Keep in mind that he fully admitted to holding back info on Trump. He exercised editorial control over submitted content in order to push an agenda.
Now, so does a lot of the media, but he was portraying Wikileaks as a beacon of transparency.
Yeah, the man literally had a show on RT. He’s problematic at best.
Can I hold my breath for Tucker Carlson's arrest then?
He's a Russian asset
I don't have a firm position on this one that I feel is stable or fully defensible. I suspect this might be a case where a scumbag has to go free because as they say, prosecuting him does seem to set a pretty horrific precedent that you know damn well will be misused against everyone if allowed to be set.
At the same time, fuck this stooge, fuck him with a broomstick. I'm no loyal Democrat but he absolutely, without question, picked a fucking side and did everything he could to serve that side's interests at a crucial moment which did successfully result in years of chaos and irreparable damage to American society. Accelerationists get fucked with your "better to burn it down and start over" year zero Khmer Fucking Rouge Horseshit. I remember the day he pulled that shit and reading his smug statement like he was taking some historic stand for truth or whatever, and I have laughed my ass off when I think about him pacing back and forth in a room for years.
He currently has the life he deserves, whether they ever bother to prosecute, and that doesn't bother me a whit. In no real sense is he a journalist, he's an activist misusing a vulnerable social construct ("the press") for his own agenda. What actually is/was that agenda? I don't have a clue, other than some vague notion of Being A Powerful Man, maybe. He's a stooge for people who use the worst tactics to attain power. I would not piss on him if he was on fire.
I feel out of the loop, anything past Chelsea Manning really. Oh and the sexual assault accusations. What’s the “picking a side and creating chaos” piece?
Exact dates escape me because I'd just as soon it all never happened. These are the rough outlines cause now my bile is up.
But, it's days before the 2016 election and everyone is laaaaaaaaughing at the idea of Trump winning. It was a real "Dewey Defeats Truman" moment except instead of one gun-jumping paper it was half the fucking country. Not me, and not a few other people who went on the record; Michael Moore called it, on the record, before anyone else that I'm aware of. I'm not a fan of his, cause after a while he becomes kind of, I dunno, cloying. But he called it a good year before the election, and he called it accurately for the right reasons.
Anyways, Assange released a bunch of nothingburgers about Clinton days before, but it was a sufficiently large trove of emails or whatthefuckever that there was no possibility of its being properly assessed on any level, and that analysis getting into the public mind before the election, in the first place. But never mind that, a lie can go round the world etc etc, and the Gamergate machine under Steve Gammon's control had already stoked a forest fire of fascistic emotion, for which these "Hilary Papers" became explosive fuel. I was on Twitter in the year or two after that and I remember "But Her Emails" being the venomous hashtag accompanying every picture of refugee children in cages and such.
That was one punch of two, delivered by Assange through Wikileaks, and that was the moment that I became his personal enemy, whatever the law might think. It was a piece of a calculated and coordinated propagandist operation, is my opinion on the matter. Or he was just that big of an asshole. I don't know, as I said, what all he thought he was getting, other than attention, which let's face it, is enough for most. Maybe he also thought that there was no way Trump could possibly actually win, and he was trying to shortsell a bit of extra heat for the coming highly-lucrative Clinton presidency. Lots of fuckwits did that too.
The other punch was of course the FBI guy announcing, this one I remember was eight days before the election, that they were investigating Clinton. Again, I cannot say that this was in any way coordinated, but boy did it put a real period on the whole "Clintons are murderers who are going to be exposed any day now" conspiracy that remains strong. Comey's PR since then has crafted an image of a resolute lawman who did what he was supposed to do according to the book. Such homunculi do exist in America. Fuck him too.
I dunno if that clarifies anything at all but that's another serving of my loathing. P.T. Barnum still has the pulse of America.
*Edit: I give some very flippant replies to an earnest defender of Comey further down in the thread. I did not have the energy at the time so I just defaulted to ACAB, because ACAB.
BUT, here is my only-slightly-more-nuanced take on Comey: Comey also knew that the same dynamics re the dexterity and agility of lies would apply to his Obviously Very Meaningful Announcement only 8 days before an election. He knew that there was no possibility that (a) the public would assume she was innocent until proven guilty, and (b) that even if she was, that truth would never drown out the howls of the Trump faithful, which at the time were very compelling to that bizarre species of ape, the Swing Voter.
He knew he was serving one particular side of this election.
If he didn't know these things, then he is an incompetent stooge and deserves to go down in history as an Incompetent Stooge.
Either way, fuck him also. *
Comey announcing the Clinton investigation is in no way similar to Assange, despite having a similar effect. Comey was (and is) a boy-scout. He did what he thought was right when being stuck between two bad decisions. I maintain most ethical people, if put in his position, would have done the same thing. Assange is completely different.
I assume they’re referring to Wikileaks publishing the DNC emails in 2016.
Assange isn't an American citizen, it's disturbing to see so many psychopaths out for blood for the simple crime of telling the truth, especially when he's not even a citizen of said country which sets a very disturbing precedent.
the US is falling into the trap Russia wants, and if we had intelligent leaders, they would drop the charges and move on from it. We know Afghanistan was a failure and we know why, it's not a mystery anymore and the US doesn't even deny any of the wikileaks accusations so this entire witch-hunt is just disturbing at this point and does nothing to give anyone any confidence in this country
Assange was the tool of a foreign intelligence service who salted WikiLeaks with disinformation harmful to national interests. I believe the term of art is "useful idiot".
He's not an idiot, just a foreign agent.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange
I highly suggest anyone not knowledgable on the subject to quickly read his wiki to get an idea of what he leaked.
We wouldn't know his name if the us had kept it's nose clean. He isn't the bad guy, the country drone striking and killing civilians while illegally spying on its citizens is. State secrets don't deserve to be kept secret if it's literally poison and corruption.
I don't think he's a bad guy for what he leaked, I think he's a bad guy for what he withheld.
If anyone is interested, I try to profile political events and figures. My Wikileaks profile can be found here. I plan to do a Julian Assange one in my next chapter, and I am currently finishing up one on The U.S. Green Party.
Basically, I'm trying to illustrate in plain language how Putin became the greatest threat to human existence.
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.