[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Notes for News from Neptune to spur discussion. Have a good show guys.


Exploitation/Labor: NPR asks "Why Suburban Moms Are Delivering Your 
Groceries". The "gig" economy exploits everyone but the highest levels of 
management.

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/25/722811953/why-suburban-moms-are-delivering-your-groceries 
-- It's like the 'picking & packing' jobs at Amazon but these jobs are 
carried out at your local grocery stores instead of a robot-filled 
warehouse where humans aren't allowed a pee break without risking their job 
(you might think I'm making this up, but I'm not).

> Having time like this with her family is a major reason that [Hilary]
> Gordon, 47, works as a shopper for the grocery delivery app Instacart in
> a suburb of Sacramento, Calif. "I find it fun. It gives me something to
> do. I'm not out spending money. And I love the flexibility," she says.
> 
> Instacart is one of a slew of similar apps — DoorDash, Postmates, Shipt
> — paying tens of thousands of workers like Gordon to deliver packages,
> food or groceries to strangers. Similar to those who drive for
> ride-share apps Uber and Lyft, delivery workers can choose when to work.
> But they don't have to invite strangers into their cars.
> 
> This draws women — often in their 40s and 50s — who now make up more
> than half the contractors working for major food delivery apps.
> 
> Instacart told NPR that more than 50% of people who shop for the app are
> women. DoorDash said women make up more than 50% of its "dashers" in
> rural and suburban areas and more than 60% in urban areas. Target's
> Shipt declined to share this statistic. Postmates said an April survey
> of its workers showed 48% were female and 38% had a child at home.
> 
> Gordon and a half-dozen other women shared with NPR details of working
> for delivery apps, which painted a picture of the epitome of gig work:
> accessible but high intensity, with pay that's quick but unpredictable
> and hours that are flexible but unreliable.
> 
> "I tell people it's a great thing to have, if you're looking for extra
> money but you don't really need it," said Christina Lewkowitz, 50, who
> works for Instacart, DoorDash, Shipt, Deliv and a vineyard in
> Sacramento.

It seems the future is filled with such "independent contractors" meaning 
workers who are just like employees except firms don't need to pay them as 
much money, firms don't cover kind of 'benefits', and the workers are 
always effectively in competition with each other to push down the cost of 
their labor for the firm:

> After splitting up school drop-offs with her husband, Gordon parks her
> Subaru SUV in a grocery store parking lot. Her Instacart shift today is
> 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. She's got her shopping sneakers on and a fully charged
> phone — watching the screen for incoming grocery orders, which she will
> both shop for and deliver.
> 
> The first "batch," as they call it, is a bust: $8 with no tip, for seven
> items, to be taken 4 miles. But the store is 8 miles away. Instacart
> says it pays 60 cents per mile for delivery to the customer, but it
> doesn't pay for the drive to the store in the first place. The company
> explains that it can't be sure that the worker, for example, isn't doing
> a non-Instacart gig until they begin shopping.
> 
> Before accepting an order, Gordon estimates the cost of gas for the
> drive to and from the store. She looks out for addresses known to
> require climbing stairs and orders that include very heavy items, like
> 50-pound bags of dog food or 13 cases of water.
> 
> Logging miles is a big cost of the job. Some days Gordon might drive 100
> miles, filling up the tank at least once a day. For every order, she
> does quick math to calculate the gas expense. This $8 order doesn't cut
> it. Gordon picks one of her canned responses to Instacart: "Pay too low.
> I will not work for free!"
> 
> "It's really hard to say yes to that, because you feel like then they're
> thinking, 'Oh, well, see, they'll work for that' — and I don't want to
> work for that," Gordon says.
> 
> But you can't skip too many orders — the app will think you stopped
> working. Gordon gets a good one: eight items for $9.87 plus a promise of
> a $6 tip. But most importantly, it's only 1.5 miles of driving. She can
> knock it out in about 20 minutes.
> 
> Shopping for other people is a bit like a scavenger hunt, except the app
> is timing you. You rush through the whole store, scanning every item
> that goes in the basket and messaging the customer with updates.

