Pandemic Delays: Postponing the Assange Extradition Hearing
Binoy Kampmark
“Mr Assange will be facing a David and Goliath battle with his hands tied behind his back.”
Edward Fitzgerald QC, lawyer for Julian Assange, April 27, 2020
Julian Assange must have had time amidst cramped and hostile surrounds, paper work, pleas and applications, to ponder what circle of Dante’s Hell he finds himself in.
Ailing but still battling, the WikiLeaks publisher, through his lawyers, made another vicarious appearance at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday to delay the next stage of extradition proceedings slated for May 18.
He would have appeared via video link, but medical advice suggested it would be unsafe for him to do so at Belmarsh prison.
Assange, one of the most conspicuously wanted individuals by US authorities for fancifully broad claims of espionage and computer intrusion, had a range of eminently sensible reasons for seeking the delay. The defence continued in relentless fashion, making arguments they have done throughout. The feeling for the observer is that, at some point, the District Judge Vanessa Baraitser might bite, or at least shift ever so slightly.
Assange’s legal team, spearheaded by Edward Fitzgerald QC, noted that adequate case preparations were, in the current circumstances, impossible. There had been the briefest of phone calls with their client; the defence team had been unable to speak to Assange for over a month.
The case, claimed Fitzgerald, had gone “from difficult to impossible”. There were “no person-to-person meetings. The alternative of video conferences is medically dangerous.” A meeting that was due to take place last week in the holding cells of Woolwich Crown Court never transpired, as prison authorities refused to permit it.
According to the written submission, “It is not possible to take Mr Assange’s instructions in order to respond to the recently served declarations of Mr Kromberg, the US Attorney representing the case for the US.”
Those representing the publisher were “unable to fulfil their professional obligations to him in the circumstances and he is deprived of equality of arms with the prosecution”.
The second ground followed from the first: no full extradition could take place in May that would enable Assange to “participate effectively in the hearing”.
Abiding by principles of open justice would also be improbable given the ongoing pandemic restrictions that would prevent the press and public “to attend and follow proceedings”.
The fourth ground focused on Assange’s own vulnerable constitution, already ravaged by stress and pressure occasioned by his confinement at HMP Belmarsh. The sum of this was that “he could not fairly be expected to participate in a full evidentiary hearing in May.”
The ever unsympathetic Baraitser, usually unmoved by any defence application that might suggest favour to Assange, accepted the argument that the May 18 date be vacated, and an administrative hearing scheduled for May 4, enabling lawyers on all sides to consider a new date for the full hearing.
The measure was granted, in no small part because of lack of protest from the prosecution. As James Lewis QC, putting the case for the United States, submitted, “In this extraordinary time, we would support the application.”
Given the circumstances (the judge finally acknowledged the obvious: that Britain was in a coronavirus lockdown), it was unlikely that Assange and his lawyers would be able to physically attend the scheduled May 18 hearing. “Remote attendance by the parties in this case will not be appropriate. It is now appropriate to vacate that hearing and fix it to a later date.”
At the earliest, a three-week block from November 2 can be made available.
On other points, Baraitser remained cold and tenaciously blind. She could not see how the lockdown itself had any evident impact on case preparation, nor affect the proper attendance of witnesses. “I have been given no reason to believe that pre-hearing discussion with expert witnesses can’t take place remotely.”
The issue of Assange’s safety in being transported to a video conference room was a matter for the prison to make. Nor would press reporting be impaired, despite witnessing, in her own court, the distinctly shonky coverage for media offered by the teleconference facility.
As the UK Bureau Director of Reporters Without Borders Rebecca Vincent would comment, reflecting upon the day’s technical challenges:
resuming the full extradition hearing in such conditions would not allow for open justice. This case is of tremendous public interest, and the press and NGO observers must be able to scrutinise proceedings.”
Assange supporters and case watchers were relieved by the change of heart shown from the bench. Kevin Gosztola of Shadowproof opined that a May 18 hearing during the COVID-19 pandemic “would’ve significantly undermined due process rights of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange”.
Then came the next question, a spectre over the stuttered court proceedings: Would Assange be able to obtain bail?
His father, John Shipton, certainly thought so, as obtaining such relief would alleviate the danger of contracting COVID-19 in a “prison where two people have died of the disease”.
According to Renata Avila, a key human rights lawyer and board member for Creative Commons, such a delay would surely entitle Assange to the measure. “Under current conditions, he cannot prepare his legal defence and he is risking his life.”
The hope for legal, and compassionate sense to prevail, remains admirably optimistic. Assange is bound in a cruel legal purgatory, a shackled David facing the Goliath of the US imperium. But even with his hands tied, Assange is still putting up a most resolute fight.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
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1) Do people really think the CIA are unable lack capacity and resources to assassinate their actual enemies?
2) Wikileaks was founded by CIA to catch whistle blowers before they leak info.Damage control.
3) Wiki is an unverified source and the CIA did not care that the world knows about torture done( waterboarding) why it just makes people afraid of them.No unauthorized info was leaked by wiki.
4) Swanning around the embassy partying with celebs and making babies for years poor little CIA agent, and hello reasoning when the UN tells you anything question it!
5) There is no net neutrality of internet freedom with the censorship and search engine monopoly.So what allegedly he stands for is a lie.
And another 77th Brigade operative has outed themself folks.
Poor little CIA agent /media celebrity Assange …..
We should all obediently and mindlessly worship him like we are told like he’s an internet freedom fighting hero .Believe Google is an impartial search engine and CIA’s Facadebook was not created to control social media and does not censor.
The CIA must’ve not have had the money to kill him and/or lost all their assassins and hitmen ( probably now they are media celebs too).
It amazes me what people believe these days, its anything they are told by media.
Crikey, the team are hitting the comments section of this article mob handed! And all new posters who have only appeared on Off Guardian recently. Well, General Carter did tell us the other day that they are here…..
You can take cynicism too far.
Not everybody is controlled opposition.
The ones who are don’t generally face assassination, torture, and all the vindictive persecution of a lawless regime.
Controlled opposition would not release very damaging material like JA.
You have to compare that with very obvious controlled opposition like Counterpunch, Democracy Now, The Duran, the Labour Party, and all the rest.
Craig Murray and Julian Assange
It is important to understand the background and the agenda of people who you read. I come here just now because I too am opposed to the lockdowns. This publication and it’s writers work hard to speak truth to power in a way that the mainstream media fails to do.
However, journalists, writers and commenters in the alternative media seem to love Craig Murray. I guess, because he is an opponent of what he refers to as “the British state”.
Let me be clear. The machinery of the British government is corrupt. The Tory government is full of self serving politicians, “establishment” hangers on, and their cronies in the civil service and the military. I am no fan or friend of theirs. In fact, probably all governments – all states – are corrupt. There are very few, if any shining beacons of democracy and freedom. And I still agree with a fair amount of what Murray says.
But Murray is not a neutral!
Murray is only interested in the truth insofar as it serves his agenda: which is the creation of a Scottish state – a Scottish republic. Murray is not anti state or anti establishment. He is a state actor for a state that does not yet exist. For most of his working life he was a career diplomat in the service of the British state machine. He even worked for the Queen. He was a pillar of the British Establishment until it spat him out for whistleblowing.
Murray bitterly resents the loss of his hallowed position – a position he covets – to this day. He refers to himself as “ambassador” and has stated on his blog that it is his dream to be employed as a diplomat for a Scottish state. Desiring to end his working life as the Scottish ambassador in the Parisian Embassy.
You cannot get more “establishment” than that!
Today Murray is a prominent Scottish nationalist writer. But he was rejected by leaders of the nationalist movement, my guess is, because he refused to take the party whip. He’s a hothead. A troublemaker. As Alex Salmond has discovered.
Salmond has been acquitted. He must be keen to forget about the trial and move on. But Murray has been throwing his weight around in court. Maybe Salmond’s accusers might take the chance to call for a retrial?
Do any of you here think that Salmond is not secretly wishing that the ground would open up and that Murray would disappear? He’s far too shrewd to say so openly, but my guess is that Salmond has no great love just now for his most outspoken supporter.
Murray is a misogynist. He has a history of problems with women in positions of power. He can get away with his criticism of Baraitser, but he is also no friend of Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland. He’s not welcome at Bute House, apparently. I wonder why? And his loyal Russian female follower, he publicly humiliated on his blog in December 2019.
He has also written on his blog of his abusive relationships with women, cleverly and openly bragging about a relationship that he initiated by groping a woman. He described the relationship as “deeply satisfying”. I wonder if his “victim” would feel the same if she was named?
Let me again be clear. I am not against a Scottish state. I am as Scottish as Murray (in fact more so), but I do not have any great love of the concept. I supported it for a while when I commented on his blog, but he is too extreme.
There are a number of his commenters who come here. I recognise their names. All good people, I am sure. But I tire of seeing this man constantly promoted by them. They are far too credulous about Murray in my opinion. I doubt any of them are his paid agents, but I think it could be argued that they are his flock of mockingbirds. Happily and unwittingly spreading Murray’s Gospel and giving him and his nationalist cause yet more publicity.
Murray’s moderators have been criticised here. And I have been a victim of them. Not for being rude or behaving abusively, but for cultivating a friendship with another commenter which his moderator did not approve of. That friendship meant a great deal.
Murray is 100% responsible for what goes on on his blog. He cannot be excused for the behaviour of his goon squad, his anonymous and semi anonymous moderators. Murray is in charge there. The buck stops with him!
Perhaps the most revealing thing I saw about Julian Assange was from 2010. I don’t remember who it was that showed this footage, but Julian came across as quite innocent in his ways. He did not seem to understand that the newspapers that he was courting, both here and in Germany and in the US were vultures who were only interested in what Julian could give them and in covering their own smelly asses. He did not seem to be aware of the danger he was putting himself in.
Julian should have been more careful. And also in the circumstances he might have been best advised to avoid sleeping around with Swedish women.
As for his “friendship” with Murray. Murray in my opinion is trouble for Julian. I suspect that Murray is again using Julian and exploiting him and his family as a vehicle of publicity for his cause. Julian is world famous. By attaching himself to Julian like a pernicious leech Murray can gain yet more publicity and gets to engage in his favorite pastime of Britain bashing to boot.
I repeat what I said yesterday. Assange should now dump Murray instead of allowing himself to be led by him. I think that he would stand a much greater chance of freedom without Murray in his midst.
You are absolutely full to the gills of it, aren’t you John? Alex Salmond stays in touch with Craig, and contacted him to offer his support after Craig was barred from the courtroom during his trial. So that’s that particular attempt to smear Craig put to bed.
Regarding your allegation that Craig is using Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Apart from the fact that are genuine friends is beyond doubt, Craig put his liberty (and possibly even his life) on the line to travel to the USA to collect the flash drive containing the DNC emails from you know who and to courier them to Wikilieaks. Your attempt to equate Craig’s coverage of Julian’s extradition hearings as counter-productive has already been exposed as the complete and utter bullshit that it is: the opposite of what you claim is 100% the case.
You need to have a good, honest look in the mirror John, and realise that you are a pathetic man who was thrown off Craig’s message board because you stalked a female poster who lives a couple of thousand miles from you. And now you are trying to get your revenge on Craig by posting bullshit about him on Off Guardian (and probably elsewhere).
Tony.
What’s wrong? Can’t CM defend himself? Or does he pay you to do it for him?
John.
Just stay away from CM’s ego-trip website and move on.
I very much doubt Craig trawls through the comments on Off Guardian. I always make an effort to debunk propaganda against good people, whether it’s on Off Guardian, a government minister tweet, or anywhere else I see it. It’s important. We won’t have any writers or spokespeople left in the alt media if we give this type of insidious shit a free pass.
And fuck off with your ‘paid to post’ insinuations. Wanker.
Pretty Boy’s suggestion that the feminazis caught in the act of conspiring to lie to destroy Salmond’s life might ‘appeal’ because Murray had the gall to report the court proceedings, is probably some sort of nadir of despicable reality inversion, but I confidently expect that he can do better still.
Murray doesn’t believe in free speech and comments against his narrative are deleted from his comments as soon as they are posted. Was he really sacked for whistleblowing or promoted to MI6 disinfo agent?
You can read a considerable amount of archived data on Murray’s blog. That’s all you have to do to see what his values are. If he’s a disinfo agent, then his views on Assange nevertheless still tally with those of many well-informed people. I have no interest in where Murray comes from, only in how far his intelligent research, activism and commentary makes sense in the light of the masses of other information which everybody has access to.
I have a good memory, and I see no “narrative” at all in Murray’s work, other than to draw our attention to a couple of books he has written. Which is of course perfectly fair use of a blog. Perhaps most of the deleted comments were clothed in the vocabulary of gross discourtesy? After all, some people’s FIRST resort is to the language of war, while decently educated people try diplomacy first.
Just read Murray’s report of what this Baraitser so-called judge specimen has had to say in the hearings so far. Who do you really think is following a “narrative” here? Anyone who thinks it’s Murray really can’t be helped.
Good post.
There is absolutely nothing about the Assange case which makes legal sense. How could anyone with an iota of a sense of justice understand what is taking place in the British courts, in this totally putrified case?
Everyone of the judges (magistrates) presiding and the US administrative hacks should be in the dock because of their blatant misrepresentations of the legal processes used to prosecute and persecute this man … for what? … revealing the truth of the acts of war-criminals.
The politicians of Australia, England and The USA are revealing themselves as beyond mere corruption. They’re showing the world that they are rotten through the core. The injustice of it all and the stench has already passed the point where it will linger in the corridors of power for decades to come.
Why is it being allowed to continue?
It is a brilliant illustration of just how Evil the West truly is, but, these days, what is not?
Probably because 10,000, or 100,000, or a million decent citizens can’t be bothered to crowd outside Belmarsh and INSIST upon it not being allowed to continue.
If anyone wants some only very indirectly relevant recreation to while away the lockdown hours, I can recommend G.F.Newman’s “The Corrupted”, series 5 of which has just finished on BBC Radio 4, and is available on the BBC Sounds app or website, along with some of the previous series.
I previously posted about G.F. Newman’s 1970s 4-part TV series “Law and Order”, which was primarily about the outright corruption in the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad, but also portrayed the legal profession and the prison service in a very unflattering light. It was fiction, done in semi-documentary style, but inspired by true events.
“The Corrupted” is in similar vein, and has just about everything: corruption in the police, the legal profession, the prison service, the security service, banking, big business and of course politics.
I don’t know how much G.F.Newman knows, how much he guesses, and how much he just makes up, but much of it has the ring of truth about it.
I only just got around to reading his Wikipedia page, and not realising all that he’d done, it made interesting reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._F._Newman
He doesn’t exactly go in for happy endings; possibly a realist.
The societies, if you can call them such, in the West, are sewers of corruption in every way. From the ever-lying and hatemongering MSM, the corrupt and imbecile political class and the blood-sucking lords of business, the Evil is omnipresent, and drives always towards destruction and death, a process nearly reaching its final crescendo.
What’s happening to Assange should tell everyone what they need to know about what’s going on at the moment.
Here’s your friendly GCHQ doctor telling you why we’ve got to be in endless lockdown.
Meanwhile in France, they’ve announced that the lockdown will go on for another two months (and I would hazard that a similar announcement will be made in the UK shortly). For people like us, who earn a living from the tourism industry, we are fucked (do people realise that all borders in Europe are presently closed?).
I need some more music. No social distancing here…
” will go on for another two months”
That is not correct.
The Lockdown will end in part on the 11th. No change there. They have announced a 2 month state of emergency, slightly different, to allow for legislation to pass quicker to progress laws to fight the virus’, whatever that means.
Well, that’s 2 years in the past four that didn’t have a state of emergency (2015-2017 after the Bataclan happening). Now it’s back.
The present wave of protests in France started in January 2016, with a large scale general strike in March 2016 (the gilet jaunes are just the latest manifestation of it all). These protests began in January 2016 largely due to emergency powers that the government was passing in the wake of the November 2015 Paris ‘terror attacks’.
To address other comments here, the French government is not lifting lockdown measures; it’s pretending to do so, just as the UK government is.
(oh, and by the way, a general strike has now started in the USA, with a rent strike from 1st May)
I notice the GCHQ ‘doctor’ refers to International rescue committee headed by our own David Miliband in the USA, There can be no doubt that it is CIA front organisation.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2013/mar/27/david-miliband-thunderbirds-jokes-twitter
It’s all so corrupt it’s beyond belief.
In the early days of this I tried to be responsible, with regard to what I said, because it has been a bad flu this year.
As the psychopaths continue to roll out the police state I can no longer keep my mouth shut.
Nor should you. You’re allowed your tuppence worth, irrespective of your point of view … Do tell …
A curious wrinkle in the whole police state theory, though, is the antics of various non-aligned countries, cooperating with the panic.
I heard on radio that Singapore had lifted it’s lockdown “too early” and had setbacks in terms of increased deaths and cases.
NB: the sources we hear a lot of these news items may be offering claptrap, who has time to check it all?
But Russia originally chaste in these matters, then caved and employed virus “austerity’ measures, though last I checked their death count was low.
It’s hard to say who’s spiking their figures and who isn’t, though we have educated guesses, right?
I read that Marx, Engels, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin and others were all 33rd° Freemasons, though that is a conferred and “honorary” degree, not by regular study.
How would we know the depth of their involvement? ITS A SECRET SOCIETY.
With that aside, I just wonder how we can discern the shape of a global police state, if that is what is happening. How does this lockdown reflect that? What is causing contrarian leaders to comply with a “Germaphobe’s Hoax of the Century” (All Time?) ?
I have a lot more questions than answers. There is so much hoaxing evidence, it sure does not feel legit at its core. Not at all, as most here would seem to believe.
But what are the main features? Global economic collapse? Would you expect Putin to sign on for that?
Meanwhile, I watch Gavin Newsom’s daily press lectures, he is California Governor since a year ago. He just closed all our beaches in Orange County after vast beach crowds thumbed their noses last weekend. He has handled it since then adroitly, saying they could reopen soon if enough people cool it.
Also, he chilled on his tantrums about our resistance (I happened to be at the Newport Pier last Saturday, and Newsom later singled our city out, in his Tuesday complaint -the cops have all said they won’t ticket or really enforce) after getting a tsunami of pushback the last few days, “I told you we would listen together”. Hilarious.
But he seems to be a little bit at sea himself. Signs he doesn’t get really the whole concept.
Many assume a vast conspiracy of leaders to lock down into a police state, but I don’t see any fascist unbroken chain in their behaviors. Of course, it’s not hard to read into it.
So do people really think there’s a global plan here, or more the leaderships’ attempt to control chaos? Or what? Evidence if bad faith on their part us everywhere, but thats in a politician’s profile!
It would be good to know more clearly. But to lock down the world for months is clearly nuts. How can that work? Except very destructively.
I asked an older Mexican woman last weekend as she rang me up at the checkout of “Dollar Tree”.
Her take: “God did this. He knew what He was doing. Time to do things we’ve left undone. Time to go on a diet. Time to be with family. We’ll be all right.”
She admitted she was lucky to have a job, though.
Apparently we also need a lot of chastisement. I mean, businesses will implode soon. If they haven’t.
My daughter’s in Singapore, she went in December and had no lockdown till about five weeks ago, she and her apartment sharers are all ‘working from home’ and she’s out running nightly without any problems.
Miliband? MOSSAD surely.
It was his reward for treason against this country when he signed the Lisbon treaty with his mate Gordon.
We’ll all know just how nassty the virus is if there are second and subsequent waves of infection. That it is a vicious, novel, affliction, this Fort Detrick virus, is plain enough, as are the long-planned efforts made by the elites and their political stooges to take advantage of it. The ruling medical thugs here have just declared that all mass gatherings, like music festivals will be off until a ‘vaccine’ is perfected, ie ‘vaccine certificates’ will be required to purchase tickets, and, almost invariably, to travel. This is looking more and more sinister by the hour, but what aspect of the ‘World Order’ does not?
while we were distracted https://youtu.be/QRB0naCRlGE
Always amazed how people follow and worship this media celeb that is actually a CIA asset.
1) Do people really think the CIA are unable lack capacity and resources to assassinate their actual enemies?
2) Wikileaks was founded by CIA to catch whistle blowers before they leak info.Damage control.
3) Wiki is an unverified source and the CIA did not care that the world knows about torture done( waterboarding) why it just makes people afraid of them.No unauthorized info was leaked by wiki.
4) Swanning around the embassy partying with celebs and making babies for years poor little CIA agent, and hello reasoning when the UN tells you anything question it!
5) There is no net neutrality of internet freedom with the censorship and search engine monopoly.So what allegedly he stands for is a lie.
Julian Assange asked about new 9/11 investigation
Eh?
Seems I can’t post that without it changing to Peter Cook!
“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG23AyiIObk”
or search Julian Assange 9/11 Investigation on YouTube
To check which video is linked to your post, open Off-G in a different browser.
Oh the CIA agents says its “not important”.
Widespread exposure of 911 being an inside job, of the controlled demolitions would mean the total distrust in pathological Govts and the media.
Its pretty important to not trust and believe corporations and orgs that lie in order to start wars and kill their own people.
Its pretty obvious here what a worm he is.
He almost wet himself when asked to comment on 9/11.
