The Russian government has accused Germany, Denmark, and Sweden of a cover-up in their investigations into the sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines last September. Moscow, with the support of China, plans to introduce a resolution before the United Nations Security Council on Monday calling for an independent international investigation.

The White House declined to answer questions from The Intercept about whether the U.S. has ordered its own investigation, saying only that it is supporting its allies in their individual probes. Germany, along with Denmark and Sweden, are each conducting separate investigations but say they are cooperating with one another.

In a series of letters to European governments and the United States in February, made public by Moscow earlier this month, Russian officials complained that they have been barred from examining evidence gathered from the sites where the blasts occurred. Despite Russia’s majority ownership of the pipelines, Russian officials said, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden have rejected Russia’s repeated requests for a joint investigation — confirming their “suspicions that these countries are trying to conceal evidence, or to cover up the sponsors and perpetrators of these acts of sabotages.”

Russia has been doing its own investigation into the sabotage, including underwater surveys. It has not, to date, released any forensic evidence to support its assertion that “Anglo-Saxon” powers or the U.S. were behind the explosions. At a U.N. Security Council meeting in February, Russia’s representative Vassily Nebenzia cited investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s report accusing the U.S. of carrying out the attack. “This journalist is telling the truth,” he said. “This is more than just a smoking gun that detectives love in Hollywood blockbusters. It’s a basic principle of justice; everything is in your hands, and we can resolve this today.”

Denmark and Sweden have cited procedural matters and national regulations as to why they aren’t collaborating with Russia. But it’s pretty obvious that they have also adopted the position that Russia should be viewed as a suspect in the sabotage and wouldn’t want to invite it into the probe, particularly given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It should be noted that Sweden also refused an official joint investigation with its own allies from the onset, opting for a less formal cooperative arrangement. German officials have publicly confirmed their investigation into a “pro-Ukrainian” group and its possible connection to the attack on the pipeline, but have also cautioned that it could be a “false flag” intended to conceal the sponsor.

Russia’s recent maneuvers signal that it is becoming more aggressive in its rhetoric toward the two Scandinavian nations and Germany and is breaking some diplomatic protocols by making public its private communications with various nations. It is effectively arguing that the three national probes, which are backed by the U.S., are part of the Nord Stream bombing plot, and it wants to pull the U.N. in, where Russia would find a more neutral audience than NATO or the European Union. The backdrop to all of this, of course, is the public display of Russia-China unity that’s unfolded over the past year, culminating with President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow. China, which is officially co-sponsoring the Russian resolution, has said it believes the attack was carried out by a state actor and that a U.N. investigation is needed to “uncover the truth and identify those responsible.”

Underwater Evidence?

Almost immediately after the pipeline explosion on September 26, 2022, the Russian government asked the governments of Sweden, Germany, and Denmark to participate in their national investigations into “deliberate acts of sabotage” against “one of the most important investment projects of the Russian Federation.” All three governments rejected Russia’s requests, and Moscow has said that they are not sharing any meaningful information with Russian authorities.

That position is hardly surprising given the war in Ukraine and the massive NATO and European weapons shipments aimed at defeating Moscow. Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, has been outspoken in his criticisms of the Danish government’s refusal to cooperate with Russia. He has rejected speculation Russia was behind the attacks, saying that its ships did not have access to the waters where the explosives were placed. “The preparation of such attacks requires time and direct presence in the area of sabotage, which was carried out in the exclusive economic zones of Denmark and Sweden,” Barbin said. “The Russian side, unlike the others, did not have permission for any underwater work or research in this area before the gas pipelines were blown up.”

Russia is effectively arguing that the three national probes, which are backed by the U.S., are part of the Nord Stream bombing plot.

The sabotage of the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines occurred in the Baltic Sea waters stretching around the Danish island of Bornholm and extending to the southeast of the Swedish coast. The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, nestled between Lithuania and Poland, is to the east of the area. The Nord Stream pipelines are majority-owned by Russia’s state-run energy firm Gazprom.

