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Grayzone —  A far-right Venezuelan opposition activist emailed a death threat to human rights activists from the peace group CODEPINK.

WASHINGTON — Following the illegal seizure by U.S. authorities of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, the group of activists who lived in the building for 37 days — protecting it from such a seizure at the request of the democratically elected government of Venezuela — is escalating tactics.

After a rough and revealing start, the reins of the campaign to seize Venezuela’s embassy in Washington are being taken over by a group of well-connected marketing and online strategists.

Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was ordered back to jail Thursday for refusing to testify to a grand jury, even after telling a judge she’d rather “starve to death” than cooperate with prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered her to remain incarcerated at the Alexandria jail either until she agrees to testify or until the grand jury’s term expires in 18 months. He also imposed fines that will kick in at $500 a day after 30 days and $1,000 a day after 60 days.

Police have broken into the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC and arrested four protesters from the Embassy Protection Collective, according to Medea Benjamin, an activist from the anti-war group CODEPINK. Among the four who were arrested during the raid are anti-war activists Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. A US Secret Service spokesman confirmed that it had helped Department of State’s Diplomatic Security arrest the remaining Embassy Protection Collective protesters inside the Venezuelan Embassy.

As famed Latin American author Eduardo Galeano once wrote, “every time the US ‘saves’ a country, it converts it into either an insane asylum or a cemetery.” Of course, as we look over the wreckage left by the US in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, we see that this statement is demonstrably true. And yet, now that the US is poised for another intervention, this time in Venezuela, the press is right there again to cheer it along.

In January, MintPress was contacted by Jeannie Kamin, a contributor to the news rating site and browser plug-in “Newsguard.” As I, MintPress Editor-in-Chief Mnar Muhawesh, wrote at the time, Kamin had sent “a list of eight loaded questions that were crafted to put me on the defensive and undermine MintPress’ credibility from the get-go. Not only that, but the questions framed MintPress as having a secret agenda aimed at hiding its ownership and funding.”

A measured and nuanced discussion of the Holocaust, Israel, and Palestinians was intentionally mischaracterized by right-wing media and politicians Sunday, leading to corporate media and the president amplifying dishonest attacks on one of the nation’s only two Muslim Congresswomen.

Early Thursday morning, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Daniel Everette Hale — a former intelligence analyst for the U.S. Air Force and National Security Agency (NSA) and later a defense contractor working for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) — for providing a reporter with classified government information.

WASHINGTON — MintPress News journalist Alexander Rubinstein and a reporter for The Grayzone, Anya Parampil, are besieged inside the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, and have been since April 30, in an egregious attack against press freedom.