https://www.corbettreport.com/okc-a-conspiracy-theory/
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/RZHSVW2C2BBZFPRNVMOLDOAU3I.jpg)
All the ATF agents were out of the building that day because... you know, work to do...
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
1+1=1 and other tales of Oklahoma
https://www.corbettreport.com/okc-a-conspiracy-theory/
All the ATF agents were out of the building that day because... you know, work to do...
Why is young Russian woman in U.S. prison?
Reprinted from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune opinion section. April 29, 2019, 9:41 am.
This article was written for and published by the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Maria Butina
By RON PAUL1
Russian gun rights activist and graduate exchange student Maria Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison last week for “conspiracy to act as a foreign agent without registering.”
Her “crime” was to work to make connections among American gun rights activists in hopes of building up her organization, the Right to Bear Arms, when she returned to Russia.
She was not employed by the Russian government nor was she a lobbyist on Putin’s behalf. In fact the Putin Administration is hostile to Russian gun rights groups. Nevertheless the U.S. mainstream media and Trump’s Justice Department are treating her as public enemy number one in a case that will no doubt set the dangerous precedent of criminalizing person-to-person diplomacy in the United States.
The Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) was passed in 1938 under pressure from the FDR Administration partly to silence opposition to the U.S. entry into World War II. While a handful of cases were prosecuted during the war, between 1966 and 2015 the Justice Department only brought seven FARA cases for prosecution.
Though very few cases have been brought on FARA violations, one of them was against Samir Vincent, who was paid millions of dollars by Saddam Hussein to lobby for sanctions relief without registering. He got off with a fine and “community service.”
Millions of dollars in unregistered payments from Saddam Hussein gets no jail time, while Butina gets 18 months in prison for privately promoting a cause most Americans support! How is this justice?
Unfortunately Maria Butina was in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the rise of the “Russiagate” hysteria, Butina’s case was seen as a useful tool by Democrats to push the idea that President Trump was put into office by the Russians. Plus, many of them are also hostile to our Second Amendment and to the National Rifle Association. So it was a perfect storm for Butina.
Sadly, conservatives are mostly silent on this miscarriage of justice. They are also caught up in the idea that America can only be great if it goes abroad seeking monsters to destroy.
Also, a new Cold War is very profitable to the military industrial complex and Butina serves an important propaganda purpose. The media is an all-to-willing participant in this farce.
Even though Trump has been exonerated by a Mueller investigation that didn’t even view the Butina case as worth investigating, the president has been silent on her persecution. This is similar to his sudden silence on Wikileaks now that Julian Assange may be facing an eternity in a U.S. supermax prison.
As author James Bamford3 wrote recently in an excellent New Republic article on the Butina case, the national security agencies are also eager to get another notch in their belts and the Russian gun activist was low-hanging fruit for their ambitions.
The Russian Spy Who Wasn't by James Bamford2
https://newrepublic.com/article/153036/maria-butina-profile-wasnt-russian-spy
Non-interventionists believe strongly in citizen-to-citizen diplomacy as a way of avoiding war and conflict overseas. Exchange students, international business ventures, tourism, and just communicating with others is such an important way to thwart the plotting of the warmongers who lurk in all governments.
I am saddened to see that the United States has made such a hostile move toward peaceful foreign citizens seeking friendship with Americans. When citizens are no longer allowed to engage in diplomacy we are left with only the state. And the state loves war.
1. Dr. Ron Paul is a former member of the House of Representatives. This article was written for and published by the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
2. James Bamford is an award-winning investigative journalist who, despite official efforts to muzzle him, has written extensively on U.S. intelligence agencies.
3. "There are important parallels between the threat to prosecute Bamford for publishing purportedly secret intelligence data and the indictment of Julian Assange following his publication of classified data," says Paul Conant, editor of The Invisible Man blog.
Monday, April 29, 2019
Sean's free-press right to publish 'hate' cartoon
Sean Hannity's web site has picked up on the "anti-Semitic cartoon" controversy, doubtless because it embarrasses The New York Times, the bete noir of every self-respecting conservative. I agree with Hannity about a lot of things, including the anti-conservative slant of that paper.
But, I think the angst about this rather routine political cartoon is an unfortunate sign of the modern tendency to see valid political criticism as "hate speech."
Hannity's site quotes the Jerusalem Post concerning the dust-up over the "offensive image," which you can view in a post below. Or, you can go to Hannity's site and be traumatized by its appearance there. I guess his staff didn't regard it as all that bad... Just politics... shielded by the First Amendment.
DEVELOPING: New York Times UNDER FIRE over ‘Vicious’ Anti-Semitic Trump Cartoon
posted by Hannity Staff
https://www.hannity.com/media-room/developing-new-york-times-under-fire-over-vicious-anti-semitic-trump-cartoon/
But, I think the angst about this rather routine political cartoon is an unfortunate sign of the modern tendency to see valid political criticism as "hate speech."
Hannity's site quotes the Jerusalem Post concerning the dust-up over the "offensive image," which you can view in a post below. Or, you can go to Hannity's site and be traumatized by its appearance there. I guess his staff didn't regard it as all that bad... Just politics... shielded by the First Amendment.
DEVELOPING: New York Times UNDER FIRE over ‘Vicious’ Anti-Semitic Trump Cartoon
posted by Hannity Staff
https://www.hannity.com/media-room/developing-new-york-times-under-fire-over-vicious-anti-semitic-trump-cartoon/
Sex case against Assange badly flawed
https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.globalresearch.ca/where-swedish-warrant/5676006&ct=ga&cd=CAEYISoUMTIxMTE1MTgwMTE2NzM0NTE2MjYyGjg4NDY1OTdlZDllOGQwNjA6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGbf0-0Cmsv8Zhk0FwedU7bgRuqIQ
Craig Murray writes in Global Research:
In the case of the allegation in Sweden that did fall through the statute of limitation, the accusation was that during the act of consensual sex Julian Assange deliberately split the condom with his fingers, without consent. I quite agree that if true, it would amount to sexual assault. But the split condom given to Swedish police as evidence had none of Assange’s DNA on it – a physical impossibility if he had worn it during sex. And the person making the accusation had previously been expelled from Cuba as working for the CIA. So tell me again – we must always believe the accuser?
Young chronicler of Troubles is slain https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/26/lyra-mckee-obituary
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Credit card firm fined $10M for WikiLeaks blockade
Valitor, a partner of Visa and Mastercard, must pay WikiLeaks $10 million (U.S.) for refusing to lift its 2011 banking blockade against the whistleblowing site despite a court order, Icelandic media report.
The District Court of Reykjavik is ordering Valitor to hand over some $10 million (1.2 billion Icelandic krona) to WikiLeaks payment processor DataCell and WikiLeaks publisher Sunshine Press after Valitor failed to comply with a 2013 Supreme Court order to resume processing credit card payments for WikiLeaks.
Valitor was warned when the ruling came down that if it did not lift the blockade, daily penalties would continue to pile up. It is reported that Valitor plans to appeal.
The District Court of Reykjavik is ordering Valitor to hand over some $10 million (1.2 billion Icelandic krona) to WikiLeaks payment processor DataCell and WikiLeaks publisher Sunshine Press after Valitor failed to comply with a 2013 Supreme Court order to resume processing credit card payments for WikiLeaks.
Valitor was warned when the ruling came down that if it did not lift the blockade, daily penalties would continue to pile up. It is reported that Valitor plans to appeal.
Note: the BBC and PBS receive funding from the British and U.S. governments, respectively.
Times squelches 'dangerous' political art
The New York Times has apologized for its international print edition publishing a cartoon that conveys "anti-Semitic tropes."
These tropes -- metaphors -- are dangerous, the newspaper said, and should never have been published.
The cartoon, published Thursday, portrays a blind President Trump, wearing a skullcap, being led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, drawn as a dog on a leash with a Star of David collar.
“The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it,” The New York Times said in an editors’ note that will be published in Monday’s international edition.
Eileen Murphy, a New York Times spokeswoman, said the paper was “deeply sorry” for publishing the cartoon.
“Such imagery is always dangerous, and at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, it’s all the more unacceptable,” Murphy said. “We are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again.”
The cartoon drew hundreds of critical comments from people worldwide, the Times said.
Conant comments
It's too bad that people are so easily offended by political speech. While it is true that Jews are often accused of "controlling things," thus making them targets of demagogs, I would point out that the cartoon is a typical political drawing. The artist is accusing Trump of blindly letting Netanyahu run U.S. foreign policy. Though it's true that Israel is known as the Jewish state, the main point is that it is a state, not that it's Jewish, and thus political satire is to be expected.
The artist is commenting on Trump's policy of hewing to the neocon line. Whether you agree or not with this policy, certainly it seems reasonable to expect cartoons that target it.
Maybe the Star of David image wasn't necessary, but political cartoonists typically use symbols that make it easy for the viewer to get the cartoon's point.
Eileen Murphy tells us that the cartoon is a "dangerous" image. I suppose she means it stirs up Times readers to be anti-Semitic. Yet, on its face, the image seems a fair satire on U.S. foreign policy, which has upset a group of allies, especially with respect to renewed sanctions on Iran, something the neocons favor.
Certainly a cartoon like that doesn't make me want to rush out and do bad things to Jews. I view it as typical political art. We have come to quite a pass if we must fear the art as "dangerous."
The cartoon, published Thursday, portrays a blind President Trump, wearing a skullcap, being led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, drawn as a dog on a leash with a Star of David collar.
“The image was offensive, and it was an error of judgment to publish it,” The New York Times said in an editors’ note that will be published in Monday’s international edition.
Eileen Murphy, a New York Times spokeswoman, said the paper was “deeply sorry” for publishing the cartoon.
“Such imagery is always dangerous, and at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, it’s all the more unacceptable,” Murphy said. “We are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again.”
The cartoon drew hundreds of critical comments from people worldwide, the Times said.
Conant comments
It's too bad that people are so easily offended by political speech. While it is true that Jews are often accused of "controlling things," thus making them targets of demagogs, I would point out that the cartoon is a typical political drawing. The artist is accusing Trump of blindly letting Netanyahu run U.S. foreign policy. Though it's true that Israel is known as the Jewish state, the main point is that it is a state, not that it's Jewish, and thus political satire is to be expected.
The artist is commenting on Trump's policy of hewing to the neocon line. Whether you agree or not with this policy, certainly it seems reasonable to expect cartoons that target it.
Maybe the Star of David image wasn't necessary, but political cartoonists typically use symbols that make it easy for the viewer to get the cartoon's point.
Eileen Murphy tells us that the cartoon is a "dangerous" image. I suppose she means it stirs up Times readers to be anti-Semitic. Yet, on its face, the image seems a fair satire on U.S. foreign policy, which has upset a group of allies, especially with respect to renewed sanctions on Iran, something the neocons favor.
Certainly a cartoon like that doesn't make me want to rush out and do bad things to Jews. I view it as typical political art. We have come to quite a pass if we must fear the art as "dangerous."
