words fail: Julian Assange has been arrested: updated

...with a Q to all: many of you have likely read the other diaries here on Assange's arrest, and you may know if this has already been covered on those threads. What I'm wondering is if it would be helpful for me to do a separate post on 'What's next for Assange?', albeit there's a lot of sorta conflicting/confusing information on that Q.

I'll let Tweets and the terrifying video do the talking:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=stTMt1tLT4g]

the timing? just after this fukkery:

and from Dec. 2018:

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What they have done to him is what’s criminal.

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lotlizard's picture

@Sirena  
The whole thing is like the murder of Khashoggi, drawn out over 8 years.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

was what i'd seen with this from the clipboard: "including under diplomatic immunity or 'in a diplomatic bag'.

as mr. wd said: 'the world failed him'; by extension most of us did, including 'keyboard warriors like myself. the people who did how up...did not fail him.

it's hard to imagine that any rallies, protests, letters, etc. will prevent his extradition now. next stop: a kangaroo court at gitmo?

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wendy davis's picture

@Sirena

(allegedly his first stop) i'd think his attorneys will request that. the images of him hand-cuffed to a hospital bed are hard to ignore.

...assuming they let his attorneys in, of course. i couldn't listen to the video, just seeing his face and his lips moving made me almost throw up.

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wendy davis's picture

@wendy davis

account:

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snoopydawg's picture

@wendy davis

Barak Obama put Assange in the embassy because he pressured Sweden to prosecute Julian after it had decided that he had not committed any crimes. Obama prosecuted Chelsea Manning after she had been tortured for over a year. The arrest of Julian Assange falls on one of the worst presidents this country has ever seen. As Zoe states it was the NDAA from 2012 that rescinded Habeas Corpus in this country.

Lenin Moreno will now be remembered for eternity for this act of betrayal of international rights.

Words have failed me for hours after reading that Julian was dragged out of the embassy this morning. Shame on the men who participated in that. Shame on the judge and fuck the comments he made at the hearing this morning. Shame on the UK government for keeping Julian in the embassy all these years and for ignoring the UN on its ruling. Shame on the UK for being the US's puddle. Shame on everyone in the US government that is not speaking out against this. Shame on every person who is praising this cowardly act by Moreno and the UK. But mostly, shame on Lenin Moreno for allowing this to happen. He did not only sell Julian for a few billions, he is also selling his own citizens.

Thanks everyone here for your comments in this and the other essays on the brutal arrest of Julian. I am proud to be a member of this blue blog.

This wouldn't fit in my sigline:

America, you deserve the government you get. Own it and stop bitching about it. America is a cancer to this world because her people want it to be that way.

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

falls on obomba, and i bristle at greenwald, et. al. who state: 'irony alert, not obomba because: precedent, but trump'. it's total rubbish, including the fact that it was O's doj who'd empaneled the first GJ against assanage. ...which is why i refuse to bring any assange solidarity tweets from him or snowden: 'love him or hate him (and both of them do in spades) it's the principle of it!' Pfffft. and assange and wikileaks knew they've considered assange to be 'the bad whistleblower' for years, and yet have been in solidairy w. snowden always.

and thank you immeasurably for the rest of your comment; so glad that you've found your voice these many hours later.

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@snoopydawg
compared to the imprisonment and nabbing of the one who has sacrificed everything to bring us the truth.

I for one can’t go on with business as usual.

Sarah Flounders in that RT crosstalk interview, showed us how to help, w alternative news sites, keep on posting the truth and by saying that in the end the greater consciousness will always prevail.

Try to remember that.

They can only defeat us, if we let them.

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wendy davis's picture

but wikileaks still has no statement for robinson and hraffnson outside the magistrate court, so i thought i'd get on robinson's wiki, got on the wrong one, and serendipitously found this UK journalist:

...no video.

i did a general search a youtube search for the video, and clearly it's been recorded.

heartbreaking stoicism.

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@Sirena
otherwise i'd be catatonic.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@UntimelyRippd

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg

but do you seriously call what we have a government? Do you really think "most people want" this government, if it is one, to be the way it is? Were any of us asked whether we wanted to become a police state? Were we asked if we wanted the Iraq War? Didn't many millions of us protest the Iraq War before it started? Haven't there been protests since against the Patriot Act and its many facets? Were any of those people listened to? Even in the worst days (the 18 months or so after 9/11) weren't nearly half of us against both the Patriot Act and the Iraq War? Do all those millions of people count for nothing because they (we) didn't win?

One of the worst things about democracy is that if a majority (or plurality, I guess) of 51% beats out a minority of 49%, the losing 49% disappears altogether from historical view. In my view, it's the job of people like us not to allow that to happen.

The decision point, if there was one, was in the 1980s, when Americans voted Reagan in twice. From what I remember, there was no evidence of fraud, and they didn't have electronic voting machines then, and we had an actual press. There may have been dirty tricks involved (October surprise style), but the vote seems to have been counted accurately.

The people who voted in Reagan and George H.W. Bush might be accused fairly of wanting a government like this, though I suspect some of them had no idea what they were voting for--but they knew enough, given that Reagan was obviously both racist and jingoistic. And cruel to poor people as well. I suppose I bear some guilt as well for voting for Clinton in 1996, by which time I should have known better as well--though it certainly wasn't clear that he was an authoritarian police state warmongering type. But it was clear he was a corporate tool, and that should have been enough for me.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

and the authors of the Federalist Papers were intensely aware of it. That's exactly WHY the US government was originally set up in the clunky, inefficient, half-assed way it was. They didn't want efficiency. They didn't want a state where the majority could ride roughshod over the minority, be the difference ever so small. (Nor did they want one where the minority could do likewise to the majority, at least in general -- certain specific instances excluded.) The name of the game was "checks and balances" -- but the checks have been eroded and the balances destroyed.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

snoopydawg's picture

@TheOtherMaven

I really admire the history that you put in your comments and bring to this site.

Thank you!!

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@TheOtherMaven

Elegant, when it's actually in place and actually functioning. Who would have thought that a French monarchist was the first one to come up with the idea of checks and balances? Shoot. I don't remember his name.

They were deeply foolish not to understand that riches in the private sector needed a check as well, but they have a bit of an historical excuse; back then, it seemed like shopkeepers, merchants etc. were the ones rising against the aristocracy, not that they were becoming a new aristocracy. Although not everybody fell for that, and surely people understood the role the East India Company played in the injustice they saw--something the right wingers never want to mention about the "Tea Party."

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

it just depends on whose party is in control. Yes many of us protested against everything that the Bush admin did, but then when Obama became pres and started doing the same things, lots of those people gave him a pass for it.

And again we are seeing echos of the Bush admin with Trump really amping up the abuse of power, but his followers are just fine with it. And many 'democrats' are just fine about Nancy taking impeachment off the table because 'it would be bad for the country' and rile up his base. Many of those people are only blaming the GOP for what Trump is doing, but as I have stated many times there are lots of things the democrats could do to stop them if they wanted to.

As for the police state that we have been living under especially since the Patriot act was signed there are many people who are fine with it because they worship both the cops and the military and refuse to see what their country has become.

I hear what you are saying, but the fact is that yes many people think that if just enough people voted for the right person in the right party then we can get the country back to where it was before the Reagan idiot started its downward slide.

BTW... I'm quoting strife delivery's excellent comment here. I think he hammered the nail.

I suppose I bear some guilt as well for voting for Clinton in 1996, by which time I should have known better as well--though it certainly wasn't clear that he was an authoritarian police state warmongering type. But it was clear he was a corporate tool, and that should have been enough for me.

You aren't alone in this. I am just as guilty for voting for Clinton and Obama, but don't you see the pattern? Both Bush 1 and his idiot son did things in the sunlight that we didn't like, but then we got two people who said all the right thing while blowing sunshine up our pattooties while doing the same damn things behind our backs. Now we have Trump doing things along the same lines, but he isn't hiding behind the charm and coolness of Bill and Barry. We have been doing the political two step and it is just now that many of us are waking up to what has been happening for so long.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg

I think there are fewer clear-sighted, honest people among the American public than there have been in my adult lifetime. The reason I don't state that as a certainty is that it's hard to figure out how many clear-sighted people are left. Many of the people who see our politics clearly have stopped talking about politics. I can tell because when politics comes up with people like handymen, hair stylists, people in the grocery store aisle--they always say something like "I think they're all corrupt" or "I think they're all out to get us" and then say that they don't like politics or that they don't pay attention to it. There is definitely a contingent of people who, like one of my partners, have simply stopped discussing politics because it smells like an abattoir that hasn't been shoveled for a week.

