For those who weren't here for the last two weeks, Mr. Universe is a character from the science fiction movie Serenity. It's from him that I get my name "Can't Stop the [Macedonian] Signal:"

Dystopianmovies.org describes him as

...the ‘Mr Wikileaks’ of the Serenity world. He maintains a secret base with his own intelligence station and transmitter from which he broadcasts his defiant messages of freedom, exposing the misdemeanours of the ruling Alliance regime.

I was going to omit this intro, but decided to keep it in honor of my lead story:

A key witness in the Julian Assange case broke down and confessed that his testimony was a pack of lies he created in exchange for immunity. In a sane world, this would collapse the case and eventually result in Julian being freed. Let's hope it does him some good. Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk and Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti of Breaking Points discuss the issue:

More Breaking Points: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" Young Americans are basically sick of capitalism and think socialism might be worth a go. Too bad SCOTUS just made a decision against unions: they ruled against organizers having access to farmworkers. Why? Private property! Get off my lawn!

I'm impressed by Jordan Chariton and Status Coup for going on the ground and talking to ordinary Americans about homelessness. This is an interview with a resident of North Fork Mobile Home Park in Louisville, KY. She wants people to know how the city government illegally shoved a dirty development deal through. It shut down the mobile home park she'd lived in for over 20 years in order to benefit a billionaire developer.

The gents at Hard Lens Media talk about a U.S. Naval Counterterrorism training document that says "socialists must be eliminated."

"Can anyone get me the numbers on how many socialists have been terrorists? Oh, right. It's none."

They also talk more about Steven Donziger, the lawyer who took on Big Oil and won--after which Chevron put him under house arrest. Yes, a private oil company essentially trumped up a charge which was then held up by a corrupt judge. As a result, the guy who won a human rights case against Chevron is legally forbidden to leave his house because Chevron got butthurt.

"There was a big chemical fuel leak in Ecuador that killed a lot of people, especially the native population in Ecuador. And Steven Donziger took Chevron to task and won. And what was his reward? Two years of imprisonment."

This is a misdemeanor charge on the strength of which they've kept him imprisoned in his house for two years.

Lee Camp of Redacted Tonight and Moment of Clarity takes a broader look at what is wrong with The Young Turks. I drop this here because I think Camp has something useful to say about the problems with media in general:

There's a new social media platform in the works, called Panquake "the social media platform that could change everything." Lee Camp talks to its founder, Susie Dawson:

Jimmy Dore reports on censorship. In a fairly brazen move, the U.S. Gov seized Iranian news websites.

Also, censorship continues at home. The ban was only for 24 hours, but I want to mention that Frank Conniff of Mystery Science Theater 3000 got banned from FB b/c of a Hitler joke. The reason I think this is noteworthy is that Conniff is a Hillary supporter, and, though I love his comedy work, entirely establishment in his political leanings. If he can get banned, anybody can.

In other news, unsurprisingly, turns out Kashoggi was killed by operatives trained in US. Still not surprising but even more revolting--they were trained by a private security firm owned by a private equity firm called Cerberus Capital Management.

Well, Cerberus did keep people from escaping from hell, I guess. 10 out of 10 for the name, fellas. Very appropriate.

Personally, I think this may have happened before, in 2014, when James Foley was killed. God knows I didn't watch the video of his death more than once, but the guys shouting in Arabic seemed to me somehow false, like B actors given a gruesome script and told to act like terrorists. I'm not saying they didn't kill him, but they sure as hell didn't look or act like any Middle Eastern radicals I've ever seen (starting with the Iranian hostage crisis in the 70s). But I'm no expert.

Graham Elwood, on The Political Vigilante, talks about the effects of climate change on the Florida Keys. Ron Placone of Get Your News On With Ron, joins him. It's rather grim, so don't click on it if you need to protect your headspace today!

Aaron Mate recently returned from Syria and Lebanon. This is a little old--six days--but Mate interviews four Palestinian refugees to get their perspective on the Israel-Gaza conflict and the refugee experience. They were denied visas by the U.S. government--apparently the government doesn't want people to hear what they have to say:

This is lovely, from Niko House's MCSC network and the show "Marty & the Bro:" worker-owned cooperatives are succeeding during the pandemic.

Hope you guys are all doing OK this morning!