#Free Assange Rallies in Australia

FREE ASSANGE RALLIES in AUSTRALIA TODAY!!
Sun March 3rd SYDNEY
2pm BRISBANE 1pm

But first:

‘US Federal Court subpoenas whistleblower Chelsea Manning’, Matthew Brennan, wsws.org,  2 March 2019

“On Thursday whistleblower Chelsea Manning disclosed to the New York Times that she has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on March 5. The subpoena provides no information as to what prosecutors intend to ask her, but all indications are that it is part of an effort by the US Department of Justice to escalate its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The Eastern District of Virginia is the same federal court which “in error” revealed to the public in November 2018 that it secretly possesses sealed criminal charges against Assange. The courageous publisher is currently trapped in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, after having sought political asylum in 2012 for publishing explosive leaks that exposed US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, imperialist intrigues around the world, and later the sordid backroom political corruption of the Democratic Party.” [snip]

“For these courageous actions, Manning was arrested and imprisoned under horrific conditions for seven years, including a year-and-a-half in solitary confinement. In January 2017, her 35-year prison sentence was commuted by President Obama, but she was not pardoned, and therefore her conviction still stands.

It is likely that one of the main reasons why Manning is currently being subpoenaed is to try to undermine her original 2010 court-martial testimony, in preparation to pursue Assange.

A key component of her 2010 testimony was that she refuted attempts by the Justice Department to imply that Assange had directed her to pursue the leaks. “No one associated with W.L.O. [WikiLeaks Organization] pressured me into sending any more information. I take full responsibility,” she stated at her court-martial.

For its part, the New York Times, while publishing Manning’s interview, still managed to attack Assange and WikiLeaks, who it claimed have “become notorious for their role in disseminating Democratic emails stolen by Russian hackers as part of the Russian government’s covert efforts to damage the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help Donald J. Trump win.”

See: ‘Disclosing Subpoena for Testimony, Chelsea Manning Vows to Fight’, nytimes.com, Feb. 28, 2019

Her attorney Moira Meltzer-Cohen is working to quash the subpoena, and had announced on her website:

“We will work to quash the subpoena on all available grounds, assist you in identifying lawful ways to resist the subpoena, and work to prevent a contempt finding in the event that you refuse to testify.”

From the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of the story (via the WaPO):

“Under Obama, Justice Department officials had decided not to pursue charges against Assange and WikiLeaks after concluding that to do so could set a precedent that paved the way for prosecuting news organizations for publishing classified information. But the case got a fresh look under President Donald Trump.

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, said the Justice Department likely indicted Assange last year to stay within the 10-year statute of limitations on unlawful possession or publication of national defense information, and is now working to add charges. “There’s nothing else that would make sense,” he said.”

The authors also dig into some of the history of others required to testify to The Committee, most notably David House’ who appeared, and Daniel Dumshit-Borg who’d said an interview he was contacted by the German federal police in October 2017 and told that U.S. authorities wished to talk to him “about the Manning-Julian connection.”  He apparently had received another request in 2018 but told the German police that he wasn’t interested in speaking to the FBI.  They quote Manning:

“I object strenuously to this subpoena and to the grand jury process in general,” Manning said in a statement. “We’ve seen this power abused countless times to target political speech. I have nothing to contribute to this case and I resent being forced to endanger myself by participating in this predatory practice.”

Now myself, I’d reckoned that Manning was issued a subpoena in part due to Moar Russigate from emptywheel:

Mueller isn’t telling us everything

Cohen will testify that he was in Trump’s office one day, before the DNC Convention, when Roger Stone was put through and Trump put the rat-fucker on the speaker phone.

‘In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”

Likely, Stone was once again overselling his access to Assange. [Ya think??]
@wikileaks "STATEMENT on Michael Cohen testimony to Congress: WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has never had a telephone call with Roger Stone. WikiLeaks publicly teased its pending publications on Hillary Clinton and published > 30k of her emails on 16 March 2016. https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/

"Likely, this came via a cut-out. It’s likely Stone learned about this from his meeting with Nigel Farage at the RNC.

But it is an example of the kinds of details that Mueller — in spite of his speaking indictment of Stone — was trying to keep secret. It shifts Stone’s knowledge of WikiLeaks earlier than the indictment. It also makes it far more likely that Trump is the one who ordered someone to find out from Stone what more was coming.”

