[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Notes for AOTA & News from Neptune

Here are some topics to spur discussion. Have a great show guys.


War, Iran: Iran shoots down a US drone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Q5VJB-N-k -- footage of the downing



War, Iran: Congress holds hearing on "The oversight of the Trump 
administration's Iran Policy" after Trump administration adds 1,000 more 
troops to the Middle East

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTRYM8nB83k -- anti-nuclear activist Timmon 
Wallis, Exec. Director of nuclearban.us is interviewed about the JCPOA.



Manufacturing: Weapons manufacturer and aviation company Boeing saw stock 
rise 5.4% in one day and receives 200 new orders (worth $24 billion) for 
737 Max planes after bad press for plane crashes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONNe0OlpCww -- RT's report
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/18/british-airways-parent-places-first-new-order-for-boeing-737-max-since-grounding.html

 From CNBC:
> Boeing on Tuesday won its first order for 737 Max planes since the jets
> were grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes. The vote of
> confidence from British Airways' parent sent shares of the manufacturer
> sharply higher.
> 
> International Consolidated Airlines Group, or IAG, signed a letter of
> intent at the Paris Air Show to order 200 Boeing 737 Max planes. Boeing
> won't post the planes on its monthly order tally until the agreement is
> finalized.
> 
> Aviation authorities grounded the Boeing 737 Max worldwide after two
> crashes within five months killed a total of 346 people. Boeing and
> airlines are awaiting approval from regulators to resume flights with
> the jets, but officials have said they have no firm timeline so far.
> 
> Boeing shares surged 5.4% to close at $373.96, outpacing the broader
> market and leading the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher. It was their
> biggest one-day percentage gain in almost five months.





Russiagate: Now Roger Stone is helping to take down Russiagate claim that 
"Russia hacked DNC servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1j-4-EmMKo -- A bit of background on the 
players: The DNC hired a firm (which calls itself an IT security agency but 
looks more like a PR firm) called "CrowdStrike" to investigate the alleged 
"hack" of DNC's servers. These were the servers from which some Russians 
are alleged to have remotely copied emails over the Internet, later to be 
released to WikiLeaks and later published in July 2016. Evidence from Bill 
Binney shows this is not how those emails got to WikiLeaks -- the amount of 
data copied could not have been copied over the Internet from the DNC's 
server to Russia in the timeframe indicated. But the speed of copying 
matches that of a local copy to something such as a USB key. Hence, the DNC 
emails were leaked from within the DNC not obtained remotely ("hacked"). 
Seth Rich, former DNC employee and later murder victim, was capable of 
copying such data as he had both the skill and the access needed to do this 
job. His murder was so clumsily described by police (initially described as 
a "robbery gone wrong") and never investigated fully that it could be that 
the police are essentially cooperating with a hit against Rich as revenge 
because someone (presumably at the DNC) found out Seth Rich was the source 
of the DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

The DNC's claim that Russia hacked DNC emails is falling apart for the 
Democrats in a new way via discovery in the Roger Stone (former Trump 
campaign adviser) lawsuit. Stone was indicted for witness tampering and 
making false statements all related to WikiLeaks. The US government's 
evidence so far is lacking (likely because the entire set of allegations 
aren't true). Apparently, CrowdStrike prepared 3 draft reports all with 
redactions. Stone's attorneys said:

> The government ... does not possess [unredacted CrowdStrike reports]
> the defendant [Stone] seeks.
> 
> It is clear ... that the government has relied on the assumptions made 
> by a source outside of the U.S. intelligence community that the Russian 
> State was involved in the hacking and that the data taken from the 
> various servers were given to WikiLeaks. The government does not have
> the evidence, when it applied for these search warrants.
CrowdStrike never provided an unredacted report to the DNC. The FBI has 
apparently been content to never inspect the DNC's servers (being satisfied 
with copies of some data -- server images -- CrowdStrike provided instead) 
and we now see accepting a redacted document which ostensibly describes 
"steps taken to remediate the attack and to harden the DNC and DCCC systems 
against future attack" (according to the government's response to Stone's 
motion to compel unredacted CrowdStrike reports).

CrowdStrike's data and redacted report constitute the chief evidence of 
Russian involvement behind the DNC's continuing (bogus) claim that 
"Russians hacked the DNC servers".