“I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/wanted-by-the-cia-julian-assange-wikileaks-founder-28548843.html
I have made nearly identical statements.
“I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”
Yup.
You have to be very specific about what details of 911 you are talking about. Building 7 was an absurdly, immediately obvious demo for example.
I think the well documented events that followed is obviously where my focus should lie. That much is indisputable as opposed to being distracting theater.
All of it
James Corbett
The real 9/11 ‘conspiracy theory’ is that ‘al-Qaeda’ flew two planes into two buildings, and three subsequently collapsed straight down at speed, from ‘fires’, and that two other planes disappeared, one after hitting the Pentagon, and the other disappearing down a hole in Pennsylvania. Reality, on the other hand, was there for all with eyes to see. Assange’s behaviour in this regard is very sinister, indeed. 9/11 was the pivotal incident in recent global history, and he airily dismisses it.
This information only serves to mess with one’s head. Stop confusing the issue with facts;-)
Noam Chomsky, Assange … Trudeau, Macron same handlers?? Oh, what a tangled web ‘they’ weave when first ‘they’ practice to deceive.
Bullshit.
Even if Assange came out of The Family, which is said by some to have CIA connections, he certainly went rogue. That makes him no different to a state employee who becomes a whistleblower. And that’s assuming the worst scenario that we’ve been deceived as to his origins. I see little in his mid-to-later career that is consistent with him being an asset. Now Snowden is a different matter as the argument could easily be made that Snowden’s revelations were themselves a psy-op.
Julian told me his graduate work had been funded by a US government grant, specifically NSA and DARPA money, which was supposed to be used for fundamental security research.
https://pando.com/2013/09/14/how-the-us-government-inadvertently-created-wikileaks/
Wow. Could you elaborate? Assange and DARPA and NSA? Of course, for all my guesswork, I had suspected from long ago, since around the time of Arab “Spring”.
Once I had established, and had confirmed, a fairly obvious, if discretely documented, (sacred) fact that Timothy Lear -that Pied Piper of LSD (developed by Hitler’s Nazis)- was linked directly to CIA psyops to get the Left Coast of America (SF, LA, Seattle etc) higher than a kite on his abundant stash of Acid, etc. I began to have suspicions of that other Merry Prankster-in-Chief, Ken Kesey (“One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”). He was touted by profs, poets, acid-heads, and many others back in the day, in California and in general, as yet another rarest of hippie Holy Men. Right? A Divine Comedian.
His Wikipedia bio doesn’t even try to hide that fact, that when he was hard up for cash in his student days he volunteered, in the areas below San Francisco -Monterey? Palo Alto? somewhere around there- for a government study on the effects of hallucinogens, funded by those Usual Suspects.
But Assange, DARPA funding? I hadn’t heard that, but was happy enough to assume.
How can people take him seriously, or any of this quasi-Kafka “Trial” ?
NB Timothy “Leary”, above, with a Y, not “Lear”. Spell check screwed my correct spelling… twice. That’s gotta stop.
Snowden’s ‘revelations’ have been ‘disappeared’. Never happened. Urban myth. Conspiracy theories.
Excellent comment. Assange is brazen MI6/CIA stooge. Every single twist and turn of Wikileaks history reveals it.
John Young (Cryptome) was asked to front Wikileaks, register it in his name but came to the conclusion that.
“WikiLeaks is a fraud,” he wrote in an email when he quit. “Fuck your cute hustle and disinformation campaign against legitimate dissent.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/10/wikileaks-collateral-murder-video-iraq
same article
‘Young obliged and was initially an enthusiastic supporter but when the organisers announced their intention to try and raise $5m he questioned their motives, saying that kind of money could only come from the CIA or George Soros. Then he walked away.
You need Soros or the CIA to raise $5M?
It was always a strawman argument. Even Sanders put the lie to that recently. Regardless, your fund raising goals should be high or why even bother?
Would there will be a record or paper trail perhaps? Somewhere certainly.
Young was asked to front Wikileaks because he is a high quality, educated architect and expert in cryptology. He has a website (Cryptome). He knows what he’s talking about.
He could never have imagined that Wikileaks (weak) material would be published by intelligence controlled media like The Guardian and NY Times. He could never have imagined the CIA would use Wikileaks to foment their Arab Spring operation.
“Amnesty International hails WikiLeaks and Guardian as Arab spring ‘catalysts’
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/13/amnesty-international-wikileaks-arab-spring
“…intelligence controlled media like The Guardian and NY Times…”
One of the key problems of perception, I believe to be, is that CIA has certain “jewels” like WaPo, NYT, The Guardian” and so on.
Well, that was then, but this is now.
Mockingbird had them way back in the 1950s.
What appears to me more and more clearly, for some years now, is that CIA and its Allies control ALL media, in the sense that nothing that they really want to suppress will get in to media, anywhere, and no disinfo, howsoever slight the red herring, can be kept out, if they want it put in.
I say that because I’ve seen evidence time and again.
Shocking evidence, such as the coming 9.11 attacks having been forecast in European media on 9.10, yet most Americans still don’t know that. How did *that* happen?
Or how was it that Robin Williams was cremated the day after his *”‘suicide'”* and yet no outlet in the whole world carried that news, that I could find, except TMZ? Then, after I checked Google regularly for almost two years, there were finally some archived articles that appeared in a few online major outlets/sites.
Apparently “retrofitted” by Google! Aka, their de facto censorship of news of that event was partially lifted after a long blackout, something like 20 months?
This would all serve to prove the title of Fletcher Prouty’s 1970’s book “The Secret Team”: … “The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World”.
I had a menial job at the Paris bureau of Newsweek in 1975, and even in my naive and ignorant twenties that thought crossed my mind that nearly all their reporters might better be described as Intel assets. I was around them a lot. How would I know?
You could taste it. Yanks like that, all through Paris, then, were nothing if not blatant. That aroma of universal ownership of everything. They weren’t much liked then either. (I was very rarely a target, only once or twice, because they all assumed I was either British or Canadian, since my attitude and manner was different.)
he is defined by his 9 and 11 ritual position
his horrible reply his masonic stress hand in front of his neck is sin bull enough
horrible answer
And Jeff Bezos is a humanitarian tree hugger planted by a secretive Buddhist sect.
Vote Up for Assange is legit
OR
Vote Down for Assange is CIA.
I can’t decide.
Are you by votes trying to see how many shills are here or to see how naive people are?
If you are not use reasoning.
1) Do people really think the CIA are unable lack capacity and resources to assassinate their actual enemies?
2) Wikileaks was founded by CIA to catch whistle blowers before they leak info.Damage control.
3) Wiki is an unverified source and the CIA did not care that the world knows about torture done( waterboarding) why it just makes people afraid of them.No unauthorized info was leaked by wiki.
4) Swanning around the embassy partying with celebs and making babies for years poor little CIA agent, and hello reasoning when the UN tells you anything question it!
5) There is no net neutrality or internet freedom with the censorship and search engine monopoly.So what he as a media celeb stands for is a lie.
That makes sense.
This thread sums up the biggest problem with our alt politics ‘movement’. Just about every leading figure/publisher buys into some of the narratives, but hardly anybody buys into all of them. This is human nature: people are attracted to certain ones, whilst not showing any/much interest in others; and if one’s peer group mostly has similar views, this is reinforced.
