[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Notes for News from Neptune

Some pointers to things to spark discussion on News from Neptune. Have a 
good show guys.



MMT debate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3TdbaMf38Y -- MMT debate on The Real News.



Venezuela:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLOG7IhSDSs -- RT's report of the work of 
the Embassy Protectors and trying to get them necessary supplies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md2bhG2hw1g -- Few pro-Maduro activists 
remain at US Venezuelan embassy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCkJO8JJIuY -- Embassy Defenders are evicted.



Labor/exploitation: Amazon.com is trying to incentivize some of its 
employees to shift from their current job to become a delivery driver for 
the company, shifting some of the costs of delivery to the driver (somewhat 
akin to Uber & Lyft).

https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/employees-turned-entrepreneurs-new-amazon-initiative-helps
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/05/amazon-to-employees-quit-your-job-well-help-you-start-a-delivery-business/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-amazon-needs-delivery-drivers-20190513-story.html 
-- The Chicago Tribune writes:

> Amazon, which is racing to deliver packages faster, is turning to its
> employees with a proposition: Quit your job and we'll help you start a
> business delivering Amazon packages.
> 
> The offer, announced Monday, comes as Amazon seeks to speed up its
> shipping time from two days to one for its Prime members. The company
> sees the new incentive as a way to get more packages delivered to
> shoppers' doorsteps faster.
> 
> Amazon says it will cover up to $10,000 in startup costs for employees
> who are accepted into the program and leave their jobs. Those who
> participate will be able to lease blue vans with the Amazon smile logo
> stamped on the side. The company says it will also pay them three
> months' worth of their salary.
> 
> The offer is open to most part-time and full-time Amazon employees,
> including warehouse workers who pack and ship orders. Whole Foods
> employees are not eligible to receive the new incentives.

People online are beginning to do the math on this and discovering that 
this is a cost-shifting scam ala ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft: 
Amazon will make the driver take on the costs of leasing the truck, paying 
for insurance and licensing, and other fees while Amazon uses the new 
low-cost transport to handle last-mile delivery. FedEx and UPS are much 
larger fleets (and the Chicago Tribune assures us FedEx and UPS "will be 
just fine" even with this new last-mile competition from a shipping-heavy 
organization such as Amazon). Amazon might even try to get away with 
calling their drivers "contractors" and not employees like Uber and Lyft do.

Related: The National Labor Relations Board agrees with Uber that drivers 
are contractors and not employees (per 
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/business/economy/nlrb-uber-drivers-contractors.html).

> The National Labor Relations Board, handing an important victory to
> Uber, has concluded that the company’s drivers are contractors, not
> employees.
> 
> The move, outlined by the board’s general counsel in a memorandum
> released Tuesday, deals a blow to drivers’ efforts to band together to
> demand higher pay and better working conditions from Uber and its main
> rival in the ride-hailing business, Lyft. It is the first major policy
> move the board has made concerning the so-called gig economy under
> President Trump.
> 
> Contractors lack the protection given to employees under federal law —
> and enforced by the labor board — for unionizing and other collective
> activity, such as protesting the policies of employers. As a practical
> matter, the conclusion makes it extremely difficult for Uber drivers to
> form a union.
> 
> The board’s general counsel, Peter B. Robb, who was appointed by Mr.
> Trump, does not have purview over other laws applying to employees, such
> as minimum wage and overtime protections.
> 
> Still, had Mr. Robb’s office found that drivers were employees rather
> than contractors, the decision could have put pressure on the regulators
> who enforce such laws to reach the same conclusion.
> 
> The labor costs of companies like Uber and Lyft would probably rise 20
> to 30 percent, according industry estimates, if regulators or courts
> forced them to treat drivers as employees. Both businesses have seen
> their stock prices fall after recent public offerings amid questions
> about their financial prospects.
> 
> The companies appear to be walking a delicate line: Investors and
> analysts have suggested that the businesses might have to slash their
> labor costs to become profitable. Drivers frequently complain that pay
> is already unacceptably low.