James Comey (FBI Director 2013-2017, 2013 liar about the invasion of Iraq) 
told Congress why CrowdStrike was investigating this case at all and not 
the FBI:

> James Comey: Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to
> the original device or server that's involved. So it's the best
> evidence.
> 
> Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC): Were you given access to do the forensics on
> those servers?
> 
> James Comey: We were not. We were-- a highly respected private company
> eventually got access and shared with us what they saw there.
The DNC is not to be believed despite repeated DNC insistence because the 
evidence doesn't back up their claims. Crowdstrike is not a 'trusted 
analyst' but a suspect.

Ray McGovern on this issue:
> There's no factual basis for the Russian "hacking" into the DNC
> computers. And now we know that the FBI went along with very spurious
> evidence -- evidence with no chain of custody, evidence incomplete and
> redacted. The game was this: So as soon as the Democrats realize that
> Julian Assange had these messages, they composed a cover story. When
> Julian Assange released those emails, went to the press, the press was a
> willing accomplice and they said "Look, Russia did it! Russia did it!".
> And so the headlines were not Clinton steals nomination from Sanders,
> but rather "The Russians hacked!", "When did the Russians hack?", "Why
> isn't this an act of war?". It worked like a charm. I call it a
> magnificent distraction.



Economy: Students entering the sex industry gets more coverage in corporate 
media but calling this economic exploitation is outside the limits of 
allowable debate.

- Students are famously poor.
- UK students are no exception; trying to pay for their education without 
getting a loan or paying off student loans is very difficult.
- Sex workers are famously poor.
- According to a new British TV series called "Student Sex Workers", "It's 
estimated that 1 in 20 work in the sex industry.".
- Surveyers don't seem to ask if sex workers would have ever entered into 
this work (or continue the work) if they weren't poor.

Apparently this phenomenon of students working in the sex industry that 
there's enough participants to host a traditional TV series. As of Friday, 
June 14, 2019 "Student Sex Workers" has run 2 episodes. See 
https://www.c21media.net/c5s-student-sex-workers-goes-global/ for more 
information on international interest in the program.

The students profiled in Student Sex Workers seem to be £60k in debt due to 
the cost of their college education. The show said:

> Since the beginning of this year [2019] there is £105 billion worth of 
> outstanding student loans.

One woman pursuing a 3-year paramedic degree, "Jasmine", discussed her 
income with her friend:

> Jasmine: I can make, like, what, a grand a night maybe on a good night.
> Friend: A grand?
> Jasmine: Yeah, you can make a grand easy, especially at this time of
> year.
> Friend: I think I'll do it!

Jasmine's sex work is webcamming -- doing erotic things to herself in front 
of a live webcam while she chats with people online as they watch her and 
pay for her to do increasingly sexually revealing things. Considering her 
claim of £1k/night webcamming it's easier to understand why sex work is 
attractive to indebted students -- other jobs available to students (such 
as bartending, computer lab monitoring, and tutoring) don't pay anywhere 
near as much. Jasmine also seeks to become a "sugar baby" -- someone who 
seeks a wealthy person (known as a "sugar daddy") to pay for things they 
want in exchange for spending time with the wealthy person (such as going 
on a date or having dinner) or possibly sex. The show claims "Last year, 
75,000 students registered as sugar babies on one UK website -- a 30% 
spike". Jasmine's university made allegations against her regarding her sex 
work and "her attitude" (as she described it) which were never clearly 
described in the show. The university's power to make these allegations or 
take any specific action as the result of the allegations remained unclear, 
but by the end of the show Jasmine said she did not want to continue her 
paramedic degree, "The whole situation has sort of put me off. I don't want 
to continue my course. I'm going to continue working within the industry, 
doing my dancing and my modeling and my camming.".

Student Tom, meanwhile, is an escort -- a prostitute -- he has sex for 
money. Tom's profile is available online, customers pay him to have sex 
with them by arranging a meeting online where they reveal who they are 
(giving their name, picture, age, and other salient details) online, and 
Tom decides with whom he'll agree to have sex.

Graduate student "Luke", is an adult film performer.

Another woman, "Carly Rae", calls herself "a porn star" -- she makes her 
own adult movies for the adult movie industry and videos for her own 
website. She works at home and she owns the work she makes for her own 
site. When she was in college she webcammed. She is still paying off her 
student loans.

Carly Rae's friend, "Roo", also shoots movies with her and webcams. Roo 
dropped out of college after her second year but kept working in the sex 
trade. The show claims

> Like 25% of student sex workers, the girls [Carly Rae and Roo] have 
> continued working in porn after graduation. Porn is a multi-billion
> pound industry where female performers earn more than men.

