Category Archives: Julian Assange
Wikileaks Releases Half A Million Diplomatic Cables From “Year Zero” Of The Modern Era
Coming on the sixth year anniversary of the infamous “Cablegate”, when on this day in 2010 Wikileaks made global headlines when it unveiled classified cables sent to the US State Department, revealing assessments of countries and details of eavesdropping, this morning WikiLeaks released more than half a million US diplomatic cables from 1979, covering various diplomatic events and incidents such as the Iranian revolution, Osama bin Ladin’s departure of his native Saudi Arabia for Pakistan to support the Mujahideen, the siege of Mecca, Saddam Hussein becoming president of Iraq and much more.
RELEASE: More than half a million US diplomatic cables on the Iranian revolution, the siege of Mecca and morehttps://wikileaks.org/plusd/pressrelease/?c3 …
Consisting of 531,525 cables, the latest batch is also known as “Carter Cables III.”
In a statement on the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, rumors of whose death or disappearance seems greater exaggerated, writes that “If any year could be said to be the ‘year zero’ of our modern era, 1979 is it. In the Middle East, the Iranian revolution, the Saudi Islamic uprising and the Egypt-Israel Camp David Accords led not only to the present regional power dynamic but decisively changed the relationship between oil, militant Islam and the world.”
He adds that “in 1979 it seemed as if the blood would never stop. Dozens of countries saw assassinations, coups, revolts, bombings, political kidnappings and wars of liberation.” In addition to the middle east, other notable events to take place during the year cited by Assange include the election of Margaret Thatcher as British PM and the Three Mile Island nuclear incident.
Among the cables is information on “China officially coming in from the cold” and Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States in a defining strategic re-orientation by both states. Other subjects covered in the cables include the USSR invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian hostage crisis, which saw 66 Americans taken hostage after 3,000 Iranian students raided the US embassy in Tehran.
As Assange concludes, This release brings to 3.3 million the number of US diplomatic cables published as part of the WikiLeaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD), the world’s largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications.
Readers can search the Carter Cables III here.
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The full press release is below:
WikiLeaks releases more than half a million US diplomatic cables from the momentous year of 1979
By Julian Assange
Today, 28 November 2016, marking the six-year anniversary of “Cablegate”, WikiLeaks expands its Public Library of US Diplomacy (PLUSD) with more than half a million (531,525) diplomatic cables from 1979.
If any year could be said to be the “year zero” of our modern era, 1979 is it.
In the Middle East, the Iranian revolution, the Saudi Islamic uprising and the Egypt-Israel Camp David Accords led not only to the present regional power dynamic but decisively changed the relationship between oil, militant Islam and the world.
The uprising at Mecca permanently shifted Saudi Arabia towards Wahhabism, leading to the transnational spread of Islamic fundamentalism and the US-Saudi destabilisation of Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden would leave his native Saudi Arabia for Pakistan to support the Afghan Mujahideen.
The invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR would see Saudi Arabia and the CIA push billions of dollars to Mujahideen fighters as part of Operation Cyclone, fomenting the rise of al-Qaeda and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
The 1979 current of Islamification spread to Pakistan where the US embassy was burned to the ground and Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed.
The Iranian hostage crisis would go on to fatally undermine Jimmy Carter’s presidency and see the election of Ronald Reagan.
Saddam Hussein? Took power in 1979.
The rise of al-Qaeda eventually bore the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, enabling the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and over a decade of war, leaving, at its end, the ideological, financial and geographic basis for ISIS.
The Iranian revolution and Saddam Hussein’s rise to power and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War would connect with the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua to produce the Iran-Contra affair and the indictment of 12 US administration officials including Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.
Elsewhere, Thatcher won in the UK, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, Idi Amin fled Uganda and the ANC made the decision to militarily resist Apartheid.
In the United States, the Three Mile Island nuclear incident led to a turning away from the construction and development of new nuclear reactors, increasing the reliance on oil and coal for decades.
While the 1979 SALT II agreements made some progress in reducing the risk of nuclear war, nuclear preparations and testing were stepped up elsewhere. The US decided to place Pershing and Cruise missiles in Europe and a South African/Israeli nuclear test was detected by US early warning satellites.
China officially came in from the cold and Deng Xiaoping visited the United States in a defining strategic re-orientation by both states.
