abandon all hope of Australia or the UK helping Julian Assange: Updated

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 5:49pm

The Fix is in.

But a bit of relief from a Swedish court on June 3:

‘Scott Morrison defends Federal Police raid on journalist Annika Smethurst's Canberra home’, abc.net.au, May 6

‘Australian Federal Police raid journalists over exposures of government spying, war crimes’, Oscar Grenfell, 5 June 2019, wsws.org

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endless war on julian assange
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Submitted by HenryAWallace on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 6:18pm

the truth about anything, but especially since the Manning stuff. It's an international disgrace and abomination.

The Espionage Act was part of the legislation that Democrat T. Woodrow Wilson got his Democratic Congress to pass as part of his World War I bills.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 7:45pm
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@HenryAWallace

the fix has been in for a long time, but now it's accelerating in australia and the UK. i'd forgotten to bring craig murray's tweet as it got very confusing putting together this storify in two different venues, this one requiring embed codes, not tweet urls.

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Submitted by WaterLily on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 6:43pm
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that if anything happened to Assange, he -- and us -- would be vindicated by a dead man's switch. That somehow, everything he stands for, and has endured because of it, would be worth it.

I've abandoned all hope of that. It seems clear he's going to perish in jail, and even if that switch gets tripped, the information that results will be controlled and spun by the very people it will indict.

We're all fucked.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 7:48pm
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@WaterLily

he is fucked, and those who publish the Truth will get fucked as well.

gotta go serve dinner, i'll be back in a bit.

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Submitted by irishking on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 6:54pm

Julian Assange is the dot of a question mark at the end of a historically important question which we are all being asked right now. That question reads as follows: Does humanity wish to create a society that is based on truth and holds power to account, or does it want the exact opposite?
So far, the general consensus answer to that question has been going somewhere along the lines of "We're actually fine with a headlong plunge into Orwellian dystopia, thanks." But as the implications of that answer become clearer and clearer, we may yet see some stirrings in the other direction before it is too late.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/05/more-police-raids-as-war-on-jour...

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 9:27pm
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@irishking

(by now) my crossed-yes and brain can accommodate, but this from consortium news seems to be the show-stopper.

"if assange were the first example, let's go for broke!" jeezum crow. will they get it now? hard to say, but will it matter when it's too late for julian?

on edit: how apropos the joe mccarthy clip is. "are you now, or have you ever...committed journalism?"

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Submitted by janis b on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 11:03pm
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@irishking

Perfect.

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Submitted by HenryAWallace on Fri, 06/07/2019 - 6:12am

@janis b

Cohn said that the attorney from Hale & Dorr knew something about Cohn that Cohn did not want made public. (Cohn did not mention what that was.) For his party, McCarthy knew that the younger attorney from Hale & Dorr, Fred Fisher, had been a member of this leftish legal organization while he (Fisher) was in law school.

Each of the senior people promised to keep secret the info he knew about the junior person. But McCarthy broke his word. (AFAIK, the senior attorney from Hale & Dorr never broke his word: It had been McCarthy who had played dirty on this one, not Cohn. So, there was no reason to hurt Cohn for it.

Later, everyone learned that Cohn had been a closeted homosexual, which would have been a damning disclosure in the Fifties, possibly ending Cohn's career. I've wondered if that was the secret about Cohn involved in this iconic scene from the McCarthy hearings.

I've heard that Fisher became an alcoholic and, while Hale & Dorr kept him on, his major duty in his later years was accompanying one of the firm's other attorneys who was confined to a wheel chair. Some stories are perhaps better without their actual endings.
Ca

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 7:25pm
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and we never found out what happened after that because there was no one to report it."

Remember this torture report?

“[Julian Assange] is presently under close observation in prison hospital because he has suffered ‘severe transient psychotic episodes.’ My source(s) indicate these episodes occurred after two sessions of coercive interrogation at the hands of UK and US officials. The source(s) stated the HUMINT interrogators used psychotropic drugs in the course of the sessions.”