In contrast to Barbin’s contentions, a new report published by the German outlet T-Online, asserts that Russian vessels, possibly including a mini-submarine, were operating in the waters near the blast sites days before the sabotage. The article cites open-source satellite data and relied on information provided by an anonymous “intelligence source.”

On February 17, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry fired off letters not only to Germany, Sweden, and Denmark, but also to the U.S. and Norway, charging an apparent cover-up. On March 1, Russia submitted its correspondence with those nations to the U.N. Security Council as part of Moscow’s push for the U.N. to initiate its own independent probe of the Nord Stream attack.

The U.S., which opposes the resolution, has portrayed Russia’s efforts to litigate the pipeline bombing at the security council as a “blatant attempt to distract” from its yearlong war in Ukraine. In a joint letter submitted to the council in late February, Germany, Sweden and Denmark claimed, “Russian authorities have been informed regarding the ongoing investigations,” adding that the three nations “have been in dialogue regarding the investigation of the gas leaks, and the dialogue will continue to the relevant extent.”

On February 21, a Gazprom-contracted ship doing a survey discovered an antenna-like device that Russia alleged might be a component of the materials used in the sabotage of the pipeline or part of a triggering mechanism for an unexploded bomb on an underwater pipe. “Specialists believe it might be an antenna to receive a signal to detonate an explosive device that could have been — I’m not certain, but it’s possible — planted under the pipeline system,” said Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in an interview with Russian television on March 14. “It appears that several explosive devices were planted,” Putin said, adding, “Some of them went off, and some didn’t. The reasons are unclear.”

He also alleged that the device was discovered attached to an undersea pipe junction on the only string of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline where no explosion was registered last September. “We would like to receive permission from the Danish government [to] conduct the necessary examination either on our own, or jointly with them,” Putin said. “Better yet, establish an international group of experts and bomb engineers that could work at a depth like that. And if need be, to defuse the explosive device, of course, if there is one down there.” Putin said his government had made discreet inquiries to the Danish authorities proposing a joint effort. “Their response was ambiguous,” he said. “To put it bluntly, there was really no answer at all. They said that [we] need to wait.”

Denmark’s government ultimately confirmed that there was an object in the area identified by the Russians and that it was investigating. There was a flurry of activity in late March — with Danish military vessels and diving ships congregating in the waters around the site identified by the personnel aboard the Glomar Worker, the ship that reportedly found the suspicious object. On March 21, the Danish newspaper Berlingske reported that Russia believes the “antenna” was “part of a device from an explosive charge on the last of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines.” Only three of the lines were successfully damaged in the sabotage, and it has confounded researchers why one was left intact. “It is a cylindrical object about 30 centimeters high and 10-15 centimeters in diameter and was located approximately 28 kilometers from the explosion site,” Barbin said in a statement to Berlingske. “It was installed at a welding joint on the B line.”

On March 23, the Danish Energy Agency released a photograph of an object roughly fitting the dimensions offered by Russia. The object appeared to have been submerged for a long time and was covered by a layer of algae or other foliage. “It is possible that the object is a maritime smoke buoy,” asserted the Danish statement. Such devices are commonly used to mark an area where someone has gone overboard or to alert other ships to a problem. The government agency said it had invited the owners of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, effectively Russia, to participate in the salvage. The Kremlin labeled the Danish invitation “positive news.”

It’s possible that the Danish government was essentially trolling the Russians by posting the photo and making a public offering to allow Russia to participate in the retrieval of what Denmark alleged is a harmless civilian device but that Moscow implied was potentially an unexploded bomb.

In its initial news report on the Danish invitation to Russia to participate in retrieving the object, the Russian state-owned TASS news agency did not mention the possibility it was a “smoke buoy,” instead doubling down on Russian theories it may be a component of an unexploded device. “It is critically important to determine what kind of object it is, whether it is related to this terrorist act — apparently it is — and to continue this investigation,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on March 24. “And this investigation must be transparent.” Denmark has said “the object does not pose an immediate safety risk.”

