vineyard of the Saker. 

I agree with the Saker that the video is excellent.



In case you have not heard the intercepted phone conversation referred to in this video between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to the Ukraine, Geoffrey Pratt, here is what the narrator is referring to.

US/Turkey Sign Deal to Arm Death Squads in Syria ...

Click here to access article by Brandon Turbeville from Activist Post. 

Turbeville assembles considerable evidence to show that not only US and Turkey are supporting ISIS as a way to overthrow Syria's government, but that Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are also apart of this war crimes project. We also learn efforts to negotiate a ceasefire are used whenever the anti-Syrian forces are threatened. This reminds me of the ceasefires in Ukraine.

Soros Big-Business Accountability Project Funded by Big-Business

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from Land Destroyer Report. 

After the various "color revolutions" (e.g., the former Yugoslavia, Georgia, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine) NGOs have increasingly been a focus of attention of people trying to understand this phenomenon that has been frequently occurring in recent history. Considerable evidence has now been accumulated to indicate that this is another weapon in the arsenal of the Empire to subvert governments into alignment with Empire interests (e.g., western corporate access to natural resources and markets, to promote subservience to Empire banking institutions by encouraging governments to take on debt, to work against adversaries of the Empire). This has been most clearly recognized by adversaries, Russia and China, who are viewed as standing in the way of the Empire's quest for world domination.

...[in May 2014] Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, argued that color revolutions are a new form of warfare invented by Western governments seeking to remove independently-minded national governments in favor of ones controlled by the West. They argued that this was part of a global strategy to force foreign values on a range of nations around the world that refuse to accept U.S. hegemony and that Russia was a particular target of this strategy.

While the West considers color revolutions to be peaceful expressions of popular will opposing repressive authoritarian regimes, Russian officials argue that military force is an integral part of all aspects of color revolutions. Western governments start by using non-military tactics to change opposing governments through color revolutions that utilize the protest potential of the population to engineer peaceful regime change. But military force is concealed behind this effort. If the protest potential turns out to be insufficient, military force is then used openly to ensure regime change.

Indeed, this description fits perfectly with what we know about the overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine. 

In this article Cartalucci contributes information on the funders behind such NGOs. They are a network of philanthropic agencies who ultimately are tied to key Empire funders.

...an interconnected, incestuous network leading each time back to George Soros' Open Society Network, the OCED, USAID, British DIFD, Australia Aid, and the UN Development Program, all of which are directly partnered with the largest banking, big oil, defense contractors, and consumer multinationals on earth.

U.S. Drops to 49th in World Press Freedom Rankings, Worst Since Obama Became President

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept.

Each year, Reporters Without Borders issues a worldwide ranking of nations based on the extent to which they protect or abridge press freedom. ....

That is the lowest ranking ever during the Obama presidency, and the second-lowest ranking for the U.S. since the rankings began in 2002 (in 2006, under Bush, the U.S. was ranked 53rd). The countries immediately ahead of the U.S. are Malta, Niger, Burkino Faso, El Salvador, Tonga, Chile and Botswana.

Some of the U.S.’s closest allies fared even worse, including Saudi Arabia (164), Bahrain (163), Egypt (158), the UAE (120), and Israel (101...).