Liberty on downslide as West targets journalists
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2019/04/27/washington-has-destroyed-western-liberty-the-era-of-tyranny-has-begun/
Roberts:
The entire Western world is adopting Washington’s approach to Julian and criminalizing the practice of journalism to protect governments’ criminality. Journalists who exposed the French government's lies have been told to report to police for questioning about violation of national security.
Mueller's Russia hacking lapse
Roberts says in a previous column:
Note: Those who say Assange is not a real journalist face the same accusation. If you are willing to use journalistic cover to undermine a man who has free press rights, then you are surely not a real journalist, but a government flunky.
Why are the governments silent on the death penalty?
I have read that under British law Assange cannot be extradited to the United States if he faces the death penalty. If that is so, why hasn't the British government required an assurance to that effect from the United States, and if it has received such an assurance, why is that being kept secret? The public is not permitted to know something as basic as this?
Mueller's Russia hacking lapse
Roberts says in a previous column:
William Binney and other experts have demonstrated that the DNC emails were, according to their time stamps, downloaded much more quickly than is possible over the Internet. This fact has been carefully ignored by Mueller, the Democrats and the presstitutes.In fact, I heard Binney, a former top-level NSA technical expert, make that statement on YouTube. Mueller's cavalier lapse in logic here is very, very similar to those found in the 9/11 and anthrax yarns put out by the FBI when Mueller headed that bureau.
Note: Those who say Assange is not a real journalist face the same accusation. If you are willing to use journalistic cover to undermine a man who has free press rights, then you are surely not a real journalist, but a government flunky.
Why are the governments silent on the death penalty?
I have read that under British law Assange cannot be extradited to the United States if he faces the death penalty. If that is so, why hasn't the British government required an assurance to that effect from the United States, and if it has received such an assurance, why is that being kept secret? The public is not permitted to know something as basic as this?
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Assange example a warning to Trump helpers
U.S. tips associate to expect spy charges against Assange https://netzpolitik.org/2019/wikileaks-the-us-is-indeed-investigating-assange-for-publishing-secret-information-doj-letter-suggests/#2018-03-07_US-DOJ-DDB-WikiLeaks-ENG
What is the real reason Julian Assange has been indicted on a false terrorism charge and is now facing Espionage Act charges, which carry long prison terms?
I suggest the real reason is a Deep State maneuver to exact payback on a publisher who assisted Donald Trump. The pretext is that by publishing a CIA document, the agency could claim he had endangered lives and must be stopped. I recall the so-called "secret" technology had previously appeared in the press. The only thing "secret" that was supposedly compromised was the fact that the agency was considering these technologies -- as if any adversary spy agency would have thought differently.
But this gave Mike Pompeo, then CIA chief, a cover to switch to the Deep State policy against Assange and join "the resistance" by condemning Assange and pressuring for his capture. (Pompeo seems a plausible candidate for the anonymous administration official who wrote in a New York Times piece about a covert "resistance" in the administration to undermine Trump.)
The Deep State, along with the vengeful Hillary Clinton, is extremely anxious to pay back Assange for his role in the defeat of the Deep State's candidate.
And President Trump has been cleverly boxed in with respect to Assange -- because if he were to urge that the prosecution be dropped based on the American belief in freedom of speech and press, the Democrats, the anti-Trump Republicans, and the U.S. corporate press -- which is a collective pet poodle of U.S. intelligence chiefs -- would manufacture a hysteria accusing Trump of obstructing justice in a collusive attempt to aid a Russian agent (the press would ignore the fact that Assange has never been proved to have been in Russia's employ).
The message the Deep State and the Democratic Party is anxious to deliver is that any journalist, or publisher, they consider too effective in aiding Trump's next presidential run is liable to face a nasty Deep State Justice Department assault. That is, Assange's arrest and imminent extradition are designed to intimidate any journalists who are considering being too helpful to Trump.
It is rather noteworthy that Espionage Act charges haven't been filed against top editors and reporters at The Intercept, The Guardian, The Washington Post and The New York Times, which have all published top-secret information concerning the Obama administration's illegal spying on Americans that was dislcosed by Edward Snowden. (I seem to recall there was a newspaper or two in Germany that also published some of the data; under the U.S. theory of law foreign journalists other than Snowden could also be extradited to the United States to face charges for actions that might not be crimes in their home countries.)
But not to worry. By use of terrorism charges, the Deep State can still charge these journalists as such charges extend the statute of limitations on "illegal journalism." Yet, even though the CIA, NSA and British intelligence were furious about Snowden's expose, it is unlikely they will have people they consider their assets arrested.
I suggest the real reason is a Deep State maneuver to exact payback on a publisher who assisted Donald Trump. The pretext is that by publishing a CIA document, the agency could claim he had endangered lives and must be stopped. I recall the so-called "secret" technology had previously appeared in the press. The only thing "secret" that was supposedly compromised was the fact that the agency was considering these technologies -- as if any adversary spy agency would have thought differently.
But this gave Mike Pompeo, then CIA chief, a cover to switch to the Deep State policy against Assange and join "the resistance" by condemning Assange and pressuring for his capture. (Pompeo seems a plausible candidate for the anonymous administration official who wrote in a New York Times piece about a covert "resistance" in the administration to undermine Trump.)
The Deep State, along with the vengeful Hillary Clinton, is extremely anxious to pay back Assange for his role in the defeat of the Deep State's candidate.
And President Trump has been cleverly boxed in with respect to Assange -- because if he were to urge that the prosecution be dropped based on the American belief in freedom of speech and press, the Democrats, the anti-Trump Republicans, and the U.S. corporate press -- which is a collective pet poodle of U.S. intelligence chiefs -- would manufacture a hysteria accusing Trump of obstructing justice in a collusive attempt to aid a Russian agent (the press would ignore the fact that Assange has never been proved to have been in Russia's employ).
The message the Deep State and the Democratic Party is anxious to deliver is that any journalist, or publisher, they consider too effective in aiding Trump's next presidential run is liable to face a nasty Deep State Justice Department assault. That is, Assange's arrest and imminent extradition are designed to intimidate any journalists who are considering being too helpful to Trump.
It is rather noteworthy that Espionage Act charges haven't been filed against top editors and reporters at The Intercept, The Guardian, The Washington Post and The New York Times, which have all published top-secret information concerning the Obama administration's illegal spying on Americans that was dislcosed by Edward Snowden. (I seem to recall there was a newspaper or two in Germany that also published some of the data; under the U.S. theory of law foreign journalists other than Snowden could also be extradited to the United States to face charges for actions that might not be crimes in their home countries.)
But not to worry. By use of terrorism charges, the Deep State can still charge these journalists as such charges extend the statute of limitations on "illegal journalism." Yet, even though the CIA, NSA and British intelligence were furious about Snowden's expose, it is unlikely they will have people they consider their assets arrested.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Galloway blasts media on Assange
Calls press vile, loathsome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S28z9Da8Gz4
Julian Assange, left, facing a U.S. 'terror' charge, and George Galloway, former Labor Party member of Parliament
Monday, April 22, 2019
Harvard reneges, kills archived pages
I find that Harvard Library Innovation Lab at the Harvard Law School Library has killed all my pages that it had pledged to archive forever for free as a public service. Its Perma.cc site, administered by a consortium of libraries, had previously revoked its offer to store 10 pages per month for free to ordinary, unaffiliated persons, saying there would now be a charge.
But the site did not announce at the time that it was killing pages that had been archived by unaffiliated persons. Nor did Harvard's operation send me a notice that it had taken down all the pages I had archived.
But the site did not announce at the time that it was killing pages that had been archived by unaffiliated persons. Nor did Harvard's operation send me a notice that it had taken down all the pages I had archived.
Debunking the Assange-as-Russian-agent smear
No evidence to substantiate the claims
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/22/debunking-the-assange-is-a-russian-agent-smear/
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Origins of Russia probe 'should be' investigated
'Garbage' Steele dossier
had CIA's fingerprints,
says Post's Woodward
Lack of payoffs weakens obstruction notion, journalist believes
The Washington Post's Bob Woodward said Sunday he had recently learned that the "garbage" Trump dossier appeared in an early draft of a U.S. intelligence assessment on suspected Russian election interference. Woodward also said that the material disclosed in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report was "disturbing" but came nowhere near the Watergate scandal in wrongdoing.
Woodward, who has had contacts with the CIA since his days exposing the Watergate scandal, saw such an action as "surprising" and told a Fox television audience that the origins of the investigation against Trump "should be" investigated.
As far as potential obstruction of justice, Woodward observed that no money was paid out with that aim in mind, as opposed to the criminal payoffs by President Richard M. Nixon's White House.
During a discussion on "Fox News Sunday," Woodward declared that he thought the inclusion of the Steele dossier occurred at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency, but it was ultimately taken out after being reviewed by intelligence experts.
"What I found out recently, which was really quite surprising, the dossier, which really has got a lot of garbage in it and Mueller found that to be the case, early in building the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference in an early draft, they actually put the dossier on page two in kind of a breakout box," Woodward said.
"I think it was the CIA pushing this," he added. "Real intelligence experts looked at this and said no, this is not intelligence, this is garbage and they took it out. But in this process the idea that they would include something like that in one of the great stellar intelligence assessments as Mueller also found out is highly questionable. Needs to be investigated."
As the Washington Examiner notes, Woodward's suggestion that the CIA was pushing for the inclusion of the dossier in the intelligence assessment comes nearly a month after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was told former CIA Director John Brennan "insisted" the dossier be included in the report. "BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report ... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP," Paul tweeted.
The Examiner observed that Woodward also wrote about Brennan's endorsement of the dossier in his book Fear: Trump in the White House. “The sources that Steele used for his dossier had not been polygraphed, which made their information uncorroborated, and potentially suspect,” Woodward wrote in the book published last year. “But Brennan said the information was in line with their own sources, in which he had great confidence.” A spokesman for Brennan insisted he never trusted the dossier, telling the Associated Press, “because it wasn’t corroborated intel."
The declassified January 2017 report determined that Russia had ordered an "influence campaign" to help Trump get elected in 2016. There is no mention of the dossier, compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, which contained salacious and unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia. It was used by the FBI to obtain a series of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to wiretap Carter Page, at the time a Trump campaign adviser.
The Examiner points out that now that Mueller has concluded his investigation into Russian meddling, finding no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, allies of the president are eagerly anticipating the findings of several investigations looking into possible government surveillance abuse against Trump. Among them are investigations being conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Attorney General William Barr, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump, served as CIA director from 2013 to Jan. 20, 2017, the day of Trump's inauguration.
The intelligence chief turned television analyst has admitted that as a young man he was a Communist sympathizer.
The use of the national security apparatus to go after journalists who have helped Trump is one of the more shocking aspects of "Russiagate." For example, Jerome Corsi, a septuagenarian conservative journalist, was roped in by the Mueller probe. After Corsi's associate, Alex Jones, was delegitimized by the System, Corsi was, he said, threatened by the Mueller team. Corsi said the feds tried to force him to lie and implicate Trump in Russia collusion.
