[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Russiagate: Russiagate pivots to Biden-Ukraine corruption but DLC is still 
chasing a new losing proposition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1BsWtp1d6w -- Jimmy Dore interviews Aaron 
Maté. Here's an excerpt:

> Jimmy Dore: The whole thing going on with Trump, Ukraine, and Biden: of
> course, just like with Russiagate, the Democrats are finding a bullshit
> issue to distract everybody from the stuff they should be screaming
> about. But they're not screaming about the stuff they're supposed to be
> screaming about or opposing Trump on the stuff they're supposed to be
> opposing him on. Why? Because they agree with him. Like what? Like how
> about his policy sending troops to Saudi Arabia: right now Trump is
> sending troops to Saudi Arabia. No one is asking 'Why are you doing
> that? Didn't we just sell them $110 billion worth of weapons? First of
> all, why do we give a shit? Don't we have more energy than we know what
> to do with now? Aren't we exporting energy now from the United States?
> Why do we care?'. And here's what I said: I'm offering $1 million to the
> first corporate news reader to mention the Petrodollar while reporting
> that we are sending Americans to protect Saudi oil. Now if you know why
> we're doing that, why we are in bed with Saudi Arabia? It's because when
> we went off the gold standard they promised to make everybody when they
> bought their oil to do it in American dollars which is called the
> Petrodollar which props up our economy and keeps our interest rate low.
> So if we ever go off the Petrodollar that's gonna be bad for our
> economy. And that's one of the big reasons why we're in bed with Saudi
> Arabia, why we're doing Yemen with them -- we're committing genocide,
> we're helping a dictator, a theocratic, oppressive, murderous
> dictatorship commit a genocide in Yemen. We're doing that right now.
> That's the real scandal that no one will talk about. What are they
> talking about [instead]? He [Trump] asked someone to look into the
> corruption of Joe Biden's kid who is corrupt. That's it. Did I get it
> right Aaron? How am I doing so far?
> 
> Aaron Maté: I totally agree and it's so symbolic that this is the issue
> that leads them [the Democrats] to finally coalesce around impeachment
> because it shows you can do anything: you can cause, as you say Jimmy,
> genocide in Yemen but you can not go after another member of the
> establishment. And so Democrats and the Democratic partisans who
> identify with them in the media this now is the impeachment-worthy
> scandal, not committing mass murder in Yemen, not pulling out of the
> Iran deal, the Paris climate accords, and locking up kids in cages and
> subjecting immigrants to even more cruelty than they were under Obama
> where it was already pretty cruel. No, you cannot go after Joe Biden.
> And this is what we're gonna get you for. And this is endemic: Richard
> Nixon, what was he impeached for? He wasn't impeached for mass murder
> and bombing Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. He was impeached for going
> after the other factor of the establishment. The Democratic Party was
> broken into, Nixon covered that up, he lied about it, you can't do that.
> You can't go after the other faction of the elite. Or else that faction,
> plus their partisans in the media, will go after you. And so that's what
> is unfolding now and in the process the Democrats and their media
> partisans are enrolling who is legitimately aggrieved by Trump's
> existence as president but they're enrolling them in this kind of narrow
> and backward grievance that is not gonna catch on. [...] This is trying
> to get him [Trump] on something so minuscule in the scale of his actual
> crimes.
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_TUkRkVVVo -- RT's review of Joe 
Biden's corruption. Transcript follows including more of Joe Biden's 
bragging to the Council on Foreign Relations talk in which he bragged about 
using his status and power to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired:

RT: In 2014, [Joe] Biden was in charge of Washington's policy stance for 
Ukraine. And for some reason his son [Hunter Biden] was put on a Ukrainian 
oil company's board of directors around that same time. When a prosecutor 
launched an inquiry into that weird coincidence, Biden had this to say:

> Joe Biden: I went over, I guess the 12th 13th time to Kiev and I was
> supposed to announce that there was another billion dollar loan
> guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from
> Yatsenyuk that they would take action against a state prosecutor and
> they didn't. So they said they're walking out to the press conference. I
> said 'nah, I'm not gonna--we're not gonna give you the billion dollars'.
> They said, 'You have no authority, you're not the President. The
> President said--' I said, 'Call him.'. I said 'I'm tellin ya' you're not
> getting the billion dollars.'. I said 'You're not getting the billion;
> I'm gonna be leaving here and I think in what, six hours', and I said,
> 'Look, I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor's not fired you're
> not getting the money.'.
RT: Shortly after the prosecutor was fired and the inquiry dropped. Biden 
said neither had to do with one another, just another coincidence.

RT: Let's go back to Biden's 2013 trip to China for talks with President Xi 
Jinping. Ten days after that a subsidiary of the Bank of China cut a deal 
with Joe's son, Hunter, to form a $1 billion joint investment fund. Another 
billion dollar coincidence.