In 1979 it seemed as if the blood would never stop. Dozens of countries saw assassinations, coups, revolts, bombings, political kidnappings and wars of liberation.
In the extremes and contestations of the Cold War, 1979 saw some grim culture to go with the times: ACDC produced “Highway to Hell”, Francis Ford Coppola gave us Apocalypse Now, while for Pink Floyd it was just “Another Brick in the Wall”.
The Carter Cables III bring WikiLeaks’ total published US diplomatic cable collection to 3.3 million documents.
What follows are some example areas of events from 1979 covered in the new documents.
January
1 US and China resume diplomatic relations
7 Pol Pot deposed following Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia
16 Shah flees Iran
28 China’s leader Deng Xiaoping visits US
February
1 Khomeni returns to Iran
3 Khomeni creates Council of Islamic Revolution
10 Iranian Revolution
17 China invades northern Vietnam
18 Snow in the Sahara
25 Rhodesia bombs Angola ZIPRA camps in Operation Vanity
March
13 Coup in Grenada
15 Herat uprising in Afghanistan
26 Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin sign Egypt-Israel peace treaty
28 Three Mile Island nuclear incident
30 British Conservative MP Airey Neave assassinated with car bomb
April
1 Iran overthrows Shah officially: Iran becomes the Islamic Republic through national referendum
2 Anthrax epidemic in Russia following biological weapons plant accident
4 Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is executed
11 Tanzanian invasion of Uganda; revolt against Idi Amin; fall of Kampala
17 IRA bombing kills four Ulster Constabulary at Bessbrook, Northern Ireland
May
1 Greenland granted partial autonomy from Denmark
4 Margaret Thatcher elected UK Prime Minister
25 American Airlines flight 191 explodes near Chicago
June
4 Canada’s Pierre Trudeau defeated; Coup in Ghana
18 Carter and Brezhnev sign Salt II arms treaty
25 Baader-Meinhof assassination attempt in Belgium of NATO Supreme Allied Commander
July
16 Saddam Hussein takes power in Iraq
21 Sandinistas defeat Samoza in Nicaragua
28 Indian PM Charan Singh elected
August
3 Equatorial Guinea coup
5 Polisario Front signs peace agreement with Mauritania
11 Morocco annexes Western Sahara territory previously controlled by Mauritania
23 South Africa bombs ZIPRA camps in Zambia in Operation Motel
27 Eighteen UK soldiers killed by IRA at Warrenpoint in County Down, Northern Ireland
September
3-9 Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement
14 USColombia extradition treaty negotiated, opposed by Pablo Escobar cartel
20 Bokassa overthrown in Central African Republic via France’s Operation Barracuda
22 South African and Israeli nuclear test detected by US Vela satellite in southern Atlantic Ocean
29 President Nguema of Equatorial Guinea executed
October
1 First democratic elections in Nigeria; the birth of the second republic
15 Coup in El Salvador
16 French town of Nice hit by tsunami
26 President of South Korea Park Chung-hee assassinated
November
4 Iranian hostage crisis begins; 3,000 Iranian students raid US embassy, 66 hostages taken
14 Carter issues Executive Order 12170 freezing all Iranian assets
15 Anthony Blunt outed as the “Fourth Man” in Cambridge spy ring
20 Hajj hostage crisis in Saudi Arabia
21 US embassy in Islamabad set afire after false reports from Khomeni that US occupied Mecca
December
11 Three of the ANC’s “Pretoria Six” escape from Pretoria Central Prison (Moumbaris, Jenkin and Lee)
12 Decision to locate US Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe
12 South Korea military coup
21 Lancaster House agreement signed, leading to the creation of Zimbabwe and the election of Mugabe
24 USSR invasion of Afghanistan
Wikileaks BOMBSHELL Exposes Extent Of Clinton Corruption
Podesta Part 26: Wikileaks Releases Another 1,135 Emails, Total Is Now 43,104
With just over 5 days until the election, and with Trump and Hillary finding themselves in a dead heat according to the latest ABC/WaPo poll thanks to a rebound for the Republican candidate that is very much courtesy of the ongoing Wikileaks release of highly damaging Podesta emails, Julian Assange’s organization refuses to stop.
And so, in the final stretch of the presidential race which has just a few days left, Wikileaks continues its ongoing broadside attack against the Clinton campaign with the relentless Podesta dump, by unveiling another 1,135 emails in the latest, Part 26 of its Podesta release, bringing the total emails released so far to exactly 43,104.
The release comes one day after a surprising FBI release of its 2001 heavily redacted records of its probe into the Bill Clinton pardon of Marc Rich, which has spooked the democrat establishment and raised new allegations of FBI partiality.
As usual we are parsing through the latest release and will bring readers the more notable emails.
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In an April 29, 2015 email from Neera Tander to Jake Sullivan and John Podesta, Neera Tander has some notable comments on the minimum wage, which she appears to advocate keeping low when she explains that “that is why you want to keep the minimum wage so low. Everyday Americans care about their community. Part-time Americans, not so much.”
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A February 2015 email from Nick Merrill to Robby Mook and other Campaign staffers, the Clinton aide discusses the process of allowing Hillary to “speak for herself”:
Robby to your point about letting her speak for herself, I¹ve been reminding people that they should be careful to acknowledge that this is part of a process. She laid out challenges that we face in the midterms, and now she¹s thinking through how we would address them should she run. Will reinforce that when I circle back with these guys today.
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An email from May 11, 2015 from Philippe Reines discusses Lanny Davis, who featured prominently in yesterday’s email in which John Podesta told Cheryl Mills that “not to sound like Lanny, but we are going to have to dump all those emails.”
In the email, Reines says that “Hrc is anxious to move forward — with the commitment that I will keep him > focused and in line. Do you guys need to run any more traps on your end or can I reach out to enlist him?”
To which Huma Abedin responds: “She just called me about this. She wants lanny.”
In response, Clinton communications director tells John POdesta “Think we are stuck with Lanny for the brothers” and Podesta responds: “In the land of he blind, the one-eyed man is king“
Wikileaks Reveals Google’s “Strategic Plan” To Help Democrats Win The Election, Track Voters
Among the latest set of Podesta releases, was the following email sent on April 15, 2014 by Google’s Eric Schmidt titled “Notes for a 2016 Democratic Campaign” in which the Google/Alphabet Chairman tells Cheryl Mills that “I have put together my thoughts on the campaign ideas and I have scheduled some meetings in the next few weeks for veterans of the campaign to tell me how to make these ideas better. This is simply a draft but do let me know if this is a helpful process for you all.”
Google head Eric Schmidt’s secret strategic plan for the US election #PodestaEmails https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262 …
While there are numerous curious nuances in the plan, presented below in its entirety, the one section that caught our – and Wikileaks’ attention – is the following which implicitly suggests Google planned the creation of a voter tracking database, using smart phones:
Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them. In 2016 smart phones will be used to identify, meet, and update profiles on the voter. A dynamic volunteer can easily speak with a voter and, with their email or other digital handle, get the voter videos and other answers to areas they care about (“the benefits of ACA to you” etc.)
As a reminder, two days ago it was revealed that just days prior to the April 15, 2014 email, Schmidt had sent another email in which he expressed his eagerness to “fund” the campaign efforts and wants to be a “head outside advisor.” In the email from John Podesta to Robby Mook we learned that:
I met with Eric Schmidt tonight. As David reported, he’s ready to fund, advise recruit talent, etc. He was more deferential on structure than I expected. Wasn’t pushing to run through one of his existing firms. Clearly wants to be head outside advisor, but didn’t seem like he wanted to push others out. Clearly wants to get going. He’s still in DC tomorrow and would like to meet with you if you are in DC in the afternoon. I think it’s worth doing. You around? If you are, and want to meet with him, maybe the four of us can get on t
Another email from February 2015 suggested that the Google Chairman remained active in its collaboration with the Clinton campaign: John Podesta wrote that Eric Schmidt met with HR “about the business he proposes to do with the campaign. He says he’s met with HRC” and adds that “FYI. They are donating the Google plane for the Africa trip”
The remainder of Schmidt’s proposed plan, presented in its entirety below, is just as troubling.
Notes for a 2016 Democratic Campaign
Eric Schmidt
April 2014
DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT
Here are some comments and observations based on what we saw in the 2012 campaign. If we get started soon, we will be in a very strong position to execute well for 2016.
1. Size, Structure and Timing
Lets assume a total budget of about $1.5Billion, with more than 5000 paid employees and million(s) of volunteers. The entire startup ceases operation four days after November 8, 2016. The structure includes a Chairman or Chairwoman who is the external face of the campaign and a President who is the executive in charge of objectives, measurements, systems and building and managing the organization.
