CNN: Assange’s refuge in Ecuadorian embassy ‘in jeopardy’. Concern trolling or a genuine warning?

You decide.  But if it’s a genuine warning, why, and who are the ‘multiple sources’ leaking (ha dee ha, ha) the warnings to CNN, and for what reason?  Please share your thoughts.

CNN May 25:

“Julian Assange’s nearly six-year refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London is in danger, opening the WikiLeaks founder to arrest by British authorities and potential extradition to the US, multiple sources with knowledge tell CNN.

While Assange has in the past claimed his position in the embassy was under threat, sources say his current situation is “unusually bad” and that he could leave the embassy “any day now,” either because he will be forced out or made to feel so restricted that he might choose to leave on his own. His position there is “in jeopardy,” one source familiar with the matter said.

Assange’s exit from the embassy could open a new phase for US investigators eager to find out what he knows.

CNN reported in April 2017 that the US has prepared charges to seek the arrest of Assange, who US intelligence agencies believe Russia used as an intermediary to distribute hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election.”

As to the DNC emails and (iirc) the Podesta emails having been hacked, Craig Murray is adamant about the fact that they were ‘internal leaks’, not from ‘hacks’.  He’d also said that he’d met the leaker in DeeCee, which sort of turned into: Craig Murray was the conduit…or something on a boatload of media sites.   Within that missive from Murray, that claim was obscured, so I went hunting and found this is  pdf Robert Parry (Rest in Power) had put up in June of 21016, ‘A Spy Coup in America?’ in which he’d semi-transcribed Murray’s interview on Scott Horton’s program:

Reading Between Lines

Though Murray has declined to say exactly what the meeting in the woods was about, he may have been passing along messages about ways to protect the source from possible retaliation, maybe even an extraction plan if the source was in some legal or physical danger.

Murray has disputed a report in London’s Daily Mail that he was receiving a batch of the leaked Democratic emails. “The material, I think, was already safely with WikiLeaks before I got there in September,” Murray said in the interview with Scott Horton. “I had a small role to play.”

Murray also suggested that the DNC leak and the Podesta leak came from two different sources, neither of them the Russian government.

“The Podesta emails and the DNC emails are, of course, two separate things and we shouldn’t conclude that they both have the same source,” Murray said. “In both cases we’re talking of a leak, not a hack, in that the person who was responsible for getting that information out had legal access to that information.”  Remember also that Assange had broken his rule not to mention sources to say: ‘it wasn’t Russians’, in an attempt to stem the tide of Russiagate.  But back to CNN:

“British authorities have said that they would issue a warrant for Assange’s arrest if he were to leave the embassy. He faces charges in the UK for breach of bail for failing to surrender for extradition to Sweden, a charge a British judge upheld in February despite the fact that Sweden stopped investigating an allegation of rape against Assange in 2017. Swedish prosecutors maintain the right to resume the investigation if Assange leaves the embassy, however.”

As far a I’m concerned, their link about ‘the rape charges in Sweden’ doesn’t tell the whole story, even if the timelines get might confusing given the sources of the reporting.  From justice4assange #REF: ‘How did the Swedish matter end?’, exposing the facts and the hanky-panky by the UK obtained in FOIAed emails.

That judge was Emma Arbuthnot, who is married to a conservative UK politician, Lord James Arbuthnot, who chairs the Advisory Board of Thales (UK), was chair of the Defense Select Committee from 2005 to 2014 and presently serves as minister of state for defense procurement. Arbuthnot’s name happens to appear in WikiLeaks’ archives 58 times. Thales is a prominent defense contractor and symbolizes one type of organization on which WikiLeaks tries to shine a light.  But back to CNN:

“For the last eight years, the UK has refused to either confirm or deny that they have received an extradition request from the US. At the same time, they have refused to provide assurances that Julian will not be extradited to the US if such a request were to be received, and maintained an ever-present vigil of the Embassy, notwithstanding a UN directive to take steps to ensure Julian’s immediate liberty,” Taylor told CNN. “Their silence speaks volumes, particularly in light of recent statements from US officials that Julian’s arrest and extradition are a priority.”

Theresa May had famously said when asked at a Conservative party campaign event in Edinburgh if the UK would now support a request to extradite Assange to the US, Theresa May said: “We look at extradition requests on a case-by-case basis.”  The prime minister had added: “In relation to Julian Assange, any decision that is taken about UK action in relation to him were he to leave the Ecuadorian embassy would be an operational matter for the police.”