Related: Meanwhile, Amazon is also replacing workers in packing warehouses 
with robots (per 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-automation-exclusive-idUSKCN1SJ0X1 
):

> Amazon.com Inc is rolling out machines to automate a job held by
> thousands of its workers: boxing up customer orders.
> 
> The company started adding technology to a handful of warehouses in
> recent years, which scans goods coming down a conveyor belt and envelops
> them seconds later in boxes custom-built for each item, two people who
> worked on the project told Reuters.
> 
> Amazon has considered installing two machines at dozens more warehouses,
> removing at least 24 roles at each one, these people said. These
> facilities typically employ more than 2,000 people.
> 
> That would amount to more than 1,300 cuts across 55 U.S. fulfillment
> centers for standard-sized inventory. Amazon would expect to recover the
> costs in under two years, at $1 million per machine plus operational
> expenses, they said.

The job is typically referred to as "picking and packing". It turns out 
that the latter part of that job is more easily automated than the former. 
But work on replacing human workers for the picking is ongoing.





Economy: Young people are more pessimistic about their future

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-20/many-millennials-gen-z-pessimistic-on-life-deloitte-survey 
-- "Millennials and Gen Z Are Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, 
Survey Finds"

> Deloitte has released its Global Millennial Survey of 13,416 Millennials (born between 1983 and 1994) spread across 42 countries and 3,009 Gen Z respondents (born between 1995 and 2002) from 10 countries. The firm has conducted the survey for the past eight years.
> 
> The percentage of respondents who think that businesses are making a positive impact dropped six points from 61% in 2018 to 55%.

[...]

> Generally, only about half of both groups aspire to purchase a home, and
> even fewer desire to start a family. ``Instead, travel and seeing the
> world was at the top of the list (57%) of aspirations,'' the report
> said.

[...]

> Climate change, protecting the environment and natural disasters topped
> the list of most respondents on a personal level, but less than three in
> ten of both the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts cited it as a worry. The
> next-highest concern for Millennials is income inequality or
> distribution of wealth. Terrorism, crime and concerns about personal
> safety were also high on the list.
> 
> The 2020 U.S. election will be the first in which nearly all members of
> Generation Z will be able to cast their vote for president.
> 
> The difference between Gen Zs and Millennials is, according to the
> survey, much more visible when making a comparison across countries. In
> China and India, Gen Zs were more optimistic about the future.
> Meanwhile, youth in major economic powers were pessimistic about the
> world and whether their place in it will improve.

[...]

> Only about one in four respondents said they expect the economic
> situations in their countries to improve in the year ahead. This low
> level of positive economic sentiment among Millennials is at its lowest
> in the six years Deloitte has been asking this question. The decline has
> been sharp -- this reading has never been lower than 40% in previous
> surveys.
> 
> In another survey record, 49% of Millennials would, if they had a
> choice, quit their current jobs within the next two years.
> Dissatisfaction with pay and the lack of advancement opportunities are
> the top reasons for potential near-term exits. Less than three in ten
> Millennials expect to stay at their current job for the next five
> years.






Economy: Americans work harder, produce more, earn less, take fewer 
vacations, and about a third have "side hustles" (a second job)

https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/05/03/the-real-reason-american-workers-have-it-so-hard/

> Americans work really, really hard. A third of Americans work a side
> hustle, driving an Uber or selling crafts on Etsy. American workers take
> fewer vacation days. They get 14, but typically take only 10. The
> highest number of workers in five years report they don’t expect to take
> a vacation at all this year. And Americans work longer hours than their
> counterparts in other countries.
> 
> Americans labor 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more
> than Brits, and 499 more than the French, according to the International
> Labor Organization.
> 
> And the longer hours aren’t because American workers are laggards on the
> job. They’re very productive. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
> calculates that the average American worker’s productivity has increased
> 400 percent since 1950.
> 
> If pay had kept pace with productivity, as it did in the three decades
> after the end of World War II, American workers would be making 400
> percent more. But they’re not. Their wages have flatlined for four
> decades, adjusting for inflation.
> 
> That means stress. Forty percent of workers say they don’t have $400 for
> an unexpected expense. Twenty percent can’t pay all of their monthly
> bills. More than a quarter of adults skipped needed medical care last
> year because they couldn’t afford it. A quarter of adults have no
> retirement savings.





