Free Republic

One of the reasons why tens of millions of Americans put Donald Trump in the White House was because he wasn’t born and bred of the Washington political establishment. The primary reason why the Washington political establishment wants him out of the White House is precisely that he isn’t one of them. But try as they have, the D.C. Swamp — consisting of politicized factions within the Justice Department and intelligence community, working hand-in-hand with a corrupt elitist media — has been unable to depose POTUS Trump. Beyond that, they haven’t been able to shame Trump out of office, silence...

Media coverage of longtime Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta has disappeared completely an astonished Glenn Greenwald remarked last week. "I'm still somewhat mystified about how Tony Podesta - intimately involved in many of Paul Manafort's slimiest and most unscrupulous practices (because K Street sleaze is 100% bipartisan) - has just vanished from the news cycle and, apparently, legal jeopardy," the Intercept journalist said along with the hashtag "MissingTonyPodesta." Greenwald, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who broke the story of U.S. mass surveillance aided by former Central Intelligence Agency analyst Edward Snowden, has been highly critical of Russia investigation coverage and the Democrats'...

House Democrats reportedly will not strip Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) of her committee assignments after she apologized for tweets suggesting that American lawmakers were motivated to defend Israel by money. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told Roll Call that "of course" Democrats would not strip Omar of committee assignments like Republicans did to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa.) after he questioned how terms like "white supremacy" became offensive. “I don’t think she’s anti-Semitic,” Hoyer reportedly said. “She did apologize. The key will be that when we make a mistake like that, conscious or unconscious, that we don’t repeat it. That...

Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) apologized on Monday for tweets suggesting that American lawmakers were motivated by money to defend Israel. Omar's apology came after she spoke with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who along with other House Democratic leaders called on her to apologize for the "use of anti-Semitic tropes" about Jewish people and money. "Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes. My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole. We have to always be willing to step...

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton called out Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) on Sunday evening for using an anti-Jewish stereotype when she alleged that members of Congress had been paid to support Israel. Omar began by tweeting “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” in response to a comment by left-wing Israel critic Glenn Greenwald in which he lamented that Congress in general, and Republicans in particular, supported Israel. At no point did Omar acknowledge that what she had said was in any way antisemitic or offensive. Chelsea Clinton’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky, is Jewish.

Freshman Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that his colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar's tweet suggesting that a pro-Israel lobbying group was buying off lawmakers was "deeply hurtful to Jews," including himself. "When someone uses hateful and offensive tropes against people of any faith, I will not be silent," Rose wrote on Twitter. "Congresswoman Omar's statements are deeply hurtful to Jews, including myself. Implying that Americans support Israel because of money alone is offensive enough. But go a step further, and retweet someone declaring their pain at her sentiment is truly unacceptable." "At a time when anti-Semitic attacks are on the...

I don't blame him.

The Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald wrote a searing column on Friday documenting Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos’ extensive relationship with intelligence agencies and the deep state. The reminder of Bezos’ corporate partnership with controversial government entities such as the CIA and NSA couldn’t come at a more appropriate time, as the Amazon founder has attracted attention for lashing out at what he calls an attempt by the National Enquirer to invade his privacy. Bezos alleges he’s the victim of attempted blackmail on behalf of the Enquirer, which supposedly threatened to release his personal lewd photos if he didn’t shut down a...

Full tile: Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else IF BEZOS WERE the political victim of surveillance state abuses, it would be scandalous and dangerous. It would also be deeply ironic. That’s because Amazon, the company that has made Bezos the planet’s richest human being, is a critical partner for the U.S. Government in building an ever-more invasive, militarized and sprawling surveillance state. Indeed, one of the largest components of Amazon’s business, and thus one of the most important sources of Bezos’ vast wealth and power, is working with...