Ah, operational matter for the po-po like this, Theresa Thatcher?

@wikileaks   RELEASE: Infra-red footage of covert @JulianAssange “grab teamstake out operation reading mission briefing notes, archive details and video

Now as to various reports of secret indictments, expanded indictments and investigations after WikiLeaks published the CIA Vaults 7 and 8 exploits, which seriously pissed off the spooks, and turned Pompeo and Beauregard Sessions into raging attack dogs…this:

When friend and ally of Julian Assange Randy Credico announced on MSDC that he’d be willing to be interviewed by Adam Schiff over the ‘collusion with Russia’ before the 2016 elections:

“Schiff reportedly said that he would talk to Assange but only if he were in U.S. custody. Assange is currently residing in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid arrest and possible extradition to the U.S. on allegations of espionage. 

“Our committee would be willing to interview Julian Assange when he is in U.S. custody, not before,” Schiff’s office said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner on Friday.”

…Virtually proving that the UK has made a deal to extradite him to the US, the largest criminal enterprise and exporter of torture on the planet.

I agree with Mike Head’s wsws.org coverage of the CNN warning that this is a big deal:

“Ominously, CNN said Assange’s exit from the embassy “could open a new phase for US investigators eager to find out what he knows.” This indicates that Assange could be subject to forced interrogation or prolonged solitary confinement, like Chelsea Manning, in an attempt to break him.

What wouldn’t Darth Pompeo and Gina ‘I’ll no longer torture’ Haspell do to him to get him to name names?  Waterboard him?  Give him the Gitmo treatment, maybe inject him with MKULTRA drugs developed deigned to induce enough insanity and pliability that a ‘subject’ is unable to resist answering questions, as long as they don’t go bonkers, that is.  Back to Mike Head:

“Section 794 of that Act, covering supplying information to a wartime enemy, carries the death penalty. Last year, CIA director Mike Pompeo, now the US secretary of state, labelled WikiLeaks as a “hostile non-state intelligence service.” Pompeo declared: “To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for [cue the laugh track]. It ends now.”

US authorities have stepped up their efforts to silence Assange because of WikiLeaks’ ongoing publication of documents that expose the criminal operations of its military and intelligence agencies, including a trove of source codes and files revealing details about CIA hacking tools.

He also mentions the launch the US Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) law suit, naming WikiLeaks and Assange as co-conspirators with Russia and the Trump campaign in a supposed criminal effort to steal the 2016 US presidential election, as well as the Guardian, which originally published some of WikiLeaks’ devastating exposures in 2010, having instigated a filthy campaign to justify Ecuador reneging on Assange’s asylum.

Oddly, or maybe not, the cursed Guardian did publish this piece by Melinda Taylor on their ‘comment is free’ tab: ‘Julian Assange is suffering needlessly. Why not report that?; The media’s coverage of Assange’s arbitrary detention has been shocking, favouring the powerful over the voiceless’, May 18, 2018, theguardian.com

Taylor points to the Guardian’s smearing of Assange, and may not even know of similar yellow journalism from the Intercept and the Daily Beast.

It’s hard to tell at a glance in the Bing cache what CNN’s coverage of Assange has been like, but this is from Feb. 5, 2017:  ‘Julian Assange Gives CNN 48 Hours Before He ‘Destroys Them’, yournewswire.com

What did add some weight to the theory that this piece might be concern trolling is that while trying to watch the CNN video at the top, this one from 2017 featuring the Atlantic’s lying smear merchant Julia Ioffe kept playing on the right sidebar.  It includes some bits from her Atlantic coverage on the ‘meaning of Assange’s DMs with Trump, Jr.

I offer my thanks to Caitlin Johnstone who’d rather handily deconstructed her ‘journalistic malpractice’ by selectively editing the messages, thus entirely changing their meaning, and that:

“Also worth noting is Ioffe’s omission of the fact that we’ve known since July that WikiLeaks had contacted Donald Trump Jr., as well as the fact that Julian Assange’s internet was cut at the time some of the Don Jr. messages were sent, meaning they may have been sent by someone else with access to the WikiLeaks account. (noting: Julian Assange (tweets by #FreeJulian campaign).”

(cross-posted from Café Babylon, and note: if I don't answer late comments in a timely manner, please come over and knock on my door. I get spoiled in that wordpress emails me all comments.)