That chapter of this story appears to have ended with a whimper rather than a bang. “I do not think it makes sense for us to get into that now, since one of the NATO countries, or Denmark, told us that they had already examined it, which means that the situation is not explosive,” Putin told a Russian news network on May 25, adding that it no longer was necessary for Russian specialists to participate in a retrieval operation. “Honestly speaking, for us, the point was not to incriminate someone, but to ensure security so that there would be no other explosions,” he said. “If the Danes say that it is no longer explosive, well, thank God.”

In a recent op-ed in the Danish newspaper Altinget, Barbin, the Russian ambassador, accused Denmark of engaging in speculative analysis since the explosion last September with an aim to assign blame for the attack. In Danish media, some prominent military analysts have spent considerable time discussing potential Russian culpability for blowing up its own pipeline. Barbin asserted that this “intellectual exercise, without presenting facts that should be verifiable, leads to a dead end and benefits only those who are afraid of the truth.” He said Denmark should provide an update to a variety of questions: “Which naval vessels — including military ships — were present in the sabotage area? Are there any witnesses who have been questioned and what is their testimony? Were fragments of broken gas pipelines raised and what are the results of their research? Which companies — especially foreign ones — were allowed to work in Denmark’s and Sweden’s exclusive economic zone, and were their activities audited?”

These are all fair questions, which may well be answered once the governments complete their probes. Denmark and Sweden have both remained tightlipped, and scant details have leaked from either government. While there are likely multiple layers contributing to the hyper-secrecy, the stakes are obviously high, particularly if evidence leads to a nation-state actor, such as the U.S., Russia, or Ukraine, as the perpetrator.

The Andromeda, a 50-foot recreational sailing yacht, which German investigators searched recently and suspect a six-person crew used it to sail to the Baltic Sea and plant explosives, seen on March 17, 2023 near Dranske, Germany.

Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

False Flag vs. “False Concoctions”

In the public discourse, Seymour Hersh’s report in February that the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up in a covert operation authorized by President Joe Biden has become something of a Rorschach test in the broader context of the war in Ukraine and the hostilities between the U.S., NATO, and Russia.

Hersh himself appears entirely unfazed by the mounting attacks on his credibility. This, he asserts, is what powerful forces do: They seek to destroy the messenger to distract from the crime. When pressed on some of the criticism of his reporting, including apparent inconsistencies raised by open-source data on ship and aircraft movements during the alleged operation, Hersh has cut his questioners short and asserted that he hasn’t even published 20 percent of what he knows or what his sources have told him. He has all but said that he used additional sources and is playing his own game of cat and mouse to protect them. Moreover, he has argued, these OSINT warriors are naive to believe that the CIA and other U.S. agencies would not have taken extensive steps to cloak the operation.

At 85 years old, Hersh is staking his storied and well-earned reputation as one of the premiere muckrakers in modern U.S. history on the veracity of this one story. It may appear to be a crazy gamble, particularly if it is based on a single source, but it also serves as a powerful symbol of how right Hersh believes he is. In essence, Hersh is forcing the question: Do we really believe Sy Hersh would do this if it wasn’t true?

This same dynamic has played out with several of Hersh’s stories over the past decade since he left the New Yorker. It was true of his 2015 story for the London Review of Books alleging that President Barack Obama and his administration lied about almost every detail of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. And it was also the case with both his 2013 LRB article and his 2017 story for the German newspaper Welt asserting that the U.S. was falsely accusing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian army of using chemical weapons. Hersh’s detractors say he is not the journalist he once was and is peddling false theories based on dubious or fictional assertions from anonymous sources. Hersh maintains he got these stories right and that he continues to use the same quality of fact-checker, editor, and lawyer he had reviewing his work at the New Yorker.

In his most recent post on Substack, Hersh criticizes reports in the New York Times and multiple German media outlets that among the perpetrators of the sabotage was a “pro-Ukrainian group” that rented a private boat using false passports. Hersh alleged that the entire story, based on anonymous U.S. intelligence and German law enforcement sources, was a false-flag operation and that the assertions published by the Times and Die Zeit “originated with a group of CIA experts in deception and propaganda whose mission was to feed the newspaper a cover story—and to protect a president who made an unwise decision and is now lying about it.” Hersh writes:

“It was a total fabrication by American intelligence that was passed along to the Germans, and aimed at discrediting your story,” I was told by a source within the American intelligence community. The disinformation professionals inside the CIA understand that a propaganda gambit can only work if those on receiving are desperate for a story that can diminish or displace an unwanted truth. And the truth in question is that President Joe Biden authorized the destruction of the pipelines and will have a difficult time explaining away his action as Germany and its Western European neighbors suffer as businesses are shuttered amid high day-to-day energy costs.

Hersh also asserted that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to the White House in early March was, in part, aimed at preparing the rollout of the cover story developed by the CIA and its German counterparts. “I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2,” Hersh writes. “In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was ‘to pulse the system’ in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.”

Hersh is staking his storied and well-earned reputation as one of the premiere muckrakers in modern U.S. history on the veracity of this one story.

For people who have already concluded that Hersh is either fabricating this story or relying on bad sources, his latest story is evidence that he is trapped in a hall of mirrors and seeing conspiracies in every direction he looks. Holger Stark, the lead reporter on the German story Hersh claims was the product of a CIA deception campaign, addressed Hersh in a tweet: “Sy, old colleague, I admire your historical work and it hurts tremendously to say it: But this is, at least in respect to our work at Die Zeit, complete BS. And if you write about me: call next time before you publish. You would avoid a lot of mistakes.” Stark has collaborated with The Intercept on an investigation into the U.S. drone program and Germany’s role and was one of the main German journalists reporting on Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency documents for Der Spiegel.

For those who believe that Hersh has correctly identified the perpetrator of the Nord Stream bombing — the U.S. government — it is plausible that the information fed to the Times and German news outlets about the “pro-Ukrainian group” is suspicious and part of a deception operation. Last June — two months before the Nord Stream explosions — the CIA reportedly offered German intelligence and other European governments a “strategic warning” of a potential plot to blow up the pipeline. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The warning included information about three Ukrainian nationals who were trying to rent out ships in countries bordering the Baltic Sea, including Sweden.”

It could well be that the U.S. was simply sharing its intel with allies with a direct stake in such an action. It could also be that this is where a potential deception operation involving a “pro-Ukrainian group” began. What does not seem likely is that the cover story was created in response to Hersh. More plausible, if this is indeed a cover story, was that it was planned long before Hersh wrote his story and was designed to deceive or misdirect U.S. allies and the world about who was responsible. Stark, the German journalist who heads Die Zeit’s investigative unit, said he had been working on his story, based on the German criminal probe, for months and rushed to publish only after he learned the New York Times was going to post its “pro-Ukraine group” story, which was based on the claims of anonymous U.S. intelligence operatives. Hersh later updated his piece to reflect this.

In his latest story, Hersh lambasted the U.S. press corps for refusing to ask the White House about his assertions the U.S. blew up the pipeline. “There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally ‘task’ the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea. According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.”

I asked the White House Hersh’s specific question and also for comment on Hersh’s assertions about the private meeting between Biden and Scholz and the CIA manufacturing a cover story. In a statement, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson did not directly address any of my questions. “These stories are totally false concoctions,” Watson said. “We can say categorically that the United States was not involved in the Nord Stream explosions in any way. We continue to support efforts with our allies and partners to get to the bottom of what happened.”

During Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s appearance before the House Committee on Appropriations on March 23, Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, asked Blinken: “You’re now in a formal setting. Can you assure the world that no agency of the U.S. government blew up those pipelines or facilitated that action?”

“Yes, I can,” Blinken replied.

Update: March 25, 2023, 8:00 p.m. ET
This piece has been updated with comments made by Putin on March 25 saying Russia would not retrieve the underwater object.

Update: March 27, 2023, 3:57 p.m. ET
On Monday, Russia’s UN resolution calling for an independent investigation of Nord Stream sabotage failed. Russia, China, and Brazil voted in favor. The other 12 council members abstained.

The post Russia Calls for U.N. Investigation of Nord Stream Attack, as Hersh Accuses White House of False Flag appeared first on The Intercept.

