Friday 29th of March 2024

not the nuz...

nuz

the hoarders...

White House aid Stephen Miller made headlines last week over his contentious exchange with a CNN reporter during a press briefing about a new immigration bill. Miller made various bold claims about the bill’s benefits, one being that it would reduce “wealth inequality,” provoking backlash from the Huffington Postand the Washington Post.

Income inequality is a popular enemy for politicians to attack. President Obamacalled income inequality the “defining challenge of our time,” and Senator Bernie Sanders famously railed against “the top one-tenth of the top 1 percent” for months during the 2016 election. President Trump won the office because he appealed to low- and middle-class Americans who felt left behind in the age of globalization.

Conservatives tend to brush off concerns about inequality. After all, in the free market, we’re rewarded based not on our class status, but on our own abilities. Right?

Sadly not, argues Richard Reeves. In his new book, Dream Hoarders, Reeves argues that the upper middle class, or the top 20 percent, is “hoarding” the American Dream.

Reeves uses statistics to show that there is both a poverty trap and a wealth trap in America; children born wealthy will stay wealthy, while children born poor will stay poor. Data from the University of Michigan’s Population Studies Center show that 37 percent of children raised by families in the top 20 percent of incomes remain there as adults, while at least a third of children raised in the bottom 20 percent stay there.

Why is this? Reeves first points to unequal development of human capital.

By unequal development of human capital, Reeves is talking about parenting and education. Upper middle class parents are more likely to be married, and they’re more likely to plan their pregnancies. A study at the Columbia School of Social Work found that parenting behavior, namely maternal warmth and sensitivity, to be the most important factor of the gap between upper middle class children and bottom-income quintile children. In other words, parenting behavior is more important than maternal education, family size, and race.

read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-top-20-percent-are-the-real-hoarders-of-wealth/

the defencers...

The so-called Deep State wants President Donald Trump removed from office over fears of what a NATO rollback in Europe would do to the profit margins of the defense industry, journalist, film-maker and author, John Pilger, told RT’s Going Underground.

When asked by Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi if there was a "Deep State coup" against Donald Trump over his willingness to forge a partnership with Moscow, Pilger agreed with that proposition.

“There is a rolling coup attempt against the President of the United States at the moment, there’s no question about that,” Pilger responded. “They want him out. All the major pillars of power in the United States, plus the Democratic Party, plus most of the media, want Trump out.”

The reason for this massive effort to reverse the will of the American election process is directly related to the defense sector, which fears that any attempt by Trump to roll back NATO forces on Russia’s border would damage their bottom line.

“If you take away that whole NATO-backed circus, serious circus, which has lined up on Russia’s Western border - a completely threatening presence of NATO forces on the very borderland through which Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 - if you take that away then what happens to the great armaments companies, the producers of the F-35, the Lockheed Martin, Raytheon…," Pilger surmised.

The root of the problem, he explained, also extended to US legislators who have done “sweetheart deals with the arms companies and the… nuclear weapons industry.”

“What happens to the whole pyramid,” he asked.

Pilger went on to condemn the latest round of anti-Russia sanctions, which effectively nullified the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Weapons Treaty, signed into force by former US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and which effectively ended the Cold War.

“That very treaty, and I haven’t seen this in the newspapers at all, that very treaty is wiped out in these latest sanctions. That ends the last treaty that might stop a nuclear attack.”

read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/399420-trump-coup-deep-state-pilger/

the insiders...

 

British newspaper the Times is apparently preparing to brand RT’s coverage of a story on the intended closure of its accounts with a British government-owned bank an example of fake news meant to further Kremlin policies. RT sets out the facts.

The story began in 2016, when the National Westminster Bank (NatWest) sent a letter to Russia Today TV UK Ltd, the sole provider of all of RT’s operations in the UK, stating that it will no longer provide banking services to it. The letter stated that the entire Royal Bank of Scotland Group, of which NatWest is part, would no longer be available for RT and that the decision was final and not subject to discussion.

RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan shared the news on her Twitter feed. Many commenters voiced outrage over the decision, which was perceived as an attack on a media outlet that often went against the narrative prevailing in the mainstream British media. The fact that RBS is controlled by the British Treasury led some to believe that the decision may have been influenced by the British government.

The imminent closure received worldwide media coverage and was commented on by senior Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Ultimately NatWest chose to reverse the decision.

READ MORE: RT UK’s bank accounts to remain open after NatWest backs down

On Thursday, the Times sent RT a request for comment on a story it is apparently preparing about the initial NatWest decision, alleging that RT provoked international criticism of Britain by running a fake news story. The request alleges that RT reported lies to support the narrative of the Russian government.

The allegation is apparently based on the fact that the letter was addressed to Russia Today TV UK Ltd rather than the channel itself.

The Times narrative appears to be no different from what other British media reported at the time.

READ MORE: UK media tries to spin NatWest’s closure of RT’s British accounts, but facts remain the same

Back then, RT had already explained that disruption to the financial operations of a company, on which RT UK relies for the payment of salaries to dozens of staff and other crucial expenses, would have affected the station’s operations.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/399329-times-natwest-rt-uk/

 

 

Is the "news" that — "the British newspaper the Times is apparently preparing to brand RT’s coverage of a story on the intended closure of its accounts with a British government-owned bank an example of fake news meant to further Kremlin policies" — apparently fake or real news itself? Who knows what "The Times" is "going to publish or not? How does RT knows about this yet to be published or not article, despite the "request from The Times"? Has RT got spies inside "The Times" or double-agents that feed both sides hatred of each others? 

 

fanning the flames with forge bellows...

It’s not every day that you’ll hear a news anchor be so upfront about the media’s worst proclivities — but last week, NBC anchor Brian Williams told a panel of guests that the media’s job was to “scare people to death” about North Korea.

Keep in mind that Williams is the same anchor who was widely ridiculed for waxing lyrical about the “beauty” of American missiles back in April when President Donald Trump bombed a Syrian air force base. Oh, and he’s also the guy who was suspended from his job for six months for making up a story about coming under fire in Iraq. Clearly, Williams has some issues with romanticizing war.

Anyway, what Williams said last week about the media’s role when it comes to tensions between the US and North Korea was remarkably revealing and forthright — even if he didn’t quite mean it that way.

No 'imminent' threat of nuclear war between US and North Korea - CIA Directorhttps://t.co/obIjeUW7rHpic.twitter.com/lSevVcBGW9

— RT (@RT_com) August 14, 2017Hyping the threat

Of course, escalating tensions between the US and North Korea are a clear cause for concern. The flippant way that American politicians have been talking about military action, which could have serious consequences for US allies in that region is heinous. The way Trump himself has ratcheted up tensions with threats of “fire and fury” the likes of which the world has never seen is irresponsible and is the kind of talk that sends the media into a frenzy.

Fox News recently did a segment on how sales of bunkers have gone up about 90 percent in the last two weeks. CBS Detroit reported on how “end of the world” preparation products, like gas masks and radiation antidote potassium iodide, are “flying off the shelves” in a local army supply store.

Media on the other side of the Atlantic are chiming in, too. The UK’s Sun newspaper published an actual World War 3 “survival guide” last week. It’s almost like they’re excited by the prospect of nuclear war.

'US is a country with a proven track record of being a first striker, being an aggressor' (Op-Edge by Adam Garrie) https://t.co/PCCspj5yTn

— RT (@RT_com) August 13, 2017

Stories like these are the fruits of the media’s labor over the past few weeks. Their incessant hyping of the situation now has ordinary people stocking their shelves with doomsday supplies and installing nuclear bunkers on their properties.

Even a former State Department spokesman for the Obama administration has accused the media of “fanning the flames” when it comes to escalating tensions with North Korea.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/399560-media-hyping-north-korea-threat/

Remember the 45 minutes to Cyprus destruction..It was all bullshit of course. Also promoted with zeal by ALL THE  merde-och media around the planet...