Like Julian, I was also dismissive of the alt explanations of 9/11, and I’d never given them more than a cursory look. That doesn’t make me a CIA/MI5/Mossad asset. I changed my views on 9/11 about three years ago, after a conversation with a friend roused my interest into looking into it further. It’s quite obvious that Julian has concentrated his efforts on the stuff that Wikileaks has exposed, and has no interest in 9/11. Maybe that will change in time.
The point I’m trying to make is that the alt media and it’s supporters are not a cult. This can only work as a loose grouping of similar-minded people. This can only ever work as a broad church, whereas some seem to think that our ‘movement’ should be like seventh day adventists, with everebody in lockstep, but that’s never going to happen.
I would like to see some real evidence from posters here who claim that Julian is CIA. Real evidence. Not speculation. Not more speculation on top of existing speculation. Not non-evidence such as ‘the CIA did this, so Wikileaks must be that’ or ‘Wikileaks published that, which ties in with the CIA position on the other’. Ffs Wikileaks has published millions upon millions of documents. You could loosely tie them in with just about anything or anyone if you tried hard enough. Real, hard evidence please. Put up or shut up.
Julian has, by necessity, had to make a huge sacrifice for his work over the last few years, to the point that he is now seriously ill (and locked up in Britain’s worst prison). You only have to look at him on his rare public appearances to know this. His courage in the face of this is beyond question. Yet we have here a small group of posters claiming it’s all just a CIA/ security services sham, based on nothing more than conspiracy theory (and I use that phrase carefully) supported by wild, highly tenuous speculation.
You posters trying to discredit Julian are the real worms. You’re a fucking disgrace. I’ll even go as far as to opine that some of you are Integrity Initiative/77th Brigade operatives, here to do nothing more than disrupt and divide. And no surprise that you quickly jumped on the bandwagon jack/jim, after briefly feigning to be a fence sitter.
Assange is a low life,misogynist scum hacker, not a principled activist or journalist. He was published in The Guardian, NYT and Washington Post. That’s all any intelligent human being needs to know.
”Paranoid, vain and jealous’ – the secret life of Julian Assange
An excoriating profile by Julian Assange’s ghostwriter.
Miss Harrison says of Assange: “He openly chats girls up and has his hands on their a**e and goes nuts if I even talk to another guy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/10655638/Paranoid-vain-and-jealous-the-secret-life-of-WikiLeaks-founder-Julian-Assange.html
Eric (who tried to create disruption on Craig’s blog a while back in the same way that he does here) criticises the fact that Wikileaks was published in the Graun, WaPo and NYT. And then he goes and links to an article based around an Assange hater in, of all publications, the Telegraph!!!
These 77th Brigade operatives really do lack self-awareness.
I had already worked out you were a Craigie Murray fanboy with mention of the 77th Brigade.
This is the radical who was an ambassador and who bought a £600k house in Edinburgh with cash using the excuse it was run down. It isn’t run down any more. Must be worth at least a million. Still begging money from fanboys to pay for lawyers to dig him out of another idiotic incident.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/alex-salmond-blogger-trial-high-21789285
Yep. You’re deffo 77th brigade. And your colleagues are hitting the voting buttons. I’ll be staying on your case, army boy.
The Daily Record exposed one of Craigie’s other intelligence bogey men, the Integrity Initiative.
‘Secret Scottish-based office led infowars attack on Jeremy Corbyn
Leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail (Mirror Group) reveal the organisation’s Integrity Initiative is funded with £2 million of FCO cash, run by military intelligence specialists.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/foreign-office-funds-2m-infowars-13707574
You talk out of too many sides of your mouth for that point (quoting the Telegraph as something suspect) to carry any credit.
Like most of your charges. It may just be laziness, or it may be showing up as a double by default.
Back in the day, when CIA was less of an ubiquitous construct (aka world’s largest Mob of all Mobs), that was more hazardous for the defaulter. Now it’s closer to business as usual, and much less high risk, even when apparent early and/or often. Like Leary (an early template for that) or Assange and Snowden & Co.
_________
“He was a double agent…a precarious calling at best.”
–Graham Greene, 1963 preface to “Our Man in Havana”
There is a fundamental principle here. All of Wikileaks major releases were published by deep state infested Guardian and New York Times. Wikileaks was likely created to carry out the CIA’s Arab Spring operation.
“Amnesty International hails WikiLeaks and Guardian as Arab spring ‘catalysts’
‘The rights group singles out WikiLeaks and the newspapers that pored over its previously confidential government files, among them the Guardian, as a catalyst in a series of uprisings against repressive regimes, notably the overthrow of Tunisia’s long-serving president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/13/amnesty-international-wikileaks-arab-spring
Well, I asked for real proof, and the first attempt from one of our friendly neighbourhood security services officers was…..oh dear, a ‘likely’.
TONY: Now who’s amassing his very own private (though public) “….pile” of “wild speculation” and abusive language?
Wild as you choose to find it, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has an orange bill like a duck….
And if the (extra-wide) shoe fits.
It’s not like we’re going to “trump” the amassed forces that state Intel has arrayed on our behalf, in it’s 24/7 media “Fanfare Against the Common Man” (apologies to Aaron Copland and his stirring brass chorale!) and the endless (now, even) AI-fabricated disinfo campaign and endless supply of red herring.
That you would fecklessly overlook that uneven playing field for our David ~as he is facing their Goliath-on-CIA-designer-steroids~ speaks volumes enough. And it frames this all-important issue well enough.
(I am also amazed at how commentators here taking Mr. Assange’s side almost invariably call him “Julian”, as if in ecstatic cahoots,as if all are members of one big extended little family, or even “The Family”, or at the very least have been hoisting brew with him in bygone years, almost hourly, at the Ecuadorian Embassy. As we noted above, if he presents himself simply as a sort of Belmarsh rescue shelter pet for early adoption, that would be the best strategy for release, obviating all these disingenuous legal tactics brought upon him.
Seriously, every poster who rushes to his defense bandies “Julian” about, as an unwavering trope, everywhere you look. The coziness is way more claustrophobic than his “cell’ (if that is not “virtual”).
I prefer to speak more formally as “Mr. Assange” is still waiting for a jury to come in with a verdict.
And I don’t mean in Baraitser’s court, I mean something more like the “Court of Public Opinion”. (Given that it took that court in USA almost a half century to find out facts about the JFK hit that Fidel Castro was broadcasting on Cuban radio the next day, that jury may have its hands full. I know personally, with selfies, guys and gals that were intimates with Timothy Leary, that swear he was the real deal, despite books in his “own hand” that admit he was on a highly organized CIA mission. Or others that I know who tell me Rubin and Hoffman -of 1968 The Chicago Seven- were honest to God wild-eyed hashish eatin’ hippies, despite them both dying young as … stockbrokers! Look it up. The defense rests its “circumstantial” case against them. And, umm, others!)
To those who have more “reliable” info than they do, the jury is less out.
Such as Mr. McCoo’s claim above, that he is someone who actually has spoken with “JA, and that Assange told him that he had University funding from NSA and DARPA. Did you miss that, or were you just too busy slamming the sceptics.
That would seem relevant info if provable. Curiously untreated even as rumor by MSM. Don’t hold your breath for DARPA or NSA to cop to that, either: EITHER to confirm OR deny.
Unless you want to be deafened by a very high-tech silence.
Sensory-deprivation. LOL
_____________
“Intellect is the ability to make connections.”
~ G. K. Chesterton
“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” ~MLK
Another 77th Brigade officer identified. These people are all over Bernhard’s blog (and others) telling readers that Off Guardian are conspiracy theory nut jobs who are endangering peoples’ lives. That’s how they work: turn everybody on the alt websites against each other. Especially against the OP writers and spokespeople: sow doubt into their supporters’ minds about the credibility and loyalties of everybody at front and centre of the alt media. These trolls are scum of the earth, even worse than the people they work for.
On second reading of your reply, I have a suspicion that you may just be reporting from planet Tharg.
“Mr Assange” won’t be waiting on any juries btw, which highlights just how much you know about the case.
Can you read? I stated clearly, “The Court of Public Opinion”. That “jury”! Or are you too deep hack to grasp the simple metaphor.
Well, it takes a troll to know one.
And I say “one” advisedly, since you throw wild accusations all over the thread with typical troll foul mouth in the absence of a clear thought, and yet you know nothing about me at all. Only trolls accuse people without doing ANY homework?
Your posts are that trollishly stuporous, as any study after the fact (way after) would soon show. Even you.
But I’ll move on, it’s scant of any real benefit to have a battle of wits with an unarmed troll.
But then this started out slow and is petering out. I only indulged it to expose with a minimum of dots another standard Sunday troll. And taking the hard foul for Assange, too, what a spectacle.
Ciao, “Tony” and don’t touch your face: you might not spread covid, but there are worse things on wilding trolls.
One pandemic is enough. The second might be a Serpent’s Walk, and that’s what they’re all trying to keep from us. Apparently.
Just don’t conflate any of that with encouragement! We’re confident you can’t.
Not only is ‘John Ervin’ an outed 77th Brigade operative, he can’t lie straight in bed:
Can you read? I stated clearly, “The Court of Public Opinion”. That “jury”! ““I prefer to speak more formally as “Mr. Assange” is still waiting for a jury to come in with a verdict.”
“Just don’t conflate any of that with encouragement! We’re confident you can’t.”
Oops!!! Slip of the tongue. Busy day in the 77th Brigade boiler room today ‘John’?
Oh, brother. WE(re): me and my parrot, Gretchen. We are symbiotic in relationship and nothing is done without consensus. Like seeing you off, she just informed me.
Which one’s your parrot? jack/jim or Eric McCoo? Probably the latter going off the surname. And great pet name you thought up for him: a bit like ‘Miranda’. Is your mate a cross-dresser too?
Those of us who refer to him as Julian are re-humanising him after years of you, and the people you work for, trying to de-humanise him. What ugly minds you army psyops operatives have. I suppose it comes with the territory.
I’m not 77th brigade, I suspect you are though.
But you are jack. You outed yourself by labelling half of the alt media’s leading figures as CIA/MI5 assets. You are on the discussion fora to create as much disruption and mistrust as you possibly can. You think you’re being clever by posting plenty of ‘right on’ posts as well as your deliberate disruption ones. It couldn’t be any more obvious if you had FAKE written across your avatar.
The two photos of Mr. Assange featured here are provocative…
“The long-suffering Mr. Assange…”
He has exactly the plaintive look of a rescue shelter pet, presenting for adoption…
I mean, really.
Now if his legal team only could convince Julian to wear an “adopt me” kerchief, he would be out in no time.
https://bestwebsitelists.com/best-websites-to-adopt-dogs/
No doubt a winning strategy. None of this has any real legal basis anyway, so go right for the heartstrings. Hell, In USA we elect 2 term presidents for less. All the time.
Probably soon enough. Oy.
getting to count of monte christo proportion, somewhat more comfi.
Deep naughtiness is the prerogative of the deep state. It will try to crush anyone who exposes that, whether a state employee, someone the state has elevated through its tentacles, or someone foolish enough to believe he is an independent human being.
I’m sure most visitors are familiar with this but in the off chance that I can bring unalloyed joy to someone unacquainted with the peculiarities of the British courtroom, I yield to his honour, Mr Peter Cook.
The main point about the Assange extradition hearing that Binoy seems to have omitted – why? – is that there is NO legal basis for it.
Under what legal Act of UK parliament is it happening? Under what treaty with the US? Under what US charge?
The behaviour and failure of the Court ought to have been taken up by the senior judiciary of the country and the law lords themselves before having to be forced to by an inevitable appeal after the inevitable kangaroo justice.
The Swedes never charged Assange with anything and the UK already punished him for jumping bail – he didn’t leave the country and his wherabours was known at all times.
There is absolutely no reason to keep him in max security while not convicted of anything and not charged with a serious violent crime that would make him a danger to the publuc.
Baraitser the sock puppet and her masters and the public prosecutor and AG and Parliament and Lords have made a mockery of themselves and the UK because of honest journalism and publishing, of which there is none in the UK now beyond the odd blogger or two.
The DS is an international spiders web and their tools are mighty – when they unleash them on individuals , they do so in defeat, lashing out in defiance.
They will pay for bringing such disrepute to us.
What the USA wants the USA gets, even if it is against our laws.
As befits an obedient little satrap.
After all, Julian did such a lot worse than kill a bike rider and bugger off.
You’re allowed to do that when you’re exceptional.
And indispensable.
Aren’t we lucky to have the rule of law and an independent judiciary?
Yeah I also question Binoy’s story.
What a CIA production mind f show.
A CIA asset made to look like a celebrity freedom fighter and victim.
We really, truly need to have remedial courses, beginning in early school years, “How to recognize a psyop 101: the 3 standard warning signs of all mind control operations”.
And then the bell rings and off you go to the next class, “Propaganda 101, E-Z ways to tell…”
Etc. If these were standard, mandatory courses, it would only be a matter of months before we would have budding critical thinkers who vote these jackasses right out of office and straight into the nearest gaol.
But you may have noticed that the opposite is taught. More so with each passing hour….
In sum, it’s really not a stupid electorate, so much, as a citizenry which has had its minds relentlessly flocked before they could resist, much like that aerosol white flocking sprayed on Xmas trees.
“The ever unsympathetic Baraitser, usually unmoved by any defence application that might suggest favour to Assange, accepted the argument that the May 18 date be vacated”
Unsympathetic?
As I think I said a couple of weeks ago here, in my opinion it is unreasonable to expect a magistrate in court proceedings to appear friendly. It is not her job to take sides. She has to be scrupulously neutral and, yes cold. She is not there to make friends!
I don’t know why anyone here expects anything else from this woman, but as you have said above, she may accept the defence’s arguments if they work hard to convince her.
I have already said a number of times here and elsewhere that I considered Craig Murray’s very well publicised rants against her to be nothing less than misogyny in disguise. In my opinion his anti British diatribes have been very influential and people in the alternative media have forgotten that these proceedings have to be taken seriously by those taking part. And that includes the court officials.
