The last two days of Julian Assange’s scandalously opaque and plainly rigged show trial have brought into focus the reality that the WikiLeaks founder’s plight is the exact inverse of what the mainstream partisan narratives assert in the nation that’s working to extradite him.

A new article about the proceedings in The Evening Standard titled “Julian Assange ‘targeted as a political opponent of Trump administration and threatened with the death penalty’” highlights the undeniable fact that this extradition process is only taking place because of a Trump administration agenda which threatens to strike a deadly blow to press freedoms around the world with the precedent it would set.

The Evening Standard reports on the following testimony on Wednesday by Professor Paul Rogers, a lecturer in peace studies at Bradford University:

Assange’s legal team argue that a decision was taken under President Obama not to prosecute the Wikileaks activist, but that move was overturned under Trump.

 

“During the Obama presidency there was a greater recognition of the problems and less pressure on those presenting conflicting evidence”, said Professor Rogers.

 

“But since the election of President Trump there has been a vigorous denigration of the Obama era, a return to the outlook of the Bush administration and even more bitter opposition to those perceived as dissenters, especially those involved in communicating unwelcome information such as Mr Assange.”

Rogers is absolutely correct. The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald explained in 2018 that the Obama administration was unable to find an avenue to prosecute Assange for the leaks which began dropping in 2010 without endangering press freedoms, yet the Trump administration worked in concert with London and Quito to drag Assange out of the embassy and slam him with an extradition request (the sole reason for his continued imprisonment) based on the exact same evidence the Obama administration had access to on those exact same leaks.

Greenwald explained in The Washington Post that the Assange indictment was “a blueprint for making journalists into felons”, writing that “the Trump administration is aggressively and explicitly seeking to obliterate the last reliable buffer protecting journalism in the United States from being criminalized, a step that no previous administration, no matter how hostile to journalistic freedom, was willing to take.”

“The argument offered by both the Trump administration and by some members of the self-styled ‘resistance’ to Trump is, ironically, the same: that Assange isn’t a journalist at all and thus deserves no free press protections,” Greenwald wrote.

Indeed, it always blows Assange-hating Democrats’ minds when you point out to them that when they defend this extradition campaign they are in fact defending a Trump administration agenda. Not because it isn’t true, nor even because the proof that it’s true isn’t publicly available information, but because there’s been a massive smear campaign directed at liberal echo chambers to manufacture consent for Assange’s silencing and persecution which has been geared toward painting Assange as a Trump supporter.

Conversely, when you talk to those who espouse the common position of supporting both Donald Trump and Julian Assange, they are unable to wrap their head around the indisputable fact that their president is ultimately responsible for the campaign to extradite Assange and imprison him with a sentence of up to 175 years. They’ll claim falsely that this is an Obama-initiated operation. They’ll claim falsely that Trump, who could have issued Assange a full pardon at any time since he took office, is actually working to get Assange to America so he can pardon him. They’ll claim falsely that Assange, who’s been fighting US extradition tooth and claw for many years, is secretly working with Trump and secretly wants to come to the United States to help him. Again, this is because of establishment propaganda campaigns like QAnon shaping the Assange narrative in a way that benefits the establishment.

The extradition trial has been exposing those partisan positions for the power-serving lies that they are.

In an article titled “Trump’s ‘War On Journalism’ Takes Centerstage At Julian Assange’s Extradition Hearing“, Shadowproof‘s Kevin Gosztola gives more detail to this Wednesday exposition:

Trevor Timm, the executive director for the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), told a magistrate court judge, “[President Donald] Trump’s administration is moving to explicitly criminalize national security journalism, and if this prosecution is allowed to go forward, dozens of reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere would also be in danger.”

In Timm’s statement to the court, Timm highlighted how Trump has “attempted to stifle press freedom at all levels.” The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which FPF uses to track press freedom violations in the U.S., has tallied over 2,000 examples, where Trump tweeted “negative remarks, insults, or threats to the press” since his presidential campaign in 2016. He has referred to journalists as “enemies of the people.”

The liberal echo chamber has been enthusiastically taking up the banner of “Trump’s war on the press”, but has been pointing its “resistance” to this war at its most inconsequential and downright idiotic aspects rather than at an extradition trial which would set a precedent that could arguably constitute a greater leap toward Orwellian dystopia than the Patriot Act.

“Just embarrassing to have treated this coddled, pompous, self-absorbed windbag who is a threat to nobody like he’s some kind of press freedom martyr, while ignoring what would be by far the most dangerous precedent for press freedom in years if Assange is successfully prosecuted,” Greenwald recently tweeted with a screenshot of a self-aggrandizing book by CNN’s Jim Acosta. “But that perfectly captures Trump-era journalism: hysterically exaggerating deranged conspiracies & sideshows while ignoring real threats unfolding with little attention. Mean tweets about Chuck Todd and Jim Acosta are treated as grave threats to the Republic while this is ignored.”

The theme of Trump’s assault on world press freedoms also featured in the previous day at court. Former UK ambassador Craig Murray wrote the following of the testimony by Professor Mark Feldstein, Chair of Broadcast Journalism at Maryland University, on Tuesday:

[Defense attorney Mark] Summers asked about the Obama administration’s attitude to Wikileaks. Feldstein said that there had been no prosecution after Wikileaks’ major publications in 2010/11. But Obama’s Justice Department had instigated an “aggressive investigation”. However they concluded in 2013 that the First Amendment rendered any prosecution impossible. Justice Department Spokesman Matthew Miller had published that they thought it would be a dangerous precedent that could be used against other journalists and publications.

