[Peace] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

Have a good show guys. Here are a few stories to reflect and riff on.





It looks like we're getting better journalism from The Grayzone and RT (alternative 
news) than the mainstream corporate-friendly outfits. Both of these are news sources 
we're told (largely through silence on Grayzone stories, and by labeling RT "Russian 
propaganda") to ignore.


Syrian gas attack update: 3rd OPCW leaker confirms the Douma account was fabricated

 From https://on.rt.com/aati

> A third whistle-blower has come forward to corroborate the previous complaints
> that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) tried to
> suppress evidence-gathering in the Douma probe, a report says.
> 
> The alleged new whistleblower, whose redacted email was shared by the Grayzone
> Project on Tuesday, backed the complaints made by two former OPCW employees —
> South African engineer and organization's veteran Ian Henderson, and another
> whistleblower known as 'Alex.'
> 
> OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias had earlier dismissed the pair — dubbed
> Inspector A and Inspector B in the organization's inquiry into their claims — as
> low-level rogue employees who conducted field work without proper authorization
> and which simply "could not accept that their views were not backed by evidence."
> 
> However, the person, described by Grayzone as a former senior official with the
> OPCW, stood by Henderson and 'Alex,' writing that his time with the organization
> was "the most stressful and unpleasant" one in his life.

https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Henderson-Testimony-UN.pdf -- 
Henderson testimony




"Mayor Pete" is also CIA asset Pete (hence the #CIAPete tag on Twitter)

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/07/pete-buttigieg-cia-afghanistan/

> While Buttigieg’s campaign denies allegations he was a CIA asset, military records
> reveal Mayor Pete was in a unit that worked with the spy agency in Afghanistan.
> 
> After The Grayzone published an article about Pete Buttigieg’s roster of
> endorsements from CIA veterans and coup plotters, and another about his mysterious
> trip to Somaliland alongside a friend who now works for a US government
> regime-change agency, Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign issued a public
> statement denying that he ever worked for the CIA.
> 
> “We hate to break the news to Twitter, but no, Pete was not in the CIA,”
> Buttigieg’s national press secretary Chris Meagher derisively told The Daily
> Beast, which directly referenced both Grayzone reports. “As for the Somaliland
> trip, it was not related to his work anywhere.”
> 
> The Daily Beast article appeared in response not only to factual reporting by The
> Grayzone, but to a wave of allegations spread online through hashtags like
> #CIAPete which accused Buttigieg of being a CIA asset.
> 
> Following the fiasco in Iowa, in which voting results were blocked thanks to
> faulty technology produced by a dark money outfit linked to Buttigieg – and Mayor
> Pete inexplicably took to  himself the victor – the hashtag trended nationally.
> 
> Neither article published by The Grayzone accused Buttigieg of working for the
> CIA. However, according to military documents that have gone mostly under the
> media’s radar, it does appear that the former mayor worked alongside the CIA while
> serving as a high-ranking Naval intelligence officer during his short stint in
> Afghanistan.
> 
> Moreover, the unit Buttigieg supervised was a subset of the Drug Enforcement
> Administration, the US agency responsible for the disastrous war on drugs that has
> spawned humanitarian catastrophes throughout Latin America and much of the world.
> 
> Early on in his military career, Pete Buttigieg worked as an intelligence analyst
> at US European Command, where he “conduct[ed] research and analysis of information
> to create accurate, timely intelligence products in support of USEUCOM theater
> operations,” according to mostly redacted military records released under the
> Freedom of Information Act.
> 
> Under a section labelled “command employment and command achievements,”
> Buttigieg’s papers indicate that intelligence was provided to “USEUCOM, NATO,
> Deployed Units and other commands, including operations in Africa and the former
> Yugoslavia.”
> 
> Buttigieg would eventually return to EUCOM, where he was promoted to team leader,
> supervising one officer and four intelligence analysts.



Economy: It takes more working now to earn as much salary as one did in 1985. Major 
household expenditures are all more expensive now.

https://twitter.com/oren_cass/status/1230505649794166785
> Oren Cass: In 1985, the typical male worker could cover a family of four's major
> expenditures (housing, health care, transportation, education) on 30 weeks of
> salary. By 2018 it took 53 weeks.

Also see https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EROifNjWkAEcgTm.jpg -- "Major Household 
Expenditures vs. Median Income" chart.

