[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Here are some topics for you to consider discussing; some of the notes 
below are reposts of older notes I included before but you didn't have a 
chance to include in a News from Neptune show, some are newer notes (toward 
the end).

Have a good show guys, looking forward to seeing the next show.




Russiagate/Skripal affair: "Trump told Theresa May he doubted Russia was 
behind Skripal poisoning"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/05/trump-told-theresa-may-he-doubted-russia-was-behind-skripal-poisoning 
-- Russiagate takes another drubbing as the Skripal story looks like it is 
losing advocates.

> Donald Trump disputed that Russia was behind the attempted murder of a 
> former Russian spy in a tense call with Theresa May, it has emerged.
> 
> Despite the widespread conclusion that Vladimir Putin’s regime was 
> behind the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia last
> year, the US president is said to have spent 10 minutes expressing his
> doubts about Russian involvement.
> 
> According to the Washington Post, Trump “harangued” May about Britain’s 
> contribution to Nato in a phone call with Britain’s then prime minister 
> in the summer of last year, before disputing Russian involvement in the 
> Skripal case.
> 
> “Trump totally bought into the idea there was credible doubt about the 
> poisoning,” said a figure briefed on the call. “A solid 10 minutes of 
> the conversation is spent with May saying it’s highly likely and him 
> saying he’s not sure.”
> 
> The Skripals were left fighting for their lives after the novichok 
> attack in Salisbury, while a policeman was also left seriously ill. A 
> second policeman was recently discovered to have been injured in the 
> attack.
> 
> Two Russian agents, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were 
> identified as the likely culprits. However, they later appeared on 
> Russia’s state-funded TV station RT, claiming they visited the 
> “wonderful” English city as tourists to see its cathedral.
> 
> Trump has been pursued over his relationship with Russia ever since 
> allegations emerged that the country colluded with the Trump 
> presidential campaign in 2016. The Robert Mueller report, which
> examined the claims, concluded Russia had been attempting to swing the 
> presidential election in favour of Trump, but did not say whether there 
> had been collusion.
jbn: The Guardian gets some information wrong here -- saying the Mueller 
Report "did not say whether there had been collusion" is not correct, the 
Mueller Report didn't prove there was collusion and it was that report's 
job to do so. The Mueller report was widely awaited among the corporate 
media Russiagate defenders in order to bolster the long-held and 
widely-repeated baseless claim of Russian collusion (hello Rachel Maddow, 
chief Russiagator who now blames Russia for Ukrainegate -- see 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBLXZHTljTM for more!).

The Mueller report was a great disappointment to that end.

As the Mueller Report publication neared it was increasingly clear that no 
such collusion proof would come (as information about it would have leaked) 
and indeed the entirety of Russiagate fell apart as investigative 
journalists (such as Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, and others) made a 
greater name for themselves debunking Russiagate.

This take on the story is also compatible with what Seymour Hersh told 
Afshin Rattansi on Rattansi's program "Going Underground" in 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJgTiP6WBss -- the Skripal poisoning was 
not a Russian state operation despite that it involved some Russians:

> Seymour Hersh: Those two [Mishkin & Chepiga said to be using the names 
> "Alexander Petrov" and "Ruslan Boshirov"] were helping the British 
> intelligence services with information about the Russian mafia. That's 
> what they were doing here [in the UK]. In other words, the people that 
> were high on the list of people who would want to hurt him [Sergey 
> Skripal] would be the Russian mafia. Russians, but not the Russian 
> government.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi, RT host: Do you mean the Skripals?
> 
> Seymour Hersh: Yeah, I mean that was the understanding. There was also 
> some reporting out of Europe about that that's been pretty much 
> widespread.


Assange: Spying footage turns up showing Assange meeting with his guests 
inside the Ecuadorian embassy

https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/09/25/inenglish/1569384196_652151.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMnVput4sS8 -- A Spanish firm has given the 
CIA years of footage of Assange's visitors

 From El Pais:
> Undercover Global S. L., the Spanish defense and private security 
> company that was charged with protecting the Ecuadorian embassy in 
> London during the long stay there of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, 
> spied on the cyberactivist for the US intelligence service. That’s 
> according to statements and documents to which EL PAÍS have had access.
> David Morales, the owner of the company, supposedly handed over audio 
> and video to the CIA of the meetings Assange held with his lawyers and 
> collaborators. Morales is being investigated for this activity by 
> Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional.
> 
> The judicial investigation into the director of UC Global S. L. and the
>  activities of his company were ordered by a judge named José de la 
> Mata, and they began weeks after EL PAÍS published videos, audios and 
> reports that show how the company spied on the meetings that the 
> cyberactivist held in the embassy.
> 
> The secret probe is the consequence of a criminal complaint filed by 
> Assange himself, in which he accuses Morales and the company of the 
> alleged offenses involving violations of his privacy and the secrecy of
> his client-attorney privileges, as well as misappropriation, bribery 
> and money laundering. The director of UC Global S. L. has not responded 
> to calls from this newspaper in order to confirm his version of events.
> 
> Morales, a former member of the military who is on leave of absence, 
> stated both verbally and in writing to a number of his employees that, 
> despite having been hired by the government of then-Ecuadorian President
> Rafael Correa, he also worked “for the Americans,” to whom he allegedly
> sent documents, videos and audios of the meetings that the Australian
> activist held in the embassy. “We are playing in another league. This is
> the first division,” he told his closest colleagues after attending a
> security fair in the US city of Las Vegas in 2015 where he supposedly
> made his first American contacts.
> 
> Despite the fact that the Spanish firm – which is headquartered in the 
> southern city of Jerez de la Frontera – was hired by Senain, the 
> Ecuadorian intelligence services, Morales called on his employees 
> several times to keep his relationship with the US intelligence services
> a secret.
> 
> The owner of UC Global S. L. ordered a meeting between the head of the 
> Ecuadorian secret service, Rommy Vallejo, and Assange to be spied on, at
> a time when they were planning the exit of Assange from the Ecuadorian
> embassy using a diplomatic passport in order to take him to another
> country. This initiative was eventually rejected by Assange on the basis
> that he considered it to be “a defeat,” that would fuel conspiracy
> theories, according to sources close to the company consulted by this
> newspaper.
> 
> The meeting took place on December 21, 2017 in the meeting room of the 
> diplomatic building and was recorded both on video and audio by cameras
> installed by Morales’ employees. A small number of people, among whom 
> were the Australian’s lawyers, were aware of the plan. Hours after the 
> meeting, the US ambassador informed the Ecuadorian authorities about the
> plan, and the next day, December 22, the US put out an international
> arrest warrant for Assange.
> 
> “It is absurd to spy on who has hired you if you are not going to hand 
> that material over to another country,” said a source close to UC Global
> S. L. This newspaper has had access to the video and the audio of the
> aforementioned meeting.
> 
> After the installation of new video cameras at the beginning of
> December 2017, Morales requested that his technicians install an
> external streaming access point in the same area so that all of the
> recordings could be accessed instantly by the United States. To do this,
> he requested three channels for access: “one for Ecuador, another for
> us and another for X,” according to mails sent at the time to his 
> colleagues. When one of the technicians asked to contact “the Americans”
> to explain the way that they should access some of the spying systems
> installed in the embassy, Morales would always be evasive with his
> answers.
> 
> Morales ordered his workers to install microphones in the embassy’s fire
> extinguishers and also in the women’s bathroom, where Assange’s lawyers,
> including the Spaniard Aitor Martínez and his closest collaborators,
> would meet for fear of being spied on. The cyberactivist’s meetings with
> his lawyers, Melynda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzón, were
> also monitored.
> 
> The UC Global S. L. team was also ordered by its boss to install 
> stickers that prevented the windows of the rooms that the WikiLeaks 
> founder used from vibrating, allegedly to make it easier for the CIA to
> record conversations with their laser microphones. They also took a 
> used diaper that from a baby that was on occasions taken to visit the 
> activist in order to determine if the child was his by a close 
> collaborator.
jbn: This footage includes Assange meeting with his attorneys. As George 
Galloway put it on RT (link above), "[This] is a breach of the law on 
multiple levels and surely prejudices any chance of a fair trial for Julian 
Assange back in the United States, something which should be weighed 
heavily by the British court now considering the extradition request.". 
Galloway was a frequent Assange guest in the Ecuadorian embassy.

