Matt Taibbi: Free Julian Assange

From Matt Taibbi's latest article, "Why Julian Assange Must Be Freed."

[S]ecrets do not belong to governments. That information belongs to us. Governments rule by our consent. If they want to keep secrets, they must have our permission to do so. And they never have the right to keep crimes secret.

I’m an American. Many of you are from the U.K. In our countries, we’re building skyscrapers and huge new complexes to store our secrets, because we don’t have room to keep them all as is!

Why do we have so many secrets? Julian Assange told us why. From an essay he wrote:

'Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers.'

When governments become authoritarian, they inspire resistance. Techniques must then be developed to repel that resistance. Those techniques must then be concealed.

In short: the worse a country is, the more secrets it has. We have a lot of secrets now.

Julian Assange became famous as we were creating a vast new government-within-a-government, a system of secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, mass surveillance, and drone assassination. Many of these things we know about only because of Wikileaks. Ostensibly, all this secrecy was needed to fight foreign terrorism.

The brutal irony now is the architects of that system no longer feel the need to hide their dirty tactics. My government, openly, wants to put this man in jail for 175 years, mostly for violations of the Espionage Act. These include crimes like “conspiracy to receive national defense information,” or “obtaining national defense information.”

What is “national defense information?” The answer is what makes this law so dangerous. It’s whatever they say it is. It’s any information they don’t want to get out. It doesn’t even have to be classified. What is conspiracy to obtain such information? We have a word for that. It’s called journalism.

My government wants to put Julian Assange in jail for 175 years for practicing journalism. The government of this country, the U.K., is going to allow it to happen.

If they did this to Andrei Sakharov, or Nelson Mandela, every human rights organization in the world would be denouncing this as an intolerable outrage. Every NGO would be lining up to lend support. Every journalist would be penning editorials demanding his release.

But because our own governments are doing it, we get silence.

If you’re okay with this happening to one Julian Assange, you’d better be okay with it happening to many others. That’s why this moment is so important. If Assange is successfully extradited and convicted, it will take about ten minutes for it to happen again. From there this will become a common occurrence. There will be no demonstrations in parks, no more news stories. This will become a normal part of our lives.

Don’t let that happen.

Free Julian Assange.

Continue ReadingMatt Taibbi: Free Julian Assange

Left-Leaning Corporate Media Tries to be Respectful of the Need for Joe and Hunter Biden to Have some Together Time Shaking Down Chinese Businessman

The New York Post reports:

The IRS Whistle-Blower disclose a disturbing Hunter Biden text message shakedown:

"[IRS whistle-blower] Shapley, who sat for a six-hour deposition with the committee on May 26, took over the Hunter Biden case in January 2020 and said that investigators had turned up fresh evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s overseas income.

That included eye-popping communications from Hunter Biden’s iCloud account, Shapley said, citing a message that directly implicated the president in an attempt to coerce money from a Chinese businessman.

“[W]e obtained a July 30th, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote: ‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,'” Shapley recounted.

“We couldn’t believe that we saw that,” the second whistleblower told the committee. “That was more indication that the dad might have been involved.”"

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Who is refusing to discuss this disclosure? NYT, CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post and NPR (as of June 24 at noon, CT).

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Meanwhile, at today's WH Presser, KJP is twisting in the wind, as this video demonstrates at length:

Glenn Greenwald breaks down the story in detail, including the blatant corporate media complicity, at System Update, "Media Silent as IRS Whistleblowers Expose Blatant Biden Family Corruption."

These developments must be terrifying for DNC operatives. Biden is borderline senile and not competent to have conversations without teleprompters. He is so inept that the DNC will not allow Joe Biden to engage in a primary debates, including with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (currently have the support of 20% of Democrats) or Marianne Williamson (currently having the support of 8% of Democrats). Recent results here.

Further complicating things is that there is no Plan B to Joe Biden, given the repeatedly-demonstrated incompetence of Kamala Harris. The DNC won't deny Harris the chance to run for President because they simply would not be able to bear the resulting inevitable charges that they are racist. That's what happens when a corrupt political party decides to pick a VP purely based on optics rather than competence.

Continue ReadingLeft-Leaning Corporate Media Tries to be Respectful of the Need for Joe and Hunter Biden to Have some Together Time Shaking Down Chinese Businessman

The Gates Foundation Vast Largess to News Media Suggests Influence over News Content

Could this immense amount of money influence what news media reports (and refuses to report)? Tim Schwab was concerned about this in his article at Columbia Journalism Review, "Journalism’s Gates keepers." Here’s an excerpt:

As philanthropists increasingly fill in the funding gaps at news organizations—a role that is almost certain to expand in the media downturn following the coronavirus pandemic—an underexamined worry is how this will affect the ways newsrooms report on their benefactors. Nowhere does this concern loom larger than with the Gates Foundation, a leading donor to newsrooms and a frequent subject of favorable news coverage.

I recently examined nearly twenty thousand charitable grants the Gates Foundation had made through the end of June and found more than $250 million going toward journalism. Recipients included news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, the Financial Times, The Atlantic, the Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and the Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and the New York Times’ Neediest Cases Fund; media companies such as Participant, whose documentary Waiting for “Superman” supports Gates’s agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a “news site” to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they distributed part of the funding as subgrants to other journalistic organizations—which makes it difficult to see the full picture of Gates’s funding into the fourth estate . . .

The Gates Foundation declined multiple interview requests for this story and would not provide its own accounting of how much money it has put toward journalism.

This trend continued. At the Grayzone, it was reported that "Documents show Bill Gates has given $319 million to media outlets to promote his global agenda."

A look at the database of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation reveals how the oligarch influencing the global pandemic response has bankrolled hundreds of media outlets to the tune of at least $319 million.

While other billionaires’ media empires are relatively well known, the extent to which Gates’s cash underwrites the modern media landscape is not. After sorting through over 30,000 individual grants, MintPress can reveal that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) has made over $300 million worth of donations to fund media projects.

Recipients of this cash include many of America’s most important news outlets, including CNN, NBC, NPR, PBS and The Atlantic. Gates also sponsors a myriad of influential foreign organizations, including the BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom; prominent European newspapers such as Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany) and El País (Spain); as well as big global broadcasters like Al-Jazeera.

Again, how much control does this give Gates over these corporate news outlets? $300M divided by 100 outlets (I’m making up that number) = 3,000,000 per outlet, which could explain why those news outlets listed so often march in lockstep when they report (and, again, fail to report) stories. According to the Grayzone, in 2021, the biggest recipients of Gates’ money included:

NPR- $24,663,066 The Guardian (including TheGuardian.org)- $12,951,391 Cascade Public Media – $10,895,016 Public Radio International (PRI.org/TheWorld.org)- $7,719,113 The Conversation- $6,664,271 Univision- $5,924,043 Der Spiegel (Germany)- $5,437,294 Project Syndicate- $5,280,186 Education Week – $4,898,240
More to come on this topic . . .

Continue ReadingThe Gates Foundation Vast Largess to News Media Suggests Influence over News Content

Nord Stream Story Further Exposes the Washington Post as U.S. Propaganda Partner

For those of you who think that the Washington Post is a credible news source, please notice that today's WP article on the destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline, purportedly by Ukrainians, fails to mention: A) shortly before its destruction, Joe Biden promised that he would make sure that the pipeline was no longer operational B) Much decorated investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published a detailed account that the United States destroyed the pipeline and C) Immediately after the destruction of the pipeline, Victoria Nuland, working for the U.S. Secretary of State celebrated celebrated that the Nord Stream pipeline "is now a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea."

Continue ReadingNord Stream Story Further Exposes the Washington Post as U.S. Propaganda Partner

WaPo’s Concocted Reasons for Fighting Wars That do not Benefit Ordinary Americans

At the Washington Post, Marc Thiessen recently authored "This is the ‘America First’ case for supporting Ukraine." I strenuously disagree with his "facts" and reasoning throughout, but his final five "reasons" are especially bizarre. None of these five reasons justifies U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war. Most glaringly, none of these reasons consider a meaningful cost-benefit analysis from the perspective of ordinary Americans. Further, his "reasons" lead to the bizarre conclusion that the U.S. should instigate and prolong numerous unjust wars that fail to serve the interests of ordinary Americans, a major issue conspicuously ignored by Thiessen. Here are his "reasons" (6-10) for continuing with our warmongering 6-10:

6. "A proving ground for new weapons."

This is a valid reason for indiscriminately going to war!  Yes, indeed.

7. "Arming Ukraine is revitalizing our defense industrial base."

Yes, we need to make sure that weapons manufacturers can afford to pay big salaries to management and to their lobbyists.

8. "The Russian invasion has strengthened U.S. alliances."

Not true if you poll people outside of the readership of U.S. corporate media. And if only there were other better ways to strengthen U.S. alliances other than killing people and blowing up their cities . . .

Further, consider attitudes of people outside of Western countries:

Almost a year after Russia’s war against Ukraine started, it has united the west, according to a 15-country survey – but exposed a widening gulf with the rest of the world that is defining the contours of a future global order.

The study, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank, surveyed opinions in nine EU member states, including France, Germany and Poland, and in Britain and the US, as well as China, Russia, India and Turkey.

It revealed sharp geographical differences in attitudes to the war, democracy and the global balance of power, the authors said, suggesting Russia’s aggression may be a historic turning point marking the emergence of a “post-western” world order.

“The paradox of the Ukraine war is that the west is both more united, and less influential in the world, than ever before,” said Mark Leonard, the thinktank’s director and a co-author of the report, based on polling carried out last month.

Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University, who also worked on the study, called the findings “extremely sobering”.

Consider this graph, which strongly clashes with the prevailing narrative of U.S. elites:

9. "Victory helps prevent nuclear proliferation."

Do you know what else would prevent future nuclear proliferation? Starting a nuclear war. As Joe Biden admitted on October 6, 2022:

In remarks at a reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said it was the first time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis that there has been a "direct threat" of nuclear weapons’ being used, "if, in fact, things continue down the path they are going.”

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he said, offering his bluntest comments about the use of nuclear weapons since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Biden admitted that he engaged in this stunningly reckless behavior months before recent days, when  decided to send Abrams tanks and F16's to Ukraine. What could possibly go wrong with this?

10. "Victory in Ukraine is achievable."

Didn't we hear this same claim, year after year, in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya? Thiessen presents no factual basis for believing that this specious claim is any more true in the case of Ukraine.

It seems that Thiessen's article was penned by a lobbyist for the military-industrial complex, but it seems like Thiessen would not be the kind of person who would be so incredibly unreflective. For instance, Thiessen wrote candidly about the Durham Report--the headline is "The Durham report is a damning indictment of the FBI — and the media."  I would now suggest that he soul-search Hillary Clinton campaign's lies about Russian collusion with Trump, something she did to enhance her personal political ambitions. What is the connection to Ukraine? I suggest this. There is a hatred of Russia simmering under the lack of a meaningful national discussion regarding the Ukraine War. That poisoning, I suspect, motivates unreflective articles of the sort Thiessen has just written about the Ukraine war.

For more on the many ways that the Ukraine War fails to serve the interests of ordinary Americans, see this episode of Glenn Greenwald's System Update: Does Endless Spending in Ukraine Cause Deprivations at Home?

Continue ReadingWaPo’s Concocted Reasons for Fighting Wars That do not Benefit Ordinary Americans