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Depleted Citizenry Democracy

Posted by M. C. on November 1, 2023

In what sense do wars support democracy? They merely ensure that many of the persons who made up the populace at the outset of the conflict no longer exist. Despite having never, in most cases, supported the war in which they were destroyed, they will never vote again.

In its cursory treatment of the planned shipment of depleted uranium-tipped missiles to Ukraine, which was opposed by many organizations and countries, NPR host Leila Fadel interviewed one “expert,” Toghzan Kassenova, who cheerfully explained that “it’s important to remember that depleted uranium is considerably less radioactive than natural uranium.”

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/depleted-citizenry-democracy/

by Laurie Calhoun

radioactive sign.

The Joe Biden administration recently managed to persuade politicians and a number of outspoken pundits to applaud the provision of cluster bombs to the Ukrainian government for use on Ukrainian soil. One war crime leads to another, so perhaps no one should be surprised that the U.S. government has now opted to ship depleted uranium-tipped missiles to Ukraine as well. The notion that the use of such weapons will help to defend democracy should jar the cognitive faculties of any person with a functioning cortex.

Democracy is “rule by the people,” while unexploded ordnance, such as the bomblets left behind by cluster munitions, kills future persons in no way supportive of a war which took place before they were born. Similarly, the babies of women exposed to the dust generated by depleted uranium-tipped missiles, found to be carcinogenic and teratogenic in both Kosovo and Iraq, have their prospects radically diminished as a result of the decisions of military and government officials to deploy such weapons. The flawed arguments used to rationalize the shipment of cluster bombs to Ukraine have evidently quelled any analogous concerns among those who support the provision of depleted uranium-tipped missiles to that land.

The primary reason for the near silence in the mainstream media on the issue of DU-tipped missiles is that the Pentagon itself steadfastly denies that the munitions pose any real danger to the inhabitants of the lands where they are used. This is accomplished by setting the epistemological bar unachievably high: demanding something akin to mathematical certainty before admitting that weapons waste harms human beings. The usual “Correlation is not causation!” slogan is recycled every time the government undertakes to defend itself from allegations that it is poisoning people. It happened in Vietnam, after the use of Agent Orange; in Iraq, after the bombing of chemical factories in 1991; in Iraq, again, after the use of open-air burn pits from 2003 on…

In cases where U.S. troops themselves have suffered through exposure to toxic weapons waste, an acknowledgement of causation may finally emerge, decades after a conflict, as in the case of Agent Orange in Vietnam, long after the policymakers have receded from public life. (In an interview with Errol Morris in the 2003 film The Fog of War, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara infamously claimed, to his eternal shame, that he did not recall having authorized the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.) Contemporaneously, the public relations apparatus of the Pentagon reflexively denies any and every allegation of malfeasance, effectively enabling evil by protecting those who perpetrate pernicious policies. When eventually, as in the case of Agent Orange, it becomes undeniable that correlation was in fact causation, the denial of moral responsibility for the harms done is systematically defended through appeal to the good intentions of the government administrators who implemented what proved to be disastrous policies. They meant to do well!

Unfortunately, the press, including once-reputable outlets such as NPR (National Public Radio), now serve primarily to parrot the official proclamations of what has transmogrified into a military state. In its cursory treatment of the planned shipment of depleted uranium-tipped missiles to Ukraine, which was opposed by many organizations and countries, NPR host Leila Fadel interviewed one “expert,” Toghzan Kassenova, who cheerfully explained that “it’s important to remember that depleted uranium is considerably less radioactive than natural uranium.” Kassenova concluded his segment with a rousing endorsement of the plan to send the controversial weapons to Ukraine.

Despite the existence of studies demonstrating anomalous “correlations” between proximity to spent DU-missiles and the incidence of cancer and birth defects, which are most plausibly explained as instances of causation, the U.S. government and its propagandists remain steadfast in their insistence that no proof exists that the use of such weapons in Kosovo and Iraq, among other places, ever harmed anyone. No cancer, no birth defects. The cranks just pulled together all the birth defects and cancer cases they could find and blamed them on the entirely innocent military!

Fortunately, we have a few good critics,

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NPR Report on Depleted Uranium Shells for Ukraine Was a One-Source Dud 

Posted by M. C. on September 28, 2023

Pentagon apologists for DU weapons typically note that alpha particles are so low-energy they “fail to penetrate the dead layers of cells covering the skin, and can be easily stopped by a sheet of paper.” True enough, but when introduced into the body, where the tiny alpha-particle-emitting particles can become lodged in lung or kidney tissue, they prove to be quite good at killing or damaging adjacent cells.

