The judge found these releases, together with the publication of Clinton’s secret speeches to Wall Street banks, in which she pledged to be their representative, were “matters of the highest public concern.” They “allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election.”
Media silent on dismissal of DNC suit against Julian Assange
A federal court ruling last Tuesday dismissing a Democratic National Committee (DNC) civil suit against Julian Assange “with prejudice” was a devastating indictment of the US ruling elite’s campaign to destroy the WikiLeaks founder. It exposed as a fraud the entire “Russiagate” conspiracy theory peddled by the Democratic Party, the corporate media and the intelligence agencies for the past three years.
The decision, by Judge John Koeltl of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, rejected the smears that Assange “colluded” with Russia. It upheld his status as a journalist and publisher and dismissed claims that WikiLeaks’ 2016 publication of leaked emails from the DNC was “illegal.”
Despite the significance of the ruling, and its clear newsworthiness, it has been subjected to an almost complete blackout by the entire media in the US and internationally.
The universal silence on the court decision—extending from the New York Times (which buried a six-paragraph report on the ruling on page 25) and the Washington Post, to “alternative” outlets such as the Intercept, the television evening news programs and the publications of the pseudo-left—can be described only as a coordinated political conspiracy.
Its aim is to suppress any discussion of the court’s exposure of the slanders used to malign and isolate Assange, and to justify the unprecedented international pursuit of him over WikiLeaks’ exposure of US war crimes, surveillance operations and diplomatic conspiracies.
The New York Times, the Washington Post and other corporate outlets have relentlessly smeared Assange as a “Russian agent” and depicted him as the linchpin of a conspiracy hatched in Moscow to deprive Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton of the presidency in the 2016 US elections.
Now that their claims have been subjected to judicial review and exposed as a tissue of lies and fabrications, they have adopted a policy of radio silence. There is no question that if the court ruling had been in favour of the DNC, it would have been greeted with banner headlines and wall-to-wall coverage.
The response exposes these publications as state propagandists and active participants in the campaign by the Democratic Party, the Trump administration and the entire ruling elite to condemn Assange for the rest of his life to an American prison for the “crime” of publishing the truth.
The editors and senior writers at these outlets, such as New York Timeseditorial page editor James Bennet, are in constant contact with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Behind the scenes, they work out an editorial line that will advance the interests of the Wall Street banks and the military-intelligence apparatus. At the same time, they decide what news and information they will hide from the American and world population.
The efforts by the mainstream news outlets to bury the ruling presents a clear example of the type of media manipulation that has led millions of people to seek alternative sources of news on the internet, of which WikiLeaks is itself an example.
Judge Koeltl’s decision made plain the anti-democratic and dictatorial logic of the DNC case against Assange. He warned: “If WikiLeaks could be held liable for publishing documents concerning the DNC’s political, financial and voter-engagement strategies simply because the DNC labels them ‘secret’ and trade secrets, then so could any newspaper or other media outlet.” This, he stated, would “override the First Amendment” protection to freedom of the press mandated by the US Constitution.
Koeltl’s finding was an absolute vindication of Assange and WikiLeaks’ 2016 publications exposing the attempts by the DNC to rig the Democratic Party primaries against self-declared “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders in favour of Hillary Clinton.
The judge found these releases, together with the publication of Clinton’s secret speeches to Wall Street banks, in which she pledged to be their representative, were “matters of the highest public concern.” They “allowed the American electorate to look behind the curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election.”
Koeltl, moreover, found there was no evidence to justify the DNC’s assertion that WikiLeaks had colluded with the Russian state to obtain the material. Assange and WikiLeaks have always maintained that the documents were not provided to them by the Putin regime.
The ruling demonstrated the flagrant illegality of the US vendetta against Assange. The slander that he was operating as a “Russian agent” to “interfere” in US politics was used by the American government and its intelligence agencies to pressure the Ecuadorian regime to sever Assange’s internet access in 2016, and again in 2018. It served as a central pretext for its illegal termination in April of his political asylum in the embassy building.
The judgment was also an implicit exposure of the lawlessness of the attempts by the Trump administration, with the full support of the Democrats, to extradite Assange from Britain, so that he can be prosecuted on 18 US charges, including 17 espionage counts, carrying a maximum sentence of 175 years’ imprisonment.
The Trump administration and the Justice Department are claiming that it was illegal for WikiLeaks and Assange to publish US army war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and other documents exposing US war crimes and intrigues, provided by the courageous whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Koeltl’s ruling, however, reasserted the fundamental democratic principle that WikiLeaks had a right to publish the 2016 DNC documents, even if they had been obtained by the Russian government, or any other entity, illegally.
The clear implication is that even if Manning’s decision to leak US military and diplomatic documents was a violation of the law, WikiLeaks’ publication of them was not. The publication of both the 2010 and the 2016 leaks was constitutionally protected journalistic activity.
Koeltl further undermined the claims of the Trump administration, the Democrats and the media that Assange is a “hacker,” undeserving of First Amendment protections. The judge repeatedly referred to Assange as a “journalist” and WikiLeaks as a “publisher.”
In other words, the attempt to extradite Assange to the US and prosecute him is a frontal assault on the US Constitution and press freedom. In its disregard for domestic and international law, it can be described only as an extraordinary rendition operation, similar to the kidnappings and torture operations conducted by the CIA.
The hostile response to Koeltl’s ruling on the part of the entire political and media establishment, in the US and internationally, demonstrates that this conspiracy will not be defeated by plaintive appeals to the governments, political parties and media corporations that have spearheaded the assault on Assange’s legal and democratic rights.
All of them are using the persecution of Assange as a test case for the imposition of ever-more authoritarian measures, aimed at suppressing mounting popular hostility to war, social inequality and an assault on democratic rights.
What is required is the development of a mass movement from below, to mobilise the immense social and political power of the working class internationally to secure Assange’s liberty and to defend all democratic rights.
Do Democrats Really Have Anything to Offer Their Base in 2020?
The run for the 2020 election is turning into a contest between two dramatically different visions for America's future. Our nation is rapidly facing an inflection point as we approach the next election concerning the future political direction of our country. Two diametrically opposite sets of political ideas are in direct competition for the support of the majority of Americans.
With the active support of the mainstream media, the various elements on the Left work hard to project the appearance of having the majority of political public opinion in their favor. However, a little covered story that was recently released may provide a more accurate view of which side and set of political ideas is winning the overall political battle across the nation.
In 2019, there are 27 GOP governors and 23 Democratic governors across the country. According to the Q2 2019 Report of Governor Approval Rankings by Morning Consult, a leading polling company, which was published on July 17, the top 14 most popular governors in the nation are Republicans, and 8 out of 10 of the most unpopular are Democrats. The report indicates that Republican governors have a net approval rating on average that is 17 points higher than their Democratic counterparts.
In the two most populous states, Texas governor Greg Abbott earned the eighth position, while recently elected California governor Gavin Newsom quickly assumed a position in the bottom ten. The relative positions in the rankings of these two governors accurately reveals the relative position of Texas versus California as desirable places to live as judged by their residents.
San Francisco is proud of its progressive heritage and remains one of the most scenic and beautiful cities in the world, possessing the great amenities of a leading urban center. However, the overall atmosphere I experienced on my recent trip to this city was troubling. Homelessness is rampart in the city and encounters with people with obvious issues beyond the lack of adequate shelter make the overall city environment seem unnecessarily dangerous and unpleasant.
In contrast, San Francisco and the neighboring Silicon Valley are the home to many of the world's leading tech companies, creating opportunities for a wide range of talented, skilled, and highly educated people to become extremely successful and wealthy. It is a city of obvious contrasts among an emerging class of mostly young, increasingly affluent people; a middle class in retreat because of extraordinary high housing prices; and various other people in distress to the point of being driven to living on the streets.
Why is homelessness and the plight of the poor so pronounced in a city that prides itself as a progressive bastion and a city dominated by Democrats in perpetual power that have consistently proclaimed to be on the side of less advantaged people? An HBO documentary film produced in 2015 named San Francisco 2.0 was readily available to me, so I watched it to learn more about this crisis. The documentary was made by Alexandra Pelosi, who is the daughter of House speaker Nancy Pelosi, on the tech boom and its impact on the city. As expected, the film provided a story of San Francisco that was limited in scope and presented a distinct left-leaning point of view.
