WikiLeaks: Assange's internet link 'severed' by state actor

[smiths]

Craig just had a whiskey and a chat with Julian, says claims against Julian are ridiculous

I'm with Craig

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk

[MacCruiskeen]

Thanks very much for that, smiths. Well worth posting the article in full:

How to Really Really Upset the Foreign Office and Security Services

19 Oct, 2016 in Uncategorized by craig

1) Go into the Foreign Office and read ten Top Secret documents about UK collaboration with torture to refresh my memory. Hand back documents and my notes in a double sealed envelope (have just done this bit).

2) Immediately after reading Top Secret documents, go to see Julian Assange for a whisky in the Ecuador Embassy (am on my way).

3) Tomorrow morning, arrive at Parliament Intelligence and Security Committee to give evidence in secret session. Get handed hopefully still double sealed envelope with my notes to use during evidence. Hand back notes for destruction when finished.

4) Immediately after very secret evidence session, go for (hopefully boozy) lunch with Peter Oborne.

Sometimes I quite enjoy my life. If you can’t annoy the arrogant bastards who run the world for the 1%, what point is there in living?

UPDATE

I left Julian after midnight. He is fit, well, sharp and in good spirits. WikiLeaks never reveals or comments upon its sources, but as I published before a fortnight ago, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is not any Russian state actor or proxy that gave the Democratic National Committee and Podesta material to WikiLeaks. The claim is nonsense. Journalists are also publishing that these were obtained by “hacking” with no evidence that this was the method used to obtain them.

The control of the Democratic party machinery deliberately to unfairly ensure Clinton’s victory over Bernie Sanders is a matter of great public interest. The attempt by the establishment from Obama down to divert attention from this by a completely spurious claim against Russia, repeated without investigation by a servile media, is a disgrace.

The over-close relationship between the probable future President and Wall Street is also very important. WikiLeaks has done a great public service by making this plain.

The attempts by the mainstream media to portray WikiLeaks as supporters of Trump and Putin because they publish some of Clinton’s darker secrets is completely illogical and untrue in fact. The idea we must pretend Clinton is a saint is emetic.

But the key point is that WikiLeaks is a publisher. It is a vehicle for publishing leaks, and is much more of a vehicle for whistleblowers than for hackers. It does not originate the material. I have often seen comments such as “Why has WikiLeaks not published material on Israel/Putin/Trump?” The answer is that they have not been given any. They publish good, verifiable material that they are given by whistleblowers. They are not protecting Israel, Putin, or Trump. Nobody has given them viable material.

Ecuador is keen to make plain that they are not interfering in the US election and wish to make plain material on the Presidential candidates is not being published from their facilities. Julian has no problem with the statement put out by Ecuador yesterday. It is worth noting that WikiLeaks is established in several countries and nothing has ever been published by WikiLeaks from any facility situated in the Ecuadorean Embassy.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... /#comments

The comments are well worth reading too. (They usually are, at his website)

Craig just had a whiskey and a chat with Julian, says claims against Julian are ridiculous

I'm with Craig.

Me too. Craig Murray is an unsung hero, and one with a sense of humour.

[Searcher08]

So the Clintons are vile, nasty ass-hats who don't deserve Americans' votes because they USED to support (or not support) policies vaguely similar in stance to where Trump is on those issues CURRENTLY? Is that the logic we're supposed to succumb to, here?

On balance of probabilities, given the Clintons stellar track record of mendacity, you are engaging in fogweed and distraction. They are lying dicks. You seem to have an issue with that but your response is just to shout "Trump - this or that"

The Clintons principles are for sale to the highest bidder.

Her crusade against Wall Street, against TTIP and curbing the excesses of predatory corporations like Goldman Sachs, her principled stand against taking money from Saudi Arabia are laudable in the extreme.... oh wait.

Because as someone whose opinion on the legitimacy / necessity of same sex marriage evolved rapidly in recent years (as did that of the American people, btw), I don't exactly vomit in horror at the idea that Hillary was against same sex marriage a decade or so ago. Because so was I, and in all realistic likelihood... so were YOU.

Jerky

Actually no, NOT "in all realistic likelihood".
I wasn't. Period. Why were you?

Just because you changed your thinking for one set of reasons, there is simply NO reason to believe she changed it for similar ones.

[Jerky]

A decade (or slightly more now) ago, although I considered myself to be progressive on matters of sexual orientation and supported full equality of access to services to same sex couples via a civil union model, I thought the idea of same sex marriage was not a good one, MOSTLY because 75 percent of the population was vehemently against it, and I thought it would be too dangerous for the Democratic party (the only party that would support such a legislative move) to support it. I was not philosophically opposed to the concept, I was opposed to initiating the process at the time, because I thought it would be suicide for the legislative Good Guys. I was pleasantly stunned that the turnaround in the American public's opinion on this topic took place so quickly. It remains one of the most beautiful, pride-inducing things about America, for me, of the past few years.

If you were part of the 15 percent in 1995 who thought it was a great idea for Dems to pursue same sex marriage legislation, then bully for you on your prescience.

Hope this explains what I meant,
Jerky

[Harvey]

MOSTLY because 75 percent of the population was vehemently against it

You said it.

[seemslikeadream]

Donald Trump’s Long-Held Promise To Pick Rabidly Anti-LGBT Supreme Court Justices

In tonight’s third and final presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in Las Vegas, moderated by Fox News’s Chris Wallace, the Supreme Court is one issue we’re told will be focused on.

Donald Trump, however, made his intentions quite clear at the last debate, and many times before: He will appoint justices to the high court “very much in the mold of Justice Scalia.”

You can’t hold up a better example of anti-LGBT extremism on the Supreme Court than Antonin Scalia, the most homophobic force ever on the court, who made hateful comments, on and office the court, about gay people for several decades.

The late Scalia had compared homosexuality to bestiality, incest and child pornography and believed that banning homosexuality was similar to banning murder. Scalia not only wrote a blistering, unhinged dissenting opinion in the historic marriage equality case in 2015, Orbergefell v. Hodges; he was virulently opposed to striking down sodomy laws, writing the dissenting opinion in the Lawrence v. Texas case in 2003, attacking the “law-profession culture” which he claimed had “signed on to the homosexual agenda.”

It’s pathetic, as I’ve pointed out again and again, that much of the mainstream media has portrayed Trump as “more accepting on gay issues” than other Republicans — again grading him on a curve because he’s not railing against gays like others have — while he has forcefully advocated for Scalia-like justices on the court, producing a list of 20. Not only do many of the judges Trump has listed meet that standard, but he has specifically said he would put them on the court to possibly overturn marriage equality.

Back in January, Trump told none other than tonight’s debate moderator, Wallace, that he was unhappy with the Obergefell ruling, which brought marriage equality to the entire nation. He’d rather it had been left “to the states,” which of course allows for rampant discrimination.

It’s interesting that Wallace, from his perch at Fox News and certainly not a champion of progressive values, has been the only journalist interested in getting answers from Trump on this issue, while reporters at publications like The New York Times and Washington Post have given him a pass again and again, even portraying him as better on LGBT rights. When pressed by Wallace about appointing justices to the Supreme Court who would overturn the Obergefell ruling Trump replied, “I would strongly consider that, yes.”

It’s difficult to imagine that ruling being overturned — and the chaos that would ensue — but simply by pandering to those who desire this action Trump is revealing the mortal danger he is to LGBT rights. If not on a marriage equality, there are a whole host of issues about which Trump can hold back or reverse LGBT rights, and many of the judges he’s suggested he’d appoint would be primed to do so.

Hillary Clinton, at the last debate, countered Trump’s promise of Scalia-like justices very clearly: “I want a Supreme Court that will stick with Roe v. Wade and the woman’s right to choose, and I want a Supreme Court that will stick with marriage equality.” She has called for a full and comprehensive LGBT anti-discrimination law. The Equality Act, which would protect LGBT people in housing, employment, public accommodations and other areas, would add LGBT people to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was introduced in Congress last year. Clinton obviously believes such a law can and would be held constitutional. That is, unless a Supreme Court with justices “in the mold of Justice Scalia” are appointed to the court and are able to preempt such a law by ruling against LGBT people in a variety cases making their way to the high court.

Trump, back in February, two weeks after the Wallace interview, promised evangelicals, during an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, to “trust me” to overturn the “shocking” and “massive” Obergefell ruling. And that is something with which his anti-LGBT running mate Mike Pence surely agrees. What we need from Trump are fuller details about how he’s going to get that done, or how he expects the judges he’d appoint to the court will thwart LGBT rights in other ways. Trump and Pence have both promised to defend “religious liberty” — code for allowing Christian business owners, such as bakers and florists, to use their religious beliefs to discriminate against LGBT people in their businesses. So how does he expect that will happen?

Since Chris Wallace is the only interviewer who has pursued Trump on the issue, perhaps Wallace will continue to demand answers from Trump tonight. It’s not something that only LGBT people deserve answers about; it’s an issue that evangelicals, for whom Trump claims to be fighting, should have a clear picture about. And all Americans should see exactly what Trump believes — beyond his empty calls to “protect” LGBT people from “foreign terrorism” — when it comes to what many view as one of the most important civil rights issues of our time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelang ... 51640.html

[MacCruiskeen]

SLAD, you know that post doesn't belong in this thread. (I presume you just made a mistake? Please shift it to the Trump thread.)

[seemslikeadream]

Damn. Here's another furriner interfering in the US election:



Shocking. And in full public view, too. This fancypants pom is influencing millions of Americans in their voting preferences!

I'm sure we'll all agree that John Oliver deserves to be hounded into seeking asylum for years in a furrin embassy (in yet another furrin country) where the President and the CIA will lean on all them uppity furriners to deny him any internet access.

*If not actually assassinated, or shipped to Guantanamo Bay and then waterboarded. (All options are on the table, of course. As ever.)

[seemslikeadream]

4th Base, you've been a lost cause for years, ever since you lost your frigging mind and started believing everything written 20 years ago about the Clintons, so your disapproval holds just about as much weight with me as McKookiepuss'.

J

Go fuck yourself, you complete fucking phony.

[JackRiddler]

.

Hillary Clinton never killed anyone.*

She was an important official in a state that kills many, during a term when it killed many.

This is an essential difference. No state, no war.

Now Clinton and Trump are fighting over who gets to lead that state and expand its apparatus for murder. Neither is interested in scaling it back. They agree on expanding the military. They disagree about the possible locations for future wars or escalations of ongoing ones. Clinton's violent record cannot distract from Trump's violent intent. It's not at all clear which of the two will work to bring more carnage to the world outside US borders. It is eminently clear which of the two is passionately and definitionally committed to bringing more carnage within US borders.

Dispersed responsibility within an organizational setting is not an excuse, of course. Otherwise there is no deterrent to human decision makers. So of course Clinton should be held accountable for her activity as a highly-placed official. But so should many others -- and for actual crimes. In her case that would mean for Libya, not "Benghazi," and for operations, not for trying to hide e-mails about them. A prosecution of Clinton alone, and for technical violations and invented crimes ("Benghazi") as opposed to real war crimes (Libya), would be a selective partisan exercise to strengthen the Republicans and make the overall situation far worse.

The only credible place to start is with the primary architects of the Bush regime invasion of Iraq. She voted for it, but he supported it, and now he complains that it was after a fashion withdrawn (on the schedule that the Bush regime negotiated with the Iraqi government, by the way). They should have stayed to TAKE THE OIL. That's Trump.

* - Not going to talk here about the "Clinton body count."

.

[seemslikeadream]

Hillary Clinton blames high-up Russians for WikiLeaks releases

By Lauren Carroll on Wednesday, October 19th, 2016 at 11:15 p.m.

Hillary Clinton blames high-up Russians for WikiLeaks releases

Hillary Clinton pegs the WikiLeaks on Russian hackers who want to influence the election. True.
In one of the most heated moments of the final presidential debate, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashed over Russia’s interference in the current election.

Speaking of the WikiLeaks’ release of tens of thousands of emails from the Clinton campaign and, earlier, the Democratic National Committee, Trump said Clinton had no idea who hacked and released the emails — "Russia, China or anybody else."

Clinton responded by asking Trump if he really doesn’t believe the 17 federal intelligence agencies that have said Russia is behind the cyberattack.

"We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election," Clinton said. "I find that deeply disturbing."

Back in July, when WikiLeaks released the DNC emails, the government hadn’t yet named a culprit.

On Oct. 7, however — the same day WikiLeaks released the emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta — the Homeland Security Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a joint statement that said, "The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations."

The statement added that the recent hacks "are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process."

The statement also said the intelligence community believes these attacks are directed from top levels of the Russian government, as Clinton said.

"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," the statement said.

The U.S. Intelligence Community is made up of 17 agencies, forming the basis of Clinton’s claim.

The 17 agencies are: Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, Energy Department, Homeland Security Department, State Department, Treasury Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Marine Corps Intelligence, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Navy Intelligence and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The 17 separate agencies did not independently declare Russia the perpetrator behind the hacks. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said that this cuts against Clinton’s point, saying, "It is unlikely that all 16 of the agencies had looked independently at the Russian connection, which is what Clinton seemed to indicate." (Cheung said 16 agencies because he omitted the Office of the Director of National Intelligence from his count.)

However, as the head of the 17-agency intelligence community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, headed by James Clapper, speaks on behalf of the group.

Our ruling

Clinton said, "We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election."

We don’t know how many separate investigations into the attacks they were. But the Director of National Intelligence, which speaks for the country’s 17 federal intelligence agencies, released a joint statement saying the intelligence community at large is confident that Russia is behind recent hacks into political organizations’ emails. The statement sourced the attacks to the highest levels of the Russian government and said they are designed to interfere with the current election.



We rate Clinton’s statement True.

[MacCruiskeen]

^^The Daily Beast rates Clinton's statement True. Wow. (Which statement, exactly? That her spooks are "confident" [sic] that the Russkies dunnit? Wow.)

edit: 'dream' quip deleted. i didn't intend to be hurtful. sorry.

[seemslikeadream]

"MacCruiskeen » Wed Oct 19, 2016 12:49 pm"]slad, try taking some water with it.

'Bye.


"MacCruiskeen » Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:36 pm"]Get a grip, slad. You are embarrassing yourself.

[MacCruiskeen]

Yes. (Slad, i'm sending you a PM.)

[seemslikeadream]

Yes.

Get a grip, slad.

MacCruiskeen » Sat Aug 27, 2016 4:59 pm"]You're wasting your time, stickdog. You are trying to get Burnt Hill to engage in a rational argument and to do so in good faith. It's not what he's here for. He's here to troll the joint.

MacCruiskeen » Sat Aug 27, 2016 6:14 pm"]The trolls emerge and flourish whether fed or not. They feed off each other, and off the host. The more they're ignored, the more they regard it as encouragement to keep on trolling (and feeding).

MacCruiskeen » Sat Aug 27, 2016 8:29 am"]^^brekin, your agenda becomes ever clearer and your M.O ever more blatant. All you ever do is leap in to defend Teh Authoritay and pour scorn on anyone who doesn't. It is desperate stuff:

possibly just a wingnut wanting to share his manifesto with Assange. Or more likely, the latest Wikileaks intern having to help generate news copy.