A gay Brazilian politician has said he will not return to the country after receiving death threats. Jean Wyllys, one of the country's few openly gay congressmen, told a newspaper he had been powerless as his reputation was "destroyed by lies". He said violence in Brazil had worsened since the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro last year. Mr Bolsonaro has vowed to tackle corruption and crime but has also made racist and homophobic remarks. However in his inauguration speech earlier this month he promised to build a "society without discrimination or division". Mr Wyllys' left-wing Party for Socialism and...

A children's speech pathologist who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic, and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise tak[e] any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation. A lawsuit on her behalf was filed early Monday morning in a federal court in the Western District of Texas, alleging a violation of her...

A former Minneapolis FBI agent caught leaking classified documents to The Intercept pleaded guilty in federal court in St. Paul Tuesday afternoon.

Today I reported on the refusal of CNN International (CNNi) to broadcast an award-winning documentary, "iRevolution", that was produced in early 2011 as the Arab Spring engulfed the region and which was highly critical of the regime in Bahrain. The documentary, featuring CNN's on-air correspondent Amber Lyon, viscerally documented the brutality and violence the regime was using against its own citizens who were peacefully protesting for democracy. Commenting on why the documentary did not air on CNNi, CNN's spokesman cited "purely editorial reasons".

HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR Laurence Tribe did not wait even 24 hours to exploit yesterday’s tragic crash of a Russian regional jet shortly after it took off from Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard. On Twitter this morning, Tribe (pictured above in 2010 with former Vice President Joe Biden) strongly insinuated that the Russian government may have purposely sabotaged the plane, murdering all of those on board, in order to silence one of the passengers, Sergei Millian, who has been linked to a couple of figures involved in the Trump-Russia investigation.

In an extensive piece published by The Intercept on Saturday, co-founder of the news site Glenn Greenwald excoriated CNN (as well as a host of other news outlets) for recklessly advancing agenda driven stories involving the Russia investigation, with no transparency when the stories blow up in their face and go viral with fake news. Greenwald began by noting how “Friday was one of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time.”“The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout...

eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar is starting a news outlet called First Look Media. In the site's animated video, he describes it as "a new kind of marriage between a technology company and a new kind of newsroom," and that one of its goals will be to "make it easier for journalists to deliver the transformative stories we all need." Omidyar is known as a philanthropist, and has put his money where his mouth is (in this case, he is reportedly investing $250 million in the First Look venture). His Omidyar Network - with its funding of many altruistic initiatives such...

David Carr, a writer who wriggled away from the demon of drug addiction to become an unlikely name-brand media columnist at The New York Times, and the star of a documentary about the newspaper, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 58. Mr. Carr collapsed in the Times newsroom, where he was found shortly before 9 p.m. He was taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Earlier in the evening, he moderated a panel discussion about the film “Citizenfour” with its principal subject, Edward J. Snowden; the film’s director, Laura Poitras; and Glenn Greenwald, a journalist.

Greenwald: Donald Trump Jr.'s Emails Are Not A "Smoking Gun" Of Anything; Democrats Keep "Moving Goal Posts" For Allegations DEMOCRACY NOW!: The White House is in crisis mode following revelations that Donald Trump’s own son embraced an apparent effort by the Russian government to peddle information incriminating Hillary Clinton in an attempt to help Trump win the presidency. In a new interview with Reuters, President Trump defended his son and said that he himself did not know about the meeting. We speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, who notes that Democrats have had similar entanglements...

Let’s start with a caveat from one of the authors of The Intercept’s story, just so we’re clear on what *isn’t* being alleged. very very important: there’s nothing in the NSA report indicating the actual voting machines or vote tabulations were compromised— Sam Biddle (@samfbiddle) June 5, 2017 Was that the goal, though? The piece is long and difficult to excerpt so I’ll try to summarize. According to the NSA (CBS has confirmed that this is indeed a real NSA report), last August Russia’s military intelligence unit — the GRU — hacked into a software company, likely VR Systems...

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals. Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis. The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to...