Every day matters as our end date does not change. An official campaign right after midterm elections and a preparatory team assembled now is best.
2. Location
The campaign headquarters will have about a thousand people, mostly young and hardworking and enthusiastic. Its important to have a very large hiring pool (such as Chicago or NYC) from which to choose enthusiastic, smart and low paid permanent employees. DC is a poor choice as its full of distractions and interruptions. Moving the location from DC elsewhere guarantees visitors have taken the time to travel and to help.
The key is a large population of talented people who are dying to work for you. Any outer borough of NYC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston are all good examples of a large, blue state city to base in.
Employees will relocate to participate in the campaign, and will find low cost temporary housing or live with campaign supporters on a donated basis. This worked well in Chicago and can work elsewhere.
The computers will be in the cloud and most likely on Amazon Web services (AWS). All the campaign needs are portable computers, tablets and smart phones along with credit card readers.
3. The pieces of a Campaign
a) The Field
Its important to have strong field leadership, with autonomy and empowerment. Operations talent needs to build the offices, set up the systems, hire the people, and administer what is about 5000 people. Initial modeling will show heavy hiring in the key battleground states. There is plenty of time to set these functions up and build the human systems. The field is about organizing people, voter contact, and get out the vote programs.
For organizing tools, build a simple way to link people and activities as a workflow and let the field manage the system, all cloud based. Build a simple organizing tool with a functioning back-end. Avoid deep integration as the benefits are not worth it. Build on the cloud. Organizing is really about sharing and linking people, and this tool would measure and track all of it.
There are many other crucial early investments needed in the field: determining the precise list of battleground states, doing early polling to confirm initial biases, and maintaining and extending voter protection programs at the state level.
b) The Voter
Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them. In 2016 smart phones will be used to identify, meet, and update profiles on the voter. A dynamic volunteer can easily speak with a voter and, with their email or other digital handle, get the voter videos and other answers to areas they care about (“the benefits of ACA to you” etc.)
The scenario includes a volunteer on a walk list, encountering a potential voter, updating the records real time and deepening contact with the voter and the information we have to offer.
c) Digital
A large group of campaign employees will use digital marketing methods to connect to voters, to offer information, to use social networks to spread good news, and to raise money. Partners like Blue State Digital will do much of the fund raising. A key point is to convert BSD and other partners to pure cloud service offerings to handle the expected crush and load.
d) Media (paid), (earned) and (social), and polling
New tools should be developed to measure reach and impact of paid, earned and social media. The impact of press coverage should be measurable in reach and impact, and TV effectiveness measured by attention and other surveys.
Build tools that measure the rate and spread of stories and rumors, and model how it works and who has the biggest impact. Tools can tell us about the origin of stories and the impact of any venue, person or theme. Connect polling into this in some way.
Find a way to do polling online and not on phones.
e) Analytics and data science and modeling, polling and resource optimization tools
For each voter, a score is computed ranking probability of the right vote. Analytics can model demographics, social factors and many other attributes of the needed voters. Modeling will tell us what who we need to turn out and why, and studies of effectiveness will let us know what approaches work well. Machine intelligence across the data should identify the most important factors for turnout, and preference.
It should be possible to link the voter records in Van with upcoming databases from companies like Comcast and others for media measurement purposes.
The analytics tools can be built in house or partnered with a set of vendors.
f) Core engineering, voter database and contact with voters online
The database of voters (NGP Van) is a fine starting point for voter records and is maintained by the vendor (and needs to be converted to the cloud). The code developed for 2012 (Narwahl etc.) is unlikely to be used, and replaced by a model where the vendor data is kept in the Van database and intermediate databases are arranged with additional information for a voter.
Quite a bit of software is to be developed to match digital identities with the actual voter file with high confidence. The key unit of the campaign is a “voter”, and each and every record is viewable and updatable by volunteers in search of more accurate information.
In the case where we can’t identify the specific human, we can still have a partial digital voter id, for a person or “probable-person” with attributes that we can identify and use to target. As they respond we can eventually match to a registered voter in the main file. This digital key is eventually matched to a real person.
