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Reporters Claim To Have Proof China Lying About Virus Death Toll As Total Cases Near 8,000; Another 12,000 Suspected
Reporters Claim To Have Proof China Lying About Virus Death Toll As Total Cases Near 8,000; Another 12,000 Suspected
Summary:
- Death toll climbs to 170 from 132, with 7,711 cases confirmed in China and 7,814 worldwide, while the number of suspected cases has soared by 2,928 to 12,167 from 9,239 yesterday
- Reporter claims local media has evidence Beijing lying about death toll
- British Airways cancels flights to China
- Trump says he spoke with Xi over the phone
- Angry mobs spotted in Sichuan
- CDC sending representatives to China
- 3 Japanese aboard evac flight test positive for coronavirus
* * *
Update (1850ET):
China’s NHC just released another up . China now admits to 7,771 cases across the country, Adding nearly 1,800 from 5,974 yesterday. The death toll has climbed to 170, and 170 patients have been cured. Some 31 cases were labeled “severe” and nearly 82,000 are under observation. What is perhaps most shocking is that the number of suspected cases soared by nearly 3,000 overnight from 9,239 to 12,167.
In another major development, state media reports that the first case of coronavirus has been confirmed in Tibet. It was the only region in China with zero confirmed cases, though that streak is now over.
In a disturbing development, three of the Japanese citizens rescued from Wuhan aboard Japan’s evac flight Wednesday have tested positive for cornavirus – so now the Japanese government is essentially importing the virus on the evacuation flight. We hope all those on the flight will be quarantined for a while given the virus’s reputation of spreading asymptomatically.
Here’s a breakdown of all the revisions…
- Confirmed cases +29% (from 5974 to 7711)
- Suspected cases +32% (from: 9239 to 12167)
- Severe cases +10% (from 1239 to 1370)
- Death toll +29% (from 232 to 170
…and here’s a copy of the announcement from China’s National Health Office, translated into English via Google:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
32 Misinformation Schemes & Other Tactics Used by Wall Street, Corporate America & the Media, as Pointed Out Hilariously by WOLF STREET Commenters
32 Misinformation Schemes & Other Tactics Used by Wall Street, Corporate America & the Media, as Pointed Out Hilariously by WOLF STREET Commenters
Selected from so many Nits to Pick.
This is a collection of 32 tactics, instances, misnomers, immortal fake propaganda, and even wrong-doing cropping up ceaselessly on Wall Street, in the media, in press releases, in earnings reports, and in the broader nexus between Wall Street and the media. All of them were pointed out by WOLF STREET commenters. I put them together and grouped some of them, and added some explanations in a few cases even when not needed. In no particular order:
#1: “The moronic statements regarding ‘money on the sidelines.’”
“That ‘money on the sidelines’ thing drives me nuts. I sit around wondering how captured financial commentators must be to even entertain such concepts on such a regular basis.”
“Money on the sidelines is immortal. It has been cited all my investing life, and it will still be cited long after I’m gone, to be passed proudly from generation to generation, no matter how often it gets debunked.”
“I found a coin on the sidewalk once. It must be the infamous sidelines money. Just a million coins more, and I will have enough to go on vacation.”
#2: “The claptrap surrounding earnings beats – after earnings targets have been quietly but drastically reduced.”
#3: “Forward earnings projections” to rationalize high stock prices. Everyone is doing it, even the Fed. Forward earnings projections are part of the great body of American fiction and get slashed as earnings-report dates get nearer so that the much-lowered projections can then be “beat” (see #2 above). This produces the absurd situation where forward P/E ratios are always far lower (currently 18.4 according to FactSet) than the actual P/E ratios (currently 24.6, highest since the Financial Crisis).
#4: “The revolving door between government and Wall Street – ‘the swamp.’” Drain it already.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Hugely Important OPCW Scandal Keeps Unfolding. Here’s Why No One’s Talking About It.
The Hugely Important OPCW Scandal Keeps Unfolding. Here’s Why No One’s Talking About It.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is now hemorrhaging evidence that the US and its allies deceived the world once again about yet another military intervention, which should be a front-page story all over the world. Yet if you looked at American news media headlines you’d think the only thing that matters right now is indulging the childish fantasy that Donald Trump might somehow magically be removed from office via supermajority consensus in a majority-Republican Senate.
CounterPunch has published an actual bombshell of a report by journalist Jonathan Steele containing many revelations about the OPCW scandal which were previously unknown to the public. Steele is an award-winning reporter who worked as a senior foreign correspondent for The Guardian back before that outlet was purged of all critical thinkers on western imperialism; he first waded into the OPCW controversy last month with a statement made on the BBC revealing the existence of a second whistleblower on the organisation’s investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria.
If you haven’t been following this story you can click here for a timeline of events to fully appreciate the significance of these new revelations about the Douma incident, but just to quickly recap, in April of last year reports surfaced that dozens of civilians had been killed in that city by chemical weapons used by the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad. This immediately drew skepticism from people who’ve been paying attention to the narrative manipulation campaign against Syria, since Assad had already won the battle for Douma and had no strategic reason to employ banned weapons there knowing that there would be a military strike in retaliation from western powers. True to form, a few days later the US, France and the UK launched airstrikes on the Syrian government.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Le Mesurier Gets Cross
Le Mesurier Gets Cross
Perhaps the only fact on James Le Mesurier about which I would agree with the MSM war cheerleaders is that he was a very busy man. It is remarkable therefore that he found the time and inclination to follow “Philip Cross” on twitter. Given that “Philip Cross” has virtually never posted an original tweet, and his timeline consists almost entirely of retweets of Nick Cohen, David Aaronovitch and openly pro-Israel propaganda accounts, why would Le Mesurier bother to follow him?
“Philip Cross” has never posted any news other than to retweet columnists. He has never given an insight into a story. In addition to James Le Mesurier, why then were all these MSM journailsts following “Philip Cross” from before “he” gained notoriety for his Wikipedia exploits?
Oliver Kamm, Leader Writer The Times
Nick Cohen, Columnist The Guardian/Observer
Joan Smith, Columnist The Independent
Leslie Felperin, Film Columnist The Guardian
Kate Connolly, Foreign Correspondent The Guardian/Observer
Lisa O’Carroll, Brexit Correspondent The Guardian
James Bloodworth, Columnist The Independent
Cristina Criddle, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme
Sarah Baxter, Deputy Editor, The Sunday Times
Iain Watson, Political Correspondent, The BBC
Caroline Wheeler, Deputy Political Editor, the Sunday Times
Jennifer Chevalier, CBC ex-BBC
Dani Garavelli, Scotland on Sunday
Prominent Freelancers
Bonnie Greer (frequently in The Guardian)
Mason Boycott-Owen (The Guardian, New Statesman)
Marko Attilla Hoare (The Guardian)
Kirsty Hughes
Guy Walters (BBC)
Paul Canning
What attracted all of these senior MSM figures to follow an obscure account with almost no original content? No reasonable explanation of this phenomenon has ever been offered by any of the above. What a considerable number of them have done is to use the megaphone their plutocrat or state overlords have given them, to label those asking this perfectly reasonable question as crazed conspiracy theorists.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is Orwell’s Ministry of Truth Alive?Why Don’t We Hear Much About Julian Assange?
Is Orwell’s Ministry of Truth Alive?Why Don’t We Hear Much About Julian Assange?
In Orwell’s dystopian fiction 1984, the government’s mission through the Ministry of Truth is to supply its people with news, entertainment, books, films, plays and songs, packed with the information it wants the people to know. It constructs lies to fit the narrative it wishes to establish and sets about rewriting historical documents so they match the constantly changing current party line.
Have we slept walked our way into 1984 with the curious witchhunt of Julian Assange?
From the time Wikileaks published Collateral Murder in 2010, exposing the slaying of Iraqi civilians at the hands of merciless US Apache soldiers, in what became the biggest news story of its time, the United States has wanted Julian Assange silenced and forgotten.
He has lived in a state of confinement since May 2010 when he was arrested and jailed in the United Kingdom, lived under house arrest for a further 18 months in England and then sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy from June 2012 .Yet many people think Assange was in a position where he could simply walk free.
Has there been a well crafted smear campaign to dehumanise Assange and coax the public into forgetting him? How else could he have been detained within two tiny rooms devoid of sunlight for more than six years without public commentary and concern? The apparent dismantling of Assange’s character and disinformation has been thorough. Most people do not know the specifics of his case, but “believe” he is an arrogant rapist and an ungrateful, badly behaved houseguest, smearing faeces on the embassy walls and being cruel to his cat. These disputed claims are now so well accepted it’s inconceivable that they could actually be lies.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Real Reasons Why The Media Is Suddenly Admitting To The Recession Threat
The Real Reasons Why The Media Is Suddenly Admitting To The Recession Threat
One thing that is important to understand about the mainstream media is that they do tell the truth on occasion. However, the truths they admit to are almost always wrapped in lies or told to the public far too late to make the information useful. Dissecting mainstream media information and sifting out the truth from the propaganda is really the bulk of what the alternative media does (or should be doing). In the past couple of weeks I have received a rush of emails asking about the sudden flood of recession and economic crash talk in the media. Does this abrupt 180 degree turn by the MSM (and global banks) on the economy warrant concern? Yes, it does.