On a lesser point, this footage also includes people on the toilet (a point 
being used to advertise the story -- see Pamela Anderson on the toilet). I 
figure the main takeaway from that is if the US or allies try to use this 
to somehow embarrass her it's not embarrassing in the least (remember the 
children's book "Everybody Poops"?) and it's a point of pride to have 
visited Assange and been his friend in his time of need. Anderson has 
spoken excellently on Assange, WikiLeaks, and why he's being imprisoned and 
really given us reason to reconsider the image Hollywood would have us 
believe -- that she's nothing but a good-looking woman running along the 
beach in Baywatch. She's quite the opposite of the celebrities I mention 
below by using her celebrity to speak on behalf of an excellent cause.

Galloway talks a bit about how Assange came to be ejected from the 
Ecuadorian embassy and the connection between when Assange was ejected and 
the recent IMF loan Ecuador got:

> George Galloway: The timing is obvious: they [Ecuador] wouldn't have
> got the loan if they hadn't played ball with the United States on that 
> occasion. But the terms of the IMF loan were the savage brutalization
> of the conditions of life of the people of Ecuador. That was the quid
> pro quo -- we'll lend you all this money but you'll have to dispense
> with all this nonsense of public services, and decent wages for public 
> service employees, and all this pandering to the ethnic majority in 
> Ecuador. You'll have to cut all that out. [Lenin] Moreno played ball, 
> cut it out, and now your watching the results: the people want the fall 
> of the regime and I confidently expect that the regime will fall, and 
> I've got to tell you that will be one of the sweetest moments of my 
> life.



Haiti Revolution: Orinoco Tribune: "Haiti on Brink of Revolution to 
Overthrow US-Backed Regime"

https://orinocotribune.com/haiti-on-brink-of-revolution-to-overthrow-us-backed-regime 
-- 

> Revolutionaries destroyed police headquarters, attacked residences of
> government officials, and burned a jail and courts to the ground in
> different parts of Haiti on Friday.
> 
> Insurgents are fighting to overthrow the corrupt right-wing regime of
> Jovenel Moise, who is backed by the US. Four people died in clashes in
> recent days, with many reports of injuries.
> 
> In June, judges of Haiti’s High Court of Auditors said in a report that
> Moise was at the center of an “embezzlement scheme” that had siphoned
> off Venezuelan aid money intended for road repairs, laying out a litany
> of examples of corruption and mismanagement.
> 
> The aid money came through Venezuela’s PetroCaribe program, which had
> allowed Haiti to buy petroleum products at discount and on credit.
> 
> However, the program has now been suspended for more than a year because
> of the interests of US imperialism, which backs the Haitian regime and
> has supported coup attempts to install a right-wing regime in
> Venezuela.
> 
> The suspension has meant that Haiti’s long-suffering people have been
> faced with an extra burden: an ever-worsening fuel shortage that has
> resulted in closed service stations, rising prices and long lines to buy
> petrol.
> 
> In the wealthy suburb Petion Ville, entire blocks were set ablaze.
> 
> Protesters successfully drove the police out of Cité Soleil,
> Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhood. Revolutionaries completely
> destroyed the UDMO/police headquarters. Heavily armed units of police
> abandoned it after hours of attacks by residents with molotov cocktails
> and showers of rocks.
> 
> The UDMO (Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order), who have
> murdered many Haitian people to protect the corrupt Moise regime in
> power, have been trained by the US state in Austin, Texas where an
> “Executive Leadership” training course was set up for Haitian security
> forces.







Sanctions are war: But they don't call it the "permanent government" for 
nothing.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/04/why-i-confronted-trumps-architect-us-sanctions-against-iran-and-called-her-weapon 
-- Jodie Evans of CODEPINK, describes her protest of Sigal Mandelker's work 
on the US's anti-Iran sanctions. As we know, sanctions are a very effective 
form of war that kill thousands.

> Last week I exposed the architect of the U.S.’s deadly ‘maximum 
> pressure’ sanctions policy, Sigal Mandelker, in front of the United 
> Against a Nuclear Iran conference in New York City.
> 
> The maximum pressure sanctions policy is responsible for the death of 
> over 40,000 people. Mandelker said, twice in her speech, that Iran has 
> weapons of mass destruction. She was knowingly dog-whistling, lying to 
> the media and conference attendees, knowing this would feed the story 
> Trump and Pompeo want to support war with Iran.
> 
> Iran doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction. The Trump administration 
> knows they don’t have weapons of mass destruction.
> 
> Iran doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction. The Trump administration 
> knows they don’t have weapons of mass destruction. We all know they are 
> 10 years away from having WMDs.
> 
> So, I got up, holding a CODEPINK banner that says “Peace with Iran,”
> and disrupted her speech, walking to the podium and holding it for
> everyone to see.
> 
> “You are lying,” I said to her, and so attendees could hear. “There are 
> no weapons of mass destruction in Iran. You are a weapon of mass 
> destruction to the humanity of Iran. You are a weapon of mass 
> destruction to the people of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. You have killed 
> people. You have denied sick people medicine.”
> 
> I was brutally stopped and carried out of the room.
> 
> But this moment was an impetus:
> 
> Mandelker is the Trump administration’s top sanctions official and the 
> undersecretary at the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial 
> Intelligence.
> 
> And she resigned this week from her position. Did she not want her lies 
> and violence exposed?
> 
> Mandelker is one of the most hawkish members of the administration when 
> it comes to Iran, directly responsible for expanding the use of 
> sanctions as a primary tool of foreign policy against countries such as 
> Iran as well as Venezuela, Cuba and Russia. Throughout her career, she 
> has been in close step with the Israeli lobby, speaking at events
> hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and AIPAC and
> supporting their agenda to falsely frame Iran as a nuclear threat and
> sanction the nation into an economic crisis. Mandelker is a former clerk
> for Clarence Thomas, a current member of the conservative Federalist
> Society, and is one of the lawyers involved in brokering the Florida
> deal that allowed child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to avoid federal
> charges.

