Sure, kick him again while he’s down, you fearless investigative Intercept reporters! By now we can guess why, of course. But not only did Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi discover through her FOIA request that emails show Swedish prosecutors were considering dropping the extradition proceedings against Julian Assange in 2013, but that the Crown Prosecution Service had pressured Sweden not to ‘not get cold feet’ as in: ‘don’t give up the case’. And just after Judge Arbuthnot ruled against the second petition brought by Assange’s attorneys to find it in the public interest to quash the warrant, former Ambassador Craig Murray told the world that the Judge is in fact Lady Arbuthnot of Edrom, wife to Tory peer, former Tory junior Defence Minister & government whip Lord James Arbuthnot in his Feb. 14: ‘All Pretence is Over in Persecution of Assange’, part of which also references the CPS emails, and the ‘gallows humor’ of the Judge’s reasons for her ruling.
But RT read the recent report by the Intercept so you didn’t have to: ‘Sadistic
sociopath’: Leaked chats reveal Assange’s extreme disdain for Hillary Clinton’, Feb. 15, 2018
“WikiLeaks has never concealed its feelings about Hillary Clinton, but leaked chats obtained by The Intercept provide more insight into what its founder Julian Assange apparently thought about her during the run-up to the election.
The tweets are said to have been sent in a direct group message between Assange and around 10 of WikiLeaks’ most loyal supporters on Twitter. The group is described as a “low security channel for some very long term and reliable supporters,” according to the news outlet.
In the autumn of 2015, when the idea of Donald Trump becoming the next US president was still deemed highly unlikely by most political pundits, the iconic whistleblower spoke candidly about Clinton and his preference for a GOP victory. “We believe it would be much better for GOP to win,” he reportedly wrote. “Dems+Media+liberals woudl (sic) then form a block to reign in their worst qualities.” A couple minutes later, he apparently called the Democratic candidate a “bright, well connected, sadistic sociopath.”
Note that RT also follows Micah Lee, who’d begun by attributing those quotes to WikiLeaks, but in a Milwaukee minute changed to ‘Assange’, and of course he’ long known that the two aren’t conflatable. But who is ‘hazelpress’ who’d started the WikiLeaks supporters who can Tweet in their name?
@JulianAssange Feb 14 – ‘the article changes the context of its quotes even compared to the clearly highly selective claimed excerpts Lee placed on Document Cloud: ‘Excerpts From Private WikiLeaks Twitter Group’
Not one is from @julianassange, but many are black boxes with the times redacted. What’s up with that?
Moar: he apparently admitted that Republicans would “generate a lot oposition (sic), including through dumb moves.” ‘“ Hillary “has greater freedom to start wars than the GOP and has the will to do so.” after the primary : “Perhaps Hillary will have a stroke.”
He also said that her “role in the war in Libya is what should bring her down, however, the GOP is too close to others who have benefited to exploit this, it seems. That Hillary helped to sew the foundation for ISIS against pentagon generals (sic) advice seems huge. But the GOP resolutely ignores it. Hillary has so muc hslime (sic) on her shirt it is now hard to make dirt stick.”
“The archive, which was obtained by The Intercept, spans from May 2015 to November 2017 and includes 11,000 messages. More than 10 percent of them were written from the WikiLeaks account.”
[Whose were the other 90%?]
“The Intercept has made the assumption that the WikiLeaks account was controlled by Assange, stating that such an assumption is “widely understood” and noting that he refers to himself “in the third person majestic plural, as he often does.”
Following the Intercept’s article, Assange took to Twitter to dismiss the claims, stating that the WikiLeaks Twitter account has always been run by rotating staff. Assange has also noted that while the Intercept used messages from late October 2016, he had no Internet access back then, a fact that is widely known.
The WikiLeaks co-founder also empathized [emphasized, I’d think] the long-time rivalry between his organization and the Intercept. Assange posted a link to an article, highlighting FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds’ allegations that the Intercept was formed by eBay owner Pierre Omidyar, as a way to drive WikiLeaks out of the secrets-revealing business, take “ownership” of Edward Snowden’s leaks and ultimately create a “honey trap” for whistleblowers.
The private Twitter group was set up in mid-2015 by a former supporter and volunteer at WikiLeaks, who goes by the name “Hazelpress.” That person – whose real name remains unknown – is the same person that leaked the messages [direct messaging] after news broke that WikiLeaks had secretly corresponded with Donald Trump Jr. during the election, reportedly urging his father to reject the results as “rigged” if he lost, and requesting that he use his connections to make Assange the Australian ambassador.
“At this point, considering the power exercised by WikiLeaks, [disclosing] literally anything Assange says is in the public interest,” Hazelpress told The Intercept. He added that Assange’s political position during the election is fair game, as WikiLeaks “purports to be a neutral transparency organization.”
Now of course Micah Lee began by attributing those quotes to WikiLeaks, but in a Milwaukee minute changed to ‘Assange’, and of course he’s long known that the two aren’t conflatable. But who is ‘hazelpress’ who’d started the WikiLeaks supporters who can Tweet in their name? Among the (now) 712 comments on the ‘exposé’, a high percentage called TI for it’s anti-Assange agitprop, not a few said they’d never give the place money again, and mentioned their earlier screeds against Assange. Of the Assange detractors, all seemed to believe that it was he, not multiple WL contributors…was speaking.
One recent commenter linked to ‘Opinion: ‘Et Tu, The Intercept? Smear Of Assange Murderously Timed’, zerohedge via disobedient media.
“The timing of the article’s publication acted to brutally counter growing support for Assange that arose in the wake of a clearly unjust UK ruling. Essentially, the publication of the smear attempted to deflect attention from the revelation of corruption in the ongoing detention of Assange, and to assassinate his character in the process.
The Intercept’s decision to publish the article at such a time unfortunately serves to characterize the outlet as a servant of the same US deep state that The Intercept has gained a reputation for – at least in theory – opposing.”
One comment exchange contained this:
EH: ‘What makes this story even stranger is that one of the participants of the chat was Glenn Greenwald. Micah Lee is busy trashing Assange for the gross nature of this conversation, but doesn’t mention that his boss is part of it.’
C: ‘How do we know that Greenwald was a participant? Source?’
EH: ‘Look for a post from someone named Anderson Hale down below. He found a chat between WL and someone whose name was blanked out. The anonymous guy was saying he might have confused people whether a leak came from WL or the Panama Papers. On the very same day Greenwald commented in a tweet on a WL tweet with a leak from the Panama Papers.
Read it. I found it convincing.’
SP: ‘Glenn brings up a point about this coverage in his Tweets (highlighted in a comment below, as well): “the Intercept is responsible for what it publishes on its site, not what its employees say on social media (much as is true of WikiLeaks).”
Yet this article makes an unexplainable overreach in inferring that Assange authored all of these private chats on social media (not Wikileaks responsibility, or Assanges’ per Glenn’s comment) without suitable evidence for doing so.
And yet Micah, Cora, and the editors here feel it’s OK for The Intercept to malign someone because that someone (unproven) **may** have maligned others in private, and on social media? Even if that’s true, that Assange said these things in the manner presented here, what’s the issue?
This is a smarmy, unnecessary, and disingenuous account provided by The Intercept, no matter the facts behind them. “The Intercept’s decision to publish the article at such a time unfortunately serves to characterize the outlet as a servant of the same US deep state that The Intercept has gained a reputation for – at least in theory – opposing.”
Here’s the Sibel Edmonds’ assertions link by Whitney Webb at mintpressnews.com Assange had Tweeted. She gives a lot of the same information that I had in my III-part series, but far more coherently, shall we say? The Daily Beast smackdown, two other hits from the Intercept, etc. She includes the Freedom of the Press Foundation having voted WikiLeaks ‘off the island’ (accepting donations to be disbursed to WikiLeaks ‘anonymously’, which was one of the big benefits Assange and WikiLeaks had lamented after the fact.