[...]

> Gig workers are often independent contractors who don't get benefits
> like health insurance or sick leave. And when families piece together
> multiple jobs and gigs to make a living, "the system of workplace
> benefits that's been in place does not adequately cover nearly as many
> workers," Shelly Steward [of the "Future of work initiative"] says.

[...]

> Gordon is one of the Instacart regulars who get "early access" to a full
> week's worth of shifts so she can get hours predictable and long enough
> to make the work worth it for her. But to qualify, she commits to doing
> this "gig" full time, because early access requires working at least 90
> hours in three weeks or 25 hours over three weekends.
> 
> Instacart says it has announced a pilot of a new way to qualify, which
> would encourage good customer ratings instead of long hours.
> 
> Even for full-timers like Gordon, signing up for shifts is "anxiety
> inducing." She describes frantic clicking on Sunday mornings, when the
> schedule opens, selecting all the hour slots before they get claimed,
> within minutes.
> 
> And after all that, as any gig worker knows, having more hours doesn't
> ensure a huge paycheck bump. It might be a slow day, or long distances
> might make orders not worth the cost of gas. Workers also consider the
> less obvious costs of these jobs. Is the order too complicated and time
> consuming? Too heavy?
> 
> Once, Gordon accidentally accepted a Costco batch with 81 cases of
> water. She says Instacart told her she could do multiple trips, but she
> refused and had to return — and ultimately give up — the whole order. So
> today, Gordon is eagle-eyed, spotting 13 cases of water in an otherwise
> appealing $32 batch.
> 
> One final thing she always checks is whether she knows the delivery
> address. Many delivery workers keep a mental track of locations that
> require climbing stairs, like apartments without elevators. On Gordon's
> mental list are also a house with the guy who greeted her in a robe, and
> an older man who pressured her into bringing his groceries inside and
> said he'd been tracking her.
[...]

> Today, Gordon delivered eight orders in 10 hours and made $133, before
> extra bumps for heavy orders and good reviews. Today was OK. There was
> one day when she made $50 in six hours. That wasn't worth it. Gordon's
> best day's haul was $255 — when she worked almost 12 hours.




Capitalism: Millions of senior citizens can’t afford food — and they’re not 
all living in poverty. Why? Student loan debt, "the high cost of health 
care, housing, utilities, and transportation".

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millions-of-senior-citizens-cant-afford-food-and-theyre-not-all-living-in-poverty-2019-05-16 
-- "Even seniors with incomes above the federal poverty line struggle to 
afford food in the U.S."

> An alarming 1 in 12 seniors aged 60 and older — 5.5 million or 7.7% of
> the senior population — didn’t have enough food in 2017, the latest year
> for which data was available, according to a new study by Feeding
> America, a nonprofit organization that operates more than 200 food
> banks.
> 
> Economic constraints lead some seniors to eat less or skip meals, an
> epidemic that will negatively affect more than 8 million food-insecure
> seniors in the U.S. by 2050, according to “The State of Senior Hunger in
> America” report.
> 
> New Mexico, Louisiana and Mississippi are the three states with the
> highest number of seniors — more than 10% of the state’s senior
> population affected by the hunger crisis, followed by D.C., North
> Carolina, Texas, Alabama and Rhode Island, it added. Two-thirds of
> hungry seniors have incomes above the federal poverty line
> 
> Two-thirds of all hungry seniors (65.3%) have incomes above the federal
> poverty line ($12,140 a year, or $1,012 per month for a single person
> household in 2017). And younger seniors — aged 60 to 64 — are twice as
> likely to be food insecure as seniors who are 80 or older.
> 
> While food insecurity is associated with income, it isn’t just limited
> to people living in poverty, researchers found. Some seniors end up
> skipping meals due to the high cost of health care, housing, utilities
> and transportation, the study suggests.
> 
> There’s a number of economic factors that could be contributing: A
> staggering 3 million senior citizens aged 65 and up are paying off their
> student loans, totalling up to $86 billion, CBS news reported. And many
> are having their Social Security benefits wiped out to pay off their
> debt.
> 
> Not all seniors are all aware or able to access public-health benefits.
> Around 5 million households with a senior receive, on average, $125 per
> month in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, yet
> only 2 in 5 SNAP-eligible seniors are enrolled in the program.