On Saturday, the New York Times published a blockbuster story that said two prominent Texas Republicans flew across the Mideast in the summer of 1980 for secret meetings with regional leaders to urge them to tell Iran to keep the U.S. hostages in Tehran until after the election that pitted GOP candidate Ronald Reagan against then-President Jimmy Carter.

The Times reported that Ben Barnes, a key figure in Texas politics, said he made the trip with former Texas Gov. John Connally, a major supporter of Reagan’s campaign, and that when they returned home, Connally met in an airport lounge with William Casey, who’d been a top U.S. spy during World War II and was then Reagan’s campaign manager. Connally and Casey discussed the trip, according to Barnes, who The Times quoted as saying, “History needs to know that this happened.” After Reagan beat Carter in a landslide, Reagan appointed Casey head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All this is powerful evidence that the Reagan campaign did — as has been alleged for decades — strike a deal with the Iranian government to prevent the hostages from being released. While that has never been proven, what’s known beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the Reagan campaign was deeply worried that Carter might get the hostages out before November and thereby give a big boost to his prospects.

You might understandably ask: If this actually happened, how could it have been kept secret? Why hasn’t anyone with knowledge of it spoken up before? The answer is that it hasn’t been kept secret, and many, many people have said it occurred. But most of the people doing so have been foreigners. Barnes is merely the most important American to finally come out and support the story.

The 1980 October Surprise theory has always been plausible on its face. Casey had worked on Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign (and was later named head of the Securities and Exchange Commission by Nixon). It’s since been proven that the Nixon’s presidential campaign secretly collaborated with the government of South Vietnam to prevent President Lyndon Johnson from striking a peace deal ending the Vietnam War. The Nixon campaign was concerned that peace would help his opponent in the race, Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey. Nixon’s cynicism can be measured by the fact that thanks to his gambit, 20,000 additional American soldiers, plus unknown hundreds of thousands of other people, died as the war continued for many years.

The concept of the October Surprise seems almost benign in comparison. A mere 52 American hostages had been seized by Iranian revolutionaries at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and all the scheme required was keeping them there for another few months.

Most of the important digging on this subject was done by the late Robert Parry, a one-time Associated Press reporter and founder of Consortium News. Parry and others found that an astonishing array of people at the top of world politics had said things similar to Barnes, long before Barnes spoke out. Here are the most important:

Abolhassan Bani-Sadr

Bani-Sadr was the president of post-revolutionary Iran from January 1980 until June 1981, when he was impeached and fled the country.

In Bani-Sadr’s 1991 memoir, “My Turn to Speak,” he wrote that:

In late October 1980, everyone was openly discussing the agreement with the Americans on the Reagan team. In the October 27 issue of Enghelab Eslami [“Islamic Revolution,” Bani-Sadr’s newspaper] I published an editorial saying that Carter was no longer in control of U.S. foreign policy and had yielded the real power to those who … had negotiated with the mullahs on the hostage affair.

The House of Representatives conducted an investigation of the subject, which was released in 1993. It patronizingly concluded that “Bani-Sadr’s analysis demonstrates how some Iranians may have mistakenly misled themselves to believe that Khomeini representatives met with Reagan campaign officials.”

When Ben Affleck’s movie “Argo” was released in 2013, Bani-Sadr said more:

Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the “October Surprise,” which prevented the attempts by myself and then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages. … Two of my advisors, Hussein Navab Safavi and Sadr-al-Hefazi, were executed by Khomeini’s regime because they had become aware of this secret.

When Bani-Sadr died in 2021, his New York Times obituary discreetly did not mention any of this.

Yitzhak Shamir

Shamir served two terms as Israel’s prime minister in the 1980s and early 1990s. At the time of the 1980 U.S. presidential campaign, he was Israel’s minister of foreign affairs.

The subject of the October Surprise came up when Shamir was interviewed by several reporters in 1993, after Shamir had left office. When one asked Shamir whether it had happened, Shamir immediately responded, “Of course. … I know in America, they know it.”

Shamir then declined to elaborate.

Yasser Arafat

Arafat was head of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian National Authority. In 1996, he met with Carter in the Gaza Strip. According to historian Douglas Brinkley, Arafat told Carter, “You should know that in 1980 the Republicans approached me with an arms deal if I could arrange to keep the hostages in Iran until after the election. I want you to know that I turned them down.”