NPR Report on Depleted Uranium Shells for Ukraine Was a One-Source Dud 

Dave Lindorff

In its fundraising promotions, NPR touts shows like Morning Edition as providing listeners a “deeper look” at complicated stories.

Sometimes that is the case, but not this month, in its coverage of an announced decision by the Biden administration to further escalate the violence in Ukraine by supplying that country’s military with controversial depleted uranium (DU) anti-tank shells. Morning Edition (9/8/23) glossed over the reason many nations consider their use an atrocity. In fact, many commercial news organizations did a much better job in reporting in depth on this story.

‘Not nuclear or radioactive’

Morning Edition co-host Leila Fadel had one source for the three-and-half-minute report: Togzhan Kassenova, a senior research fellow at SUNY Albany’s Center for Policy Research, whom she introduced as “an expert on nuclear politics.” (The Center describes itself as having “a long and notable history of managing and implementing grants and sponsored programs for the government of the United States, including projects for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Naval Research.”)

Kassenova, responding to questions from Fadel, misrepresented what DU is and what its risks are when used in battle. “Anti-tank rounds with depleted uranium are not nuclear or radioactive,” she claimed, adding without any further detail that “there are some safety implications that need to be kept in mind.”

In fact, as the US Environmental Protection Agency’s website explains, “Like the natural uranium ore, DU is radioactive.” DU is a mix of U-238 and some other, rarer uranium isotopes that are left after the fissionable U-235 used in nuclear bombs and as reactor fuel has been refined out. All uranium isotopes are significant releasers of alpha particles as they decay; in other words, they’re radioactive. These low-energy but relatively large particles, not even mentioned by Kassenova, are essentially helium nuclei, composed of two protons and two neutrons. They can do serious cellular and genetic damage when uranium dust is ingested or inhaled.

Fadel didn’t question her guest’s effort to minimize the risk posed by uranium projectiles, though even the most cursory attempt to research the issue would have disclosed these problems.

‘A serious health risk’

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For The Record, NPR Absolutely Is US State Propaganda

Posted by M. C. on April 6, 2023

Indeed, the problem with the “state-affiliated media” label hasn’t so much been that it exists, but that it will always be unevenly applied. The label gets pinned to outlets like RT and China Daily while left off of known US propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America. This designation is also nowhere to be seen on other outlets which receive a far greater share of their funding from the state than NPR does, like the UK’s BBC, Australia’s ABC, Canada’s CBC, and the Saudi Press Agency.

https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/for-the-record-npr-absolutely-is?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android

Caitlin Johnstone

American liberals are in an uproar over Twitter’s recent labeling of National Public Radio as “US state-affiliated media”, a designation typically reserved for state media from governments the US is trying to topple like Russia’s RT, China’s CGTN, and Iran’s Press TV.

In an article titled “Twitter labels NPR’s account as ‘state-affiliated media,’ which is untrue,” NPR’s Bill Chappell attempts to argue that his outlet does not deserve to have the same labels affixed to it as state media from naughty governments like Russia and China:

“Noting the millions of listeners who support and rely upon NPR for ‘independent, fact-based journalism,’ NPR CEO John Lansing stated, ‘NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.'”

It is an interesting choice to spotlight NPR’s CEO John Lansing while trying to argue that NPR is not state-affiliated, given that Lansing spent his pre-NPR years as the CEO of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). USAGM is the US government narrative management umbrella which runs overt US state propaganda outlets like Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Voice of America.

In a 1977 article titled “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A.,” The New York Times explicitly names Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia as part of the network constructed by the Central Intelligence Agency to circulate  propaganda. As Fair.org’s Bryce Greene recently noted, USAGM received $810 million in US federal funding in 2022, which is more than twice the amount RT received from Russia for its global operations in 2021.

Lansing’s history is not an anomaly; NPR is regularly overseen by executives who came directly from senior positions in Washington’s official propaganda network. From 1998 to 2008 NPR’s president was a man named Kevin Klose, who previously ran Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and then returned to that job after his decade-long NPR stint. A man named Ken Stern became NPR’s executive vice president in 1999 and was appointed CEO in 2006; prior to that he was the senior advisor to the director of the USAGM’s International Broadcasting Bureau.