The first inclination of a portion of the liberty movement will be to assume that mainstream reports of imminent economic crisis are merely an attempt to tarnish the image of the Trump Administration, and that the talk of recession is “overblown”. This is partially true; Trump is meant to act as scapegoat, but this is not the big picture. The fact is, the pattern the media is following today matches almost exactly with the pattern they followed leading up to the credit crash of 2008. Make no mistake, a financial crash is indeed happening RIGHT NOW, just as it did after media warnings in 2007/2008, and the reasons why the MSM is admitting to it today are calculated.
Before we get to that, we should examine how the media reacted during the lead up to the crash of 2008.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
MIT Rocket Scientist Weighs In On Leaked Syria Chemical Investigation Memo
MIT Rocket Scientist Weighs In On Leaked Syria Chemical Investigation Memo
“The evidence is overwhelming that the gas attacks were staged,” Award-winning scientist and MIT professor emeritus Theodore Postol told The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté in a newly published interview. Theodore “Ted” Postol speaking at the The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The interview with the noted MIT rocket scientist comes after Fox’s Tucker Carlson featured rare mainstream coverage of the bombshell leaked OPCW report on his show Thursday night.
The “smoking gun” memo refutes key events surrounding the April 2018 alleged chemical gas attack in Douma, Syria – which resulted at the time in massive US and allied airstrikes on Damascus, including the launch of over one hundred Tomahawk cruise missiles.
As we summarized previously of the leaked chemical weapons engineer report from the world’s chief international chemical weapons watchdog group:
The document, whose authenticity the OPCW has confirmed, contends that the official story which was used to justify an air strike by the US, UK and France about poison gas being dropped on civilians from Syrian government helicopters is scientifically implausible, saying “In summary, observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest that there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.”
Watch the interview below:
Postol said during the interview:
“If I were advising somebody, as I did when I was in the Pentagon, I advised the chief of naval operations, and part of my job was to take technically detailed analysis and translate it into information that could be readily understood by an intelligent non-expert, so if I were briefing the chief on this particular document, I would not caveat it quite the way that the [OPCW] professionals did, although they did a good job…”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Media Narratives Became More Important Than Facts
A cameraman in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Oct. 19, 2016. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)
How Media Narratives Became More Important Than Facts
Commentary
The day that I told CBS News I wished to leave my job as investigative correspondent ahead of my contract, I didn’t give a reason. I didn’t see the point because the problem wasn’t fixable.
Nor was it isolated to CBS News.
My own take is that—as our industry has changed in ways that have become undeniable to most—I was a bit of the canary in the coal mine. By that, I mean I believe I was among the first to really pay attention to the increasingly effective operations to shape and censor news—the movements to establish narratives rather than follow facts—and to see the growing influence of smear operations, political interests, and corporate interests on the news.
It’s not that I’m smarter than my peers, and I’m surely far less smart than many, but my particular brand of off-narrative reporting happened to draw the intense attention of the smear operators and propagandists, so I began to study it.
A case in point: the smear that was promulgated when I left CBS. It was often incorrectly reported that I told CBS management I was quitting due to liberal media bias. That false story turned out to be convenient for both political sides, and largely survives today. It simply wasn’t rooted in fact. And I don’t recall reporters even asking me whether it was true. Once a few articles reported that it was, others simply copied the claim and adopted it as if established fact, eventually without attribution. Now there would be no point in trying to clarify it. After all, Wikipedia says it’s true. No going back from that.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Chapter 7: Secrets, Ignorance and Lies: Money, Credit and Debt
CHAPTER 7: SECRETS, IGNORANCE AND LIES: MONEY, CREDIT AND DEBT.
“The tyranny of fraud is not less oppressive than that of force.” John Taylor of Caroline, Virginia (1814).
Our money system relies on people not understanding it. If people understood it, they would demand reform.[1]
The most outrageous falsehoods are propagated daily about money and banking. Here are one or two examples:
‘A commercial bank is fundamentally nothing more than a middleman to put these two groups of people (investors and entrepreneurs) together in an efficient way’.[2]
This untruth is repeated regularly in education and the media, and most people believe it. The ‘middleman’ story is denied repeatedly and explicitly by authorities who know about the system, and are honest.