On how much the participants make:
- One woman: I make between £600 to £1,300 per day creating sex videos.
- Tom: I make about £120 an hour as an escort.
- A stripper (woman): Between £20 and £200 per dance.
- A stripper (male): Anything from £200 to £500 per strip.
- Jasmine was shown heading toward a shoot where she said she'll make £250 
for "a few hours" work.
- The photographer shooting Jasmine noted "[I've] had a lot of students in 
[my studio] over the years that I've been doing this. If they were modeling 
for three or four hours, they would probably make as much money in that 
time as what somebody working in a shop makes in a week.".

As a woman in the show mentioned:

> The sex industry is not seen as a dirty little secret anymore.

and I think that is correct and will only become more commonplace as the 
economy gets worse for the 99% worldwide. But this show is typical of these 
documentaries in that there's no challenge to power: the show makes no 
mention of government responsibility to its citizens.

There's no mention of practical ways in which government can and should be 
expected to help society avoid jobs which people seem to take up only due 
to economic pressure (including sex work, mining, and various minimum-wage 
service jobs).

Billions (or more) spent on war, the state's chief expenditure, goes 
undiscussed. Half of that could be very effectively reallocated for 
programs of public benefit. There's no mention of organized campaigning for 
setting up a guaranteed annual income, Medicare for All (or strengthening 
the UK's NHS), ending homelessness, and more.

Documentaries like this thus present no threat to current economic power, 
hence their continued reappearance on corporate media.

A guaranteed annual income, a national jobs program (presumably being paid 
to be trained and build/maintain needed national infrastructure such as 
roads, bridges, railroads, and universal high-speed networking, among other 
things), guaranteeing a home, and in the US Medicare for All, could go a 
ways toward giving people a reason to consider other lines of work that 
would avoid the problems these interviewees identified (social stigma, 
on-the-job physical hazards, and unsustainable pay among others).






War, Democrats: Bernie Sanders has a history of being for weapons 
manufacturing and war funding. Two articles present challenges for voters 
considering backing his campaign (or, I dare say, any other Democratic 
Party campaign).

https://archive.fo/ccDGh
https://www.leftvoice.org/not-on-our-side-on-bernie-sanders-and-imperialism 
-- a review of Sanders' long support of militarism while offering the 
excuse of 'jobs'.

> In a recent interview with the New York Times, Bernie Sanders discusses
> his record on foreign affairs, particularly during the 1980s while Mayor
> of Burlington Vermont. Sanders remains unrepentant in his opposition to
> US support for right-wing death squads in Central America, stating: “I
> did my best to stop American foreign policy.”
> 
> Sanders’ opposition to U.S.-backed death squads in Central America is to
> be welcomed. But did he do is best? During the 1980s, Vermont was one of
> the largest recipients of Defense Department weapons contracts, such as
> the General Electric Plant in Burlington, which produced gatling guns
> for death squads. When peace activists planned to block the gate to the
> GE factory on June 20, 1983, Sanders refused to support them and had
> them arrested. According to Greg Guma, editor of the Vermont Vanguard
> Press, Sanders “viewed his key constituencies as the unions and the
> poor. Bread and butter’ economics framed his analysis, pushing long-term
> issues such as peace conversion to the margins of society.” Even during
> his “radical period”, Sanders was only opposed to militarism unless it
> affected the jobs of American workers.
> 
> It is that same rationale that justifies Sanders’ long-standing support
> for the F-35 fighter jet, which at 1.5 trillion dollars is the most
> expensive program in military weapons history. Sanders has made no
> secret that he wants that investment in Vermont, which will provide at
> least 1400 jobs and $124 million worth of investment, stating: “My view
> is that given the reality of the damn plane, I’d rather it come to
> Vermont than to South Carolina. And that’s what the Vermont National
> Guard wants, and that means hundreds of jobs in my city. That’s it.”
> Sanders’ lobbying has paid off since he managed to persuade Lockheed
> Martin to place a research center in Burlington and get 19 F-35s
> stationed at the city airport.

[...]