“The Good Spy” by Kai Bird includes a fascinating tale of a Lebanese businessman named Mustafa Zein who claimed to have acted as a go-between Arafat and Jack Shaw, who worked with Casey on the Reagan campaign. Shaw told Bird that this was all a big misunderstanding on Zein’s part. Arafat, according to Zein, eventually told him that Casey had struck a deal directly with the Iranians at a meeting in Spain.

President Ronald Reagan during a meeting with Alexandre de Marenches in the Oval Office on June 7, 1983.

Photo: Mary Anne Fackelman/White House

Alexandre de Marenches

In 1980, de Marenches was the head of France’s external intelligence agency, the Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage. The 1993 House investigation spoke with David Andelman, a journalist who had co-written de Marenches’s memoirs.

Andelman said de Marenches had told him off the record that he was involved in “setting up a meeting in Paris between Casey and some Iranians in late October of 1980.”

The House investigation also spoke to de Marenches, who denied any involvement in 1980 skullduggery. De Marenches traveled to California in December 1980, just after the election, to meet with Reagan. After Reagan took office, de Marenches became a close Reagan adviser.

The Russian Government

The House task force sent a request to the Russian government for any information it had in its intelligence files on the subject of the Reagan campaign in 1980. At the time, the Soviet Union had just collapsed, and the Russian government was eager for good relations with America, so it was incentivized to help the U.S. Congress.

Russia response was yes, the October Surprise happened. Part of it read: “William Casey, in 1980, met three times with representatives of the Iranian leadership. … The meetings took place in Madrid and Paris.”

These claims from Russia, however, did not appear in the investigation’s final declassified report. They were in the classified version, however. We know this because Parry stumbled across it when he went to the U.S. Capitol to pick up a regular copy of the report, but he was accidentally sent to a storage room full of copies of the classified version.

Parry wrote that he subsequently spoke to “one well-placed official in Europe who checked with the Russian government.” This official told him the Russian considered the report “a bomb” and “couldn’t believe it was ignored.”

The George H.W. Bush White House

As the House investigation put it, the main October Surprise allegation was that “during the summer of 1980, William Casey and other Americans met on several occasions in Madrid with … two Iranian officials sent at the direction of the Khomeini regime.” They asked the George H.W. Bush administration to produce any records the U.S. government might have on this subject. The House task force looked at everything and concluded “the evidence allegedly supporting each of these meetings was neither from credible sources nor corroborated.”

Here’s the funny thing, though. In 2011, Parry was looking through the records of the Bush Presidential Library. And there he found a memo from associate White House counsel Chester Paul Beach Jr., recording a conversation he’d had with State Department legal adviser Edwin D. Williamson about getting the relevant documents to the House investigators. Williamson, Beach wrote, had told him that they’d found “a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown.”

This memo from Beach and the mysterious cable from the Madrid embassy were somehow never turned over to the House investigation. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who’d led the inquiry, wrote a letter to then-Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016 asking for the cable. He did not receive it. For Kai Bird’s book “The Outlier,” which includes a chapter of additional evidence about an October Surprise, Bird submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the cable. The State Department likewise has not produced it for Bird — even after he filed a lawsuit in 2019 — informing him that they can’t find it.

At this point, even James Baker, first Reagan’s chief of staff and later his treasury secretary (and then Bush’s secretary of state), won’t say Casey wasn’t in Madrid. Asked about it by one-time Carter staffer Stuart Eizenstat, he responded: “Would I be surprised if Casey did it? There is nothing about Casey that would surprise me. He is a piece of work.”

Those are the highlights — but there is, believe it or not, more where this came from. The October Surprise story has long been derided as a conspiracy theory, and still has not been conclusively proven. But at this point, a belief that nothing out of the ordinary happened in 1980 requires faith in an enormous number of coincidences — so many that you might call it a coincidence theory.

The post A Short History of Everyone Who Confirmed Reagan’s October Surprise Before the New York Times appeared first on The Intercept.