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

thanatokephaloides's picture

I note with some temerity that it took less than 5 minutes for CNN to go all RUSSIA!! RUSSIA!! RUSSIA!! on us.....

When will Hillary Clinton face the real reason she wasn't President in 2017?

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

wendy davis's picture

@thanatokephaloides

(and i assume like MSNDC) that they've been smearing assange and wikiLeaks a lot? i reckon ccn is cable, which we don't have, not that we watch any news on any over-the-air stations we do have (pbs affiliates are some).

but do you have any thoughts on my Qs at the top deadhead? to me it was noteworthy that mike head at wsws didn't even ask similar questions, just translated it all...pro forma, with a few imagined additions, of course.

up
0 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

@wendy davis

but do you have any thoughts on my Qs at the top deadhead? to me it was noteworthy that mike head at wsws didn't even ask similar questions, just translated it all...pro forma, with a few imagined additions, of course.

And we all are pretty much in that same boat so long as all we get to know about the sources of this contention are just "sources".

To make the determination of "concern trolling or genuine warning", we need to know something about the "sources" and their probable motives in releasing what they did.

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

wendy davis's picture

@thanatokephaloides

a to the leaked sources? lenin moreno, for instance? theresa may? well, perhaps i'm asking to much, but again i'll ask you: given what you'd noted about CNN, do they often smear assange and/or his character?

sleep well; i'm shutting down for the night.

up
0 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

@wendy davis

well yes, but do you have any intuitions, likely probalities as to the leaked sources?

spelling corrected

Not really.

And as for CNN besmirching Assange's character, I don't have specific track records for them; but what I've observed of the mainstream media generally is that it tends to disrespect Assange every chance it gets.

My bottom line here is identical to zoebear's: I hope and pray Assange is delivered from his many enemies.

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

wendy davis's picture

@thanatokephaloides

'new report'. this tallies w/ my belief, but doesn't speak to motive. two paragraphs of reminders from iamwikileaks.org, may 25 in reaction to the CNN report:

"Last week, the Guardian reported that the UK and Ecuador were engaged in negotiations to attempt to bring the impasse over Assange’s asylum status to an end, without a guarantee that Assange should be protected from the prospect of extradition for his publication activities. Such a settlement would appear to breach principles of international and Ecuadorian domestic law.

Assange was granted Ecuadorian citizenship in late 2017, which means he should have certain constitutional rights. Article 79 of the Ecuadorian Constitution bans the extradition of citizens: “In no case shall extradition of an Ecuadorian be granted.” Article 41 bans asylees from being returned: “The State shall respect and guarantee the principle of non-return.”

but my guess is that ecuador's moreno and theresa may are working in tandem to eject him from the embassy in order to send him to pompeo, sessions, and haspell.

a wsws editorial this a.m. seems to indicate that assange's 'discomfort level' is geared toward forcing him to walk out the door, but that's tough to imagine for me. but if they think canberra will help him...they're deluded.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

had called bullshit on craig murray's explanation of wikieaks' sources...at length. but i also remember someone at her site saying that she's a 'higher class version of luke harding (guardian storyteller), lol.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

That these blood thirsty monsters never get a hold of Assange.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

but it's so hard to hold out much hope at this point. imagine what it's like for him in his solitary confinement, and ill at that. his mum, one of his champions, is beside herself with worry. tragically, so many media hits and lies about him and wikiLeaks have been reified, even by simple constant repetition, that assange himself has boatloads of detractors. so many of the subtweets below this tweeted statement by the ecuadorian human rights commission are breath-takingly callous, cruel, and malicious, not to mention...lies. (click for larger stand alone copy)

up
0 users have voted.

@Anja Geitz has a massive docudump warming up on the launch pad if everything goes south for Assange.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@Snode

but if memory serves, (usually not), in that event wikileaks had built a 'dead man's switch' to be activated just in case. we'd been discussing on another of my assange diaries, but it must have been when assange was incommunicado in 2016 that some lines of code were tweeted by one of the WL associated accounts, leaving folks to wonder...if that were it. and of course it wasn't, and if it's ever used, wouldn't it be activated at pastebin? (that's my level of ignorance...) but give me a couple minutes, and i'll bingle the issue on another tab.

