British Home Secretary signs extradition order to send Julian Assange to US: *Updated

Updated at the bottom of the comment thread.

Via RT.com today:

“Britain's Home Secretary has revealed he has signed a request for the extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange to the US, where he is accused of violating the Espionage Act.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Sajid Javid said that he signed and certified the papers on Wednesday, with the order going before the UK courts on Friday."

Friday, June 14, of course being when the hearing was to open at Belmarsh Gitmo Magistrate's Court.

Dirty bastard didn't even feel the need to follow the protocols, did he?

The Guardian's coverage coverage added this too-clever-by-half rubbish, may he rot in hell:

"Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, Javid said: “He’s rightly behind bars. There’s an extradition request from the US that is before the courts tomorrow but yesterday I signed the extradition order and certified it and that will be going in front of the courts tomorrow.”

“Javid said: “It is a decision ultimately for the courts, but there is a very important part of it for the home secretary and I want to see justice done at all times and we’ve got a legitimate extradition request, so I’ve signed it, but the final decision is now with the courts.”

See previous: ‘US makes formal request for Julian Assange’s extradition’, June 11, 2019

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Again, even the possibility of the death penalty should have prevented this.

Then again, so should freedom of speech, the New York Times v. United States Supreme Court case and basic humanity, which has been missing from all involved in this matter since Ecuador sold out.

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wendy davis's picture

@HenryAWallace

my friend...we thought they'd never end...♫

good gawd all-friday: the utter lawlessness involved w/ julian.

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WaterLily's picture

I'd actually thought they'd let him die of poor health medical neglect kill him in Belmarsh.

There has never been a better example of how the oligarchs always get exactly what they want than this. Rule of international law be damned. Everything be damned. Seriously, fuck them all.

My heart breaks for Julian and his family.

ETA: "poor health" should be a double strike-through.

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wendy davis's picture

@WaterLily

since april 12 or close? i'm embarrassed to say i've forgotten. but as i understand it, he has to complete his 50 week sentence before being extradited to this #Shithole Nation of Lawlessness. oh, the UK court will surely rule that he's a prisoner of conscience, and that his is a political persecution...and not extradite him. 'it's only 175 years, not the death penalty!' sort of calculations by the amerikan DoJ.

i wish wa weiwei an daddy shipton had said more about the condition they'd found him in at the belmarsh prison hospital the other day (previous diary). can he even talk by now? he seems to be wasting away by leaps and bounds. the only one of his attorneys on twitter who seem to have heard this news is @assange legal.

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skod's picture

@WaterLily they are still feeding him. It shows remarkable spine that the Brits are refusing to conveniently kill him for the US government, thus costing the USG their last shred of plausible deniability. Assange is going to be dead very shortly, and it will now be entirely at the hands of the US government.

My guess is that they'll load him onto a C130 to "fly him here", handcuff him to a Jeep, and roll the Jeep out the tailgate as soon as they get over international waters. They don't want a trial- they just want him dead (and ideally, unrecoverable).

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wendy davis's picture

@skod

you might be pinging obomba burying bin laden at sea, 'so no martyrs can grieve over him at a grave site'. me, i never knew if bin laden were in that alleged bundle, myself.

but 'what' they're feeding julian in belmarsh prison is a whole 'nother matter, isn't it, skod?

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Q-chan believes Trump is protecting Assange so he can testify about the murder of patriot Seth Rich by the DNC, I am not kidding. That whole show is on the brink of rapture they are so delusional. R-GOTV

And what am I supposed to do for Julian? Write or call Diane Feinstein? Kamala Harris? They just respond with tracking bugs embedded in every email, that is all. My congress man HuffNPuff is a landslide Clinton tool, already pre endorsed Harris for Precedent, because of course.

Where is bold Bernie? never mind This is what duopoly looks like. not democracy Let's see how bold Bernie and Tulsi, or any Democrat becomes after this... speak now or forever shut yer war criminal protecting pie hole. thanks

PEACE

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wendy davis's picture

@eyo

illogical.illogical.illogical. dunno about bernie, but miz gabbard recently indicated that as prez, she would pardon both assange and snowden. and yes, my vast cynicism had caused me to ask: 'why now? had she just read the polling at wikileaks on twitter that 93% of an MNBC poll wanted him pardoned (or close to that). two days later they'd retweeted her statement.

what to do? well, mama assange is still hoping protests will help, as is the SEP (at wsws.org) myself, i'm not convinced. truth tellers who expose war crimes...are too dangerous to walk among us.

on edit: do you mean because the DoJ hadn't included the russian hacking of the DNC emails in the 18 charges (previous diary at the bottom)?