Our live show from the Hell on Earth launch party at Littlefield in NYC on 1/20/23. We discuss the life of alchemist, mathematician and courtier John Dee, and look into the intersection of magic and politics in early modern Europe.

You’re going to need this image to understand this episode. The Hieroglyphic Monad. Learn it. Know it. Love it. The Monad.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we discuss CNN having the worst primetime ratings in over 30 years, Kamala has another "word salad" moment on Stephen Colbert, Signature Bank having a fundraiser for Congressman now investigating them, Matt Stoller on the National Adderal Shortage, Google releases an AI ChatGPT competitor called Bard, the history of the potential Ebola Lab Leak, How Banks Created Overdraft Fees, and Congress introducing a Tik Tok Ban.

To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/

To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and Spotify

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl

Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andy is joined by Ian Smith, Holly Walsh, Andy Parsons and from The Spectator, Kate Andrews. This week the panel discuss the war in Ukraine one year on, Keir Starmer's missions, and the editing of Dahl.

Hosted and written by Andy Zaltzman with additional material from Alice Fraser, Catherine Brinkworth, Jade Gebbie, and Will Hall.

Producer: Sam Holmes Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Co-ordinator: Becky Carewe-Jeffries Sound Editor: Marc Willcox

Subscribe for the full episode at the bottom of the page. Watch a free preview here:

The US has finally stopped pretending to be pro-peace: with China proposing a plan for a ceasefire, Secretary of War Antony Blinken announced that stopping the war is unacceptable. And when CodePink’s Medea Benjamin called for Blinken to act as a diplomat instead of a war hawk, she was dragged out of the room by security. The US does not want peace.

So to dig deeper into the US’s aggression, we asked Twitter superhero Michael Tracey to help us unearth more evidence of warmongering weapons-dealers calling themselves politicians.

What he found was a 2014 interview with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, after a trip to Ukraine with best bud John McCain, unknowingly giving away the US’s entire efforts of regime change.

“With him being forthright about the decisive role that the United States played in ousting Yanukovych from power,” Tracey explains, noting that Murphy didn’t know this would become a hot topic. “He’s talking about it as though he’s recounting just an average day’s work that wouldn’t have any noteworthy political content.”

But he tells us why Murphy’s confession is so important: “If today somebody who was not a US senator uttered the same exact words that Murphy did in these clips to describe US conduct in 2014 in Kyiv, they would be accused of being a Russian propagandist.”

Watch the full interview with Michael Tracey on the state department-funded report that Russia is kidnapping Ukraine’s children, Ron Desantis pretending not to be a war hawk, and the House hearing on TikTok, where free speech and free market are only cool if the US gets to do it.

Plus, watch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: "Suck on this!" – Thomas Friedman celebrates 20 years in Iraq.

And join the Absurd Arena live discussion board with Katie and Aaron every Tuesday at 12pm est in the Substack app.

Watch the full interview here:

Read more

Democracy Now! 2023-03-24 Friday

• Headlines for March 24, 2023
• "France Is Furious": Anger Grows at Macron for Raising Retirement Age as Millions Strike & Protest
• Rep. Ro Khanna on Regulating Banks, TikTok, China, Ukraine & His Vote on the "Horrors of Socialism"
• The Candidate and the Spy: James Bamford on Israel's Secret Collusion with Trump to Win 2016 Race
• Cop City: Judge Denies Bond to People Rounded Up in Mass Arrest for Opposing Police Training Facility

Download this show

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump planning a big show around his potential arrest, Desantis sinking in polls after Trump attacks, MAGA declares war on Desantis, Fed risks bank failure with Rate Hikes, Markets in chaos over Yellen and Powell Incompetence, Putin and Xi meet and pledge a new bond between Russia and China, Rolling Stone covers for alleged Pedophile Reporter, Biden prosecutes anti-Hillary meme poster, Vivek's fake anti-elitism exposed in Jordan Peterson interview, and Waco Survivor and author David Thibodeau joins us to talk about his personal experience in the Waco, Texas tragedy 30 years later.