> Bernie Sanders’ record is not one of opposition to war and imperialism,
> since he has continually voted to provide the funds necessary to wage
> war. However, Sanders’ votes for war funding are often rationalized by
> his left-wing backers who claim that he is voting for omnibus bills that
> contain diverse and unrelated types of legislation. So the excuse goes,
> when Sanders votes for an omnibus bill that includes veterans’ benefits
> and support for military occupation, he is actually only supporting the
> former and not the latter. Or that when Sanders’ votes for funding
> military operations, it is simply to show support for the troops and to
> make sure they’re adequately funded.
> 
> However, what these amount to are excuses to rationalize Sanders’
> support for war. The excuses is that we cannot achieve “ultra-leftist”
> things like stopping the military at a stroke, but should focus on
> achieving what minimal social reforms that we can now. Therefore, we
> should be practical and focus on getting small reforms now. The logical
> end point of this is the denial of both a socialist program and
> principles, which is precisely the position of Bernie Sanders. When it
> comes to the omnibus bills, Rosa Luxemburg long ago spoke against the
> logic of opportunistic support for the military budget provided it was
> tied to social funding and direct taxation:
> 
> "Now if one says that we should offer an exchange – our consent to 
> militaristic and tariff legislation in return for political concessions 
> or social reforms – then one is sacrificing the basic principles of the 
> class struggle for momentary advantage, and one’s actions are based on 
> opportunism. Opportunism, incidentally, is a political game which can
> be lost in two ways: not only basic principles but also practical
> success may be forfeited. The assumption that one can achieve the
> greatest number of successes by making concessions rests on a complete
> error. Here, as in all great matters, the most cunning persons are not
> the most intelligent. Bismarck once told a bourgeois opposition party:
> ‘You will deprive yourselves of any practical influences if you always
> and as a matter of course say no.’…We who oppose the entire present
> order see things quite differently. In our no, in our intransigent
> attitude, lies our whole strength. It is this attitude that earns us the
> fear and respect of the enemy and the trust and support of the people."
> 
> In other words, a principled socialist position is to vote no without
> exception against any and all funding to the military. Some leftists are
> willing to acknowledge Sanders’ pro-imperialism, but still argue that it
> is necessary to be a part of his campaign in order to reach the masses
> attracted to his message.  After all, we are told that politics is about
> getting “our hands dirty” and practicing the “art of the possible.”
> Somehow, we are told, making these types of compromises by supporting
> Bernie Sanders and softening our criticism of his imperialism, will
> enable leftists to advance their own agenda. However, the inevitable end
> result of this support is a downplaying of any criticism of imperialism
> and an urge to be “patient” and “realistic” while fostering illusions in
> Bernie Sanders. In the end, support for Bernie Sanders’ domestic reforms
> becomes more important than opposing imperialism.
> 
> In the final analysis, if we are serious about giving life to the slogan
> “workers of the world, unite!” then we must always and everywhere stand
> with the oppressed against the oppressors. And for US socialists, that
> means resolute and uncompromising opposition to our own government, the
> greatest purveyor of violence in the world. And in that struggle, we
> cannot put any faith in Bernie Sanders because his record makes
> abundantly clear that he is not on our side.



https://newrepublic.com/article/154086/bernies-red-vermont -- It seems that 
Bernie Sanders isn't just accommodating of war now he has a history of 
being so accommodating.

Here's what he told "Meet the Press" in 2016:

> Look, a drone is a weapon. When it works badly, it is terrible and it is
> counterproductive. When you blow up a facility or a building which kills
> women and children, you know what? … It’s terrible.". When asked if
> drones would be a part of his counter-terror plans he replied "All of
> that and more.

More recently, the New Republic article describes an event from Sanders' past:

> Despite its reputation for small-scale agriculture and green hills,
> Vermont was one of the largest recipients of Defense Department weapons
> contracts in the early ’80s, thanks to the production of Gatling guns at
> the General Electric plant in Burlington.
> 
> That summer, a group of peace activists met with Sanders to tell him
> about their plan to block the gate to Burlington’s General Electric
> factory. Sanders was upset with them, Guma says in his book, The
> People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution, for “blaming the
> workers” and not focusing their attention on the federal centers of
> strategic thinking on U.S. foreign policy. Sanders accused the activists
> of pointing “the finger of guilt at working people,” according to the
> Burlington Free Press. He reportedly came around to opposing the sit-in
> after meeting with the workers’ union leaders. “Not everyone has the
> luxury of choosing where they are going to work,” he told the Press. His
> position flew in the face of increased local activism around war and
> peace issues, especially in Vermont, where 159 out of 180 towns had
> passed nuclear freeze resolutions.
> 
> Sanders was unmoved by the activists’ arguments and said he would “have
> no choice but to order their arrest,” according to Guma’s account. Soon
> after the protest began the morning of June 20, dozens of activists were
> arrested as, Guma says, “the mayor watched from the side of the road.”
> 
> There was thus a split between Sanders and part of his activist base.
> Sanders “viewed his key constituencies as the unions and the poor,” Guma
> writes. “‘Bread and butter’ economics framed his analysis, pushing
> long-term issues such as peace conversion to the margins of society.”