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@wendy davis q-chan thinks Barr is going to prosecute Her, I think? Sorry for the diversion, it is just another GOTV psyop for the uniparty. PU Archived answer from the the alphabet letter himself:

Anonymous 05/24/19 (Fri) 01:48:27 27b2b5 No.6572364
Q
What can you tell us about Assange??

screenshot
qmap.jpg
"Threat is real" code red
...
"she weighs the same as a duck, so... she's a witch!" holy grail

The q-chan fantasies say Julian will testify in Barr's upcoming corruption case against Her and the DNC, after all the "DECLAS" (also probably after the next election). I don't know, this is just me interpreting further nonsense...

Then, Trump will burn Assange at the stake for soliciting evidence of crimes against humanity by the CIA, because patriotism. And the Ds will be lighting the match for him. meh

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wendy davis's picture

@eyo

psyops wrapped in other psyops, tied up with a gordian knot? i'm sorry, i know you're making fun of it all, but my mind just can't comprehend any of, as it's all too new to me. but i can make out that there's a may 2019 date on it, so there's that, eh? ; )

there's a diary up here about figuring out who gucciffer & some number in order to divine who murdered seth rich. i hadn't clicked n, obviously. too much actual evil afoot to report to engage in speculation 4 me.

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@eyo on Julian Assange and pardon Edward Snowden and I feel that anyone that would do that must feel the same way about Chelsea Manning because she is very much a piece of the picture.

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wendy davis's picture

@aliasalias

apparently i did have her wording incorrect above.

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With their 'most important' ally dutifully requires ignoring international laws. After all, UK's mic and US mic are incestuously intertwined in deceptive war crimes. Exceptional justice all around.

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gulfgal98's picture

@QMS and wholly owned subsidiary of the international oligarchs.

This whole travesty makes me so mad because there is absolutely nothing we the people can do to save Assange. We are all prisoners of the same system, but Julian Assange is being persecuted, imprisoned and tortured for being the one with courage to try to warn and save the rest of humanity.

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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

@gulfgal98

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Big Al's picture

@HenryAWallace we could if we wanted to. I think we always have to believe that.

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@Big Al
at the root of the propaganda campaign we are immersed in. We truly are not free and have no choice so long as we subject ourselves to the barrage of a media narrative designed to misinform and deceive us into continuing to serve the interests of global oligarchy. We have already lost our freedom and our democracy, even as the engineered narative urges us to protect both from harm by submitting to further indignities.

Can we all recognize just how thoroughly brainwashed and misinformed we are by our own government through all mass media outlets? Because unless and until we can, we can’t do shit. Theoretically, in the abstract, it may seem possible. Realistically, an army of Caitlin Johnstones would barely make a dent.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

Big Al's picture

@ovals49 I would think that's obvious. And Johnstone ain't gonna do shit except sheepdog for Sanders and the democratic party.

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wendy davis's picture

@ovals49

the quadrennial stupid-season circus, more peeps are even more lobotomized by the pretense of democracy.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@gulfgal98 Ideas off the top of my head:

- find out where he'll be taken in the US (I'm figuring an air-base to start with) take to social media (those of you who are on it), conjure the biggest flashmob ever seen to descend on/in/outside the place. SHUT DOWN THE ROADS. Do like what was done at Standing Rock.

- find out where he's going to be held in the US. Swarm that place. Hell - BOMB that place. At least sabotage it. We have been completely disenfranchised of our own legal system. They have NO AUTHORITY. They are just gangsters.

- CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. This is being done in complete, open, obvious contempt of the law. Take the opportunity to break the law yourselves in large, unmanageable numbers. If the government can ignore the law, WE ALL CAN. Send a clear message: CEASE YOUR PERSECUTION OF ASSANGE, MANNING, AND SNOWDEN AND GO AFTER THE CRIMINALS THEY REVEALED, OR THE .01% AND THEIR PROPERTY WILL BE MADE TO PAY. NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

i need some breakfast toast:

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gulfgal98's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat If we the people cannot even get single payer healthcare even though it is supported by the vast majority of people, I cannot understand how much power we have to save Julian Assange.