 

With the Trump administration everything had changed. Trump had said he wished to “put reporters in jail”. Pompeo when head of the CIA had called Wikileaks a “hostile intelligence agency”. Sessions had declared prosecuting Assange “a priority”.

[Prosecuting attorney James] Lewis said that Feldstein had stated that Obama decided not to prosecute whereas Trump did. But it was clear that the investigation had continued through from the Obama to the Trump administrations. Feldstein replied yes, but the proof of the pudding was that there had been no prosecution under Obama.

Maybe it’s a good thing this trial isn’t being televised. The head explosions it would cause among America’s propagandized partisan hacks would destroy the nation.

This all highlights the fact that it is impossible to gain an accurate understanding of what’s going on in the world through partisan perceptual filters. Partisan echo chambers exist solely to distort people’s understanding of events to the advantage of the powerful, whether you’re talking about ensuring the dominance of establishment political factions, the advancement of status quo-preserving wars, or the elimination of voices who punch inconvenient holes in power-serving propaganda narratives.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. The source of our world’s problems is the fact that the powerful understand this, while ordinary people do not. Things won’t change until a critical mass of people begin waking up to this fact.

_____________________

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71 responses to “Assange Trial Exposes False Partisan Narratives With Focus On Trump’s War On Journalism”

  1. Julian Assange, journalist and founder of WikiLeaks, faces 175 years in a US prison for his lawful publishing activities exposing genocidal American war crimes, heinous human rights violations, criminal coups and covert meddling operations around the world.
    The rigged show trial and grotesque legal travesty that is underway in the UK at present, all in the name of so-called International law and justice, just shows the poverty and the final defeat of a former great power, the American Empire.
    America has unnecessarily exposed its own fascism, its own ugly face to the world in persuit of revenge.
    It is the ugliest monster hiding behind a beautiful facade.
    America is not a democracy, it is a hypocrisy.
    And their politicians and ruling elites cannot win.
    Their whole democracy is exposed as a total fraud.
    Their whole justice system in the name of great values, of fairness, is simple hypocrisy.
    They have accepted their defeat in the very fact that they became afraid of a single individual who had no power, no nuclear weapons.
    They accepted their inferiority of power before a single individual,
    Julian Assange,
    Who published for the whole world to see,
    The horrific truth and the unlawful inhuman behaviour of the evil US empire!
    Regardless of the legal outcome to Julian, he has already won.
    We all have already won.
    And America lost!
    Power is absolutely powerless when it faces truth, when it faces innocence, when it faces love, when it faces magnetic force, when it faces meditation.
    Now, let’s bring Julian home safe, free and healthy.
    Remember, even a stronger entity than you can be defeated if you know the secret of when they are fearful and powerless.
    When their full criminal behavior has been exposed for all to see, they are bound to be powerless.
    In judo there is a technique to know when a person is powerless,
    That is the moment to attack them.
    When they are powerful you are bound to be defeated, so you have to know the moment when their power is waning and attack them then, and you should incite them to attack you when your magnetic force is strong and rising.
    This coming in and going out of your magnetic force physically corresponds to your breathing.
    That is why, when you have to do something difficult, you will hold your breath in.
    For example, if you are to lift a heavy stone, you cannot pick it up when the breath is going out.
    You cannot do it!
    But when the breath is coming in, or when the breath is held in, you can do it.
    So when the breath is going out, unless the person has been trained to fool you, that is the moment when their magnetic force is going out.
    That is the moment to attack.
    This is the secret of judo.
    This is a secret of fighting to win!

    1. Good comment …
      Actually, I exhale when I lift heavy objects. It comes quite naturally. Inhaling while lifting doesn’t make sense to me and I’d be afraid to pop a testicle if I held my breath while lifting heavy. Go figure …

  2. News today. Assange ctrial stopped because it has been exposed to covid. Next step, assange gets covid, condition deteriorates then hodpitalized. Put on ventilator then dies. Press now hail him as a crusader.

    1. So Khatika thinks Julian is worth more dead than alive.
      As though his value as a contributor to the moral revolution is finished,
      and he has no intrinsic value as a human being.
      No difference between a real Julian and a symbolic Julian.
      `
      Consider what kind of mind has values like that.
      Rejoicing to see our Hero’s life dwindle in jail until a premature death.

  3. . Mean tweets about Chuck Todd and Jim Acosta are treated as grave threats to the Republic while this is ignored.
    Thanks for bringing Jim Acosta’s book to our attention. I’ve started reading and formed an impression of a diligent and conscientious author with a professional knowledge of Trump’s techniques. It’s the quality of information which prompts me to collate the passages pertinent to my investigation.
    But that horrible tweet is far more than mean, it’s the kind of character assassination that happens to anyone who is serious about what lies behind the endless blizzard of propaganda.
    Greenwood’s interPersonal venom abounds in social media sites, and its thrust is towards stupefaction and ignorance of everybody … obtained by punishing those who propose a decent oR incisive persispective.
    `
    The origin of this ubiquitous venom cannot safely be left to governments and charity to investigate and to develop effective countermeasures . . . the place to look has been preEmptively trashed by Materialist propaganda, which falsely pontificates withoutEvidence that something like the mudShadows CANNOT EXIST.