The film is focused on the changes that the rapid, extreme gentrification of the city caused by the extreme wealth that the tech sector has brought to San Francisco. The film places blame for the current crisis squarely on the success of the tech sector and neglects to acknowledge the achievements and contributions made by so many of these highly successful and innovative people.
Most interesting, the film includes interviews three former mayors of San Francisco, including Ed Lee, Willie Brown, and Art Agnos, as well as former California governor Jerry Brown. The four interviews included no indication of poor governance by the city and the state. No questions were asked that could hold any of them accountable for their share of the responsibility for the challenging conditions facing both San Francisco and California.
California is the nation's leading practitioner of progressive policies and politics and is evidently failing in many ways, including visibly on the streets of San Francisco. California is affected in a negative fashion by a combination of high taxes, an extreme housing crisis, excessive regulation, and an overall unfavorable operating environment for businesses. California functions on a big government model offering a high degree of services to many of its less well off residents financed primary by high state income taxes on its wealthiest citizens. It is a state that has also led in enacting comprehensive environmental regulations that has created additional challenges for sustaining a growing economy. California can be accurately characterized as a one-party political system dominated by Democrats, with public-sector unions strongly in control, which is limiting flexibility for consideration of any necessary changes in political direction or corrective actions to be taken.
The American people vote with their feet in great numbers every year by moving from states that offer little opportunity for a better life. California is experiencing a large outflow of mainly middle-class people and people of lesser means moving out of the state and most significantly to their number-one destination, which is Texas.
Texas is governed by a Republican model of limited government, with low taxes, low services, and low regulation and a comprehensive support for businesses large and small. Its political environment can be accurately characterized as the mirror image of California. The result is a state projected to continue to experience steady population growth for the foreseeable future.
The poll informs us that residents of our fifty states are judging the quality and prospects of living under different styles of government, and they quite clearly favor the Republican ones. More powerful evidence of this preference is provided by the significant movement of Americans relocating from leading blue states such as California, New York, and Illinois to red states such as Texas and Florida.
As an integral strategy for re-election, President Trump is taking public steps to expose the nation to Democratic Party failures of leadership in various locations ranging from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago to Baltimore, with, predictably, many more examples to follow. Overall, the eventual Democratic presidential nominee will be burdened with a fundamental disadvantage in that Progressive policies in action are proving to be unpopular, unworkable, and failing in the opinion of an increasingly number of Americans. These efforts by President Trump to make the Democrats accountable for their many failures in office in various traditionally Democratic dominated locations around the country will likely be a crucial factor in deciding the election.
Written by K.S. Guardiola, who blogs at "Set the Record — Right!" (@rightquestions.blog) and can be reached atdeplorableurbanite@rightquestions.blog.
Image: Guardian News via YouTube.
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Another pro-
bankster, right-wing Democrat enters the 2020 race
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Another pro-
bankster, right-wing Democrat enters the 2020 race
Her embrace of Hillary Clinton, the candidate of Wall Street and the CIA, and Obama, who presided over the largest transfer of wealth in history from the bottom to the top, demonstrate clearly her adherence to the right-wing policies of the Democrats that are responsible for the accelerated deepening of economic and social inequality, paving the way for the Trump presidency.
She has also received substantial contributions from major Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Company.
During her 2012 reelection campaign, she was the third highest recipient of donations from the securities and investment sector, reportedly taking in more than $1.84 million.
Gillibrand: Racist Trump Creating National Emergency of ‘Rampant White Nationalism Across the Country’
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Sunday on MSNBC, 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) accused President Donald Trump of creating a national emergency with his racism of “rampant white nationalism across the country.”
Gillibrand said, “I mean for President Trump to say we have to get it stopped, and the quickest way to do that is for him to stop being a racist. He has created a national emergency of rampant white nationalism across the country. And I think white national terrorism is a national emergency I think we need to blame President Trump and the rhetoric he’s used since he got elected.”
When asked if the president a white nationalist, Gillibrand said, “He is. And all you have to do is listen to his words to make that decision. He has berated, demeaned, devalued woman of color constantly in this administration. He has used racist language and racist dog whistles on behalf of the presidency. He Mexicans are rapists. He’s really truly using constant aggressive divisive language. And I’ve seen in my own state of New York that hate crimes have risen exponentially under this presidency.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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