Elections: Meddling in German elections?

https://news.yahoo.com/german-stars-lead-call-shun-far-goerliwood-113129343.html
https://www.breitbart.com/news/german-stars-lead-call-to-shun-far-right-in-goerliwood/ 
-- AfP's report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT_3ftLYZHE -- RT's report (which features 
insightful interviews with people on the street and not just a corporate 
viewpoint)

Goerlitz, a German town which escaped being bombed in WWII, has many older 
buildings and generally retains an older look which Hollywood film 
producers find useful for their productions (examples include Quentin 
Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" from 2009 and Wes Anderson's "The Grand 
Budapest Hotel" from 2014). Goerlitz will soon hold a mayoral election and 
the anti-establishment candidate, Sebastian Wippel from the APD party has 
the current lead in first-round elections over Octavian Ursu from the 
establishment CPD party (36.4% for Wippel versus 30.3% for Ursu). The 
second round vote will occur on June 16.

In a joint statement to be published on Monday, movie stars including 
Daniel Brühl (who hails from Berlin) and British director Stephen Daldry 
signed a petition which said:

> Don't give in to hate and hostility, conflict and exclusion.
> 
> Please vote wisely... Don't betray your convictions the moment someone 
> claims to be able to solve problems for you.

When it was claimed that Russians had something to say about the American 
elections in 2016, that was repeatedly labeled as "Russian interference 
with US elections". What some Russians allegedly did was comment (however 
clumsily) on the 2016 US elections (remember the rendering of Bernie 
Sanders as a muscled bikini-wearing beachgoer?). What does it say of this 
commentary about the Goerlitz mayoral elections signed by non-Goerlitz 
citizens with Hollywood connections?





Russiagate as basis for more belligerency -- Anti-Russian sanctions (war 
against the poor) aren't enough war to sate the Permanent Government (Deep 
State)? Now we're told that the US is attacking Russia's power grid, 
keeping Pres. Trump in the dark about this operation, and increasing the 
odds we'll see a nuclear winter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-7Dp8O6YxI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-AkPfAElGE -- RT's report
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/us/politics/trump-cyber-russia-grid.html 
-- New York Times' Russiagate-backing article
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/russia-experts-2017-prophecy-about-the-nuclear-threat-of-russiagate-is-coming-true-5b7726cb17e5 
-- Caitlin Johnstone's excellent analysis in response.

In January, Rachel Maddow fear-mongered her viewers that Russia could 
(somehow) turn off the heat to states with colder weather like North Dakota 
and Minnesota. Rachel Maddow said:

> China and Russia can do this -- today. Now. Whenever they want to. In 
> other words, we're relying on their good graces that they're not. And
> it is like negative 50 degrees in the Dakotas right now. What would
> happen if Russia killed the power in Fargo today? What would happen if
> all the natural gas lines that service Sioux Falls just 'poofed' on the
> coldest day in recent memory and it wasn't in our power whether to turn
> them back on?

Earlier, Russiagate repeaters (such as Maddow and the Washington Post) lied 
and told us that Russia had broken into a Vermont power station which 
risked the integrity of the entire US electrical grid. None of these things 
happened the way Russiagators told them; there's no evidence to back up 
Maddow's fearmongering. But we were supposed to think ill of Russia all the 
same; these and other lies were supposed to be substitutes for the lack of 
evidence Russiagators had to explain how Hillary Clinton could lose to 
Donald Trump.

Now the New York Times tells us that the US is "Escalat[ing] Online Attacks 
on Russia’s Power Grid". We know the US is fully capable of doing this, 
after all WikiLeaks has published leaked CIA internal documents (the Vault 
7 series of documents) some of which conduct electronic warfare and some of 
which cover up the attacks by misleading investigators into believing 
another party did it. Despite the unwisdom of receiving information from 
anonymous sources, the corporate media tells us that current and former 
officials speaking on condition of anonymity have confirmed that the Vault 
7 documents are genuine. Edward Snowden concurred saying the documents 
looked authentic. On March 15, 2017 President Trump said, "the CIA was 
hacked, and a lot of things taken". So there is good reason to believe that 
WikiLeaks' unbroken record of never lying to us (every document they 
release is what they claim it to be) continues.

The NYT report claimed the US had installed:

> "potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and
> with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before" which could
> potentially "plunge Russia into darkness or cripple its military," with
> one anonymous official reporting that "We are doing things at a scale
> that we never contemplated a few years ago."

