you ever hear any butt faced politicians or 'law' enforcement speak about how wonderful the empire is because we have 'freedom' of the press, as this post illustrates though a bit different than the braggards will have you believe. these days there are three 'political' divisions in the world; brics, the empire, and everyone else. sort of how orwell divided the world for his book;

Israel is a murderous, tyrannical, psychopathic regime. So is the western empire. So when westerners talk about having “shared values” with Israel, they’re not actually lying.

British journalist Richard Medhurst reports that on Thursday he was arrested and treated as a terrorism suspect for the expression of political opinion under Section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act. 

As Consortium News explains, under this law one can be prosecuted if the accused “invites support for a proscribed organisation” or “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation,” meaning any group the British government says are terrorists.

Every part of this is a horrifying assault on press freedoms and freedom of expression.

Axios headline: “Hamas rejects new U.S. proposal for Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal”.

Seven paragraphs down: “specifically, Hamas objects to the fact that the proposal doesn’t include a permanent ceasefire”.

So Hamas “rejected” a “ceasefire” because it wasn’t a ceasefire — at least not in any way that matters to people who want the killing to end.

For months on end Israel and its western spinmeisters have been exploiting the fact that “ceasefire” can mean a temporary pause in the genocide in a way that allows them to keep framing Hamas as rejecting a peace deal, when really they just want a permanent end to the killing. 

No normal human being is asking for a temporary pause in Israel’s genocide; that is literally never, ever what anyone means when they call for a ceasefire. But these pedantic word games are being used to obfuscate the reality that Israel and its western backers want the genocide to continue.........more......