Secret Recording Reveals Exactly How Establishment Democrats Crush Progressives

(CD) — People have long known these kinds of conversations take place, but rarely is the regular voter allowed to hear exactly how it goes down. The Intercept on Thursday provided a brief and striking look into the Democratic Party’s “strong-arm” tactics by publishing a recording of Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the number two Democrat in the House, attempting to […]

Jared Kushner ‘Sought $500 Million From Qatar for Skyscraper Bailout’

(MEE) — Jared Kushner, the son-in-law to US President Donald Trump and a senior White House adviser, sought a $500m investment from Qatar for a New York skyscraper shortly before the diplomatic crisis between Qatar and a host of other countries, according to an Intercept article on Monday.

The account raises suspicions that Trump’s foreign policy is related to the family’s business interests.

Citing unidentified sources that reportedly had knowledge of the proposed bailout, the Intercept reported that Kushner tried to shore up funding from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani (HBJ) after the skyscraper’s value plummeted from the real estate crisis in 2008. Kushner had bought the building in 2007 – when he was 26 – for $500m out of his family’s pocket and $1.3bn in borrowed money.

However, the real estate crisis forced Kushner to sell off a sizeable chunk of their office space in the building as part of a financial package; but in order to pay back those who originally borrowed money, he must have $1.3bn by early next year. According to a New York Magazine report, if Kushner “can’t find some new scheme for refinancing and redeveloping the property by then, [he] will have cost his family half a billion dollars”.

After the election, investors appeared to be willing to bail out Kushner’s skyscraper fiasco.

HBJ reportedly agreed to invest $500m in the severely debt-ridden property as long as Kushner was able to raise the rest of the money, which he could do when he became a senior White House adviser, according to the Intercept article.

A Chinese company with ties to members of the country’s ruling party was also willing to shore up $400m in March, but had decided to back out in March over a “conflict of interest” that consisted of “a company with ties to the Chinese government going into [big] business with the family of a senior adviser to the American one”.

When the Chinese company exited, so did HBJ.

Months later in June, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut off all air, land and sea links to Qatar. Trump sided with the four-nation coalition, saying that the tiny petro-chemical nation funded terrorism.

The Intercept reported that Kushner played a key role in the White House’s hardline stance against Qatar, but it did not establish a link whether Kushner’s role had anything to do with the failed skyscraper bailout.

By MEE staff / Republished with permission / Middle East Eye / Report a typo

No Surprise Here – 'Reality Winner' Has Not Become The Next Edward Snowden

Authored by Duane Norman via Free Market Shooter blog,

Last week, 25-year-old Reality Winner (yes, somehow that is her real name) was arrested for allegedly leaking classified information on “Russian Hacking” to The Intercept:

Winner is a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation assigned to a U.S. government agency facility in Georgia. She has been employed at the facility since on or about February 13, and has held a Top Secret clearance during that time. On or about May 9, Winner printed and improperly removed classified intelligence reporting, which contained classified national defense information from an intelligence community agency, and unlawfully retained it. Approximately a few days later, Winner unlawfully transmitted by mail the intelligence reporting to an online news outlet.

In spite of her overt and obvious political leanings (against President Trump and the right, and towards Bernie Sanders and the left), characterizing the mainstream media’s reporting on the leaker’s partisan beliefs would actually be putting it nicely:

By characterizing Winner as a staunch Sanders fan, legacy media encouraged alienation between groups that had begun to collaborate against vested interests in the media and establishment. Winner’s primary political affiliation according to the social media she left for the public appears to represent primarily a visceral hatred for President Donald Trump.

Mainstream media’s accuracy also been called into question regarding their coverage of Winner’s arrest and the NSA document which prompted it. Numerous media reports had stated that the document provided “proof” of Russian hacking of the U.S. Presidential election last year. However, Wikileaks stated via twitter that such headlines were false, as the NSA report had not showed voter machine hacking. Wikileaks added that claims were only in terms of attempts to “phish voter registration outfits.” Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept also stated via twitter that the document should be read skeptically.

Some had suggested when the leak hit (both publicly and privately) that the left would attempt to put a human face on Winner, trying to paint her as the “good guy” standing up to an evil President Trump.  However, when the networks didn’t even make a concerted move to defend Winner’s leaks, you should have known right then and there that she would never be the left’s Edward Snowden:

During his report on NBC Nightly News, Justice Correspondent Pete Williams passed along her family’s claim that “she wasn’t highly political,” and Anchor Lester Holt claimed her “motive is a mystery.” But in reality, Winner was anything but silent about her political views.

In a tweet she wrote earlier this year, she smeared Trump saying: “the most dangerous entry to this country was the orange fascist we let into the white house [sic].” She had tweeted profanities targeting Trump, such as #FuckingWall, #TrumpIsACunt, and she tweeted the anti-Trump rallying cry of #notmypresident. Winner was also a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and had said on Twitter that “being white is terrorism.”