Then there's the fact that fewer and fewer public venues are open to people with our opinions, which makes it even harder to ascertain how many of us there are (this is, I'm sure, by design). I wouldn't say that the contingent of the clear-sighted is a Nixonian silent majority, but they exist, and I'm not sure in what numbers. My anecdotal experience indicates it's not a tiny minority. I'd love for an actual scientific survey to be done on this question, but good luck getting something like that out of Gallup or Ras.

But yes, the horror of the last three years is that the left, en masse, has decided that it's OK to condone any moral atrocity and cover up their moral failings with a veneer of anti-bigotry. There is actually little difference between what they're doing and the rationalizations of supporters of the Third Reich--the only thing that looks different to me is the moral cloak they choose. For Nazis of that time, patriotism was the moral cloak for atrocity. For the left of this time, it's the fight against bigotry. But the underlying moral void is the same.

Like most people who hold a political position that rests on a void of morality and reason, they have become authoritarian, replacing critical analysis and moral commitment with personal loyalty to politicians and parties.

That said, I can't forgive the years 2000-2011, when those people, most of them, had not yet gone mad, and none of us was listened to--or dare I say, given political representation. Nor can I forgive the fact that none of us has had a real political choice since the mid-80s. Nor, for that matter, can I forgive what's being done currently to the millions of Americans who haven't drunk the Koolaid.

This hasn't been a republic for a long time.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

wendy davis's picture

@wendy davis

so we'll watch for it.

on edit: these subtweets:

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@Sirena he didn't look good

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TheOtherMaven's picture

has just murdered it.

Along with the concepts of "diplomatic asylum" and "sanctuary", which no one will ever dare claim anywhere in the world ever again.

Bad King John wins after all.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

habeas corpus was murdered in 'the war on terrorism', as well. and chelsea will likely remain in jail those extra months allowed after the current grand jury expires.

i'd thought i'd prepared myself for this news, but my tears and roiling belly indicate i hadn't come close to doing so. i'd even dreamt about him, swear to the gods, sometimes freed, mostly...not.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@wendy davis

Maybe that's what hate does - turns you inside out into the image of the thing you hate. (Didn't Nietzsche have something to say about that?)

Or perhaps it's The World According to Kafka....

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ggersh's picture

@TheOtherMaven

“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.” Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (2004)
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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

wendy davis's picture

@ggersh

quite a comment there, ggersh.

amerika the beautiful
god shed his grace on thee...

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wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

formula exactly right with 'claimed to hate', miz maven. my mind is reeling with such examples, starting, i reckon, with the pretense that the USA is 'a democracy' in any sense of the word.

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wendy davis's picture

@TheOtherMaven

abyss for too long...we become the abyss...or close to that?

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gulfgal98's picture

@wendy davis the world we are living in. It is far worse than most of us recognize. But the mask of freedom has been ripped off and we are now staring down the abyss of totalitarianism.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

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

wendy davis's picture

@gulfgal98

totalitarian nation, inverted totalitarian nation, a managed Democracy™, clusterfuck nation, all of that, and 'surreal' is good, as would be 'magical realism' in so many respects. but it's been brewin' for a long, line, time, hasn't it, with total aid by way of the duopoly, which showed up in spades in my last diary about the epic barriers to third parties as bruce dixon finally said the D's HR 1 was really about in the end: 'always PropOrNot style russia-gate' is the shorthand.

bless your heart for seeing so clearly. gulf gal. the world will never be the same again for me if julian's extradited to this shit-hole nation and disappeared or murdered. a dark black day for humanity, but especially those who hate war.

"if lies lead to war...
maybe the truth can lead to peace"

~julian assange

(or close to that.)

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@gulfgal98

focused on that, they're even forgetting to bash Trump. Suddenly, he's done the right thing to someone who "meddled in our election."

No wonder the First Amendment is dead. It committed suicide.

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@TheOtherMaven

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

When he signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. Indefinite detention for US citizen, who fucking knows what they are willing to do to foreigners.

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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

and i'd add to that: assassination by drone. those who approve of such are assassins in disregard of not only habeas corpus, but our own constitution (oh, what a quaint document...).

from obomba's Terror Tuesdays 'deck of cards' to 'let me repeat: the US does not torture!' (subtext in the NYT: 'we just send prisoners on whistle stops to other nations to do it for us'. goddam, didn't he just pave the way for herr trump?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Anja Geitz

Not that it matters much, I guess.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@TheOtherMaven

the nation forcing Assange to seek asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy, rather than seeking it from England; and it's continued for seven years, all at our behest. Soon, we will be murdering it ourselves with no intermediaries. (I doubt we can claim insurrection in this case.)

I wonder who put the most pressure on Ecuador and the Brits, the Trump administration, or those hoping the blowback for this will all fall on the Trump administration, while we fools forget who started it.

What was that Green Day sang about an idiot?*

*Their word, otherwise I would not use it.

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snoopydawg's picture

@HenryAWallace

Moreno to hand Julian over. Pence has been the most involved with it, but there are lots of people working in the background on it. Some one had to be working with the IMF to approve the $4.5 billion loan that they received. Then there were the people in Britain who were also working things out with Moreno to time their arrest. Read a tweet that said that Moreno made his decision last July and just the semantics were left to iron out.

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

how and who had arranged the IMF loans to ecuador, and finally found this by whitney webb at mintpress news; oy, is she a nimble and able journalist, whoosh. it also helps that she lives in chile and knows spanish, a serious help for readers.

"WikiLeaks subsequently shared Correa’s tweet and noted that this seemingly unusual reevaluation of Assange’s asylum was directly related to the Moreno administration’s efforts to secure a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a total of $10 billion. Per WikiLeaks, some of the conditions set for Ecuador’s receipt of the IMF loan included U.S. government demands of “handing over Assange and dropping environmental claims against Chevron” for the oil giant’s role in polluting Ecuador’s rainforest and poisoning many of its indigenous inhabitants.

For those who would argue that the U.S. could not set such conditions on a loan offered by an “independent” international financial institution, it is worth pointing out that the U.S. is the IMF’s largest shareholder — owning 17.46 percent of the institution – and also ponies up the largest quota for the institution’s maintenance, paying $164 billion in IMF financial commitments annually. In the past, the U.S. has used its privileged position as the institution’s largest funder to control IMF policy by threatening to withhold its IMF funding if the institution does not abide by Washington’s demands."

the italicized went to this news: 'US senators seek to block IMF bailouts for China’s allies', aug. 2018, dawn.com, but i'd thought it might have been heading to the biden/ukraine bragging video 'do what we say of we'll make sure you don't get your loan'. at least, if i'm remembering that hilariy correctly...

and you gotta think the UK's shareholder percentage would be large as well, although i couldn't find it plainly stated.

"Furthermore, a leaked U.S. Army manual on “Unconventional Warfare” published by WikiLeaks in 2008 noted that the IMF was considered by the U.S. government to be a “financial weapon” to be used in “unconventional warfare” scenarios. As MintPress News recently noted, the manual states that the U.S.’ “persuasive influence” over the IMF can be used by the U.S. military to create “financial incentives or disincentives to persuade adversaries, allies and surrogates to modify their behavior at the theater strategic, operational, and tactical levels,” with such unconventional warfare campaigns highly coordinated with the State Department and the intelligence community."

further tangling things are the facts that pence, bolton, and pompeo have crowned random guaido as king in bolivarian VZ, and T's administration has signed military agreement with moreno to use air space and bases...yanno, to invade with 'low intensity' operations or whatever. i'll add that every article i'd read about the reaon moreno had sought the loans in the first place was that...rafael correa had ruined the eoncomy, cuz: yanno, bolivarian socialism. so moreno, as has guaido in VZ, claimed that 'ecuador is open for foreign bidness (esp. USian is the subtext). MAGA! trump scores!

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snoopydawg's picture

@TheOtherMaven

The corruption and tyranny that inhabits this country sure didn't take long to achieve. The government has long been hostile to the citizens that its supposed to protect. And instead of people fighting for what is rightfully ours we have fought each other instead of the ones who have stolen our country from us. The current administration is on a massive crime spree and it is being given permission to do whatever the hell it wants. The GOP is not afraid of Trump's base, they are afraid of those who are giving Trump his orders. Democrats are going along with it by staying silent because they too want Trump to continue everything he is doing.

The only people who are held accountable are the ones that expose how horribly rotten things have gotten. Chelsea is still in prison and will probably remain there until the trial for Julian is wrapped up. That is if he even gets one. If Trump has the military arrest Julian then under the NDAA he can be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer or a trial. This is Obama's doing. His legacy.

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wendy davis's picture

please please please don't anyone bring up favorable reactions to this abysmal tragedy from other websites, okay?

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Strife Delivery's picture

@wendy davis I won't post screenshots or anything, but whether I did it in this thread or not I will vent:

The amount of ignorance and evil I've seen about this topic is utterly blood-boiling.

How Assange is a Putin puppet (Not true, was entirely a media creation to protect the Clintons).
How Assange should have hacked the Republicans and Russians (Wikileaks are leakers, it is in their own god damn name; sadly people have no idea the difference between what a hacker is and what a leaker is).
How Assange is getting what he deserves (apparently for telling the truth for inconveniencing the US and the Clintons).

But no, the #Resist crowd is cheering. The cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy with them is breathtaking. On one hand, they will defend the Pentagon Papers while simultaneously saying that Assange leaking information was bad.

America is a pathetic nation; a fascist state fueled by the greed, malice, and stupidity of her own people.

America, you deserve the government you get. Own it and stop bitching about it. America is a cancer to this world because her people want it to be that way.

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wendy davis's picture

@Strife Delivery

amerika is the largest terrorist organization of the planet. even MLK, Jr. said so while he was still...alive.

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@wendy davis TOP has that covered in spades.

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wendy davis's picture

@Snode

for my request, amigo, knowing that hearing of any such jubilation would cause me to commit thought crimes.

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis oh, never mind.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

continue, amigo.

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Big Al's picture

@wendy davis cuts both ways. But I admit, being non-hypocritical politically is pretty difficult.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

to still being in the dark, likely my failure, not yours.

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

wendy davis's picture

@bobswern

as it's far, far worse than that, imo.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@wendy davis

I wasn't really expecting that.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Anja Geitz's picture

My heart goes out to his family, his friend, and his supporters. I almost wish someone could slip him one of those pills they give astronauts so that he can rob the U.S the satisfaction of torturing him and interrogating him.

This is truly an ugly message the US is sending to whistleblowers everywhere. That the warmongering planet killing oligarchy will not be thwarted in their quest for money and power. A hateful, vengeful gang of soulless Harry Potter-like dementors masquerading as human beings. May their lives be filled with other vengeful hateful people who live to suck every last drop of happiness out of them.

My sympathy goes out for you too, Wendy. I know how difficult this must be for you after following and covering the Assange story for so long.

A terrible day.

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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

amiga, his family must be crazed with fear and rage. i'd add that amerika wants full command and control of all news as well as its origin, as we've been shown time and again.

but yes, your heartfelt message to me has made me cry again, which...is a good thing in the end (tears, endorphins and all). i can't get the image of his face and body as he was carried out...banished from my mind, although it just came to me that perhaps...i don't want it to for the time being, as corazon espinado (pierced heart) might be the least i can do in solidarity with julian. when i simmer down, i'll turn on the sound for the video.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@wendy davis

you keep the sound off on the video for a day or two. it will not comfort you.

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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

after a rest and some toast to quieten my tummy wonkiness, i did listen...and couldn't understand what he'd said. but i do thank you for considerate advice, miz bear.

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detroitmechworks's picture

I'll give my more lucid thoughts here.

fuck

That's all I can really say. I know what this means. We all know what this means.

This is the, "THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU OPPOSE US!" moment for our empire. Which causes many to kneel.

But they do not forget. The end of those that are vicious in victory is never pleasant. But then again, a classical education is something that these would-be emperors never bothered with. They have people for that...

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

wendy davis's picture

@detroitmechworks

your most thoughtful comment, and i agree, especially as lenin moreno is now officially part of the amerikan imperial project (the UK has long been a puppet).

or: 'they have apps for that' works as well, imo. but 'fuck' could have stood for my comment if i had had any words at the time. i guess the magistrate court has had an arrest warrant on him since '29 June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court'.

staggering to think what he's facing there, isn't it? at least it's not a grand jury, so we hope some of his attorneys are with him?

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Steven D's picture

He will never face trial because the #MIC does not want any further publicity about their war crimes, etc. that he exposed.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

wendy davis's picture

@Steven D

about him never facing trial, but if he does, it will be a kangaroo court, as per

@JohnKiriakou "A fair trial in the Eastern District of Virginia, under Judge Leonie Brinkema, is utterly impossible. They don't call EDVA the "Espionage Court" for nothing."

but if he's taken to trial at gitmo, will we ever know? as in: will his attorneys ever know? would the world care? well, some of the world outside the US Imperium would.

but sure, death in prison sounds about right in any event.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@Steven D

just as the prisoners in Gitmo languish without a hearing, the the U.S. can do as they please. They've already broke jurisprudence precedence in extraditing him.