Here are some authoritative denials of the ‘middleman’ narrative:
The Bank of England: “One common misconception is that banks act simply as intermediaries, lending out the deposits that savers place with them…[this] ignores the fact that, in reality in the modern economy, commercial banks are the creators of deposit money. …Rather than banks lending out deposits that are placed with them, the act of lending creates deposits – the reverse of the sequence typically described in textbooks.”[3]
Abbott Payson Usher (20th century banking historian): ‘The essential function of a banking system is the creation of credit, whether in the form of the current accounts of depositors, or in the form of notes. The form of credit is less important than the fact of credit creation.’[4]
Joseph Schumpeter (economist): ‘It is much more realistic to say that the banks ‘create credit’, that is, that they create deposits in their act of lending, than to say they lend the deposits that have been entrusted to them.’[5]
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Factcheck: What Greenland ice cores say about past and present climate change
Factcheck: What Greenland ice cores say about past and present climate change
A misleading graph purporting to show that past changes in Greenland’s temperatures dwarf modern climate change has been circling the internet since at least 2010.
Based on an early Greenland ice core record produced back in 1997, versions of the graph have, variously, mislabeled the x-axis, excluded the modern observational temperature record and conflated a single location in Greenland with the whole world.
More recently, researchers have drilled numerous additional ice cores throughout Greenland and produced an updated estimate past Greenland temperatures.
This modern temperature reconstruction, combined with observational records over the past century, shows that current temperatures in Greenland are warmer than any period in the past 2,000 years. That said, they are likely still cooler than during the early part of the current geological epoch – the Holocene – which started around 11,000 years ago.
However, warming is expected to continue in the future as human actions continue to emit greenhouse gases, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Climate models project that if emissions continue, by 2050, Greenland temperatures will exceed anything seen since the last interglacial period, around 125,000 years ago.
Ice cores as climate ‘proxies’
Widespread thermometer measurements of temperatures only extend back to the mid-1700s. Scientists investigating how temperatures have changed prior to the invention of thermometers need to rely on a variety of climate “proxies”, which are correlated with temperature and can be used to infer, with some uncertainties, how it has changed in the past.
An ice core from Greenland is prepared for cutting at the National Ice Core Laboratory. Credit: Jim West / Alamy Stock Photo.
Climate proxies can be obtained from sources, such as tree rings, ice cores, fossil pollen, ocean sediments and corals. Ice cores are one of the best available climate proxies, providing a fairly high-resolution estimate of climate changes into the past.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How (And How Not) To Beat A Smear Campaign
How (And How Not) To Beat A Smear Campaign
Anyone who opposes western interventionism or thinks the poor are human beings is a Russian antisemite. If you disagree, it’s because you are a Russian antisemite, too.
Narrative is a funny thing. You can do everything right, cross all your ‘T’s and dot all your ‘I’s and color within all the official lines, but if you offend the powerful they can still rearrange the dominant narrative underneath you to kill your public influence.
In Venezuela right now some guy named Juan is being elevated to the leadership of the nation simply by the governments of other nations referring to him as “President Guaido” and denying the legitimacy of the actual guy who is running the Venezuelan government. The funny thing about that is if enough people believe it, it can theoretically work; the only thing keeping leaders in place is the agreed-upon narrative that they’re the leaders. If you can replace that narrative with a different one, as powerful people are currently attempting to do, in theory it is possible to effect a coup by pure narrative. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect illustration of the power of narrative control.
Smear campaigns work in the same way. Anyone challenging authorized narratives and the status quo of oligarchic hegemony can have their reputations destroyed by the lackeys of the plutocratic class which exerts massive influence over the political/media class, thereby neutralizing their ability to influence the public. If the public distrusts someone, they aren’t going to believe the narratives that that person is putting forward, even if those narratives are as sane as protecting the poor, opposing senseless warmongering, or defending Palestinian rights. In today’s political climate where smearing someone as a socialist or communist is increasingly ignored, the most effective smear campaigns are currently those which paint the target as a servant of the Kremlin or a hater of Jews.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Greenwashing the Climate Catastrophe
Greenwashing the Climate Catastrophe
“With “capitalism in danger of falling apart” (a rare, cryptically honest quote from Al Gore), and years of stagnant global economic growth now in a free fall, the Greta campaign must be understood for what it is. An elaborate distraction that has nothing to do with protecting the natural world, and everything to do with the manufacturing of consent. The required consent of the citizenry that will unlock the treasuries and public monies under the guise of climate protection.” –
– Cory Morningstar and Forest Palmer, from The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – For Consent: The House is on Fire & the 90 Trillion Dollar Rescue, 2019
“One might think that if someone were conscious enough to recognise that global ecology was compromised and that pollutants were destroying fresh water, and the land, and that global warming was quite possibly going to make huge swatches of land non arable — you might think that person would look for solutions in a political frame. After all it was global capital that had brought mankind to this historic precipice. But instead, many if not nearly all the people I speak with, frame things in terms of personal responsibility. Stop driving big diesel SUVs, stop flying to Cabo for vacation, stop eating meat, etc-. But these same people tend to not criticize capitalism. Or, rather, they ask for a small non crony green capitalism. I guess this would mean green exploitation and green wars? For war is the engine of global capitalism today. Cutting across this are the various threads of the overpopulation theme. A convenient ideological adjustment that shifts blame to the poorest inhabitants of the planet.”