So it is a bit funny that John Lansing is now cited complaining about NPR being labeled “state-affiliated media” on Twitter, given that he has devoted his life to promulgating US state-affiliated media. NPR receives funding from the US government, consistently advances the information interests of the US government, and is routinely run by professional propagandists of the US government. You could spend hours of your life just reading through Fair.org’s “NPR” section to see the many, many ways that platform has exhibited wild biases to grease the wheels of the US empire. If NPR is not state-affiliated media, then nobody is.

In his efforts to argue that his outlet is not state-affiliated media, Bill Chappell also hilariously points out that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended NPR as a wonderful exemplar of journalistic integrity:

When asked about Twitter’s decision during the White House’s daily briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to address Twitter’s content rules specifically. But she also defended NPR’s journalism.

“There is no doubt of the independence of NPR journalists,” Jean-Pierre said. “If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of their questions, you know this.”

Yeah great argument Bill, “The White House says we’re good so we can’t possibly be US state-affiliated media.”

Defenders of NPR try to argue that the label is inaccurate because NPR only receives a small amount of its funding from the US government (between one percent and 15 percent depending on whose talking points they’re reciting), but this claim is undercut by NPR’s own claim that “Federal funding is essential to public radio’s service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR [emphasis theirs].”

It’s probably also worth saying that if I was receiving between one and 15 percent of my funding from the government of Russia or China, I feel quite confident that Twitter would slap me with the “state-affiliated” label immediately, as it has so many others.

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The Pandemic Led To The Biggest Drop In U.S. Life Expectancy Since WWII, Study Finds : Coronavirus Updates : NPR

Posted by M. C. on June 28, 2021

NPR screams “racism” when their own article screams “lockdown” and “isolationism”.

What is a “simulated estimate”? A “government guess”? A step below a “simulated fact”? Oh wait…it is a joke.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/23/1009611699/the-pandemic-led-to-the-biggest-drop-in-u-s-life-expectancy-since-ww-ii-study-fi

Allison Aubrey - 2015 square

Allison Aubrey

A new study estimates that life expectancy in the U.S. decreased by nearly two years between 2018 and 2020, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And the declines were most pronounced among minority groups, including Black and Hispanic people.

In 2018, average life expectancy in the U.S. was about 79 years (78.7). It declined to about 77 years (76.9) by the end of 2020, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal.

“We have not seen a decrease like this since World War II. It’s a horrific decrease in life expectancy,” said Steven Woolf of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and an author of the study released on Wednesday. (The study is based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics and includes simulated estimates for 2020.)

Beyond the more than 600,000 deaths in the U.S. directly from the coronavirus, other factors play into the decreased longevity, including “disruptions in health care, disruptions in chronic disease management, and behavioral health crisis, where people struggling with addiction disorders or depression might not have gotten the help that they needed,” Woolf said.

The lack of access to care and other pandemic-related disruptions hit some Americans much harder than others. And it’s been well documented that the death rate for Black Americans was twice as high compared with white Americans.

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NPR, CNN, NYT, Wa-Po, MSNBC, Twitter, Facebook, Google Presstitutes Covering Up Biden Scandals by Refusing to Report on Them – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on October 24, 2020

NPR is so dishonest that it presents its commercial advertisements as if they are charitable donations in the same tone of voice and words—“with support from”—that NPR uses for its support from foundations. Somehow NPR’s member supporters are too dense to comprehend that if NPR will attempt to pass off a commercial advertiser as a charitable donor, NPR cannot be trusted to objectively convey news.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/10/23/npr-cnn-nyt-wa-po-msnbc-twitter-facebook-google-presstitutes-covering-up-biden-scandals-by-refusing-to-report-on-them/

Paul Craig Roberts

The New York Post’s report that the FBI has laptops belonging to Hunter Biden that contain emails showing Hunter and Joe Biden’s use of the Vice Presidency for business deals that amount to influence peddling and money laundering was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and Google.  The New York Times, Washington Post and other of the press prostitutes tried to discredit the story with the fake news that it was Russian disinformation to help Trump win the election.  National Public Radio refused to mention the story other than to brand it a story that is not really a story, simply a waste of “listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.” [1]  NPR, of course, was all into distractions that wasted readers’ and listeners’ time on Russiagate and Impeachgate and wasted President Trump’s entire term.  

The problem with the press prostitutes’ attempted coverup of the Bidens’ crooked dealings is that the FBI has Hunter Biden’s laptops, and both the FBI and the Department of Justice agree with the statement of John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, that the emails are the real stuff and not a Russian operation to interfere in the November election. [2]

Even worse for the presstitutes and the Bidens, two former business partners have come forward to verify the emails as authentic. [3]  [4]

The emails contain a list of “key domestic contacts” for the influence peddling scheme.  The names on the list are Democrat VP candidate Kamala Harris, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Speaker of the House Dianne Feinstein, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, NY City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and former Virginia governor Terry McCauliffe. [5]  

Whether these high ranking Democrats had agreed or not, I cannot say, but obviously the Biden team thought them corruptible.

The evidence against the Bidens is extremely damaging and is pouring out from Biden associates. [6]

So there it is out in the open.  A Democrat Party and presstitute scum that has spent four years telling lies about President Trump is revealed in all of its sordid corruption.  The  Democrat Party is a gang of crooks, and the American media is nothing but a propaganda ministry for the Democrat Party dedicated to covering up its crimes.  

It is impossible to find an ounce of integrity in the Democrat Party other than Tulsi Gabbard, and she is the party’s shunned member.  No integrity exists in the American TV, print, or NPR media other than Tucker Carlson and one or two others at Fox News.

NPR is the worst of the lot.  NPR pretends to be a “member supported” radio station, but it is nothing but another commercial station.  NPR is so dishonest that it presents its commercial advertisements as if they are charitable donations in the same tone of voice and words—“with support from”—that NPR uses for its support from foundations.  Somehow NPR’s member supporters are too dense to comprehend that if NPR will attempt to pass off a commercial advertiser as a charitable donor, NPR cannot be trusted to objectively convey news.

If Americans elect Democrats next month, they will have turned their government over to a criminal gang and will have empowered the most corrupt media—a.k.a. Ministry of Propaganda—in the history of the world.  The United States will never recover from such a devastating mistake.

[1]  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/waste-time-npr-refuses-cover-hunter-biden-story 

[2]  https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/21/fbi-doj-debunk-claims-the-hunter-biden-laptop-story-is-russian-disinformation/ 

[3]  https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-business-partner-email-genuine-joe-biden-advice 

[4]  https://www.theblaze.com/glenn-radio/peter-schweizer-bevan-cooney-emails- 

[5]  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/22/report-kamala-harris-listed-as-key-contact-for-biden-family-business-venture-in-china/ 

[6]  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/16/exclusive-this-is-china-inc-emails-reveal-hunter-bidens-associates-helped-communist-aligned-chinese-elites-secure-white-house-meetings/?fbclid=IwAR3pLLc6qdFzL9qjSHEsHC2pWfpXql-4cpDy0DX1VRtshr9sHqo2ZWzn6EU 

See also: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/behind-curtain-biden-biz-partner-confirms-joe-involved-hunters-huge-china-deal?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter

and: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/senate-demands-hunter-biden-turn-over-bank-records-wire-transfers-account-balances-and?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter 

and: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/blockbuster-report-reveals-how-biden-family-was-compromised-china?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter

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“In Defense of Looting” – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on August 31, 2020

NPR
“The very basis of property in the U.S. is derived through whiteness and through Black oppression, through the history of slavery and settler domination of the country. Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. And I think that’s a part of it that doesn’t really get talked about—that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory.”

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/08/30/in-defense-of-looting/

The Racist, Anti-White Propaganda Organization Called National Public Radio Justifies Mass Looting as Liberation from White Oppression:

“The very basis of property in the U.S. is derived through whiteness and through Black oppression, through the history of slavery and settler domination of the country. Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. And I think that’s a part of it that doesn’t really get talked about—that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory.”

The reason Democrats don’t enforce law and order is that law and order are protections for white people.  Anything that protects white people is bad, because it lets white people continue their oppression of black people.  This is the level of intelligence at NPR, a font of anti-white ideology.

Americans need to understand that the Democrat Party and their presstitute shills are anti-white and anti-Asian (consider Harvard’s massive discrimination against Asians) and intend not only the dispossession of white people of their property and their lives but also of their country.

Now be a good dumbshit American.  Go give your money to NPR and elect a Democrat.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178/one-authors-argument-in-defense-of-looting

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The Real Racists – PaulCraigRoberts.org

Posted by M. C. on June 12, 2020

I just checked CNN and the BBC and there is nothing about the extraordinary economic destruction and massive thefts. Instead, I learn from CNN that Nascar, a Southern institution, has banned Confederate flags—https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/10/us/nascar-bans-confederate-flag-spt-trnd/index.html . Are Southern people so stupid that they will still attend Nascar races? Yes, they are.