Another journalist and political adviser, Roger Stone, was indicted at Mueller's direction for perjury before Congress. No one in the Justice Department has charged James Clapper, who lied to Congress as an intelligence chief before Edward Snowden's whistleblowing blew President Barack Obama's abuse of national security authority out of the water.
The current maneuver to snare Julian Assange ties in to Mueller's accusation, as reflected by the intelligence system, that Assange was assisting the Russians, and to Hillary Clinton's desire that the unconventional publisher should "answer for what he has done." Even so, no proof or strong evidence has been presented against Assange.
Mueller reported that Trump, in the heat of a tough campaign, was eager to get his hands on the 30,000 missing Clinton emails. Several intelligence chiefs have said they were convinced that the Russians had downloaded all the secretary of state's emails that had been held on her private server before she ordered them destroyed, because her computer security was poor and because one of her close confidants, Sidney Blumenthal, had had his emails hacked.
Yet, if the Russians obtained the missing emails, they evidently did not pass them along to WikiLeaks, which in turn did not publish them. Now, had Trump and Assange really been colluding with the Kremlin, one would think the Kremlin would have handed off the missing emails to Assange during the presidential campaign. Obviously, it is possible Russian hackers failed to pirate Clinton's emails. But, considering her position as secretary of state, it doesn't seem likely that either Russians or other intelligence agency hackers weren't prowling about, ready to pounce.
Woodward, who has had contacts with the CIA since his days exposing the Watergate scandal, saw such an action as "surprising" and told a Fox television audience that the origins of the investigation against Trump "should be" investigated.
As far as potential obstruction of justice, Woodward observed that no money was paid out with that aim in mind, as opposed to the criminal payoffs by President Richard M. Nixon's White House.
During a discussion on "Fox News Sunday," Woodward declared that he thought the inclusion of the Steele dossier occurred at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency, but it was ultimately taken out after being reviewed by intelligence experts.
"What I found out recently, which was really quite surprising, the dossier, which really has got a lot of garbage in it and Mueller found that to be the case, early in building the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference in an early draft, they actually put the dossier on page two in kind of a breakout box," Woodward said.
"I think it was the CIA pushing this," he added. "Real intelligence experts looked at this and said no, this is not intelligence, this is garbage and they took it out. But in this process the idea that they would include something like that in one of the great stellar intelligence assessments as Mueller also found out is highly questionable. Needs to be investigated."
As the Washington Examiner notes, Woodward's suggestion that the CIA was pushing for the inclusion of the dossier in the intelligence assessment comes nearly a month after Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he was told former CIA Director John Brennan "insisted" the dossier be included in the report. "BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report ... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP," Paul tweeted.
The Examiner observed that Woodward also wrote about Brennan's endorsement of the dossier in his book Fear: Trump in the White House. “The sources that Steele used for his dossier had not been polygraphed, which made their information uncorroborated, and potentially suspect,” Woodward wrote in the book published last year. “But Brennan said the information was in line with their own sources, in which he had great confidence.” A spokesman for Brennan insisted he never trusted the dossier, telling the Associated Press, “because it wasn’t corroborated intel."
The declassified January 2017 report determined that Russia had ordered an "influence campaign" to help Trump get elected in 2016. There is no mention of the dossier, compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, which contained salacious and unverified claims about Trump's ties to Russia. It was used by the FBI to obtain a series of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to wiretap Carter Page, at the time a Trump campaign adviser.
The Examiner points out that now that Mueller has concluded his investigation into Russian meddling, finding no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, allies of the president are eagerly anticipating the findings of several investigations looking into possible government surveillance abuse against Trump. Among them are investigations being conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Attorney General William Barr, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump, served as CIA director from 2013 to Jan. 20, 2017, the day of Trump's inauguration.
The intelligence chief turned television analyst has admitted that as a young man he was a Communist sympathizer.
The use of the national security apparatus to go after journalists who have helped Trump is one of the more shocking aspects of "Russiagate." For example, Jerome Corsi, a septuagenarian conservative journalist, was roped in by the Mueller probe. After Corsi's associate, Alex Jones, was delegitimized by the System, Corsi was, he said, threatened by the Mueller team. Corsi said the feds tried to force him to lie and implicate Trump in Russia collusion.
Another journalist and political adviser, Roger Stone, was indicted at Mueller's direction for perjury before Congress. No one in the Justice Department has charged James Clapper, who lied to Congress as an intelligence chief before Edward Snowden's whistleblowing blew President Barack Obama's abuse of national security authority out of the water.
The current maneuver to snare Julian Assange ties in to Mueller's accusation, as reflected by the intelligence system, that Assange was assisting the Russians, and to Hillary Clinton's desire that the unconventional publisher should "answer for what he has done." Even so, no proof or strong evidence has been presented against Assange.
Mueller reported that Trump, in the heat of a tough campaign, was eager to get his hands on the 30,000 missing Clinton emails. Several intelligence chiefs have said they were convinced that the Russians had downloaded all the secretary of state's emails that had been held on her private server before she ordered them destroyed, because her computer security was poor and because one of her close confidants, Sidney Blumenthal, had had his emails hacked.
Yet, if the Russians obtained the missing emails, they evidently did not pass them along to WikiLeaks, which in turn did not publish them. Now, had Trump and Assange really been colluding with the Kremlin, one would think the Kremlin would have handed off the missing emails to Assange during the presidential campaign. Obviously, it is possible Russian hackers failed to pirate Clinton's emails. But, considering her position as secretary of state, it doesn't seem likely that either Russians or other intelligence agency hackers weren't prowling about, ready to pounce.
Headlines to come...
Muellergate
looms as
probers eye
coup tries
Top security types were involved
in plotting to oust President
Barr implies inquiries into 'spying'
as 'treason' earns Trump's wrath
Friday, April 19, 2019
Mueller's credibility at issue in DNC murder case
The special counsel's report asserts that Julian Assange was shielding his purported Russian military intelligence sources when he said that a murdered Democratic National Committee staff member, Seth Rich, had been the source of leaked DNC emails.
Three points:
1. Special Counsel Robert Mueller shielded purported GRU agents from arrest and prosecution by blowing the lid off the "Russiagate" investigation, when he could easily have sought a sealed indictment of the 12 Russians. (See previous post.)
2. As FBI director, Mueller was part of a massive coverup of the true circumstances of the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax case.
Hence, anything Mueller has to say should be taken with a grain or ten of salt. Whether Rich did transfer pilfered files is, in my estimate, still unknown.
3. Assange is on record as a 9/11 conspiracy denier, which is ex-KGB officer Valdimir Putin's position, as well as ex-FBI chief Mueller's.
In July 2010, Assange told a Belfast Telegraph reporter, Matthew Bell, that the claim that the 9/11 attacks were organized as an inside job was a "crazed" and "false" conspiracy theory.
"I believe in facts about conspiracies," he said, adding, "Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two. Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news."
What about 9/11? Bell asked. "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracy theories such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."
It is noteworthy that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has also denied that the 9/11 attacks stemmed from an inside job. According to a June 2017 report, Oliver Stone and Vladimir Putin discussed the attacks during a series of interviews which aired in the United States.
In a discussion of Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, Putin commented that he didn't believe that U.S. operatives had manipulated Snowden into Russian exile in order to brand him a traitor. "Nor do I believe that the American intelligence services were the ones to organize the terrorist attacks in New York.”
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Putin made common cause with President George Bush in the global "war on terror." The United States stopped protesting Putin's war against the Chechnyan Muslims.
In November 2009, Wikileaks released half a million federal text pager intercepts covering a 24-hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks. But such data is unlikely to have plainly exposed a high-level Deep State/intelligence system conspiracy. The fact that WikiLeaks was only able to publish a token of 9/11 data makes it appear that the Assange organization might have been covering itself from suspicion with regard to 9/11 coverup. Obviously, suspicion is far from proof.
9/11 pager intercepts
http://911.wikileaks.org/
Assange's 9/11 denialism not only dovetails with Mueller's coverup as FBI chief, it conforms to Putin's public position. It is not evident whether Putin's position is solely for foreign policy reasons or whether the ex-KGB officer is protecting a Russian operation within U.S. intelligence.
Former Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the congressional 9/11 investigation, told the BBC that "I can just state that within '9/11' there are too many secrets; that is, information that has not been made available to the public for which there are specific tangible credible answers and that that withholding of those secrets has eroded public confidence in their government as it relates to their own security."
Narrator: "Senator Graham found that the coverup led to the heart of the administration."
Graham: "I called the White House and talked with Ms. [National Security Adviser Condoleeza] Rice and said: 'Look, we've been told we're gonna get cooperation in this inquiry and she said she'd look into it and nothing happened'."
Interviewer: "Was there any sort of sense of embarrassment or apology or...?"
Graham: "No. Embarrassment, apology, regret, those are not characteristics associated with the current [Bush] White House."
Interviewer: "So it was a conspiracy to cover up the fact that blunders had been made in the lead-up to 9/11?"
Graham: "If by conspiracy you mean, more than one person involved, yes, there was more than one person and there was some ... collaboration of efforts among agencies and the administration to keep information out of the public's hands."
In 2009, 9/11 commissioner Bob Kerrey said, in a talk with "We Are Change LA," that the 9/11 commission was hindered from doing a good job.
Kerrey says 9/11 Commission was hindered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtJWBcWAeAw#t=6m45
Kerrey: "It's a problem... it's a 30-year-old conspiracy"
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel: "No.. I'm talking about 9/11"
Kerrey: "That's what I'm talking about."
Excellent summary of WikiLeaks exposes
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/18/asre-a18.html
To repeat, I will acknowledge material from the right and the left, and even the center, if it is meritorious.
9/11 Blogger is among sources for this post.
Three points:
1. Special Counsel Robert Mueller shielded purported GRU agents from arrest and prosecution by blowing the lid off the "Russiagate" investigation, when he could easily have sought a sealed indictment of the 12 Russians. (See previous post.)
2. As FBI director, Mueller was part of a massive coverup of the true circumstances of the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax case.
Hence, anything Mueller has to say should be taken with a grain or ten of salt. Whether Rich did transfer pilfered files is, in my estimate, still unknown.
3. Assange is on record as a 9/11 conspiracy denier, which is ex-KGB officer Valdimir Putin's position, as well as ex-FBI chief Mueller's.
In July 2010, Assange told a Belfast Telegraph reporter, Matthew Bell, that the claim that the 9/11 attacks were organized as an inside job was a "crazed" and "false" conspiracy theory.
"I believe in facts about conspiracies," he said, adding, "Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two. Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news."
What about 9/11? Bell asked. "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracy theories such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."
It is noteworthy that Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has also denied that the 9/11 attacks stemmed from an inside job. According to a June 2017 report, Oliver Stone and Vladimir Putin discussed the attacks during a series of interviews which aired in the United States.
In a discussion of Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, Putin commented that he didn't believe that U.S. operatives had manipulated Snowden into Russian exile in order to brand him a traitor. "Nor do I believe that the American intelligence services were the ones to organize the terrorist attacks in New York.”
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Putin made common cause with President George Bush in the global "war on terror." The United States stopped protesting Putin's war against the Chechnyan Muslims.
In November 2009, Wikileaks released half a million federal text pager intercepts covering a 24-hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks. But such data is unlikely to have plainly exposed a high-level Deep State/intelligence system conspiracy. The fact that WikiLeaks was only able to publish a token of 9/11 data makes it appear that the Assange organization might have been covering itself from suspicion with regard to 9/11 coverup. Obviously, suspicion is far from proof.
9/11 pager intercepts
http://911.wikileaks.org/
Assange's 9/11 denialism not only dovetails with Mueller's coverup as FBI chief, it conforms to Putin's public position. It is not evident whether Putin's position is solely for foreign policy reasons or whether the ex-KGB officer is protecting a Russian operation within U.S. intelligence.
Former Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the congressional 9/11 investigation, told the BBC that "I can just state that within '9/11' there are too many secrets; that is, information that has not been made available to the public for which there are specific tangible credible answers and that that withholding of those secrets has eroded public confidence in their government as it relates to their own security."
Narrator: "Senator Graham found that the coverup led to the heart of the administration."
Graham: "I called the White House and talked with Ms. [National Security Adviser Condoleeza] Rice and said: 'Look, we've been told we're gonna get cooperation in this inquiry and she said she'd look into it and nothing happened'."
Interviewer: "Was there any sort of sense of embarrassment or apology or...?"
Graham: "No. Embarrassment, apology, regret, those are not characteristics associated with the current [Bush] White House."
Interviewer: "So it was a conspiracy to cover up the fact that blunders had been made in the lead-up to 9/11?"
Graham: "If by conspiracy you mean, more than one person involved, yes, there was more than one person and there was some ... collaboration of efforts among agencies and the administration to keep information out of the public's hands."
In 2009, 9/11 commissioner Bob Kerrey said, in a talk with "We Are Change LA," that the 9/11 commission was hindered from doing a good job.
Kerrey says 9/11 Commission was hindered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtJWBcWAeAw#t=6m45
Kerrey: "It's a problem... it's a 30-year-old conspiracy"
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel: "No.. I'm talking about 9/11"
Kerrey: "That's what I'm talking about."
Excellent summary of WikiLeaks exposes
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/18/asre-a18.html
To repeat, I will acknowledge material from the right and the left, and even the center, if it is meritorious.
9/11 Blogger is among sources for this post.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Mueller's obstruction of GRU probe
Robert S. Mueller's handling of the indictment of 12 Russians, identified as military intelligence (GRU) operatives, has been sharply questioned by Michael B. Mukasey, a former attorney general, who pointed out that Mueller seemed to be grandstanding.
Why didn't Mueller ask the court to seal the indictments so that the Russians would not be tipped off, thus giving the FBI time to try to trick some of them into coming to the United States, where they could be arrested, interrogated and put on trial?
The timing of the indictments -- right before President Trump was to meet with Russia's head man, Vladimir Putin, in July 2018 -- looked suspiciously political, Mukasey, a retired federal judge, observed.
By his decision to spoil any chance of nabbing any of the presumed Russian agents, it would appear that Mueller obstructed justice. Had any of them traveled outside Russia, there would have been an opportunity for arrest and extradition to America. Mueller, who headed the FBI for more than a decade, certainly knew he was wrecking an important avenue of investigation and shielding the GRU.
So here we have the chief Russian collusion investigator apparently colluding to assure that Russian military intelligence would not face serious damage by having the FBI possibly seize some GRU agents.
Why didn't Mueller ask the court to seal the indictments so that the Russians would not be tipped off, thus giving the FBI time to try to trick some of them into coming to the United States, where they could be arrested, interrogated and put on trial?
The timing of the indictments -- right before President Trump was to meet with Russia's head man, Vladimir Putin, in July 2018 -- looked suspiciously political, Mukasey, a retired federal judge, observed.
By his decision to spoil any chance of nabbing any of the presumed Russian agents, it would appear that Mueller obstructed justice. Had any of them traveled outside Russia, there would have been an opportunity for arrest and extradition to America. Mueller, who headed the FBI for more than a decade, certainly knew he was wrecking an important avenue of investigation and shielding the GRU.
So here we have the chief Russian collusion investigator apparently colluding to assure that Russian military intelligence would not face serious damage by having the FBI possibly seize some GRU agents.
The plastic fantastic case against Assange
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/04/julian-assanges-prosecution-about-much-more-attempting-hack-password
First Amendment in peril
https://huntnewsnu.com/59114/editorial/column-assange-arrest-could-spell-trouble-for-the-first-amendment/
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Only dorks
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Rand Paul wants Assange immunized
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., favors granting Julian Assange immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on what he knows about "Russiagate," according to published reports.
The libertarian-leaning senator (pictured at left) told a reporter,
“I think that he should be given immunity from prosecution in exchange for coming to the United States and testifying,” Paul said. “I think he’s been someone who has released a lot of information, and you can debate whether or not any of that has caused harm, but I think really he has information that is probably pertinent to the hacking of the Democratic emails that would be nice to hear.”
In August, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Assange in care of the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he was living in asylum. The letter requests that Assange consent to a “closed interview with bipartisan Committee staff at a mutually agreeable time and location.”
Burr was hoping to find out whether Assange had any pertinent information related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Assange has denied that WikiLeaks received any data from a state actor. He has been accused by officials of being a Russian agent, but no evidence to that effect has been presented, according to William Binney, a onetime National Security Agency whistleblower and expert on intelligence technology. Binney expressed grave doubt as to the claims against Assange when interviewed by Epoch Times, a widely distributed anti-Chinese communist newspaper.
Assange is being held in a terrorist lockup in Britain on a U.S. cyber-terrorism charge after his "overkill" arrest by British police at Ecuador's London embassy.
Press freedom advocates are likely to point out that the making of such a deal tends to give government an implicit oversight role in what free persons can publish, in direct conflict with the First Amendment.
Rand Paul is the son of Ron Paul, a libertarian activist and retired lawmaker from Texas, who is denouncing Assange's arrest as a power play by the thought police.
Sources: Gateway Pundit, The New American.
The libertarian-leaning senator (pictured at left) told a reporter,
“I think that he should be given immunity from prosecution in exchange for coming to the United States and testifying,” Paul said. “I think he’s been someone who has released a lot of information, and you can debate whether or not any of that has caused harm, but I think really he has information that is probably pertinent to the hacking of the Democratic emails that would be nice to hear.”
In August, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Assange in care of the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he was living in asylum. The letter requests that Assange consent to a “closed interview with bipartisan Committee staff at a mutually agreeable time and location.”
Burr was hoping to find out whether Assange had any pertinent information related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Assange has denied that WikiLeaks received any data from a state actor. He has been accused by officials of being a Russian agent, but no evidence to that effect has been presented, according to William Binney, a onetime National Security Agency whistleblower and expert on intelligence technology. Binney expressed grave doubt as to the claims against Assange when interviewed by Epoch Times, a widely distributed anti-Chinese communist newspaper.
Assange is being held in a terrorist lockup in Britain on a U.S. cyber-terrorism charge after his "overkill" arrest by British police at Ecuador's London embassy.
Press freedom advocates are likely to point out that the making of such a deal tends to give government an implicit oversight role in what free persons can publish, in direct conflict with the First Amendment.
Rand Paul is the son of Ron Paul, a libertarian activist and retired lawmaker from Texas, who is denouncing Assange's arrest as a power play by the thought police.
Sources: Gateway Pundit, The New American.
The needless angst over 'fringe' opinions
Isn't it just awful that people are speculating that the Notre Dame fire was no accident? Speculation is being pressured off the internet in the event that some people might believe the dread conspiracy theories. But not to worry: the thought police are hard at work making sure dumb you is protected from these ideas because you can't be trusted to think for yourself.
And then there is a small sub-set of you who are natural-born trolls who will lobby Big Tech, the government, Diane Feinstein... to muzzle those who say things that offend you, as if you are really so stupid that you don't realize that you needn't pay heed to people speaking freely over the internet. How can you not see that you are undermining your own First Amendment right to speak and disseminate your views?
And then there is a small sub-set of you who are natural-born trolls who will lobby Big Tech, the government, Diane Feinstein... to muzzle those who say things that offend you, as if you are really so stupid that you don't realize that you needn't pay heed to people speaking freely over the internet. How can you not see that you are undermining your own First Amendment right to speak and disseminate your views?
Might Assange face waterboarding?
Below is another blast from the Left on the Assange matter. The Trotskyists warn that Assange faces "extraordinary rendition" to some federal hell hole [perhaps a U.S. "black site" or Guantanamo Naval Base]. Considering the overwhelming hate speech by the corporate media against publisher Assange, the fear may be realistic. After all, the United States has charged Assange under a terrorism statute and the conservative British government has sequestered him in a facility used for terrorists.
The CIA director, Gina Haspel, has said she won't authorize waterboarding of terrorism suspects, but President Trump has in the past strongly recommended that that form of torture be employed. And it is evident that powerful forces in Washington want him to give testimony connecting WikiLeaks to Russian intelligence. In a fair process, Assange would have a Fifth Amendment right not to testify against himself. But as a foreign terror suspect, Assange has few rights, so that waterboarding and other types of "enhanced interrogation" could come into play.
World Socialists warn of 'rendition'
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/15/pers-a15.html
15 April 2019
The attempt by the British, Ecuadorian and U.S. governments to force the removal of journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States is an antidemocratic conspiracy and a brazen violation of international law.
While the U.S. government presents the process against Assange as an extradition, the difference between an extradition and an extraordinary rendition—in which a state carries out an extrajudicial abduction for the purpose of arbitrary detention, torture, and summary punishment—is being effectively obliterated.
The U.S. government is, in effect, applying a similar method to Assange as it used against those it has subjected to extraordinary rendition during the “war on terror.” Since 2001, the CIA has abducted hundreds of people, bound them up, flown them across the world to secret CIA “black site” dungeons and subjected them to harsh interrogation and torture. Once the government gets its hands on Assange, it is questionable whether he will ever be seen again.
The process has been accompanied by a campaign of media vilification that seems to have no restraint. Its aim is to transform Assange into a monster so that he can be deprived of his rights.
Assange exposed war crime
The CIA director, Gina Haspel, has said she won't authorize waterboarding of terrorism suspects, but President Trump has in the past strongly recommended that that form of torture be employed. And it is evident that powerful forces in Washington want him to give testimony connecting WikiLeaks to Russian intelligence. In a fair process, Assange would have a Fifth Amendment right not to testify against himself. But as a foreign terror suspect, Assange has few rights, so that waterboarding and other types of "enhanced interrogation" could come into play.
World Socialists warn of 'rendition'
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/15/pers-a15.html
15 April 2019
The attempt by the British, Ecuadorian and U.S. governments to force the removal of journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States is an antidemocratic conspiracy and a brazen violation of international law.
While the U.S. government presents the process against Assange as an extradition, the difference between an extradition and an extraordinary rendition—in which a state carries out an extrajudicial abduction for the purpose of arbitrary detention, torture, and summary punishment—is being effectively obliterated.
The U.S. government is, in effect, applying a similar method to Assange as it used against those it has subjected to extraordinary rendition during the “war on terror.” Since 2001, the CIA has abducted hundreds of people, bound them up, flown them across the world to secret CIA “black site” dungeons and subjected them to harsh interrogation and torture. Once the government gets its hands on Assange, it is questionable whether he will ever be seen again.
The process has been accompanied by a campaign of media vilification that seems to have no restraint. Its aim is to transform Assange into a monster so that he can be deprived of his rights.
Assange exposed war crime
What the endless media reports ignore is that Assange has exposed imperialist crimes in wars that killed millions of civilians and thousands of US soldiers. He has brought to light horrific crimes that the government and corporate media conspired to keep secret.
While watching the news personalities slander the persecuted journalist and late-night show hosts subject him to degraded and scatological mockery, one wishes to stick a bar of soap in each of their mouths.
The U.S., British and Ecuadorian government claim that Assange’s extradition is proper because the US is indicting the whistleblower only on a single charge of attempting to help Chelsea Manning bypass a password. But in the aftermath of Assange’s arrest, the corporate press and politicians have contradicted the official explanation, letting slip the real reason the U.S. wants custody over Assange.
The Washington Post's editorial board wrote: “Mr. Assange’s transfer to U.S. custody, followed possibly by additional Russia-related charges or his conversion into a cooperating witness, could be the key to learning more about Russian intelligence’s efforts to undermine democracy in the West. Certainly he is long overdue for personal accountability.”
The New York Times said, “Once in the United States, moreover, he could become a useful source on how Russia orchestrated its attacks on the Clinton campaign.”
Shumer smears publisher as Putin agent
After British police dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorian embassy, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer tweeted, “Now that Julian Assange has been arrested, I hope he will soon be held to account for his meddling in our elections on behalf of Putin and the Russian government.” The Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel tweeted that Assange “time after time compromised the national security of the United States and our allies by publicly releasing classified government documents and confidential materials related to our 2016 presidential election.”
These statements show that the extradition proceedings are being conducted under false pretenses. The single public charge is a cover. The government is planning to interrogate Assange, compel him to provide testimony and further prosecute him for exposing U.S. war crimes. In the words of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin: “He is our property and we can get the facts and the truth from him.”
Assange has no obligation to provide the government with any testimony because he has the Fifth Amendment right not to testify against himself. The media and politicians’ statements beg the question: How does the government plan to “get the facts” from him? What harsh measures, practiced in the prisons of Abu Gharaib and Bagram Air Force Base, will be brought to bear?
The proceedings in the days since Assange’s arrest show the type of treatment he will receive in any legal proceeding.
Sanctuary principle violated
The British government, on the invite of Ecuadorian President and imperialist lackey Lenin Moreno, blatantly violated the principle of consular sanctuary by dragging Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. This exposes the statements of the U.S. and British governments admonishing the Saudi government for murdering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey, last year as thoroughly hypocritical.
On Thursday, the British district judge who heard Assange’s bail request mocked him and laughed when Assange’s lawyers requested a fair hearing. “His assertion that he has not had a fair hearing is laughable,” said judge Michael Snow. “And his behavior is that of a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interests.” Assange has been sent to Belmarsh, a maximum security prison for terrorists and other high-risk detainees, where half of all prisoners are allowed to leave their cells for only two hours a week.
There is no question that Assange will be denied the right to a fair trial in the U.S., where the entire political and media establishment has already pronounced his guilt. In whatever “trial” takes place, Assange’s lawyers will be regularly denied the right to review evidence against their client on the grounds that it is “classified” for “national security” purposes.
The conspiracy against Assange confirms the absence of any constituency for the defense of democratic rights in the ruling class.
To the leaders of the democratic revolutions of the 18th century, the practices now called extraordinary rendition recalled the dark and crowded dungeons of Charles II and Louis XIV, filled with political prisoners. The bourgeois revolutions in France and the United States abolished arbitrary detention and torture as the hated method of political reaction, upholding the right of due process, habeas corpus, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. Under international law today, extraordinary rendition is a crime against humanity according to the Nuremberg principles.
If the ruling class can conduct this operation against Assange without any opposition from the political or media establishment, then any crime is possible. All the while, “left” figures like Jeremy Corbyn go along with the lie, absolving themselves of any responsibility.
Lenient with Chile's Pinochet
As for the British government, its brutal handling of Assange contrasts with its response to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who fought an extradition request after Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon attempted to prosecute Pinochet in Spain for mass murder. In 2000, the Labour government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to extradite Pinochet and ordered his release from house arrest at his mansion in Surrey.
"The attempted trial of an accused in the condition diagnosed in Senator Pinochet on the charges which have been made against him in this case could not be a fair trial in any country and would violate Article Six of the European Convention on Human Rights," the Home Office wrote at the time.
While the dictator Pinochet murdered and tortured thousands of workers and socialists after taking power in the September 11, 1973 coup, Julian Assange published evidence of US war crimes. He is hated by the international ruling class because he has done significant damage to the interests of imperialism.
The seven years since Assange was forced to seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy have seen the reemergence of the class struggle on an international scale. It is this powerful social force—the working class—that must be mobilized to defend democratic rights and secure the liberation of class-war prisoners like Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.
Eric London
Thanks to the World Socialists for offering this article to be freely disseminated.
AntiWar.org: U.S. prosecutors revive false narratives
https://news.antiwar.com/2019/04/15/prosecutors-revive-long-discredited-narratives-for-assange-trial/
Ecuador chief took 'foreign aid' bribe -- Ron Paul report
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2019/04/15/co-conspirator-ecuador-paid-off-to-deliver-assange/
Intimidation of journalists and others is the big issue, Paul said. The real motive behind Assange's arrest is to "squelch the people who have the courage to tell the truth."
The Deep State, which runs the Federal Reserve System, is behind Assange's arrest, which "they see as a victory," the retired Texas lawmaker said.
In planning to lend the unorthodox publisher a hand, Paul foresees a positive result for Assange once he is transferred to U.S. soil.
Fake news media treats Assange like Trump
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/04/17/medi-a17.html
This disgusting and shameful gloating resembles nothing so much as a pillory or lynching, where the dregs of society are invited to hurl insults and garbage at a powerless victim. But unlike in Dickens’ London, these social dregs find themselves not at the bottom, but at the top of society: they are multi-millionaires staffing the media, the entertainment industry, and the big business parties.
Of course, there is a political reason and logic to this outpouring of vitriol. The aim is to manufacture public opinion: to make the heroic journalist an un-person, stripped of all rights—an outcast—in order to justify the US state’s persecution.
Monday, April 15, 2019
Assange was probing Google
on mass surveillance plans
Before he was arrested and tossed into a jail used for terrorists, Julian Assange was investigating Google's plans for trolling your data to benefit government surveillance powers, according to a writer who visited him at the Ecuadoran embassy in London.
"I met Assange two years ago" in the embassy, said Giorgio Agamben, an Italian philosopher, and on recalling what he "told me during our encounter, I think one can understand why he was arrested."
Agamben declared, "Assange mentioned to me that he was investigating how Google was planning to make use of the immense quantity of information at its disposal. It had to do with, according to Assange, selling to insurance companies and secret services data about the interests, desires, consumption habits, state of health, reading practices…in a nutshell data about the life of millions of individuals in all its aspects."
The philosopher continued, "According to Assange—and I believe we can share his view—this would mean an unprecedented increase in the possible ways of controlling human beings through the powers of the market and the police. What is at the core of Assange’s arrest is, therefore, not only the desire to punish past WikiLeaks investigations, but to impede investigations currently underway that evidently all those implicated seem to be threatened by. It is also for this reason that it is necessary to express unreserved solidarity with
Published in English by CounterPunch. Translated from the Italian by Masturah Alatas.
Assange's great deed
As a mostly libertarian individual, I have no problem quoting from the Left (as well as the Right). Both CounterPunch and British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn are on the Left. From CounterPunch:
Mrs. Clinton must answer for what she has done
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, as the old saying goes.
"I met Assange two years ago" in the embassy, said Giorgio Agamben, an Italian philosopher, and on recalling what he "told me during our encounter, I think one can understand why he was arrested."
Agamben declared, "Assange mentioned to me that he was investigating how Google was planning to make use of the immense quantity of information at its disposal. It had to do with, according to Assange, selling to insurance companies and secret services data about the interests, desires, consumption habits, state of health, reading practices…in a nutshell data about the life of millions of individuals in all its aspects."
The philosopher continued, "According to Assange—and I believe we can share his view—this would mean an unprecedented increase in the possible ways of controlling human beings through the powers of the market and the police. What is at the core of Assange’s arrest is, therefore, not only the desire to punish past WikiLeaks investigations, but to impede investigations currently underway that evidently all those implicated seem to be threatened by. It is also for this reason that it is necessary to express unreserved solidarity with
Published in English by CounterPunch. Translated from the Italian by Masturah Alatas.
Assange's great deed
As a mostly libertarian individual, I have no problem quoting from the Left (as well as the Right). Both CounterPunch and British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn are on the Left. From CounterPunch:
Jeremy Corbyn is correct to say that the affair is all about “the extradition of Julian Assange to the U.S. for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan.” But, within hours of Assange’s detention, it was clear that nobody much cared about innocent people dying in the streets of Baghdad or in the villages of Afghanistan and Assange has already become a political weapon in the poisonous political confrontation over Brexit with Corbyn’s support for Assange enabling Conservatives to claim that he is a security risk.Denis Rogatyuk writes in CounterPunch that Ecuador President Lenin
Lost in this dog-fight is what Assange and WikiLeaks really achieved and why it was of great importance in establishing the truth about wars being fought [in our name] in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.
Moreno’s decision to silence Julian Assange and expel him serve a duel purpose -- to gain the trust of the Trump administration, and to distract the national and international public away from his corrupt dealing in off-shore bank accounts, the fraudulent elections of March 24th and his mishandling of the Ecuadorian economy. This has also been echoed in the comments made by Rafael Correa, the former President of Ecuador who first authorised Julian Assange’s asylum back in 2012. After having his page blocked on Facebook, Correa stated that “In his hatred, because Wikileaks published corruption of INA papers, Moreno wanted to destroy Assange’s life. He probably did it, but he has also done a huge damage to the country. Who will trust in ECUADOR again?”.
Mrs. Clinton must answer for what she has done
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, as the old saying goes.
Assange case perils press, WaPoster warns
Traditional journalists spurn Assange at their peril
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/traditional-journalists-may-abandon-wikileaks-assange-at-their-own-peril/2019/04/11/45ae985c-5c84-11e9-842d-7d3ed7eb3957_story.html?utm_term=.d0d5a23b6cb1
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Ron Paul: Big Lie system targets Assange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8pO8rGwA6U
Ron Paul
From The Ron Paul Liberty Report:
www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/
Big Government lives on the public believing in Big Lies. The lies are all meticulously maintained by a gargantuan propaganda apparatus that encompasses government schools, government-licensed mainstream media, Hollywood, major sports, and on and on...From time-to-time heroic individuals slip through the cracks and alert the public about the truth. Needless to say, Big Government and its propaganda apparatus never takes it well.Streamed LIVE Apr. 5, 2019
Ron Paul, still an active libertarian after retirement from Congress, compared the case of Julian Assange to that of Galileo Galilei. Truth tellers who challenge entrenched systems of falsehoods and bad information will be attacked by the military-financial empire that is strangling American liberty, he said. The government repeatedly lies the country into war, resulting in large numbers of deaths, Paul said.
He praised Chelsea Manning for releasing secret information that showed the dark side of the war in Iraq, and for going back to jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury empaneled against Assange.
Paul argued that Assange was being hounded by authorities because of publishing truthful information, that enlightened many people. "I believe he was a true journalist," Paul said, countering the propaganda blitz that is aimed at decertifying Assange's journalistic status with the unspoken assumption that his media operations are not corporate and so not "legitimate."
Friday, April 12, 2019
Vast blackout imposed
on bogus Assange
terrorism charge
on bogus Assange
terrorism charge
Pence sees Aussie as guilty
of disseminating classified data
Most of the press is avoiding telling the public that Julian Assange had to be slapped with a shaky terrorism charge in order for the government to get past the five-year limit for filing of a computer intrusion charge.
The New York Times was among a handful of media outlets that did mention the terror charge. It did so in an "explainer" story, calling the charge an "oddity" -- while evidently being blind to the threat to media people everywhere of a precedent for using a trick terrorism charge in order to punish someone for publishing something. After all, what was the "act of terror"? It was the act of publishing, since quite obviously the feds would not have seen any "terrorism" if WikiLeaks hadn't published leaked documents.
The Times wrote, "There is an oddity: As part of the USA Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress added [a] provision to a list of crimes that get an eight-year limit under a separate law titled 'extension of statute of limitation for certain terrorism offenses.' While Mr. Assange’s case involves national security, it is not about terrorism. The 'terrorism' heading most likely makes no legal difference, however — just as prosecutors can use the words of the Espionage Act to charge leakers, not just spies."
Well, maybe the Times is right, but even so, why is there such a gigantic blackout on this pesky li'l fact?
Could it be that the Powers that Be fear the citizenry would laugh at the feds for accusing Assange of engaging in terrorism merely in order to have a legal gimmick for nailing him?
Right now, of course, the feds are unlikely to unseal an indictment against Dean Baquet, editor of The New York Times, for publishing something that upsets high officials. Only a few marginalized journalists will get slapped with terror indictmnents. But, the trickle is bound to turn into a gusher and in a few years no one will be surprised if an FBI swat team seizes Baquet at his home in the dead of night.
You think that's paranoid thinking? That proves you are altogether too trusting, and probably too lazy to take a hard look at the vast "Deep State" conspiracy to nullify the Number One American liberty: freedom of speech, press and religion.
U.S. prepares to add charges
In any case, the bogus terror charge may not matter. U.S. prosecutors have just under two months to present British authorities with a final and detailed criminal case to justify the possible extradition of Assange, an unnamed federal official told Reuters Friday.
So if the terror charge gets tossed out, thus ending the cyber intrusion case, other charges will be used to make sure to find some pretext to try Assange. The difficulty will be satisfying the British government that the charges are politically palatable in Britain.
The official, who asked for anonymity when discussing the case, said U.S. authorities had already sent Britain a provisional arrest warrant regarding Assange’s extradition to the United States.
U.S. officials have said that as far leaks go, the disclosure of details about the CIA's abilities to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare was potentially far more damaging to U.S. government activities than anything Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning made available to WikiLeaks, Reuters noted. Yet, many of the intelligence techniques mentioned in the CIA document had already appeared in the press. Hence, such disclosures would have done the agency little harm because adversaries would have assumed the CIA was at least aware of such techniques as soon as they showed up in the press, well before WikiLeaks got involved.
Pence spills the beans re media's peril
Friday on CNN Vice President Mike Pence said the United States was “going to bring Julian Assange to justice” for being "involved in disseminating classified information."
Pence denied that statements by President Trump, in which he praised WikiLeaks during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, were in any way “an endorsement of an organization that we now understand was involved in disseminating classified information.”
From Pence's statement, one can see immediately that news organizations like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian, which have been "involved in disseminating classified information," are considered legitimate targets for federal prosecution.
The New York Times was among a handful of media outlets that did mention the terror charge. It did so in an "explainer" story, calling the charge an "oddity" -- while evidently being blind to the threat to media people everywhere of a precedent for using a trick terrorism charge in order to punish someone for publishing something. After all, what was the "act of terror"? It was the act of publishing, since quite obviously the feds would not have seen any "terrorism" if WikiLeaks hadn't published leaked documents.
The Times wrote, "There is an oddity: As part of the USA Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress added [a] provision to a list of crimes that get an eight-year limit under a separate law titled 'extension of statute of limitation for certain terrorism offenses.' While Mr. Assange’s case involves national security, it is not about terrorism. The 'terrorism' heading most likely makes no legal difference, however — just as prosecutors can use the words of the Espionage Act to charge leakers, not just spies."
Well, maybe the Times is right, but even so, why is there such a gigantic blackout on this pesky li'l fact?
Could it be that the Powers that Be fear the citizenry would laugh at the feds for accusing Assange of engaging in terrorism merely in order to have a legal gimmick for nailing him?
Right now, of course, the feds are unlikely to unseal an indictment against Dean Baquet, editor of The New York Times, for publishing something that upsets high officials. Only a few marginalized journalists will get slapped with terror indictmnents. But, the trickle is bound to turn into a gusher and in a few years no one will be surprised if an FBI swat team seizes Baquet at his home in the dead of night.
You think that's paranoid thinking? That proves you are altogether too trusting, and probably too lazy to take a hard look at the vast "Deep State" conspiracy to nullify the Number One American liberty: freedom of speech, press and religion.
U.S. prepares to add charges
In any case, the bogus terror charge may not matter. U.S. prosecutors have just under two months to present British authorities with a final and detailed criminal case to justify the possible extradition of Assange, an unnamed federal official told Reuters Friday.
So if the terror charge gets tossed out, thus ending the cyber intrusion case, other charges will be used to make sure to find some pretext to try Assange. The difficulty will be satisfying the British government that the charges are politically palatable in Britain.
The official, who asked for anonymity when discussing the case, said U.S. authorities had already sent Britain a provisional arrest warrant regarding Assange’s extradition to the United States.
U.S. officials have said that as far leaks go, the disclosure of details about the CIA's abilities to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare was potentially far more damaging to U.S. government activities than anything Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning made available to WikiLeaks, Reuters noted. Yet, many of the intelligence techniques mentioned in the CIA document had already appeared in the press. Hence, such disclosures would have done the agency little harm because adversaries would have assumed the CIA was at least aware of such techniques as soon as they showed up in the press, well before WikiLeaks got involved.
Pence spills the beans re media's peril
Friday on CNN Vice President Mike Pence said the United States was “going to bring Julian Assange to justice” for being "involved in disseminating classified information."
Pence denied that statements by President Trump, in which he praised WikiLeaks during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, were in any way “an endorsement of an organization that we now understand was involved in disseminating classified information.”
From Pence's statement, one can see immediately that news organizations like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian, which have been "involved in disseminating classified information," are considered legitimate targets for federal prosecution.
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Assange arrest
aimed at Trump?
aimed at Trump?
Fake terror charge echoes
fakery in FISA warrants
The desire to 'get' Julian Assange has never been about accusations from his ex-Swedish sex partners. It was the extremely vengeful Obama administration that put the pressure on Sweden to reactivate its charges against Assange soon after they had been dropped years ago. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wanted him droned for publishing State Department documents purloined by Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning.
Supposedly, the British want him for ducking extradition to Sweden by taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy. But this is all nonsense. Everyone knows his real "crime" is the publishing of files that governments use to control their business (and their populations). I wonder whether Ecuador turned against him because WikiLeaks dared publish a cache of Russian documents.
The U.S. Justice Department (FBI I suppose) has revealed its interest in the matter by (finally) officially revealing that Assange is wanted for assisting in computer intrusion, not for making like the New York Times and publishing secret documents.
But we all know that Assange became Public Enemy Number 1 when WikiLeaks published emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chief, John Podesta. Immediately on publication, the Clinton group roared that Clinton was a victim of a Russian conspiracy -- even though Assange denied obtaining the data from the Russian government. The "Russian collusion" theory against Trump then was given a huge partisan boost.
But the Deep State and the Democrats are terribly embarrassed: NO RUSSIAN COLLUSION, saith Robert Mueller.
What to do? What to do?
Get Assange! That will blow up Trump with his own bomb.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a Virginia Democrat, was elated, calling Assange’s arrest "great for the American people." He added, "We’re going to extradite him. It will be really good to get him back on United States soil. So now he’s our property and we can get the facts and truth from him." There is little doubt that his implication is that Assange's arrest is "great for the Democratic Party."
Recall how Donald Trump jokingly urged WikiLeaks to publish 30,000 of Clinton's missing emails. Clinton and her crew ignored the humor and accused Trump of colluding with the "Russian puppet," WikiLeaks.
So what is Trump going to do? Aha! If he bars Assange's arrest, the FBI and the Democrats will accuse him of obstructing justice. But if he permits the Justice Department to persecute his "ally," he will look weak. It will look as though Trump's drive to launch criminal investigations of national security people who harassed him hasn't got much moxie, that the Deep State securocrats are stronger.
Oh, but that scenario would require collusion. The Deep State (as in, permanent CIA) would have to "reach" the Ecuadoran and the British authorities to assure that Assange was delivered in time to save Trump's foes. Oh well, let's forget about it. We all know that only Russians, not Deep Staters, collude.
The indictment was handed down in March 2018. So Attorney General Bill Barr had nothing to do with that part of the case. But it seems likely the Justice and State Departments were conferring with the Ecuadoran and British governments on the terms of the arrest. As the Daily Mail pointed out,
"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," said Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman.
Trump has a complicated history with WikiLeaks, a Los Angeles Times report noted, claiming during the campaign to "love" the organization, which leaked stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and others that were damaging to his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Pompeo said the intelligence community had determined that Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU, used WikiLeaks as a conduit to release data obtained by hacking the DNC and others.
Pompeo was echoing the line espoused by his Democrat predecessor, John Brennan, the ex-communist sympathizer who became President Obama's CIA chief. In any case, Pompeo neglected to mention that various intelligence agencies, including British intelligence and the CIA, would have been tempted to use WikiLeaks in order to disseminate information that would damage an adversary. And, by the way, what difference is there in Putin's minions passing documents to WikiLeaks and Deep State officials passing documents to The New York Times and The Washington Post to damage Trump? If the data can be verified, it is likely to be published. The CIA gets information from all sorts of sordid sources. Would Pompeo say that, ergo, the CIA is "dirty" ?
So it seems I have answered the question in the headline. The Trump administration has been working to seize Assange -- and now Trump distances himself from the WikiLeaks founder, brushing him off with, "I know nothing about WikiLeaks." Yet, any conclusion that the Assange arrest doesn't endanger Trump politically is myopic. Trump may very well have been high-pressured into going along with the prosecution. Had he said anything about, for example, the bribe of Ecuador, Mueller might well have reacted by scribbling "obstruction of justice" on his yellow pad.
So Trump was forced to walk on eggshells with regard to Assange. But, to repeat, a Deep State conviction of Assange is assuredly a victory not only for the Deep State, but for Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Bill Barr is in a terrible pickle. And, to make his situation worse, we learn:
Fake terror charge unsealed
Experts consulted by Wired agreed that the Justice Department had skirted the issue of Assange's journalistic status by charging him as a hacker who had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But, that consensus is questionable.
Federal prosecutors were able to void the five-year statute of limitation on the hacker charge by claiming that Assange had committed an "act of terrorism," according to Tor Ekeland, a hacker defense attorney quoted by Wired. "To get the benefit of the eight years, they’re trying to call this a terrorist act," Ekeland told Wired. "That seems a little weird."
What exactly was the intent of Assange's so-called "terrorism"? The intent was very obviously journalism. So, the Justice Department has not successfully dodged the issue of Assange being targeted for doing what journalists do. In order to be able to charge him, prosecutors had to characterize him as a terroristic journalist. This sounds like the sort of charge one would expect from Pyongyang.
It sure is hard to miss the parallel between the Justice Department's use of a fake terror charge in order to go after Assange and its use of fake rationalizations for FISA warrants in its vendetta against Trump.
Cali Dem sees 1st Amendment issue
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said that the Assange indictment is “overbroad” in a way that raises “First Amendment concerns,” and that all journalists should worry that the precedent would be set that "sharing information" with the press can be construed as a criminal offense.
Conservative journalist raps spy system
From the conservative quarter, the columnnist Mark Steyn on Thursday termed the Assange indictment “extremely weak” and, speaking to the Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, chastised the U.S. intelligence system.
“The idea that he's somehow goaded and encouraged Manning to steal this stuff. That the line he used... Manning tells Assange, 'that's all I've got left to give to you.' And Assange says 'curious eyes never run dry in my experience.' The idea that a corrupt federal criminal justice system could extradite and convict a man on the basis of those words ought to disturb every American,” Steyn told Carlson.
Why are Dems so elated?
Isn't Trump a dictator type who despises liberal journalists? What's to stop him from having "enemy" journalists indicted on bogus terror charges as a way of silencing them, and exacting revenge for giving him a bad time? In fact, once the Justice Department has this precedent in hand, it will be relatively easy for "the dictator" to have any journalist almost anywhere in the world seized and transported to the United States, where she or he would face federal terrorism prosecutions. Perhaps Democrats haven't thought through the full impact of the fake charge against Assange. Though I am not assuming Trump would stoop so low, it is evident that many Democrats and liberals suspect that he would use such a club to silence "the resistance."
The American Civil Liberties Union1 expressed similar concerns.
Ben Wizner, director of the group's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a written statement:
1. The ACLU has been faulted by Alan Dershowitz, an ex-ACLU member and retired Harvard law professor, as having turned partisan.
Supposedly, the British want him for ducking extradition to Sweden by taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy. But this is all nonsense. Everyone knows his real "crime" is the publishing of files that governments use to control their business (and their populations). I wonder whether Ecuador turned against him because WikiLeaks dared publish a cache of Russian documents.
The U.S. Justice Department (FBI I suppose) has revealed its interest in the matter by (finally) officially revealing that Assange is wanted for assisting in computer intrusion, not for making like the New York Times and publishing secret documents.
But we all know that Assange became Public Enemy Number 1 when WikiLeaks published emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chief, John Podesta. Immediately on publication, the Clinton group roared that Clinton was a victim of a Russian conspiracy -- even though Assange denied obtaining the data from the Russian government. The "Russian collusion" theory against Trump then was given a huge partisan boost.
But the Deep State and the Democrats are terribly embarrassed: NO RUSSIAN COLLUSION, saith Robert Mueller.
What to do? What to do?
Get Assange! That will blow up Trump with his own bomb.
Sen. Joe Manchin, a Virginia Democrat, was elated, calling Assange’s arrest "great for the American people." He added, "We’re going to extradite him. It will be really good to get him back on United States soil. So now he’s our property and we can get the facts and truth from him." There is little doubt that his implication is that Assange's arrest is "great for the Democratic Party."
Recall how Donald Trump jokingly urged WikiLeaks to publish 30,000 of Clinton's missing emails. Clinton and her crew ignored the humor and accused Trump of colluding with the "Russian puppet," WikiLeaks.
So what is Trump going to do? Aha! If he bars Assange's arrest, the FBI and the Democrats will accuse him of obstructing justice. But if he permits the Justice Department to persecute his "ally," he will look weak. It will look as though Trump's drive to launch criminal investigations of national security people who harassed him hasn't got much moxie, that the Deep State securocrats are stronger.
Oh, but that scenario would require collusion. The Deep State (as in, permanent CIA) would have to "reach" the Ecuadoran and the British authorities to assure that Assange was delivered in time to save Trump's foes. Oh well, let's forget about it. We all know that only Russians, not Deep Staters, collude.
The indictment was handed down in March 2018. So Attorney General Bill Barr had nothing to do with that part of the case. But it seems likely the Justice and State Departments were conferring with the Ecuadoran and British governments on the terms of the arrest. As the Daily Mail pointed out,
Since early 2017, the U.S. has been prodding Ecuador to cut ties with Assange, who had been living in the nation's embassy in London for nearly five years.When he was Trump's CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, denounced Assange as a "narcissist" who works in concert with Russia, relying on "the dirty work of others to make him famous." Pompeo was irked that WikiLeaks had published some confidential files apparently provided by a government contractor. I speculated at the time that the CIA had set up WikiLeaks in order to give Pompeo a reason to back the Deep State's desire to nail Assange.
It sweetened the pot in February, when a collection of global financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that have their headquarters in Washington awarded Ecuador $10.2 billion in rescue loans.
"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia," said Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman.
Trump has a complicated history with WikiLeaks, a Los Angeles Times report noted, claiming during the campaign to "love" the organization, which leaked stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee and others that were damaging to his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Pompeo said the intelligence community had determined that Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU, used WikiLeaks as a conduit to release data obtained by hacking the DNC and others.
Pompeo was echoing the line espoused by his Democrat predecessor, John Brennan, the ex-communist sympathizer who became President Obama's CIA chief. In any case, Pompeo neglected to mention that various intelligence agencies, including British intelligence and the CIA, would have been tempted to use WikiLeaks in order to disseminate information that would damage an adversary. And, by the way, what difference is there in Putin's minions passing documents to WikiLeaks and Deep State officials passing documents to The New York Times and The Washington Post to damage Trump? If the data can be verified, it is likely to be published. The CIA gets information from all sorts of sordid sources. Would Pompeo say that, ergo, the CIA is "dirty" ?
So it seems I have answered the question in the headline. The Trump administration has been working to seize Assange -- and now Trump distances himself from the WikiLeaks founder, brushing him off with, "I know nothing about WikiLeaks." Yet, any conclusion that the Assange arrest doesn't endanger Trump politically is myopic. Trump may very well have been high-pressured into going along with the prosecution. Had he said anything about, for example, the bribe of Ecuador, Mueller might well have reacted by scribbling "obstruction of justice" on his yellow pad.
So Trump was forced to walk on eggshells with regard to Assange. But, to repeat, a Deep State conviction of Assange is assuredly a victory not only for the Deep State, but for Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Bill Barr is in a terrible pickle. And, to make his situation worse, we learn:
Fake terror charge unsealed
Experts consulted by Wired agreed that the Justice Department had skirted the issue of Assange's journalistic status by charging him as a hacker who had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But, that consensus is questionable.
Federal prosecutors were able to void the five-year statute of limitation on the hacker charge by claiming that Assange had committed an "act of terrorism," according to Tor Ekeland, a hacker defense attorney quoted by Wired. "To get the benefit of the eight years, they’re trying to call this a terrorist act," Ekeland told Wired. "That seems a little weird."
What exactly was the intent of Assange's so-called "terrorism"? The intent was very obviously journalism. So, the Justice Department has not successfully dodged the issue of Assange being targeted for doing what journalists do. In order to be able to charge him, prosecutors had to characterize him as a terroristic journalist. This sounds like the sort of charge one would expect from Pyongyang.
It sure is hard to miss the parallel between the Justice Department's use of a fake terror charge in order to go after Assange and its use of fake rationalizations for FISA warrants in its vendetta against Trump.
Cali Dem sees 1st Amendment issue
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said that the Assange indictment is “overbroad” in a way that raises “First Amendment concerns,” and that all journalists should worry that the precedent would be set that "sharing information" with the press can be construed as a criminal offense.
Conservative journalist raps spy system
From the conservative quarter, the columnnist Mark Steyn on Thursday termed the Assange indictment “extremely weak” and, speaking to the Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, chastised the U.S. intelligence system.
“The idea that he's somehow goaded and encouraged Manning to steal this stuff. That the line he used... Manning tells Assange, 'that's all I've got left to give to you.' And Assange says 'curious eyes never run dry in my experience.' The idea that a corrupt federal criminal justice system could extradite and convict a man on the basis of those words ought to disturb every American,” Steyn told Carlson.
Why are Dems so elated?
Isn't Trump a dictator type who despises liberal journalists? What's to stop him from having "enemy" journalists indicted on bogus terror charges as a way of silencing them, and exacting revenge for giving him a bad time? In fact, once the Justice Department has this precedent in hand, it will be relatively easy for "the dictator" to have any journalist almost anywhere in the world seized and transported to the United States, where she or he would face federal terrorism prosecutions. Perhaps Democrats haven't thought through the full impact of the fake charge against Assange. Though I am not assuming Trump would stoop so low, it is evident that many Democrats and liberals suspect that he would use such a club to silence "the resistance."
The American Civil Liberties Union1 expressed similar concerns.
Ben Wizner, director of the group's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a written statement:
Any prosecution by the United States of Mr. Assange for WikiLeaks’ publishing operations would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations. Moreover, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest.Wizner added:
Criminally prosecuting a publisher for the publication of truthful information would be a first in American history, and unconstitutional. The government did not cross that Rubicon with today’s indictment, but the worst case scenario cannot yet be ruled out. We have no assurance that these are the only charges the government plans to bring against Mr. Assange. Further, while there is no First Amendment right to crack a government password, this indictment characterizes as ‘part of’ a criminal conspiracy the routine and protected activities journalists often engage in as part of their daily jobs, such as encouraging a source to provide more information. Given President Trump’s and his administration’s well-documented attacks on the freedom of the press, such characterizations are especially worrisome.
1. The ACLU has been faulted by Alan Dershowitz, an ex-ACLU member and retired Harvard law professor, as having turned partisan.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
If you want to silence
Jones of Infowars,
you’re scarier than he is
Jones of Infowars,
you’re scarier than he is
I don't know exactly what happened at Sandy Hook, but I remain suspicious of the tale presented to the public. Too many holes. Yes, I am sure the Connecticut State Police fixed all the oddities. That's the way it always works. Like Oswald's magic bullet. Somehow all the peculiarities are cleaned up. But, if you were to bother to take all significant official statements and assign probability estimates to them, then multiply, you'd get a number that would say, 'Virtually no chance all these assertions are true.'
I have noticed that a number of strong investigative pages on Sandy Hook are no longer extant. Why not? It seems obvious that the Deep State (AKA Powers that Be) is using the label "offensive speech" as a pretext for deleting truthful speech that rattles the oligarchs.
A lawyer for Alex Jones makes a potent case for free speech in an editorial that appeared in the Hartford Courant. I hope the Courant sees the importance of this op-ed and permits it to be disseminated freely.
By NORM PATTIS
SPECIAL TO HARTFORD COURANT
APR 05, 2019 | 12:22 PM
You’ve probably heard by now that Alex Jones of Infowars plans to defend himself against charges that he defamed the families of folks killed in the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012 by claiming some form of psychosis.
You heard wrong. You swallowed a meme, becoming the very thing you say you scorn — a dupe to a hateful, half-baked piece of misinformation.
I know this because I represent Alex Jones in three suits pending against him in Connecticut. He faces a related suit defended by separate counsel in Texas.
Alex Jones is not psychotic. He plans to defend himself on the same grounds that protect those who take such joy in ridiculing him: the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
In a video deposition posted online by plaintiffs’ lawyers, he says he was influenced by “something like psychosis” when he opined that Sandy Hook was a hoax.
Alex Jones
Jones haters seized on this hazy metaphor like starving children diving at crumbs.
The Sandy Hook lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the families by denying the mass shootings took place. For those of us who live in Connecticut, it’s hard to take seriously the denial of a reality you lived through. We lost family and friends at Sandy Hook. We saw colleagues grieve.
Let’s set the record straight: Alex Jones believes that there was a massacre at Sandy Hook. He entertained the possibility that it was all a hoax when events were fresh. He hosted people who wondered aloud why the FBI would claim there were no homicides in Sandy Hook the very year 26 people were murdered.2 Just today I received an email from a lost soul claiming it’s all a hoax.
Jones never encouraged people to visit the homes of the surviving family members. He did not himself state that the deaths of children were faked by families seeking financial gain or elevated status as spokesmen for gun control. These assertions about Jones have become urban legend — repeated so often they are taken as true. We are eager to test these assertions in open court and to let a fair-minded jury evaluate the actual evidence — if the cases ever actually get to the point of a jury trial.
The cases should be dismissed. Alex Jones hasn’t defamed anyone; he has engaged in extreme speech, a form of speech we’ve cherished since the days of the penny press.
The truth of the matter is Jones has a right to his opinions, no matter how outlandish. That he discomfited the suffering is truly unfortunate. But our newfound instinct to make symbols of survivors in our roiling political debates about such things as gun control transforms them into public figures in the contested terrain of political speech. Declaring these folks to be off-limits is a misuse of pathos. Victims used to mourn in private.
Folks should spend a lot less time taking shots at Alex Jones and more time wondering what makes Jones possible. It’s the same sort of question Trump haters ought to ask. Millions of voters and listeners flock to these men not because they are crazy but because they offer alternatives to mainstream narratives that fail to resonate with folks who have little to gain from tuning into CNN, MSNBC or reading the pages of The New York Times.
Before I chose to represent Alex Jones, I ignored him. His views were too extreme for me. He wasn’t a figure I hated; he just didn’t matter. He was the town crier warning the end is neigh.
Now I defend him from you — you, who want him silenced — because you scare me more than he does.
There is no mob quite so terrifying as a self-righteous mob. Suppressing speech because it offends a majority of folks gives the power to censor speech. We’re close to banning speech simply because it is hateful. Even Mark Zuckerberg now wants new legislation to limit speech. We’ve gone from wanting information to be free to fearing the heterodox.
What motivates hate is fear. Alex Jones and his listeners are afraid of what this country is becoming. You are afraid of Alex Jones and his outlandish conspiracy theories. You’re more alike than you think.
Fight your differences out in the marketplace of ideas. But let’s not fall down the bottomless pit of censorship. Alex Jones is not psychotic, and neither, I suspect, are you, although some days I’m not so sure about either of you.
Norm Pattis is an attorney based in New Haven.
1. According to David Mikkelson of Snopes.com,
I have noticed that a number of strong investigative pages on Sandy Hook are no longer extant. Why not? It seems obvious that the Deep State (AKA Powers that Be) is using the label "offensive speech" as a pretext for deleting truthful speech that rattles the oligarchs.
A lawyer for Alex Jones makes a potent case for free speech in an editorial that appeared in the Hartford Courant. I hope the Courant sees the importance of this op-ed and permits it to be disseminated freely.
By NORM PATTIS
SPECIAL TO HARTFORD COURANT
APR 05, 2019 | 12:22 PM
You’ve probably heard by now that Alex Jones of Infowars plans to defend himself against charges that he defamed the families of folks killed in the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012 by claiming some form of psychosis.
You heard wrong. You swallowed a meme, becoming the very thing you say you scorn — a dupe to a hateful, half-baked piece of misinformation.
I know this because I represent Alex Jones in three suits pending against him in Connecticut. He faces a related suit defended by separate counsel in Texas.
Alex Jones is not psychotic. He plans to defend himself on the same grounds that protect those who take such joy in ridiculing him: the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.
In a video deposition posted online by plaintiffs’ lawyers, he says he was influenced by “something like psychosis” when he opined that Sandy Hook was a hoax.
Alex Jones
Jones haters seized on this hazy metaphor like starving children diving at crumbs.
The Sandy Hook lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the families by denying the mass shootings took place. For those of us who live in Connecticut, it’s hard to take seriously the denial of a reality you lived through. We lost family and friends at Sandy Hook. We saw colleagues grieve.
Let’s set the record straight: Alex Jones believes that there was a massacre at Sandy Hook. He entertained the possibility that it was all a hoax when events were fresh. He hosted people who wondered aloud why the FBI would claim there were no homicides in Sandy Hook the very year 26 people were murdered.2 Just today I received an email from a lost soul claiming it’s all a hoax.
Jones never encouraged people to visit the homes of the surviving family members. He did not himself state that the deaths of children were faked by families seeking financial gain or elevated status as spokesmen for gun control. These assertions about Jones have become urban legend — repeated so often they are taken as true. We are eager to test these assertions in open court and to let a fair-minded jury evaluate the actual evidence — if the cases ever actually get to the point of a jury trial.
The cases should be dismissed. Alex Jones hasn’t defamed anyone; he has engaged in extreme speech, a form of speech we’ve cherished since the days of the penny press.
The truth of the matter is Jones has a right to his opinions, no matter how outlandish. That he discomfited the suffering is truly unfortunate. But our newfound instinct to make symbols of survivors in our roiling political debates about such things as gun control transforms them into public figures in the contested terrain of political speech. Declaring these folks to be off-limits is a misuse of pathos. Victims used to mourn in private.
Folks should spend a lot less time taking shots at Alex Jones and more time wondering what makes Jones possible. It’s the same sort of question Trump haters ought to ask. Millions of voters and listeners flock to these men not because they are crazy but because they offer alternatives to mainstream narratives that fail to resonate with folks who have little to gain from tuning into CNN, MSNBC or reading the pages of The New York Times.
Before I chose to represent Alex Jones, I ignored him. His views were too extreme for me. He wasn’t a figure I hated; he just didn’t matter. He was the town crier warning the end is neigh.
Now I defend him from you — you, who want him silenced — because you scare me more than he does.
There is no mob quite so terrifying as a self-righteous mob. Suppressing speech because it offends a majority of folks gives the power to censor speech. We’re close to banning speech simply because it is hateful. Even Mark Zuckerberg now wants new legislation to limit speech. We’ve gone from wanting information to be free to fearing the heterodox.
What motivates hate is fear. Alex Jones and his listeners are afraid of what this country is becoming. You are afraid of Alex Jones and his outlandish conspiracy theories. You’re more alike than you think.
Fight your differences out in the marketplace of ideas. But let’s not fall down the bottomless pit of censorship. Alex Jones is not psychotic, and neither, I suspect, are you, although some days I’m not so sure about either of you.
Norm Pattis is an attorney based in New Haven.
1. According to David Mikkelson of Snopes.com,
As it turns out, a recordkeeping anomaly of sorts is at the root of the FBI report’s dissonant statistics for the Sandy Hook massacre. If you followed news of the incident at the time, you may recall that Connecticut State Police (not local city or town police) managed the crime scene in the hours, days, and weeks after the event in Newtown. Accordingly, the Sandy Hook Elementary victims were included in Connecticut’s statewide records, but they were not tallied as crimes of any description in Newtown in 2012. Rather, the deaths were classified under “State Police Misc.” in separate records.I had never heard about this particular claim, but it seems as though the Snopes explanation is as weird as the original assertion. In any case, I want to underscore that though Snopes is sometimes correct, it has a record of invariably backing the government's conspiracy theories and accounts versus those of critics.
Although the state’s murder total was 146 that year, only 110 of those deaths were assigned to specific local jurisdictions in the FBI report. The statewide tally of 146 includes the 27 victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
How to irk the censors II
And then there is the redoubtable James Corbett,
find him on BitChute
https://www.bitchute.com/corbettreport/
whom YouTube has not altogether banned, but he has been subjected to view-slimming tactics, such as having videos tagged with an adults-only restriction, presumably on the basis that his research and opinions (about World War I and the Federal Reserve) might earn poor grades for high school students using his work. Gosh, you mean to tell me high school teachers don't set internet standards for their students? Why is Corbett being penalized for the lax methods of some teachers?
It's hard to believe the journalist (sorry, can't find his name and ain't gonna work all night looking) who targeted Corbett was seriously concerned about American education. Much more likely he was part of a plot to muzzle those who routinely question activities of the government and America's oligarchs.
Another way to counter censors:
Declare your independence with IPFS
https://www.bitchute.com/video/2h-O4xSg-Hc/
find him on BitChute
https://www.bitchute.com/corbettreport/
whom YouTube has not altogether banned, but he has been subjected to view-slimming tactics, such as having videos tagged with an adults-only restriction, presumably on the basis that his research and opinions (about World War I and the Federal Reserve) might earn poor grades for high school students using his work. Gosh, you mean to tell me high school teachers don't set internet standards for their students? Why is Corbett being penalized for the lax methods of some teachers?
It's hard to believe the journalist (sorry, can't find his name and ain't gonna work all night looking) who targeted Corbett was seriously concerned about American education. Much more likely he was part of a plot to muzzle those who routinely question activities of the government and America's oligarchs.
Another way to counter censors:
Declare your independence with IPFS
https://www.bitchute.com/video/2h-O4xSg-Hc/
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