Nuclear power: former NRC chairman thinks nuclear power should be banned in 
favor of renewables and conservation.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/17/i-oversaw-us-nuclear-power-industry-now-i-think-it-should-be-banned 
-- Gregory Jaczko served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to 
2009, and as its chairman from 2009 to 2012.

> History shows that the expense involved in nuclear power will never
> change. Past construction in the United States exhibited similar cost
> increases throughout the design, engineering and construction process.
> The technology and the safety needs are just too complex and demanding
> to translate into a facility that is simple to design and build. No
> matter your views on nuclear power in principle, no one can afford to
> pay this much for two electricity plants. New nuclear is simply off the
> table in the United States.
> 
> After I left the NRC in 2012, I argued that we needed new ways to make
> accidents impossible. When a reactor incident occurs, the plant should
> not release any harmful radiation outside the plant itself. I was not
> yet antinuclear, just pro-public-safety. But nuclear proponents still
> see this as “antinuclear.” They knew, as I did, that most plants
> operating today do not meet the “no off-site release” test. I think a
> reasonable standard for any source of electricity should be that it
> doesn’t contaminate your community for decades.
> 
> Coal and natural gas do not create this kind of acute accident hazard,
> though they do present a different kind of danger. Large dams for
> hydroelectric power could require evacuation of nearby communities if
> they failed — but without the lasting contamination effect of radiation.
> And solar, wind and geothermal energy pose no safety threat at all.
> 
> For years, my concerns about nuclear energy’s cost and safety were
> always tempered by a growing fear of climate catastrophe. But Fukushima
> provided a good test of just how important nuclear power was to slowing
> climate change: In the months after the accident, all nuclear reactors
> in Japan were shuttered indefinitely, eliminating production of almost
> all of the country’s carbon-free electricity and about 30 percent of its
> total electricity production. Naturally, carbon emissions rose, and
> future emissions-reduction targets were slashed.
> 
> Would shutting down plants all over the world lead to similar results?
> Eight years after Fukushima, that question has been answered. Fewer than
> 10 of Japan’s 50 reactors have resumed operations, yet the country’s
> carbon emissions have dropped below their levels before the accident.
> How? Japan has made significant gains in energy efficiency and solar
> power. It turns out that relying on nuclear energy is actually a bad
> strategy for combating climate change: One accident wiped out Japan’s
> carbon gains. Only a turn to renewables and conservation brought the
> country back on target.






Drone war: More countries get drones, more people get assassinated.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/14/turkey-second-drone-age/ -- Turkey is 
now droning people to death including its own citizens -- just like the US 
-- except they're also doing it within Turkey's borders.

> [Turkey] had entered the second drone age — in which the use of drones
> to kill people has proliferated far beyond the United States, the first
> country to kill people with missiles launched from drones after 9/11.
> Turkey now rivals the U.S. and the U.K. as the world’s most prolific
> user of killer drones, according to a review by The Intercept of
> reported lethal drone strikes worldwide. (Other countries that have
> reportedly killed people with drone-launched weapons include Israel,
> Iraq, and Iran.) The technology has been used by Turkey against ISIS in
> Syria and along Turkey’s border with Iraq and Iran, where ever-present
> Turkish drones have turned the tide in a decades-old counter-insurgency
> against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
> 
> While the U.S. was the foremost operator of armed, unmanned aerial
> vehicles (UAVs) in the world for more than a decade, launching the first
> drone attack in 2001, today more than a dozen countries possess this
> technology. The U.K., Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt,
> Nigeria, and Turkey have all used armed UAVs to kill targets since 2015.
> Efforts by Washington to control proliferation through restrictions on
> drone exports have failed to slow down a global race to acquire the
> technology. Meanwhile, the U.S. has set a precedent of impunity by
> carrying out hundreds of strikes that have killed civilians over the
> last decade.