Remember when Chávez had Venezuelan state-owned oil company CITGO give 100 
gallons of home heating oil to 5,000 poor Americans on the East Coast? RT 
did a report on it -- in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scgsTsOUrBQ -- 7 
years ago when that CITGO program was running (and while the Obama 
administration was chastising Chávez for making the American government 
look bad). Chávez said:

> Chávez: You know, President Obama, I feel sorry for you: just ask the
> black communities of your country what you mean to them -- you're the
> greatest disappointment of recent years. Go ask the poor people of your
> country. You're a great disappointment to them. 

77-year-old Bronx resident Alice Maniotis was interviewed about the heating 
oil she received as part of this program. Her words still carry meaning for 
us today in light of the recent Venezuelan attempted coup:

> Maniotis: All I know is that he [Chávez] was kind, he was kind to the
> people of the United States and I'm sure he rules differently like Obama
> rules differently, and who are we to tell these people [Venezuelans] how
> they should live? I mean are they invading our country? But they're not!
> They're being generous to give us what comes out of their earth at no
> charge, so could you really have ill feelings against them? I'm thankful
> for it. I really am.

And Maniotis spoke on what poor young people face:

> Maniotis: It's time that we stop minding everybody else's business and
> took care of business here. We have children that are graduating from 
> college with 80, 90, 100 thousand dollars that they have to pay back. 
> It's ruining them. And they can't get a job.

But the corporate media of today would have us stop paying attention to RT 
because it comes from Russia, and we're supposed to fear Russia. Corporate 
media is still pushing the line that Russia somehow interfered with the 
2016 US election and put Trump in office (aka "Russiagate").

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, n'est pas?




Rumors of War: OPCW's leaked redactions from their published report on the 
alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria are getting covered only in 
some alternative media not at all in corporate media

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe7kqlKUI-g -- recent "Going Underground" 
segment (RT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5KZwaybZ-Q -- recent RT report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BsWMGDuF3k -- news from BBC producer 3 
months ago which claims the Douma chemical attack video was staged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwqHmPcXpMI -- RT's report on a series of 
discrepancies in the Douma OPCW chemical attack study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptwEIX3yHeI -- Grayzone report

https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-no-chemical-attacks-syria 
-- recent report from Black Agenda Report (quoted below)

Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist, lays out the 
controversy quite well:

> The corporate media march in lock step with the United States and its
> allies around the world. They have a tacit agreement to exclude any
> information which might inconvenience pro-war, pro-interventionist
> narratives.

[...]

> Anyone with common sense should doubt these reports [of Syria gassing
> its own people]. Assad had no reason to do anything which guaranteed
> military attacks on his country. Furthermore, persons with credibility
> and expertise had already provided evidence that these claims are
> nothing but false flags meant to get public buy-in for aggression.

[...]

> The claims and counter claims always merited serious scrutiny. But a
> leaked document from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical
> Weapons (OPCW) makes the case that even supposedly disinterested parties
> take the side of the U.S. and its allies if enough pressure is applied.
> 
> The leaked report makes clear that there were serious questions about
> the 2018 reports, even among OPCW staff. The New York Times and the rest
> of their partners in propaganda wanted to make the case for the once and
> future war and accused the Syrian government of dropping chlorine gas
> devices onto an apartment building. But the leaked document shows that
> there were serious doubts expressed by the some of the expert
> investigators. “…there is a higher probability that both cylinders were
> manually placed at both locations rather than being delivered by
> aircraft.”
> 
> There are many dots to connect here and they point away from the “Assad
> is gassing his own people” tale. The OPCW was pressured into taking on
> the role of judge and jury and assigning blame, rather than merely
> reporting on its technical findings. The politicization of its work dove
> tailed nicely with charges of Syrian gas and Russian poisonings against
> former KGB operatives. As the old saying goes, there is no such thing as
> coincidence.




