Tuesday, June 6, 2017

The embarrassing Intercept


Moon of Alabama (at Information Clearing House) reports:


Yesterday The Intercept published a leaked five page NSA analysis about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. Its reporting outed the leaker of the NSA documents. That person, R.L. Winner, has now been arrested and is likely to be jailed for years if not for the rest of her life.

Intercepted source - R.L. Winner
FBI search (pdf) and arrest warrant (pdf) applications unveil irresponsible behavior by the Intercept's reporters and editors which neglected all operational security trade-craft that might have prevented the revealing of the source. It leaves one scratching the head if this was intentional or just sheer incompetence. Either way - the incident confirms what skeptics had long determined: The Intercept is not a trustworthy outlet for leaking state secrets of public interests.
The Intercept was created to privatize the National Security Agency documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents proved that the NSA is hacking and copying nearly all electronic communication on this planet, that it was breaking laws that prohibited spying on U.S. citizen and that it sabotages on a large scale various kinds of commercial electronic equipment. Snowden gave copies of the NSA documents to a small number of journalists. One of them was Glenn Greenwald who now works at The Intercept. Only some 5% of the pages Snowden allegedly acquired and gave to reporters have been published. We have no idea what the unpublished pages would provide.
The Intercept, a subdivision of First Look Media, was founded by Pierre Omidyar, a major owner of the auctioning site eBay and its PayPal banking division. Omidyar is a billionaire and "philanthropist" who's (tax avoiding) Omidyar Network foundation is "investing" for "returns". Its microcredit project for farmers in India, in cooperation with people from the fascists RSS party, ended in an epidemic of suicides when the farmers were unable to pay back. The Omidyar Network also funded (fascist) regime change groups in Ukraine in cooperation with USAID. Omidyar had cozy relations with the Obama White House. Some of the held back NSA documents likely implicate Omidyar's PayPal.
The Intercept was funded with some $50 million from Omidyar. It first hires were Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras - all involved in publishing the Snowden papers and other leaks. Its first piece was based on documents from the leaked the NSA stack. It has since published on this or that but not in a regular media way.  The Intercept pieces are usually heavily editorialized and tend to have a mainstream "liberal" to libertarian slant. Some were highly partisan anti-Syrian/pro-regime change propaganda. The website seems to have no regular publishing schedule at all. Between one and five piece per day get pushed out, only few of them make public waves. Some of its later prominent hires (Ken Silverstein, Matt Taibbi) soon left and alleged that the place was run in a chaotic atmosphere and with improper and highly politicized editing. Despite its rich backing and allegedly high pay for its main journalists (Greenwald is said to receive between 250k and 1 million per year) the Intercept is begging for reader donations.
Yesterday's published story (with bylines of four(!) reporters) begins:
Russian military intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election, according to a highly classified intelligence report obtained by The Intercept.
The NSA "intelligence report" the Intercept publishes along the piece does NOT show that "Russian military intelligence executed a cyberattack".

The Intercept and it's non-breaking news.

But they did manage to get their leaker arrested.


What a proud moment for Glenn Greenwald.

Rebecca's been covering the disappointment of The Intercept for weeks now -- most recently in "another proud moment for 'the intercept' ."



Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 
Tuesday, June 6, 2017.  Chaos and violence continue, The Mosul Slog continues, Eliza Barclay tries to spit-shine Larry I Killed Glass Steagall Summers with her throat (no gag reflex on her), and much more.


Self-hating Eliza Barclay showed up at VOX yesterday to treat the disgusting Larry Summers as someone worth listening to.  Elaine had said everything that needed to be said last week with her "STFU Larry Summers" -- but then Elaine's a strong woman and Eliza Barclay's just an embarrassment who can almost -- almost -- handle the topic of 'reporting' on the best snacks to serve at your Super Bowl get together.

Almost.