Murray is a political activist whose number one priority is not the freedom of his friend, but the foundation of a Scottish state. (Check Murray’s website post of 31st December 2019 for proof of what I just said). I think his political activism endangers Assange and that Assange should cut ties with him.
That Murray now finds himself in trouble in the wake of Salmond’s acquittal comes as no surprise. I sent him a personal e-mail on 3rd March 2020 urging him to cut out the grandstanding in court in respect of Assange. Had he listened he would not be in this mess now. He represents a liability to Assange, in my opinion.
I am disappointed at Mr Fitzgerald’s grandiose statement quoted above. I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know if this sort of hyperbole achieves anything. Perhaps it has an effect on public opinion, but only the law ultimately can free Julian. I am given to understand that the extradition laws in this country heavily favour the Americans. Baraister’s hands may be tied by this whatever the defence try – but try they must!
Oh pretty baby
Don’t let me down I pray
Oh Pretty baby who made you cry so much?
Are you seriously going to lay the blame for Assange being in Belmarsh in the most patent state action against a political prisoner in the UK since the Guildford Bombers last century at Craig Murrays door – for daring to report a blatant miscarriage of justice by a sock puppet magistrate?
And for reporting the full evidence if the defence witnesses in the Salmond case that has not been written avout anywhere including Off-G?
What exactly did you do to be taken to task at CM’s site? Was it your own personal sock puppetry? I can’t remember?
Fess up Pretty baby.
Even the prosecution lawyer has taken issue with Baraitser’s evident lacunae when it comes to staples of British law.
Justice? What we are talking about is common decency. She is a soulless and cowardly hack. If she had an ounce of self respect she would release Assange and tell her bosses where they can go. Also before Julian leaves the court she might also throw in a few apologies to him for the indignities that he has been subjected by the psychopathes for whom she works.
But being the gutless drone she is, she is not going to do that, is she?
What has taken place is a cruel charade and sham. It exposes the hypocrisy and humbug that is the British injustice system. Something on parr if not worse than the tribunals of Torquemada.
You’re being too hard on her.
If she performs well and pleases her masters, she could end up with a plum quango job on the White Fish Authority or the Chocolate Biscuit Commission.
You have to see these things in the round.
John had what he thought was a budding romance with Russian poster Tatiana (which included sending her gifts) nipped in the bud by Craig’s rottweiller moderators, so he’s taking his indignation and anger out on Craig. In view of the fact that Tatiana eventually blanked John, I suspect that she felt that she was being stalked, and the mods stepped in to support her.
Well CM employs these goons – ‘mods.’
So that makes him responsible – if only partly.
And what the hell right do these goons have poking their noses into something that does not concern them? Any self-respecting grown woman knows how to deal with an online stalker, if that be his intent.
What if she could not pay her rent because of ‘lockdown.’ These ‘gallant mods’ would not be seen for dust.
Like I’ve said here before, it’s a den of hypocrisy at that site.
Err .. get some facts before sticking your home brewed oar in as usual.
Russian. Married and not. Interested.
I didn’t know that was the issue. I think it best to leave it ..eh? i don’t think talking of a third party civvy is correct and won’t mention it again.
Utter twaddle. Baraitser is the very epitome of a prejudiced judge. Her boss is MI5. She enters the courtroom with pre-written judgements BEFORE any evidence has been presented or arguments heard. She issues irrational unreasonable and in many cases illegal rulings solely for the purpose of inconveniencing the prisoner and his legal team despite the fact that there is no legal basis whatsoever for holding him in the first place.
Pretty Boy would right a nice defence of Judge Freisler if required.
Pompous garbage.
In legal terms Assange has done nothing wrong. He is not an American or British citizen, he has committed no crime in the United States – or Britain for that matter – he was kidnapped by MI6 thugs with the collusion of the Ecuadorian Embassy and has been kept in detention in a maximum security prison with without charges. Habeas Corpus? Forget it! And of course there was then the attempt to fit him up with a rape charge by those lovely woke ladies in Sweden. Sweden! What a shitty little country that is. As for the ‘trial’ it was merely a show trial presided over by an establishment dolt reminiscent of the Soviet show trials together with our own Vishinsky. Concurrently has also been abandoned by his native Australia. Quite naturally of course the MSM – qua active CIA/MI6 assets – have been okay with these legal outrages.
This whole tragicomedy has been an attempted but barely plausible justification by the PTB who claim to be defending our ‘democracies’ against subversion by foreign powers bent on destroying our democratic way of life. Ooooh, scary! But in actual fact it is these internal forces which are the real subversives. The real enemies of the people are internal not external.
I think it was David Icke who put it succinctly describing it as the 3 stop totalitarian tango. Problem, Reaction, Solution. How to destroy democracy in three easy stages. Create a pseudo-problem, frighten the population, solve the problem.
Are we going to let them succeed!? Rhetorical question I hope.
“he was kidnapped by MI6 thugs with the collusion of the Ecuadorian Embassy”
Strictly speaking it was former British Tory government minister Alan Duncan who was behind Julian’s removal from the Ecuadorian Embassy. A man who is quoted as calling Julian a “miserable little worm”. MI6 work for the British government not the other way around.
Clearly it was a politically motivated move by the British government, keen to appease the Americans.
I really do wish people would stop giving the UK Tory government a “free pass” on this.
You’re being unreasonable, F.
They go to all this trouble to set up their premier kangaroo court and you’re not impressed at all.
Come to think about it one may ask a question why after two months of hysteria much of police forces have been equipped or broadly used protective face masks in EU and US despite supposed COVID deaths of dozens of police officers while more and more people are forced to wear them if they want to shop for groceries even in areas where official CFR is much less than 1% among 65+.
While Congolese police immediately put on masks as soon as WHO declared deadly Coronavirus pandemic, weary of memories of Ebola Pandemic with lethality above 50%.
Is that really fear or is it lack of fear of COVID among security apparatus leadership in US and EU despite medial daily fear mongering of more mass deaths coming . Are they suicidal by neglect because not ignorance of supposed lethality of Coronavirus peddled by MSM? What do they know?
What UK judge in Assange US deportation case knows rejecting defense claim based of published in Media information, that assange life may be endangered by extraordinarily deadly Coronavirus spreading in Belmarsh prison.
Opinion in theHill written not by a conspiracy theory nut but by shrewd Washington Republican nut seems to try to address basic question of COVID fear vs COVID reality as deduced from hard data.
Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs at http://www.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) when he was majority whip and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).
https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494971-fear-itself-is-more-dangerous-than-covid-19
Whatever political agenda Feehery has his numbers give good perspective from which unprecedented deliberate collapse of economy under guise of COVID should be judged.
Assange would be dead in an Iranian or Syrian prison,he’d certainly have been tortured,and i mean real torture,not self isolating and playing with his skateboard in a foreign embassy !
His embassy hold out became his safe place to pump out propaganda via kremlin RT INTERNATIONAL channel
And now he’s gonna get fucked,oh, and nobody really gives a shite do they!
So what was the point,he’s destroyed his health,his life,and for what?
