How Bloomberg “News” Censors the News

Over the weekend, I was alerted to a fascinating story that I hadn’t read about before. It relates to a piece of investigative journalism led by two Bloomberg News journalists out of Hong Kong. The report focused on the financial relationship between a Chinese billionaire and political leaders and it was being led by Michael Forsythe and Shai Oster. Forsythe and Oster were also the lead reporters on a story that Bloomberg News ran in 2012, which exposed the massive wealth of China’s leadership. That story angered the Chinese elite to such an extent that they stopped buying terminals  from Bloomberg LP for a period of time and also suspended new residency visas for its news employees.

Apparently, the loss of revenue was enough to convince Bloomberg to abandon real journalism, because according to the New York Times, the organization’s head editor, Matthew Winkler killed the story. The journalists had apparently been working on it for a year and were understandably none too pleased to hear about it being shelved. We learn that:

BEIJING — The decision came in an early evening call to four journalists huddled in a Hong Kong conference room. On the line 12 time zones away in New York was their boss, Matthew Winkler, the longtime editor in chief of Bloomberg News. And they were frustrated by what he was telling them.

The investigative report they had been working on for the better part of a year, which detailed the hidden financial ties between one of the wealthiest men in China and the families of top Chinese leaders, would not be published.

In the call late last month, Mr. Winkler defended his decision, comparing it to the self-censorship by foreign news bureaus trying to preserve their ability to report inside Nazi-era Germany, according to Bloomberg employees familiar with the discussion.

Oh good lord, how desperate can you get to justify censorship. Somehow, the New York Times was able to report on JP Morgan’s bribes in China just last week despite also having its visas pulled.

Bloomberg News infuriated the government in 2012 by publishing a series of articles on the personal wealth of the families of Chinese leaders, including the new Communist Party chief, Xi Jinping. Bloomberg’s operations in China have suffered since, as new journalists have been denied residency and sales of its financial terminals to state enterprises have slowed. Chinese officials have said repeatedly that news coverage on the wealth and personal lives of Chinese leaders crosses a red line.

Of course they think that, which is why we have journalism in the first place. To write about it anyway.

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How the NYPD is in Bed with JP Morgan

Under some Orwellian concept of citizen surveillance, the very Wall Street banks that proved they were a far greater threat to the United States than any foreign terrorist when they collapsed the Nation’s financial system in 2008, are part of a joint venture with the NYPD to use high-tech spy equipment to monitor the comings and goings of citizens in the streets of Manhattan – the majority of which, unlike Wall Street, are law abiding citizens.

– Pam Martens, from her recent article: Despite Eight Ongoing Criminal/Civil Investigations of JPMorgan, the Bank’s a Law Enforcement Partner With the NYPD

Michael Bloomberg made his priorities and strategy quite clear throughout his extended tenure as New York City’s mayor. It is far easier to demonize large sodas, salt and cigarettes than it is to go after the real criminals running wild in Manhattan. After all, why go after your billionaire oligarch finance pals when you can randomly stop thousands of disenfranchised, dark-complexioned serfs toiling in the barrios and forgotten areas of your neo-feudal city in order to look “tough on crime.”

It’s one thing to target the poor while protecting the very rich. We already know that’s been the central tenet of Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership strategy. That said, it is quite another to have the NYPD work side by side with JP Morgan employees (a company facing eight ongoing criminal/civil investigations) as some sort of law enforcement strategy. Yet, that is precisely what it has been doing.

NYPDbankster

More from Pam Martens of Wall Street on Parade:

Nothing reveals the incestuous, one-percent-mindset that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have with Wall Street than the next to last photo at this link. The photo shows an employee of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s number one target for financial fraud investigations, JPMorgan Chase, working inside a high security spy center in Lower Manhattan to — wait for it — help the New York City Police Department catch crooks.

While most law enforcement bodies around the U.S. would instantly weed out serial wrongdoers as job hires, Bloomberg and Kelly have created an art form out of joint policing ventures with Wall Street, operating both a rent-a-cop program with Wall Street as well as pumping at least $150 million of taxpayer money into the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center where Wall Street employees sit elbow to elbow with NYPD officers.