[...]

> It might seem strange that a group who regularly uses suicide bombers
> would want to publicize its reliance on killing from afar. But it shows
> how the most basic human instinct,  self-preservation, continues to
> influence warfare. Armed drones appear to eliminate a key deterrent to
> combat: the chance that your own people could be harmed.
> 
> The U.S. pioneered the technology and showed the world how it could be
> used. Others have watched and learned. Turkey won’t be the last country
> to manufacture its own drones, and its public will not be the last to
> see them as a source of pride.

As far as we know now, all of the Democratic Party presidential candidates 
are down with the drone war (including the so-called "anti-war" candidate 
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard). We know that when the US extrajudicially assassinates 
a so-called "terrorist" via drone many nearby innocent civilians die. The 
same would be true of drones from other countries. So if some other country 
flew drones to hunt down an American so-called "terrorist" and that attack 
killed innocent Americans in the process, on what grounds would the US 
object? And who would fail to see the hypocrisy?





Louis Proyect reviewed Jeffrey St. Clair's book about Bernie Sanders and 
the 2016 Sanders campaign ("Bernie & The Sandernistas: Field Notes From a 
Failed Revolution") and offered us a reminder of why Sanders failed. Not 
only was Sanders not a "class warrior" as Proyect says, Proyect pointed out 
Sanders' support for drone war:

Proyect quoted St. Clair:

> What might a real movement have done? If Sanders could turn 30,000
> people out for a pep rally in Washington Square Park, why couldn’t he
> have had a flash mob demonstration mustering half that many fervent
> supporters to shut down Goldman Sachs for a day? If he could lure 20,000
> Hipsters to the Rose Garden in Portland, why couldn’t he turn out 10,000
> Sandernistas to bolster the picket lines of striking Verizon workers? If
> Sanders could draw 15,000 people in Austin, Texas, why couldn’t his
> movement bring 5,000 people to Huntsville to protest executions at the
> Texas death house? If Sanders could draw 18,000 people to a rally in Las
> Vegas, why couldn’t he just as easily have led them in a protest at
> nearby Creech Air Force Base, the center of operations for US predator
> drones? Strike that. Sanders supports Obama’s killer drone program.

Proyect followed with:

> Yes, that’s right. Sanders favors the use of drones against
> “terrorists”. To make sure that everybody understood he was only for
> socialist drones, he told Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press”: “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.” To start with,
> collateral damage is the middle name of Predator Drones. To think that
> innocent people won’t be killed is a self-delusion. But beyond that, how
> does the USA get away with using them as an unlicensed weapon unlike any
> other nation in the world. Back in 1968, candidates like Eugene McCarthy
> and Robert Kennedy declared that the USA should not be the policeman of
> the world. What a sad commentary on today’s “socialists” when their idol
> supports the Pentagon’s primary weapon in the “war on terror”.

Although she doesn't describe herself as a socialist, much the same could 
be said of another Democratic Party candidate, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), 
who receives praise from RT show hosts Peter Lavelle and Lee Camp, comedian 
Jimmy Dore and his co-hosts, Democratic Party candidate Mike Gravel, and 
The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald despite that Rep. Gabbard has given clear 
support for drone killing (and the civilian deaths that come with drone 
war), some occupations, and despite that she echoed pro-war propaganda in 
her 2018 Intercept interview with Jeremy Scahill. Here's what she said in 
that interview:

> Jeremy Scahill: I’m wondering what your position, I know that in the
> past you have said that you favor a small footprint approach with strike
> forces and limited use of weaponized drones. Is that still your position
> that you think that’s the — to the extent that you believe the U.S.
> military should be used around the world for counterterrorism, is that
> still your position?
> 
> Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Well, when we’re dealing with the unconventional
> threat of terrorist groups like ISIS, al Qaeda and some of these other
> groups that are affiliated with them, we should not be using basically
> what has been and continues to be the current policy of these mass
> mobilization of troops, these long occupations and trillions of dollars
> going in, really abusing the Authorization to Use Military Force and
> taking action that expands far beyond the legal limitations of those
> current AUMFs.
> 
> So, with these terrorist cells, for example, yes, I do still believe
> that the right approach to take is these quick strike forces, surgical
> strikes, in and out, very quickly, no long-term deployment, no long-term
> occupation to be able to get rid of the threat that exists and then get
> out and the very limited use of drones in those situations where our
> military is not able to get in without creating an unacceptable level of
> risk, and where you can make sure that you’re not causing, you know, a
> large amount of civilian casualties.

I don't see how one can sharply critique Sanders' position on drone warring 
and its consequences yet somehow reach the conclusion that Rep. Gabbard's 
endorsement of much the same thing is acceptable "anti-war" campaigning. 
I'm not accusing Proyect of doing this, as I don't know what his position 
on Rep. Gabbard is. But I'll post about this on Proyect's Marxist mailing 
list and we'll see what comes of it.

Rep. Gabbard has remained consistent on these points and has never raised 
an objection to her 2018 Intercept interview (including in her May 2019 
Intercept interview with Glenn Greenwald). It's not clear to me when her 
supporters will quit using pro-war or anti-establishment language to 
describe her campaign which endorses some of the same war positions her 
establishment counterparts endorse.




Why you can't trust the Democrats: Democrats attend anti-Medicare for All 
retreat hosted by HMO lobbyists

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/11/health-care-lobbyists-luxury-retreat/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/11/staffers-top-democrats-reportedly-attended-luxury-retreat-hosted-lobbyists-fighting

> Center Forward’s big idea on Medicare Part D, for instance, is to
> maintain lobbyist-authored provisions of the law that bar the government
> from bargaining for lower prices for medicine. Such restrictions cost
> taxpayers and patients as much as $73 billion a year while boosting the
> profits of drugmakers. Center Forward endorses the idea with a
> testimonial from Mary Grealy, a lobbyist for a trade group that
> represents pharmaceutical companies.
> 
> The retreat, held the weekend of April 5-7 in Middleburg, Virginia,
> continued Center Forward’s approach.
> 
> The schedule shows that the health care discussion was led by Center
> Forward board member Liz Greer, a lobbyist at Forbes Tate; the firm
> manages the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future coalition
> designed to undermine Medicare-for-All. Paul Kidwell, a lobbyist from
> the Federation of American Hospitals, and Larry Levitt, from the Kaiser
> Family Foundation, also spoke. No proponents of Medicare-for-All were
> included. Kidwell’s trade association is part of the Partnership for
> America’s Health Care Future group opposing single payer.
> 
> [...]
> 
> “The host list speaks for itself,” said Wendell Potter, president of
> Business Initiative for Health Policy. “This event wasn’t about fixing
> the health care system. It was about protecting the health care
> industry, no matter the cost to patients, families, workers, or
> employers.”
> 
> “The industry is the root cause of our health care crisis. A
> congressional staffer serious about finding solutions wouldn’t touch
> that retreat with a 10-foot pole,” he added.

Just another reason why you can't take seriously any notion that the 
Democrats can be made to work for the public interest by reforming that 
party from within.




Another Bayer (current owner of Monsanto) loss in court -- $2B lawsuit goes 
to family facing cancer

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/13/monsanto-cancer-trial-bayer-roundup-couple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhGPr80hX24
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/05/14/historic-verdict-jury-orders-monsanto-pay-record-2-billion-couple-roundup-cancer

> A California jury ruled Monday that Monsanto must pay a record $2
> billion in damages to a couple that was diagnosed with cancer after
> using the company's weedkiller Roundup.
> 
> "We were finally allowed to show a jury the mountain of evidence showing
> Monsanto's manipulation of science, the media, and regulatory agencies
> to forward their own agenda despite Roundup's severe harm to the animal
> kingdom and humankind," said Michael Miller, an attorney for Alva and
> Alberta Pilliod.
> 
> The jury ruled that Monsanto—which was acquired by the German
> pharmaceutical giant Bayer last year—is liable for the Pilliods'
> non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), the third such ruling in less than a
> year.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIkblNUBbZw -- Bayer stock is down 
following $2B court victory. But this is likely to be temporary and not 
long-lasting.