BREAKING ALERT: WIKILEAKS "Dead Man's Switch" Has Been Triggered!
October 16, 2016

'WikiLeaks Issues ‘Torrent Insurance’ Encrypted File With Dead-Man’s Switch', inqusitr.com, June 19, 2016

'Famed government whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted out a message regarding the data breach, noting its significance for more than just the documents themselves.

“Significance is more than docs. Hacktivists, possibly state-sponsored, now demonstrating intent — and capability — to influence elections.” wtf, snowden?

this from fox news in 2016 gets closer to a wider dead man's switch, experts consulted, etc., but close to 'other computers' (mirror sites? i've never grasped that term), and default triggers if assange doesn't command the switch to commence. so...i dunno; i just could find anything else non-specific to all the news in the cache that 'assange is dead' in 2016.

but other folks here may know exactly what the switch is, how it operates, etc.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

and protects him from getting killed.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@mimi

but it may be highly unlikely given this: 'Wikileaks bombshell could DESTROY Merkel's plans for EU domination, Julian Assange warns; A TROVE of WikiLeaks documents revealing the true scale of cooperation between the German and US spy agencies risks derailing Angela Merkel's hopes of dominating the EU, Julian Assange has warned, Tom Batchelor, Sat, Dec 3, 2016

dunno if you'll find this newspaper speaks for many...or the few, but from wsws.org, may 18: 'Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung fuels the campaign against Julian Assange'
by Peter Schwarz

"The German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) appeared on Wednesday with a lead and full-page report on Julian Assange aimed at justifying the handing over of the WikiLeaks founder to British and American authorities.

The articles are an amalgam of insinuations, distortions, half-truths, outright lies and scandal-mongering. They seek to distract from the fundamental significance of the case and to stir up prejudices against Assange, who has spent six years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a virtual prisoner after exposing US war crimes in the Middle East and international intrigues of the US intelligence services."

even realizing that some EU nations are distancing themselves from amerikan FP and military decisions, i dunno if germany is willing to buck amerika the beautiful on this one. what do you think and what are you seeing that gives you such hope? (not that assange would be able to accept such an offer given once he walks out the door of the embassy...bam!) unless a good deal is struck, but oy.and veh. that would take a miracle by now, methinks.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@wendy davis
since I am in Germany and get to know my fellow German poltician's talk a bit better, I don't. I said I hope, but didn't mean to say I am hopeful.

I have given up even to listen to what German politicians say other than foreign policy related issues. I don't think it has any relevance anymore. I have pretty much given up reading the news in general, just scan headlines. I am done with that. The whole EU stuff is beyond me and I don't care for it. I do not care for anything much anymore. Sorry.

I wouldn't vote in Germany, because I don't trust or think the various politicians are really that different other than in words and in some ideas for small social programs.

Assange deserves freedom and amnesty. I think he has done the public a service that needs to be respected. Details from past news I have forgotten and would need to dig them up and read again. I won't. I don't know what would make me change my mind over what I have thought about Assange before.

Sorry that I posted a comment, I shouldn't, if I am not informed.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@mimi

but i do get that 'wish' and 'hope' aren't synonymous. as to freeing assange, hope is nigh onto impossible for me at this point, and i hate that. talk about the sword of damocles hanging over his head...

up
0 users have voted.
gulfgal98's picture

does it make it true? What I am referring to is the lie that Russia hacked the DNC. This lie has been disputed based upon a technical reasons that proved that the DNC information had not been remotely downloaded. Both the Forensicator and the VIPS have similarly concluded that the DNC data was not remotely downloaded based upon differing, but not inconsistent with one another, analyses. That made the DNC leaks actual leaks, not hacks. As for Podesta, he was so careless with his password and information that any computer savvy 10 year old could have accessed his information.

The second part to all this that is conveniently dropped from all reporting is that both the DNC emails and the Podesta emails were taken from private computers, not from the US government. The DNC is a private corporation and Podesta is a private citizen. Why is the US government involved in these cases? If I was as careless as John Podesta with my password and a 10 year old was able to access my emails, would the US government come racing to my rescue?

The real issue here is US government wanting to shut down the media. The legacy media within the US has been bought out and bought off. The legacy media only serves as a highly paid propaganda arm of the US government. Julian Assange has been and continues to be a threat to the US government because he publishes the truth. And the truth is the greatest danger the deep state faces.

up
0 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

MsGrin's picture

@gulfgal98 Not just his password he was careless with - also his cell phone which left his company for a day when he left it in a cab: http://www.inquisitr.com/3628787/wikileaks-clintons-campaign-chairman-lo...

up
0 users have voted.

'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

@gulfgal98 that the r's and d's are just wings of the same party. Otherwise the reaction would only be gales of laughter at how stupid Podesta and Clinton were with their information.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

This would be much
@Snode
ado about nothing, except Her Heinous and Podesta involved.
Her Heinous, of course, knowing where all the bodies are buried.
Assange did the world a favor. TPTB /Oligarchy don't like it much.
Sadly, Assange didn't do himself any favors with the hanky panky in Sweden.
Otherwise this likely a nothing burger.
What I don't get, though, is where are the law firms willing to help Assange pro bono?! I would think they'd be lined up around the Embassy willing to take on the U.S.A. for what amounts to harassment.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

wendy davis's picture

@Wink

"Sadly, Assange didn't do himself any favors with the hanky panky in Sweden." i may not be taking your meaning, but if you mean having had sex (gasp) w/ those women, not going to sweden to be interviewed, given that amerika wanted him extradited to them, with the help of the UK, here's more of the link i'd provided from justic4assange (toward the bottom) in the OP (and all either women wanted was to compel an aids test for assange, iirc):

How did the Swedish matter end?

The extradition warrant from Sweden was revoked on 19 May 2017, when the prosecutor also closed the entire underlying investigation. Having obtained Mr. Assange’s testimony, the prosecutor decided it would be disproportionate to proceed.

The investigation had already been found to be baseless by Stockholm’s senior prosecutor, Eva Finne, who found that the conduct alleged by the police "disclosed no crime at all". SMS messages from the alleged complainant made public in 2015 showed that she "did not want to accuse Assange of anything", that she felt "railroaded by police and others around her", and "police made up the charges".

The UK’s role in the Swedish affair was exposed in emails obtained under Freedom of Information Act which revealed that Sweden moved to drop the investigation in 2013, but the UK Crown Prosecution Service persuaded Sweden to keep it alive. Emails show the UK advised Sweden not to interview Mr. Assange in the UK in 2011 and 2012.

UK prosecutors admitted to deleting key emails concerning Assange and engaged in elaborate attempts to keep correspondence from the public record.

The Swedish prosecutor admitted to deleting an email from an FBI agent about Assange which she received in 2017, and claimed it could no longer be recovered (Video in English and Swedish): (click in for video)"

sadly, their 'Mr. Assange’s testimony' link went nowhere, but i just dug up a copy of his testimony, again at justice4assange..

and on my search i ran into this, fwiw: 'New Analysis of Swedish Police Report Confirms Julian Assange’s Version in Sweden’s case’, by The Indicter, jan. 2017

and yet hes still called a pedophile, a sleazebag rapist a hacker of gummint docs for profit, a treasonist, etc. dunno what makes you believe his many attorneys aren't working pro bono, many are and have, as they're human and civil rights attorneys. it began with the sainted michael ratner, who'd helped him create the organization that booted out assange later, freedom of the press, as i recall.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

On the Swedish charges and the UK's involvement. It's difficult to keep up with the many twists and turns in that case, and many times I hesitate to comment if I'm not sure exactly what happened. Pity that I seem to be alone in that sentiment.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

so many opinions, so little time, grin. for me, i learn things then forget them about 15 minutes late in my dotage, have to look them up again...and again. swear to doG, i see things i've published at the café and reckon other authors there posted em til i see my own name on them.

and while i may seem to rant about assange's many detractors, well...i do, partially cuz i've championed him since the day freaking rachel maddow was on dave letterman's show dissing him back in days of yore. 'why should we let some australian guy tell us what to think™?

i keep meaning to tell you that your heart tree avatar reminds me a bit of banksy's colorized art: ♥ > $.

hope you won't be offended, but every time i'd tried to tell wink that i was correct about the freedom of the press board, everything goes wild for me. as i still have the other tab up...and need to get some rest soon...

