Glenn Greenwald -- FBI Using the Same Fear Tactic From the First War on Terror: Orchestrating its Own Terrorism Plots

 

FBI Using the Same Fear Tactic From the First War on Terror: Orchestrating its Own Terrorism Plots

Questioning the FBI's role in 1/6 was maligned by corporate media as deranged. But only ignorance about the FBI or a desire to deceive could produce such a reaction.

Glenn Greenwald Jul 24 596 1,129

NBC's Today Show, Oct. 9. 2020

The narrative that domestic anti-government extremism is the greatest threat to U.S. national security — the official position of the U.S. security state and the Biden administration — received its most potent boost in October 2020, less than one month before the 2020 presidential election. That was when the F.B.I. and Michigan state officials announced the arrest of thirteen people on terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges, with six of them accused of participating in a plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had been a particular target of criticism from President Trump for her advocacy for harsh COVID lockdown measures.

The headlines that followed were dramatic and fear-inducing: “F.B.I. Says Michigan Anti-Government Group Plotted to Kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer,” announced The New York Times. That same night, ABC News began its broadcast this way: "Tonight, we take you into a hidden world, a place authorities say gave birth to a violent domestic terror plot in Michigan — foiled by the FBI.”

Democrats and liberal journalists instantly seized on this storyline to spin a pre-election theme that was as extreme as it was predictable. Gov. Whitmer herself blamed Trump, claiming that the plotters “heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry — as a call to action.” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) claimed that “the president is a deranged lunatic and he’s inspired white supremacists to violence, the latest of which was a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer,” adding: “these groups have attempted to KILL many of us in recent years. They are following Trump’s lead.” Vox’s paid television-watcher and video-manipulator, Aaron Rupar, drew this inference: “Trump hasn't commended the FBI for breaking up Whitmer kidnapping/murder plot because as always he doesn't want to denounce his base.” Michael Moore called for Trump's arrest for having incited the kidnapping plot against Gov. Whitmer. One viral tweet from a popular Democratic Party activist similarly declared: “Trump should be arrested for this plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer. There’s no doubt he inspired this terrorism.”

GLENN GREENWALD -- My Resignation From The Intercept

 

My Resignation From The Intercept

The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating in censorship of my own articles.

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Today I sent my intention to resign from The Intercept, the news outlet I co-founded in 2013 with Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras, as well as from its parent company First Look Media.

The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression.

ERIC ZUESSE -- How the Billionaires Control American Elections

How the Billionaires Control American Elections

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture

The great investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald gave an hour-long lecture on how America’s billionaires control the U.S. Government, and here is an edited summary of its opening twenty minutes (the best part of it), with key quotations and assertions from its opening — and then its broader context will be discussed briefly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=38&v=ejqYrzEX14E

“How Congress Maintains Endless War - System Update with Glenn Greenwald”

The Intercept, 9 July 2020

2:45: There is “this huge cleavage between how members of Congress present themselves, their imagery and rhetoric and branding, what they present to the voters, on the one hand, and the reality of what they do in the bowels of Congress and the underbelly of Congressional proceedings, on the other. Most of the constituents back in their home districts have no idea what it is that the people they’ve voted for have been doing, and this gap between belief and reality is enormous.”

Watch: Are We Vesting Too Much Power in Governments and Corporations in the Name of COVID-19? WithEdward Snowden.

Watch: Are We Vesting Too Much Power in Governments and Corporations in the Name of COVID-19? WithEdward Snowden.

Glenn Greenwald

April 8 2020, 11:21 p.m.

THE SECOND EPISODE of our new video program, SYSTEM UPDATE, is now available on YouTube. It explores several of the under-discussed components of the coronavirus pandemic and our responses to it, including: Are we vesting too much power in the hands of governments and corporations? Are we allowing our fears to drive our deliberations and choices rather than rational calculations? how do we ensure that official orthodoxies, pieties and consensus can be meaningfully questioned and challenged? What lessons are there to learn from the fear-driven climate that arose after the 9/11 attack? What are the enduring political, social and cultural effects of sustained isolation? and what is the role of animal agriculture in the outbreak of new deadly pathogens over the last couple of decades?

To explore these questions, I spoke to three guests: the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, now President of the Board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation; Andray Domise, a contributing editor of the Canadian newsmagazine Maclean’s who has written and spoken in a very insightful way about these issues; and Cassie King, a young, courageous and experienced investigator and activist with Direct Action Everywhere, who has been inside numerous factory farms in the U.S. and has worked extensively on the impact on the public health from these industrial practices.

The full show can be watched on the Intercept’s YouTube channel — to which you can subscribe in order to be notified of all of our new content — or on the player below. A transcript is also below:

* * * * * *

System Update – Edward Snowden, Andray Domise and Cassie King

MONOLOGUE

Welcome to a new edition of System Update. I’m Glenn Greenwald.

This episode focuses on several of the under-discussed and under-explored ramifications of the choices we’re collectively making in response to the coronavirus pandemic:

How do we protect civil liberties and political rights while at the same time vesting powers necessary power in governments and corporations in order to manage the pandemic? What are the enduring social, cultural, political and psychological consequences — ones that will endure even after this pandemic is brought under control — from being in isolation and segregated from one another and quarantining and socially distancing?

Ecuador Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over to the UK. What Comes Next?

Ecuador Will Imminently Withdraw Asylum for Julian Assange and Hand Him Over to the UK. What Comes Next?

Glenn Greenwald

July 21 2018, 5:17 p.m.

Photo: Niklas Halle'n/AFP/Getty Images

ECUADOR’S PRESIDENT Lenin Moreno traveled to London on Friday for the ostensible purpose of speaking at the 2018 Global Disabilities Summit (Moreno has been using a wheelchair since being shot in a 1998 robbery attempt). The concealed, actual purpose of the President’s trip is to meet with British officials to finalize an agreement under which Ecuador will withdraw its asylum protection of Julian Assange, in place since 2012, eject him from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and then hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities.

Moreno’s itinerary also notably includes a trip to Madrid, where he will meet with Spanish officials still seething over Assange’s denunciation of human rights abuses perpetrated by Spain’s central government against protesters marching for Catalonia independence. Almost three months ago, Ecuador blocked Assange from accessing the internet, and Assange has not been able to communicate with the outside world ever since. The primary factor in Ecuador’s decision to silence him was Spanish anger over Assange’s tweets about Catalonia.

Presidential decree signed on July 17 by Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno, outlining his trip to London and Madrid

A source close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the President’s office, unauthorized to speak publicly, has confirmed to the Intercept that Moreno is close to finalizing, if he has not already finalized, an agreement to hand over Assange to the UK within the next several weeks. The withdrawal of asylum and physical ejection of Assange could come as early as this week. On Friday, RT reported that Ecuador was preparing to enter into such an agreement.