Exploitation: '996' workplan (9am-9pm 6 days a week) is losing employees

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-tech-labour/opting-out-some-of-chinas-996-tech-tribe-quit-seek-less-stress-idUSKCN1SM0HX 
--

 > In April, protests from tech employees against excessive overtime
> surfaced online, sparking an equal pushback from industry magnates such
> as billionaire Jack Ma of e-commerce giant Alibaba. The protests point
> to a mindset shift in the tech industry, whose penchant for long hours
> has been praised by Western executives as a reason for China's economic
> rise. But the shift could also have a cost for tech firms, venture
> capitalists and analysts say. According to job-hunting site Maimai, the
> tech sector was the only industry out of thirteen surveyed to see more
> people leave than join between October 2018 and February 2019.
> 
> "One of the highest costs in an organization is high employee turnover.
> A culture that is less focused on hours put in, may also become more
> effective if the focus is turned to output versus input," said Rui Ma, a
> San Francisco-based investor who has funded startups in China and North
> America. For some companies and employees, working 996 became a badge of
> honor and Silicon Valley heavyweights such as Sequoia Capital's Mike
> Moritz highlighted it as a competitive advantage over the United States.
> But a 996 backlash surfaced publicly in April, when a group of
> programmers launched an online protest against the practice.
> 
> Supporters published a crowdsourced list of companies that engage in
> long overtime hours, which included big tech names such as Baidu,
> Tencent Holdings, and delivery service app Ele.me. The protest prompted
> a public debate about work hours in China's tech industry, and spurred
> reactions from at least 10 Chinese tech moguls, including Ma, who
> initially defended the practice. Chinese state media said 996 violated
> the country's labor laws, which mandate an average working week of 44
> hours.

 From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmMnIgD_qWk quoting Jack Ma:

> To be able to work 996 is a huge bliss.

and 
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-04-16/jack-ma-and-richard-liu-voice-support-for-intense-996-work-culture-and-people-are-not-happy-about-it-101404611.html

> I personally believe 996 is good luck. Many companies and people don’t
> even have a chance to 996. If you can’t 996 when you’re young, when can
> you 996? If you haven’t done 996 in your life, should you feel proud? If
> you don’t wish to expend extra effort, how can you achieve the success
> you want?




WikiLeaks/Assange:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48335692 -- Ecuador hands over 
Assange's stuff to the US and WikiLeaks says Ecuador certainly has tampered 
with that stuff before handing it over to the US.





Russiagate

https://www.blackagendareport.com/muellergate-report-review -- recommended 
reading with one minor exception, a quote from Stephen Cohen about citing 
tweets in footnotes:

> Moreover, if you read the footnotes, and as a scholar, I always look at
> the footnotes—and there's hundreds of them—it's amazing how many of
> Mueller's footnotes are to newspaper accounts and even tweets. I've
> never seen what purports to be a scholarly research work footnote
> tweets.

Perhaps a lot of what Cohen has read predates Twitter. But by now people in 
power and people whose writings are worth reading do say things online and 
there's good reason to source quotes, so that means providing a URL 
pointing to some social media website such as twitter.com.

The larger context of Cohen's objection isn't made clear and it's not clear 
that this Cohen quote needed to be in Garrison's BAR article.




Russiagate returns to its roots

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBINSSDpgLs -- Media stokes fears of 
"Russian meddling" before EU elections.