Cass was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute from 2015-2019.




Assange: Media misrepresents alleged pardon, story amounts to nothing
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange/trump-offered-to-pardon-assange-if-he-co-operated-over-email-leak-uk-court-hears-idUSKBN20D2A2 
-- Reuters

Reuters reported:
> U.S. President Donald Trump offered to pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange if
> he said that Russia had nothing to do with WikiLeaks’ publication of Democratic
> Party emails in 2016, a London court heard on Wednesday.
> 
> Assange appeared by videolink from prison as lawyers discussed the management of
> his hearing next week to decide whether he should be extradited to the United
> States.
> 
> At Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Assange’s barrister, Edward Fitzgerald,
> referred to a witness statement by former Republican U.S. Representative Dana
> Rohrabacher who visited Assange in 2017, saying he had been sent by the president
> to offer a pardon.
> 
> The pardon would come on the condition that Assange say the Russians were not
> involved in the email leak that damaged Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in
> 2016 against Trump, Rohrabacher’s statement said.

jbn: But Assange has repeatedly said the DNC email leaks did not come from Russia or 
a state actor.

Jimmy Dore (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8nMOWqIijg) had the clip of Assange 
telling Fox News' Sean Hannity from 3 years ago (see the clip in 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyCOy25GdjQ ):

> Julian Assange: We can say, and we have said repeatedly over the last two months,
> that our source is not the Russian government and it is not state party.
As per usual with Assange, he's telling you the unvarnished truth about the source. 
Fox News' Tucker Carlson said (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcny7RgzI4M ) that 
Assange has no reason to lie and Carlson is correct. Assange told Afshin Rattansi 
(host of RT's "Going Underground") that Trump has "no substantial connection" with 
Russia (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBFIdGZiQ20):

> Julian Assange: Hillary Clinton has done quite well strategically to try and draw
> a connection between Trump and Russia because she has so many connections of her
> own. Now, my analysis of Trump and Russia is that there is no substantial
> connection. Why do I say that? Well because Trump was trying to invest in Russia
> before Putin in the 1990s, after Putin, in fact nearly all the way up to the
> present moment and he's had no success. He did not manage to build hotels and so
> on in Russia. So that shows how insubstantial his contacts are. There's an
> extremely well-documented pattern of when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State
> those people (companies, governments) who wanted a decision by the Secretary of
> State in their favor making large donations to the Clinton Foundation or in some
> cases business deals with the people around Hillary Clinton. Now one particular
> instance is the approval by Secretary Clinton of selling 20% of the U.S. uranium
> reprocessing rights to a Russian company to be exported to Russia. So at that time
> a large donation was made by those Russian interests to the Clinton Foundation. In
> addition, Clinton's campaign manager, Podesta, was on the board of a company
> called Joule Unlimited. And Joule Unlimited held some of these rights and received
> a $35 million investment from Russia.

In fact, Assange gave us a bit of a clue as to who the DNC email leak source was in 
an interview with a Dutch news program "Nieuwsuur" about 3 years ago (see 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7FkLBRpKg ):

> Interviewer: Donald Trump has had a disastrous few weeks if you look at the polls,
> he needs a miracle in the American political lexicon there's such a thing as the
> "October Surprise". The stuff that you're sitting on, is an October Surprise in
> there? Do you even know what you're sitting on?
> 
> Julian Assange: WikiLeaks never sits on material. Whistleblowers go to significant
> efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. There's a 27-year-old
> who works for the DNC who was shot in the back, murdered just two weeks ago for
> unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.
> 
> Interviewer: That was just a robbery, I believe, wasn't it?
> 
> Julian Assange: No, there's no finding.
> 
> Interviewer: What are you suggesting? What are you suggesting?
> 
> Julian Assange: I'm suggesting that our sources take risks and they become
> concerned to see things occurring like that.
> 
> Interviewer: But was he one of your sources, then?
> 
> Julian Assange: We don't comment on who are sources are.
> 
> Interviewer: Then why make the suggestion about a young guy being shot in the
> streets of Washington?
> 
> Julian Assange: Because that we have to understand how high the stakes are in the
> United States. And that our sources are, you know our sources face serious risks.
> That's why they come to us so we can protect their anonymity.
> 
> Interviewer: But it's quite something to suggest a murder that's basically what
> you're doing.
> 
> Julian Assange: Well that others have suggested that. We are investigating to
> understand what happened in that situation with Seth Rich. I think it is a
> concerning situation. There's not a conclusion yet. We wouldn't be willing to
> state a conclusion but we are concerned about it and more importantly a variety of
> WikiLeaks sources are concerned when that kind of thing happens.




Identity politics/fabricating support for the CIA man: Pete Buttigieg Caught 
Fabricating Black Support For His Campaign...Again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EECa2iynFNA -- Jimmy Dore & co. coverage
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrat-pete-buttigieg-overstated-pledges-support-black-leaders/story?id=69053705 
-- ABC News (Disney)

> When Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg touted support from African
> American comedian and actor Keegan-Michael Key last week, his campaign was forced
> just hours later to clarify that the actor had not officially endorsed the former
> South Bend mayor, telling reporters he only sought to "encourage early voting and
> voter registration."
> 
> Key appeared with Buttigieg on Saturday to drum up voter support at his Henderson,
> Nevada field office.
> 
> The gaffe did not attract much attention. However, it was not the first time the
> Buttigieg campaign overstated having a tie with a prominent African American
> figure, or black business.
> 
> In several instances reviewed by ABC News, the Buttigieg campaign identified
> people as supporters who later said their interactions had either been
> misunderstood or misconstrued.
> 
> The mix-ups have come at a crucial moment for Buttigieg's campaign -- which has
> made a concerted effort to promote his desire for inclusivity, even as polls show
> he faces an ongoing challenge finding support from voters of color.
> 
> [...]
> 
> The first indications there was confusion about some of Buttigieg's claims of
> support came in October, when the campaign issued a press release in South
> Carolina that identified Rehoboth Baptist pastor and state Rep. Ivory Thigpen, and
> Johnnie Cordero, chairman of the Democratic Black Caucus, as prominent backers of
> the candidate's "Douglass Plan for Black America."
> 
> The comprehensive proposal, named after abolitionist leader and author Frederick
> Douglass, which aims to tackle racial inequality and improve the lives of black
> Americans, had support-- just not an official endorsement from those politicians
> named in the headline of the release.
> 
> "I never endorsed the Douglass Plan and it's not necessarily that it was a bad
> plan, but people have got to understand, you can't talk for black people, we're
> very capable of speaking for ourselves," Cordero told ABC News, adding that he was
> given no explanation as to why or how the mix-up occurred.
> 
> Then last week, Buttigieg wrote an op-ed in a major South Carolina newspaper
> saying his campaign has "proudly partnered with local businesses," citing Diane's
> Kitchen in Chester and Atlantis Restaurant in Moncks Corner. But when ABC News
> reached out to the entrepreneurs about these new partnerships, they only
> remembered welcoming Buttigieg's campaign as customers, not forging any sort of
> partnership with the candidate.
> 
> "I stand for what I stand for and I didn't say I had a partnership," Diane Cole,
> the owner of Diane's Kitchen, told ABC News on Friday, Feb. 14.
> 
> After being asked by ABC News about Cole's reaction, the campaign sent a series of
> messages to Cole trying to persuade her to change her position so it would more
> closely match the language Buttigieg used in his op-ed.
> 
> One version misspelled her name.
> 
> Cole told ABC News she rejected the initial requests, telling the campaign: "It
> sounds like you're saying that I am your business partner. I'm only going to
> accept that you all stopped in while you were campaigning in South Carolina and I
> welcomed you all."



PBS' "Frontline" on Amazon and Jeff Bezos

The show isn't too bad, but the interviewer goes on and on about the problems of 
proprietary software without knowing that is what he's really talking about. Every 
privacy story about Amazon's spybot "Echo" (billed as a "personal assistant") is 
really a tale of what happens when you lose your software freedom (the freedom to 
run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software, the opposite of 
proprietary software). The Amazon reps that say Echo only listens for its command 
word "Alexa" are bullshitting you. In order to act on that word it has to listen and 
transcribe all of the time, then pick out the command word and parse the following 
words to act on them. A computer literate interviewer would have known this.

If people had a free software device they could have hired someone to improve the 
software and lock it down to the user (or done the job themselves if they're 
sufficiently technical). Instead we have footage of people being spied on via their 
Amazon "security" spycam while their harasser taunts them over the device's speaker.

-J