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Another Day, Another Temper Tantrum from Mayor Bloomberg

It is just incredible how quick NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is to throw a temper tantrum whenever anyone dares question his crusade to rid the nation of its remaining civil liberties.  In this case, his targets are those that criticize his feudalistic and extraordinarily racist “stop and frisk policy,” which I highlighted last October in my post: The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk Policy.

So now that the policy is being questioned in court, Bloomberg has once again transitioned into his usual role as a petulant child.  Scott Shackford at Reason.com did a great job covering his latest nonsensical outburst.  First he quotes the New York Times:

Speaking at Police Headquarters, Mr. Bloomberg took a swipe at those suing the department in Federal District Court in Manhattan over the stop -and-frisk practices, but he saved his strongest words for legislators and mayoral candidates “playing politics with people’s lives.”

“Look at what’s happened in Boston,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “Remember what happened here on 9/11. Remember all of those who’ve been killed by gun violence and the families they left behind.”

Remember Boston!  Remember 9/11!  This guy has zero shame.  All he does is immediately exploit national tragedies to advance his surveillance state agenda.

Scott then goes on to write:

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Mayor Bloomberg on Drones: “Oh it’s Big Brother. Get Used to it”

While hosting his weekly radio show this past Friday, Your Royal Highness Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained to the serfs of NYC that privacy is dead and that you just “can’t keep the tide” of the surveillance state from coming in.  His quotes perfectly demonstrate the attitude he takes toward his subjects and are quite revealing.  For instance:

“Everybody wants their privacy, but I don’t know how you’re going to maintain it.  It’s just we’re going into a different world, uncharted, and, like it or not, what people can do, what governments can do, is different.  And you can to some extent control, but you can’t keep the tides from coming in.”

“The argument against using automation, it’s this craziness– oh, it’s Big Brother. Get used to it.”

As if that isn’t bad enough, it also become 100% crystal clear that this guy wants to fill the skies of NYC with “freedom birds.”  He sees absolutely no problem with it at all.  In his own words:

“But what’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? I mean intellectually I have trouble making a distinction. And you know you’re gonna have face recognition software.  People are working on that.”

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How Mayor Bloomberg is Buying Off Elections All Across America

As if it’s not bad enough that we live in a country where crony capitalism is so entrenched that the oligarchs never face justice and are consistently bailed out on the tax payers’ dime, but now we have to suffer from oligarchs using their fortunes to buy-off elections all over the country.  I am specifically referring to one of the biggest hypocrites alive today, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Super PAC, Independence USA.  I want to highlight two recent stories in order to demonstrate exactly what this particular oligarch is up to.  First, from a recent Washington Post article:

It’s a bad day when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s political action committee rolls into town to take you on.

Former congresswoman Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.) is finding that out the hard way right now, as she suffers from a barrage of ads from the super PAC, also known as Independence USA.

The PAC, which has backed gun control supporters and targeted those who oppose it, regardless of party, has so far spent about 20 times the amount Halvorson has been able to raise for her campaign in the special election to replace former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). While Halvorson has raised just about $100,000, Independence USA has spent $2.16 million against her, citing her ‘A’ rating from the NRA.

So because “Your Highness” Bloomberg doesn’t like guns (except when it’s the people protecting him that have them), he overwhelms an Illinois election with money to defeat the pro-gun candidate.  The outcome?  She lost.  This is what Bloomie had to say in the aftermath:

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How to Spot a Hypocrite in the Gun Debate and Other Reflections on Newtown

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

– Justice Louis D. Brandeis

How to Spot a Hypocrite in the Gun Debate and Other Reflections on Newtown
For those of you that follow me on twitter, some of the statements and themes you will read in this article will sound familiar.  What happened on December 14, 2012 was obviously a horrific tragedy that my simple mind can’t possibly wrap itself around, but what I can do is send my deepest thoughts, prayers and sympathies to all of those affected.  I can’t imagine the level of pain and suffering you are all experiencing.  This article; however, isn’t directed at you.  There is nothing I can do to ease your pain.  This article is for the rest of us who weren’t directly affected by the incident, but may be indirectly affected by certain parties’ emotional response to it and by those that will exploit it to justify agendas.

One of the key lessons from all of human history is that the easy way to deal with any tragedy is to scapegoat.  In some cases, like in Nazi Germany, the scapegoat proved to be unpopular minorities, especially Jews.  These days, many Americans have fallen into the trap of scapegoasting Muslims and the Islamic religion for all the bad things that happen on the planet.  The key similarity I see in these sorts of situations is that the population affected by some trauma (hyperinflation and economic collapse in Germany and 9/11 in the United States) tends to resort to the knee-jerk reaction of scapegoating an easy target rather than diving into the complexities of the issue and engaging in societal self-reflection.  This is extraordinarily dangerous.

From what I can tell, some of the most ridiculous polices are the direct result of a trauma, people getting emotional, and then begging for a response.    In my own lifetime, 9/11 is the perfect example.  Our national response to a gruesome attack that killed thousands of innocent civilians was to tear up the Constitution, specifically the cherished Bill of Rights, with insane Big Brother type legislation like the “Patriot” Act.  We basically launched the war on terror by waving a white flag.  Truly defeating terrorists wouldn’t have consisted of running to the mall and shopping, as George W. Bush insisted, or giving up the freedoms that made America the most attractive country to move to for the last two hundred years.  The way to judge victory or defeat in the “war on terror” eleven years later is not to check the statistics on terrorist attacks.  They way to judge victory or defeat is to look at the nation economically, socially and politically and ask yourself are we better off or worse off?  I think the verdict is clear on that front, and I do in large part blame our childish and emotionally reaction to the national tragedy of 9/11.

Well here we stand in mid-December 2012, just days from the Mayan end of the world and another national tragedy has been unleashed on the land.  Most of the victims were innocent, helpless six and seven year old children that never even had the chance to fulfill their potential on this planet.  Unfortunately, just as Ron Paul told us, key parts of the Patriot Act were written and desired by certain factions well before 9/11, there is a powerful faction in the highest echelons of the elite that have wanted and continue to want to remove guns from the hands of innocent American citizens.  These people are not interested in easing violence; these folks want to disarm the public before the mathematically inevitable economic collapse occurs (see my article “Slaves are Always Disarmed”).  While many of these folks claims publicly that there is an “economic recovery” and happy days are just over the horizon, they know better and privately want to get all their ducks in a row before the final and horrific collapse occurs.  This is why the surveillance state is making such aggressive strides at the moment.  It is also why there is a panic to remove firearms from the public.

The person who bothers me the most on this entire topic is Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of my hometown NYC.  You can tell when someone is disingenuous if they freak out over gun violence like it is the biggest issue in America today and at the same time protect the banksters and their “too big to fail” culture, which has and continues to systemically steal trillions of dollars from the poor.  This is Michael Bloomberg to a tee, so this man should have no credibility on any moral subject when he protects and coddles the most dangerous criminal organizations on this planet.  I guess there is something “liberal” about white collar crime.

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Back to 19th Century Living in NYC: Bloomberg Proposes “Tenement Sized” Apartments for $2K a Month

This story is a bit old so I apologize if you have already seen it.  I somehow missed this when it came out, but it came across my radar in the last couple of days and I think it is significant enough to highlight.  Back in February, 2011 I wrote a piece called “Serf Size Me” and in it I predicted:

Sizes are about to shrink dramatically and prices will go up at the same time.  Food quality will probably decrease as well, which is hard to imagine considering the crap that is sold as food every day.  In any event, I have a suggestion for McDonald’s.  They should just teach us Americans to accept our indentured servitude to the financial oligarchs and roll out a “Serf Size” menu.  People will get to the acceptance stage that much faster as they say, “serf size me!” and then walk away with three fries and a five ounce soda.

Well anyone with a pulse and a budget understands all too well how accurate this prediction has been.  What I find incredibly interesting is Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest proposal to construct “micro units,” which are basically tenement sized apartments between 275-300 square feet that will rent for $2,000 a month!  Think I am exaggerating about these being tenement sized?  Well just take these quotes from a CNN article on it:

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