  4. It’s ironic that some people are raising a fuss about the alleged poisoning of Navalny while this is going on.

  5. Many times, shameful acts are done in secret far from the light of vision and clarity. Other times, shameful acts are done right out in the open and can be clearly seen if one chooses to witness past the fog of deception that was carefully blanketed around them both from the inside and the outside.
    .
    In our current age, there are things beyond count that fit both of these characterizations.
    .
    What is perhaps on trial most of all these days is ourselves. Do we choose to dwell in a cave of comfortable ignorance while fanatically embracing The Darkness and clutching lies to our chests as if they were our life preservers? Or do we — painful as it may be at times – courageously see things for what they are in all their grotesque ugliness? And then, do we quickly turn away in revulsion because the sight is too unpleasant for us to bear or do we curse the ugliness we beheld and discern the lessons that The Ugliness is desperately trying to teach us?
    .
    When we begin to embrace The Truth in all its forms more than we love and embrace Our Lies, then and only then will our human species have a chance to be more than the major disappointment we have been so far.

    1. RoundballShaman, your portrait of our dilemma is correct.
      Truthfulness and discerning the truth is indeed our chance
      “to be more than the major disappointment we have been so far.”
      `
      There is another strategy which can be applied,
      learned from the horrors of War :
      know thy enemy, their methods & objectives.
      `
      With an external cause for your characterisation of theUgliness of shameful behaviour, this strategy is applicable and efficient.
      `
      The origin of this degrading phenomenon is best described by our shamanic predecessors, who termed the perpetrators mudShadows to denote their physical attributes of texture (mud) and appearance (shadow) when observed by the secondAttention.
      `
      Naturally, the field anthropogist who documented this forbiddenKnowledge has been attacked by characterAssassins who falsely allege that diligent Castaneda is a fraud and phantacist.
      `
      Even Caitlin is attacked by characterAssassins for her perceptive reportage of the skullduggery of mudShadow agents like Trump and his criminal gang of political operatives.
      `
      Their malice and destructiveness knows no limit, for the mudShadows defy decency and merit in their hunger for domination. No sense of humour, neither, an attribute displayed by those most aligned to their subterfuge.

  6. The Julian Assange extradition farce is now proceeding apace in Great Britain, where the English poodles are going through the motions before they comply with U.S. dictates to transfer Assange to trial in the United States.
    ~
    The charge? Some supposed violation of some ridiculous espionage statute dating back to World War I, the foreign war in which tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers were sacrificed by the U.S. government for absolutely nothing. You would think interventionists would hang their heads in shame over a war that sacrificed U.S. soldiers for nothing. Instead, to get Assange they are relying on a ludicrous law enacted during that war for no other reason than to suppress dissent against the war.
    ~
    Assange’s real crime? Disclosing the truth about evil and immoral actions of the U.S. national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon and the CIA. That’s why they have been going after him with a vengeance for the past 10 years. That’s why the British have been treating him as a common convicted criminal as a prelude to the farce of the extradition hearing.
    ~
    This article can be read here:
    The Evil Persecution of Julian Assange by Jacob G. Hornberger!
    https://www.fff.org/2020/09/10/the-evil-persecution-of-julian-assange/

  7. https://www.johndayblog.com/2020/09/basic-considerations.html
    The Decade of Transformation, Being In Balance With Nature, Kevin Zeese (Kevin just died, RIP)
    ​ ​Biologist Elisabet Sahtouris describes an alternative theory of evolution to Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” in her book, “Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution.” Sahtouris finds that evolution is cyclical, a spiral instead of linear. She describes how when a new species arises, it upsets the ecological equilibrium as it comes into competition with other species over habitat. The task of that species in the adolescent phase of its evolution is to find its niche in a way that is cooperative with other species. If it fails, it goes extinct.
    ​ ​The human species is in its adolescent phase, and now it is time to recognize our mistakes and change our behaviors. Sahtouris writes:
    ​ ​“Like any adolescent who is suddenly aware of having created a very real life crisis, our species faces a choice — the choice between pursuing our dangerous course to disaster or stopping and trying to find mature solutions to our crises. This choice point is the brink of maturity — the point at which we must decide whether to continue our suicidal course or turn from it to responsible maturity. Are we going to continue our disastrously competitive economics, our ravaging conversion of our natural supply base into things, our pollution of basic soils, waters and atmosphere in the process? Or will we change the way we see life — our worldview, our self-image, our goals, and our behavior — in accord with our new knowledge of living nature in evolution?”
    https://www.globalresearch.ca/decade-transformation-balance-nature/5709799

    1. John, how often does “a new species arise, upset the ecological equilibrium as it comes into competition…..” Geological evidence indicates 5 moments in the past when an entire plethora of new species arose after a previous plethora of species became extinct. We have millions of species and we had more millions before our generation destroyed plenty. Has anyone found evidence of any new species arising in recorded history?

      1. Has anyone found evidence of any new species arising in recorded history?
        `
        This is a question without an answer.
        New species are either created in a laboratory through genetic engineering, which is both contemporary and prehistoric (both corn and bananas are prima facie engineered ; they cannot reproduce without human assistance.
        `
        Then there are new species which develop according to the sound principles of genetic diversity and natural selection.
        This is a process which defies “finding”.
        `
        So what are you really asking for, Tired ?