War: Pres. Trump declares "emergency" to get $8.1B of weapons to Saudi 
Arabia over Congressional objections; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (who is running 
for US President) tries to play both sides.

jbn: Senator Warren continues to get favorable press from corporate 
outlets, pitching her as a "progressive" choice for the Democratic Party. 
Consider CNN's coverage of her stump speech 
(https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/politics/elizabeth-warren-townhall-takeaways/index.html) 
which tells us that she thinks it's a good idea to keep private insurance 
companies involved in healthcare delivery (which is what ObamaCare nee 
RomneyCare does and what keeps the HMOs in charge), or that she pushes for 
reparations when that appears to solve no real economic problems but offer 
another chance to push identity politics over class-based economic critique 
(which is very much the point of identity politics), and she's pro-war. 
Looking at this last point in more detail, let's consider some recent 
developments:

 From 
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/24/8-billion-weapons-middle-east-3323593
https://archive.fo/00Shk -- archive of Politico's article (preferred if you 
don't run Javascript)

> The Trump administration on Friday notified Congress it plans to sell
> $8.1 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United
> Arab Emirates without congressional approval — a move that has incensed
> members from both parties who have sought to cut off military aid for
> the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen.
> 
> The decision covers 22 pending transfers of munitions, aircraft parts
> and other supplies "to deter Iranian aggression and build partner
> self-defense capacity," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a
> statement. "These sales will support our allies, enhance Middle East
> stability, and help these nations to deter and defend themselves from
> the Islamic Republic of Iran."
> 
> Normally such sales are subject to congressional approval. But Trump is
> using a loophole in the Arms Export Control Act that allows him to
> bypass the process in case of emergency. The move is similar to Trump's
> declaration of a border emergency this year, which allowed him to divert
> military funds to pay for border barriers.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren's reaction in 
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1132350371274248193

> Congress voted to tell @realDonaldTrump to end the United States' 
> complicity in Yemen's ongoing humanitarian crisis. His response? Veto 
> the resolution, then declare a fake "emergency" to keep selling weapons 
> the Saudis will use to kill more civilians.
> 
> It's revolting to suggest that we need to help the Saudis kill civilians
> in order to stand up to Iran. Our only "emergency" is a President who
> cares more about making money for his defense contractor buddies than
> the democratic will of Congress or the moral catastrophe in Yemen.

Jimmy Dore's response to Sen. Warren from 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pewTJMS6HTw
> It's revolting that you think we need to "stand up to Iran".

Twitter user M4AllNann replied to Sen. Warren in 
https://twitter.com/M4AllNann/status/1133181930969608192
> Then. Why. Did. You. Vote. To. Increase. His. Military. Budget?!?!

jbn: M4AllNann referred to Sen. Warren's vote for the National Defense 
Authorization Act (NDAA) where Sen. Warren joined the majority (89 for, 8 
against) authorizing hundreds of billions of dollars for what Warren now 
calls "Trump's defense contractor buddies". Some more info on this bill:

 From 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/senate-pentagon-spending-bill.html

> In a rare act of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, the Senate passed a
> $700 billion defense policy bill on Monday that sets forth a muscular
> vision of America as a global power, with a Pentagon budget that far
> exceeds what President Trump has asked for.
> 
> Senators voted 89-9 to approve the measure, known as the National
> Defense Authorization Act; the House has already adopted a similar
> version.

[...]

> The 1,215-page bill sets policy on a range of military matters as
> diverse as whether the Air Force can buy new fighter jets and pay raises
> for service members. It provides $640 billion for basic Pentagon
> operations — $37 billion more than President Trump sought — and another
> $60 billion for war operations overseas in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and
> elsewhere.
> 
> The measure also includes a string of provisions to streamline the
> management of the Defense Department; along with boosting military
> spending, overhauling the Pentagon has been a high priority for Mr.
> McCain.

[...]