[...]

> While John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have been considered the main drivers 
> of Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran, Mandelker has been 
> the person behind the scenes actually executing the policy, and has 
> spoken of the “success” of the policy, though her definition of success 
> seems to be destroying Iran’s economy through collective punishment. 
> Since its founding and especially under Mandelker, the Treasury is 
> responsible for its innovative ways to expand sanctions as a form of 
> diplomatic isolation, going so far as to threaten fines and arrest to 
> those who associate with sanctioned actors without any stated 
> jurisdiction to do so in the regulations. The Office of Terrorism and 
> Financial Intelligence itself was created due to the lobbying of AIPAC 
> in 2004, and AIPAC also vetted the first person to fill the role 
> Mandelker recently held, the ultra-Zionist Stuart Levey, cementing its 
> very existence to the interests of the Israeli lobby. Under Mandelker, 
> the administration went forward with the unprecedented move to
> designate the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorists and leveled
> sanctions against institutions that collaborate with the U.S.,
> including sanctioning the Jammal Trust Bank in Lebanon this year despite
> the fact that the bank partnered with USAID the year before on public
> initiatives to help impoverished communities.
> 
> Mandelker has made it explicitly clear that her hawkish Iran policy is 
> acting on behalf of Israeli interests, claiming that the JCPOA did 
> nothing to curb Iran’s threat to Israel. She has gone so far as to
> state that this is the reason “why we have this massive sanctions
> regime. Because we know Iran is threatening our great partner, Israel”
> at the Aspen Security Forum this year. She has been referred to as
> “Israeli born” and a “former Israeli” by right-wing Israeli press, but
> the Treasury Department has refused to answer inquiries as to whether or
> not Mandelker is still an Israeli citizen, an important piece of
> information when U.S. attacks in the region are often the result of
> Israeli partisans’ interests.
> 
> Her resignation is a victory for humanity. May it be the first of many 
> of the warmongers; and then there were none.
jbn: While I am grateful for the protestations of murderous US policy I 
don't think that the resignations are that clearly a "victory for humanity" 
because a systemic analysis says that individuals are replaced with 
like-minded others to continue the same policy.




Exploitation economy: Turns out the 'gig' economy is not good for workers 
-- "Foodora" is a food delivery service in Toronto. Foodora couriers in 
Toronto are facing the same unstable, irregular conditions as other gig 
economy workers. They're organizing a union to fight back. We see the same 
tactic -- they're not employees, they're independent contractors -- used to 
deny the workers a union.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-1a6tJeQsQ -- The Real News video
https://therealnews.com/stories/toronto-couriers-unionize-gig-economy -- As 
of 2019-10-06 there's no transcript there but perhaps there will be later.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/09/10/future-of-gig-economy-workers-at-stake-in-foodora-couriers-unionization-battle.html

> In a potentially precedent-setting battle for the future of gig economy 
> workers, Foodora couriers hoping to become the first app-based
> workforce in the country to join a union have had their first hearing at
> Ontario’s Labour Relations Board.
> 
> At issue is whether couriers are independent contractors with no right 
> to unionize, as Foodora contends, or not.
> 
> The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) says couriers for the food 
> delivery company are dependent contractors who are economically reliant 
> on the app, which under Ontario law gives them the ability to unionize.
> 
> The hearing Tuesday follows a union certification vote at Foodora in 
> August, whose results were sealed until outstanding legal issues at the 
> board are dealt with.
> 
> Lawyers representing Foodora told the board the company exerts “little 
> to no control” over couriers’ work, making them independent contractors 
> who cannot join a union.
> 
> In addition to the degree of control Foodora has over workers,
> couriers’ level of economic dependence on Foodora will be a key debate
> in the proceedings — which could take months to unfold.
[...]

> Couriers for the company make a base rate of $4.50 per order, plus $1 
> for each kilometre from the restaurant to the drop-off point. As first 
> reported by the Star, workers launched a union drive in May arguing
> that many of their hours on the road go uncompensated and their health
> and safety protections are weak.
> 
> Ivan Ostos, who attended Tuesday’s hearing and has worked at the
> company for three years, said after he broke his arm on the job, he was
> asked by the company to complete his delivery and received “minimal”
> compensation for the four months he could not work. Foodora has
> maintained that “safety and superior customer service” are “tenets of
> our brand.”
jbn: Let's also remember that for all of the anti-union infrastructure and 
training Wal-Mart workers get in the US, German Wal-Mart workers were 
unionized when Wal-Mart started there and Wal-Mart couldn't break that up, 
so they worked with the union.






Economy: "Stockton Residents Who Received $500 a Month in Basic Income 
Experiment Spent Money on Food, Clothing and Bills"

https://ktla.com/2019/10/03/stockton-residents-who-received-500-a-month-in-basic-income-experiment-spent-money-on-food-clothing-and-bills/

jbn: The experiment (paying 100 Stockton, CA residents $500/month) started 
on Friday, February 15, 2019. It's not UBI because it's not universal -- 
not even all Stockton, CA residents were included in the experiment -- but 
it is still interesting to see how people spend the money. A related 
article published when the experiment began: 
https://ktla.com/2019/02/16/stockton-universal-basic-income/

> The first data from an experiment in a California city where needy 
> people get $500 a month from the government shows they spend most of it 
> on things such as food, clothing and utility bills.
> 
> The 18-month, privately funded program started in February and involves 
> 125 people in Stockton. It is one of the few experiments testing the 
> concept of “universal basic income,” an old idea getting new attention 
> from Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination.
> 
> Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs has committed to publicly releasing data 
> throughout the experiment to win over skeptics and, he hopes, convince 
> state lawmakers to implement the program statewide.
> 
> “In this country we have an issue with associating people who are 
> struggling economically and people of color with vices like drug use, 
> alcohol use, gambling,” he said. “I thought it was important to 
> illustrate folks aren’t using this money for things like that. They are 
> using it for literal necessities.”
> 
> But critics say the experiment likely won’t provide useful information 
> from a social science perspective given its limited size and duration.
> 
> Matt Zwolinski, director of the Center for Ethics, Economics and Public 
> Policy at the University of San Diego, said people aren’t likely to 
> change their behavior if they know the money they are getting will stop 
> after a year and a half. That’s one reason why he says the experiment
> is “really more about story telling than it is about social science.”
> 
> Plus, he said previous studies have shown people don’t spend the money 
> on frivolous things.
> 
> “What you get out of a program like this is some fairly compelling 
> anecdotes from people,” he said. “That makes for good public relations 
> if you are trying to drum up interest in a basic income program, but it 
> doesn’t really tell you much about what a basic income program would do 
> if implemented on a long-term and large-scale basis.”
> 
> The researchers overseeing the program, Stacia Martin-West at the 
> University of Tennessee and Amy Castro Baker at the University of 
> Pennsylvania, said their goal is not to see if people change their 
> behavior, but to measure how the money impacts their physical and
> mental health. That data will be released later.
> 
> People in the program get $500 each month on a debit card, which helps 
> researchers track their spending. But 40% of the money has been 
> withdrawn as cash, making it harder for researchers to know how it was 
> used. They fill in the gaps by asking people how they spent it.
> 
> Since February, when the program began, people receiving the money have 
> on average spent nearly 40% of it on food. About 24% went to sales and 
> merchandise, which include places like Walmart and discount dollar 
> stores that also sell groceries. Just over 11% went to utility bills, 
> while more than 9% went to auto repairs and fuel.
> 
> The rest of the money went to services, medical expenses, insurance, 
> self-care and recreation, transportation, education and donations.
> 
> Of the participants, 43% are working full or part time while 2% are 
> unemployed and not looking for work. Another 8% are retired, while 20% 
> are disabled and 10% stay home to care for children or an aging parent.
> 
> “People are using the money in ways that give them dignity or that
> gives their kids dignity,” Castro-Baker said, noting participants have 
> reported spending the money to send their children to prom, pay for 
> dental work and buy birthday cakes.



Media: "WBAI Radio Station Abruptly Shuts Down"

https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/wbai-radio-station-abruptly-shuts-down

> NEW YORK — Financial woes forced the community radio station WBAI to 
> abruptly shut down Monday morning after decades on the air in the
> latest loss to New York City's local news industry.
> 
> The Pacifica Foundation, WBAI's California-based nonprofit parent, 
> announced the move to staffers in a letter and blamed the station's 
> demise on "ongoing and continued projections of further financial 
> losses."
> 
> "We realize this news will come as a deep and painful shock, but we can 
> no longer jeopardize the survival of the entire network," Pacifica said 
> in the message.
> 
> The foundation pledged to resurrect WBAI once it creates a "sustainable 
> financial structure for the station." Listeners can hear programming 
> from the foundation's Pacifica Across America network in the meantime, 
> according to the note.
> 
> The news came as a shock to Jeff Simmons, a public relations executive 
> and former journalist who was a volunteer host of two weekly WBAI 
> shows.
> 
> Simmons said he had just listened to the Monday morning replay of his 
> Sunday evening program a few hours before learning that WBAI's
> employees had been fired. The station had about half a dozen core
> staffers along with several paid and volunteer hosts, he said.


Censorship as goal: Chinese censorship makes an episode (S23E02 -- "Band in 
China") of 'South Park' harder to find online

https://reason.com/2019/10/07/china-south-park-ban-censorship/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/south-park-banned-chinese-internet-critical-episode-1245783

jbn: I bring this to your attention not because I wish to promote 'South 
Park' in general or any particular episode of it, but because this is 
another example of how Chinese censorship is viewed as a goal by corporate 
power and governments around the world. The power to carry this out 
requires a kind of cooperation that is only feasible with allowing 
monopolies to form (which means fewer organizations to coordinate), and 
wielding control over those organizations (ala US/UK government control 
over Google, Facebook, and Twitter these days).

> South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone probably saw this
> coming, and to their credit, simply didn't care.
> 
> The most recent episode of South Park, "Band in China," has been 
> generating loads of media attention for its sharp critique of the way 
> Hollywood tends to shape its content to avoid offending Chinese 
> government censors in any way whatsoever.
> 
> Now, those very same government censors, in the real world, have lashed 
> back at South Park by deleting virtually every clip, episode and online 
> discussion of the show from Chinese streaming services, social media
> and even fan pages.
> 
> A cursory perusal through China's highly regulated internet landscape 
> shows the show conspicuously absent everywhere it recently had a 
> presence. A search of the Twitter-like social media service Weibo turns 
> up not a single mention of South Park among the billions of past posts. 
> On streaming service Youku, owned by internet giant Alibaba, all links 
> to clips, episodes and even full seasons of the show are now dead.
> 
> And on Baidu's Tieba, China's largest online discussion platform, the 
> threads and subthreads related to South Park are nonfunctional. If
> users manually type in the URL for what was formerly the South Park
> thread, a message appears saying that, "According to the relevant law
> and regulation, this section is temporarily not open."
> 
> The draconian response is par for the course for China's authoritarian 
> government, which has even been known to aggressively censor Winnie the 
> Pooh because some local internet users had affectionately taken to 
> comparing Chinese president Xi Jinping to the character.



Environment/Economy: "Capitalism Made This Mess, and This Mess Will Ruin 
Capitalism"

https://www.wired.com/story/capitalocene/ -- an interview with Jason Moore, 
environmental historian and sociologist at Binghamton University, [who] 
calls the problem something else: the Capitalocene [instead of the 
Anthropocene].

> You and I have the unfortunate honor of facing down a crisis the likes 
> of which our species has never before seen. Rapid climate change of our 
> own making is transforming every bit of ocean and land, imperiling 
> organisms clear across the tree of life. It’s killing people by way of 
> stronger storms and hotter heat waves and unchecked pollution.
> 
> We all can and should do our part—fly less if possible, buy local foods 
> that haven’t been shipped thousands of miles, get solar panels and an 
> electric car. But let’s not lose sight of the root cause of this
> crisis: rampant capitalism. Capitalism has steamrolled this planet and
> its organisms, gouging out mountains, overexploiting fish stocks, and 
> burning fossil fuels to power the maniacal pursuit of growth and enrich 
> a fraction of humanity. Since 1988, 100 corporations have been 
> responsible for 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
jbn: Certain sacrifices for consumers strike me as misidentifying the 
source of the problem and remind me of asking Californians to bathe less 
often ("Shorten your showers and avoid baths" and "Avoid flushing the 
toilet every time you go to the bathroom" says 
https://www.sbadventureco.com/blog/10-ways-to-save-water-in-this-california-drought/ 
) to save water instead of looking to agribusiness which uses orders of 
magnitude more water than any consumer can control.








Labor/class payment disparity: CBS says "The GM strike is really about the 
switch to electric cars" but one should wonder what lower CEO pay and 
post-bailout public ownership would have meant for the workers today. But 
corporate media won't ask about these things. Something similar regarding 
CEO pay is also happening at General Electric -- when workers are offered 
low pay, frozen pensions, and lump-sum payouts CEOs get millions in their 
pensions and "golden parachutes" to leave the organization.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/guid/3870F370-E6CB-11E9-83E6-1366F1C3851C 
-- "GM CEO Mary Barra's compensation was $21.87 million in 2018, 281 times 
median GM worker"

CBS (Marketwatch.com) argues that "The GM strike is really about the switch 
to electric cars"; electric cars require less maintenance than combustion 
engine cars and can be built by fewer workers as well:

> UAW members’ anxieties and uncertainties are actually shared by GM and 
> most other automakers, which know that it’s no longer a question of
> when internal combustion engine cars will be replaced by electric
> vehicles, but how quickly the changeover will take place.
> 
> The shift to electric means a fundamental transformation of what
> workers will do and how many are needed to do it.
> 
> Electric cars have far fewer parts, which means far fewer people are 
> needed to put them together. When one analyst took apart a Chevrolet 
> Bolt and Volkswagen Golf, he found that the Golf had 125 more moving 
> parts than its electric counterpart. What’s more, the electric
> vehicles’ parts are often easier to put in place using automated
> machines. The UAW’s own estimates that the move to electrification may
> cost 35,000 members to lose their jobs may not be the most scientific
> study ever done, but it’s also probably not far off.
But according to the Free Press Auto Team 
(https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2019/09/29/gm-strike-uaw-update-status/3788205002/) 
the strikers argue

> [...] that they made concessions a decade ago to help the companies 
> through the recession — and GM to recover from bankruptcy — but they 
> aren't adequately sharing in the billions in profits that have rolled
> in during recent years.
Who benefited from that bailout which put GM back into the hands of the 
management that bankrupted it?

> General Motors CEO Mary Barra took home slightly less in 2018 than the 
> previous year, but remains one of the 20 highest-paid CEOs in America.
> 
> For 2018, Barra's total compensation was $21.87 million — about 281 
> times as much as GM's median employee's compensation of $77,849, 
> according to figures the company released Thursday. In 2017, Barra was 
> compensated $21.96 million.
> 
> Barra's total compensation, which includes stock awards and pension 
> payments, represents more than she actually saw in pay. She received a 
> $2.1 million salary and $4.45 million from her nonequity incentive
> plan. She received a bonus of $811,684, down from $861,683 in 2017.
Relatedly, why did automakers make so many new cars? It's not at all clear 
that we needed more new cars.

According to 
http://www.epicdash.com/thousands-of-unsold-new-cars-are-being-abandoned-and-left-to-die-in-lots-this-is-insane/ 
"overproduction peaked in 2009, thousands of cars have been left in lots to 
waste away" and backs this claim up with pictures of large lots filled with 
new cars -- fleets of new cars -- sitting idle for years in towns around 
the world including: Port of Sheerness in Kent, England; off of Broening 
Highway in Baltimore (where 57,000+ cars sit); a location in Spain; another 
in St. Petersburg, Russia; Avonmouth, UK; Corby, UK; Port of Civitavecchia, 
Italy; Port of Valencia, Spain; and more showing this is a global problem.

This report makes an interesting point:

> At first I wondered why they weren’t simply put on sale, but the car 
> industry won’t reduce their prices drastically for one simple reason: 
> You can’t sell a car for $500 and expect someone to purchase a new one 
> for $15,000.
So again we see a situation akin to paying for social services and domestic 
needs (national jobs program, purchasing our way out of homelessness, etc.) 
-- we have the money to spend on making sure people don't suffer. 
Nationally, we direct a lot of that money toward war. So why are we 
organizing the economy such that people who want a new car have to take out 
a loan to get one while surplus stockpiles sit idle? Why are we not instead 
organizing the economy to make sure everyone has a reasonably good life 
free from fears of becoming homeless, free to get a decent education, good 
food (no "food deserts" where nutritious food can't be found for miles and 
even then it's too expensive for the poor), and so on? Why do we choose to 
sustain poverty?

Related: 
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/10/07/workers-stuck-paying-ultimate-price-ge-freezes-pensions-20000-employees 
-- GE freezes pensions for 20,000 employees and offers 100,000 workers a 
lump sum payout to those who have not yet begun to take pension payments.

> The changes become effective January 1, 2021. At that point, affected 
> workers will neither accrue additional benefits nor be able to 
> contribute to the plan.
> 
> "Returning GE to a position of strength has required us to make several 
> difficult decisions," said GE's chief human resources officer Kevin
> Cox, "and today's decision to freeze the pension is no exception."
> 
> The actions, as CNN Business reported, were made "to help clean up the 
> company's beleaguered balance sheet." Yet, as progressive observer
> Miles Grant, they contrast greatly with the sweet deals the company
> gives its CEOs.
[...]

> The AARP has previously cautioned against lump sum options, warning
> they represent a bad financial move for individuals.
> 
> GE closed its pension to new entrants in 2012, adding to a trend of 
> companies shifting away from traditional pensions. It's a shift 
> progressive observers say bolsters the case for expanding Social 
> Security.

Miles Grant wrote about how CEO pay also benefits disproportionately when 
workers suffer https://twitter.com/MilesGrant/status/1181225774281641985

> - GE gave its previous CEO a $10M golden parachute ([on] top of his
> $22M pension) despite losing >$100 billion in market value in his
> 14-month term
> 
> - GE hired a new CEO last year with a pay package worth up to $300 
> million https://t.co/DPWBG3ZTE9















War/Imperialism: Another reason why liberals are fools to trust the CIA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAfyTftDSMk -- It seems that recently the 
CIA has been getting a warm reception by liberals: trust that they'll help 
take Pres. Trump out of power, calling their spies "whistleblowers" when 
they're really just "spooks doing spook things" as Caitlin Johnstone 
rightly put it 
(https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/09/27/msm-defends-cias-whistleblower-ignores-actual-whistleblowers/). 
A brief history of how the US has been fomenting war and offering the Kurds 
a "Groundhog Day of American betrayal [...] for more than half a century" 
(as one RT host put it).

> 1950s-1960s: "The CIA pushed the Kurds to revolt against Baghdad as
> part of their efforts to overthrow their leader Abd al-Karim Qasim. 
> Eventually he was toppled by a coup. But the new ruler wasn't a big fan 
> of Kurdish independence, so he bombed them into submission; bombed with 
> napalm kindly provided by the United States."
> 
> 1970s: "The Kurds seem to have a short memory or a forgiving heart 
> because in the '70s the US was back on their good side. Iraq and Iran 
> were involved in a border dispute and Washington was covertly supplying 
> the minority with weapons, once again pitching them against Baghdad.
> But then Iraq and Iran kissed and made up. And all of a sudden the
> Kurds were on their own being blown to pieces as their supposed
> transatlantic guardian angel was watching. Idly. Even the Americans
> admitted that keeping their involvement under wraps was simply no
> excuse. >
> Pike Committee Report: This policy was not imparted to our clients 
> [Kurds], who were encouraged to continue fighting... Even in the
> context of covert action, ours was a cynical enterprise.

and

> Henry Kissinger (former US Secretary of State 1973-1977): Covert action 
> should not be confused with missionary work.

1980s: "In the late '80s, Saddam Hussein unleashed his chemical arsenal 
against the Kurds. An atrocity looking to draw the wrath of The World's 
Policeman. But it was still a long time before Saddam was to turn from 
friend to foe. American wrath didn't go further than statements like:"

> State Dept.: We want to maintain good political and economic relations 
> with Iraq, but the issue of chemical weapons gets in the way of that.

2000s: "In 2003 it looked like the US was finally ready to make amends for 
its decades of forsaking the Kurds. Helping them was among the pretexts for 
invading Iraq. But then even in Washington many took such goals with a 
pinch of salt:"

 From a C-SPAN debate between Daniel Ellsberg and Bill Kristol:
> Daniel Ellsberg: The Kurds have every reason to believe, I think, that 
> they will be betrayed again by the United States as so often in the 
> past. In fact this spectacle of our inviting Turks into this war to 
> bribe them into it could not have been reassuring to the Kurds. I've 
> been under the Turks before.
> 
> Bill Kristol: I'm against betraying the Kurds. And surely your point 
> isn't, yeah, because we've betrayed them in the past that we should 
> betray them this time.
> 
> Daniel Ellsberg: Not that we should just that we will.
> 
> Bill Kristol: No, we will not.
"Uh, yes, they did. In 2007 the US let Turkey have its way with the Kurdish 
rebels in Iraq as Ankara launched a lethal bombing raid against them."