– John Steppling, Trust Nothing, 2019
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”
– Noam Chomsky, The Common Good, 1998
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
All Along the Watchtower
All Along the Watchtower
‘There must be some way out of here’
Said the joker to the thief
‘There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth’
‘No reason to get excited’, the thief he kindly spoke
‘ There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late’
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl
All Along the Watchtower, by Bob Dylan (1967)
Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes?
But who will watch the watchmen?
Satires, by Juvenal (2nd Century)
We haven’t published an update on our Fiat News Index for a little while, but it is for a good reason. We are working on an improved version that does more to handle gradations, nuance and context in affective language. If the concept of fiat news is new to you, Ben’s original piece here offers the best explanation. In short, it is news which broadly cheapens the credibility of media by presenting opinion as fact. It debases information in the same way that a capricious sovereign might debase a currency. It tells you how to think.
But there is a certain type of fiat news which is the most pernicious, most in need of calling out where it rears its head. It seeks, like all fiat news, to present subjective judgments and opinions as fact.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Doomsday “Experts” Warn Of Civilization-Ending Information Wars
Doomsday “Experts” Warn Of Civilization-Ending Information Wars
Just when you were running short on things to fear, a group of US “doomsday” experts said on Thursday that information warfare is amplifying major worldwide threats as the infamous Doomsday Clock remained at two minutes to midnight, reports AFP.
Where does this lurking threat lie according to said experts? “The manipulation of facts, fake news and information overload — along with global warming and flirting with nuclear war — are all factors that have brought humans as close to destroying the planet as ever, said the non-profit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.”
“Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention,” said the scientists. “These major threats — nuclear weapons and climate change — were exacerbated this past year by the increased use of information warfare to undermine democracy around the world, amplifying risk from these and other threats and putting the future of civilization in extraordinary danger.”
The clock did not budge from last year, but that “should not be taken as a sign of stability,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the group of scholars and international experts in security, nuclear, environmental and science fields.
“It is a state as worrisome as the most dangerous times of the Cold War,” said Bronson at a press conference in the US capital, describing the current climate as “The New Abnormal.”
“The velocity of information has increased by orders of magnitude, allowing information warfare and fake news to flourish,” she said.
“It generates rage and polarization across the globe at a time when we need calm and unity to solve the globe’s greatest problems.”
This “New Abnormal” is “a state that features an unpredictable and shifting landscape of simmering disputes that multiply the chances for major conflict to erupt,” she added.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Confronting “Alternative Facts”
Confronting “Alternative Facts”
They are unending. There’s no way to keep up, much less respond effectively, and it almost goes without saying that they are never to be taken back, corrected, or amended in any way. Call them false claims, lies, untruths, misstatements, whatever you want, but they are what comes out of his mouth just about anytime he opens it. Take, for instance, that moment as 2018 ended when, in a blacked-out plane, he landed at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq for a three-hour presidential visit with the troops. It was there that he swore (as he had before) that he had won those troops a 10% pay raise for 2019 and that, to do so, he had fought it out in the trenches with unnamed military officials. (“They said, you know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3%. We could make it 2%. We could make it 4%.’ I said, ‘No. Make it 10%. Make it more than 10%.’”) He insisted as well that they hadn’t had a raise, not just of such a monumental sort but of any kind, in “more than 10 years.” As it happens, what were once known as the facts went like this: those troops last received a pay raise — of 2.4% — in 2018 (and every year before that for three decades); the 2019 pay raise is for 2.6%, not 10%; and those unnamed military officials evidently won!
For any half-normal president that would have been the trifecta: three outlandish falsehoods in a single try, but for Donald Trump it was just the modest, everyday demonstration of his remarkable ability to adjust reality to his needs, desires, and fantasies, and (as Jean-Luc Picard would once have said) “Make it so”! After all, for the man who, according to Washington Post fact-checkers, managed to make almost 6,000 “false and misleading claims” in 2018 alone, more than 15 a day and almost triple his record-setting pace of the previous year, that was nothing.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