Sir Julian King, EU commissioner for security:
> Winter isn't the only thing that's coming -- so is the risk of
> interference with our elections.
France 24 TV claims they're going to "investigate the claims of Russia's 
attempt to influence and undermine the democratic system in Europe" in one 
piece, DW (Deutsche Welle) "fears that Russia is infiltrating the very 
heart of European democracy", Bloomberg claims they're "starting to see the 
early signs of a repeat in the US elections in regard to Russian hacking 
and Russian tampering", and the BBC complains that RT & Sputnik have been 
talking in their published reports about the EU elections: "They [RT & 
Sputnik] have been picking up the theme consistently over the past few 
months. They do seem to be pushing slightly anti-establishment messages.". 
So covering the news is evidence of interference with the election 
according to the BBC.

But, really, where is the evidence to back up the fearmongering? There's no 
evidence presented by corporate-friendly media to back up any of the 
suspicions or claims they've raised. This is consistent with what we've 
seen so many times before. Social media reps aren't picking up the baton on 
this:

Clara Sommiere, Google EU's Public Policy Teams:
> So far, we haven't seen any interference on the platforms.

Richard Allan, head of Global Public Policy for Facebook:
> [There have been no] published accounts of attacks specifically related
> to the EU election today.
Yoel Roth, Head of Site Integrity, Twitter:
> We are always seeing a baseline level of it but nothing that has
> coalesced around specific topic, theme, or group or even country.




Russiagate: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard receives donations from people having some 
connection to Russia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tllZP0XqpAs -- Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is 
running for president and she has received donations from 3 donors with 
some connection to Russia which is fueling baseless speculation that 
Gabbard is now a "Putin puppet":

Stephen Cohen (Russian Studies professor, New York University) donated $1,000.

Sharon Tennison (Pres. of the Center for Citizen Initiatives and vocal 
Putin supporter who was, nonetheless, arrested in Russia in 2016) donated 
about 5 times, total sum unknown.

An anonymous donor who is a comic and former RT producer known only as 
"Goofy Grapes" donated $1,000.

This story likely really has more to do with her making the establishment 
nervous in her speeches and reception as being "anti-establishment" or 
"anti-war". In addition her support for domestic agenda items including 
Medicare for All make the corporate Democratic Party nervous. I still 
maintain with regards to war there's some evidence that the establishment 
has not that much to fear since she's apparently down with the drone war 
and pro-war propaganda (which lie about the ability to bomb with precision) 
like "surgical strikes". I wrote about this in 
https://digitalcitizen.info/2019/02/13/is-tulsi-gabbard-really-anti-war-no-shes-pro-drone-and-for-surgical-strikes/







War: Douma attack revealed to be a staged event but with real war 
consequences after US, UK, and France coordinate attack in response. 
Washington now warns that another Syrian attack is imminent (sans evidence).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLRQSfSKoJo -- Jimmy Dore does a good job 
of laying out the case on this: the OPCW apparently left out of its report 
that its scientists concluded the famous yellow/orange canister bombs were 
placed, not dropped, to where they ended up being.

Related:
https://www.blackagendareport.com/corporate-media-and-resistance-peace -- 
Danny Haiphong's recent report on corporate media and "resistance"



Trump talks about the military-industrial complex on Fox News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgughGXtMPI -- Pres. Trump tells Fox News 
that "they [the Military-Industrial Complex] do like war":

> Pres. Trump: You do have a Military-Industrial Complex, they do like
> war. You know, in Syria with the Caliphate [...] so, I wipe out 100% of
> the Caliphate, I say 'I wanna bring our troops back home!' [and] the
> place went crazy! They want to keep-- you have people here, in
> Washington, who never wanna leave! Someday people will explain it--
> 
> Fox News Interviewer: Well this is--
> 
> Pres. Trump: You do have, and they call it, the Military-Industrial
> Complex.

This interview came from the same network Sen. Elizabeth Warren won't go 
on, won't let Fox News interviewers ask her questions in a town hall forum 
(she gave Fox News' invitation a "hard pass").


Anti-war/anti-imperialist talk; another instance of near-deplatforming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz3LUevTLu0 (9m08s) -- Max Blumenthal 
debunks the White Helmets (RT is also a good source of info on this topic).


Indonesia: Protests continue over election results

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPkiKvBD07A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeUw8uVK2gA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF9p0YA0hyA

-J