Julian Assange dragged out of embassy and arrested

They weren't "tampered with". Nobody rigged the ballots and voters freely voted based on the information that was available.
Short of the largest program of censorship that the world has ever seen, some of that information is always going to come from foreign sources. And there are always much more effective campaigns being carried out by moneyed interests internal to the US.

You aren't so precious when much worse election interference is being carried out by your own government and its allies. People deserve to be taken seriously on this issue if and only if they will apply the same standards to themselves.

The US authorities wanted Assange prior to the 2016 elections, for releasing information which was truthful.

The US literally is the world's leading authority on tampering in foreign governments and elections, all Assange did was reveal damaging information.

He did not "tamper with" anything.

Again, are you prepared to support the Chinese authorities for jailing Gui Minhai?

You and Spot are either ignorant of how elections work or just playing dumb. Im going with the latter.

I could care less what you think. But name one time when Ive supported U.S interference with foreign elections. I'll save you the trouble. I haven't.

And releasing information that put lives at risk. Far as your stupid question goes, unlike you I'm not going to comment on a subject I know nothing about. I could care less with what China does to people who release stolen government information. But if an American was caught doing what Assange did, I would have no problem turning him in to China. Satisfied?

I was doing some light reading on Assange being a rapist and came across an article that had something pretty unintentionally funny in it:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/07/julian-assange-defies-swedish-prosecutors-by-releasing-statement]Link[/url]

Oh, you don't say

I'm not; my amusement is purely political.

@Nova has posted before about how the exit polls in many states that went to Trump were very far off the official vote counts, and how such discrepancies are treated as proof of ballot fraud elsewhere.

I'm not going to speak for Rick here, I'll only talk about the US, not your attitudes (the limit of my own comment), but the US has a long history of being far more active in influencing foreign elections and regimes than pretty much any other nation on the planet.

Your elections were not "tampered with" by Assange, not unless you are aware of something the rest of the world is not and no one has accused him of such. Influenced? Possibly, by definition we cannot say how they would have turned out otherwise but the two are quite distinct propositions and the US is by far and away better characterised here as a repeat offender than as victim.

And releasing information which was being covered up under the guise of "national security".

By many countries.

Again, why should the US be the exception in being able to bring charges?

The British judge has denied the US extradition request. It will be subject to an appeal.

Although it is good news, the judge denied the request not on the grounds of the threat to free speech, jurisdictional overreach or anything like that - but on the grounds of Assange's extreme suicide risk and the barbarity of the US supermax system.

interesting - how does the Brit supermax system differ from ours?

They have tea.

Its deeply flawed.

But still much better.

It's the harshest system in western Europe, but they don't go so far as denying all meaningful human contact to their prisoners, for example. I understand that this is actually the third extradition attempt by the US that the UK has turned down on similar grounds.

Ironic finding I read a while back.

Suicide rates in prison tend to be inversely proportional to the severity of the regime, at least when compared on national figures. Overall the US do really well on suicide prevention funnily enough.

Of course there's a simple explanation, the less authoritarian, crowded and intrusive a regime the easier it is to find ways, means and opportunities.

In prison populations the single most important vector for highlighting suicide risk tends to be other inmates. No one wants to be a "grass" or a "snitch", but raising or directly acting on welfare concerns amongst the population is often more common than the public might imagine. Guards are often alerted to worrying changes in inmates behaviour by their peers.

This happens for a few reasons other than simple compassion and empathy, for one nobody wants to wake up to find their cellmate has ligatured. Equally the hope of being noted for signs of reform without violating the unwritten social norms of the prison community is highly tempting.

Ergo closely packed prisons with harsh regimes actively encourage prison populations to self regulate suicides by increasing the number of watchful eyes, limiting access to means and reducing other opportunities to demonstrate rehabilitation.

Once on suicide watch the story changes. Ideally here you find dedicated observation is key. Common practise is ten or fifteen minute checks, with constant observations typically available only where staffing allows. The best prison systems at this point are those with strong inter agency practise and dialogue with psych services. Not only does that enable risks to be identified, but crucially it also reduces the background noise of low risk prisoners tying up resources.

Or it could be that they are waiting for the next appeal, because who the hell would send anyone associated with the Russian propaganda campaign to the US while there are still Trump loyalists in prominent positions in the prison system.

Look what happened to Epstein.

But Lin Wood says [Brian Blessed]Epstein's ALIVE!!!![/Brian Blessed]...

You really are delusional about this stuff.

You think that the British judiciary are conspiring with who - the UK government and US intelligence? - to make politically motivated decisions in court so as to avoid Donald Trump getting a chance to fake Assange's suicide, which they are presumably motivated to do because he might incriminate them as conspiring with Russia, having not taken the opportunity to do that in the course of years of legal wrangling whilst they tried to extradite him. I don't even...

I think considering the last person who went to jail with potentially damaging information on Trump committed suicide under very unusual circumstances (including all the cameras going out) is more than enough reason for a British judge to kick back the extradition request until the next hearing, as that judge might have reason to worry that such a thing could happen again, and there's no down side to delaying extradition.

As Assange definitely was a cut out for Russia, Assange was definitely taking money from Russia, Assange definitely met with Russian intelligence while on house arrest in Bolivia, Assange definitely was working with Stone to coordinate the leaks, there's more than enough reason to be concerned for his well being in a US prison under President Trump.

well if that legal genius said so it's good enough for me! Oh shit maybe not - Epstein was riding shotgun in the Nashville Winnebomber's RV. Lin will explain it all soon.

This might be because I'm drunk, but if a judge is forced into a position of weighing the possibility of an existential threat to a person against a crime alleged against the very jurisdiction whose conduct is in question them I'm wanting desperately to believe that timing isn't key to understanding.

A theme we have observed repeatedly in recent years is the importance of separation between judiciary and executive in hobbling the impact of political intimidation.

I hope for all our sakes this is about the ideals of due process and not merely the convenience of making a visible gesture during the waning days of an overbearing US administration.

Where I support Snowden and chelsea manning, I think I am just going to turn the other way if they rape and sodomize assange. Wasn't he part of the reason we had trump in power for four years? Maybe Trump will pardon him?

Yes, despite Rick Deckard's complete rejection of objective reality, there's no question Assange helped get Trump elected. He's been a Russian asset for well over a decade. Wikileaks has never once covered Russian leaks, and when the Panama papers came out that showed Putin and his oligarch's looting of the country in express terms Assange called them fraudulent. He was literally taking a check from Russia Today at the time, and he was recorded visiting with Russian intelligence officers while under house arrest at the time he was funneling hacked Dem docs to Roger Stone, Trump's cutout man.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Assange blamed the emails he received and leaked in coordination with Stone not on Russia, but instead on DNC staffer Seth Rich.

You might remember Rich - he was killed in an unsolved homicide in DC, and because of Assange's assertions that he was the source Fox News and Info Wars started saying he was killed by democrats in retaliation.

It turned out Rich had nothing to do with the email leaks, it's been verified Assange received a large number of the emails after Rich's death, and Fox news retracted their story, after Rich's parents and the very private detective they hired to investigate him sued them over lying about Rich's life.

I mean, what kind of moron do you have to be to continue to believe Julian Assange? LOL.

Doubly funny, as a darling of the far left, Assange is actually a libertarian, and states he is doing what he does to make capitalism better.

Utterly irrelevant even if true.
Assange clearly held a grudge against Hilary Clinton in particular (for good reason incidentally). Publishing true information - the impact of which ends up assisting Trump - is not a crime. It's just journalism. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the current case, unless the US side is lying about the charges.

Delusional. Why is this not part of their case?

Demonstrably false. This seems to be a lie that circulates in the conspiracist echo chamber that you get this stuff from which refuses to die despite the fact that it can be disproven in about three seconds on google.

A lie. This claim seems to originate with some actual events involving Wikileaks and the Panama Papers, but has been twisted out of all recognition as it has circulated.

I'm not sure what the qualifier "literally" signifies. One again may disagree with him doing it, but taking a cheque from Russia Today when involved in broadcasting a program for them is not a crime. Nor is it any evidence of any power over him.

Another lie. This one apparently invented whole-cloth by the smear machine.