The Rules
Its important that all the player in the campaign work at cost and there be no special interests in the financing structure. This means that all vendors work at cost and there is a separate auditing function to ensure no one is profiting unfairly from the campaign. All investments and conflicts of interest would have to be publicly disclosed. The rules of the audit should include caps on individual salaries and no investor profits from the campaign function. (For example, this rule would apply to me.)
The KEY things
a) early build of an integrated development team and recognition that this is an entire system that has to be managed as such
b) decisions to exclusively use cloud solutions for scalability, and choice of vendors and any software from 2012 that will be reused.
c) the role of the smart phone in the hands of a volunteer. The smart phone manages the process, updates the database, informs the citizen, and allows fundraising and recruitment of volunteers (on android and iphone).
d) early and continued focus of qualifying fundraising dollars to build the field, and build all the tools. Outside money will be plentiful and perfect for TV use. A smart media mix tool tells all we need to know about media placement, TV versus other media and digital media.
Podesta Part 25: Wikileaks Releases Another 2,460 Emails, Total Is Now 41,969
It is now exactly one week until the election, and what until recently seemed impossible, is suddenly all too real: the latest ABC/WaPo shows that Trump has a one point lead over Hillary, his first since May, and much of its thanks to the ongoing Wikileaks release of highly damaging Podesta emails. So, in the final stretch of the presidential race which has just a few days left, Wikileaks continues its ongoing broadside attack against the Clinton campaign with the relentless Podesta dump, by unveiling another 2,458 emails in the latest, Part 25 of its Podesta release, bringing the total emails released so far to exactly 41,969.
The release comes one day after Wikileaks warned that it was launching its “Phase 3” of election coverage this week, raising questions what else – if anything – Julian Assange has up his sleeve.
As usual we are parsing through the latest release and will bring readers the more notable emails.
Wikileaks Releases Part 13 Of Podesta Data Dump; Total Emails Released Is Now 23,423
The third and final debate may have come and gone, but the daily Wiki Podesta dump continues.
In the now traditional daily routine moments ago Wikileaks released yet another 3,000 emails in Part 13 of its ongoing Podesta Email dump, which brings the total number of released emails to 23,423
Previous dumps of Podesta emails have included examples of collusion between the campaign and the media, disparaging comments about Bernie Sanders and copies of speeches given to Wall Street bankers, including Goldman Sachs.
Among yesterday’s most dramatic revelations were more confirmations of collusion and coordination with the media, a never before seen 2008 memo between Fed governor Tarullo and president-elect Obama discussing the AIG bailout, a shocking revelation into Bill Clinton’s conflicts of interest at Teneo, and the missing link of Hillary’s email deletions, confirming she had instructed the deletion of emails from the start, refuting her previous testimony.
Among the emails released in today’s batch is is yet another confirmation from Teneo’s Doug Band going on a bender accusing the foundation of even more conflicts of interest:
Also I signed a conflict of interest policy as a board member of cgi On it, I wrote that my wife designs bags for cgi, and loses money doing so plus donating her time And that teneo represents 4 cgi sponsors, 3 of which teneo brought to cgi .
Oddly, wjc does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc I could add 500 different examples of things like this and while I removed lasry bc they are all on the offense, I get the sense that they are trying to put some sort of wrong doing on me after the audit as a crutch to change things and if I don’t mention things like lasry where they all have issues, I may regret it.
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Here is John Podesta’s wife Mary discussing Hillary’s comments on “wiping the server”
I just watched the video of Hillary in Vegas last week talking about wiping the server with a cloth. It’s was scarier than I expected, particularly because her hostility reminds me of how ridiculous Mom can be about technology which drives the 3 of us crazy (and i imagine other younger people have parents like that!)
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In another email John Podesta says that an excuse for having the email server at home “would fall apart under scrutiny“:
“IRS was hacked. I think the State Department was hacked. Sony hacked. Banks hacked. As we try and close the Benghazi Chapter and the email drip drip. Is there ever a moment in TiMe not to Defend the decision but layout the fact….HRC servers were not hacked. Know this is s naive thought but just thinking.”
To which Podesta responds: Reluctant to go there. Makes it seem like she consciously went to the home server for security reasons which would fall apart under scrutiny.