I learned from the BBC that HBO has removed “Gone With The Wind” from its offerings—https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52990714 . The famous movie is not about racism.It is about the South in the aftermath of Lincoln’s war.But the South is racist, and so HBO removed the movie.Are Southern people so stupid that they will still use HBO.Yes, they are.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/06/11/the-real-racists/

Paul Craig Roberts

The worst racists in the world are the US print and TV media, NPR, and university administrations.  Their racism is directed entirely at white people. Although Ron Unz is correct that Harvard University discriminates against Asians and limits their enrollment as Harvard once limited Jewish enrollment, it is white people who are accused by white media and white political leaders of both parties of the racial suppression of black peoples.  Even Trump’s vice president has taken the side of black looters against looted whites, as has the Republican majority leader in the US Senate.

The extraordinary destruction of white and Asian businesses in many instances wiping out a family’s lifetime work, the looting of national businesses whose dumbshit CEOs support the looters, the merciless gang beatings of whites and Asians who attempted to defend their persons and their property, the egging on of the violence by politicians in both parties and by the entirely of the media including many alternative media websites, shows a country undergoing collapse. This is why it is not shown in national media.  Some local media show an indication of the violent destruction in their community, but it is not accumulated and presented to a national audience. Consequently, Americans think the looting and destruction is only a local occurance.

I just checked CNN and the BBC and there is nothing about the extraordinary economic destruction and massive thefts.  Instead, I learn from CNN that Nascar, a Southern institution, has banned Confederate flags—https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/10/us/nascar-bans-confederate-flag-spt-trnd/index.html .  Are Southern people so stupid that they will still attend Nascar races? Yes, they are.

I learned from the BBC that HBO has removed “Gone With The Wind” from its offerings—https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52990714 . The famous movie is not about racism.  It is about the South in the aftermath of Lincoln’s war.  But the South is racist, and so HBO removed the movie.  Are Southern people so stupid that they will still use HBO.  Yes, they are.

Some years ago I read that a movie theater somewhere in the South—it might have been Louisiana or Mississippi—that had always shown Gone With The Wind on an anniversary had ceased to permit the movie to be shown.  Did Southerners protest and burn down the movie theater?  No.

The US Congress demonstrated its unconcern with America’s unraveling by having the brother of the often convicted criminal George Floyd speak to them.  The US Congress is more interested in grandstanding over a convicted felon’s death than in the unfolding death of our country.

How do these facts boil down to white supremacy?  The only person in the US TV media speaking truthfully about what is going on is Tucker Carlson at Fox News whose firing—indeed murder—is demanded by the “white is evil” multitude.  How long can Fox News hold on?

How long can Tucker Carlson hold on when white people have surrendered?  Where are the voices in support of Carlson of the people whose free institutions he speaks for?  Why aren’t those white people whose property and economic lives are being destroyed protesting what blacks are doing to them?

How long can groveling white people hold on?

The Saker is correct. White people are so brainwashed that they do not even know that they are targeted.  Even when it is before their eyes they cannot see it. OnMyGod, it would be racist to acknowledge reality.

There is no doubt that whites have accepted their demise. Whites acknowledge their subservience to blacks  by serving as majority enforcers for punishments of whites.  It is so commonplace that it goes unnoticed. Nascar driver Kyle Larson has been fired for using the n-word—https://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/a32126968/kyle-larson-n-word/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_rdt&utm_medium=email&date=041320&utm_campaign=nl19969952&utm_term=AAA%20–%20High%20Minus%20Dormant%20and%2090%20Day%20Non%20Openers   

Before the white Nascar representatives of black power will give Kyle Larson his livelihood back, he has to grovel and complete “sensitivity training.”

But blacks don’t have to show any sensitivity as they shout “racist” and loot and destroy white property.

Meanwhile the police continue shooting to death more white people than black people, and no one protests.