'Julian Assange Responds to the Freedom of the Press Foundation Cutting WL Loose', café babylon, December 21, 2017

on edit:

“WikiLeaks and its lawyers (including Michael Ratner and Jennifer Robinson) were directly involved in not only the idea to create FPF, but in its establishment. Its mission statement derives from my draft and I and secured most of FPF’s seed funding. I nominated Glenn Greenwald, Daniel Ellsberg, John Cusack, Laura Poitras to the board to join John Perry Barlow."

none of whom objected to cutting wikileaks loose from FPF, mooting anonymity. mess that it is, it's worth reading for context and...fukkery, esp. as one claim was 'we're so busy creating 'secure drop' (in 2013):

'an open-source tool designed to make it safer for whistleblowers to submit information to reporters. Under the foundation’s stewardship, SecureDrop today is running in dozens of newsrooms, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and Bloomberg.” feel the prop or not burn?

i'd tried to extrapolate from the tweets i'd facsimilated at the top, both trevor timm's and assange's at pastebin. arguably it's a bit of a mess of a diary in three parts, but the fukkery is evident, including the 'we're so busy crating 'secure drop' to the MSM rubbish.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

and while i may seem to rant about assange's many detractors, well...i do, partially cuz i've championed him since the day freaking rachel maddow was on dave letterman's show dissing him back in days of yore. 'why should we let some australian guy tell us what to think™?

But I didn't know Rachel Maddow came out so early against Assange. She sure hid her aspirations to be a media sycophant for the highest bidder during her tenure on Air America, didn't she?

Ah, the celebrity of money. Who needs a soul? Or a conscience?

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

his own mind...but maddow called herself a military brat (father air force), and remember that she went to iraq with her pet rock richard-embedded-reporter-engel to cover the 'end of the war' up close and personal? oooh, were they stars! gag.

she's also taken a hella lotta flak over her ubiquitous...revisionist history in protection of barack obomba.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

commenting on stuff
@Anja Geitz
I'm totally clueless about.
Or admitting such.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

wendy davis's picture

@Wink

brings new meaning to the term 'low information voter commenter. proud of it, you seem to be? and yet for me, it was impossible to allow your disinformation (and worse: hanky panky?, etc.) stand unanswered.

up
0 users have voted.
Anja Geitz's picture

@Wink

The Winks of the world would suddenly become self-aware and in that epiphany of reckoning render themselves moot for the benefit of interesting conversation. But I guess we are stuck with what we have.

up
0 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

in solidarity, peace, and resolve,
wd

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

@Anja Geitz

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Wink's picture

nonsense (your post)
@wendy davis
wasn't an issue Assange likely would be free to walk out of the Embassy.
Instead...
And, Not saying that your post is nonsense, just that the Sweden matter is.
Nothing really keeping him there except the Sweden caper.
The U.S. government's case weak at best.
Lawyers should have had him out of there by now.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

wendy davis's picture

@Wink

but two of his legal team asking that the bail-jumping charges be dropped were mark summers, QC, and jennifer robinson. "His lawyers told a court last month that the arrest warrant had “lost its purpose and function” because the extradition request to Sweden had been dropped when the sexual misconduct investigation was stopped.", nbcnews, feb. 2018

robinson had also told arbuthnot that assange would gladly face prosecution on the bail issue he she'd guarantee that he wouldn't be extradited to the US. "“I do not find that Mr. Assange’s fears were reasonable,” Arbuthnot said."

as i remember it, the charges ordinarily might end up with a fine or a short time in jail. but given that the UN court on arbitrary detention had already ruled in his favor, the charges should be dropped. but what the hell could the best attorneys on the planet do given that THIS monster was the presiding judge?

"That judge was Emma Arbuthnot, who is married to a conservative UK politician, Lord James Arbuthnot, who chairs the Advisory Board of Thales (UK), was chair of the Defense Select Committee from 2005 to 2014 and presently serves as minister of state for defense procurement. Arbuthnot’s name happens to appear in WikiLeaks’ archives 58 times. Thales is a prominent defense contractor and symbolizes one type of organization on which WikiLeaks tries to shine a light.

Justice is NOT blind. any such judge should have recused herself, yes?

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

AND jury.
@wendy davis
That leaves a jailbreak.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

wendy davis's picture

@Wink

wink. just a judge. arbuthnot was the presiding judge in London's Westminster Magistrates' Court, her sole discretion to vacate the warrant or not. but i'm beginning to wonder if you'd ever read the OP, or just the comments given that you'd so easily breezed by who the fucked judge is married to, and hadn't noted what i'd put in on the rape charges in sweden, including the foia'ed 'lost emails' from the original prosecutor who'd said in effect that 'there's no case here'.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