"This is nowhere near a full list. By 2019 America had left the Kurds for 
dead a few more times both in Iraq and Syria."

-J




War profiteers: Sisters are doin' it for themselves in 2019!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLM1Rt7iLPA -- Jimmy Dore & co. on year 2 
of women being the top American weapons manufacturers -- "Female Merchants 
of Death".

For the second year in a row, women are the CEOs of the biggest 
American-made vehicles for killing people (including women and girls) at 
home and abroad. So women can be the leading American source of 
assassination just like their male counterparts were in years past. Take 
that, identity politics!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN7wyuwYmqs -- Marilyn Hewson, CEO Lockheed 
Martin, at Fortune magazine's "Most Powerful Women" summit in 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gz2PH1BI00 -- Hewson again named one of 
the "Most Powerful Women" by Fortune magazine in 2019.

Remember what coverage year 1 got from corporate media? RT remembered (RT 
was one of only a handful of outlets to cover this without giving into the 
'gee whiz' reportage which basically said 'when women do it, it's better!').

The "Military-Industrial Complex is now run by women" according to Redacted 
Tonight's Lee Camp in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FOGowwQToM -- Lee is 
correct: most of the American weapons manufacturer CEOs are now women. The 
way MSNBC talks about this (in a report Redacted Tonight's Naomi Karavani 
shows us) we're supposed to as progress in the correct direction.

MSNBC asked (and answered) "Who runs the world?":

 > The CEOs of 4 of the 5 biggest defense contractors are in fact women:
 > Northrop Grumman (CEO Kathy Warden), Lockheed Martin (CEO Marillyn
 > Hewson), General Dynamics (CEO Phebe Novakovic), and Boeing's defense
 > wing (President & CEO Leanna Caret). There's also America's lead weapons
 > negotiator the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control (Andrea
 > Thompson) and the Undersecretary of State for Energy for Nuclear
 > Security (Lisa Gordon-Hagerty) also a woman, she runs the world's
 > largest nuclear stockpile.

Related: 
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/02/how-women-took-over-the-military-industrial-complex-1049860 
(or https://archive.fo/MHWwp which doesn't require Javascript to read) -- 
David Brown on "How women took over the military-industrial complex":

> It’s a watershed for what has always been a male-dominated bastion, the 
> culmination of decades of women entering science and engineering fields 
> and knocking down barriers as government agencies and the private
> sector increasingly weigh merit over machismo.
> 
> And, as Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson told POLITICO, it's also
> the result of "quieting that little voice in your head that doubts
> whether you can do that next job or take on that special assignment."
> 
> “I think there’s critical mass, where you have enough women that they’re
> getting noticed,” said Rachel McCaffrey, a retired Air Force colonel and
> executive director of Women in Defense, a career development and
> networking organization affiliated with the National Defense Industrial
> Association, a leading industry group.

Waaaaay back in 2018, Raytheon partnered with the Girl Scouts -- see 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0atqH8pmMzg for the full promotional clip. 
Raytheon calls their partnership "Thinking like a programmer" and "making 
the world a safer place". Saudi Arabia has been using 
US-supplied/Raytheon-made bombs to kill Yemeni civilians (including 
children) as Ben Norton wrote about in 
https://www.mintpressnews.com/saudi-arabia-kills-civilians-in-yemen-with-another-us-made-raytheon-bomb/251104/ 






War/Syria: "Beyond unconstutional" but beyond impeachment too?

https://twitter.com/RepBarbaraLee/status/1187120544757571585 -- Rep. 
Barbara Lee (D, California)

> 🗣️ TRUMP DOESN'T HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO HAVE TROOPS IN SYRIA, MUCH LESS
> TO PROTECT OIL. Protecting oil is not a mission and only increases our
> chance of conflict in the region. This is beyond unconstitutional.

jbn: But, Rep. Lee and those who repeat her without comment and presumably 
supportively[1]: is this the matter behind Pres. Trump impeachment 
challenges or is this just more Democratic Party grandstanding? We all know 
the Democrats are a pro-war party even if a few Democrats have famously 
stood against such war (Rep. Lee was notable for her vocal criticism of the 
war in Iraq and for being the only member of Congress to vote against the 
authorization of use of force following the September 11, 2001 attacks). I 
applaud the effort to stand for the right thing, but I fear that such 
effort stands out precisely because it is so different than the vast 
majority of Rep. Lee's party. To the extent Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is 
accurately described as anti-war we see much the same going on there too.

[1] Such as Robert Naiman in 
https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2019-October/051436.html




University politics/free speech: This "beacon" didn't shine on Steven 
Salaita who criticized Israel for their extreme discrimination against 
Palestinians -- killing them. So, it's an inclusive environment so long as 
you don't say things UIs funders don't want to hear.

> Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2019 4:46 PM
> 
> Dear students, faculty and staff,
> 
> As you may know, this past Sunday morning, a noose was found in a 
> residence hall elevator. The University of Illinois Police Department 
> made an arrest Monday.
> 
> Regardless of the intent behind this incident, the fact that we are 
> confronted by a symbol with such intense racist and violent connections 
> is a difficult reminder of the damage that hatred and intolerance 
> inflict on our entire community. To those like myself, who grew up in 
> the South when Jim Crow laws were still in full force, this incident 
> recalls memories of senseless violence and horrific acts carried out in 
> the name of racist hatred. It is extremely upsetting that, more than a 
> half century later, we are still facing symbols of hate that force 
> another generation to ask why the color of your skin, the religion you 
> practice or where your parents came from should make you a target of 
> anyone’s anger or distrust.
> 
> We will not tolerate racism here at Illinois. We will not tolerate 
> bigotry here at Illinois. We will not tolerate discrimination here at 
> Illinois. We are committed to creating a university free of acts of 
> intolerance, bias or prejudice. Incidents like this one remind us how 
> much work remains for all of us to see that these words are always and 
> truly practiced here at this university.
> 
> Housing staff and the University of Illinois Police Department (UIPD) 
> responded quickly to this incident. UIPD immediately began an 
> investigation that led to Monday’s arrest of a student. In addition to 
> being subject to potential criminal prosecution, possible violations of 
> the student code by individuals are also reviewed by our own Office for 
> Student Conflict Resolution to determine any appropriate disciplinary 
> action. The student is currently not allowed on campus property.
> 
> We did communicate the incident to all students in our residence halls 
> along with information about how they could access support resources. 
> Additionally, the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and the Vice 
> Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have begun a series of 
> meeting opportunities to allow students safe places to discuss the 
> incident and any concerns they have.
> 
> We aspire to be a beacon of inclusion and excellence. I want to assure 
> all of our students, staff and faculty that we are fully conscious of 
> the seriousness of incidents like this and the chilling effect they
> have on every single thing we do here. We will continue to use all of
> our resources to investigate and address incidents as quickly as
> possible.
> 
> The work of creating an inclusive environment is everyone’s 
> responsibility. Whether faculty, students or staff, we each have a role 
> to play in creating a positive climate. And we will endeavor to more 
> broadly share news of incidents of intolerance and racism that occur on 
> the campus in order to ensure that our entire community can come 
> together to make everyone who comes here feel welcomed and respected.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Robert J. Jones Chancellor


Health: "Vaping is even more addictive than cigarettes" -- Judith Grisel, 
former nicotine addict and author

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/10/breaking-up-with-my-juul-why-quitting-vaping-is-harder-than-quitting-cigarettes

Kari Paul recently wrote an op-ed for The Guardian. She says she has 
"decided to quit using her Juul e-cigarette amid reports of users with lung 
problems"

> Nicotine is one of the world’s most addictive chemicals. Even smoking 
> just one cigarette a month induces addiction in more than 30% of users, 
> a 2002 study from Medical School found. Another study found 97% of 
> people who smoked three or more cigarettes became addicted. The number 
> of teens using vapes daily increased by 80% in 2018.
> 
> “It’s almost a guaranteed addiction,” Judith Grisel, a former nicotine 
> addict herself and author of Never Enough: the Neuroscience of 
> Addiction, said. “It’s very compelling because the brain adapts to it
> so quickly, in a way that isn’t true with opiates or alcohol. Some
> people can drink alcohol without developing a problem, not everyone who
> takes opiates recreationally has a problem, but pretty much everyone
> likes the feeling of nicotine.”
> 
> Vaping is even more addictive than cigarettes, Grisel said, and Juul is 
> more addictive than other brands of vapes. In 2015, when Juul was 
> introduced to the market, the most popular e-cigarettes had only
> between 1% and 2.4% nicotine. Juul debuted pods with 5% nicotine.
> 
> “The delivery of nicotine in vapes is even quicker than cigarettes, 
> which is hard to do,” Grisel said. “That’s the biggest factor in 
> addictive liability if it’s the same chemical: the speed with which you 
> get the hit.”
> 
> Juul says it selected the 5% nicotine concentration in its products in 
> the US “to provide adult smokers with a viable, satisfying alternative 
> to combustible cigarettes”.
> 
> The company said it also offers 3% strength products and that far
> higher nicotine concentrations in products other than Juul were
> available when the company launched in 2015.
> 
> The function of Juul makes it difficult to quit as well. Its discrete 
> puffs of smoke and small size make using it much easier, and quitting
> it much harder. When I Juuled, I didn’t take smoke breaks – I had grown 
> accustomed to puffing away all day at my desk, and even more on 
> stressful deadlines. I was often Juuling in my pajamas the last thing 
> before bed and the first thing when I woke up. I Juuled on bike rides, 
> on plane bathrooms, and at the office. Once I repeatedly hit my Juul on 
> a kayak as I floated through the rivers of northern California, storing 
> the device in my swimsuit top.


Venezuela/War: Sanctions are war (war on the poor)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/world/americas/venezuela-water.html -- 
NY Times reliably supporting US aggression against Venezuela and noting 
some of the effects of US sanctions (sanctions are war against the poor) 
without ever mentioning 'sanctions'.

> In Venezuela, a crumbling economy and the collapse of even basic state
> infrastructure means water comes irregularly — and drinking it is an
> increasingly risky gamble. Venezuela’s current rate of infant mortality
> from diarrhea, which is closely related to water quality, is six times
> higher than 15 years ago, according to the World Health Organization.
> 
> But the government stopped releasing official public health data years
> ago.
> 
> So The New York Times commissioned researchers from the Universidad
> Central de Venezuela to recreate the water quality study they had
> conducted regularly for the water utility in Caracas from 1992 until
> 1999.
> 
> The scientists found that about a million residents were exposed to
> contaminated supplies. This puts them at risk of contracting waterborne
> viruses that could sicken them and threatens the lives of children and
> the most vulnerable.
> 
> “This is a potential epidemic,” said Jose María De Viana, who headed
> Caracas’s water utility, Hidrocapital, until 1999. “It’s very serious.
> It’s unacceptable.”
> 
> In the latest study, 40 samples were taken from the capital’s main water
> systems and tested for bacteria and for chlorine, which keeps water
> safe. The study also tested alternative water sources used by city
> residents during supply outages.
> 
> One third of the samples did not meet national norms.
> 
> This should have required Hidrocapital to issue a sanitation alert,
> according to the utility’s own internal regulations. But Venezuela’s
> government has not issued any alerts at least since President Nicolas
> Maduro’s Socialist Party took power 20 years ago.
> 
> “The biggest health risk that we see there right now is water — water
> and sanitation,” the head of the International Federation of the Red
> Cross, Francesco Rocca, told foreign reporters this week, referring to
> Venezuela.
> 
> Venezuela’s stagnant economy went into a tailspin in 2014, when a
> collapse in the nation’s oil export revenues exposed the failure of Mr.
> Maduro’s disastrous policies of price and currency controls. The economy
> has imploded since, with Venezuela losing two thirds of its gross
> domestic product and at least 10 percent of its population.
> 
> Spokesmen for Hidrocapital, Venezuela’s water ministry and the ministry
> of information did not respond to questions about drinking water quality
> in the capital.
> 
> The risks posed by poor water quality are particularly threatening for a
> population weakened by food and medication shortages. But the problem
> cuts across the capital’s social, political and geographic divide,
> affecting wealthy gated communities and shantytowns, areas that support
> the opposition and those loyal to the government.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72S3zb16Fq0 -- Dr. Jill Stein on the 
feckless Democrats and the smears against WikiLeaks in interview with Jimmy 
Dore:

> Jimmy Dore: So I just want to show you this is how normal Americans
> responded after WikiLeaks revealed what was going on inside the
> [Hillary] Clinton campaign; this is how normal people think of it.
> 
> Man on panel of ordinary Americans from "Face the Nation": I've been a
> Democrat all my life. I think the Democrats not only are they out of
> touch, they have no interest in correcting the situation. They did not
> do any post-mortems, they are writing off, 'well, we don't own the White
> House because of Putin or because of WikiLeaks'. What did WikiLeaks tell
> us, by the way? That regardless of who was behind it, they confirmed
> that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment are liars! And
> that they had their thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton. So what are
> they basically saying? 'If we hadn't been caught lying, we'd be running
> the country right now.'.
> 
> Jill Stein: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. [...] This is why the Democrats are
> on the attack: because people are not just fed up, they are fighting
> angry. A recent poll, like last month, in Wall St. Journal-sponsored
> polling [with] I think ABC, it basically found that; that people are at
> the boiling point. 70% say that they are fighting angry at the whole
> damn political establishment. So, you know, this is very threatening to
> the power structure; they really don't want another political vehicle to
> get a foothold. And that's why they're still fighting Greens because all
> the crap they're throwing at us has not managed to stick. Why is not
> sticking? Because it's so preposterous! And as this gentleman just said,
> they are against Trump but it's not clear what they're for, it's
> certainly not for you. They're not for Medicare for All, they're not for
> a Green New Deal, they're not for the right to a job, they're not for a
> decent retirement, or for union rights to organize. They're not for any
> of that, they're just against Trump so that they can continue to please
> their big money donors and keep the dollars flowing. And that's their
> strategy in 2020 just like it was in 2016, so they are basically
> preparing to give it away to Trump again in 2020. They are /not/ an
> opposition party. And then, [...] the smear on WikiLeaks is just
> horrific: we see Julian Assange rotting away in jail where he should not
> be. There are so many illegalities that should have put him in this
> position right now where he can't organize right now he doesn't have
> access to his lawyers or his material. His basic human rights and his
> medical rights are being horrifically violated. The guy is very sick,
> from what I understand in the reports which I haven't seen yet from his
> appearance yesterday or the day before. He's really fading away. But
> he's not just fading away, he's being persecuted into oblivion. You
> know, he offered to testify in the Mueller hearings. They don't want to
> hear what he has to say and who knows what he has to say. But it's a
> very important part of the so-called mysteries that we are still left to
> wonder about. And [...] also, the attack against me which was against
> the recount, that my trip to Russia was some kind of collusion, which
> has been completely debunked, the lynch mob that was whipped up by the
> Clintonites; the lynch mob that was whipped up on social media, then
> translated into an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee --
> which I fully cooperated with, which took over my life for a little
> while -- these rumors have consequences. But suffice it to say, the
> Senate Intelligence Committee found nothing, at least nothing that they
> got back to me about in the year that has transpired. That was a big
> to-do. Then the smear campaign moves on to social media: and that's been
> part of this fairy tale that there are these trolls, angels, devils,
> whatever you want to call them, on social media that no one can really
> see, they can only be seen by the like of Clint Watts[1] and these think
> tanks sponsored by the Military-Industrial Complex.


[1] From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Watts -- "[Clint Watts is a] 
senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George 
Washington University and a Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow. He 
previously was an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was the 
executive officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at United States 
Military Academy at West Point (CTC).[6][7] He became a special agent for 
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he served on the Joint Terrorism 
Task Force (JTTF).[1][8] He has consulted for the FBI Counterterrorism 
Division (CTD) and FBI National Security Branch".




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLXzudMCyM4 -- John Pilger on Julian 
Assange's appearance in court on the Magistrate's hearing on Monday:

> John Pilger: It was one of the most searing events I've -- I don't like
> calling it an event but it was an event, it was an atrocious event, in
> this courtroom presided over by a judge. She's a mere magistrate
> actually--
> 
> Afshin Rattansi, host: Magistrate Vanessa Baraitser.
> 
> John Pilger: --they elevated her to Judge. In which she said imperiously
> to Julian Assange, "Have you anything to say?" and he stood, "You stand,
> Mr. Assange." [she said]. Her dictatorial gestures to this sick man
> through the whole thing were just disgraceful. And he stood and his lips
> moved. And nothing came out. And still nothing came out. And I strained
> to hear what he was saying. And he said, "For ten years," he said this
> very falteringly, "for ten years, the superpower has had all this time
> to prepare a case against me. I am denied the opportunity," and I
> paraphrase him now, 'I am denied the opportunity. I can't even have
> access to my writings,' as he calls it. He means the documents.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi: His defense documents.
> 
> John Pilger: His defense documents! He can't see his defense documents!
> To say it is surreal is not enough. It is truly appalling.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi: You're saying the judge was biased in favor of the
> extradition--
> 
> John Pilger: Yes!
> 
> Afshin Rattansi: --attorney acting for the United States.
> 
> John Pilger: Yes, she was biased. All the judges have [been biased]. The
> previous one, Lady Arbuthnot, whose husband, Lord Arbuthnot, was
> revealed in WikiLeaks cables to be up to his neck in the national
> security state and arms companies and so on and so forth. And she should
> have never been sitting on the bench. This one, her bias was
> incandescent! I've sat in a number of courts all over the world, I've
> never seen anything like this. It belonged in a show trial. In the
> 1950's. Moscow. Prague. You name it. And they call-- this is London? Do
> they know what's happened to justice here?
> 
> Afshin Rattansi: Of course Stalin's trials were broadcast, would you
> have--
> 
> John Pilger: This wasn't broadcast. There's no reporting of this.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi: It didn't make Channel 4 news here. It made headlines
> around the world, but not news here.
> 
> John Pilger: No, it didn't make it-- the BBC-- deliberately,
> deliberately excluded the most important case: a publisher and
> journalist is brought to a court. He is convicted of nothing. Charged,
> in this country, with nothing. The charges against him are not only
> concocted but as his QC pointed out yesterday, the treaty -- extradition
> treaty -- between Britain and the United States has a specific section
> in it that says a person cannot be extradited if the offenses are said
> to be political. Sixteen of the seventeen, at least, charges against
> Assange in the United States are unlawful. They are political. That's
> not opinion. That's not a piece of agitprop. They are, under law,
> political. They're based on a 1917 law called the Espionage Act which
> was used to chase down conscientious objectors.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi: I mean the media here, in fairness, is more interested,
> arguably, in this case, of an RAF base in the killing of a British
> teenager. That extradition is interesting. Presumably Lewis, though, in
> court was saying, 'This is our closest ally. And Julian Assange has
> endangered the national security of Britain's closest ally.', let alone
> a hacking charge which isn't political is it?
> 
> John Pilger: No it's not-- well, yeah, the hacking charge, the single
> hacking charge, even the prosecutor in the Department of Justice in the
> United States is dismissive of their own charge. Now that would be
> thrown out of court. The fact that they repeated the old canard that
> there is some kind of conspiracy between Chelsea Manning and Julian
> Assange. They were never in touch. There's no contact. Don't they read
> the transcripts of the court martial of Chelsea Manning? They tried
> again and again to prove a conspiracy that existed between Julian and
> Chelsea. And there was none.
> 
> Afshin Rattansi: Was the UN mentioned? I mean she [the judge] seemed
> unmoved by any of the reports. I don't know whether Assange's
> attorneys... [drifts off]
> 
> John Pilger: She's not only unmoved but she said 'It's not up to this
> court to consider the conditions in the prison, that is not what we're
> here to do today.'. Why isn't it? Why isn't it? She just dismissed it.
> The man has been so mistreated. I saw him last Thursday. His spirit had
> returned in some way because there was something ahead, there was a
> court case. There was the beginning of the fight. But watching him in
> court, that spirit had just departed. He's lost almost 15 kilos of
> weight. He's isolated when he walks through the prison -- the other
> prisoners are put back in their cells so that he can't fraternize with
> them. He's only allowed to talk to people in the so-called 'health care'
> which is, as he rightly labels, as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".







Syria was a war for oil: Pres. Trump admits that US troops are staying in 
Syria for the oil, which the US has successfully stolen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBiJCEmHe_k -- an excerpt of a recent 
Presidential announcement from The Grayzone:

> Pres. Trump: We've secured the oil [in Syria] and therefore a small
> number of U.S. troops will remain in the area where they have the oil.
> And we're going to be protecting it. And we'll be deciding what we're
> going to do with it in the future.
-J