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Nolte: Bloomberg News Caught on Tape Telling Reporters to Preserve Access to China’s ‘Nazis’

Posted by M. C. on April 15, 2020

These greedy, power-hungry media freaks love communism, love communists, and are desperate to be their useful idiots — even at the expense of truth, their own integrity, what’s best for their own country, and what’s best for humanity:

NPR, naturally, appears to be more upset about Bloomberg’s nondisclosure agreements than the corporate media getting caught playing patty cake with the “Nazi” Chinese.

https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/04/15/nolte-bloomberg-news-caught-on-tape-telling-reporters-to-preserve-access-to-chinas-nazis/

by John Nolte

“Six years ago, Bloomberg News killed an investigation into the wealth of Communist Party elites in China, fearful of repercussions by the Chinese government,” reports the far-left NPR. 

Bloomberg “successfully silenced the reporters involved. And it sought to keep the spouse of one of the reporters quiet, too.”

So according to NPR, the Chinese ambassador got wind of an embarrassing story and warned Bloomberg to not publish. The story was published, but the reporter, Mike Forsythe, who is now with the far-left New York Times, began receiving death threats that were “relayed through other journalists.” This forced Forsythe and his wife, Leta Hong Fincher, to flee Hong Kong.

The problem with Bloomberg began when “the reporting team pursued the next chapter, focusing on Chinese leaders’ ties to the country’s richest man, Wang Jianlin.”

This story was killed. It never ran.

According to NPR, the reasons were finally revealed in an October 2013 conference call led by Bloomberg’s then-editor-in-chief and co-founder, Matthew Winkler (pictured). Someone recorded the call, and NPR says it obtained the recording.

The alleged transcript reveals what any serious media watcher already knows: America’s elite media kowtow to the communist Chinese in the exact same way the media kowtowed to the communist Soviet Union decades ago. These greedy, power-hungry media freaks love communism, love communists, and are desperate to be their useful idiots — even at the expense of truth, their own integrity, what’s best for their own country, and what’s best for humanity:

“It is for sure going to, you know, invite the Communist Party to, you know, completely shut us down and kick us out of the country,” Winkler said. “So, I just don’t see that as a story that is justified.”

Winkler returned to those fears repeatedly. “The inference is going to be interpreted by the government there as we are judging them,” Winkler said. “And they will probably kick us out of the country. They’ll probably shut us down, is my guess.”

Winkler suggested reporters could find a uniquely “Bloomberg” way to cover the wealth of Chinese ruling elites. But he added a caution about covering the regime.

“It has to be done with a strategic framework and a tactical method that is … smart enough to allow us to continue and not run afoul of the Nazis who are in front of us and behind us everywhere,” Winkler said, according to the audio reviewed by NPR and verified by others. “And that’s who they are. And we should have no illusions about it.”

…

“There’s a way to use the information you have in such a way that enables us to report, but not kill ourselves in the process and wipe out everything we’ve tried to build there[.]” [emphasis added]

What’s astounding here is that Winkler is quoted as calling the Chinese elites “Nazis” yet warns his staff to make sure said Nazis don’t feel “judged” by their coverage. So, day by day in the pages of Bloomberg News, we have Republicans all but accused of being racist Nazis while the people who are understood to be actual racist Nazis (with real concentration camps for a religious minority) must be placated.

Only an idiot would believe Bloomberg News is some kind of outlier, especially when we have seen how CNNLOL, the far-left Washington Post, far-left NBC News, and others have carried communist China’s water in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

At the time of those remarks, Mike Bloomberg was still mayor of New York. He returned to his company two months later. Later that year, Forsythe was suspended after the company accused him of “leaking word of the controversy to other news outlets.” Eventually, he was fired, but he had already signed a nondisclosure agreement.

According to NPR, “Bloomberg News pressured someone else to sign a nondisclosure agreement: Forsythe’s wife, Fincher.”

She refused.

If Fincher spoke up, Bloomberg threatened to sue Forsythe for tens of thousands of dollars. Forsythe’s story eventually ran at the far-left Times, and Fincher told her story in The Intercept as the controversy arose during the 2020 presidential election over then-presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg’s history of nondisclosure agreements.

NPR, naturally, appears to be more upset about Bloomberg’s nondisclosure agreements than the corporate media getting caught playing patty cake with the “Nazi” Chinese.

Be seeing you

NPR, Neil Conan and the Voice of God (or, How to Reach ...

 

 

 

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Why Should Serious People Take Such Reporting Seriously? – Cafe Hayek

Posted by M. C. on December 29, 2019

https://cafehayek.com/2019/12/why-should-serious-people-take-such-reporting-seriously.html

by Don Boudreaux

Here’s a letter to the Program Director of NPR’s Here & Now:

Sir or Madam:

Your segment today on climate change unwittingly offers reasons why so many people not on the political left remain skeptical of entrusting governments with more power to regulate in the name of protecting the environment. Almost every second of this segment’s nine-plus minutes portrayed life today as ghastly, treacherous, and destined only to get more hellish. Yet reality is very different.

