@gjohnsit

It's helpful to know my money is going to politicians who use it to bribe countries so they can incarcerate and torture journalists who happen to have ticked them off.

I swear, I'd be ready to go to jail if there was a massive protest where millions of citizens sent in their tax form with a note saying they were withholding funds until the U.S. Govt. published a detailed itemization of how they are using our money.

Fuck me. This is sickening.

coincidence?

Ecuador has reached a $4.2 billion staff-level financing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), President Lenin Moreno said on Wednesday, as the Andean country grapples with a large fiscal deficit and heavy external debt.

The country will also receive $6 billion in loans from multilateral institutions including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the CAF Andean development bank, Moreno said in a message broadcast on national television and radio.

More info:

Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno was elected to continue Correa’s Citizens' Revolution — but has set about dismantling it instead.

Interpol Rejects Demand to Arrest Ecuador’s Correa in Politicized “Kidnapping” Case
Since coming to power last May, President Lenin Moreno – a handpicked successor of Correa – has fought to remove any trace of Correa’s influence from the ruling party the charismatic leftist once led.

and finally

Abroad, Moreno is often named as an example of how to heal the scars in a country after the polarization that usually accompanies populist governments.

And yet, during a recent visit to Ecuador, very few of the people I spoke to expressed their whole-hearted support for Moreno. While his moderation and concrete steps to strengthen institutions earned him recognition in his first year as president – in late 2017, his approval ratings reached almost 80 percent – recent polls suggest little more than 30 percent of Ecuadoreans now support him.

@gjohnsit

The film, All the Presidents' Men puts that directive in the mouth of Deep Throat. Of course, Deep Throat was seeking revenge because someone else got the top spot in the FBI, so he was no angel, either. However, the script of the film may be the original source. Whatever its origin, it's political gold.

Way to get revenge on Nixon, DT, and with zero blow back to yourself in the bargain.

coincidence?

Ecuador has reached a $4.2 billion staff-level financing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), President Lenin Moreno said on Wednesday, as the Andean country grapples with a large fiscal deficit and heavy external debt.

The country will also receive $6 billion in loans from multilateral institutions including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the CAF Andean development bank, Moreno said in a message broadcast on national television and radio.

More info:

Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno was elected to continue Correa’s Citizens' Revolution — but has set about dismantling it instead.

Interpol Rejects Demand to Arrest Ecuador’s Correa in Politicized “Kidnapping” Case
Since coming to power last May, President Lenin Moreno – a handpicked successor of Correa – has fought to remove any trace of Correa’s influence from the ruling party the charismatic leftist once led.

and finally

Abroad, Moreno is often named as an example of how to heal the scars in a country after the polarization that usually accompanies populist governments.

And yet, during a recent visit to Ecuador, very few of the people I spoke to expressed their whole-hearted support for Moreno. While his moderation and concrete steps to strengthen institutions earned him recognition in his first year as president – in late 2017, his approval ratings reached almost 80 percent – recent polls suggest little more than 30 percent of Ecuadoreans now support him.

@Raggedy Ann

Sometimes I wonder about the time I spend here.

and wondered of C99p's bubble features and me suffering under a Stockholm Syndrome.

If that is the case, so be it.

have buried their heads in their media. The sheeple continue to be distracted by Russia!, their video games, their tv subscriptions (binge-watching is what keeps us dullards - I’m guilty of it myself), social media, etc. Sometimes I wonder about the time I spend here. My justification is always that you people are keeping me properly informed. You encourage me to seek out more sources. You reward me when I participate. I’m your sheeple. I am part of a group of humanist survivors.

Which is why I’m concerned for the citizenry. The people need to be on the streets about this. I talk about it with my coworkers. At a university, there are many viewpoints.

I just want to shake America awake! Where’s your humanity? For once -
LET’S STAND FOR SOMETHING!!
LET’S TAKE A STAND FOR SOMEONE!!

@Brett Wilkins Those were the days...

Remember that time Rafael Correa responded to a US military base request by retorting, "sure, you can have a base here if I can have one in Miami?" I miss that guy...

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg
Truly chilling:

The US government exercising the ability to imprison journalists for simply publishing facts about it, not just in America but anywhere in the world .
. .

Yet, here we are.