“WikiLeaks, in recent tweets, has suggested that Omidyar’s influence was responsible not only for the FPF’s decision but also for the unusual attacks that some FPF members have launched against WikiLeaks, particularly Assange, in recent months. The most outspoken of these members has been FPF director Micah Lee, who is employed by the Omidyar-owned publication, The Intercept.
And yes, the author of the current hit piece in the self-same Micah Lee that authored the recent…screed.
“In February of last year, Lee called Assange a “rapist, liar & ally to fascists” in a tweet — despite the fact that Assange was never charged with rape, his alleged accusers have also claimed that Assange had not sexually assaulted them, and there is abundant evidence suggesting that the rape investigation was a means of ensnaring Assange to ensure his extradition to the United States. Based on Lee’s other tweets, the “ally to fascists” charge ostensibly refers to Lee’s belief that Wikileaks’ publications of emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta was done explicitly, with Assange’s blessing, to aid the Trump campaign.
Despite the slander and demonstrably false claims, other FPF members who have historically defended WikiLeaks and Assange were silent regarding Lee’s accusations, including Glenn Greenwald, Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden. Though FPF members have denied that Omidyar’s influence has had a role in these attacks, as well as in the board’s decision to cut ties with WikiLeaks, a closer examination of Omidyar and his ties to the U.S. political establishment — as well as his apparent influence on some of the FPF’s most prominent members — gives credibility to WikiLeaks’ concerns.”
But this is fascinating, and some of it’s new to me:
“Omidyar has a vested interest in advancing the interests of the U.S. political establishment for a variety of reasons. Sibel Edmonds, who was among the first to note Omidyar’s background upon The Intercept’s founding, noted that the PayPal executive “has been in bed with the CIA and NSA” and even the Department of Defense — further noting that the Snowden documents that The Intercept, and thus Omidyar, controls “contain information about PayPal’s direct partnership not only with the Treasury Department but also the CIA.”
Edmonds further stated that Greenwald had confirmed Omidyar’s long-running partnership with the CIA and other government agencies on Twitter during a heated exchange between the two in 2013.
Omidyar is also well-connected to Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton, a major government contractor known as the “world’s most profitable spy organization,” whose former executives include James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, and Michael McConnell, former Director of the NSA. Omidyar’s Ulupono Initiative, a venture capital fund that operates in his home state of Hawaii, cosponsors one of the Pentagon’s most important contractor expos, in which Booz Allen Hamilton – and the Department of Defense – have a major stake. In addition, a former Booz Allen Hamilton vice president, Kyle Datta, is General Partner of Omidyar’s Ulupono Initiative.
Also striking was Omidyar’s decision to accept Snowden’s former boss at Booz Allen Hamilton, Robert Lietzke, into the Omidyar Fellows program in 2015 after personally interviewing Lietzke as part of the program’s application process. What was unusual in Lietzke’s case was that Omidyar also oversees The Intercept, which has exclusive publishing rights over the Snowden cache – which was taken from under Lietzke’s nose at Booz Allen Hamilton by his former employee, Edward Snowden. Snowden himself has remained silent on Omidyar’s decision, despite the mixed signals it sent and continues to serve as the president of the FPF — which, as mentioned, is also funded by Omidyar.”
Her section ‘The fine line between curation and censorship’ is quite on topic to the ‘good whistle-blower v. bad whistleblower’ trope , but I’dd add that has included the fact that Julian Assange is both anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist (anti-war), while the Intercept asks the DoD for permission to publish, and they then redact what might ‘harm the US war effort’ (or close).
Nice job, Intercept. And thanks for outing Reality Winner as your source, then trying to make it all better raising money for her defense.
I’ll end with this quote from Sibel Edmonds:
“The Intercept is a continuation of that blockade [of WikiLeaks]. [It] was set up with that purpose. Specifically, it was set up to block true, real information and put forth narrative that has already gotten the approval of special interests including the U.S. government. It made perfect sense for him [Omidyar] to move from that to setting up a news organization and posing as an outlet for investigative reports depending on whistleblowers.”
How many ‘journalists’ are in the Intercept’s stable by now? Scores and scores, but try to find the list now; I can’t. The Omidyar Network online. On Twitter. Such investment philanthropy! #What.a.Schmuck
A key addendum I’d just remembered that I’d featured earlier in my own series: ‘The Freedom of the Press organization had also created ‘Secure Drop’ aid to potential whistleblowers; as per the Daily Beast:
“Journalists are starting to recognize that sophisticated communications security is a key element in the newsgathering process,” Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Chief Technology Officer Micah Lee said. “SecureDrop is the safest way we know for an anonymous source to send information to journalists while protecting their identity.”
As per the Daily Beast: Under the foundation’s stewardship, SecureDrop today is running in dozens of newsrooms, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and Bloomberg.”
How utterly fearless of them.
cross-posted at caucus99percent.com)
café babylon 
America’s Greater Snooze Button
First, I offer my Kudos to TarheelDem for his usual insight for Common Sense and where he recognized the viable usage of the “snooze button” by the many of us that address the assorted political/public issues that continue to confront us all and on a daily basis.
Of course, I am ‘guilty’ of this snooze button, and in this instance, Assange is one of my very few snooze buttonized subjects. And I come at this from the standpoint that Assange has terminally destroyed his reputation and as well as his viability for our nation’s self-governance model.
Take, for example, his constant self-promotion over the span of many years, has not led to any change in public law or the change in the attendant public policies that animate public law, of any sort. And it’s for this sole reason that Assange, make no decent ‘writ’ among the National Academy of Historians, from years past or from the years ahead of us, hence the next twenty years, at least/best.
And from the “best” standpoint, Assange should have taken his skill set for self-promotion and sales and crafted for himself a political platform in which address the Public Law and policies that would meet with favor and amongst the larger public, even when challenging today’s wide-arrayed political operatives, but he was touting his small-minded behavior that would animate his ever-present acolytes, and which is represented by his current legal problems for personal probity.
And given that I am cynical cuss and where my self-restraint exemplifies my refusal to tout my language skill set and which cannot include the ‘angry four-letter words, and yet, doing so in either, Yaqui, Apache, or even in Spanish, would not add much, if anything to my self-serving credibility or reputation. Further, given my large reading audience of military vets, this unkempt lack of self-restraint, I would undergo a critique of the usual, and that being “keep it up and I’ll rip your heart out” serves as my barrier for refusing to accept a follow=on critique that “he forgot to take his meds this morning.”
Needless to say, but I will, over these many years, I have conducted a variety of public opinion polls among Latinos and Native Americans, and if one of the questions posed regarding Assange, the respondents would ask “Who is Assange.” Consequently, Assange has failed to move little if any votes in his desired direction, and which amplifies his virtual non-status for being a formidable political operative.
Jaango
.
well, now, jaango, that would take me far longer than the time i have at the moment to unpack. so…maybe tomorrow, maybe this evening, i just can’t say. meanwhile, snooze on…
okay, let me give this a try. first, a snooze is a light sleep or nap, since i’m at a loss to grasp that this condemnatory list was formulated while you’d been not wide awake, staring at him. i have no clue as to what you mean by ‘his self-promotion’, nor esp. ‘his viability for our nation’s self-governance model’. there is no self-governance model, but i’d say that it’s not his job to ‘craft for himself a political platform in which address the Public Law and policies’, etc.
WikiLeaks: “we open governments.” period. but oh, yes, wikiLeaks and assange will indeed be in the history books, although history is defined by the winners. now as far as your polling on ‘assange’, i’d have to think that your target audience, one might wonder if they would know WikiLeaks instead. i’ll provide some of the leaks that the organization has published, a hella lot of them did lead to policy activism, and not just here, but around the globe. i am a global citizen, your comments mean that you are focused on US policy and whatever you imagine self-governance might look like. but that’s a whole different conversation, as the boot of the ruling capitalist class is on the necks of ordinary citizens around the world.
the language of the tpp, tisa, tafta, iraq war logs, diplomatic cables, the h.b. gary intel files, stratfor global intelligence files, cia exploits vault 7 and 8, dod detainee policies files, gitmo files, afghan war logs, clinton, dnc, and podesta emails, bnd-nsa inquiries, and a whole lot more.
https://www.wikileaks.org/-Leaks-.html
by this: ‘but he was touting his small-minded behavior that would animate his ever-present acolytes, and which is represented by his current legal problems for personal probity’, do you mean…never mind, i won’t even speculate, but ‘probity’ means ‘integrity, virtue’. but yes, do keep snoozing, but i don’t get that you understand what an organization wikileaks is. many of his detractors accuse him of ‘not publishing leaks on russia or trump’, failing to understand that whistleblowers come to the organization if they have leaks, and how and where to submit it.
Perhaps one for the Great Minds Think Alike file:
Caitlin Johnstone: The Intercept Is Transitioning From Guard Dog To Attack Dog For The Establishment.
ha! someone over yonder at c99% stuck in that link. her cred there must be high, as one commenter said that the intercept having turned to the dark side must be so…as he agreed w/ her, lol. a few folks did some digging on the owner of the daily beast (diller?) and it turns out he was top dog ‘hillblazer’ money bags for the red queen. (we knew miz chelsea’s on the board), but…that was great.
If Assange had the smarts of years back, he would have positioned himself from the standpoint for “disconnecting” National Security from National Defense. To wit, he would have secured his self-promotion regarding these two differing tangents. He didn’t and so, when I compare an internationalist, to a domestic viability, Assange came up intentionally short-sighted.
As to the self-governance model, I am referring to the nation’s Constitution, and even to include the intentional requirement for self-restraint and due to its manifest legal interpretation from the years gone by.
As to the “leaks” attributed to Assange, he’s changed virtually nothing since he hasn’t captured voters here in the USA and drawn them in and further, in the direction that moves voters to change Public Laws one iota.
And have I missed anything?
Jaango
i dunno if you’ve missed anything, jaango, but i’m more in the dark than even before on what you’re charging him with. but for one thing, assange isn’t american, he’s australian, and two, since you’re talkin’ about “disconnecting” National Security from National Defense, i have to wonder if you’re talking about edward snowden, of nsa files leaker fame. now he IS american, as some of the OP internal links had noted, esp. in regard to pierre omidyar, and yes, after his revelations, it seems that bulk spying by the nsa has been reinstated, but slightly worse than before.
…Hi wd
…At one time now some years back already I followed Glen Greenwald ( GG ) on a daily/weekly basis as GG seemed to have a moral, ethical and political functioning Right / Wrong compass. GG then went over to The Guardian and then on to The Intercept. Somewhere in all that Edward Snowden and GG became linked in somewhat odd and murky ways. Well you know the rest of that story.
…For those of us who thought Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and several others whose names deserve to / should be mentioned here as well were doing the right thing it is revealing to see and know who was out to shut them up, create big deep ongoing problems for them and who yet did not seem to suffer for doing so. Barack Obama knowably was one of them. I despise ObamaApologists for what they are when they want to go with doing See / Not See partisan R vs. D junk politics. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton being Exhibit # 1 and # 2 results as to what Dumbshit D’s who want to do See / Not See R vs. D junk politics seek / want to justify and condone.
…Whatever Julian Assange has done or made possible for others to do evidently was enough to make Obama and Clinton enemies and the orcs those two slicked up political grifters / con artists seem attracted to and surrounded by. Julian Assange has been a prisoner for a long time for reasons that seem mostly to do with his showing and telling what is too revealing or not convenient.
…Judge Julian Assange by those who want to be his enemies, censors and persecuters.
