Reps Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday evening invited former FBI special agents Bill Priestap and Joe Pientka to appear before the Judiciary Committee.
After failing to hear from FBI Director Christopher Wray, hero Jim Jordan took the initiative and invited Bill Priestap and Joe Pientka to appear before the Judiciary Committee.
Ranking member Jim Jordan asked, “Where is Christopher Wray?”
The GOP lawmakers are seeking an interview with FBI special agent Joe Pientka, who still has yet to be questioned even though Grassley repeatedly requested to speak with Pientka.
On May 11, 2018, then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and then-Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein stating Comey testified the FBI didn’t think General Flynn lied.
Grassley also revealed Joe Pientka was the second FBI agent who joined Peter Strzok on January 24th, 2017 in an ambush style interview to take down General Flynn.
Rosenstein refused to give the Senate Judiciary Committee the requested documents. Instead, Rosenstein provided “insufficient” documents prompting Grassley to send a second scathing letter to the Deputy AG.
Here we are two years later and Republican lawmakers are still fighting to speak with special agent Joe Pientka.
Pulitzer Committee Favors False US Empire Stories On Hong Kong, Russia And China2020-05-182020-05-18https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/08/Nytimes_hq-300×199-150×99.jpg200px200px
Above photo: New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
The New York Times has apparently stolen its Pulitzer Prize-winning stories from Russian journalists – the same liberal anti-Putin reporters its correspondents have lionized.
The New York Times has been accused for the second time of stealing major scoops from Russian journalists. One of those stories won the Times a Pulitzer Prize this May.
The journalists who have accused the Times of taking their work without credit also happen to be the same liberal media crusaders against Vladimir Putin that Western correspondents at the Times and other mainstream outlets have cast as persecuted heroes.
ThePulitzer Prize Boardis comprised of a who’s who of media aristocrats and Ivy League bigwigs. Given the elite backgrounds of the judges, it is hardly a surprise that they reward reporting that reinforces the narrative of the new US Cold War against official enemies like Russia and China.
Stephen Kinzer, a former New York Times correspondent who has since become a critic of US foreign policy, noted that the three finalists in the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting “were one story about how evil Russia is and two about how evil China is. These choices encourage reporters to write stories that reinforce rather than question Washington’s foreign-policy narrative.”
The 3 finalists in the #PulitzerPrize2020 “international reporting” category were one story about how evil #Russia is and two about how evil #China is. These choices encourage reporters to write stories that reinforce rather than question Washington’s foreign-policy narative.
The finalists nominated in this category were Reuters and the New York Times for two separate sets of stories.
The US newspaper of record ended up winning the2020 award in international reporting, for what the Pulitzer jury described as “a set of enthralling stories, reported at great risk, exposing the predations of Vladimir Putin’s regime.”
The Times was nominated again as a finalist for what the jury called its “gripping accounts that disclosed China’s top-secret efforts to repress millions of Muslims through a system of labor camps, brutality and surveillance.”
The staff of Reuters was selected as the third finalist for its reporting in support ofanti-China protestersinHong Kong. (The photography staff of Reuters ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news photography for the same coverage.)
Among thefive members of the Pulitzer jurywho selected these finalists was Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the neoliberal magazine The Atlantic and a former volunteer in the Israeli army whoworked as a guard at a prison campwhere Palestinians who rose up in the First Intifada were interned.
Joining Goldberg on the jury was Susan Chira, a former New York Times editor.
While this elite Pulitzer jury praised the New York Times for “at great risk, exposing the predations of Vladimir Putin’s regime,” it is not exactly clear what that “risk” is supposed to entail – because the major US newspaper appears to have stolen at least part of its reporting from Russian journalists.
On May 4, journalist Roman Badanin published aFacebook postaccusing the Times of ripping off a story he had released months before without credit.
Badanin is the founder and editor-in-chief of the liberal anti-Putin news websiteProekt, known as The Project in English.
“I have no illusions about the real role of Russian journalism in the world, but I have to note: the two The New York Times’s investigations, for which this honored newspaper won the Pulitzer prize yesterday, repeat the findings of The Project’s articles published a few months before,” Badanin wrote on Facebook.
“I would also like to note that the winners did not put a single link to the English version of our article, even when, for example, 8 months after The Project, they told about the activities of Eugene Prigozhin’s emissaries in Madagascar,” he added.
Badanin linked to an article he published, both in Russian and English, back in March 2019 titled “Master and Chef: How Evgeny Prigozhin led the Russian offensive in Africa.” The story details how the businessman Evgenу Prigozhin, who is sanctioned by the US government, has been promoting business opportunities in Africa. The piece focuses specifically on Madagascar, where Russia also has a military agreement.
This report is eerily similar to a report published by the New York Times eight months later, in November, titled “How Russia Meddles Abroad for Profit: Cash, Trolls and a Cult Leader.” This story, which was filed in Madagascar, does not once link to or credit Proekt’s original reporting.
Another anti-Putin Russian news website, Meduza, published an article on May 7 drawing attention to these allegations, titled “‘Fuck the Pulitzer — I just want a hyperlink’: Russian journalists say ‘The New York Times’ should have acknowledged their investigative work in the newspaper’s award-winning reports about the Putin regime’s ‘predations.’”
Meduza interviewed Badanin, who said the New York Times “report about Madagascar from November 2019 repeats all the main and even secondary conclusions from our reporting about Madagascar and Africa generally between March and April last year.”
While Badanin did not outright accuse the Times of plagiarism, he was frustrated that “nowhere in the story did they acknowledge that we’d already reported on this topic,” and said it was either a “professional issue” or an “ethical problem.”
A New York Times spokesperson denied that Proekt’s reporting was used in any way. And the Times reporter who authored this report from Madagascar,Michael Schwirtz, responded dismissively to the accusations in a Twitter thread full of sarcastic quips.
Another anti-Putin Russian activist accuses the New York Times of lifting his reporting
Michael Schwirtz authored another New York Times article in December that was cited by the Pulitzer jury for the 2020 prize. This piece, “How aPoisoning in BulgariaExposed Russian Assassins in Europe,” is also suspiciously similar to reporting published before by yet another anti-Putin website, called The Insider.
The Insider is edited by the Western-backed, diehard anti-Putin activist Roman Dobrokhotov. In response to Schwirtz’s Twitter thread, Dobrohotov angrily asked why The Insider’s reports were not credited as well. Schwirtz denied having used information from the previous stories.
Schwirtz’s Twitter thread tagged four Russian accounts: Proekt, The Insider, Dobrokhotov, and Yasha Levine, the last of whom is an occasional contributor toThe Grayzoneand the author of “Surveillance Valley.”
Levine reflected on the scandal writing, “Time to learn the hard truth: The New York Times — like the Empire it represents — doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’ll take whatever it wants, give nothing in return, and suffer no consequences. And who’ll believe you Russians anyway?”
Time to learn the hard truth: The New York Times — like the Empire it represents — doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’ll take whatever it wants, give nothing in return, and suffer no consequences. And who’ll believe you Russians anyway? https://t.co/V1YtZ7K6OB
“The reverence with which liberal Russian journalists have treated the New York Times has always been baffling to me,” Levine continued. “But that’s what you get when you’re a colonial subject like Russia. You fetishize the master. That reverence is starting to wear off, but it’s still there.”
The reverence with which liberal Russian journalists have treated the New York Times has always been baffling to me. But that’s what you get when you’re a colonial subject like Russia. You fetishize the master. That reverence is starting to wear off, but it’s still there.
New York Times was also accused of stealing Russian journalists’ reporting back in 2017
This is not even the first time that the US newspaper of record has been accused of stealing reporting from Russian journalists.
Back in 2017, the New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for its reports on “Vladimir Putin’s efforts to project Russia’s power abroad.”
At the time, journalists from the anti-Putin website Meduza accused the Times of ripping off their reporting. The website Global Voices highlighted the controversy, in an article titled “Russian Journalists Say One ofNYT’s Pulitzer-Winning Stories Was Stolen.”
Meduza reported Daniil Turovsky accused New York Times Moscow correspondent Andrew E. Kramer of lifting his reporting. Kramer actually took the time to respond in a Facebook comment, acknowledging that his report was based on the Russian journalist’s.
“Daniil, I spoke with you while preparing this article and explained that I intended to follow in the footsteps of your fine work, that I would credit Meduza, as I did, and thanked you for your help,” Kramer said.
This did not satisfy Meduza, which also reminded readers in its latest 2020 article that the Times had ripped off its 2017 reporting.
The NYT times has been honored with a Pulitzer Prize for “exposing the predations of Vladimir Putin’s regime” in 2019, but several top investigative journalists in Russia say the U.S. newspaper ignored their groundbreaking work in this area — again. https://t.co/R4WZdqHDp4
The Grayzone has also experienced this kind of shameless journalistic pickpocketing. In March 2019, the New York Times released a report acknowledging that the so-called “humanitarian aid” convoy that the US government tried to ram across the Venezuelan border in a February coup attempt had been set on fire not by government forces, but rather Washington-backed right-wing opposition hooligans.
At the time of this February 23 putsch attempt, the Times had initially joined US politicians like Senator Marco Rubio and the majority of the corporate media in blaming Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. But The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal, who was reporting in Venezuela,published a report showingthat all of the available evidence pointed to the opposition being responsible.
When the Times finally admitted this fact weeks later, it made no mention whatsoever of Blumenthal’s reporting.Glenn Greenwaldwas the only high-profile journalist to credit Blumenthal and The Grayzone.
New York Times had ironically heroized these Russian journalists before stealing their reporting
Further compounding this staggering hypocrisy is the fact that the New York Times has in fact published numerous articles lionizing these anti-Putin Russian journalists, while simultaneously ripping off their work.
Proekt founder and editor Roman Badanin is not some kind of crypto pro-Kremlin activist – far from it. He has spent years working within mainstream outlets, and was previously the editor-in-chief of the decidedly anti-Putin Russian edition of Forbes magazine
Badanin does friendly interviews with US-based neoconservative think tanks like theFree Russia Foundation, a right-wing anti-Putin lobbying group that appointed regime-changer Michael Weiss as its director for special investigations.
In aninterviewconducted byValeria Jegisman, a neoconservative anti-Russian activist who worked as a spokesperson for the government of Estonia and now works at the US government’s propaganda arm Voice of America, group accused the Kremlin of spreading false information, claiming “Russia will continue its disinformation tactics.”
Badanin also called for “the West” to “support independent media projects with non-profit funding,” stating clearly: “I think that what the West can do is to continue to support independent media in the most transparent and clear way, and to stop being afraid of the million tricks that the Russian authorities come up with to force the West to abandon these investments.”
The Russian journalist’s pro-Western perspective has been rewarded. Badanin was honored by theEuropean Press Prize, a program backed by Western governments and the top corporate media outlets in Europe, particularly The Guardian and Reuters.
Badanin was also given a Stanford John S. Knight international fellowship in journalism. Stanford University has established itself as an outpost for Russian pro-Western liberals, and its journalist fellowship program provides institutional support for dissidents in countries targeted by Washington for regime change.
Badanin’s extensive links to Western regime-change institutions should not come as a surprise to the New York Times; it has in fact honored him in numerous articles.
In 2017, the Times published an entire article framed around Badanin. Reporter Jim Rutenberg explained, “I wanted to better understand President Trump’s America…So I went to Russia.”
In Moscow, Rutenberg met with Badanin at the headquarters of the anti-Putin station TV Rain, which he described as a “warehouse complex here, populated by young people with beards, tattoos, piercings and colored hair. (Brooklyn hipster imperialism knows no bounds.)”
While praising Badanin and TV Rain, the Times also noted that the channel published a poll suggesting that the Soviet Union “should have abandoned Leningrad to the Nazis to save lives.”
The Times even featured Badanin prominently in the header image of the story — just two years before the same newspaper would go on to rip off his reporting.
The New York Times also reported on Roman Badanin in2016and2011. It is abundantly clear the newspaper knew who he was.
The Gray Lady’s willingness to snatch Badanin’s reporting shows how little respect newspapers like the New York Times actually have for the anti-Putin journalists they claim to lionize. For the jet-setting correspondents of Western corporate media outlets, liberal Russian reporters are just tools to advance their own ambitions.
Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing in April.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
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Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing in April.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, will remotely address the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday regarding the disbursement of hundreds of billions of dollars in coronavirus relief aid.
In written testimony released on Monday (below), Powell described the pandemic as having caused “a level of pain that is hard to capture in words.”
He added: “As a society, we should do everything we can to provide relief to those who are suffering for the public good.”
Powell has called on Congress to do more to meet the Fed on its historic lending, and to expand relief funding to Americans. So far, Congress has passed an unprecedented $3 trillion in aid to temper the economic blow from the crisis.
The Democratic-led U.S. House last week approved $3 trillion in additional relief, including nearly $1 trillion for state, local and tribal governments, and hazard pay for essential workers and families. Republicans have called the measure a Democratic wish list, and the White House has issued a veto threat.
The testimony comes a day after a congressional oversight panel released its first report outlining its supervision of lending programs. The report found that the Treasury has not yet paid out any of the $46 billion earmarked for businesses of national security and the U.S. airline industry, which has faced particular devastation during the pandemic.
Updated plans in Low Earth Orbit and beyond now include replacing the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) constellation and flight testing Orion’s rendezvous and docking systems. These goals were highlighted in a meeting of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) committee of the NASA Advisory Council Wednesday.
(Lead image by Mack Crawford for NSF/L2)
The topics discussed by the committee surround a common theme of learning from past successful commercial spaceflight programs, especially the Commercial Cargo and Crew programs, and applying those lessons to achieving the ambitious goals of the Artemis program.
Interestingly, NASA has also aimed to commercialize its communications infrastructure in Earth orbit. In order to support missions near Earth, NASA uses a combination of the Near Earth Network and the Space Network to send and receive communications and telemetry data.
The Near Earth Network is an array of ground stations on Earth, currently about 70% of which are commercially operated for NASA, rather than operated by NASA directly. Doug Loverro, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, has identified a goal of 100% commercialization by 2023.
The current TDRS fleet. Two satellites have been maneuvered into graveyard orbits for retirement, while the other ten remain operational. – via NASA
Loverro also stated that NASA has purchased its final Tracking and Data Relay Satellite. TDRS is a constellation of ten satellites in geostationary orbit used to communicate with spacecraft in Earth orbit, the newest of which was launched in August of 2017. By 2030, Loverro says the TDRS fleet and the rest of NASA’s Space Network will become 100% commercial.
Looking to the future, Loverro also mentioned the possibility of applying a similar goal to NASA’s Deep Space Network, the ground facilities which support missions beyond Low Earth Orbit.
NASA then took a similar approach to crew transportation with the Commercial Crew program, developing two crew spacecraft which are on the brink of operational flight. Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is set to conduct another uncrewed test flight later this year, while the first SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft to carry humans has been integrated with its Falcon 9 rocket for the Demo-2 launch on May 27.
The success of these programs was cited by multiple committee members as points of confidence in the increasingly commercialized Artemis program, especially for Human Landing System (HLS) development. But they also referenced lessons learned from the first uncrewed test flight of Starliner, which failed to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station.
In order to more thoroughly test the Orion spacecraft’s docking systems, the Artemis II mission will now include a Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) demonstration. Details of the demonstration are still being developed, including whether an actual docking will occur or a different test of the relevant systems.
Rendering of the SpaceX Dragon XL spacecraft to be used for Gateway Logistics Services, which could also be used as a target docking spacecraft for Orion – via SpaceX
The Artemis II mission will launch no earlier than 2022, following the Artemis I test flight of Orion and the SLS rocket no earlier than 2021. Artemis I will send an uncrewed Orion spacecraft into a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) around the moon, followed by a return to Earth.
A single item noted by the committee was the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on testing of the Artemis I SLS core stage. Prior to shutting down work at the Stennis Space Center, teams were ten days ahead of schedule to ship the core stage to the Kennedy Space Center by November of this year. That timeline is now expected to slip.
The Artemis I and II missions, once successfully completed, will set the stage for the first human landing on the moon since Apollo 17. NASA is working to maintain a timeline that would see a landing in 2024, and the development of the Human Landing System (HLS) is on the critical path.
In discussing risks to HLS development, Program Manager Dr. Lisa Watson-Morgan pointed out that all three HLS proposals rely on unproven launch vehicles. The Blue Origin-led National Team and Dynetics utilize the not yet flown New Glenn and Vulcan rockets, while SpaceX’s Starship vehicle requires a Super Heavy booster to reach orbit.
Watson-Morgan also provided new details on the proposed HLS designs. The Dynetics HLS will require multiple launches, due to the need to preposition Modular Propellant Vehicles (MPVs) to fuel the lander.
SpaceX’s proposal, which has resulted in a variant of their Starship vehicle with an airlock 26 meters above the surface, originated with a three element design. SpaceX has since evolved the proposal to a single element Starship vehicle.
Render of the Starship HLS on the lunar surface – via SpaceX
Beginning in November, NASA will evaluate the progress of the three providers in preparation to a down-selection in February 2021. The number of providers which will fly demonstration and operational missions to the lunar surface will be determined during this period, and could be either one, two, or all three providers.
The Artemis III landing mission will not utilize the Lunar Gateway station, in order to minimize technical and schedule risk. Instead, the HLS will dock directly to the Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit. The crew will move into the HLS, conduct their mission on the lunar surface, and then return to Orion for the ride back to Earth. The risk with this mission plan is also minimized through the RPO demonstration on Artemis II.
In the interests of further risk and cost reduction, the Gateway program has also made the decision to integrate the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation And Logistics Outpost (HALO) on the ground for a single launch, instead of assembling the modules in space. The launch is currently scheduled for no earlier than November 2023 aboard a commercial launch vehicle.
HEO committee meeting slide showing the launch configuration of the integrated Lunar Gateway – via NASA
A request for launch services proposals for the mission was released on May 6, and a selection is expected to be made by NASA’s Launch Services Program by late fall of 2020. Gateway Program Manager Dan Hartman, when asked if NASA ensured that a commercial launch provider would be able to deliver launch services for an integrated Gateway, stated that NASA was highly confident that at least one provider would be capable of such a launch, using an enlarged payload fairing.
SpaceX has proposed developing an enlarged fairing for their Falcon Heavy launch vehicle as part of the Air Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. Hartman then reiterated that NSSL Phase 2 awards are expected this summer, before the expected launch services selection for the Gateway. These notes by the program manager seem to strongly indicate that Falcon Heavy is predicted to be selected, although other options could appear in response to the request for proposals.
Hartman also mentioned the future delivery of a Canadian robotic arm to the Gateway, likely aboard a Dragon XL cargo spacecraft. That addition could occur around the 2026 timeframe, among post-Artemis III missions to the moon.
Doug Loverro stressed that every Artemis mission beyond the initial landing would be in support of future human missions to Mars.
On April 30th, our Facebook page with about 100,000 subscribers was deleted without any warnings or an opportunity to file an appeal. (LINK)
Now, the situation appears to be even worse.
On May 1st, YouTube terminated all of South Front’s channels, with approximately 170,000 subscribers. Our YouTube channels were also terminated without any warnings or notifications. The main YouTube channel in English had over 152,000 subscribers, 1,900 uploaded videos and approximately 60 million views.
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The termination of our channels occurred regardless of the fact that our YouTube channels had zero active strikes. Covering conflicts in the Middle East, we expressly understand the inherent sensitivity of the issue. Therefore, we have strictly followed YouTube’s Community Guidelines and have always complied with the Terms of Service.
SouthFront’s YouTube channels were terminated without any warning. All that we got was a single automated email regarding the termination of our inactive channel in Farsi “SouthFront Farsi” that included several translations of our war reports. However, even this email provides no details regarding the decision and just claims that “SouthFront Farsi” violated YouTube’s Terms of Service without any elaboration.
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Throughout the past five years of our endeavors, South Front has been constantly subjected to pressure from different Euro-Atlantic structures and US tech companies that hold a monopoly on the dissemination of information. We have repeatedly faced attempts to censor our coverage of world events, in the form of written analysis, videos and livestream interviews. (LINK, LINK, LINK)
The only reasonable explanation, we may imagine, is that US authorities ordered YouTube and Facebook to cleanse the media sphere of sources of objective coverage and analysis on the Middle East region as a part of the ongoing preparations for a war with Iran. (LINK)
We think that the current situation deserves attention of the international public, including the journalistic community beyond individual ambitions of separate media organizations and journalists.
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