  8. “Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. …Things won’t change until a critical mass of people begin waking up to this fact.” I would go a step further than Caitlin. Things won’t change until that critical mass of people create and internalize a NEW narrative about what the world should look like, be like, feel like–how it should be set up, what values would guide it, how it could operate, etc. Until vivid utopian visions again inspire our minds and hearts, provide concrete goals toward which we can strive, all we can do is condemn the status quo, endlessly pointing out its manifold dystopian aspects (like the crucifixion of Julian Assange). This constant condemnation of dystopia DECONSTRUCTS the false and manipulative narratives fed to us, and is thus an important and necessary task. But, in and of itself, it takes us no closer to the CONSTRUCTION of a new and better world. And we human beings have reached the point where we either envision and build a new and better world or die, whether fast by nuclear war or slower by ecocide. Many recognize that we have reached a civilizational turning point, now brought to a head by this global pandemic, but it’s not enough to know what we must turn away FROM. We also need an idea–or at least an ideal–of what we should turn TO.

  9. Ms Johnstone, like yourself, this authors articles are priceless!
    ~
    Imagine for a moment that there is a foreign government that receives billions of dollars a year in “aid” and other benefits from the United States taxpayer.
    ~
    Consider beyond that, the possibility that that government might take part of the money it receives and secretly recycle it to groups of American citizens in the United States that exist to maintain and increase that money flow while also otherwise serving other interests of the recipient country.
    That would mean that the United States is itself subsidizing the lobbies and groups that are inevitably working against its own interests. And it also means that United States citizens are acting as foreign agents, covertly giving priority to their attachment to a foreign country instead of to the nation in which they live.
    ~
    I am, of course, referring to Israel. It does not require a brilliant observer to note how Israel and its allies inside the United States have become very skilled at milking the government in the United States at all levels for every bit of financial aid, trade concessions, military hardware and political cover that is possible to obtain.
    ~
    The flow of dollars, goods, and protection is never actually debated in any serious way and is often, in fact, negotiated directly by Congress or state legislatures directly with the Israeli lobbyists. This corruption and manipulation of the U.S. governmental system by people who are basically foreign agents is something like a criminal enterprise and one can only imagine the screams of outrage coming from the New York Times if there were a similar arrangement with any other country.
    ~
    This great article can be read here:
    Israel Funds Americas Israel Lobby, While United States Taxpayers Pay for Endless Fraud Against Themselves by Philip Giraldi!
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/10/israel-funds-america-israel-lobby-while-us-taxpayers-pay-endless-fraud-against-themselves/

  10. There are many legitimate issues upon which to hold Trump responsible but this is not one of them.

    Julian’s illegal detention and prosecution has nothing to do with Trump personally. Trump is not the driving force behind it nor responsible for it. Julian successfully attacked and exposed the operations of some of the most powerful people in our world. People many grades above Trump or any other political actor. To those people Julian is the most dangerous man in the world and they mean to destroy him; and there is nothing any of the political actors currently on-stage can do about it. The complete unanimity of the entire Establishment, political and corporate (ie the media etc) is clear proof that the forces driving Julian’s destruction are immense and global. This crime cannot be placed on the shoulders of any individual actor involved; especially not Trump. There are many legitimate issues upon which to hold Trump responsible; this is not one of them.

    1. Notwithstanding the fact that many powerful political figures wish Assange punished, how is this NOT Trump’s responsibility? Did he not appoint the AG and does he not hold the AG and Justice Dep’t. to account? I’m completely mystified as to how Trump can be given a pass on this; so please do explain further. As far as I’m concerned, “the buck does truly stop there” (i.e. with Trump).

  11. A thought…did Wikilieaks/Assange have something(s) on Obama that Obama feared coming to light, or did Obama just ***fear and imagine*** that Wikilieaks/Assange had something. Obama kept Wikilieaks/Assange as neutralized as possible without setting off the Dead man’s Switch.
    .
    Along comes Trump and he **wants** to see what Wikilieaks/Assange had on Obama. Trump wants to set off the Dead man’s Switch.
    .
    Just thinking out loud.

  12. The quotes at the start of this article are untrue and attempts at historical revisionism , of the history begins with Trumps election style , which is nonsense . Obomber , Clinton , and Biden fiercely went after Mr Assange while at the time Trump actually spoke in his defense. Conflating Mr Assanges travails with the US election is a terrible mistake . Assanges fate is a back burner issue in the US these days.

    1. I agree, If anything this is deep state trying to punish and silence Assange for what he and Wikileaks did to Hillary because the left were and are corrupt. Assange only showed evidence of illegal activity.

      1. Revenge from Democrats makes sense.
        Meanwhile, the concept of Deep State is a straw man concocted by the architects of QAnon. The purposed of launching this concept via blatant fraudsters is to discredit the reality which deepState disguises … nonHuman interference from the farmers of mankind, best described as the mud shadows.
        `
        The correllation between deepState versus mudShadow methods is worth investigating … if it were treated as an issue of national security, this might be the thread which unravels the UFO House of Cards.

        1. deep state? qanon? The names may be correlated but there certainly has been something rich & stinky behind the scenes since WWII helped along first by the “conservatives” and later the caving dems

  13. I believe the assumption that there is a difference in any way between the Obama and Trump administrations concerning Assange is false. Obama silenced him and Trump is putting him to bed. The same people are directing both. Sort of like Clinton releasing Osama bin Ladem and Bush overseeing him being a patsy for 9/11. The time is simply considered right to take action against him. His time has come. In medieval times kingscwould keep prisoners for years and then decide to execute them. Whim of the deep state.

    1. Great post i agree .

  14. Carolyn is exactly correct in her description.
    Lynn cannot distinguish between appalling and laughable.
    And the judge is briefed on the desired outcome ;
    the only unknown is whether the judge will yield to coercion.

  15. “there’s been a massive smear campaign to manufacture consent for Assange’s silencing and persecution
    painting Assange as a Trump supporter.”
    – Caitlin
    `
    This fits my hypothesis that QAnon is designed & funded to fulfil a hidden agenda … as a propaganda machine. Ideas this silly do not run themselves : these creeps are getting professional political help with websites and publicity.
    `
    It is the same style of unconscionable fabrication that damaged Hillary Clinton
    with the mob baying “Lock her up!” over false accusations of illegal behaviour.
    `
    This unconscionable deceitfulness is epitomised by Donald Trump, a man whom Michael Cohen described as
    “Everyone other than the ruling class on earth is like an ant, to his way of thinking, their lives meaningless and always subject to the whims of the true rulers of the world”.
    `
    This is an attitude characteristic of nonHumans, exactly like Jehovah and Allah, who openly declare we are their slaves … by right of creating us, a lie as grandiose and deceitful as Trump at his most exhuberant.
    `
    If we consider Trump as being possessed by one of these evilSpirits, his behaviour turns from psychopathicNarcisism into a purposeful agenda of disruption and harm … consistent with myths of evil spirits which exist in every cultural tradition except Materialism, an invention that came to prominence about 200 years ago for no apparent reason, except to blind and stupefy us to threats from the aetheric realm.
    `
    It’s no great leap to see that the proven reality of darkMatter constituting 95% of spaceTime’s mass provides a physical reality which seers, witches, shamen, wizards, merlins, and cleverMen acces via altered states of awareness … a quest forbidden with punishment of death by the false gods who demand we remain ignorant of discerning between true and evil.
    .
    “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” in black and white in the OldTestament, caused the torture and humiliating death … of how many defiant women ? and freeThinkers .?.
    `
    Those mythical creatures did not stop existing when we started disBelieving ; materialism’s aggressive disBelief makes us easy prey for invisible predators.
    Countermeasures for a nonExistent predator are logically absurd, whilst absence of countermeasures is exactly what a parasite wants to inflict on its host.

    1. Rock man you’re apparently nearly as crazy as I am. Yeah, whatever comes to mind, please share it with us. Winnowing for truth! Luv it!

      1. Dear LLoyd, thanks for your praise. Sorry to hear of your affliction.
        Naturally, everybody seems crazy when you have no trustworthy benchmarks of sanity.
        `
        It’s particularly hard to tell the difference when the mudShadows remain unExposed & unOpposed, because their influence becomes the apparent consensus.
        `
        At least you are manic instead of melancholy and vicious,
        like most of my detractors.
        If you want help to break free of their influence, the place to start is by asking advice from the rare self-Reliant thinkers with an adequate immune system and practical knowledge of their methods.
        `
        Meanwhile, i suppose you believe you are entirely alone in a mad society, so being cheerful & accepting is a relatively wise strategy
        until you get serious about learning how to be sane despite the obfuscation by crapulous social values like conformism, belief, and punishment.

    2. Hillary Clinton didn’t need any help “damaging” herself. She did quite well with that on her own.
      Russiagate is a better example if you want to use the term “unconscionable fabrication”.
      A prime example of “unconscionable deceitfulness” by Clinton would be public and private positions that don’t mesh.
      As to illegal behavior, let’s just skip the technicalities and go straight to her flat out immoral and heinous actions as Secretary of State vis-a-vis Libya, Syria, the phony “reset” with Russia, etc. As Senator from New York, her support for the invasion of Iraq and the Israeli (nice cluster bombs you got there) assault on Lebanon are typical of her resume.

  16. Great work by Caitlin and Glenn Greenwald in keeping the shameful persecution of Julian Assange in the spotlight and pointing out the hypocrisy of all his persecutors.

    1. I think not Mr Greenwald and Ms Johnstone small niche markets for affluent I-Phone idiots are hardly spotlights Mr Trump is a man of his times who plays the media game just as brutally as the MSM has come to do , Truth being of little consequence , all of these vested interests these days .

  17. One cannot receive a pardon until after one has actually been convicted of something. The proper course of events at this time would be for the Justice Department to simply drop the charges as they did with General Flynn. Note, however, that even after having dropped any and all of the charges against Flynn, Trump’s political enemies have refused to let go of that particular bone, holding on to it and snapping back like a weiner dog with an out of control political activist Obama appointed federal judge taking it upon himself to now fill the role of prosecutor. They really hate Flynn, it being speculated that is because he knows where those miscreants buried all the bones. No, the deep state got seriously embarrassed by Julian exposing their behind the scenes but now all too obvious crimes against humanity. Because of the status quo, however, no one will ever pay for that except Julian who has already suffered greatly for daring to actually be a journalist in today’s globalist police state. The whipping post business remains alive and well.

    1. Here is ABC exposing an Obama war crime. No one tried to put them in jail.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHcg3TNSRPs

      Here is Wikileaks and Amnesty Intl exposing the same war crime. On a side note, has Amnesty Intl ever been co-opted the way OPCW has been?

      Wikileaks cable corroborates evidence of US airstrikes in Yemen (Amnesty Intl)
      https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-corroborates-evidence-us-airstrikes-yemen/

      Actual cable at Wikileaks:
      https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10SANAA4_a.html

      In a nutshell, what these are all dealing with is a war crime and cover up. Obama, days after accepting his Nobel Peace Prize, slaughtered dozens of women and children in Yemen and then covered it up with the help of ABC, Hillary Clinton, and the Pentagon.

      I have long wondered if Obama wasn’t set up by the CIA/Pentagon. I wonder if, after he returned from Oslo, they didn’t get Obama to sign off on a mission ostensibly to take out one al Qaeda operative. The mission went horribly wrong — they used a massive sledgehammer to kill an ant – and dozens of women and children were the main casualties. They launched missiles packed with cluster bombs aimed at civilian areas. So Obama got credit for the mission and the Pentagon/CIA thus owned Obama because they could end the cover-up any time they wanted to and Obama would be toast.

      Was that the real mission? To put Obama on a tight leash? Just wondering. Think Obama never would have come so quickly out of obscurity and allowed to become President if his handlers didn’t already have some useful dirt on him.

      1. IMHO, that rabbit hole is far deeper than any rational human being can fathom.

        1. This calls for going beyond rationality …
          to the position of silentKnowledge.
          A noted position of the
          assemblage point of perception.

      2. 9/11 plus 19 years
        .
        The above post was an abbreviated version of a post I made quite some time ago.
        .
        On the cutting room floor: was mention of the fact that “al Qaeda in Yemen” was not on the official list of terrorist organizations when Obama attacked it. Hillary didn’t do that official designation until the following month, so Obama’s legal cover was scant. Hillary did some illegal actions in the cover up but that requires a lengthy explanation (provided upon request). ABC, as shown in the linked video, was originally chest-inflated proud of what Obama had done. ABC then went immediately silent – total silence – on Obama’s missile attack. Who asked ABC to go silent and why?
        .

    2. Punishment is the cornerstone of Christianity :
      what else can you expect but a punishment industry
      and everyone an amateur exponent.
      `
      Caitlin thinks the USA’s aggression is the worst swindle yet, but i think the destruction of Rome and Classical Knowledge was even worse in the big picture of our history since the mudShadows arrived 10,000 years ago.
      `
      Today they rule through Koch’s plutocrats.

    3. “One cannot receive a pardon until after one has actually been convicted of something.”

      This is objectively false, as outlined in the hyperlink I included. Nixon hasn’t been convicted of anything, or even charged, yet he received a full pardon.

      1. IMHO, Nixon confessed to a wrongdoing of which he was guilty and so in that process convicted himself without the need of any trial. His pardon was that by which his potential prosecutors (in a real world) accepted his confession and self-removal from power as an adequate “bargain with the devil” which served at least the illusion of “justice”. Assange on the other hand has never confessed to the charges laid before him and therefore his prosecutors will continue to follow their calling. The acceptance of a pardon is tantamount to a confession of the charges. A truly innocent person never requires a pardon, but the lies and obfuscations of those in power who are truly guilty have forever been willing to cast fresh babies into the fire and call it justice. Make the lies go away and we have at least half a justice, the other half being to discover the truth and prosecute the truly guilty. Lady Justice holds a sword. P.S. Love your work.

        1. I see where a pardon can be granted in event of charges alone, which makes perfect sense in that the President is the head of the Justice Department which made up any charges in the first place. That pardon is basically telling the flunkies to “drop the charges” yet has the political impact of “see, I’m being Presidential here”. Problem is, if Trump actually issues a pardon towards Assange, his political enemies will immediately claim “Russia!, Russia!” and kick that ball rolling again. Imagine the MSM flack if Assange is brought in to truthfully testify against Trump’s political foes.

  18. Material quoted by article:
    .
    “Trump’s administration is moving to explicitly criminalize national security journalism, and if this prosecution is allowed to go forward, dozens of reporters at the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere would also be in danger.”
    .
    Let us create some context here – Russiagate. “The New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere” were enthusiastic and vital mouthpieces in the treasonous coup attempt against POTUS. Did Trump start this “war with journalism”?

    1. Yes. The ultimate context here is that Julian is a plaything caught between TWO evil powers that despise each other: the current occupant of the Oval Office AND the CIA-mouthpiece mainstream media. If we’re really lucky, these two evil powers will continue to weaken each other in their all-out war to control the narrative, and in the midst of that war, perhaps as a consequence of the damage it inflicts on both sides, Julian will miraculously slip free. So should we hope and pray, while we support him, like Caitlin, at every opportunity,

      1. “all-out-war” is political theatre to entertain and fool the masses. The Deep State within the CIA, FBI, NSA, Fed, etc., will protect lame duck Donald Trump as long as he goes along with their schemes while pretending to do the opposite. He is their controlled opposition as explained by journalists and analysts like Edward Griffin, Jake Morphonios, Brandon Smith, Gerald Celente and James Corbett. They have done excellent research and exposed Donald Trump as a two-faced, self-serving, lying, secret collaborator of the Deep State. They report credible evidence of Trump’s money-laundering business operations, his rescue from bankruptcy by the Rothschild Banking elite and his collaboration with wealthy Saudi Arabian arms dealers and money-launderers.

  19. What a pile of male bovine fecal matter. The only difference between one tyrant and another is what they think they can get away with. Obama didn’t pursue Julian because he didn’t think he could get away with it. Just like he walked back his plan for war with Syria because he didn’t. Trump thinks he can. And he’s probably right.

    1. I think the Old Bomber realised that a single slip could cost him millions in his post-presidential years. It’s like a cop who’s always got an eye on his pension. (And lets face it, he was worth less than 4 mill going into his Nobel Peace Prize winning presidency … just look at his net worth now … )

  20. this trial is the biggest legal farce i’ve ever seen, and the judge is unbelievably corrupt and biased. i’ve seen almost no coverage of this in the msm.

  21. Lenin Moreno was elected (or “elected”) in 2017, after Obama was out of office. I am not convinced that Obama’s concern with press freedom would have survived the opportunity presented by that event to get assange evicted from the embassy. I just don’t see significant differences between the republicans and the democrats, just more game of thrones style conflicts between interests. Trump may be significantly worse than Obama on this issue; at any rate, both are awful. I’d move, uproot my life, but where to go? the tentacles of the octopus reach around the world.

  22. The Idea of Julian Assange being a Trump supporter. WTF. I’m less concerned about the truth value of this random association than my mind giving it any consideration. And I mean any consideration at all. Part of having an open mind is being able to dismiss total nonsense. An Australian national supports an American Politician from a British Prison. I’m deranged if I think about this at all. It means nothing if true and nothing if false.

    Let the poor guy go home. He only did good.

  23. Unfortunately a critical mass of people waking up, complaining, and protesting will not change much. Rioting and violent tactics to fight oppression only incurs a more violent response from tyrants who send their indoctrinated and bribed agents to “keep law and order.” Peaceful demonstrations and protesting by the rules will not help either because evil people enforce but do not follow the rules themselves. Dissidents think they can defeat bad people through their protests and demands but that is a waste of time and energy trying to fight psychopaths and correct the harm they perpetrate. Wise people don’t waste time in a rigged fight which we cannot win when tyrants have superior weapons, fight dirty and do not follow the rules. Wise people get out of the way, leave good but unenlightened people to waste their time, money and energy fighting evil people. Then, after the battle is over and both good and evil people have finished fighting and both have lost their lives and everything they were fighting over, wise people will come out of their corners and hideouts to build a new and glorious civilization without hindrance from evil people. I believe in evolution of species through survival of the fittest, meaning those with wisdom beyond their years. This techno-military-industrial-complex must go through conflict, crisis and collapses so that only the wise among us will survive.
    Read more of this here: http://www.wisdompage.com/2013%20Articles/Molyneaux%20essay.pdf

    1. Futility and despair is what Tired preaches. Disgusting.

  24. Carolyn L Zaremba Avatar
    Carolyn L Zaremba

    This is all well and good, Caitlin, but let’s quit elevating Barack Obama into sainthood, OK? He didn’t refrain from prosecuting Julian Assange out of the goodness of his heart, or even because he believed in freedom of speech. He refrained because he didn’t want to tarnish his image as “St. Obama” among supporters of the Democratic Party.

    1. Makes sense, Carolyn.
      I still have trouble understanding Obama achieving so little for poor & oppressed.
      He of all people had the ability to see other points of view as valid,
      yet, compared to Trumps agenda of rewarding the rich and deluding the poor …
      `
      Despite his luminous intelligence,
      Obama was a pipsqueak when it comes to leading mankind.

      1. “…compared to Trump’s agenda of rewarding the rich and deluding the poor….”
        Where’s your contrast? Wall Street couldn’t have asked for a better mascot.
        Luminous intelligence? He’s an actor, a con man, a cheap trick. His lines were ready-made. Now that he’s out of office and has to “wing it” sometimes, his superficiality, smugness, and emptiness is on full display every time he opens his mouth.
        Trouble understanding? Relieving poverty and oppression wasn’t what he was paid to do and isn’t part of what he cares about anyway.

        1. Again, contempt and cynicism characterise your response, Herr Gregory.
          `
          What is missing is you filling in the gaps with useful information. That’s what conversationalists do.
          So since you are not a conversationalist, what are you doing here, pissing into Caitlin’s thought pool ?
          `
          You can start by explaining what Obama does care about, instead of contradicting his elegant thoughtfulness.
          Maybe you can be useful, after all. 🙂

        2. Mr. MudShadow Man is either a lone twisted fuck who is using this site as an outlet for his severe delusions or is a paid troll trying to make this site’s comment section so littered with crap that people new (or old) to the site won’t bother to discover worthwhile contributions to our general understanding which many readers are inspired through Caitlin’s work to effect.

  25. Charles Andrew Robinson Avatar
    Charles Andrew Robinson

    Let Assange go.
    Another human story. But let Assange go!

    1. I actually watched the entire thing (only once, though). You can hit the gear-icon and safely change the Playback Speed to 2.0 (double speed) and understand his words just fine. Only once did I not get what he said, but those few words were not understandable at any speed.
      .
      My take away from this video is that I am really glad I didn’t become a psychiatrist or some other similar field, like bar tending, where you have to listen to people go on and on and on day in and day out, month after month, year after year, decade after decade.
      .
      If a painting of a Campbell’s Soup Can can become a classic then so can this video.
      .

  26. Despite their pathological narcissism, most leaders still crave Love, or at least fawning admiration from their underlings.
    To this end they will manipulate, lie, cheat and kiss arse till doomsday.
    It’s a pathetic waste of their energy because they all live and die hollow/shallow beings.