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1140065300186128384
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1140065304019644427 -- President 
Trump tweeted that this was "a virtual act of Treason", "not true", and a 
product of the "Corrupt News Media". It's not clear who's lying in this but 
the evidence would suggest American belligerency and provocation is not to 
be taken lightly. The US has a strong history of provoking attacks:

 From the Washington Institute for Near East Policy from a talk called "How 
to Build US-Israeli Coordination on Preventing an Iranian Nuclear Breakout" 
with Patrick Clawson, David Makovsky, and Dennis Ross:

> Patrick Clawson: I, frankly, think that crisis initiation is really 
> tough. And it's very hard for me to see how the United States President 
> can get us to war with Iran. Which leads me to conclude that if, in 
> fact, compromise is not accompanying that the traditional way America 
> gets to war is what would be best for US interests. Some people might 
> think that Mr. Roosevelt wanted to get us into World War II as David 
> [Makovsky] mentioned, you may recall we had to wait for Pearl Harbor. 
> Some people might think that Mr. Wilson wanted to get us into World War 
> I, you may recall we had to wait for the Lusitania episode. Some people 
> might think that Mr. Johnson wanted to send troops to Vietnam, you
> might recall we had to wait for the Gulf of Tonkin episode. We didn't go
> to war with Spain until the Maine exploded. And, may I point out, that
> Mr. Lincoln did not feel he could call off a whole army until Fort
> Sumter was attacked which is why he ordered the commander of Fort Sumter
> to do exactly that thing which the South Carolinians had said would
> cause an attack. So if, in fact, the Iranians aren't going to
> compromise, it would be best if somebody else started the war. One can
> combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that
> explosion on August 17th. We could step up the pressure: I mean, look
> people, Iranian submarines periodically go down. Someday one of them
> might not come up. [holds out his arms and shrugs his shoulder in a
> gesture as if he were saying "I don't know"] Who would know why?

What line of reasoning makes it reasonable for us to get angry with Russia 
to allegedly do to us what we are fully capable of (and we're now told we 
are actively doing) to Russia?








'What if Trump said this?' department: Joe Biden promises to cure cancer in 
his first term if elected president

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d9DZRZM5NM -- video of Joe Biden making 
his promise.
https://on.rt.com/9w7l
https://sputniknews.com/us/201906121075812468-joe-biden-promises-cure-cancer-if-elected-president-2020/ 
-- Sputnik's report with some background including his 2016 "cancer 
moonshot" program during the Obama administration when he said he'd put in 
an effort to cure cancer.

Joe Biden told a crowd in Ottumwa, Iowa:
> I've worked so hard in my career, that I promise you, if I'm elected
> president you're gonna see the single most important thing that changes
> America, we’re gonna cure cancer.




Related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km6i9d4X-mk
https://therealnews.com/stories/is-joe-bidens-folksy-shtick-beginning-to-backfire 
-- The Real News report on this which goes very light on Joe Biden and the 
Democrats. TRNN offers no reason to think of this as anything other than 
being "a little wacky" (as one commentator put it), certainly nothing to 
provoke listeners to put together larger connections that would cause one 
to reject the Democratic party as hypocrites or not being an opposition party.

But that's to be expected when you have guests like Norman Solomon who 
simply won't bring themselves to structurally criticize liberalism or the 
Democratic party. Solomon has to prop up Sen. Bernie Sanders while 
critiquing Joe Biden and that leaves no room for identifying how the 
Democrats have nothing to offer the 99%. Recall that Rep. John Conyers' 
HR676 Medicare for All bill was never brought up for a vote even when the 
Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress and a Democratic party 
president in Obama.

https://www.livescience.com/65717-biden-cancer-cure.html -- includes a 
clear explanation of one of the ways in which Biden's promise is flatly a lie:

LiveScience.com writes:
> "Are we going to open the news one day and hear that cancer has been
> cured? No," , told Live Science. "It's just
> not that simple," she added. This campaign promise is misleading because
> it suggests that cancer is one disease with one cure, which is not the
> case, Attai said.
> 
> There are more than 100 kinds of cancer, according to the National
> Institutes of Health. Each of those cancers has a different cause, from
> viruses to radiation. Each demands its own treatment. Developing
> individual treatments for each variety of cancer — from screening tools
> to therapies — is a piecemeal process. "It's two steps forward, one step
> back," Attai said.
> 
> So when Biden promises to cure cancer, he's talking about curing not
> just one, but many diseases. Some of those diseases, we may
> realistically never be able to cure. After all, cancer is characterized
> by cells that "take on a life of their own," she added. These cells can
> mutate, change and evade the drugs scientists develop.
> 
> So a single cure for all cancers? That's not going to happen, Attai
> said.
> 
> Even a single, incredibly effective cancer drug takes much more than a
> presidential term to develop. Before they become available to patients,
> treatments must go through years of animal testing and clinical trials.
> The whole process can take years, often longer than a single
> presidential term, Attai said.