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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Anja Geitz

black humor, I know, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

wendy davis's picture

account:

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wendy davis's picture

(only five minutes)

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ggersh's picture

https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

"The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals; they give them the opportunity to carry on their destruction; and of course they do so. Is this a sign that the Germans are brutalized in their simplest human feelings, that no chord within them cries out at the sight of such deeds, that they have sunk into a fatal consciencelessness from which they will never, never awake?"

Sophie Scholl, The White Rose, Second Leaflet, Munich 1942

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

wendy davis's picture

@ggersh

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Anja Geitz's picture

From Politico

“The indictment, revealed Thursday by the Justice Department and dated March 6, 2018, alleges Assange aided former U.S. intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning with ‘cracking a password stored on U.S. Department of Defense computers’ that contained classified documents and secrets. He is charged with ‘conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.’

Frankly, I'm surprised it took them as long as it did to come up with what I'd bet the ranch is total fabrication.

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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

those creepy charges. it was from kevin gosztola, shadowproof. if you click it to stand alone, you can see his related tweets.

sure sounds like Trumped Up rubbish to me.

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wendy davis's picture

@Anja Geitz

i finally clicked in to politico to see the rest of the charges, but no, what i found was this utter lying fuckKKKery:

- THE DAILY BEAST’S KEVIN POULSEN: “His dramatic expulsion from the embassy follows a year of ratcheting tension between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts, culminating in Wikileaks publicizing a leak of hundreds of thousands of hacked emails mysteriously stolen from the inboxes of Ecuador’s president and first lady.

“It was this last move that finally set Ecuador’s government firmly against Assange, who was by then already being treated less like a political refugee than an inmate—albeit one who was free to leave at any time. ‘The patience of Ecuador has reached its limit on the behavior of Mr. Assange,’ Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, said on Thursday.”

now he doesn't Say, but seems to imply much like moreno, that it was assange who'd scored the emails and published them (as opposed to the fact that it was a political opponent who'd published them.

but i did dig up this very long explanation from defend wikileaks.org

but the daily beast has hit assange personally before (poulson and ackernam?), largely based on wikileaks DMs, all at a time when i'm pretty certain caitlin johnstone had said julian was incommnicado, and that wikileaks IS NOT assange, and as well, his team has access to julian's personal twitter account.

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wendy davis's picture

open for too long again and can't find New comments, but

two reminders (as snoopy'd reminded us) and solidarity from assange friend pamela anderson:

bruce cockburn's brilliant homage/s to the IMF: 'call it democracy':

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68zccrskOqQ]

nothing yet from krisstin and jen post-hearing, but i'll keep checking. gads, it must be after 7 or 8 in london, no?

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

miz lizard. and yet, no word on their statement post-hearing yet. just loads of solidarity support, qualified solidarity support, and this statement from chelsea manning's legal team:

i hadn't had time to checked in w/ oscar grenfell about his arrest; here it is: (a few outtakes):

“The arrest of Julian Assange by a Metropolitan Police snatch squad is a political crime for which the Conservative government of Theresa May and the Ecuadorian government of Lenin Moreno are politically responsible,” said Chris Marsden, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in Britain.

“The arrest took place after police were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy by the ambassador and following what UK Foreign Minister Sir Alan Duncan said was ‘extensive dialogue between our two countries.’ Behind the scenes the Trump administration in the United States is orchestrating events.

“The Socialist Equality Party denounces this conspiracy. We will do everything in our power to mobilise the broadest protest movement by workers and youth against what are preparatory moves to extradite the Wikileaks founder to the US in clear violation of international law.”

"The Trump administration, with the support of the Democrats, is seeking to prosecute Assange for his role in WikiLeaks’ exposure of war crimes, mass surveillance and illegal diplomatic intrigues."

“The Democratic Party is fully collaborating with the Trump administration in this outrageous attack on Assange,” said Joe Kishore, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States. “It has been a central purpose and outcome of the Democrats' reactionary anti-Russia campaign. The arrest of Assange and Chelsea Manning is an attack on the democratic rights of all workers and must be opposed.”