…As for the Obama and Clinton apologists who failed to call out /challenge Obama and Clinton but now delight in mocking, ridiculing and deriding Trump the utter hypocrisy of that conduct speaks volumes. Too many Dumbshit D’s were repeatedly willing to overlook and apologize for what Obama and Clinton were and are / were not and are not yet now these same Dumbshit D’s are so willing to go after Trump. The hypocrisy of this being so shows what frauds these Dumbshit D’s are as they go about doing more R vs. D. Junk politics.
…sta🏹
‘allo ,arrow. gotta beg off answering till tomorrow, but mr. wd read me your comment while i was ‘slaving away’ in the kitchen making a couple trays of tostada. what pinged among othe words and phrases was ‘murky’. good on ya, and…tomorrow. i am so tired after building a new diary w/ facsimilated tweets w/images added after the fact. needs must, as the c99 software doesn’t accomodate them w/ my foxfire version of firefox w/ easy copy.
but i sure did like what mr. wd had read me; mightta come w/ a standup bass behind it. sleep well. ;-)
i might just have to take issue w/ snowden, as his claim as famously that he’d just wanted to start a conversation, if amerikans wanted to vote in favor of being spied on, that’d be okay. well, sure ed, let mob rule (or did he mean ‘our representatives’?) vote to have their first amendment rights ceded to the state! well, they sure did… ;-)
but i hear ya so loudly on r/d junk politics. the mcResistance doesn’t march in protest of T’s politics, just the pussy-grabber’s social politics. #meToo! but tragically, herr hair has just doubled down on O’s rule on war, EOs, deportations, and once his budget passes even more hits on what’s left of the disappearing social social safety net. ah, but the ICE man cometh for the daca kids; that sucks worse bigly, although daca was kind of a cowardly policy. dubya’s ‘immigration reform’ would have been better.
best truth line: “…Judge Julian Assange by those who want to be his enemies, censors and persecuters.” thanks, amigo.
…Hi wd
…As things murky or mixtures of murkiness, misdirection and shadow play go there was and is aplenty around Edward Snowden since the breakout of what he did and how that all has unreeled. As I noted in my comment the mysterious linking up of Snowden and Greenwald and the ensuing tangents of control and custody of the Snowden cache / reveals was murky.
… I likely have read only a very small fraction of what has been speculated, investigated or has been established as being knowably valid or legitimate. It was / has been suggested by some that E. Snowden’s run and reveal all along was a NSA limited hangout. Who can / will ever know if it was or was not?
… As for where Snowden and Greenwald actually stand or sit in any or all of this in light of black box The Intercept who?’s and what ?’s is and remains open ended. Perhaps time will reveal more or then again will not.
… Whatever Edward Snowden is or is not it is knowable what was done to Thomas Drake had Obama’s hands all over it. As for William Binney’s saga it too was more about the ongoing intentional dereliction of doing right in favor of doing wrong.
…gotta run …take care wd…best wishes always…
…sta🏹
‘allo, arrow. i’m so burned out for the day, but while i have this word doc up still, for now, may i add (i get confused as to what i’ve added here, or at c99%) as someone had wondered about james risen at the intercept:
January 5, 2018 ‘James Risen, the New York Times and the Sliming of Wen Ho Lee’ by Jeffrey St. Clair – Alexander Cockburn, jan. 5, 2018 (piece at the intercept)
“Risen also offers a limited, modified mea culpa for his stories falsely fingering Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American scientist who worked at Los Alamos, as a spy. Risen’s dubious reports, which destroyed Lee’s career and nearly ruined his life, were largely based on false information fed to him by anonymous sources in the government. Risen describes his own experience as a “painful lesson” (though surely his suffering was nothing compared to the torments his reports inflicted on Lee), but he fails to name the government sources who led him astray and wrongly vilified Lee. What’s he waiting for?”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/05/james-risen-the-new-york-times-and-the-sliming-of-wen-ho-lee/
later i’d seen b at moa retweet: ‘Is James Risen a CIA Mouthpiece? (or The Extraordinarily Bad Journalism of James Risen)’
night, mi amigo; gotta go close mine eyes for a bit….sorry not to answer very well.