He’s changed nothing
I see his best mate ,Craig Murray, hasn’t learnt anything from this long saga,as he also wants to ruin himself
These people are like drug addicts, totally self destructive
I’ll leave it at that,otherwise I’ll be accused of being ” obnoxious ”
I’ll probably get put down the memory hole anyway judging by last nights censorship war,which was totally unjustified might i add
Your not “obnoxious” Crispy… Just dull and predictable
Crispy you may think the Imperium will survive everthing,with just a slight change to modus operandi.Many others despise it,especially War Crimes and would like to highlight its fundamental weaknesses,and work towards a better future for humanity,at least some people, will at least try, even against the odds.Seems to me OffG might just be having a crack at it,no guarantees though,but you just stay pragmatic and leave everything as is,perhaps you just dont like pleasant people that respect human rights,but as I say I know there are no guarantees ,extinction looms,but hey lets have a crack at life.Nothing personal just a perspec tive.
Crispy da Contrarian.
The genetic offspring of Atilla da Hun.
Somebody needs a hug.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCyBLyXLpPI
Don’t worry, C. They’ll soon do an Epstein on JA and you can break out your champagne.
Iran and Syria are strictly second division in the torture stakes, behind “We tortured some folks” Obongo and the current Torturer-In- Chief.
Yep, the Exceptional And Indispensable Folk and the Chosen Folk have rather got the torture market pretty well sewn up at the moment.
Good to see them keeping all these traditional techniques from 500 years ago alive, like blinding people, chopping off their private parts, and chaining them up naked to dungeon walls for 17 days ill they die of thirst and starvation.
Nice to see them keeping the old traditions alive.
Warms your heart.
I think I understand your point as intended, but please take care in your choice of words not to use generalised racial derogatory terms.
Are you really an Admin? Hmmmm. [Yes I am. Admin2]
Tropes aside, I think the comment captures a certain nihilist defeatism all too common the populace.
If one goal of social engineering is learned helplessness I would have to say “they” have done an admirable job.
But I think Julian’s is life is certainly deeply meaningful to Julian and time well spent. And I think that applies broadly to many of these supposed modern matrys. Including Craig.
I would prefer to die on my feet.
Torture has been omnipresent in the USA and its colonies since 1620. As American as apple-pie.
Ever hear Ambrose Bierce’s Rational Anthem, a Union Civil War officer, and decorated, sung to “God Save the Queen” but no doubt the puns are more gorgeous to any Yank malcontent:
“My Country, ’tis of There,
Sweet Land of Felony,
Of Thee I sing.
Land where my fathers fried
Young witches, and applied
The whip to the Quaker’s hide
And made him spring.”
The other verses are even funnier, but Bierce, as his nickname “Bitter Bierce” suggests, had a real taste for “rational” (fact-based) history over the more merely idolatrous and homegrown kind. Well, he was a very independent mind, and nobody’s, penning his immortal spoof way back in the 1800s!
The last verse travels the whole wide world;
“Let federal employees
And rings rob all they please
The whole year long.
Let office holders make
Their pile, and judges rake
Our coin, for Jesus’ sake
Let’s all go wrong.”
Now that’s fact based! Or certainly at least one very familiar face on it!
Bierce was a very great American.
Yes he was, thanks. I have him enshrined as a prince. H. L. Mencken reviewed him, “Some of the most gorgeous witticisms in the English language”.
Such as this from his biercing and piercing “The Devil’s Dictionary”~
CONSERVATIVE n. Statesman who is excessively enamored of existing evils; as distinguished from a LIBERAL, n., who seeks to replace them with others.
He made his way out here to the West Coast and wrote such things, after his stint in the Civil War.
He is one of that very small corps of soldier poets like Kipling, with such great gifts. Brooke, Sassoon, and then there was Cervantes in the Battle of Lepanto, as their avatar:
“God smote my right hand to the greater glory of my left.”
When Auden eulogized the lot in his tribute to Yeats:
“Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned KIPLING and his views
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.”
Charles de Gaulle was really of their cadre, though he expressed the gallantry of the poetry in his soul in other ways. It shines through some of what he left for the record. I only came to grasp that in recent years, having assigned him to the dustbin of relics in earlier days, and the vogue view, as one of his countrymen put it, as having “an air that is vaguely fascist”. Must be the uniform.
Shows that there’s always a need for getting the full portrait, not just the first sketch, or the popular cartoon du jour. Too often that is too easily hijacked and turned, at no extra cost, into a vehicle weaponized with (false) propaganda.
It looks now like everything is that way. Including all these issues.
… but poetry should never have to wait in any of those wings.
Especially when it’s by poets like Bierce. Give that man the diamond lane, he earned it.
Haven’t you fucked off to set up your own website yet? If you need a tenner for the software, I’ll help.
Is a touch of narcissism a prerequisite to take on the system? Self promotional types? Not really; not more than any other public speaking. Everyone has an ego and self esteem. It’s a gross oversimplification.
In my work what is the difference between constant intense introspection and narcissism?
There is one, the intent and state of mind. So they are superficially identical and only distinguishable thru detailed intimate knowledge.
Any harm they (Julian) go through short of torture is highly subjective. I don’t feel deprived by the crocked deals I turned down for one. And second, the rewards of a virtuous life, however defined, can be large. A type of well being I guess.
The challenge is still out…Show me anything critical of zionist project in wonkileaks and I’ll believe that this isn’t a limited hangout and that there actually is a guy called a sausage in bell end prison.
In an interview with a reporter on the Belfast Telegraph:
“Wanted by the CIA: Julian Assange – Wikileaks founder”
By Matthew Bell
July 19 2010
Reporter: “What about 9/11?”
JA: “I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”
That was then.
Have his views changed?
Either way, he has clearly upset some very dangerous people somehow.
Litmus test 2 fail…
Does ‘He’ even exist is he CGI.
There’s a third option. I know about Assange and The Family etc and a close study of the People’s Temple has led me to conclude that some of these are factories that produce ‘people for purposes’. Leave it at that.
To gain credibility any operation must provide verifiable information, while its role is to distract from other information. However these operations can go haywire. An asset may get a mind of his own. That’s not much different in practice to a state employee becoming a whistleblower. Happens.
Always amazed how people follow and worship this media celeb that is CIA .
1) Do people really think the CIA are unable lack capacity and resources to assassinate their actual enemies?
2) Wikileaks was founded by CIA to catch whistle blowers before they leak info.Damage control.
3) Wiki is an unverified source and the CIA did not care that the world knows about torture done( waterboarding) why it just makes people afraid of them.No unauthorized info was leaked by wiki.
4) Swanning around the embassy partying with celebs and making babies for years poor little CIA agent, and hello reasoning when the UN tells you anything question it!
5) There is no net neutrality of internet freedom with the censorship and search engine monopoly.So what allegedly he stands for is a lie.
It is horrible what they are doing to Julian Assange. What is even more horrid is that his judges and persecutors are the self same war criminals that he has exposed.
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW!
It really the reveals the filthy, Evil, reality of the ‘Free World’ but, these days, what does not?
I’m with the judge.
They should hold a ‘remote’ hearing.
Send the judge and the prosecutors to Pluto (the planet for plutocrats).
And the accused and his legal eagles could be sent to the Maldives, Tahiti or Bora Bora.
Works for me.
I tend to think that Pluto is too good for Baraitser. Besides, we aim not to pollute other worlds with bacteria.