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While Trump dishes out pardons to others, Assange is left to twist in the wind

Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire
Fri, 22 Jun 2018 00:00 UTC
Julian Assange
© Jack Taylor / Getty
Julian Assange leaves after speaking to the media from the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador on May 19, 2017, in London.
It was a fool's errand.

On the day Donald Trump was elected his supporters asked him to pardon the founder and frontman of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. They flooded social media demanding Assange be allowed to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London without arrest and extradition to the United States.

Stone silence from Trump and his administration.

A few months before the election, WikiLeaks released a searchable archive of over 30,000 emails and attachments taken from Hillary Clinton's not-so private email server.

Trump held no aversion to exploiting the emails. He called them the Crooked Hillary emails and said they endangered the national security of the United States.

Democrats called foul, said Assange had colluded with Putin and the Russians.

In April, they filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and WikiLeaks. They argue there was a widespread conspiracy to swing the 2016 election.

They have zero evidence of this. Evidence is no longer required. Accusations alone now serve to take down leaders and destroy careers.

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are no longer of use to Donald Trump.

Comment:

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Bad Guys

US court documents reveal immigrant children tied down, hooded, beaten, stripped and drugged under Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe

Patrick Martin
World Socialist Website
Fri, 22 Jun 2018 18:12 UTC
immigrant_child
© The Free Thought Project
Court documents made public in Virginia and Texas give a glimpse of the systematic brutality being meted out to immigrant children in both public and private jails. Children are strapped down, hooded and beaten, or drugged by force, as part of the everyday procedure in what can only be called the American Gulag.

An Associated Press report published Thursday gave details of the abuses committed last year against young Latino migrants at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia. Lawyers for the teenage victims sued the prison-a state facility run by a consortium of seven towns and cities in the Shenandoah Valley-and a court hearing is set for July.

According to a half-dozen sworn statements, given by the victims in Spanish and then translated for filing with the federal court for the Western District of Virginia, children as young as 14 were beaten while handcuffed, tied down to chairs while stripped naked and hooded, and held for long periods in solitary confinement, sometimes naked and cold.

Comment: Before you blame it all on Trump, consider that these are historical and systematic practices that transcend whomever happens to be in power. Certainly, as the President of the United States, he is responsible for whatever happens on his watch - but Trump did not invent torture in US detention centers.

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Handcuffs

Jogger who accidentally crossed US border from Canada jailed for two weeks

Ashifa Kassam
The Guardian
Sat, 23 Jun 2018 23:54 UTC
Canada US border crossing
© Getty
Vehicles line up to enter the US at the border crossing between Blaine, Washington, and White Rock, British Columbia, but along the beach where Cedella Roman was arrested the border is unmarked.
It started as a leisurely jog along a Canadian beach on a cool spring evening. But it turned into a two-week nightmare after Cedella Roman accidentally veered across the US border and was seized by US border patrol agents.

The French citizen was visiting her mother and studying English, when the family headed to White Rock, about an hour's drive from Vancouver in May.

As dusk approached, the 19-year-old went for a jog along the beach. She swerved on to a dirt path as the tide came in, stopping briefly to snap a photo of the stunning scenery before turning around to retrace her steps.

It was then that she was confronted by two officers from the US border patrol.

"An officer stopped me and started telling me I had crossed the border illegally," Roman told Radio-Canada. "I told him I hadn't done it on purpose, and that I didn't understand what was happening."

She hadn't seen any signs marking the border, she said. "I said to myself, well I may have crossed the border but they'll probably only give me a fine, or they'll tell me to go back to Canada or they'll give me a warning."

Comment: Any encounter with US border patrol, whatever the reason, is likely to spell bad news. See also:

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Eye 2

Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog says intermarriage by US Jews is 'a plague'


Mondoweiss
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 18:36 UTC
Isaac Herzog

Isaac Herzog - Chairman of the Israeli Labor Party
Isaac Herzog is the outgoing leader of the Israeli political "left," the Zionist Camp coalition. He is the new head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which seeks to strengthen bonds between Jews worldwide. In an interview on Israeli TV (for which David Sheen provided translation), he describes intermarriage between American Jews and non-Jews as a "plague" for which he seeks to find a "solution".
"I'll tell you a personal story. Last summer I traveled [with my wife] to the USA for a vacation. I graduated from a Jewish school in New York. And we went to meet friends. I have a ton of friends in the U.S.A. And I encountered something that I called an actual plague. I saw my friends' children married or coupled with non-Jewish partners! And the parents beat their breasts and ask questions, and are suffering. Listen, it's every [Jewish] family in the U.S.A.! And we are talking about millions. And I said there must be a campaign, a solution. We have to rack our brains to figure out how to solve this great challenge.
The intermarriage rate among American Jews is 58 percent, but 71 percent among the non-Orthodox.

Comment: And he's the 'softer', 'liberal' answer to Bibi...

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TV

Interview on immigration goes sideways - border agent expertly flips CNN propaganda talking points with dose of truth

Erin Coates
The Western Journal
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 16:04 UTC
CNN border patrol immigration
© CNN
Brooke Baldwin (L) Chris Cabrera (R)
The establishment media's narrative is clear: President Donald Trump is inhumane and is separating families trying to illegally cross the border because he is a monster.

People across Twitter have picked up on the claims, and Peter Fonda even called for people to "rip Barron Trump from his mother's arms and put him in a cage" so that Melania Trump will "stand up" to her husband.

So, it's not okay for children who are not citizens of this country to be taken from their parents who have broken the law, but it's totally okay to kidnap the president's son and put him in a cage? Sounds a little hypocritical to me.

But CNN quickly ran into a roadblock when they tried to get a border patrol agent to admit that the conditions the kids were being kept in at the border were horrific.
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Stock Down

US ranks #1 in income inequality in the Western world

Frank Sellers
The Duran
Sun, 24 Jun 2018 13:24 UTC
poverty
UN ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, withdrew the US from the UN Human Rights Council just days before a report was to be presented detailing the threat which poverty poses to human rights in America, and the threat which it poses to America's democracy. Haley's withdrawal took place on Tuesday, and UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston's report came out on Friday. Haley's personal position on the report was that it is ridiculous to pay attention to human rights and inequality in the US when there are issues in undeveloped nations in a sort of 'don't pay attention to us, look over there!' maneuver.

nikki haley
In the report, Alston observes that the United States has the highest income inequality in the Western world, with 40 million Americans living in poverty, and over 18 million of them in extreme poverty. Additionally, amongst the middle class, 40% of them reportedly would be unable to cover an unexpected $400 expense. Alston goes on to describe the American dream as an illusion saying 'In other words, the American dream of mobility, is turning into the American illusion, in which the rich get ever richer, and the middle classes don't move.'

Included here is Alston's statement, relative to his findings on America's poverty to the 38th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday, added emphasis is mine:

Comment: See also:

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Stock Down

Great train robbery: UK rail line returns to public ownership after 'total failure of privatization'

Simon Calder
Independent
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 09:13 UTC
Britain's rail passengers are the victims of a 'great train robbery', a damning study concludes today

Britain's rail passengers are the victims of a 'great train robbery', a damning study concludes today
Passengers and staff on Britain's flagship rail line are waking up to trains run by yet another operator. At 7.54am, the first London North Eastern Railway (LNER) service departed from Newcastle, destination London King's Cross.

The state-run operator has been created after Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC), 90 per cent owned by Stagecoach, ended its heavily loss-making franchise on the route from London to Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. It was the third operator to walk away after hopelessly optimistic forecasts failed to materialise.

In 2007, the Great North Eastern Railway (GNER), part of the Sea Containers conglomerate, collapsed. That franchise was taken over by National Express, which itself handed back the keys two years later.

Comment: It's the same story with the other private railway operators; service is abysmal, it's cheaper to fly and you're often lucky to get a seat - and the situation is similar with pretty much all of the UK's privatized utility companies. It's also rather unsettling to note that Virgin, owned by Richard Branson, has its eyes on taking over the UK's National Health Service:

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Black Magic

Whoever promotes regime change in Iran is evil

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.com
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 15:49 UTC
qanon Iran
I have been saying all year that the 8chan phenomenon known as "QAnon" is bogus, and as time has gone on the evidence has become overwhelming that it is an establishment psyop designed to herd the populist right into accepting the narratives and agendas of the establishment orthodoxy. Whether they're claiming that every capitulation the Trump administration makes to longstanding neoconservative agendas is actually brilliant 4-D chess strategy, or saying that Julian Assange isn't really trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy, QAnon enthusiasts are constantly regurgitating talking points which just so happen to fit in very conveniently with the interests of America's defense and intelligence agencies.

Comment:

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Hammer

Ralph Nader questions former First Ladies: Why no "heartfelt concern for tens of thousands of children killed" by their husbands' wars?

Andrea Germanos
Common Dreams
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 15:38 UTC
Laura bush michelle obama and husbands
© Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty
Consumer advocate puts check on Laura Bush and Michelle Obama for selective criticism when it comes to kids harmed by brutal U.S. policies

Noted consumer advocate and author Ralph Nader on Friday offered a sharp retort to Laura Bush and Michelle Obama in response to the former first ladies levied criticism at the Trump administration's cruel immigration policy that separated immigrant children from their families.

"Would be nice if Laura Bush and Michelle Obama had expressed similar heartfelt concern for the tens of thousands of children killed or seriously maimed by the wars of their husbands in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere," he tweeted.

Comment: Melania Trump wears 'I really don't care' jacket on way to child detention center, liberals have a meltdown

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Attention

US/Israel-backed Al-Qaeda launches attack on pro-Syria settlements in S. Syria - repelled by FSA and Syria troops


Sputnik
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 15:07 UTC
nusra
© REUTERS / Khalil Ashawi
Nusra Front terrorists had carried out an attack targeting settlements that had joined the government forces in the southern de-escalation zone, the Russian military reported.

According to the Russian Center for Syrian reconciliation, almost 70 al-Nusra (also known as Tahrir al-Sham) militants were killed, as the government forces jointly with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) repelled the terrorist group's attack in Syria's southern de-escalation zone. The Russian military noted that there were no losses among the Syrian army's servicemen, but provided no details regarding casualties among the FSA units.

"Over the past 24 hours, Jabhat al-Nusra militants have attacked the settlements in the southern zone of de-escalation, which joined the legitimate government," the center's statement reads.

In addition, Syrian government troops have destroyed 3 armored vehicles and 14 pickups carrying the heavy machine guns of militants, according to the statement.

The total number of settlements in the southern de-escalation zone which joined the Syrian government forces increased to 12 on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry pointed out.

Comment: Funny how it all works out. Back when Obama and Kerry were still in office, they attempted to "de-marble-ize" the "Syrian opposition", i.e. separate the "good" from "bad" terrorists (which included the FSA). Back then it was simply hollow words, a stalling strategy and an attempt to protect al-Qaeda from Russian airstrikes under the excuse that there were "good" terrorists mixed in with them. Now, FSA are finally separating themselves - and they're joining forces with the Syrian Army to destroy al-Qaeda.

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