    1. The false gods want our love so much
      they demand our unconditional Love … with threats of divine cruelty.
      This is where our tyrannies come from : creatures like Trump are
      symbionts with these ancient swindlers from the realm of dark matter.

  27. Saw a program tonight that I think could take it’s place in history.
    .
    Netflix – The Social Dilemma
    .
    Social media affects Imperceptible changes in actions and perceptions that are scaled out to millions of users. These effects are driven by algorithms that seek to create addictive attention from users and direct and thus monetize this attention.

    1. Though I was thrilled with this program there was one ironic fly in the ointment.
      .
      The program also dealt much with how technology is making it harder and harder to distinguish truth from falsehood.
      .
      It is sweet irony that the program itself promoted the “Russia Facebook Posts” nonsense and how Putin was supposedly trying to create division in this country via these infamous posts.
      .
      Compare the effect of a few thousand Russian posts to the false claim (where or where did the claim originate from?) that has been repeated millions upon millions upon millions upon millions of times in prime time “news” space that Russia was using these posts to create discord in the US.

    2. The above paragraph should have quotation marks around:
      “Social media affects Imperceptible changes in actions and perceptions”

  28. The destruction of respect for, and trust in, truth and factual evidence has brought us into this position where very few people know what is real anymore. And less and less people trust the media because it no longer cares much about ethics and standards.

    The internet and social media has also allowed politicians to bypass mainstream outlets and manufacture their own version of news, so many of the mainstream media outlets have realised that their own survival depends on staying in the mainstream and being seen to be supporting the establishment. So if you don’t trust the establishment then you don’t trust the mainstream media, and vice versa.

    This is exactly what the powers that be want, because it makes it much much easier to brainwash us with their versions of reality. It is the basis for effective propaganda, that has been used successfully for thousands of years.

    The only way we are going to get out of this one is if we re-establish a solid verifiable set of facts and narratives that can be checked by anyone. A ‘source of truth’ that can be used to fight back at the lies and deception. Without this people will not be able to ‘wake up’ to the truth – they will become more and more confused and apathetic.

    How can we rebel if we can’t be sure about what we are rebelling against?

    1. I agree with your post Willd. “The only way we are going to get out of this one is if we re-establish a solid verifiable set of facts and narratives” is particularly pragmatic, an approach i have been working at since childhood realisations of the inadequacy of the consensus realityMap which we are coerced to agree with.
      `
      The difficulty i have been unable to overcome is what i have personally verified cannot be communicated noR accepted as worth verifying by others.
      `
      This barrier has a lot to do with cynicism and the deValuing of meaning which results from tolerating being lied to.

      1. Such a precocious child you were! How’s that work coming? Oh, the set of facts and narratives you have personally verified are incommunicable. Too bad.

        1. If your tone wasn’t so condescending,
          this post looks almost like a genuine response.
          Too Badd, Herr Gregory.
          Your cynicism destroyed my meaning,
          while confirming it.

        2. Mr. MudShadow Man claims to be working on establishing a verifiable set of facts and narratives. Narratives are by definition communicable. “Verifiable facts” require standards of empirical evidence. Humans, through the development of language, are generally adept communicators of their sensate observations.
          But MudShadow Man, working on his set of facts and narratives, is so special, his “verifications” so esoteric, that alas, they are incommunicable. And others just don’t seem to him to think his contradictions and bullshit are worth verifying. But that’s okay with MudShadow Man, for he apparently revels in plastering his pissy, imperious, and inane judgements all over this site.

  29. Would Trump’s extradition of Assange be taking place if Wikileaks/Assange didn’t have a central role in Russiagate?
    .
    Remember Russia, the infamous emails and Assange were all lumped into one dirty pile.
    And if Trump had been perceived as *protecting* Assange he would have generated a million headlines from the “free press” that here was more proof that Trump was in bed with the Russians.

    1. russiagate was manufactured, so yeah. assange was going to be smeared with something anyway. and it isn’t like trump has been averse to hiring warmongers like john bolton, among others, in his supposedly swamp free administration.

      1. “trump has been averse to hiring warmongers like john bolton”
        .
        The trump administration looks nothing like it did at it’s inception. How many were charged by the Mueller Inquisition and forced out. The pressure from the manufactured Russiagate reshaped the Trump administration.
        .
        (Re-reading my above post I wished I had made it clearer that Russiagate was nonsense)
        “…have a central role

  30. What do you expect? Our justice system is so corrupt that a finding of guilt or innocence is totally without any relevance to either actual guilt or innocence. What else would someone expect from the mafia. It really is so damn laughable, as though what is happening to Julian is any different from what happened to thousands of Americans everyday.

    1. Carolyn L Zaremba Avatar
      Carolyn L Zaremba

      That’s not laughable. That’s appalling. This is a show trial to silence dissent of any kind. This is to demonstrate that the U.S. can arrest and torture anyone, anywhere in the world, and get away with it. The Judge and the prosecutors are all taking their marching orders from the CIA, who are present at these proceedings. The Judge is reading out pre-written decisions taken even before the presenting of any evidence and also limiting the amount of time witnesses can present their statements. It is the same kind of show trial conducted by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, whereby he murdered all of the Bolsheviks and Trotskyists who opposed his rule and his anti-Marxist policies.

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