> The bill also reflects Mr. [John] McCain’s expansive vision of the role
> of the United States in world affairs. It authorizes $500 million to
> provide security assistance, including weapons, to Ukraine; $100 million
> to help Baltic nations “deter Russian aggression” and another $705
> million for Israeli cooperative missile defense programs — $558.5
> million more than the administration’s request.

jbn: Pres. Obama's $115B+ sales offers to Saudi Arabia (according to a 
Reuters report 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-security-idUSKCN11D2JQ from 
September 7, 2016) went unchallenged by Sen. Warren even on Twitter.

jbn: It looks like Sen. Warren's tsk-tsking isn't reflected in her voting 
record. What matters more?





Venezuela: The Pro-coup protestors were the product of Raytheon and the 
Pentagon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX3yiZ3SFwQ -- Venezuelan pro-coup 
protestors were "astroturf" (bought protestors supplied by organizations 
that stand to benefit from the coup).

Related: A two-part story from The Real News on how "Guaidó Out of Gas"
Part 1 of 2 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_EEFJe-owc
Part 2 of 2 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmucdDrT9DQ



Banks: Bloomberg says "US Banks are terrified of Chinese payment apps"

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-payment-systems-china-usa/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJh_Uir5EMI

Chinese consumers can conduct "messaging, shopping and sending money back 
and forth, all without cash [...] using Alipay [from AliBaba] and WeChat". 
As Bloomberg describes it:

> The future of consumer payments may not be designed in New York or
> London but in China. There, money flows mainly through a pair of digital
> ecosystems that blend social media, commerce and banking—all run by two
> of the world’s most valuable companies. That contrasts with the U.S.,
> where numerous firms feast on fees from handling and processing
> payments. Western bankers and credit-card executives who travel to China
> keep returning with the same anxiety: Payments can happen cheaply and
> easily without them.

[...]

> Perhaps the clearest opportunity lies in siphoning off some of the fees
> that U.S. merchants pay to accept cards and mobile payments—about $90
> billion a year, according to the Nilson Report, an industry newsletter.
> That money gets parceled out to card networks such as Visa Inc. and
> Mastercard Inc., payment processors and banks, which pocket the largest
> share.
> 
> In China, analysts expect third-party payment providers to earn about 40
> percent of such fees by 2020. If apps were to start grabbing market
> share in the U.S. at roughly the same rate they did in China, it would
> take a $43 billion revenue bite out of a business banks count as among
> their most profitable.

So bank account holders (including anyone loaning money from a bank) has a 
choice -- gamble on whatever skimpy protection FDIC-insured accounts gets 
you or trust a slightly different set of private companies to hold your money.

Viewed in this way, this is hardly anything new: it's merely another step 
in the degradation of services via privatization. The real story here comes 
down to wealthy banks fearing that they'll lose the cut they get with every 
traditional credit card transaction and fee collection.

Viewed in the way the Huawei story is being reported now (that story 
similarly boils down to inter-company bickering over patents and 
development of 5G towers), there will likely be an element of nationalism 
injected into this. We're supposed to fear Huawei because China will spy on 
your data and we're supposed to trust American companies (if there really 
is such a thing, companies are typically multinational). But Snowden gave 
us the documents so we know better. We know that spying is happening by 
governments which collude with private companies such as the NSA PRISM 
program in which Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, AOL, 
Apple, and others are all "providers" (companies that provide data 
describing their users to the NSA) -- see 
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Prism_slide_5.jpg for 
one example and the Wikipedia page on "Global surveillance disclosures" for 
plenty of other examples.





Assange: He's in such dire straits that he has been moved to the Belmarsh 
prison hospital and was not well enough to participate in a video hearing 
from prison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmfGvVgn4vY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJPbZuaqh8w -- RT reports "he can barely 
talk" as he was moved to the prison hospital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKIwS8s0Gq8 -- WikiLeaks ambassador talks 
to RT on Assange's health.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MuzOj46F1M -- Alan Dershowitz says the "US 
government made a foolish tactical blunder by indicting Assange under the 
Espionage Act". Dershowitz makes good points here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh6v1Q_C5B4 -- Ex-prison Pepsi Watson on 
how Assange is likely to be treated in Belmarsh -- nothing good.