Delusional. This one again appears to be founded on the reality of contact between the two (which was mainly based upon Roger Stone's ego going out of control) but you just can't help adding the lie about funnelling documents, can you?

You've gone completely insane. It's unfortunate that you seem to have hitched your wagon to the CIA Democrats and their media shills. You appear willing to swallow all of the bullshit and smears they've spent the last 10 years conconting about Trump, Russia, Assange and so on. It's no better than the craziness Donald Trump and his followers peddle.

He coordinated dumps with Stone to coincide with negative press on Trump. That's not 'good journalism'.

For example, 32 mins after the Access Hollywood 'Grab them by the Pussy' Tape dropped, wiki dropped podesta emails - at Stone's urging.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/202...e-seems-like-another-trump-russia-smoking-gun

This happened on multiple occasions.

Hell, Assange went so far as to reach out to Eric Trump to get assistance for Julian Assange to be appointed Ambassador to Australia. Jeez, I wonder why he thought he could ask for that. And why ambassador... oh, right, can't be prosecuted.

And, of course, Congressman Rohrbacher offered a Trump pardon to Assange if he said that someone other than Russia gave him the emails.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...d-julian-assange-pardon-russia-hack-wikileaks

We'll see what their case is when it's not a Justice department overseen by Barr, while Trump openly ponders about presidential pardons of the criminals that helped get him elected.

Sure, knock yourself out and post some links. In the meanwhile:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/1...-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-did-wikileaks-become-associated-with-russia/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/julian...a-visa-wikileaks-us-secrets-ap-investigation/

Wikileaks claimed that the contents of the leak couldn't be trusted because they claimed the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists was a US front.

And you use the term 'delusional' without an ounce of self-awareness. Russia Today is a propaganda source - per numerous ethics in journalism sources. They have to register as foreign agents while operating in the US. And yes, taking money from the Russian government is definitely evidence of their power over them. How dishonest do you have to be to not understand that taking money directly from a source you are supposed to be covering as a journalist is unethical as hell?

Your hero has feet of clay. Why can't you rationally think about this?

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/...hat-assange-has-ties-to-russian-intelligence/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-exclusive-documents/index.html

LOL. Yeah, those evil, evil media types, they've been proven to lie about Trump over and over again.

And the irony of you saying 'it's no better than the craziness Donald Trump and his followers peddle' WHILE SAYING THE SAME LIES THAT DONALD TRUMP AND HIS FOLLOWERS PEDDLE is absolutely beyond the pale.

Let's try this another way, Rick.

Did the documents on Podesta and the DNC come from the GRU, as multiple intelligence agencies including non-US actors such as the Dutch, indicate?

Or did they come from Seth Rich, as Assange stated?

Why would Assange lie?

And we know that Rohrbacher was talking about a presidential pardon for Assange for telling that lie - per one of Assange's own lawyers who was in the room at the time.

Why would international fugitive Assange think he had any chance of becoming a US ambassador in the Trump administration if he did not provide them with a service, and had no leverage over them?

Or is it that all the journalists are lying, but only Trump and Assange (oh, and infowars) are telling the truth?

For fuck sake. This is wearing.

I didn't say "good journalism". I said "journalism". Nothing of what you replied on this point has any relevance to the argument I made.

Based on this and other exchanges, your entire modus operandi seems to be distortion - both of reality - to use half-truths and triangulation to further your conspiracy theory. And of other posters, by utterly refusing to engage with what they actually say and to use the strawman you come up with as a means to launch into your ranting.

I see there's more of this stuff...

After you smeared a British judge upthread as being in cahoots with the Biden Administration and fuck knows who else (judicial bias is one thing, accusations of collusion with a foreign power is another), you now seem to casually agree that the United States DoJ case against Assange is based on political convenience and could change again with new political direction, in violation of all sorts of international norms.

You're quoting the conclusions of Leno Moreno's Ecuadorian government, based on an illegal spying operation by a Spanish company infiltrated by US intelligence as if they could possibly be other than a political hatchet job.

And no, Assange didn't say that he got documents from Seth Rich. So fuck off with that too.

Jesus wept.

Separation of powers.

Sometimes it's possible to become too cynical and fail to notice the occasions when people act with integrity.

I think that might be the line @Demiurge has crossed.