The only hope we have is a revolution in the streets, but I found out that even trying to get people to help with a weekly Peace vigil was fruitless even though most people we talked to wanted us out of the wars. I would guess that most people in the US do not even really know how bad it is that our government is having Assange extradited and charged under the Espionage Act.

The American public has been operating under a blanket blackout of real news for decades and there is nothing in the MSM about Assange other than the occasional smear. We know here because we want to know and we search through alternative media to try to get some truth.

The governments of Britain, the US, Ecuador, and Sweden have not cared one whit about what the public thinks or about justice. All of them are owned. And the people are not the real owners of our governments.

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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

@The Liberal Moonbat

for imagining how we might save him. i almost hate to offer counter-arguments, but i feel as though i must.

first, we may never know until long afterward when julian had been extradited and really:to what venue: court in VA, or straight to gitmo or florence co supermax to wait? second, there have been so few bodies at any of the vigils and protests around the world (but very doughty and dedicated ones); third; third, and of key importance: the only way to organize such feat would be by way of social networking (twitter, i'd expect, as so many of us don't do Facebook) which would tip off the PTB massively, and might even cause twitter to be closed.

and fourth, if such a feat were to happen, people would know that they'd be risking their own lives to (perhaps) save his. imagine the militarized po-po who'd be on alert, although that may not as major a block as Organizing Online would be, i think.

same with effective Civil Disobedience: it takes mass numbers of people to make happen; i really don't reckon there would be. (sorry to be a downer, moonbat.)

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WaterLily's picture

@wendy davis @wendy davis This was behind a paywall for me on FF so I sadly had to resort to Safari to read.

NY Times coverage of Hong Kong protests

A cautionary tale. By design, yes. But also describes pretty clearly what happens when the little people deign to challenge anything.

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wendy davis's picture

@WaterLily

as well, even in 'private window'; seems they've figured that trick out. but i could read as far as 'protests over extradition...'. come to think of it, do hong kong police look anywhere near as militarized as USian ones? i was busy reading the caption instead...

and a tip: when you edit, you can deleted all but the first @#so and so's, and if you hit enter below the @whomever, it makes things a bit less crowded.

and still nothing about this on the Wikileaks account, nor do jen robinson, kristinn hrafnnson, although the latter has this old un from mid-May:

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@wendy davis At least SOMETHING worthwhile would be accomplished, then, booby prize/silver lining and all that. As I've said before, I'm convinced Twitter and Facebook SHOULD be outright banned. They are POISON in all but the most literal sense.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

wendy davis's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

silver lining, eh? but what i'd meant to convey more specifically was that any organizing accounts would be closed. but come to that, it's almost surprising that the WL and related accounts are still up. i guess shutting them down would be a bridge too far even for the Trump administration. so far.

but see photo of the one dozen assange protestors down thread. there were maybe three times that many in australia yesterday, but as for your plans...no one really cares; well, few at any rate.

i don't tweet, as i don't have the temper for it, but i love the immediacy of it, as well as all the art, most especially the photos, as it's all considered to be part of 'the commons'.

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@The Liberal Moonbat

Civil disobedience no longer works.
They just cattle us in and use rubber bullets, batons, tear gas and throw us all in the clink.

Recruiting someone like Jesse Ventura who has contacts, to hire ex team mates, who could be re-deployed might work better, me thinks.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Sirena Imagine the headlines:

"Jesse 'The Body Politic' Ventura, Seal Team 666 To Open Up Huge Can Of Vigilante Terrorist Whoop-Ass - ULTIMATE UNCENSORED Blood Sport COMING SOON to Pay-Per-View!!!"

*shrug* It may be bad for the Military-Industrial Complex, but it'll be GREAT for ratings!

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

@The Liberal Moonbat

But on the other hand, maybe we do need to start thinking more creatively.
Fight fire w fire, rather than coming to a gun fight w a poster and a good heart, only to get creamed again, and again, and again.

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Bisbonian's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

With the same results, presumably?

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

wendy davis's picture

@QMS

doesn't it all make your stomach roil, your fists clench, smoke come out of your ears, and commit thought crimes?