Related: John Pilger comments on Assange-related matters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUka8nV89pY -- John Pilger talks with RT on 
how if the US charges against Assange aren't won The Guardian and The New 
York Times could be next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pJIsTatG_A -- Assange charges are ridiculous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSrD2af3od8 -- Political influence behind 
Sweden's Assange case:

> John Pilger on Sweden's case against Assange: I have no information on
> the pressure applied by the United States on Sweden but it's a good
> question you ask -- why is Sweden doing this? -- I mean, he's [Assange]
> answered all the questions, they've gone through their process. Swedish
> prosecution officials have sat down with him and discussed this case.
> Then what are they doing? Why are they doing this? Apart from the fact
> that the most damning evidence in the Swedish case has been suppressed
> by the prosecutor and that is the SMS messages exchanged between the two
> women, both of whom deny they were raped. Julian Assange is being given
> special treatment. It's not absolutely certain that the Swedes will
> issue a European arrest warrant yet, they may. But that would be
> foolish. Because that argument has already gone through the courts in
> this country and has been discredited. They changed the law so that that
> charade wouldn't happen again. So, again, what are they doing? Are they
> handing Julian Assange's lawyers more ammunition? I don't know. Behind
> this is undoubtedly great political influence.




Russiagate: US accuses Russia of "probably" violating nuclear testing 
moratorium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj_qj4_me_A -- US Director of Defense 
Intelligence Agency, Robert Ashley Jr. said this:

> Robert Ashley Jr.: United States believes that Russia probably is not
> adhering the nuclear testing moratorium in a manner consistent with the
> zero-yield standard. Our understand of nuclear weapon development leads
> us to believe Russia's testing activities would help it improve its
> nuclear weapons capabilities.
Russia has noticed an interesting pattern in this choice of accusation:

> Russian Foreign Ministry: Unfortunately, such verbal attacks,
> transmitted by the world's media, have become commonplace. As a rule,
> they occur when Washington is determined to withdraw from another
> international treaty or has been accused of not complying with one. We
> cannot rule out that Washington is preparing to use this as cover for
> the resumption of its own full-scale tests of nuclear weapons.
Which, interestingly, fits with a pattern of provocation which Patrick 
Clawson from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy brought up in a 
talk called "How to Build US-Israeli Coordination on Preventing an Iranian 
Nuclear Breakout" -- here the US made vague & evidenceless claims of 
Russian weapons development, and in the past the US has provoked other 
countries into attacking:

> 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? 

This is entirely consistent with the hedging language ("highly likely", 
"overwhelmingly likely", "high confidence") coupled with no evidence used 
in so many Russiagate accusations:

> British Prime Minister Theresa May on the Skripal poisoning: The [UK]
> government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was
> responsible [for the Skripal poisonings].
> 
> British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on the Skripal poisoning: Our
> [UK's] quarrel is with Putin's Kremlin [...] and we think it
> overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision.
> 
> Former Commander, US European command Curtis Scaparrotti on the Douma
> chemicals attack: We also believe that it's highly likely that they're
> complicit with the chemicals use.
> 
> US National Security Adviser John Bolton on the need to carry out a
> Venezuelan coup: What Mike Pompeo said yesterday -- I think we have
> very, very high confidence it was accurate: it reflects the role Russia
> has in Venezuela.



Internet: Why is Amazon Inc. being given control over the .amazon top-level 
domain name?

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20190528_icann_otd_amazon_decision_denounced_by_andean_community/ 
-- Amazon Inc applied for a .amazon top-level domain name and ICANN (the 
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- the organization 
which controls the global domain name system) approved creating .amazon 
after a 30-day public comment period. The Andean Community (Bolivia, Peru, 
Colombia, and Ecuador) are raising a public complaint with ICANN. If this 
goes through, you can expect more branded top-level domain names -- .nike, 
.coke, .alibaba, etc. Who would get .god?

-J
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