And in a response to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who said “We will never use our weapons against anyone, except in self-defense,” Winner proclaimed her support for Iran, writing: “There are many Americans protesting US govt aggression towards Iran. If our Tangerine in Chief declares war, we stand with you!”

It should have been obvious once Winner’s social media accounts were leaked; Winner was overtly partisan, and the “leaked material” in question didn’t even amount to anything of material value, solely consisting of one classified document that lined up oh-so-neatly with her political agenda.  

This is in direct contradiction to Edward Snowden, who not only leaked a far larger number of documents, his leaks were in relation to the NSA’s overreach and abuse of American rights by conducting “blanket” surveillance against its citizens, often without the requisite warrants to do so:

While we don’t know if Winner took more than the one document, Snowden took thousands, at least seven thousand of which have been published, according to Business Insider.

Snowden was also careful to leave his job as a contractor at Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii and flee to China before releasing the documents, putting him out of reach of authorities. Both are charged with violating the espionage act.

Winner, meanwhile, leaked one document, that was extremely partisan in nature.  Compared to Snowden’s leaks, the one document offered almost nothing in regards to “actionable intelligence” or truly dangerous leaks.

But, what was most concerning, was how the NSA seemed to abandon all protocols when allowing Winner to access the material:

Winner was a civilian contractor and she had no ‘need to know’ to see this report. Contrary to what a lot of civilians think, ‘need to know,’ not security clearance level is the fail-safe of the entire classified information system. Just because you have the requisite security level you can’t just browse classified material without a work related reason for doing so. Everything is supposed to be on a “clearance plus need to know” basis.

Winner was able to print a copy of the report and was able to walk that report out of her workspace. As difficult as it is to believe, apparently there were no safeguards in place to control who printed what as she was not authorized access to the document and still managed to print it. There was no accountability established for the printed document.

Winner was in contact with The Intercept from her work computer. This tells you 100% of what you need to know about the counterintelligence program at her employer. It was so lackadaisical that it wasn’t even feared.

No matter what you think of Snowden, he was able to demonstrate (in a nonpartisan manner) that the US Government classifies far too much information, and is conducting blanket surveillance that is not legal by even the least stringent legal definitions.  Snowden’s motivations weren’t politics; he was motivated instead to expose bureaucratic overreach and lack of accountability.

And, while it could be argued that Snowden brought into question the procedures that the government uses to vet those who receive top secret clearance, it should be glaringly obvious that they didn’t learn their lessons, instead choosing to hand a security clearance out to someone you would expect to see at an Antifa rally:

Start with her name: “Reality Winner.” Then let’s tick off the other boxes: lesbian bodybuilder, ardent Bernie Sanders supporter, a “Black Lives Matter” enthusiast who (though white herself) argues that “Being white is terrorism.” A woman whose social media posts include referring to the President of the United States as a “piece of shit” and the “Tangerine in chief,” who additionally declares that in a war between the US and Iran, she’ll side with Iran.

And still…STILL…she was given a top secret security clearance and access to classified materials. Which raises two very troubling questions: just what in blazing Hell does someone have to do to not get a security clearance, and how many other angry, ignorant, communist-leaning, anti-American social justice warriors are currently embedded in (and sabotaging) our intelligence agencies?!

We’re guessing the number to be terrifyingly high, but can’t know for sure because trying to find out would require functional intelligence agencies. And that ship, like Satire, has sailed.

So while it is a disturbing enough problem that the US government classifies far too much information, it is an even bigger problem that someone like Reality Winner is even able to make it past the first stage of a security clearance screening.

And while it is easy enough to chalk the whole Reality Winner episode up to typical government incompetence, perhaps we should be asking a different question; was something far more sinister at play here, with the deep state working behind the scenes towards undermining the current administration?

Apple Censors US-Drone-Strike-Tracking App

Authored by James Holbrooks via TheAntiMedia.org,

“At its core was a question: do we want to be as connected to our foreign policy as we are to our smartphones? My hypothesis was no. Americans don’t care about the drone war because it is largely hidden from view.”

That’s how Josh Begley, writing for The Intercept on Tuesday, described the concept behind an app he created five years ago. The app, he says, was a simple one. It merely sent users an alert every time a U.S. drone strike was reported in the news.

Apple rejected the app three times on the grounds that it was “excessively objectionable or crude content,” but Begley didn’t give up on the project.

“Over the years, I would occasionally resubmit the app, changing its name from Drones+ to Metadata+,” he wrote. “I was curious to see if Apple might change its mind. The app didn’t include graphic images or video of any kind — it simply aggregated news about covert war.”

He went on to tell how, after five rejections, Apple finally accepted the app in 2014. It remained in the App Store for a year and was downloaded by over 50,000 people. But then, the following September, Apple removed the app, once again citing “excessively objectionable or crude content.”

Begley persisted. The reason he was writing the post this week, in fact, was because that day — March 28, 2017 — Apple had once again accepted the app. He wasn’t writing to talk about his ordeal with Apple, though. He was writing about the issue that motivated him to create the app in the first place:

“As an artist who works with data, I think the story of this app is about more than a petty conflict with Apple. It is about what can be seen — or obscured — about the geography of our covert wars.”

He pointed out that over the past 15 years, people have worked tirelessly to document what’s happening on the ground where these drone campaigns are being waged. And that work is certainly praiseworthy. But Begley went further, pointing out what he calls the “difficult truth” of drone warfare — that at the end of the day, we don’t really know who these missiles are killing.

Again, rather than focusing on his spat with Apple, Begley stayed with the issue that inspired him and talked about the end product of that inspiration:

“Because the particulars of drone wars are scant, we only have ‘metadata’ about most of these strikes—perhaps a date, the name of a province, maybe a body count. Absent documentary evidence or first-person testimony, there isn’t much narrative to speak of.

“The name ‘Metadata’ has a double meaning: the app both contains metadata about English-language news reports, and it refers to the basis on which most drone strikes are carried out.”

The only time Begley questioned Apple’s earlier decisions to refuse his app was in his summation.

“Smartphones have connected us more intimately to all sorts of data,” he wrote. “Yet information about drone strikes — in Apple’s universe — had somehow been deemed beyond the pale.”

He used the past tense, of course, because Apple had, that very day, re-accepted Metadata. But as it turned out, the party was short-lived. Hours after Begley’s post ran at The Intercept, Apple pulled his app once more.

Highlighting the suddenness of Apple’s move, here’s how Reason opened its coverage of the news on Tuesday:

“This was supposed to be a post about how anybody who wants to easily keep track of U.S. drone strikes overseas can do so through an app on their iPhone. But never mind. They can’t anymore.”

Josh Begley chose not to go after Apple in his article when he easily could have. He took the high road and stuck to the far greater issues — the nature of drone warfare itself and how we, as a society, are responding to it in an age of instant communication.

This writer will follow Begley’s lead and not speculate on the myriad possibilities of why Apple seems afraid of his app. That’s the far less important aspect of what’s happening here. It all goes back to the core of the Metadata project and the question that drove Begley to get started: Given the option, would we really want to be as connected to U.S. foreign policy as we are to our smartphones?

Or, in other words, would we really want constant updates on all the killing?

Glenn Greenwald Blasts "Fake News" Peddling Washington Post For Lack Of "Basic Journalistic Skepticism"

Appearing on the Tucker Carlson show on Fox News recently, Glenn Greenwald, co-founding editor of The Intercept, took direct aim at the "intelligence community" and the Washington Post for recklessly spreading the "Russian Hacking" narrative without providing a single piece of tangible evidence to support their claims. 

The ever skeptical Greenwald started by lambasting the Washington Post for their admittedly "fake news" story on Russian efforts to hack the Vermont electricity grid.  Of course, as we previously pointed out, the entire story turned out to be completely fabricated by an overzealous Washington Post looking to perpetuate the "Russian Hacking" narrative at all costs, including whatever is left of their own credibility.  Greenwald described the epic collapse of the story as the "grandest humiliation possible" for the Washington Post.

"Essentially the entire article from start to finish. They have the this big blockbuster announcement on Friday which was obviously sensationalistic and it would have a huge impact if it were true that Russia and Vladimir Putin had invaded the U.S. electric grid by placing malware within the utility system in Vermont."

"They induced the governor of Vermont and Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) to make these really bombastic statements about how this thug Vladimir Putin was trying to steal the heat to make Vermonters suffer during the winter. It turned out that the malware found was actually on a single laptop totally unconnected to the grid. Then it turned out that the Russians had actually nothing to do with this malware. Then it turned out that what was on the laptop probably wasn"t malware at all. So the story just collapsed one step after the next in the grandest humiliation possible."

Meanwhile, Greenwald goes on to point out, as we did late last week, that the latest "Intel Report" from the "Intelligence Community" was nothing more than a repeat of their previous allegations, which were and continue to be, "completely unaccompanied by evidence."

"The report that came out today was just another set of repackaged conclusions from the intelligence community, which may or may not be true, that were again completely unaccompanied by evidence.  And when you simply point that out, that the intelligence community keeps just repeating itself over and over...without providing evidence that can be evaluated whether or not it"s true, that means you must love Vladimir Putin, that you"re probably working for the Kremlin, when, in fact, it"s just the basic kind of skepticism that all journalists should be exercising."

"We shouldn"t accept government claims unless we see evidence that it"s true.  Particularly, when the consequences are so grave.  You have John McCain saying Russia has engaged in a act of war, Nancy Pelosi is accusing journalists of being accomplices of Russia who reported on the story.  Which is basically every media outlet in the country.  These are really serious charges and we should see evidence for that."

With that, here is the full interview with Tucker Carlson for your viewing pleasure: