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Sanders Joins Calls to Break Up Facebook
Asked on Capitol Hill whether he backed such calls for antitrust action against the social networking company, Sanders replied, “The answer is yes of course.”He added: “We have an increasingly monopolistic society where you have a handful of very large corporations having much too much power over consumers.”
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Venezuelan Embassy Protectors Arrested in Unprecedented Raid
A member of the Embassy Protection Collective, Murphy was in the embassy from May 1 till May 6; her stepfather died on May 5. She notes around ten people left the embassy over the last several days to preserve the food and water since the State Department, Secret Service and Metropolitan Police Department were effectively laying siege to the embassy. Electricity and water were cutoff. She also highlighted the police repeatedly turning a blind eye to the violence of rightwing “pro-democracy” protesters. Several activists see the siege of the embassy as a microcosm of what the U.S. is doing economically…
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Venezuelan Embassy: “Outrageous” U.S. Behavior vs “People Power”
Since the adoption of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the United States has committed multiple violations of its provisions. Normally such violations would lead to international adjudication and the obligation to make reparation to the injured State. The outrageous behavior of the United States with regard to the Venezuelan embassy in Washington violates the Vienna Convention, to which the United States is bound, and which has served United States interests in the past, when the premises of U.S. embassies and consulates have been targets of terrorism and/or illegal occupation.”As the Venezuelan government has demanded, the United States must comply…
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Israeli NSO Group Behind WhatsApp Hack Targeting Human Rights Workers
“Two Israeli companies are at the forefront of this commercialization of dirty ops: NSO Group and Black Cube. … Israel’s NSO Group sabotages the political affairs of foreign nations in a different way. It too hires talented cyber-intelligence specialists from Unit 8200; one of the company’s three founders was an 8200 cyber-hacker. They are hired because they bring with them methods and code used by Israeli SIGINT to hack the phones of Palestinians and other targets of Israeli surveillance.”
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On Iran: U.S. in Danger Being “Sleepwalked into Military Confrontation” by Bolton
“We are in grave danger of being sleepwalked into military confrontation with Iran over an incident that is blamed wrongly on Iran. Corporate media have given Bolton and his conniving to achieve such a crisis a free pass, and now Director of National Intelligence has lent the intelligence community’s support to Bolton’s scheme by suggesting Iran is suspected in the oil tanker incidents, in the absence of any evidence.”
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Grounding Bezos
“’We’re gonna build a road to space,’ the billionaire said about his new plans to help us exit Earth, ‘and then amazing things will happen.'”Of course, Bezos could make plenty of amazing things happen right here on our home planet — like allowing Amazon workers to unionize, refusing to play ball with the Trump deportation machine, or ending his company’s corporate tax dodging.”
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New Trump Nominee and the Pentagon Accounting Scandal
“Shanahan was ‘cleared’ by the Pentagon of charges that he favored his old employer in contract awards by the Pentagon. Shanahan oversaw the first ever complete audit (not!) of the Pentagon last year which ended in a blowout failure on Nov. 15. In announcing the failure, he made light of it, saying ‘We expected to fail,’ and asked the press corps to give the Pentagon credit ‘for trying.’ This is laughable. For 20 years they have stonewalled Congressional orders to develop an auditable budget — something every other federal agency and department has had to do and has been able…
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Racism of the Venezuelan Opposition
“From 2007, several or more Afro-descendants have been burned alive by the violent sectors of the opposition. There were regular depictions in elements of the opposition of Chavez as a monkey — they highlight his curly hair and big lips as part of the racialized nature of their outlook. Skin color is a substantial indicator of privilege in Venezuela.”
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Trump State Department in “Wholesale Violation” of Law at Venezuelan Embassy
“The Trump State Department, working with and through the Secret Service and the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, is engaged in wholesale violation of civil rights, constitutional rights, and international law. The State Department has authorized violations of core provisions of the Vienna Convention — an unprecedented step that will have global repercussions. Even in times of war diplomatic missions have remained protected between countries. Law enforcement is allowing and facilitating acts of violence and terror against peace activists inside and outside the embassy refusing to arrest members of the right-wing mob who commit assaults in plain view. The State Department…
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Scrutinizing the Bolton/Pompeo/Trump Threats to Iran
“Donald Trump’s key advisers are looking for an excuse for an air attack on Iran, and they have now taken a big step closer to their publicly announced objective. Pompeo and Bolton both threatened war with Iran last September over a few mortar shells landng in the vicinity of … the U.S. Embassy and a consulate in Iraq, blaming Iran-backed militias that are fighting ISIS. Now they have broadened the rationale for war to include any attack on an ally’s interests — after consultations with the Israelis last month.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn