Judge confirms Assange is a bit of a git

[Digby]

Basically his arrest warrant is upheld, why he thought by refusing to answer the warrant it should go away says nothing good for him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43049474

[morepork]

If he goes out in direct sunlight, he will disintegrate.

[Stones of granite]

If he goes out in direct sunlight, he will disintegrate.

He should consider moving to Scotland, in that case.

[morepork]

He looks like a spent wank sock.

[Mellsblue]

He looks like a spent wank sock.

He should consider moving to Scotland, in that case.

[Stones of granite]

He looks like a spent wank sock.

He should consider moving to Scotland, in that case.

We have enough spent wank socks.

[morepork]

He looks like a spent wank sock.

He should consider moving to Scotland, in that case.

I pitch them, you hit them.

[rowan]

Well well well. Doesn't this thread reveal an awful lot about the inmates of this asylum

[J Dory]

Well well well. Doesn't this thread reveal an awful lot about the inmates of this asylum

It reaffirms what a supercilious bore you are for one.

It's crazy to think Assange has spent 5 years there. How hard can it be to smuggle him out?

[Stones of granite]

Well well well. Doesn't this thread reveal an awful lot about the inmates of this asylum

Ha ha! Have a look around you and the company you chose to keep.

[morepork]

Rowan,


it would do wonders for your self esteem if you were to take yourself a bit more seriously.

[Sandydragon]

This ego trip of his is pathetic. You can campaign for justice and then refuse to face it yourself.

[morepork]

He is credited with producing the WANK worm.


The WANK worm.

[Curatolo]

This ego trip of his is pathetic. You can suggest Hydromax to people and campaign for justice and then refuse to face it yourself.

It's narcissistic paranoia. He's completely irrelevant, discredited and of no interest to anyone, but he's convinced "they" are out to get him. I love how he acts like he's a prisoner, when he's the one who went running into the fucking Ecuadorian cupboard to begin with.

And honestly, it doesn't matter if he dies now or 50 years from now, some American agency with a 3-letter abbreviation will be blamed for it, regardless of whether or not they had anything to do with it.

I think it's partly a publicity stunt, but I think the danger is real to some degree. And he's not 'discredited' at all. He released documents, not fiction novels. There's nothing to discredit there.

[Digby]

This ego trip of his is pathetic. You can campaign for justice and then refuse to face it yourself.

It's narcissistic paranoia. He's completely irrelevant, discredited and of no interest to anyone, but he's convinced "they" are out to get him. I love how he acts like he's a prisoner, when he's the one who went running into the fucking Ecuadorian cupboard to begin with.

And honestly, it doesn't matter if he dies now or 50 years from now, some American agency with a 3-letter abbreviation will be blamed for it, regardless of whether or not they had anything to do with it.

I think it's partly a publicity stunt, but I think the danger is real to some degree. And he's not 'discredited' at all. He released documents, not fiction novels. There's nothing to discredit there.

I think he's specifically discredited specifically because he released documents without vetting them first. I've no problem with causing problems for our and other governments, much of what was released should have been alerted to the public so government and security agencies could face censure. But the way information was just released en masse was and is unacceptable. Though all that is very different to his present legal difficulties and his refusal to entertain the idea he too is subject to the various laws of various lands

[rowan]

Good article

Julian Assange’s latest attempt to have his outstanding UK arrest warrant dropped has failed in what stands as one of the most blatant and cruel examples of the British legal system being wielded as an instrument of persecution against a man whose only crime is speaking truth to power.

The judge presiding over his case, and who summarily dismissed it, was ‘Lady Arbuthnot of Edrom’. Yes, you read that right. In the second decade of the 21st century the UK legal system is still dominated by the kind of people whose morning workout consists of flogging the butler. Lady Arbuthnot also happens to be the wife of Tory peer and former junior Defence Minister Lord James Arbuthnot, whose father was Major Sir John Sinclair Wemyss Arbuthnot.

By now you should be getting the idea. These ridiculous products of privilege and the British public school system (private education for those unfamiliar with the quixotic and arcane code of the British ruling elite) are the guardians of a status quo of class oppression at home and imperialism abroad. In daring to rip off the mask of civility and moral rectitude behind which they and their masters in the US have long carried out their acts of brutality and barbarity at home and around the world, Assange is on the receiving end of their considerable wrath.

If Julian Assange had been confined to a foreign embassy in Moscow or Beijing for five years, on the same grounds on which he has been confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, his plight would have been a cause celebre, sparking calls for boycotts, sanctions, and action at the UN on the part of free speech and prisoner of conscience liberals in the West who are never done excoriating Russia and China.

As it is the UN has already intervened in the matter of the plight of the Wikileaks founder. In February 2016 the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that the “arbitrary detention of Julian Assange should be brought to an end, that his physical integrity and freedom of movement be respected, and that he should be entitled to an enforceable right to compensation.”

Given that the Swedish authorities dropped their investigation into the original charges of rape and sexual molestation – made against Assange in 2010 and which he has always denied and claims were politically motivated – the outstanding UK arrest warrant for breaching bail conditions in 2012 which relates to those charges is surely now moot. Julian Assange, you may recall, sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London fearing not extradition to Sweden but to the US over his role as founder and public face of Wikileaks.

In 2018 not only does the threat of extradition to the US continue to hang over him with this outstanding UK arrest warrant, if anything the threat is even greater, what with the part Wikileaks played in disseminating damning facts about Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and the leadership of the DNC in the run up to the 2016 US presidential election. The ensuing Washington liberal establishment rage that has ensued as a result of Clinton losing the election to Donald Trump has been positively volcanic.

Clinton, her supporters, and elements of the Washington establishment claim that the information Wikileaks published came by way of Russian hacking, while Assange and groups such as Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), made up of former US intelligence operatives and officials, maintain that the information came by way of a leak within Washington itself. Meanwhile, up to this point, the investigation into alleged Russian hacking, Russiagate, is yet to produce one scintilla of concrete evidence that any such hacking on the part of Moscow took place.

Again, the real crime Julian Assange committed was not breaching his bail conditions but daring to speak truth to power. Wikileaks under his stewardship has become the bête noire of governments, particularly Western governments, revealing the ugly truth of crimes committed by US forces in Iraq, the West’s role in the destabilization of Ukraine in 2014, the destruction of Libya – and this is without the part the whistleblowing outfit played in exposing Hillary Clinton as a politician whose record is a monument to mendacity.

Wikileaks is and continues to be a thorn in their side and must be destroyed. Which means that Julian Assange must be destroyed, a man who teaches us that believing you live in a free society and actually behaving as if you do is not the same thing. The former allows you to exist in a bubble of soporific comfort, while the latter is liable to get you confined to a foreign embassy for five years and counting.

The personal toll on Assange’s physical and psychological well being as a result of his confinement should not be overlooked. Indeed the toll it is having was recently confirmed by the medical opinion of two clinicians, who upon examining Assange at the embassy in October 2017 renewed calls for him to be granted safe passage to a London hospital for treatment. In an article for the Guardian, the clinicians write: “While the results of the evaluation are protected by doctor-patient confidentiality, it is our professional opinion that his continued confinement is dangerous physically and mentally to him and a clear infringement of his human right to healthcare.”

It bears repeating: Julian Assange, as was Chelsea Manning, as will be Edward Snowden if he dares set foot outside Russia, is being punished for removing the veil of freedom, human rights, and civil liberties from the face of an empire of hypocrisy and lies. They lied about Iraq, they lied about Libya, they lied about Syria, and they lie every day about the murky relationships between governments, corporations, and the rich that negates their oft made claims to be governing in the interests of the people.

Until Julian Assange is free none of us are.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/15 ... n-assange/

[Digby]

I actually read as far as good article, which seemed a nailed on reason to stop reading.

[Mellsblue]

I actually read as far as good article, which seemed a nailed on reason to stop reading.

Read the first paragraph. It’s funnier than anything he’s posted in the funny images thread.

[Digby]

I actually read as far as good article, which seemed a nailed on reason to stop reading.

Read the first paragraph. It’s funnier than anything he’s posted in the funny images thread.

I don't believe I've read any of those either

[Digby]

I actually read as far as good article, which seemed a nailed on reason to stop reading.

Read the first paragraph. It’s funnier than anything he’s posted in the funny images thread.

I don't believe I've read any of those either

I read the first paragraph

[Digby]

Read the first paragraph. It’s funnier than anything he’s posted in the funny images thread.

I don't believe I've read any of those either

I read the first paragraph

It's not really a piece of work for people who believe the world is flat, it's more a piece of work for people who believe Pratchett's Discworld is our true reality

[Sandydragon]

What utter nonsense.

So the basis for this expert legal opinion is that the judge involved was titled and if Assange had taken up,residence in an embassy in Moscow, th press here would be screaming for his release. Neither argument is relevant.

This whole US extradition element is a nonsense as well. We went through this when he first dedicated to leg it rather than face a Swedish court. The 2 legal processes are entirely separate and the US would need to provide enough proof to warrant an extradition.

Regardless, Assange has a legiti,ate case to answer in the U.K., but wants charges dropped because he thinks he is special. Some of his supporters will write pages of arguments about justice not being evenly applied, yet now that’s exactly what they want.

As for the content of wiki leaks, I’d have far more respect for it if the bias wasn’t so obvious.

[Stones of granite]

I actually read as far as good article, which seemed a nailed on reason to stop reading.

I got as far as this:
Julian Assange’s latest attempt to have his outstanding UK arrest warrant dropped has failed in what stands as one of the most blatant and cruel examples of the British legal system being wielded as an instrument of persecution against a man whose only crime is speaking truth to power.

As this is factually untrue - his crime is a breach of bail conditions - the rest of the article is based on a falsehood and not worth reading.

[Sandydragon]

I actually read as far as good article, which seemed a nailed on reason to stop reading.

I got as far as this:
Julian Assange’s latest attempt to have his outstanding UK arrest warrant dropped has failed in what stands as one of the most blatant and cruel examples of the British legal system being wielded as an instrument of persecution against a man whose only crime is speaking truth to power.

As this is factually untrue - his crime is a breach of bail conditions - the rest of the article is based on a falsehood and not worth reading.

Yeah, but this is alternative media. It doesn’t lie like MSM does.

[rowan]

Also good


The “judge” who dismissed Assange’s case yesterday was “Lady Arbuthnot of Edrom”, wife to Tory peer, former Tory junior Defence Minister and government whip Lord James Arbuthnot. Not to mention Chairman of the Conservative Friends of Israel. Arbuthnot was naturally Eton educated, the son of Major Sir John Sinclair Wemyss Arbuthnot. Of course Lady Arbuthnot’s children were all sent to Eton too.

At the first hearing, I was stunned by reports of completely inappropriate comments by Lady Arbuthnot, including responding to representations about Assange’s health by the comment that medical care is available in Wandsworth prison. As the official charade is that Assange is wanted for nothing but jumping bail, for which a custodial sentence is rare, that callous attempt at gallows humour was redolent of Arbuthnot’s Tory mindset. She also remarked – and repeats it in yesterday’s judgement – that Assange has access to fresh air through the Embassy’s balcony. That is simply untrue. The “balcony” floor is 3 feet by 20 inches and gives no opportunity to exercise. Julian does not have access to it. He is confined to a small area within the Embassy, which still has to function. The balcony is off the Ambassador’s office. He has been given access to it on average about twice a year. But “Lady” Arbuthnot showed a very selective attitude to getting at the truth.

The truth is that just last week the evidence was published which inarguably proves that the questioning for sexual allegations was only ever a charade to secure Assange in custody for deportation to the US, to face charges for publishing the USA’s dirty secrets. In 2013 Sweden wished to drop the investigation and the arrest warrant, and was subject to strong persuasion from the Crown Prosecution Service to maintain the warrant. This included emails from the CPS telling the Swedes “Don’t you dare” drop the case, and most tellingly of all “Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.” That last exposes the entire pretence in just one sentence.

It is worth noting it was not the servile UK corporate media, but the Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi and the Italian newspaper Le Repubblica which obtained these emails through dogged freedom of information requests and High Court proceedings. These revealed the quite stunning truth that the CPS had systematically destroyed most of the highly incriminating correspondence, with only accidental copies of a few emails surviving to be produced in response to the FOI request.

The CPS emails devastate the official charade, which is precisely that this is just a normal extradition case. Furthermore it is admitted at para 43 of “Lady” Arbuthnot’s judgement that the Crown Prosecution Service actively referred the Swedish authorities to Wikileaks activities in the United States as a reason not to drop the arrest warrant, a fact which the UK mainstream media has still never reported and which obviates “Lady” Arbuthnot’s trite observation that there is no evidence that Sweden would have extradited Assange to the USA.

Perhaps most stunning of all “Lady” Arbuthnot opines at para 44 that “I cannot determine from the extracts of correspondence whether the lawyer in the extradition unit acted inappropriately” in preventng the Swedes from dropping the case and referring them to Wikileaks activities vis a vis the USA. Whereas in fact:

a) It provides irrefutable proof that this was never about the frankly unbelievable Swedish sexual allegations, which were always just a pretext for getting Assange into custody over Wikileaks’ publications

b) The reason she only has “extracts” of the correspondence is that the Crown Prosecution Service, as openly admitted in the High Court, tried to destroy all this correspondence, itself an illegal act. Arbuthnot gives them the benefit of their illegality, against all legal principle.

“Lady” Arbuthnot takes it upon herself to contradict the judgement of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, every one of whose members is a much more eminent lawyer than “Lady” Arbuthnot. The UK had of course every opportunity to raise the points made by Lady Arbuthnot in its appeal to the UN, which appeal also failed. “Lady” Arbuthnot’s attempt to undermine a judgement by going back and disputing the actual facts of the case, with no opportunity to answer, is, to say the least, a creative piece of judicial process. But as with her failure to pursue the CPS’ destruction of evidence, it is just an example of her most obvious bias.

“Lady” Arbuthnot set out with one clear and evident purpose, to assist the Crown.

“Lady” Arbuthnot has perhaps performed an unwitting public service by the brazen nature of her partiality, which exposes beyond refutation the charade of legal process behind the effort to arrest Assange, in reality over the publication of USA secrets. The second half of Para 57 of the judgement sets out how, following his arrest for “jumping bail”, the American extradition request on espionage charges will be handled.

I should like to conclude that “Lady” Arbuthnot is a disgrace to the English justice system, but I fear she is rather typical of it. This intellectually corrupt, openly biased, callous Tory shill is rather a disgrace to humanity itself.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... n-assange/

Pilger: https://soundcloud.com/radiosputnik/jul ... st/s-evOXx