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An akward moment arises for Podesta following an email which seems to catch the Clinton campaign manager in a “speed dating” adventure:
Hi John, Hmmm so since this is my first Speed Dating experience I have no idea what one is supposed to say in a ‘Hi There’ / follow up email / thingy. I’m not even sure what the etiquette is, is there a polite waiting period? At any rate, I was glad to have received your details in the email as you seemed lovely! I would like to catch up again, if you’d like to. That’s pretty much it. Hope you are enjoying your Saturday! Happy last week of term! Cheers Kim
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An email from Huma Abedin to Robby Mook and Podesta from January 2015 discussed Morocco donating to the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to get access to Clinton.
“Just to give you some context, the condition upon which the Moroccans agreed to host the meeting was her participation,” says Abedin. “If hrc was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter.”
Clinton had announced the meeting in 2014. Abedin says the meeting had been Clinton’s idea. “Our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request,” Abedin continues. “The King has personally committed approx $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting.”
A politico report from April 2015 reveals Clinton had been scheduled to attend a Clinton Global Initiative Middle East and Africa Meeting in May, but that a Foundation official told Politico it was unlikely she would attend. Clinton’s State Department accused Morocco of “arbitrary arrests and corruption” in 2011. “She created this mess and she knows it,” Abedin adds.
Wikileaks Taunts Democrats, Tweets “It Has A Surprise In Store” For Tim Kaine And Donna Brazile
First, earlier this afternoon, Wikileaks surprised observers when its released in addition to the daily trove of Podesta email, a handful of what appear to be emails sent from Obama’s heretofore secret email adress; then, moments ago, in a tweet that suggests the vendetta between Julian Assange – who we now know is being pressured by the Ecuadorian government in its London embassy under notice from the US State Department – and Democrats has goten serious, Wikileaks tweeted that “we have a surprise in store for Tim Kaine and Donna Brazile.”
We have a suprise in store for @TimKaine and @DonnaBrazile.
… and then it retweeted NBC reported Kailani Koenig who said that “[Tim] Kaine’s been saying hacked Wikileaks emails might not be accurate, so asked him whether he had any examples or had heard if one wasn’t real”, to which he responded “I read of one example yesterday but I can’t pin down which one it was.”
Kaine’s been saying hacked Wikileaks emails might not be accurate, so asked him whether he had any examples or had heard if one wasn’t real
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Prior to tweeting this, the Wikileaks twitter account mocked Hillary’s statement that 17 agencies have confirmed Russia hacked the US when it said that Hillary Clinton’s “17 US intelligence agencies” include:
Coast Guard, DEA, Navel Intelligence, Department of Energy, Air Force recon, and then added that “Clinton’s “17 US intelligence agencies” may be the biggest, most immediately disprovable wopper ever intentionally made during a debate.”
Hillary Clinton’s “17 US intelligence agencies” include:
*Coast Guard
*DEA
*Navel Intelligence
*Department of Energy
*Air Force recon
Clinton’s “17 US intelligence agencies” may be the biggest, most immediately disprovable wopper ever intentionally made during a debate.
It is now quite clear that it has gotten very personal between Assange and Clinton, and if the latter is elected president in less than 3 weeks, that drone strike on Julian which Hillary does not remember “joking about”, may suddenly materialize.
Wikileaks Releases Part 14 Of Podesta Emails Bringing Total To 25,000; Exposes Soros’ Contact Info
Wikileaks just does not stop. One day after dumping over 3,000 emails in its 13th release, WikiLeaks has just released a new batch of emails from Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. The latest tranche amounts to 1,577 mails, bringing the total released so far to 25,000, or half of the total amount Wikileaks has vowed to release through the election.
As we are going through the emails, one notable release has emerged: in an email from Sara Latham to Podesta, she has disclosed the personal contact info of the liberal billionaire.
Wikileaks Releases Part 15 Of The Podesta Files, Bringing Total To 26,095 Emails
With just over 2 weeks to go until the election, today Wikileaks finally crossed the halfway point of its ongoing Podesta files dump when it unveiled Part 15, which included some 1,095 emails bringing the total to 26,095 total emails, or more than half of the 50,000 email set for release.
