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Julian Assange

Hugo Stiglitz

By Hugo Stiglitz
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Horn Dog

Horn Dog 9674

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5 hours ago, Clearlakehorn said:

What did he do wrong? Help usher in the greatest President America has ever seen? He should be given a statue on the white house lawn. 

I like this guy!  Its like the old CLH but so much better.

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SmokeyBear1861

SmokeyBear1861 107

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Julian Assange has been dead since 10/16/16. He no longer uses his personal keys and his deadman switch was flipped. He hasnt been seen waving from his window since then, and the one interview they did with him since then was very weird. It also had a few "morphs" that were spotted, which seems like they were using a computerized version of him as it is imperfect and mid sentence his collar disappears and changes.

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787777344740163584

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787781046519693316

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787781519951720449

Assange and Wikileaks has been part of the politics show ever sense.

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bad_teammate

bad_teammate 13132

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5 minutes ago, SmokeyBear1861 said:

Julian Assange has been dead since 10/16/16. He no longer uses his personal keys and his deadman switch was flipped. He hasnt been seen waving from his window since then, and the one interview they did with him since then was very weird. It also had a few "morphs" that were spotted, which seems like they were using a computerized version of him as it is imperfect and mid sentence his collar disappears and changes.

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787777344740163584

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787781046519693316

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787781519951720449

Assange and Wikileaks has been part of the politics show ever sense.

Please tell me about the morphs.

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Degenerate Gardner

Degenerate Gardner 4081

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3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

the lefts pivot on assange has been quite the thing to observe. 

I'll concede on behalf of the monolithic left that we're unanimously skeptical of assange.  

Yet the right now champions assange.  

To what do you attribute these apparent changes in favor for assange?  

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23394

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6 minutes ago, Degenerate Gardner said:

I'll concede on behalf of the monolithic left that we're unanimously skeptical of assange.  

Yet the right now champions assange.  

To what do you attribute these apparent changes in favor for assange?  

There were a lot of people on the left loving Assange when he was dropping Iraq war logs. I loved that shit too. Because it rightfully exposed wrong doing. 

Seems like people recalibrated their opinion when the wrong doing got a little too close to their home turf. 

Russia I guess.  

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Caracara

Caracara 41

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Can't challenge the information itself.

Discredit the source of forensically proven, impeccable information.    LOL   On principle, honest people don't attack truth tellers, without acknowledging the validity of the information.

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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5 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

What pivot? You mean like when Assange lost his mind and started playing the false equivalency card with Hillary/Trump?

Assange and Snowden have a lot of similarities.

Both were championed for being whistleblowers in the beginning but as more time elapses it’s becoming clearer that they’re not much more than weapons of adversaries to undermine the United States and the West.

I’m not saying they’re Russian spies but the Kremlin certainly loves these guys for obvious reasons and probably exerts influence over them to push out certain messages.

Was it just a coincidence Russia was about to ship Snowden to Ecuador before Obama dropped the hammer on him?

 I’d speculate Snowden would have operated in a similar fashion in Ecuador as he is now except with more plausible deniability from the Kremlin.

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23394

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Didn't realize that the pivot by...wait for it...both sides of the political spectrum on Assange was so controversial. 

The Astonishing Transformation of Julian Assange

Views of the WikiLeaks founder have shifted as American partisans project their own priorities onto him.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/assange-man-in-the-news/512243/

It’s not that unusual for a public figure to go from hero to villain. But going from villainy to heroism? That’s a tougher road to traverse.

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and central figure, has managed to do both over the last few months, culminating in a remarkable embrace by the president-elect and two longtime critics on the American right, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin. Over the same time, some of Assange’s erstwhile champions on the American left have drifted away, disillusioned by the way WikiLeaks attacked Hillary Clinton during the presidential election. Has Assange changed, or is his rehabilitation on the right, and his loss of esteem on the left, simply a factor of political exigencies within the United States? The answer is a little bit of both.

 

 

 

 

Six years ago, when WikiLeaks burst on the scene with its massive release of American documents, Donald Trump was livid. “I think it's disgraceful, I think there should be like death penalty or something,” the then-entertainer said in an exchange recently dug up by CNN’s KFile.