Assange’s arrest has triggered widespread popular revulsion and condemnation from leading journalists. “The action of the British police in literally dragging Julian Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy and the smashing of international law by the Ecuadorean regime in permitting this barbarity are crimes against the most basic natural justice,” wrote Australian journalist John Pilger on Twitter. “This is a warning to all journalists.”

i need to take a rest, see you soon; thanks sooo much for caring and so many great comments.

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wendy davis's picture

i can take the meaning. julian was holding gore's book as they carried him out like the trash. but oh, the cruel tweets underneath...

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invited the police to enter the embassy to arrest Assange, which is different from allowing them to enter. Same commenter claimed first that Assange shouted as they took him out of the embassy, then later said Assange was "screaming" as they took him out of the embassy. It's hard to tell from the video, but I think "protesting" may be more accurate than "shouting" and I heard no "screaming."

I'm sorry that I don't know who was commenting. The TV was in another room and I caught only a fragment.

ETA: The jerk also muttered something about Assange having meddled in our election.

Amazing that merely revealing that the DNC and the Hillary campaign meddled in our election equals meddling in our election, but the DNC and the Hillary campaign's actually meddling in our election does not = meddling in our election.

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wendy davis's picture

@HenryAWallace

as i understand it, moreno's FM or such had issued the warrant, which required the metro po-po to arrest him (even if they were spooks, who knows?)

were you able to tell what he was yelling? hard for me to hear when i decided to take the plunge a bit ago: 'something... Resistance'?

oh, what a night he must be having. hard to imagine...except all of us ARE imagining.

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wendy davis's picture

as RL has tossed us a few curveballs, but in any event, i'm bushed. bless julian and chelsea, and may we light them both a candle and stick it in our windows, especially tonight of all nights.

and they've all been rich man's wars

from the late great AIM leader alchemist john truedell:

[video:https://youtu.be/Igvhvsj7oKg]

Some ones are crazy or
Maybe we take turns
Dreaming about some kind of life
We say it could have been different
But it wasn't because we weren't

Some things start good and go bad
Some things get bad and stay bad
Are we caught in between
Living a lie or not living at all

Eliminated choices
Lost in dreams we let go
Memories we never got to have
Something else to think about

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wendy davis's picture

..with a Q to all: many of you have likely read the other diaries here (at c99%) on Assange’s arrest, and you may know if this has already been covered on those threads. What I’m wondering is if it would be helpful for me to do a separate post on ‘What’s next for Assange?’, albeit there being a lot of sorta conflicting/confusing information on that Q.”

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Mark from Queens's picture

wendy.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/04/11/discuss-julian-asange-arrested/

Mandrau

Apr, 12, 2019

Can’t sleep this night, tossing and turning, the vision of Julian Assange being dragged out of that Ecuadorian embassy seared into my brain. My stomach on fire with disgust for what that P-O-S war empire with the stars and stripes flag is doing to Venezuela and around the world – stealing, sabotaging, threatening, murdering and lying, lying, lying to us all. The collaboration and complicity of my Canadian government – the descent of my once loved CBC into a propaganda rag. Yea, I made the mistake of reading a few dozen comments below their Assange arrest article which was minimizing to say the least and those comments – a propagandized mob with no empathy like the mobs that cheered at executions in the old days. The mint tea is just not doing it for me tonight – I need something stronger but I quit drinking cause that’s what the empire wants us to do – to numb out on booze, narcotics, tranquilizers, entertainment and whatever so we don’t care what they do in our name. I won’t give them the satisfaction. I’ll stay clear-eyed and awake with Julian tonight and be damned to the war-mongers of the world, to their MSM collaborators and to those who sell their humanity away for a few pieces of silver.

39

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

wendy davis's picture

@Mark from Queens

my friend; for me it was tea and dark toast. i will say i'm feeling more 'among the living' today, but his comment made my tummy wonky again. we'll put a candle in the window again tonight for julian and chelsea, i'll smudge them both with sweetgrass smoke while chanting 'walk in beauty' and post a 'what's next for julian' tomorrow. mr. wd'd remember today's our 46yh wedding anniversary (child bride, me) and i'd forgotten, small wonder.

so i'd wanted to cook him a nice meal for his anniversary gift.

tonight's closing song will be playing for change's (world peace thru global music) cover of peter tosh's 'jah guide' jah is the creator spirit, of course). let both of them hear it thru the noosphere, i pray to the gods of love and justice.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyX82K7CgoE]

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