Some speculation there, Marcy Wheeler.

But on to the #FreeAssange Rallies in Australia:

‘Video: SEP national secretary James Cogan urges maximum participation in Free Julian Assange rallies’, wsws.org, march 2

#FreeAssangeRallies on Twitter:

If you missed the livestream of the SEP Solidarity Rally for 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee #JulianAssange you can watch it here: Part 1: https://www.facebook.com/SocialistEqualityPartyAustralia/videos/2256617811244156/ …

Part 2: https://www.facebook.com/SocialistEqualityPartyAustralia/videos/561019177710902/ …

‘Let The Light In’ – CaTV cut – Alex Taylor for Wikileaks Arts – with Maria Milewska & Alex Hills

Rally to demand the Australian government acts to free Julian Assange!

9 hours ago “Great rally in Sydney today. Many times bigger than the previous one last year. The freeing of must be a central demand for the radicalising working class across the globe.”

Feel free to add your own, or report what you see or hear on Facebook:

Bonus:  From newmatilda.com, Feb. 19, 2019: ‘The Psychology Of Getting Julian Assange, Part 1: What’s Torture Got To Do With It?’, Dr Lissa Johnson; Part 2, Part 3: ‘The Psychology of Getting Julian Assange, Part 3 – Wikileaks and Russiagate: Trust Us, We’re The CIA’ (a very long, but worthy read w/ videos and photos)

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Lookout's picture

Peace is bad. War is good. Truth is dangerous. Censorship will set you free. These are the positions underpinning the war on Wikileaks.

2.5 min summary of Julian's ordeal
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew_bqfWHMYU]

Those interested in helping Julian can do so here:
https://www.gofundme.com/julian-assange-and-wikileaks-public-defence-fund

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

wendy davis's picture

@Lookout

referring to the waltzing newmatilda three-part series or you own video and contribute link, but i'll say yes to both. ; )

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Lookout's picture

@wendy davis

https://newmatilda.com/2019/02/19/psychology-getting-julian-assange-part...
....I was referring to.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

wendy davis's picture

@Lookout

is pure gold, and reminded me again of when the Ds learned to love the CIA. so glad you enjoyed it, amigo. #meToo. ; )

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disseminating Democratic emails stolen by Russian hackers as part of the Russian government’s covert efforts to damage the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help Donald J. Trump win

Publishing opinion (and fanciful opinion at that) as fact.

It looks like Muellar has bupkiss after what? $143,000,000 investigation?
Why doesn't the New york times disclose their verified facts to Muellar? Why doesn't Trump sue the New York times for Libel? Why doesn't Putin?

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

wendy davis's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

and dug up the NYSlimes piece. additionally, both mr. wd and i were taken aback by this is the tribune by way of the WaPO version of the story:

“Under Obama, Justice Department officials had decided not to pursue charges against Assange and WikiLeaks after concluding that to do so could set a precedent that paved the way for prosecuting news organizations for publishing classified information. But the case got a fresh look under President Donald Trump."

having forgotten again that for some unknown reason that now when i use firefox easy copy to cross-post, internal links don't show up hot, i wanted to say that the bolded link simply went back to the same chi-trib/wapo coverage, *and* i think it's pure-d bullshit. this grand jury had to have been seated for over two years, hadn't it? to me, it was akin to obomba saying "the US does not torture, period." when right in the nytimes he was quoted as saying that prisoners just get whistle-stopped for a few days stay to black sites where others (are paid) to torture them.

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@wendy davis
It's firefox with the telemetry removed and the old old interface:
Palemoon latest announcement

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

wendy davis's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

i clicked into changes and fixes (or close) dinnae have any idea what all those words meant. thing is, i have to use early versions of firefox that still had easy copy features. i have two, one for my taskbar, one of my desktop so i can catch at one site and pitch to the other, and i need to swap them out out for similar ones...it's almost as though something has changed: did my laptop eat them? but srsly, jtc tried a month or so ago for me, and the same thing happened. so...beats me.

for now, i'll try to remember and figure out where in all that html code to pop in my own link; it's worked once or twice for me, queen of the luddites...

but snoopy provided some of the answers below: yes, there have been sealed indictments for assange; stratfor said since 2010, maybe others...i'll have to go back to her e. vos link.