It's quite telling to put this into the perspective of the fake partisan 
fight between Republicans and Democrats (as if they disagree on the largest 
issues of the day) -- if Trump (either as candidate or US president) had 
said something like what Biden promised, we'd never hear the end of what a 
liar Trump is but we'd never hear what lies the Democrats have been telling 
us for years on issues of great importance such as healthcare and war.

Recall Obama's "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" phrase 
which he repeated many times while on a national speaking tour promoting 
"ObamaCare" (the ACA, née RomneyCare)? Recall the criticism Obama gave the 
2003 Iraq War calling it "a dumb war ... a rash war" and that that war was 
a "cynical attempt" to shove "ideological agendas down our throats" and 
would distract from domestic problems such as poverty and health care. 
Apparently that talk was in no way representative of the policy choices his 
administration made which resulted in continuing that war for 8 more years, 
adding more wars (including sharply ramping up the drone war) thus ensuring 
that Obama would become the first US president to be in war every year of 
his time in office. His administration would also increase immiseration due 
to poverty and lack of Medicare for All.

Biden appears to be running with the same politics and strategy as Mrs. 
Clinton ran with in her second losing presidential campaign. So it's more 
reasonable to conclude that the Democrats don't care about winning 
elections as much as they care about pleasing their corporate funders. The 
Democrats please their funders quite well in collusion with the Republicans 
using a variety of tactics including excluding third parties and 
independent candidates from their so-called "debates", keeping ballot 
access laws such that only the corporate parties can gain access, and 
running party primary scams like cheating Sen. Sanders out of a fair shot 
at winning the 2016 Democratic party primaries. Party loyalists like 
Sanders go along with this and disappoint all of his supporters along the 
way. In the end, neoliberals and neoconservatives represent that party. The 
Democrats simply are not an opposition party and are therefore not to be 
trusted.




Economy: "Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says"

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2019/jun/20/young-adults-have-less-to-spend-on-non-essentials-study-says

> In an inaugural national audit of intergenerational spending power,
> which is likely to reignite tensions between young and old, the
> Resolution Foundation thinktank concludes that today’s 18- to
> 29-year-olds are also spending less on shoes and clothes, hobbies and
> travel in real terms than those at the same age in 2001 as housing costs
> have soared. Compared with people the same age at the turn of the
> millennium they are 7% poorer in real terms, after paying rent, or if
> they can afford it, mortgage dues.
> 
> Meanwhile, in a story that will be familiar to the rising millions of
> twentysomethings who can’t afford to move out from their parents home,
> baby boomers have cranked up their spending on fun, laying out more on
> recreation, restaurants, hotels and culture, as people aged 65 and over
> have enjoyed a steep 37% rise in spending power compared with the same
> generation in 2001.

[...]

> Claire Turner, a director at the Centre for Ageing Better, urged caution
> at framing challenges in terms of intergenerational fairness and using
> statistical averages “which could distract us from the very real poverty
> and disadvantage experienced by people across all ages”.
> 
> “Many of the issues identified in this report are the result of decades
> of political short-termism and a failure by successive governments to
> respond to Britain’s changing population structure,” she said.
> 
> But Angus Hanton, the co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation,
> said older voters have allowed policies that levied high taxes on the
> young, and made it hard for them to save for a pension or own their own
> home.
> 
> “When asked to ease the pressure on the intergenerational contract by
> contributing a little more if they have it, older generations demand
> intergenerational solidarity and universal benefits for their
> generation, but not for others,” he said.




War, Venezuela: Colombian authorities say Guaidó was caught embezzling 
"humanitarian aid" cash, leaked documents are being looked into

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l9qbkiCCw4 -- RT's report on the theft.
https://es.panampost.com/orlando-avendano/2019/06/14/enviados-de-guaido-se-apropian-de-fondos-para-ayuda-humanitaria-en-colombia/ 
-- the leaked documents on the theft

 From RT in https://on.rt.com/9wm7
> [...S]everal of [Guaidó's] aides have been named by Colombian
> intelligence in a leak revealing the embezzlement of US funds intended
> for paying Venezuelan army defectors. The funds were raised by a Live
> Aid-style concert, organized by billionaire philanthropist Richard
> Branson in February, and intended to coincide with Guaido’s followers
> forcing open the border with Colombia to US “humanitarian aid.”