If Assange is arrested and prosecuted under the Patriot Act, it will be a devastating blow to press freedoms and constitute a greater leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia than the Patriot Act did. The US government exercising the ability to imprison journalists for simply publishing facts about it, not just in America but anywhere in the world, will be a poisoned dagger in the heart of the world population’s ability to bring any transparency or accountability to that titanic power structure.

We are about to find out if this is the part of the movie where the empire rips off the mask of freedom and democracy and reveals its true tyranny. Assange is a soft target, a controversial figure who has been on the receiving end of wildly successful smear campaigns marketed to every major political faction across the western world. He is the logical place to begin a crackdown on press freedoms and make a public example of what happens to those who shine the light of truth upon Big Brother.
If we allow them to imprison Julian Assange for practicing journalism, that’s it. It’s over. We might as well all stop caring what happens to the world and sit on our hands while the oligarchs drive us to ecological disaster, nuclear annihilation or Orwellian dystopia. If we, the many, don’t have the spine to stand up against the few and say “No, we get to find out facts about you bastards and use it to inform our worldview, you don’t get to criminalize that,” then we certainly don’t have the spine it will take to wrest control of this world away from the hands of sociopathic plutocrats and take our fate into our own hands.
The arrest of Julian Assange would be the fork in the road. It would be where we collectively decide as a species whether we want to survive into the future, and if we deserve to.

Last night I learned that a journalist might have been on Obama's kill list. Think about that for a moment. This country thinks it has the right to drop a bomb on journalists from a drone. Just wow.

Hillary wanted to do that to Julian. "Can't we just drone him?"

"We flew, we dropped, he died." Cackles and giggles.

@snoopydawg

Do not allow Assange to go the way of the countless victims of the American deep state and its vengeance against truth-tellers.

At a time when America's most prominent news publishers have been exposed for having published "fake news" solidly for the past 2 years, it would be extremely unjust for a publisher to be prosecuted for having published nothing but truth.

— mike preece (@mikepreece3) April 5, 2019

Elizabeth Vos:

Instead, we have witnessed legacy press wage a propaganda war against Assange, vilifying him based on utterly fake news. We are watching the unfolding death of the concept of journalism, of Ecuador’s sovereignty, and the public’s hope for transparency.

Assange and WikiLeaks are standing before the US and UK military power structures for the sake of all of us, and especially those who consider themselves journalists. Unfortunately, those who have done the most to injure WikiLeaks amongst the press, are also the very people who have gained the most from Assange’s sacrifices.

The word “journalist” no longer seems to apply to the establishment media. Instead, it is a class of talking heads, mute on this issue, revealing themselves in their silence as nothing other than sycophants baying at the knees of plutocrats.

Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges allegorized Assange’s treatment, comparing it with the crucifixion of Christ. To extend that metaphor, Lenin Moreno can be likened to Judas Iscariot, selling Assange for 30 pieces of silver - or debt relief.

There seems to be no way to fully encapsulate the depth of betrayal of the global public that Assange’s arrest would represent. No words can fully communicate the intentional reversals of truth used to tarnish Assange’s reputation in the public arena from 2010 to the latest gas-lighting attempts by Lenin Moreno’s government and Ecuador’s state-backed media.

Do not allow Assange to go the way of the countless victims of the American deep state and its vengeance against truth-tellers. If we do not have a free press, we are no longer a free people.

Today is an anniversary of the day MLK was murdered. What a precedent this would set if Assange was arrested.

Here's the scene outside the Ecuadorian embassy tonight. Hopefully more pictures will come from the area.

@Centaurea You have expressed my own feelings perfectly.

Some days, I feel angry. Some days, I feel depressed. Some days, I feel optimistic.

Today, I'm in deep grieving, for what could have been, and for all of the lost people, lost in delusion, projection, and denial.

The USA has some serious karma coming its way. The American empire is dying, and its people have gone insane. I mean that literally.

I actually have more hope now than I used to, that the human race will survive. The USA will not, at least not in its current form. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since its current form is full of rot -- physically, mentally, and spiritually.

It can be difficult maintaining one's own sanity when surrounded by a society in which insanity is the norm. Anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional family or who's been in a toxic relationship will recognize the experience.

Some days, I feel angry. Some days, I feel depressed. Some days, I feel optimistic.

Today, I'm in deep grieving, for what could have been, and for all of the lost people, lost in delusion, projection, and denial.

I can understand why they would choose denial, though. Facing the horror of the current reality is a tough thing to do. Fingers crossed that enough of us are able to do it in time.