Yes, I know that Assange is not a US citizen.
My “ire” as to a more active snooze button starts with any critique that starts with the refusal to “disconnect” National Security and National Defense. Take, for example, if these two elements were separated and addressed accordingly, those persons addressing only national security, would carry far more weight in their overall efforts, and the general public and in particular, the voters would not be sitting on their hands.
And your latest thread on Venezuela, and other sovereign nations in the Latin America Region, would garner far more attention.
Now, my opposition to what the US does on a much larger effort, requires that we, the voters need more “education” as to our ‘influence’ and how this influence is being conducted needs far greater attention.
we’re talking so far past one another that i find it hard to even continue the conversation, and i don’t write for any particular demographic, cuz i reckon i’m a rainbow-hued global citizen. gotta head to c99 now. lots cookin’ on my vz thread.
Apologies for being very slow on the uptake these days, but adding my two cents here before moving on to Venezuela.
My first thought on the subject was that in a real sense we are each of us, Julians (and not just because I share his name and hemisphere of birth..)
The way in which we are Julians is the manner in which barriers have been deliberately raised, walls more impenetrable than the one in Berlin, between us and what is really happening in the world – between the public and the public’s right to know. But that wall came down, and so will these. This begins it.
One of those barriers masquerades as escape tunnel, with the misleading but apt name of ‘intercept’. And jaango may be correct in seeing the entire operation as worthy of the snooze button, as diversion writ large, but if we like kafka find our own selves stuck in the sticky ooze, it’s hard to get a good night’s sleep.
All roads lead to Rome, and even if this one merely shines the little twinkling lights of connectivity in that great darkness which is the mysterious firmament of the fourth day of creation wherein wisdom calls us all to account – even so, I thank you, wendye for stringing those little lights together here and plugging them in. Bravo.
Forgive me for waxing poetical; it’s those Lenten readings again – along with Isaiah and in parallel, I have Genesis and Proverbs. It’s a great march beginning, in the company of giants. And in the company of julians like me here, on this tiny planet below the great heavens.
Venezuela tomorrow, and on we press – courage, mates!
i do hope you get your laptop soon, ww; how frustrating, using only a smart phone
well, jaango can call assange/wikileaks snooze-worthy, but i never will. now snowden, yes, esp, as only 2% of the files have been released (someone counts, lol?) but they are totally irrelevant now, maybe always were, given how many related spy agencies there are in the US, fbi, dhs, dea, and more.
but it seems incontestable by now that the ‘intercept’ mainly acts as you say, as an escape tunnel, and by and large plays for the Imperium. it also makes me laugh that w/ pierre’s quarter of a billion bucks, they ask for contributions for their ‘fearless investigative journalism!
but re: wikileaks, those were the first leaks that hipped many of us about amerikan interference in VZ.
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Venezuela
just to isolate a few:
https://www.rt.com/news/wikileaks-venezuela-us-chavez-358/
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/WikiLeaks-Cable-Reveals-US-Oil-Interests-in-Venezuela-20170802-0034.html
http://www.ips-dc.org/wikileaks_venezuelas_crude_awakening/
the VZ edition at c99% has 48 comments, partially cuz there was a woman who’d said she hopes they chop off maduro’s head. pissed of people in solidarity w/ VZ went a-diggin’. it was great, seriously, and worth reading, imo.
Sorry, yesterday’s storm here slowed me down connectionwise (you would opt for the outback, wouldn’t you, sez Spot.)
I did say ‘ masquerades as’, not meaning tunnel in any respect further than maybe a mineshaft with an inoperable lift. Think your cul de sac is too kind, wendye!
Sharing Spot with son these days, peace to your family – even we peons live in interesting times. This is progress?