It’s Friday, so that means it's panel time.
According to a Tweet put out by Muhawesh on Thursday, "URGENT: @danielhopsicker & @GeorgWebb have been publishing dangerous & false allegations against @MintPressNews, myself, our staff writer @_whitneywebb & affiliates of MPN, not to mention putting all of our safety at risk thru doxing (publish private or identifying information)." MintPress intends to take legal action. How big of a problem is this, and what does it say about the safety of independent journalists in a country where a free press is supposed to be a cornerstone of democracy and the republic?
Glenn Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, has been charged with cybercrimes in Brazil. He is "accused of being part of a 'criminal investigation' that hacked into the cellphones of prosecutors and public officials," the New York Times reported earlier this week. "Citing intercepted messages between Mr. Greenwald and the hackers, prosecutors say the journalist played a 'clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime.' For instance, prosecutors contend that Mr. Greenwald encouraged the hackers to delete archives that had already been shared with The Intercept Brasil, in order to cover their tracks. Prosecutors also say that Mr. Greenwald was communicating with the hackers while they were actively monitoring private chats on Telegram, a messaging app." Is there a link between US interests and what’s happening in Brazil?
"George Soros accused Facebook of working to re-elect Donald Trump in this year’s US election campaign in exchange for protection," Politico reported Thursday. “'Facebook will work to re-elect Trump and Trump will protect Facebook,' the Hungarian-born US financier said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. 'It makes me very concerned about the outcome of 2020.' A Facebook company spokesperson later told Politico in response: 'This is just plain wrong.'" One of the problems that I have with this story is that Soros made this claim speaking at a dinner he hosted, but from all that I can see, he offered no proof.
"The Justice Department has concluded that two of the four court orders allowing the FBI to conduct secret national security surveillance as in secretly wiretap and spy on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page were not valid because the government made 'material misstatements' in obtaining them, according to a newly declassified judicial order," NBC News reported Thursday. What's going on here?
"House impeachment managers laid out the heart of their abuse-of-power case against President Trump on Thursday — charging that his efforts to pressure Ukraine into political investigations were precisely what the nation’s founders wanted to guard against when they empowered Congress to remove a president from office," the Washington Post reported Thursday. What can we expect to happen next?
GUESTS:
Mnar Muhawesh — Founder, CEO and editor-in-chief of MintPress News, and also a regular speaker on responsible journalism, sexism, neoconservativism within the media and journalism start-ups.
Caleb Maupin — Journalist and political analyst who focuses his coverage on US foreign policy and the global system of monopoly capitalism and imperialism.
Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression."
Jim Kavanagh — Political analyst and commentator and editor of The Polemicist.
Daniel Lazare — Journalist and author of three books: "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War."
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