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gulfgal98's picture

in the persecution of Julian Assange sleep at night? I am convinced that the world is filled with sociopaths and all of them are in government. Mr. Javid, blood is all over your hands. May you burn in hell for what you have done.

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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

way that War Criminals can justify themselves, gulfgal. 'Perhaps amoral, but necessary', if they even see that deeply into themselves. some are apparently 'high-functioning sociopaths', but on the other hand...many are simply psychopaths who find torture, murder, and assassinations...pleasurable.

i'll freely admit that the four or five 'intercept journalists' who'd smeared julian, as well as those who threw wikileaks off the Freedom of the Press foundation when he was already under the gun...who are now all over the WLeaks account championing julian's freedom...also make my blood boil. i'm sure they aren't bothered by any cognitive dissonance at all.

i just checked, and consortium news doesn't have this news, nor had they allowed my comment about the US charges out of moderation...even after two days. what in the world? they are or claim to be the HQ of 'unity4j'.

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Just wait until the American people get a good look close up at what our country is about. Just wait until the next journalist from ...fill in the blank.... is arrested for filing whatever story irks someone in the 17 intelligence agencies.

Oh wait, I forgot... the American people didn't do a fucking thing when Wikileaks provided us with all we needed to know about Bush's little Iraq adventure.

Never mind...

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

wendy davis's picture

@Fishtroller 02

she'd also cackled when gadaffi had had a bayonette shoved up his anus. another sadistic psychopath.

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wendy davis's picture

still doesn't have this f'ed up news, but apparently julian was arrested on april 11, not 12, but they do have this creepy-bo-peepy news from nils melzer 22 hrs ago:

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this in order to keep two main lies about Julian Assange alive and well.

First of all it is a well documented fact openly discussed between Assange's legal representatives and the Swedish government's Prosecutor that Julian agreed to extradition to Sweden under only one condition, and that was a guarantee to not be extradited to the US.
That is a well known fact but what does the Guardian print?
"...Assange is serving a 50-week sentence in Britain for skipping bail after he spent seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London attempting to avoid extradition to Sweden. (my emphasis)..."

Secondly Julian Assange has never had a charge of "rape" filed against him but what does the Guardian say....
"...The ruling by the district court prevented Swedish prosecutors from applying immediately for an extradition warrant for Assange to face an allegation of rape dating back to 2010..."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/13/julian-assange-sajid-javid...

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wendy davis's picture

@aliasalias

boiler-plate in the MSM to go all 'rapist in hiding' on him, isn't it? but when an 'intercept journalist' did that. plus all the 'stinky dirty clothes, pooh on the bathroom walls', etc. it was the worst sort of yellow journalism. at least the other four weren't such abject liars.

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I do not have any ideas about how to stop this end of publishing the hard truth, much less how to save Julian's life.
None.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

wendy davis's picture

@on the cusp

and julian and wikileaks have long supposed that when WL published the CIA vaults, the Pompeo made sure to put the pedal to the metal. and now Torture Haspell heads his CIA? good night nurse, hello damocles sword. (no, i won't embed the gif image today.)

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wendy davis's picture

and i'd like to thank you all for caring so much about julian's future, no matter how much future left on this earth he has.

nils melzer, the UN special rapporteur has retweeted this recently, and i wish i found it of any comfort...whatsoever. but i'm just not high enough, and am bound to earthy matters and emotions. yep, i'd even read the dalai lama's book on Achieving Happiness (or some such), and had hoped the word had lost something in translation. Nope.

maybe it'll work for you, but i'd reckon not for julian, nor for chelsea. maybe it's what nils needs to get him thru all the sleepless nights he must experience, given his...job.

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wendy davis's picture

Full US extradition hearing for WikiLeaks' Assange will take place in February 2020 – UK court’, 14 Jun, 2019, RT.com

“WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange will face a new, full US extradition hearing in February that is expected to last five days, Westminster Magistrates' Court in London has ruled.
The hearing date was set after British Home Secretary Sajid Javid revealed on Thursday that he had signed and certified the US extradition order papers.”

Responding to the new hearing date outside the court, another lawyer representing Assange, Jennifer Robinson, said that Assange is "in a healthcare ward in Belmarsh Prison due to his ill-health."

ah, well, lets go see what the guardian has...okay, here's what haroon saddique has to say in part:

"At Westminster magistrates court on Friday, the chief magistrate, Emma Arbuthnot, ordered that a full extradition hearing should begin on 25 February.