Bloody Gina's ass should be sitting in prison instead of her being allowed to poison and torture Assange. Jesus. How sociopathic does one have to be to do that to helpless people? In a world that upheld the law she would be as well as Bolton, Abrams and the rest of the very long list of war criminals.

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 7:36pm
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@snoopydawg

and when i'd published karen kwiatowski's report...i was kinda laughed outta the room. my thing continues to be: nils melzer and the docs last saw julian on may 9, but he reported almost 3 weeks later. what's happened to him in the belmarsh gitmo prison hospital since that time? he obviously should have been taken to the hospital of his (or his attorney's) choice. but you should see the comments speculating that (OMG) he may already be dead.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 06/06/2019 - 11:14am
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@snoopydawg

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 7:47pm
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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 9:24pm
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@snoopydawg

entire 9+ minutes, but i'm not sure what your Q is referencing:

that in some nations whitle-blowers are lauded; that in the US this stuff is unconstitutional, or if the warrant specifies 'copy, alter, delete'. but as i understand it,
abc news australia is owned by....rupert murdoch. sorry to be a thick-wit, but could you explain your Q?

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 9:33pm
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@wendy davis

counts as an assault on the media. Being persecuted for 9 years and being called a rapist and that it's okay for the US government to say that they want him dead doesn't qualify as an assault in their book? It sure as hell does in mine. Hillary said that she wanted to drone him. Other congress critters have said things along the same lines.

“I've never seen an assault on the media as savage as this…

Yeah that's what happens when the PTB wants their war crimes hidden from the public. Guess they didn't pay much attention to what Obama did during his tenure to whistleblowers? Or if they did they didn't have much to say about it. Surprise! Things like this always find others to do it to.

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 9:50pm
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@snoopydawg

an idjit for not getting it, but i plea having to take breaks from his yelling voice. can i use that excuse? of course not. but take a gander at what i'd brought from mama assange down thread. reminds me of the intercept burning 3 whistle-blowers, of course.

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Submitted by Anja Geitz on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 9:03pm
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And his loved ones. I can't imagine the anguish and suffering they are enduring right now. This is just sickening. And the worse his punishment is, the louder the message is. The question is: which message are most of us hearing?

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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

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 9:46pm
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@Anja Geitz

daddy assange's twit account, but other than the new abc au news, etc., this was on mama assange's account, although it should be underneath snoopy's video:

but they all must be in utter agony, fearing the worst, and not even daring to hope. at least our agony can be compartmentalised; their can't. and mama assange's husband has cancer, to top it off.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 06/06/2019 - 8:02am
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and i'll send this out to julian and all his loved ones. it's the last thing that Santee Sioux john trudell, american indian movement (AIM) leader recorded before 'his ride came for him'; he was a truth-teller, too, and in the most glorious ways imaginable...turned poison into medicine...for all of us. even the legendary quiltman sings (in the first american way) behind his talking poetry.

i wish you Time Dreams.

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

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Submitted by janis b on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 11:17pm
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It used to be that when I lay in the dental hygienist’s chair I could watch a slide show of her beautiful landscape photos. Now that she’s moved back to Canada and I have a different hygienist I only see news headlines. That’s where I saw this morning’s shocking news of the police raid of Australia’s public broadcaster. I found a little bit of relief in also seeing the headline regarding youtube’s ban of neo-nazi and holocaust denial videos.

Like Anja said, I feel for Assange and his loved ones.

I read this from an Australian journalist - Why the police raids on Australian media are so alarming

Thanks wendy, for Time Dreams

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Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 06/06/2019 - 8:20am
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@janis b

pretty incendiary stuff she's brought. fordham, too. requests for meta data requiring no warrants. here' a bit more on david mcbride.

there's speculation on twitter that it's sort of a five eyes thing by now, and suzie dawson had mentioned kiwi nicky hager in the mix as well. but if he has a twit account, i couldn't find it.