As has been the tradition for the past 2+ weeks, one part of the press will be pouring over today’s release, while the other part – mostly those whose names feature prominently in the hacked emails – will be looking for justifications not to. Some examples of journalists who will be taking Saturday off, are named in the following July 8, 2015 email from Jesse Lehrich to John Podesta which lays out how the “friendly” press helps in article scheduling to spin a given narrative:
On Wednesday, July 8, 2015, Jesse Lehrich <jlehrich@hillaryclinton.com> wrote:
July 8th Nightly Press Traffic Summary
- Peter Nicholas (WSJ) is doing a story for Friday on caucus organizing efforts and the Sanders campaign’s theory that caucuses will be good for them in the same way that they were for Obama. We’ve pushed back with our theory of the case, including our strong organizing effort in Iowa and beyond.
- Per CTR, Amy Chozick is working on story for this weekend about how the GOP will attack Hillary, will likely include focus group data suggesting that trustworthiness and being out-of-touch will be top targets.
- Maggie Haberman is doing a write-through of her story on Hillary Clinton’s claim that she had never been subpoenaed for tomorrow’s paper which will include the statement we put out this afternoon.
- Michael Scherer (TIME) is working on a story delving into the claim that Hillary Clinton was under no obligation to turn over 55,000 pages of emails.
- Steven Holmes (CNN) is working on a piece with the premise that the black vote is the firewall for Hillary Clinton and Sanders is unlikely to make major inroads there.
- Annie Linskey (Boston Globe) is writing for Friday about new fundraising hosts getting involved in this campaign, specifically females.
- Jeremy Diamond (CNN) is doing a piece about the politics of the BDS movement. It will place heavy focus on the nuances and forces at play around Hillary Clinton’s letter that was sent to presidents of major Jewish organizations condemning BDS.
- Huffington Post is doing a piece on our treasurer Jose Villareal — will likely focus at least partially on him sitting on the Walmart board.
- Other outstanding stories include:
- Ruby Cramer on our grassroots organizing
- Anita Kumar (McClatchy) on where we have organizers and how we’ve spent our money during Q2
- Mike Memoli on our email listbuilding
- Phil Rucker on HRC talking about gun violence prevention
- Maggie Haberman/Pat Healy on the costs of Hillary’s progressive proposals
- Annie Karni on the progression of our media strategy
- CNN’s long-form story about Hillary Clinton/Bernie Sanders’ appeal to minority communities.
As usual, we will highlight any of the more notable emails.
As he sayd, “when I learned that I was deploying to support a contracting command, I figured I would learn about the Afghan economy. What I hadn’t figured was that those lessons would have nothing to do with my official duties. When I stepped off the helo pad at Camp Phoenix and into my office for the first time I was immediately introduced to GS-15 DoD employee. She asked me how many “cartouches”I wished to purchase. A cartouche, I learned, is a cheap pendant necklace engraved on one side with an English name and on the other with the same name in Dari (or so they claim; it may well say Go Home American Swine for all any of us know). I initially demurred but eventually relented and agreed to purchase three. Even that compromise was met with an incredulous look and a puzzled “just three?” The interaction seemed odd but I figured that I just happened to arrive as a bulk order was being placed and that purchases like this were atypical. I was wrong. My coworkers spend multiple duty hours each and every day shopping at the bazaars. They buy jewelry. They buy rugs. They buy electronics. They buy fur coats. Fur coats! Not a day goes by without someone coming into my office to show off a new purchase. My Afghanistan workplace is Project Runway and I’m Tim Gunn–I disapprove of everything around me and hope everyone will be sent home.
Yesterday a handful of them reviewed their bank statements to figure out how much they’ve spent since being here. Consensus was between five and ten thousand dollars. Throughout my life I’ve been called cheap. Throughout my life I’ve been called crotchety. So maybe this is just a continuation of the same but I thoroughly disapprove. Rather than speak up, however, I sit here meekly and feign agreement with the ridiculous notion that a mink fur will look resplendent at the Dyess Officers’ Club in Abilene, TX when she redeploys this summer. Hope you are well. Love and miss you all. And no, I will not put in purchase orders for you. Gabe
And that’s why US intervention in Afghanistan has achieved absolutely nothing.
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In a 2008 email from Tom Matttzie, founder of Ethical Electric, and former staffer of the DNC, he explains that George Soros was a key force behind the 2008 electoral ad campaign:
Michael Vachon had me come up to New York today to sit with George Soros and show him our ads. He liked them…a lot. And he REALLY liked McSame. I thought I’d be skewered for name puns but he thought it was sticky. Since he is a right-wing punching bag he just wanted to make sure he was OK with anything he was accused of funding
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Alex Infohub 