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> Yeah he is controversial, but is he worthy of so much attention?

He is running to be the most powerful political figure in the world...so yes.

There is a difference between quality, informative journalism which allows people to make up there own mind and endless character assassinating, speculative tabloid smut; However, I trust you know that.

The reason I used Trump as an example is because from what I've read and seen of Clinton she doesn't seem much better but is largely ignored in some media outlets in Australia.

What have you read and seen about Clinton? Because the bad things she actually has done are not remotely in the same league as those of Trump. She gets accused a lot by conservatives who clearly have a chip on their shoulder about her, but none of those accusations turned up anything serious. There have been 7 congressional hearing on Benghazi to try to bring her down, but nobody could find anything she's actually done wrong. The email server was certainly sloppy, but hardly worse than anything other government officials have gotten away with.

The things Trump has done wrong, like the Trump University scam, not paying his contractors, opportunistic bankruptcies to get out of paying his debts, while he still gets to keep his own profits, and the rape case with a 13 year old victim against him, get barely any attention at all. Most of the attention he gets, is about things that he personally has actually said. And that's already bad enough for most people.

With those candidates, there is no "lesser of two evils" in my opinion, though the media has us believe so. That is my point. My point is about media bias and, it's rampant.

Well, yea. One of them is an actual good candidate and the other is Trump. The media is just trying to make them look competitive so people keep reading stories on the election.

If there's no "lesser of two evils", it's because Clinton is not really evil. She gets lots of bad press, but all things considered, she's actually pretty good. Certainly by the unfortunately low political standards of US.

I'd certainly like the US to elect more progressive politicians, but that seems unlikely to happen. In any case, Trump is sub-par even for US standards. He should be completely unacceptable, and fortunately even people of his own party are finally starting to see that.

You said US Government. Both America and the US Government are actually held in some regard around the world.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/23/1-americas-global-image/

In 2015 almost half of Germans disliked the US, you do that poll again after we have received millions of Arabs and I can guarantee you that 75% of Germans dislike (or hate) you now.

Saying anything pro US today will make you a social outcast.

In ten years from now the EU will be run by the far right and you guys wont even be able to visit us out of fear from being attacked by random people on the streets. That's how popular the US foreign policy is.

It will be like visiting the Middle East, only that we have nuclear weapons.

It turns out Pew found the opposite in their 2016 poll of global opinion of the United States. Favorability of the U.S. increased from 50% favorable to 57% in Germany from 2015 - 2016, while unfavorable views declined from 42% to 38%.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/06/28/americas-international-i...

Great, then everything must be fine! Continue arming Jihadists and keep creating a mess in the Middle East so we receive more of these fine people! It will only fasten the process I described before.

I hereby nominate "Europe blaming the US for the state of the Middle East" as the new "pot calling the kettle black".

At least they have the "they tried to conquer us first" excuse.

Maybe you should inform yourself better. Germany refused to help their so called "ally" 2003 in the Iraq war, Germany refused to help their "ally" in the Libyan war, Germany refused to support any side during the Syrian civil war. Germany is the main reason that sanctions against Russia during the Ukraine conflict were weakened to the point of irrelevance (the US actually wanted a full blockade - LOL) as the government understands that it's really the US that caused this conflict.

The only US war that Germany viewed as legitimate and thus supported was the Afghanistan war of 2001.

It was more a reference to the whole "History of the Middle East, 1870-1960" thing, wherein Europe got its empire building thing on, redrew national boundaries, set up new governments, and generally made a hash of things before deciding it wasn't fun anymore and abruptly exiting the region, leading to the power vacuum the US stepped into in the 1950s.

Which doesn't change the fact that the US had no business invading Iraq in 2003 and probably should have stayed out of Afghanistan as well, but pretending Europe -- Germany near the top of the list -- had no role in creating the situation there is silly.

I really don't care about stuff that happened so long ago as it most people that are fighting in todays conflicts weren't even born back then and refugees coming to Europe don't do this because of something that happened prior to 1960.

That's like some Arabs retarded claim that every evil and barbaric thing they do today is justified because of the Crusades! (even though in reality the Crusades were a defensive move against the Arab invasions and thus absolutely justified but that's a different topic)

I think we'll find the current US election won't help the opinion polls for 2016-2017 :)

Also, I'm not really up on this kind of thing, but 57% seems pretty low for the land of the free?

I'm travelling in Asia and have just been in Europe and something very different is happening lately. When I meet Americans, young and old, the majority of them tell me they're ashamed or embarrassed of being American, some of them tell me they usually tell people they are from Canada!

I don't hear people from anywhere else doing that to be honest.

It's really weird because even people with dictators will say they are proud of their country even if they hate the dictator or the poor conditions of their country.

You don't get many Haitians saying "I'm ashamed of my country" or Russians saying "I'm ashamed to be Russian" It's predominantly a section of Americans who feel that way. I've met Mexicans who have become citizens of the US who still consider themselves "Mexican" in every way --except that they live outside Mexico, while they decry the corruption and lack of opportunity back home --but never ashamed.

Maybe it's because the US used to have such a stellar reputation. It used to be the leader of the free world, was founded on important liberal principles that have inspired the world. Around international conflicts, the US used to insist on lofty principles that they now trample at every opportunity. The world got used to holding the US to a higher standard than Russia or some petty dictatorship.

The US itself definitely helped to paint this image of being better and more noble than other countries, even other freedom-loving western countries. And now they're falling so far short of that ideal, that it is really embarrassing to everybody who can see what's been happening.

I'm not even American, and I'm ashamed of the US.

I guess... but there also aren't many Spaniards, or French, or Belgians (citizens of countries presently with democracies but with colorful pasts) who are ashamed embarrassed of their countries. They might be opposed to some policies and disagree with some of their past history but seldom are ashamed. Imagine a Chinese person or Japanese person saying they are "shamed". It's a very hard thing to come by.

Some people are ashamed of some things their countries have done. But none of them were ever the champion of freedom the way the US used to be, and few slid down as hard as the US did while still claiming moral superiority.

Though I can imagine Belgians having been pretty ashamed in 1908.

This being the time for character assassinations also means you shouldn't trust anything from him. He's only doing it for character assassination too. The time he was doing it merely for transparency and accountability is far behind us. And this is hardly the first time a former associate points out Assange's own lack of transparency and accountability, and his dictatorial attitude.

Though it contains information I didn't know yet, nothing in this article seems out of character for him.

While the US government seriously screwed over Manning and Snowden (and I'd really like to see a pardon for both of them), they haven't actually done anything to Assange. He's only wanted by Sweden for rape. I don't doubt some people in the US want to see him hang, but it's doubtful there's even a good case against him, as he only published information, and didn't personally steal anything. And he didn't do so on US soil or as a US citizen either. (Though it's true that recent US governments haven't been overly concerned with the rule of law.)

On Donald: the media is mostly giving him a lot of free publicity. The worst things about him are coming out of his own mouth. He's worthy of so much attention because he's running for president. Clinton is hardly a saint, but her actual crimes and misconduct are rare and minor in comparison to those of Donald. There are certainly a lot of accusations flying about, but they've been investigated to death (excessively so, in the case of Benghazi), and little to nothing stuck.

> this is the time for character assassinations.

Speaking of that, a weird UN "partner" / extra shady porn site was caught doing something like that just last week with fake CP allegations that got picked up by a few media outlets:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/58o29r/text_summ...

Character Assassination: the malicious and unjustified harming of a person's good reputation.

The Trump example fails on all counts: it's not malicious, he's running for President where character is critical; it's not unjustified, he's a piece of work; he doesn't HAVE a good reputation to begin with, even with his supporters.

As a Canadian observer, I've been gobsmacked by how much of pass Trump has been given for terrible behaviour until very recently.

Choosing to hide in an embassy to avoid a rape investigation isn't being practically in prison.

If he actually is innocent, then you can't blame him though can you? If they didn't get him for that, the US would get him for something else.

I dare say a lot of people would probably take a similar approach if given the opportunity.

The US isn't getting him for anything. The US has filed no charges against him. He is wanted by Sweden to answer questions regarding rape allegations and not regarding any charges in the US.

His claim that the rape allegations are a setup by the US make little sense. If the US were to set him up in order to have him extradited from another country Sweden would be far down the list of countries to chose. The terms of Sweden's extradition laws and previous court rulings on extradition cases make it very unlikely the US would be successful in extraditing him.

His behavior strikes me more as that of someone guilty and desperate to avoid punishment. Maybe I am wrong but he could have cleared the whole thing up long ago by returning to Sweden.

Yeah, it would be more likely that the US would extradite directly from the UK then try to get Sweden to extradite him on some pretext so that they could get him from Sweden.

Well, practically under house arrest then.

He's actually there because he will not be granted assurances he won't be extradited to the US for far more serious charges.

I'm not saying rape charges are not serious by the way, just that these rape charges seem ... odd ... and he will probably get off.

Trump's simply grist for the mill. 24 hours a day is a lot of time to fill. What boggles my mind is that otherwise seemingly intelligent people talk about him as if they have to be "fair" about the stuff he spouts. Information elements with process problems produce bad information. Trump's process is mind-bogglingly bad.

What does anyone mean by "trust the government"? And how does anyone think they could trust Assange more?

It's funny; when the brothers Dulles ran Washington, we were overthrowing governments. But people's trust of the government was at an all-time high. Some of that is just lag but ... what does it mean to "trust the government", anyway?

> On character assassinations, another example I could give right now is Trump

Except as a practitioner, Trump is hardly a noteworthy example of character assassination. Bad press sometimes is a result of unfavorable facts.

> him and other whistle blowers are being seriously screwed over by the US Government

What has the US government done to Assange?