Your reporting would be more credible if you at least acknowledged such facts as these – facts that uninformed members of your audience would be shocked to learn:

– Global death-rates from natural disasters have fallen dramatically. This rate is today 1/14th what it was a century ago and ½ what it was a half-century ago.

– The proportion of the world’s population with access to clean water is at an all-time high.

– The risk of dying from air pollution is at an all-time low. (Ditto the risk of dying of famine.)

– Life expectancy today continues to rise and is at an all-time high; today it’s much more than twice what it was before the industrial revolution. This happy trend is due in part to the fact that…

– Child mortality is at an all-time low. (Ditto for the maternal mortality rate.)

– People worldwide are better educated.

These and many other positive trends in human well-being are the direct consequence of economic growth – most of which is spawned by free markets and powered by carbon fuels. Your apparent blindness to this reality casts doubt, if not on your objectivity, certainly on your sense of historical perspective. (I laughed out loud when host Jeremy Hobson – talking about Europeans who today suffer from heat waves – said that “Many people don’t have air-conditioning because, over the course of centuries, they haven’t needed it.” In reality, of course, pre-20th-century Europeans didn’t have air-conditioning because innovative free markets hadn’t yet made it possible.)

The general public would surely pay more attention to climate reporting if programs such as yours were to substitute realism for incessant apocalypticism.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

 

 

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@NPR tries and fails to connect “slow moving hurricanes” like #Dorian to “climate change” | Watts Up With That?

Posted by M. C. on September 5, 2019

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/04/npr-tries-and-fails-to-connect-slow-moving-hurricanes-like-dorian-to-climate-change/

Since Dorian didn’t cause any significant U.S. death and devastation that the MSM was looking forward to covering in the vein of “See, climate change!”. NPR had a go at it though, citing a NOAA study that is nothing more than an exercise in cherry picking data. The slow movement of Hurricane Dorian prompted the search for connections.

Is Climate Change Contributing To Slower Moving Hurricanes?

NPR’s Steve Inskeep talks to atmospheric scientist Jim Kossin of NOAA about why more hurricanes like Dorian are moving at slower speeds, and if that has anything to do with climate change. Link to audio interview.

The study cited has data that produces this graph, prepared by “Inside Climate News” one of Tom Steyer’s well funded PR outlets if I recall correctly. They wrote:

Hurricane Dorian’s slow, destructive track through the Bahamas fits a pattern scientists have been seeing over recent decades, and one they expect to continue as the planet warms: hurricanes stalling over coastal areas and bringing extreme rainfall.

…

Recent research shows that more North Atlantic hurricanes have been stalling as Dorian did, leading to more extreme rainfall. Their average forward speed has also decreased by 17 percent—from 11.5 mph, to 9.6 mph—from 1944 to 2017, according to a study published in June by federal scientists at NASA and NOAA.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/03092019/hurricane-dorian-climate-change-stall-record-wind-speed-rainfall-intensity-global-warming-bahamas

Note the starting point, 1944. Also note that the majority of “slow moving hurricanes” are during the satellite era, when hurricane tracking improved by at least an order of magnitude.

“Climate Denial Crock of the Week” producer, Peter Sinclair jumped all over this of course on Twitter “See, climate change!” But atmospheric scientist Wei Zhang would have none of it.

Later in the Twitter thread, there is this telling exchange:

So in a nutshell:

There’s no good storm motion data from earlier recorded hurricanes.

  • What data they had has been “reconstructed” from old charts, which may or may nor be accurate.
  • The study cited doesn’t go back further than 1944, which means the majority of data is from the post 1960 (TIROS-1) satellite era, which is more accurate as a given. This skews the data set towards the present, while the past remains highly uncertain.
  • The study’s graph from 1944 ignored data on slow moving hurricanes as far back as 1915. Evidence exists that many slow moving hurricanes occurred well before the satellite era.

Here is the chart Wei Zhang presented:

Cherry picking to fit the climate alarm agenda, clear and simple.

Wei Zhang said this when the Dorian threat loomed large:

He’s talking about people like Peter Sinclair and Tom Steyer….and people like this, captured by cartoonist Rick McKee:

Be seeing you

fema_closed_due_to_weather

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