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@wendy davis
You can still keep firefox and this has a lot of the security fixes from later firefox

Palemoon for Windows download
The XP builds seem to be gone. I doubt if you are running Linux, but if so, tell me what distro and I'll get you a link or a command.

Don't worry about the technical details.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

wendy davis's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

runs windows 7 pro, although support for it will be discontinued soon, doggonit. i just read up on it, and i do like duckduckgo as the default search engine. it doesn't have easy copy, and from what i read it's a stand-alone browser now, so it won't do anything t my old versions of firefox that to have it?

but thank you, voice, i may give it a go and hope for the best.

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It is a lot of he said, I said, can't give you any names. If she's got information important enough to take to the FBI, it is important enough for everyone to know. I don't trust her. What do you think?

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Lookout's picture

@dkmich

promoting the myth to promote her stories. That's what I sense about Marcy.

consider this Dec. interview with her...

MARCY WHEELER: The idea is that you cheated to win. You cheated to win the office of the presidency, and that goes to the core of whether or not you should be president. It sounds like where Nadler is going is, the underlying crime, the hush payment, may not be grave enough by itself to sustain an impeachment, but, as I mentioned, there was stuff in the filings on Friday that suggests Mueller is going to charge very similar crimes.

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/12/10/marcy_wheeler_mueller_probe_coul...

Amy is right in there with her too I'm sorry to say.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

snoopydawg's picture

@Lookout

Everything Mueller is doing is after the fact that Trump's campaign was illegally spied on because of the information received from the Steele dossier and British spying on them. Add in this unrelenting lie that Russia hacked the DNC computers and gave the information to Wikileaks and it just seems to me that his investigation is built on sand. Add in the connection with Milfud giving Papadopoulos the information that Russia had dirt on Hillary as well as the Fusion GPS connected Russian woman lawyer and the other attempted setups by the FBI to entrap people from his campaign.... Nope. I think Russia Gate won't show a smoking gun unless someone builds it.

I'm betting that Manafort and Podesta weren't the only lobbyists that didn't register as foreign ones. Speaking of Podesta, haven't heard anything about him being charged.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Lookout's picture

@snoopydawg

our friends? ...the Saudis and Israelis? There is your troika of tyranny...US, Saudi, and Israel.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

and well analyzed. too bad it ain't making any big difference to the narrative and charges by way of the msm. 'the truth is what WE determine is The Truth'. 'russians hacked the two sets of D emails at julian assange's request.' 'neither trump nor his envoys were allowed to talk to russians during the transition.' #Treason.

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wendy davis's picture

@dkmich

she'd told the fbi, and iirc it had to do with russia's pln to partition syria. fuzzy in my mind, but i do remember that bernhard at MoA had politely called her on it.

now she does have a holographic memory according to contributor rayne, and did a lot of good work on libby-gate, valerie plame, etc. when she blogged on a tab at firedoglake. but now at her stand-alone Emptywheel site her main mission is to Get Trump, and along the way: wikileaks and julian assange, and writes nothing but the mueller investigation.

her pal bmaz, a surly attorney, brooks no dissent, an trounces all who might disagree; all of his 'kill the troll' stuff is ugly to watch. but after she 'talked to the fbi' she'd sorta indicated that her life might be threatened (by russians?), and the money poured into her coffers, as it does now. the piece i linked to had over 360 comments.

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@wendy davis

Her turning in a source no matter the reason made me wonder about her. From the edges, it was looking like she jumped the shark just like Kos and all the rest of them. Thanks for the insight.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

wendy davis's picture

@dkmich

to her having jumped the shark like Kos, but you've reminded me that as she quit Pierre's 'the intercept', she'd claimed No Bad Blood, yada, yada. but i dunno, a year (?) later she fessed up: they wouldn't pay her as a journalist, just as a blogger.

but speaking of the intercept, they've trashed julian assange many times and close to the way luke harding and all the rest have (including the daily beast). greenwald and klein did too (at the intercept), which is why i feel like kickin' greenwald's ass every time he defends assange. but really a lot of his defense is 'whether you love him or hate him, defend press freeedom!', which is doubly ironic as he ad his cronies kicked wikileaks off the freedom of the press foundation which had anonymized the funneling of contributions to...wikileaks, causing the organization to find other ways to receive donations. oh, and assange, michael ratner (CCR), and a couple others had created it.