Fox News host Sean Hannity was also furious, demanding Assange be arrested: “Why can't Obama do something about the WikiLeaks?” Sarah Palin comparedWikiLeaks to the al-Qaeda magazine Inspire and called Assange “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”

 

But Assange won some admirers on the American left, people who applauded his willingness to speak truth to power—for example, by exposing the brutality of the Iraq War, which they saw as a needless conflict launched by the Bush administration. Libertarians viewed his revelation of the inner workings of government as a valuable injection of transparency. Assange’s swashbuckling demeanor made him all the more alluring to all involved. Writing in The Atlantic, David Samuels argued that “not since President Richard Nixon directed his minions to go after Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg and New York Timesreporter Neil Sheehan ... has a working journalist and his source been subjected to the kind of official intimidation and threats that have been directed at Assange and [Chelsea] Manning by high-ranking members of the Obama administration.”

Liberals fell out of love with Assange, as Hemingway probably never said, slowly and then all at once. Of course, many Democratic officeholders had never been fond of him—they viewed his actions, as their Republican colleagues did, as an act of piracy, a dangerous exposure of U.S. secrets and systems that struck at a Democratic president, Barack Obama, and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. (In retrospect, it seems Assange saw it that way, too.)

But Assange gradually managed to alienate many of his erstwhile allies. The rape allegations leveled against him in Sweden played a major role, and are the reason he remains holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, for fear of arrest and extradition if he leaves. Assange’s general demeanor did a lot of work, too—a riveting essay by Andrew O’Hagan about his experience trying and failing to ghostwrite Assange’s book offers a useful portrait of a waspish, difficult man, wholly apart from his political convictions. The Associated Press reported in summer of 2016 that WikiLeaks had released, as part of larger dumps, “the personal information of hundreds of people—including sick children, rape victims and mental health patients.” Some of Assange’s old fans redirected their affections to Edward Snowden, who himself criticized Assange for refusing to curate the documents he released, incurring a stinging response from Wikileaks.

 

The dump of documents related to the Democratic National Committee in the summer of 2016 finished off the job for many observers, especially as the consensus grew that the cache of emails had probably been obtained by Russian state hackers and then passed to WikiLeaks. Even if that was not the case, it was very clear that Assange saw them as a way to hurt Clinton. She had been furious about the 2010 leaks, and he held her partly responsible for his current predicament. Clinton backers like Michael Moore and Bill Maher began to view Assange as an abettor, intentionally or not, of Trump.

The Trumpist swoon for Assange was more abrupt, corresponding to WikiLeaks dumping the Democratic documents during the summer of 2016. Hannity started having Assange on his show in the fall. “Part of me, in the beginning, was conflicted about you,” he told Assange in September, in what Matt Wilstein notedwas an understatement. He was back on Hannity’s radio show in December. By the time he appeared this week on Hannity’s TV show, the host was gushing, “I believe every word he says, to be perfectly honest.” Hannity claims his change of heart came because WikiLeaks had gotten nothing wrong and gotten no one killed.

But the abrupt volte-face corresponds too neatly with Assange’s shift to aiding Trump, as well as his vocal insistence that WikiLeaks did not obtain its documents from Russia, which undermines any claims that the hacks were conducted by the Kremlin to hurt Clinton and help Trump—which would, of course, be damaging to Trump. If it seems too harsh to ascribe nakedly partisan motives to Hannity, keep in mind that he has happily declared himself “not a journalist.”

 

Over the weekend, the president-elect promised a revelation about the hacks on Tuesday or Wednesday, and that time came and went without any news—though on Hannity’s program, Assange repeated what he has said before, which is that Russia was not WikiLeaks’ source. Nonetheless, Trump tweeted in praise of the interview, only to complain the next day that “The dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange - wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people to make up their own minds as to the truth”— as though he were a simple news aggregator, rather than the president-elect of the United States approvingly quoting Assange.

Many elected Republicans, as well as conservative pundits, however, remain just as negative on Assange as ever. On Thursday, Senator Ted Cruz said, “I think Assange has done enormous damage to our national security. I would not be praising him under any circumstances.”

One other peculiar political realignment that has emerged from the controversy over WikiLeaks is the sudden affection of Democrats for the intelligence community. The intelligence community has chafed at attempts at oversight, and when the Senate Intelligence Committee attempted to produce a report on torture committed by the CIA, the agency repeatedly tried to stymie its efforts. The CIA snooped on Senate staffers and attempted to get them criminally prosecuted, and Director John Brennan was eventually forced to apologize. During the Bush administration, Democrats assailed the intelligence community for suggestions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Yet on Thursday, a succession of Democratic senators lined up to voice their support and praise for intelligence agents being attacked by Trump. Nor is this a phenomenon limited to elected officials—an NBC News poll finds that the CIA’s net favorability among Democrats has risen from -4 percent two years to 32 percent today.

 

Assange, in the midst of this maelstrom, has not been as unchanging as he might like to imagine himself. Critics have accused him of coziness with the Kremlin, even aside from the question of where WikiLeaks obtained the DNC emails. To assert that Assange is pro-Putin would overstate the evidence, but he has appeared to pull some of his punches with regards to Russia.

In a December interview, Assange told La Repubblica that WikiLeaks had not focused on Russia for two reasons. First, he said there was a vibrant press in Russia—though the idea that Russia’s press is more free than the American press might trigger guffaws. He also said WikiLeaks was a predominantly English-language organization, making it much more focused on the Anglophone world. “No WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player,” Assange said. (WikiLeaks has published documents in other languages, including the cache from the Saudi Foreign Ministry.)

But a television show Assange produced appeared for a time on RT, a government-owned cable channel in Russia. Huffington Post reported that although WikiLeaks promised a major Russia dump in 2010, that never materialized. And despite his spat with Snowden, in which Assange espoused total transparency, WikiLeaks criticized the release of the Panama Papers as a U.S. government ploy to undermine Putin.

In other words, Assange was arguing that it was the motivations for a leak, rather than the material, that mattered. This is ironic, since many of those observing Assange, both his critics-turned-fans and his fans-turned-critics, seem to have become fixated on his motivations at the expense of the information he releases, which has tended to be of high quality and interest, regardless of the targets. If that irony was lost on Assange, it’s a sign that he is no more immune to politics than any of the rest of them.

 

Edited by Anastasis
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Viper

Viper 12030

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great post anastasis, especially that Hannity juxtaposition. The partisan 360 on both sides regarding Assange has been hilarious and sad to watch. I'm sure everyone here has been totally consistent in their views, but you can't deny that the tv talking heads and politicians have not. 

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23394

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1 minute ago, Viper said:

great post anastasis, especially that Hannity juxtaposition. The partisan 360 on both sides regarding Assange has been hilarious and sad to watch. I'm sure everyone here has been totally consistent in their views, but you can't deny that the tv talking heads and politicians have not. 

Careful, people here complain when you do that.

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Viper

Viper 12030

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no it's ok, I excluded all the partisan posters here from the inconsistency. Partly because I can't be arsed to go back and track down everyone's positions from 5 years ago. That's more of a Huck job.

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Grandioso

Grandioso 2592

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58 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Assange and Snowden have a lot of similarities.

Both were championed for being whistleblowers in the beginning but as more time elapses it’s becoming clearer that they’re not much more than weapons of adversaries to undermine the United States and the West.

I’m not saying they’re Russian spies but the Kremlin certainly loves these guys for obvious reasons and probably exerts influence over them to push out certain messages.

Was it just a coincidence Russia was about to ship Snowden to Ecuador before Obama dropped the hammer on him?

 I’d speculate Snowden would have operated in a similar fashion in Ecuador as he is now except with more plausible deniability from the Kremlin.

I think Assange started out as an independent whistleblower and gradually fell under Russian influence. This is what Russia does, they find pre-existing folks who espouse something that furthers Russia's interests or agenda and exploits them. It's all about that common cause/joint interest. I'm sure Assange was paid a fuckton of money for appearing on RT a bunch. Shit, they even offered to give him his own show. Russia also helps Assange's ego/operation by turning over hacked materials, e.g., the Podesta e-mails. This gives him scoops and exclusive content. I think this is also why Hannity says Kremlinly stuff. Russia steals/hacks secrets -> gives them to a cutout -> who gives them to Assange -> who shares portions with Hannity thus giving him "exclusive" stuff to report.

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SmokeyBear1861

SmokeyBear1861 107

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2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Both sides took the Assange bait, no doubt about it.  

Hmm, I wonder if there is another bad actor that appeals to both sides when it suits them.

It could be that the intelligence agencies own his persona now and use it to keep their left vs. right show interesting while it is a complete farce. I don't think wikileaks was ever "kremlin". I think it used to be a legit organization publishing whistleblower info and was subverted and now is another propaganda arm of the intelligence agencies. 

Basically, it's now bait.

People were posting DAK 16.16.10 on four chins for like months in advance. Then JA posts his keys that day (deadmans switch) automatically. Its likely they can be searched to see what crazy important docs wikileaks has that would make the IC freak out. They probably knew this in advance and had to take him out and turn wikileaks into an asset. The keys don't open anything that has been released, so it appears the leak has been plugged as far as I can tell.

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Brian Fantana

Brian Fantana 6668

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I actually kind of feel sorry for Assange. He has obviously been used as a tool by multiple powers. It looked great when he was whistleblowing Iraq, but later on it became crystal clear that he is actually not that smart and was/is being heavily manipulated by his sources. 

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27-25

27-25 2040

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4 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I thought the powers that be said there was no longer an arrest warrant on his head.  Does he like the Ecuadorian commissary that much?

I think the charges in Sweden were dropped, but a warrant for jumping bail in the UK still stands.

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13414

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36 minutes ago, 27-25 said:

I think the charges in Sweden were dropped, but a warrant for jumping bail in the UK still stands.

My guess is that Assange is afraid of being handed over to US officials.   His uncertainty of whether to walk out of the embassy, is he is unclear exactly what the US knows.

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Grandioso

Grandioso 2592

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There's degrees of affiliation with Russia. Did Assange take a secret vow to Putin and get an official degree from GRU University - Moscow? Probably not. Assange doesn't do what he does "for Russia" like an intelligence officer does. Those are agents.

Agent - a person who acts on behalf of another person or group.

But Assange does say Kremlin shit on RT in exchange for money. He does accept hacked and stolen material from Russia, which bolsters his reputation and influence and gives Russia plausible deniability. Before Russia ever discovered and courted him, he had an existing philosophy and operation that was very valuable to Russia. So Russia uses him to whatever extent they can. Assange is an asset.

Asset -  a useful or valuable thing, person, or quality.

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Grandioso

Grandioso 2592

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Sergei Lavrov said it better anyways

Quote

“While the majority of Democrats cannot get over their resentment over the loss of their candidate in the presidential election, and a significant part of the Republicans are annoyed with the unsystematic nature of the current administration, including the president, this anti-Russian story and hysteria unfolding in the US reflects a domestic political struggle”

Quote

“For almost a year since the US began investigating [Donald] Trump's ties with Russia and Russia's interference in the election campaign on the side of the Republicans, there have been hearings staged, special investigations launched, a special prosecutor appointed, dozens of people interviewed, and … with so many characters involved in the process, there has been not a single leak about at least a single fact that would support the allegations,”

https://www.rt.com/news/406976-lavrov-russia-leaks-us/

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Grandioso

Grandioso 2592

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I love strolling through memory lane over on RT. It's bananas how aligned they are with Fox News and everything Trump says. 

November 2016

Quote

Moscow’s ‘influence’ on US election a myth – Russian FM to Italian newspaper

https://www.rt.com/news/368760-lavrov-italy-interview-russia/

“It is symptomatic that the authors of such insinuations, who had inflated Russophobic hysteria in the United States on the eve of the vote, are now playing mum. No promised ‘evidence’ of interference in the electoral process has been presented neither to the American, nor to the international public,” Lavrov said. 

...

This confirms once again that the whole story is from the field of myth-making with a goal to solve the short-term political objectives,” the foreign minister added.

December 2016

Quote

‘It’s ridiculous’: Trump on CIA claims that Moscow helped him win US Presidency

https://www.rt.com/usa/369944-russia-hackers-trump-reaction/

Donald Trump says that reported claims by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) accusing Russia of meddling in the US election to help him become president are “ridiculous” and just “another excuse.”

The billionaire made the statement in an interview to Fox News. “I think it's ridiculous. I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it,” he said. 

He noted that these claims are being made by his opponents to explain the victory over Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton.

...

Nobody really knows, and hacking is very interesting. Once they hack, if you don't catch them in the act you're not going to catch them,” Trump countered in his interview.

“They have no idea if it's Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place,” he went on to say.

Edited by Grandioso
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Caracara

Caracara 41

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3 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Which email was the most incriminating in your opinion?

Thanks for the civility. There were lots in my opinion.  But emails showing the DNC's favoritism in the primary cost HRC a lot of votes from bernie folks.  And tons of bernie peeps are now "red-pilled" as they say, and are determined to rally around the truth rather than hang onto a totally corrupt bipartisan establishment and a MSM that does nothing but parrot its talking parts.

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