To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/

To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and Spotify

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl

Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democracy Now! 2023-03-21 Tuesday

• Headlines for March 21, 2023
• "Stop Dirty Banks": Bill McKibben & Ben Jealous on Ending Big Bank Funding for Fossil Fuel Expansion
• U.N. Warns "Climate Time Bomb Is Ticking" as Cyclone Freddy Death Toll Tops 560 in Malawi & Mozambique
• Remembering Mozambican Rapper Azagaia: Police Crack Down on Protests After Death of Cultural Icon
• War Made Easy: Norman Solomon on How Mainstream Media Helped Pave Way for U.S. Invasion of Iraq

Download this show

Democracy Now! 2023-03-22 Wednesday

• Headlines for March 22, 2023
• Andrew Bacevich on China's Rise as Global Superpower & Decline of U.S. Empire After Iraq Invasion
• The U.S. Owes Iraq "Just Compensation": Muslim Peacemaker Sami Rasouli on 2003 Invasion & Aftermath

Download this show

Democracy Now! 2023-03-23 Thursday

• Headlines for March 23, 2023
• A Police Killing Inside a Hospital: Ben Crump on Death of Irvo Otieno During Mental Health Crisis
• "Disaster": Iraqi Journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad on U.S. Invasion, Sanctions, Occupation & What's Next

Download this show

We’re joined by historian Dr. Eleanor Janega to discuss daily life among the pre-modern peasants, townspeople and nobles of Hell on Earth.

Eleanor co-hosts the We’re Not So Different podcast: https://twitter.com/wnsdpod

And is author of “The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society”: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-once-and-future-sex-going-medieval-on-women-s-roles-in-society-eleanor-janega/7122562?ean=9780393867817

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The FBI’s investigation into activists spreads beyond Denver. In Colorado Springs, a provocatively dressed woman with pink hair shows up to volunteer at a left-wing nonprofit organization. And just like Mickey, she’s taking orders from the FBI. But after several activists are arrested, the pink-haired woman’s cover is blown. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ryan and Emily discuss Trump's imminent arrest, Desantis finally attacking Trump on Covid and White House chaos, China Boosts Russia's War Effort with new drones, Biden Vetoes Anti-Woke ESG Bill, Google unveils an AI Rival to Chat GPT called "Bard", Republicans split over bipartisan Rail Safety bill, and we're joined by Sam Husseini and Jonathan Latham to discuss the questions around the Ebola Lab Leak theory in wake of new evidence.

To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/

To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and Spotify

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXl

Merch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Democracy Now! 2023-03-20 Monday

• Headlines for March 20, 2023
• "Catastrophic": Iraqi Writers Sinan Antoon & Feurat Alani Reflect on U.S. Invasion 20 Years Later

Download this show

We talk to writer, podcaster and union organiser Sopo Japaridze about the protests over the 'Foreign Agents' law in Georgia

FIND OUR GUEST HERE:
https://twitter.com/sopjap

HOW TO SUPPORT US:
https://www.patreon.com/cornerspaeti

HOW TO REACH US:
Corner Späti https://twitter.com/cornerspaeti
Julia https://twitter.com/KMarxiana
Rob https://twitter.com/leninkraft
Nick https://twitter.com/sternburgpapi
Uma https://twitter.com/umawrnkl
Ciarán https://twitter.com/CiaranDold

Support Corner Späti

We’re joined by Celebrity Jeopardy! champion Ike Barinholtz to discuss Donald Trump’s potentially imminent arrest, the dismal state of the metaverse, the anti-vaxer quest for clean seed, and Ike’s new series with da god Mel Brooks, History of the World, Part II.

Check out, History of the World, Part II, streaming now on Hulu: https://press.hulu.com/shows/history-of-the-world-part-ii/ 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Context managers power Python's with blocks. They sandwich a code block between enter code and exit code. They're most often used for reusing common cleanup/teardown functionality.

Table of contents

1. Files opened with with close automatically
2. Context managers work in with statements
3. Context managers are like a try-finally block
4. Life without a context manager
5. Using a with block requires a context manager

>>> with open("my_file.txt") as f:
...     contents = f.read()
...

>>> f.closed
True

Read the full article: https://www.pythonmorsels.com/what-is-a-context-manager/