But for the media to name their coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq the same as what the Pentagon calls it — everyday seeing 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' — you have to ask: 'If this were state controlled media, how would it be any different?'

War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals and retired government flacks posing as reporters.

The media—stenographers to power.

Independent media can go to where the silence is and break the sound barrier, doing what the corporate networks refuse to do.

In one of his final acts in office, President Obama shortened the sentences of 209 prisoners, pardoned 64 individuals .The list included Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, longtime imprisoned Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera and retired U.S. Marine Corps General James Cartwright. But missing from the list is 71-year-old Native American activist Leonard Peltier.

[Chelsea] Manning leaked more than 700,000 classified files and videos to WikiLeaks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. foreign policy.

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