RT: Then there was 2011 when he [Joe Biden] oversaw US troop withdrawal 
from Iraq. That same year, Joe's younger brother [James Biden] sealed a 
$1.5 billion deal to build homes in, you guessed it, Iraq. Irvin Richter, 
Chief Executive of Hill International, is quoted as saying "There's plenty 
of money for everyone if this project goes through.". And that mountain of 
Benjamins too is only a coincidence. It seems that when you're related to 
the former Vice President things just tend to work out.





Afghanistan war: "U.S. drone strike kills 30 pine nut farm workers in 
Afghanistan"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgWAQ3Gv2jc -- Jimmy Dore & co. on this 
topic. As good as Dore is on war in the abstract, he never pointed out that 
drone war always extrajudicially kills innocents and therefore anyone who 
thinks drone killing is okay is also endorsing extrajudicially killing 
innocent people. Dore can't bring this up because he's in the tank for a 
Democrat who is on record endorsing drone war -- Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard 
-- despite being called "anti-war" and "anti-establishment" (including by 
Jimmy Dore). This is the reason why Dore won't cover Gabbard's "Primo 
Nutmeg" interview or her 2018 "Intercept" interview in which she clearly 
lays out her support for drone killing.

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNe2R7vgjXs -- 100 countries now 
have killer drones.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-attack-drones/u-s-drone-strike-kills-30-pine-nut-farm-workers-in-afghanistan-idUSKBN1W40NW

> JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A U.S. drone strike intended to hit
> an Islamic State (IS) hideout in Afghanistan killed at least 30
> civilians resting after a day’s labor in the fields, officials said on
> Thursday.
> 
> The attack on Wednesday night also injured 40 people after accidentally
> targeting farmers and laborers who had just finished collecting pine
> nuts at mountainous Wazir Tangi in eastern Nangarhar province, three
> Afghan officials told Reuters.
> 
> “The workers had lit a bonfire and were sitting together when a drone
> targeted them,” tribal elder Malik Rahat Gul told Reuters by telephone
> from Wazir Tangi.
> 
> Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry and a senior U.S official in Kabul
> confirmed the drone strike, but did not share details of civilian
> casualties.

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-AFGHANISTAN/0100B28R18Q/afg-civilian-casualties.jpg 
-- A map of civilian casualties in Afghanistan





Democrats: "Progressives must begin heading for the democratic party exits 
now." -- BlackAgendaReport.com

https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-wfp-phony-outrage-and-black-misleaders 
-- Why the WFP is not a party and should only be considered a reliable 
shill for the DLC.

> The co-founder of Black Lives Matter has struck a cynical deal with
> corporate Democrats to boost Elizabeth Warren by attacking Bernie
> Sanders forces as racist.
> 
> The black misleadership class and their friends are preparing for the
> 2016 presidential election in a predictably shameful manner. In an
> effort to do the bidding of the Democratic Party establishment they are
> cynically using claims of racism in an effort to prop up Elizabeth
> Warren as the faux progressive choice.  In the process they have
> relegated black voter concerns to the whims of the group whose corrupt
> and inept machinations put Donald Trump in the White House.
> 
> This sad story begins with the Working Families Party (WFP). Despite its
> well chosen name it is merely a front group for the Democratic Party.
> The word party in their title is a misnomer. WFP rarely runs its own
> slate of candidates, instead Democrats run with WFP endorsements in an
> effort to appear progressive. The sleight of hand often succeeds in
> giving leftist Democratic voters hope that their center right party may
> actually do something they would like.
> 
> In 2016 the WFP membership endorsed Bernie Sanders with 80% of their 
> votes. The WFP recently endorsed Elizabeth Warren but the leadership 
> have declined to say by how much or if the vote of members differed from
> that of the leadership.
> 
> For good measure they gave great attention to self-identified Sanders 
> supporters who made racist and sexist statements online. Sanders and
> his team quickly decried the offensive statements but to no avail. The 
> political theater culminated with an open letter signed by more than
> 100 people who were on board with the attempt to discredit legitimate 
> inquiry and use black people as their justification.
> 
> black leaders are joined at the hip with the Democratic Party, whose 
> sole mission through the 2016 convention is to stop Bernie Sanders. They
> know that Sanders speaks to people’s needs and would win the nomination
> and election absent any interference from donors, the party or its
> operatives. The WFP is a perfect partner for the fraud because it exists
> only as a cover for the Democrats.  Who better to give the impression
> that progressives prefer Warren to Sanders?

[...]

> Hopefully the chicanery will result in the end of progressive illusions
> about the democrats. But no one has to wait until next year to give up
> on wishful thinking. Every four years progressives engage in hope that
> the democrats will actually permit their candidate of choice to be
> nominated.
> 
> We have seen this movie and we know the ending. Progressives must begin
> heading for the democratic party exits now. Overlooking Sanders support
> for U.S. aggression in exchange for an increased minimum wage is to sell
> one’s soul for nothing. There is no hope for justice at home or peace
> abroad within the confines of the democratic party.
> 
> If the election is rigged badly enough there won’t even be a chance for
> a democratic party president. A replay of a Trump victory may be in the
> offing if the misleaders aren’t called to account right now.






Democrats: Why Elizabeth Warren will likely lose to Donald Trump.

jbn: Warren is the DLC's new favorite after Biden failed to gain public 
interest despite corporate media's supportive distractions and half-truths. 
Now Biden is the subject of a new scandal which conflicts with the DLC's 
continued push for Russiagate conspiring and their failure to prove Russian 
collusion and make good on oft-repeated promises to impeach Pres. Trump. 
Russiagate now pivots to Ukraine and the DLC turns their attention to 
support neocon and neoliberal Elizabeth Warren.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJyVTPX5F_c -- Jimmy Dore & co. on "Bogus 
'Working Families Party' endorsement of Warren"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LeFbqK2Pf8 -- Jimmy Dore & co. on 
"Everything That's Wrong with Elizabeth Warren"

jbn: Despite the Washington Post's claim that Sen. Warren "support[s 
Senator] Sanders's Medicare-for-all plan to nationalize the health 
insurance industry" 
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/31/warrens-agenda-break-up-monopolies-give-workers-control-over-corporations-fight-big-pharma/) 
she also took HMO money.

jbn: California Senator Kamala Harris gave a talk at Kaiser Hospital on 
Labor Day about health care justice without mentioning 'health care' or 
'Kaiser' once. It turns out that Harris is a recipient of Kaiser's money 
($13,220). But who makes slightly more -- $15,059 -- Elizabeth Warren.

jbn: Also, when the Democrats had control of the House and Senate and Pres. 
Obama in the White House they did not bring up HR676 (Michigan's Rep. John 
Conyers' Medicare for All bill) for a vote.

jbn: I think these points tell us how much we can trust Democrats to push 
for Medicare for All now. For anyone who buys into the notion that we need 
to "get big money out of politics" and Warren's finger-wagging show 
hearings against bankers is evidence she agrees with this notion, consider 
what she told host Cenk Uygur of "The Young Turks" when they discussed 
"refusing fundraising from events with big donors" (which I believe they 
refer to as "unilateral disarmament"). This language ("refusing 
fundraising...") was also the subtitle of their talk as they said the 
following):

> Cenk Uygur: You mentioned that earlier that you don't believe in
> unilateral disarmament so does this only apply in the primaries or will
> you carry this over to the general election or any other election you'll
> have going forward?
> 
> Sen. Elizabeth Warren: So this is for primaries. Look, I do not believe
> in unilateral disarmament. We need to win. We need to win in 2020. And
> when we hit 2020 and we're in a race against Donald Trump, or we're in a
> race for control of the Senate, and control of the House, and in control
> of the State Houses, and the Governors' mansions, in all of those the
> Republicans are gonna be bringin' a lot of money, a lot of power, a lot
> of dark money, a lot of Super PACs all to the fight. We play by the same
> rules. And in that one I say we gotta be all in.
Jimmy Dore's live show crowd booed Sen. Warren and called her a "sellout". 
To which Jimmy Dore aptly replied:

> Jimmy Dore: But you guys, don't you understand she only wants to take 
> the dark money when it comes to the White House, the Senate, the House, 
> the Governorships, State Houses, so when we do the dog catcher election 
> [he vigorously shakes his head 'no'] no dark money. It'll be okay. What 
> the fuck is she talking about? Every election is for the White House, 
> and the Senate, and the House, and Governorships, and State 
> legislatures, when do we have an election that doesn't involve those 
> people? What the fuck kind of bullshit are you slinging? "All in" means 
> we're gonna take big money, corporate money, dark money, that's 
> bullshit. Right? I don't think that's right. As Bernie [Sanders] says, 
> "You can't change a corrupt system by taking its money.". >
> Malcolm Fleschner: Are you sure the full quote isn't "You can't change a
> corrupt system by taking its money IN THE PRIMARIES?"
And then points out some articles showing who Sen. Warren is in the tank for:

https://time.com/3695581/elizabeth-warren-medical-device-lobbyists-obamacare/ 
-- "Elizabeth Warren Goes to Bat for Medical Device Industry" where she 
tried to lower taxes for medical industry companies:

> Warren took to the floor of the Senate on Jan. 29 to unveil a bill she
> said would act as a kind of multi-million dollar “swear jar” for
> pharmaceutical companies that break the law, penalizing them when they
> get caught and using the funds to supplement scientific research. With
> the folksy delivery that has made her a favorite of progressives across
> the country, she said that powerful, moneyed lobbyists had opposed the
> bill, but that her message to them and their big business bosses was,
> “If they don’t want to put a dollar in the swear jar, then stop
> swearing.”
> 
> What Warren didn’t say was that her bill has a loophole in it for
> medical device manufacturers. Those companies, which make everything
> from latex gloves to Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines, would be
> exempt from her proposed penalties unless they also make drugs. At the
> same time, her bill explicitly ensures that the so-called “medtech”
> companies would benefit from the research dollars that her “swear jar”
> would generate.

https://freebeacon.com/issues/elizabeth-warren-attends-marthas-vineyard-dinner-hosted-by-big-bank-executive/ 
-- "Elizabeth Warren Attends Martha’s Vineyard Dinner Hosted by Big Bank 
Executive"

> Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), one of the Senate's fiercest Wall
> Street critics, attended a Democratic donor retreat over the weekend
> hosted by former UBS bank executive Robert Wolf, who last year lashed
> out against politicians that target Wall Street for political gain.
> 
> Wolf hosted Warren as part of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign
> Committee's annual donor retreat in Martha's Vineyard. He wrote on
> Twitter that he was "honored" to host Warren, who was joined by other
> Democratic senators at the fundraiser.







Exploitation/War: Army Times: "Student loan crisis, not Mideast wars, 
helped Army leaders exceed recruiting goals this year"

jbn: More poor young people + lower recruitment expectations = exceeding 
recruitment quotas (also known as more exploitation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMU5qVATP0A -- Jimmy Dore & co. on the 
following article from Army Times. Also footage of Mike Prysner (of Empire 
Files) from his talk in "Winter Soldier" talking about his experiences in 
the US military -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6L9NTpkYnI (10m55s)

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/09/17/student-loan-crisis-not-mideast-wars-helped-army-leaders-exceed-recruiting-goals-this-year/

> Army leadership gathered Tuesday to announce that they surpassed their
> recruiting goal for 2019, signing up more than 68,000 active duty
> soldiers before the end of the fiscal year, but the long wars in the
> Middle East weren’t exactly part of the sales pitch.
> 
> Based on his experience visiting 30 to 40 recruiting stations this year,
> the eventual outcomes of wars abroad are “not really part of the
> discussion” between potential soldiers and their recruiters, Maj. Gen.
> Frank Muth, head of Army Recruiting Command, told reporters at the
> Pentagon Tuesday.
> 
> “One of the national crises right now is student loans, so $31,000 is
> [about] the average,” Muth said. “You can get out [of the Army] after
> four years, 100 percent paid for state college anywhere in the United
> States."
> 
> A significant part of the recruiting push has been showing that the Army
> serves as a pathway to America’s middle class, with several service
> leaders noting that their children used GI Bill benefits and ROTC
> scholarships.
[...]

> Last year, the service set its sights on enlisting 80,000 soldiers, but
> adjusted its goal in the middle of the year to about 76,500, only to
> fall short at roughly 70,000 in the end. This fiscal year’s recruitment
> push was much more modest.
> 
> “We made our recruiting mission, so we made 68,000,” McConville said.
> “Our retention mission ... we’ve retained a lot more than we thought and
> our attrition has gone down.”
> 
> The service had a retention goal of about 50,000 and managed to retain
> 51,000 soldiers, Grinston said. “Once soldiers join the Army, they want
> to stay in, even when there is a very healthy economy,” he added.
> 
> The low unemployment rate and booming economy make recruiting difficult,
> especially when compared to past recruiting pushes during the Iraq and
> Afghanistan wars that lined up closer to a major global recession.
> 
> Also unlike the surge years, the Army didn’t rely on increases in
> waivers. In fact, this year, the Army issued 3.4 percent fewer waivers,
> the bulk of which are “moral” waivers that deal with issues like
> marijuana possession, Muth said
[...]

> McCarthy credited changes to how the Army spends its advertising dollars
> as a potential game-changer for the service’s recruiting efforts going
> forward.
> 
> “We task organized the entire Army Marketing Research Group differently
> so that we put branding in control of the secretary and the chief,"
> McCarthy said.
> 
> "We moved more uniformed personnel into the marketing organization so
> that we could try to get control of the messaging.”
> 
> The Army recently established a new Chicago-based marketing team stocked
> with uniformed officers to be closer to its new advertising firm, DDB
> Chicago, which won a $4 billion contract to serve as the Army’s
> full-service ad agency until 2028.
> 
> “Two years ago, we were spending 50 percent of our advertising dollars
> on television advertising, and we’ve shifted about upwards of 90 percent
> to the digital side," McCarthy added.
jbn: So doesn't this mean that the military draft is still on, but the 
details of how it is carried out have changed?

-J