Eliza prattles on like the fool she is in passages like this:


As I wrote last week, Trump’s decision on Paris was cruel in the message it sends about how America values the environment, and how little it now cares about the risks climate change poses to the planet. Though the doomsayers like Summers could turn out to be wrong, many, many experts believe it is likely to prove incredibly damaging to America’s strategic position in the world, our military’s operations, and our standing in international negotiations.


Poor little Eliza.

Somewhere in the world, the menfolk are unhappy and like the good little servant she is, she's going to make them happy.  Serve those snacks, on your knees, serve those men, you little child.



I wrote this about the farcical Paris climate accord.






Let's do a video.



Unlike Eliza, Margaret Kimberley is nobody's child (video is Maria McKee performing "Nobody's Child" from her self-titled solo debut album).

Here's what Margaret wrote in 2015 about the 'wonderful' Paris Agreement:


The agreement doesn’t even take effect until 2020. Countries have five years to continue pumping green house gases into the atmosphere as much as they like. In addition, the agreement is not even binding. Any nation can decide to ignore the pledges it made in Paris without repercussion.
The means of increasing carbon production while claiming to reduce it are numerous. India and China use semantics. They claim they will cut “carbon intensity” which means they will use coal more efficiently, not that they will use it less. Other countries play games because they were allowed to use 1990 as the date to measure carbon reduction. That doesn’t mean much for Russia because its economy collapsed in the 1990s. Going back to the high water mark of 1990 means they can actually increase carbon production over and above current levels.
The United States and the European Union also choose dates selectively. The United States says it will cut 2030 emissions by 26% as compared to 2005. But emissions now are lower than 2005, so the promise is a hollow one and the actual cut would be just 15%, assuming the U.S. actually lives up to its promise.

Just as in Copenhagen in 2009, the United States took a lead role in deceiving the world. Once again Barack Obama made a personal appearance and added his usual bizarre diatribe about American superiority. He said nothing about the United States refusing to consider compensating poor countries for damage done by rich countries. The final document states that “any discussion of loss and damages does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation.




That reality escapes little Eliza -- the overgrown and underbrained child doing the bidding of her masters.

Read the whole piece and marvel over how Eliza so delicately laps the crotch of Larry Summers.  Eliza really gets off on debasing herself in public.


No where in her nonsense does she note that Little Dick Larry (a) has no science background, (b) faces charges of racism (for years now), (c) was flat out sexist in his remarks on women and science and (d) had to resign as president of Harvard in disgrace.

Debase yourself, Eliza, disgrace yourself.

Nor does she note Larry's so-called column is really a variation of the remarks he gave last week to NPR's HERE & NOW.


Nor does she ask the tough question that Elaine did: "Question, where does he rank the repeal of Glass-Steagell which removed the protections and created the banking problems -- the ones we had to bail out?"

Yeah, that was Larry's doing.

Poor little Eliza, she can't stand up while also going down on Larry in public.


She should go back to the 'reporting' she can handle, writing things like "Beer and food have loads of flavors in common" -- loads?  She's back to writing about foamy head.  You go, Eliza!


At VOX, Eliza, still not able to breathe through her nose, spits out, "Pulling out of Paris is also such a failure of moral leadership, he writes, that it 'is probably our most consequential error since the Iraq War'."

Is it our most "consequential error since the Iraq War"?

Because if it is, that means the press will ignore it, the same way they refused, in the 2012 debates (and the coverage around it), to ask Barack Obama about the special-ops he'd just sent back into Iraq.


The morning after the 2012 election, Ava and I wrote "Let The Fun Begin" which opened:


Lies about Iraq drove the 2008 election and they drove the 2012 election as well.

The country was transformed to the elephant in the room for 2012 that no one could be honest about.  President Barack Obama  lied that he'd 'ended' the Iraq War, he misled people into believing that all US troops had left Iraq, and he failed to inform Americans that he was negotiating to send even more US troops into Iraq.

While the uninspiring victory speech last night blended The Hollies "He's Not Heavy, He's My Brother" ("The road is long") with Jerry McGuire ("You've made me a better president"), it also made clear that the administration was on fumes even before the second term officially begins in January.

The administration is as empty as the media.  If you doubt that, September 26th, the New York Times' Tim Arango reported:


 
Iraq and the United States are negotiating an agreement that could result in the return of small units of American soldiers to Iraq on training missions. At the request of the Iraqi government, according to General Caslen, a unit of Army Special Operations soldiers was recently deployed to Iraq to advise on counterterrorism and help with intelligence.




September 26th it was in print.


Days later, October 3rd, Barack 'debated' Mitt RomneyAgain October 16thAgain October 22nd.  Not once did the moderators ever raise the issue.


If Barack's sitting before them and he's flat out lying to the American people, it's their job to ask.  They didn't do their job.  Nor did social menace Candy Crowley who was apparently dreaming of an all-you-can-eat buffet when Barack was babbling away before her about how he wouldn't allow more "troops in Iraq that would tie us down."  But that's exactly what he's currently negotiating.

Maybe Candy Crowley missed the New York Times article?  Maybe she spends all her time pleasuring herself to her version of porn: Cooking With Paula Deen Magazine?

That is possible.

But she was only one of the three moderators.  Bob Schieffer and Jim Lehrer also moderated.  Of course, they didn't foolishly self-present as a fact checker in the midst of the debate  nor did they hit the publicity circuit before the debate to talk about how they were going to show how it was done.



Some are still lying.

Some are still lying and are losing loved ones who can't take the lies anymore and hurl themselves to their deaths.

I've been surprisingly kind on that topic.

Don't expect my silence on it to continue for long.

You did more than shame your mother, you appalled her.

And why wouldn't she be appalled?

The truth mattered to her.

She took part in documenting a rock god's bisexual ways -- and did so at a time when homophobia and Anita Bryant (same diff) reigned.

Yet, you, her child, couldn't even use your power to tell the truth about an ongoing war.

P.S. I may be the only one who knows where what you're looking for is -- the thing that had you begging the police to let you in so you could try to find.  That's probably one secret -- the location -- that I'll willingly take to my grave.

Oh, kisses for one and all.

Feel the love, feel the love.

So many liars, so many whores, so committed to keeping the human race engaged in wars.





SHOCKING! Drone footage shows bodies of civilians killed in recent US-strikes on Mosul scattered all over Zanjili neighborhood








Day 230 of The Mosul Slog.


And it's Debra Killalea (NEWS.COM) -- and not VOX's Eliza Barclay -- reporting reality:


HE thought he would be filming heroes in action and recording the work of the good guys. But what unfolded in front of Ali Arkady’s lens was gruesome, dark and not at all what he expected.
The photojournalist was embedded deep in an elite unit of Iraqi soldiers in the fight against Islamic State.
But as the brutal and bloody war intensified, the line between the good guys and the bad guys got blurry.
Mr Arkady said instead of war heroes protecting the innocent from Isalmic State, what he witnessed instead were sickening acts of torture, executions and abuse of suspected militants and civilians by the Iraqi army itself.
In total he compiled 400 photos and hours of videos and audio recordings revealing what amounts to war crimes committed by American-trained Emergency Response Division soldiers, the group fighting against IS.




Reality of The Mosul Slog and of Hayder al-Abadi's 'new' Iraq.


GRAPHIC: Abu Ghraib 2.0? Iraqi army caught torturing captives in



🔞🔞 In a series of serious violations by US-backed forces, new vid emerge of Iraqi soldiers torturing a man to death:


Some day The Mosul Slog will be over.
Not today, though.
map update. Green= completely liberated. Orange= frontline clashes. White= control.






  • 230 days of The Mosul Slog and counting.
  • The following community sites -- plus Jody Watley -- updated:


  • Monday, June 5, 2017

    What hope is Netflix?

    None at all.

    If you're a sci-fi fan, you know that.