'time dreams' seriously helps put me in a better place; glad you liked it, amiga, trudell is still simply magnificent even though he's crossed to the other side. this page has a bit of his story; small wonder he was friends with buffy saint-marie. ; )

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Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 06/06/2019 - 8:26am
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i'm not sure what to make of it all, but cassandra is being lauded profusely for her journalism. she'd noted that this was all about a month before he was taken to the prison hospital.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Fri, 06/07/2019 - 10:46am
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‘WikiLeaks warns US Justice Department preparing more charges against Assange’, 7 June 2019, wsws.org

The charges, WikiLeaks said, would be based on the testimony of Sigurdur Thordarson, an FBI informant previously convicted of fraud, who recently travelled to the United States to answer questions aimed at preparing a new indictment.

The news came the same day as fresh warnings about the deterioration of Assange’s health. Assange’s father, John Shipton, was scheduled to visit his son in Belmarsh Prison but was turned away and told Assange was seeing a doctor for an apparently urgent visit.

“My visit was double-booked, it has been cancelled,” he told Australia’s Herald Sun. “[The doctor’s visit] must be at short notice because a double booking occurred.”
WikiLeaks’ press release, however, stated that the US is likely preparing a superseding indictment. It would include the already unveiled charges, along with new counts against Assange.

WikiLeaks noted: “Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported that Sigurdur Thordarson was flown to the United States last week where he was ‘comprehensively interrogated,’ in preparation for the filing of a new superseding indictment against Julian Assange by the end of next week.”

The WikiLeaks release continued: “NOS reported that on May 6th this year, FBI Special Agent Megan Brown, who leads the FBI investigation against Assange, travelled to Iceland together with prosecutor Kellen Dwyer from the Eastern District of Virginia, to re-interrogate FBI informant Thordarson with the help of Icelandic police.”

The collaboration between the Justice Department and Thordarson further demonstrates that the US attempts to extradite and prosecute Assange are a political frame-up being conducted in violation of fundamental legal norms.”

grenfell goes on at length to say why the FBI informant has no credibility, including criminal convictions for embezzlement, fraud, and sex with minors, his having volunteered to help the WL teams, then having stolen 50 grand from the organization...and other perfidy, including:

“In August 2011, Thordarson claims that he contacted the US embassy in Reykjavik, offering to assist in the “ongoing criminal investigation in the United States” against Assange. He was rapidly picked up as an informant by the FBI.
By his own admission, Thordarson met with FBI agents multiple times in Reykjavik between 2011 and 2012. During that period, US authorities flew him to Denmark three times and to the US on one occasion, for secret meetings about WikiLeaks.

Thordarson provided the FBI with eight hard drives of material he claimed was from WikiLeaks. He received thousands of dollars from the US government.”

there’s even more, including his history w/ Lulzsec...then a foot more text.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 06/08/2019 - 7:11am
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‘Australian police chief links media raids to US-led “Five Eyes” spy network’, Mike Head, 8 June 2019 wswsorg

"In an extraordinary admission, the AFP’s acting commissioner Neil Gaughan blurted out that the real reason for the raids was to protect the information that the Australian police and intelligence agencies receive from their “Five Eyes” counterparts. Five Eyes is a top-level network of intelligence agencies dominated by the US that also includes Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

“The Australian government, or particularly the Australian enforcement and intelligence communities, rely on secret and top-secret information from our international partners, particularly our Five Eyes partners,” the police chief said. “If we can’t be seen to protect our own internal information, [then] we are concerned that the information flow to us dries up.”

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Submitted by wendy davis on Sat, 06/08/2019 - 7:17am
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i'd been trying to introduce the ‘WikiLeaks warns US Justice Department preparing more charges against Assange’, 7 June 2019, wsws.org to consortium news yesterday afternoon, but my comment went 'into moderation'...and never came out, even as of this morning. i swear that hadn't been the case in robert parry's day.

but as the place likes to think of itself as the 'unity for j' place, it was even more vexing. i'd asked them to also please note the death of the superb william blum as parry had carried his exposés forever, but...no. no response, comment sent into the ether.

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