Ben Brandon, representing the US, formally opened the case, a day after an extradition request was signed off by the home secretary, Sajid Javid.

“This is related to one of the largest compromises of confidential information in the history of the United States,” Brandon told the court.

As Brandon ran through a summary of the accusations against Assange, including that he had cracked a US defence network password, Assange, appearing by video link, protested: “I didn’t break any password whatsoever.”

Assange, 47, who was dressed in a grey T-shirt, had a white beard and was wearing black-framed glasses, said 175 years of his life was at stake and defended his website against hacking claims, saying: “WikiLeaks is nothing but a publisher.”

Outside the court, his supporters protested against the UK’s treatment of him. A crowd of around a dozen people held banners, with some chanting “Justice for Julian Assange” and “Defend freedom and democracy.”

'Lady' emma arbuthnot, you may remember, should have recused herself from julian's case to begin with, as her dear hubbie is a vicious tory MP. iirc, she't told earlier told assange
that he'd feel much better about himself if he just walked out the door of the ecuadorian embassy and surrendered 'to Justice'.

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@wendy davis

There’s a lot of time, if used wisely, and things can mount or even turn on a dime, so let’s not give up hope, because Julian is counting on us to be there for him as he has been all along for all of us.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

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wendy davis's picture

@Sirena

'where there is a will, there is a way'. enough people have to find the will, and i'm not sure there are. but then, i'm just one of those laughable keyboard warriors in his defense, and have been for a decade or more.

i can't even get to town here by now, and it's maybe two miles away.

but it's closing time for me; g'night, and blessings on ya, sirena.

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@wendy davis

But tomorrow is a new day and we’ll both as many others will too, go back at it again, won’t we?

We will never say never.

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wendy davis's picture

@Sirena

away, and the end of his 50 week sentence is at the end of march...i just kept wondering if he'll even live that long. so i poked about on twitter, found this on the RT UK feed. dunno if patrick henningsen (21st century wire) knows what he's talking about health-wise as julian participated by video link from the hospital, but in his interview he lays out some of coming court dates, evidence, etc.. and more people were outside the court today, and that's a good thing.

Assange in better health, but unlikely to face a fair trial – journalist Patrick Henningsen’, 14 Jun, 2019, RT.com

“I would say his health looks physically vastly improved,” Henningsen told RT. “He has gained some weight back, his hair was combed well, he has a beard.
“Mentally, he’s clearly been under some duress… but that’s because he’s trying to process everything that was coming through this small video pipeline.”

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyjoDMpEAR4]

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wendy davis's picture

nothing at his election site, but this earlier i do remember:

‘Bernie Sanders silent on Assange, vocal in promoting nationalism at Michigan rally’, Tom Hall, wsws.org, 15 April 2019

World Socialist Web Site reporter Andre Damon, together with this reporter, asked Sanders as he was leaving the suburban Detroit rally venue whether he supported the arrest and imprisonment of Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning. We received no reply.

Sanders’ silence demonstrates his support for the rendition of Assange. In the days since the arrest, both the Democrats and Republicans have erupted in celebration. For the entire ruling class, the silencing of Assange has been a top priority. Politicians and military officials have for years called for Assange to be captured and killed in retaliation for his journalistic exposures of the crimes of American imperialism.

Sanders has long supported the Democrats’ anti-Russia campaign, at the center of which is the slander that WikiLeaks collaborated with the Russian government and the Trump election campaign to publish leaked material damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

Trump doesn’t understand what Russia has done, not only to our elections, but through cyber-attacks against all parts of our infrastructure,” Sanders said last July, adding, “We have got to make sure that Russia does not interfere, not only in our elections, but in other aspects of our lives.”

In October 2015, Sanders also came out in support of prosecution for whistleblower Edward Snowden, who revealed illegal spying on a massive scale by the American intelligence agencies. “He did break the law, and I think there should be a penalty to that,” Sanders said, adding cynically that his sentence should be “lenient.”

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wendy davis's picture

two entirely different closing songs from very different eras:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCBS5EtszYI]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dzZnNRJ2B0]

g' night all.

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