    They made it clear at the end of last week.

    Read Betty's "Maybe I won't renew Netflix" and prepare for the reality that Netflix doesn't care for sci-fi.

    They've cancelled SENSE8.

    Remember NBC's The Event?

    I really wanted a second season of that show.

    Netflix toyed with the pretense that they were interested in picking it up.

    But they didn't.

    And now we know why.

    They hate sci-fi.

    They love their little drug dramas.  They love glorifying drug dealers.





    But they hate sci-fi.

    Here are some articles on the cancellation.

    'Sense8' Deserved More Time, Netflix

    Film School Rejects-15 hours ago
    Last week, Netflix axed the Wachowskis' sci-fi extravaganza Sense8 in their latest move to cut down on original programming. Many remain ...
    Remembering The Late, Great SENSE8
    Birth.Movies.Death. (blog)-15 hours ago
    The real reason Sense8 was canceled
    Featured-Looper-17 hours ago
    Sense8 and sensibility: how a TV series is transcending ...
    In-Depth-New Zealand Herald-Jun 4, 2017



    If you never watched the show, read Ava and C.I.'s "TV: NETFLIX's finest series returns" and realize what a great series we've lost.

    I'm cancelling my Netflix subscription.


    Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

     
    Monday, June 5, 2017.  Chaos and violence continue, The Mosul Slog continues, White Phosphorus resurfaces in Iraq, and much more.



    Yasmin Yonis Retweeted eemi
    The US bombed a hospital today. A hospital full of sick people & kids & doctors. 488 died in Iraq & Syria. Manchester is part of global war.
    Yasmin Yonis added,








    Where's THE NEW YORK TIMES' coverage of that?

    They can offer this:


    Iraqi forces are closing in on the Islamic State’s stronghold in Mosul's Old City








    But not White Phosphorus coverage.


    Check our archives, they've always had a problem with reporting on White Phosphorus.


    Not everyone outlet in the west falls silent.  Australia's NINE NEWS reports:



    Iraqi forces have been accused of using the controversial and deadly war weapon white phosphorus in an attack on ISIS-held areas in western Mosul.
    An explosion was captured on a Kurdish TV station who were livestreaming on Saturday when Iraqi forces made their move.
    Stills from the blast showed it appeared to have the signature bright white plume of smoke which follows a white phosphorus attack, Human Rights Watch told Al Jazeera.







    It's day 229 of The Mosul Slog.

    The operation was supposed to last a few weeks.

    Now it's 229 days old.

    Not a lot of good things to show for it.


    Human Rights Watch issued an alert:


    At least 26 bodies of blindfolded and handcuffed men have been found in government held areas in and around Mosul since the operation to retake the city began in October 2016, Human Rights Watch said today.
     
    In 15 of the cases, local armed forces told a foreign journalist that the men were extrajudicially killed by government security forces who had them in custody under suspicion of Islamic State (also known as ISIS) affiliation. In the remaining cases, reported by local and international sources, the sites of the apparent executions – all in government held territory – raise concerns about government responsibility for the killings. A foreign journalist also said that a government official told them that a Sunni Popular Mobilization Forces (known as the PMF or Hashd al-Sha'abi) unit, which is part of the government forces working to retake Mosul, was responsible for the extrajudicial killing of 25 men in their custody and dumping the bodies in the Tigris River.
     
    “The bodies of bound and blindfolded men are being found one after the other in and around Mosul and in the Tigris River, raising serious concerns about extrajudicial killings by government forces,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The lack of any apparent government action to investigate these deaths undermines the government’s statements on protecting detainee rights.”
     
    Extrajudicial executions during an armed conflict are war crimes and if widespread or systematic, carried out as part of policy, would constitute crimes against humanity.
     
