2020-06-17: News Headlines

_____ (2020-06-17). How An Internet 'Persona' Helped Birth Russiagate. popularresistance.org Four years ago today, on June 15, 2016, a shadowy Internet persona calling itself "Guccifer 2.0" appeared out of nowhere to claim credit for hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee on behalf of WikiLeaks and implicate Russia by dropping "telltale" but synthetically produced Russian "breadcrumbs" in his metadata. | Thanks largely to the corporate media, the highly damaging story actually found in those DNC emails — namely, that the DNC had stacked the cards against Bernie Sanders in the party's 2016 primary— was successfully obscured. | The media was the message; and the message was that…

Graham Peebles (2020-06-17). Global Issues Require United Action and a Reinvigorated UN. dissidentvoice.org Whatever corner of the world one happens to live in, the most pressing issues of the day affect everyone. Pandemics/epidemics and the environmental emergency; war and terrorism; poverty and food insecurity; overpopulation and the displacement of persons. Such crises cannot be limited by borders or controlled by nation states; no government or corporate power can …

Binoy Kampmark (2020-06-17). Sticks, Stones and Death in Galwan Valley. dissidentvoice.org Things along the Indian-Chinese border in the Himalayas have rarely lacked interest, notably along the secretive, heavily patrolled 3,488 km Line of Actual Control. Neither China nor India have ever quite sorted out their differences on that front, plagued by territorial claims over unclearly demarcated boundaries. The administration of Narendra Modi might well have wood …

Rep. Ron Paul (2020-06-16). Is the 'Second Wave' Another Coronavirus Hoax? globalresearch.ca Just a week or so ago the mainstream media and thousands representing the "medical community" told us we must throw out the "stay-at-home" orders and go to the streets to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of …

RT (2020-06-16). NBC colludes with UK thought police to get ZeroHedge & Federalist deplatformed from Google Ads, smear them as 'far-right'. rt.com Google has threatened to drop ZeroHedge and the Federalist from its ad platform after NBC and a UK 'cyber-hate' watchdog denounced the outlets for allegedly publishing "fake news" about the ongoing George Floyd protests. | After initially reporting that Google had "removed both sites' ability to monetize" via Google Ads after they were found in violation of the platform's rules regarding race-related speech on Tuesday, NBC quietly stealth-updated its

Starr P. (2020-06-16). Using Controlled Trials to Resolve Key Unknowns About Policy During the COVID-19 Pandemic. jamanetwork.com This Viewpoint proposes implementing comparison groups for policy decisions, for example assessing disease transmission with alternative housing vs in-home isolation of individuals who test positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), or with different durations or cycles of school openings, to gather data that could make broader and future policy implementations more informed and effective.

Norman Solomon (2020-06-15). Corporate Media Are Focusing on Race — and Dodging Class. indybay.org Economic exploitation, hidden in plain sight…

Ben Norton (2020-06-15). Wikipedia formally censors The Grayzone as regime-change advocates monopolize editing. mronline.org On Wikipedia, a small group of regime-change advocates and right-wing Venezuelan opposition supporters have blacklisted independent media outlets like The Grayzone on explicitly political grounds, violating the encyclopedia's guidelines.

RT (2020-06-15). 'Conniving human scum': North Korea is very angry at the South, but it's not Seoul's attention it wants. rt.com Things in the Koreas seem to have taken a turn for the worse again. North Korea is threatening military action against the South, seemingly over some propaganda leaflets. But Pyongyang's real target is not so petty — or so close. | With North Korean media referring to the South as "conniving" and "human scum," and communications now cut off between the two, inter-Korean relations risk hitting a dangerously low point. What exactly sparked Pyongyang's seemingly sudden fit of rage — and is it really one? A closer analysis reveals several factors at play. | It's raining balloons : | What initial…

Project Censored (2020-06-15). Episode 93 — The Richmond Revolution, East Bay Collective, and the Post-Police Future w/Lavonia Bobo, Armond Corshawn, Samone Anderson, Lee Bidemi Animashaun, and Todd Davis. projectcensored.org On today's episode, Nicholas Baham II (Dr. Dreadlocks), Janice Domingo, and Nolan Higdon explore The Richomond Revolution and East Bay Collective following the murder of George Floyd with Lavonia Bobo,… | Author Dan Kovalik joins the program to explain why the "humanitarian" wars of the U.S. and its allies only make life even worse for the people they ostensibly protect. Then…

_____ (2020-06-14). US State Propaganda Outlets Censor Black Lives Matter Protests. popularresistance.org With a budget that hovers around $100 million, RFE/RL broadcasts to something like to 22 countries in 26 languages. And the same censorship regime extends to just about every RFE/RL language division. | I've looked at about a dozen of them. Most have no coverage of the protests at all. A couple — like the Russian and Afghanistan division — do have a tiny protest stories, but they are given very little attention. | In the case of RFE/RL's Russian coverage, the protests are presented from the most reactionary perspective possible: denying racism and blaming the violence on organized armed anarchist comm…

Binoy Kampmark (2020-06-14). Woked in Fright: The Brief Banning of Fawlty Towers. dissidentvoice.org It's all getting nasty. The urge to remove statues in hurried indignation; the lust to censor programmes now deemed offensive; the erasure of history, which, any sensible sort should know, is often a panoramic account of crimes and slaughter worth knowing rather than banning and hiding. This is surely not what the late George Floyd …

RT (2020-06-14). 'Wasn't going to fall for Fake News': Trump says 'very slippery' ramp explains him walking uncertainly at West Point. rt.com Slipping on a steep ramp that had "no handrail" would play into the hands of "fake news" media, Donald Trump has said, after countless videos showed him walking slowly and carefully following a graduation speech at West Point. | "The ramp that I descended after my West Point Commencement speech was very long and steep, had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery," the commander-in-chief told his Twitter audience on Sunday. | Footage showing Donald Trump unsteadily walking down a long ramp after the speech sparked a flurry of comments on social media. Scores of would-be telemedicine experts rushed…

Caitlin Johnstone (2020-06-13). Narrative Control Operations Escalate As America Burns. thealtworld.com Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and mainstream media are falling all over themselves with censorship and spin jobs to get the narrative back under control as mass protests continue to sweep across America. | In 2017, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were "Civil wars don't start…