[...]

> The leaked documents – published by PanAm Post, an outlet sympathetic to
> Guaido – now reveal why that never happened. Regional coordinator for
> Guaido’s Popular Will Party, Kevin Rojas, and the “interim president’s”
> chief of staff Rossana Barrera were accused of spending hundreds of
> thousands of dollars in cash on fancy hotels, expensive clothes, booze,
> car and other high-life items.
> 
> In one example, Rojas and Barrera claimed to have spent money on seven
> hotels to house over 1,400 defectors, but Colombian authorities counted
> only half that number crossing the border, and only two hotels were
> actually paid for. Instead, receipts reveal the duo blew over $125,000
> on luxuries for themselves, including $40,000 in April alone. The
> following month, one of the hotels evicted 65 defectors and their
> families, over more than $20,000 in unpaid bills.
> 
> The publication forced Guaido into full damage control mode. On Monday,
> he finally acknowledged the existence of the allegations and vowed to
> “clarify the case of officials appointed to serve our military in
> Cúcuta,” appointing aid coordinator Lester Toledo to join the
> investigation in Colombia.
> 
> “Dictatorships cover [up] corruption,” he added. “We do not.”

[...]

> The US has given $213 million in humanitarian aid to Guaido so far,
> Pence boasted. Left unanswered is how much of that ended up lining the
> pockets of his aides, or was spent on hotels, cars, booze and trinkets
> across Colombia.

The RT report claims that:

> In addition to the embezzled funds, Guaido’s staff botched the
> distribution of aid sent by the US, with an estimated 60 percent rotting
> in the warehouses and having to be thrown away. The full extent of the
> scandal is yet to be revealed, as the PanAm Post has more unpublished
> documents in its possession.

But I'm not sure what that first part meant -- perhaps those funds were 
spent on perishables (such as fruit and vegetables) which were warehoused 
instead of being distributed to people and have now rotted and need to be 
thrown away. But that's not what RT wrote.




War, Venezuela: Potable water is harder to come by because of US sanctions; 
sanctions continue to be war on the poor.

https://therealnews.com/stories/us-sanctions-leave-millions-of-venezuelans-without-water 
-- TRNN report transcript
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfU-LMDYgIk -- TRNN video
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-us-sanctions-leave-millions-without-water

> Yolimar Contreras [a resident of Altos de Lidice, a poor barrio on the
> hillsides of Caracas] told [The Real News Network]: “We haven’t had
> water for three to four months, because we’re high up on the hillside.”
> 
> It has not stopped her from washing the floors, but now in order to get
> water, they have to carry it up — one 23-litre jug at a time. She is not
> alone. Water is out across major portions of the neighborhood.
> 
> “All week long you see people carrying water by here. Saturdays and
> Sundays in particular, when people are off from work,” she said.
> 
> The pump needed to push the water up the hill and into their homes is
> broken. US sanctions are blocking the country from acquiring new pumps,
> motors, pipes and replacement parts.
> 
> In Venezuela, they call it the “blockade”. That is what it feels like.
> 
> According to many residents, the Venezuelan government is doing what it
> can to mitigate the situation. Twice a week, it sends a tanker of
> potable water to the neighborhood, down the hill from Contreras’s home.
> 
> Some residents here say they have been without running water for a year
> and a half. They pour into the streets with their waist-high buckets, to
> wait their turn for their containers to be filled.

[...]

> [The state water company] Hidroven says that most water storage
> facilities around the country are working at 50-60% capacity. Over the
> last three years, the influx of water into Caracas has been reduced by
> nearly 30%, because of failing pipes and pumps, and the inability to
> maintain the system, because they need equipment from abroad. Equipment
> they just can’t get, because of the Trump-imposed U.S. sanctions.
> 
> And this is the clear goal of the U.S. government. To tighten the grip 
> and make the Venezuelan people suffer, with the hope that they will get 
> fed up and rise up. The Trump administration would have you believe
> that the blame lies on Venezuelan incompetence, but many Venezuelans are
> just not buying it.





Amazon pitches new credit card (which is only good at Amazon and has an 
interest rate that goes up to 28%) and highlights that banking is where the 
real money is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY3j_LJs4JU -- RT's report on Amazon's new 
predatory credit card because this card is chiefly pitched at the poor and 
has a high max interest rate.

Apple has also entered banking with their Apple Pay service which, among 
other things, lets Apple tack on a per-transaction service fee.


-J