    Iraqi forces, including the Popular Mobilization Forces, are screening and detaining men fleeing Mosul, in some cases in unidentified and informal detention centers where they are cut off from contact with the outside world. The authorities have not released any information on the number of people detained, or being investigated or charged. Given past abuse of people detained by the PMF and other government military and security forces, Human Rights Watch has flagged concerns about detainees’ treatment, including possible executions.
     
    On May 13 and 15, 2017, two groups of aid workers and a foreign journalist said that they saw groups of corpses, 15 bodies in all, by the side of a road between the village of Athba and town of Hammam al-Alil, about 15 kilometers south of west Mosul. The area is entirely under the control of Iraqi government forces. One group said they had driven past the area a day earlier and the bodies had not been there, suggesting they were killed on May 12 or 13.
     

    Local armed forces at the nearest checkpoint told the journalist that they saw Iraqi “security forces” bring the men to the area and shoot them. The journalist observed many bullet casings in the area on May 15. The journalist found an identity card on one of the bodies and confirmed with a contact within the National Security Service, a security body under the ultimate control of the prime minister, that the name was on their government database of about 90,000 people wanted for ISIS-affiliation.



    Again, 229 days.

    The United Nations News Centre notes:

    Some 100,000 children remain in extremely dangerous conditions in western sections of Iraq’s Mosul city as fighting between Government and terrorist forces continues, the United Nations children’s agency today reported, warning that “children’s lives are on the line.”
    “We are receiving alarming reports of civilians including several children being killed in west Mosul,” said Peter Hawkins, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Representative in Iraq, in a statement, noting that boys and girls are being killed, injured and used as human shields as the fighting intensifies by the hour.
    An estimated 100,000 girls and boys remain in extremely dangerous conditions in the Old City and other areas of west Mosul, he said, calling on all parties in west Mosul to keep children out of harm’s way at all times.
    “Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure including hospitals, clinics, schools, homes and water systems should stop immediately,” Mr. Hawkins said. 


    Children's lives remain at stake because the government told them not to leave Mosul when the operation began and waited until late April to finally say otherwise.

    Even then, the Baghdad-based government failed to provide a safe passage out of Iraq, leaving thousands and thousands at risk.







    In other news, RUDAW reports:

     Iraq’s internal incomes in the oil sector alone since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime from 2003 to 2016 had reached nearly $722 billion, of which 57 percent of this portion is exported outside of the country with another $112 billion missing.

    “We have six precise reports in hand on transferring cash outside of the country, indicating that 57 percent of the cash made in Iraq is sent outside,” Ahmed Haji Rashid, head of the finance committee in the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw.

    “What the government is using now is $115 billion and the private sector retains $58 billion. But $112 billion is still missing,” he noted.

    Commenting on committees formed to follow up on the fate of the cash flow out of the country, he explained, “work has been done but courts in this country are not assistive."




    Nouri al-Maliki, former prime minister of Iraq and forever thug, enriched himself during his two terms as prime minister and his son also suddenly had a ton of money which was used to buy sportscars and various residences in the west.


    Matt Purple (RARE) reminds the Iraq War has been a circle repeat:


    That should sound like deja vu. Remember, the reason ISIS was able to rampage across Iraq in the first place was because it was welcomed by Sunnis weary of being abused by Shiite forces under the control of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Now oppression has come to Sunni Iraq once again under the PMUs. Another violent Sunni counter-reaction seems inevitable, and then on we go.

    The good news is that the PMUs are caught in the middle of a struggle for the future of Iraqi Shias. The three key figures to watch here are Maliki, back from ignominy and brandishing the PMUs that he helped create; Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who understands the PMUs are essential to defeating ISIS but wants to restrain them; and Moqtada al-Sadr, who’s reinvented himself as a populist with a focus on economic issues and wants to disband the PMUs entirely. Iraq is majority-Shia, but its general interpretation of Shiite Islam tends to be less extreme than Iran’s, meaning it’s possible that moderation may still prevail, either from Abadi’s good sense or Sadr’s outsider pressure. The PMUs themselves are also diverse—not all are committed to sectarian suppression.