the judge was married
@wendy davis
to one of those Brit higher ups that wears a dusty white wig.
And that somebody or another said "there's no case here."
All of which adds up to squat if the judge begs to differ.
Which apparently she does.
And since Assange's lawyers can't apparently "make this all go away," that pretty much leaves a jailbreak. Sadly.
But, did I dig into the weeds? Click any Links?
No.
The thread enough info for me, thanks. I don't that often get bogged down in the weeds.
I mostly prefer the "News In 60 Seconds" version.
Figure everything else I need to know I'll get in the thread.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Wink's picture

followed ANY of the
@Wink
Assange stuff - at all - so thanks for the post!
Finally caught up to speed. Mostly.
I always thought of the matter as bull$h!t on the part of the U.S. gov't, as usual, and turns out I was right. Not that that was any stretch.
But it's time to free Assange. End this bull$h!t. Long past time.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Alligator Ed's picture

@wendy davis What makes anyone think that recusal or any form of true judicial impartiality will avail during this marathon of misinformation and maliciousness? Apply above to most current U.S. political "investigations" (read "Star Chamber").

up
0 users have voted.

@Wink

the woman who set all this in motion has been linked to anti- Castro group.
some have gone so far as to say she was acting as a CIA operative.

don't know for sure- the straight scoop seems hard to find.
but it looks like Miss A. set Assange up. the whole thing smells real bad.

anyone here know more about this?
of course we have moved on,Sweden dropped the "case."
but that is what got Assange jammed up in the first place.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@irishking
like a set-up. Of course one can't expect to ever know the 'straight scoop'. It's the easiest thing to accuse someone of sexual harrassment and rape and destroy a person's reputation and career. It's pulled out of the hat whenever it's convenient. Basically disgusting.

up
0 users have voted.
Wink's picture

@irishking

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Wink's picture

And, the gov't got
@gulfgal98
involved becuz all of this hanky panky involves gov't docs, I'm guessing.
Well, that, and wanting to shut down the truth telling.

up
0 users have voted.

the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

wendy davis's picture

@gulfgal98

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is lacing up its boots.”
but...in this day of the internet (ha, allegedly 'the great equalizer for democracy'), people need to be at least half-willing dupes to watch teevee news, or cable news to make up their minds so cavalierly. but i suspect that many who click into online news are looking for confirmation bias, as is a human tendency.

but both are why i've been so pissed at the daily beast, the intercept, and odious ioffe doing the same personal smears on assange. they can't handle the truth, either. athough w/ greenwald, snowden, and the intercept, it's more about the good whistleblowers (snowden and greenwald) v. bad whistleblower (snowden).

'The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

~Malcolm X

so western media get to decide who is a tyrant, who's a saint, and it's going on once again now that nicolas maduro won the presidential election. oopsie: i mean stole the corrupt electoral process in which no western nations and their 'backyard' puppets will honor a maduro presidency.

now the VIPS wiki link may have been edited recently, with all the objections noted, etc. but craig murray has written a lot about that lately with jimmy wales and a suspect puppet making changes galore to entries.

oh, lord luv a duck: he's up to part 4: Philip Cross Madness Part IV and even after the first one he'd said he was fearing he might be coming...obsessive.

up
0 users have voted.
Alligator Ed's picture

There is no doubt that the US intelligence apparatus and political establishment are driving the conspiracy against Assange. Last year, WikiLeaks began publishing more incriminating files about the CIA’s global operations. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said putting Assange on trial for espionage was a “priority.” CIA director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, declared that WikiLeaks was a “non-state hostile intelligence service.
Last month, in a further bid to silence WikiLeaks, the US Democratic National Committee (DNC) launched a law suit, naming WikiLeaks and Assange as co-conspirators with Russia and the Trump campaign in a supposed criminal effort to steal the 2016 US presidential election.

Müller posse charged to perform prosecution on non-crime collusion. Don't like something? Just re-define it to make it either odious (Department of Homeland Security) or valuable (Department of Homeland Security). Critical infrastructure--that's voting, for those of you who bother to do so.

up
0 users have voted.
wendy davis's picture

@Alligator Ed

amigo.
some of that's in the OP, but still, unmasking what's truly afoot and and all, bears repeating,

i'm out for the night, and let tonight's lullaby be from playing for change, world peace thru music. sleep well, dream of a better, more just world...if you can.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJtq6OmD-_Y]

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@Alligator Ed
yep, I like those. They will beat the 'hostile' ones and win. Wink

Just snarking myself to silliness. No offense, word plays are so seductive.

up
0 users have voted.