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snoopydawg's picture

Wikileaks has proof that Hillary and Podesta made up the claim that Russia hacked the computers. And the claim that they interfered with the election was made up by her team after she lost. Jennifer Palmari (?) wrote an email about that. Wikileaks released this one too.

Smile

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

seive-brain, but i hadn't remembered that. zo...i let my fingers do the bingling, never found it. but i did find this hilarious article: ‘18 revelations from Wikileaks' hacked Clinton emails’, bbc.com, 27 October 2016

i loved this:

"Bill Gates for veep?
Mrs Clinton's campaign considered Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates or his wife Melinda as her running mate, according to the hacked emails.
Mr Podesta drafted a list of nearly 40 names for her potential vice-presidential pick, organising it by what he called "rough food groups", which appeared to refer to demographic coalitions.

The list included Hispanic, white and black men, three former high-ranking military officers, business leaders and female senators.
Among those included were Apple's Tim Cook, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, General Motors' Marry Barra and Starbucks chief exeuctive Howard Schultz.

Senator Bernie Sanders was listed in a group by himself.

(whatever that means)

but then i'd asked mr. wd who her running mate was; neither of us could remember it was all sooooo boring. tim kaine?

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snoopydawg's picture

It talks about how the Assange grand jury that is looking at him is the same one that did Chelsea's and John Kiriakou.
Luke Harding apparently gave the description code away when he published some of the Wikileaks information.

Here's a Twitter thread on Marcy Wheeler.

 Some journalists keenly cite FBI informer Marcy Wheeler's wild & eager speculations on EDVA's #Assange indictment. But indications so far in fact point to the indictment relating to @xychelsea's case & @WikiLeaks revelations of US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cablegate, GITMO.

First of all, the document indicates that the indictment is in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). This is where the WikiLeaks Grand Jury (Ref:10GJ3793) has been empanelled since 2010 in order to indict Assange over the publications that Chelsea Manning was convicted over.

IMG_3267.JPG

There's more tweets.

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

quite a compendium there, snoopy. now you've brought in @AssangeLegal, i'm starting to remember her thread on wheeler; i'd even brought it here and to MoA (blush). good job.

the vos piece is too long for now, but several take-aways from your info dump i should have remembered::

"If something happens to me - if someone releases stolen information about me or knocks me off tomorrow - everyone will now know why and who likely did it," she wrote.
Overly dramatic? Not really. The Russians do have a penchant for disposing of people they find threatening.

Both decisions - to talk to the FBI and to write about it - required her wrestling with three main issues; concerns about journalistic ethics, the possibility of unintended national-security consequences, and the growing certainty that her suspicions about the source were true."

@AssangeLegal "In February 2012, WikiLeaks published emails from the "shadow CIA" private intelligence company Stratfor. Its vice president Fred Burton (who had previously had a senior US intelligence role) wrote in January 2011: "We have a sealed indictment for Assange" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvpPATXyh5A

i just checked TRNN for marcy wheeler w/ aaron maté, but neither of the two i found were exactly what i was looking for. but he always did great w/ her, and it was so with 'luke harding' who could tell russian emails because: lots of emojis.

but publishing vault 7 and 8 were a srsly big deal to the cia. anyhoo, thanks, and i do have a Q on one of your earlier constructs.

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wendy davis's picture

march 10ths #FreeAssangeRallies in australia, partially because the twitter account really never showed anything much, and everything was on facebook, for gawdssake. and also because some of the content in this morning's wsws.org coverage of yesterday's events was pretty depressing altogether:

Sydney rally issues strong demand for the freedom of Julian Assange

“The protest [in sydney] was attended by a diverse audience of some 300 people. Those who participated included individuals who have supported WikiLeaks for the past decade, as well as students and young people who have only recently been alerted to Assange’s plight, along with workers, retirees and academics. Hundreds of people around the world watched the event via a Facebook Livestream. Hundreds more registered their support for the event on Twitter and other social media. Not a single Australian establishment media organisation covered or reported on the demonstration. Over the coming days, the WSWS will publish the full text and video of all the speeches delivered to the rally, and interviews with those who attended."

the staff report highlights capsules of what individual speakers had said, who supported the rallies, etc.

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wendy davis's picture

of John Pilger's speech to Free Assange rally in Sydney, March 3, 2019

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li2gDQxXzYw]

(the transcript from wsws.org)

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