>They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network
This is untrue. There is nothing suggesting that Wikileaks has knowingly coordinated with Russia. And that TV show was indepently produced by Assange, with RT buying some ofthe distribution rights.
Wikileaks quality has surely dropped. They are still the press, and any prosecution by the US will be over things like the Manning links, a direct attack on the freedom of the press.
While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.
People use his television show to claim he's a paid operative of Russia. The same narrative can be made of Ventura, and any reason Assange should be prosecuted but not Ventura seems sketchy.
>While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.
They bought the initial rights in several languages, not exclusive, but he did not make the show for RT. That's a fairly clear distinction.
What you can't do is claim that it's somehow normal for someone who claims to be anti-authoritarian to appear on Russian state TV and take Kremlin money. The TV show is one of many examples of unusually close connections between Assange and the Russian state:
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wik...
First, this also describes Ventura.
Second, claiming to be anti-authoritarian while accepting help from a clearly authoritarian Kremlin describes the US in WWII.
None of those connections suggest he's coordinating with Russia, just that their interests sometimes align. I'm sure he'd take US money and appear on PBS too if given the opportunity.
I don't really know anything about Jesse Ventura, and still don't understand why you keep bringing him up. If he's done everything that Assange has done, then I don't like him either.
> I'm sure he'd take US money and appear on PBS too if given the opportunity.
Ah, the Captain Renault defense. (Sure, I collaborate with the Nazis, but I'd just as soon collaborate with the other side if they were winning!)
>Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians
And replied with a link to Assanges' show. I'll admit, "working" is too vague of a word to use, all my other posts use "collaborate," as selling the show to RT could be called "working with." However, if that contact is the damning evidence that you claim it is, the same evidence is available linking Ventura (and Larry King) to the Kremlin. Why aren't you calling for them to receive the same treatment?
>Ah, the Captain Renault defense. . (Sure, I collaborate with the Nazis, but I'd just as soon collaborate with the other side if they were winning!)
Still no evidence of collaboration has been shown. And nothing like that scenario, I'm sure he'd have gladly had his show run on both channels at the same time. More people would see his views and he'd make more money for his work.
Becasue I don't know who they are, and AFAIK, there's nothing comparable to the links established in the Vox article I linked to.
>This isn’t a direct link between Assange and the Kremlin,
The second is the TV show, and the third is just ridiculous. Russia is the place where it is most difficult for the US to access Snowden, basically the same for the bodyguards, and one tweet showing both Assange and Russia are antisemitic? They even follow it by saying
>Again, none of these even hint that Assange is a Russian agent. What they do show, when put together, is that Assange doesn’t see Russia as an enemy or a target.
Which seems fairly obvious. He's not a Russian agent, he just views the country that has passed a law calling him a "non-state hostile intelligence service" to be a bigger enemy.
Or said another way, they act as a news organization.
Modern day news organizations unfortunately have zero integrity and are unwilling to take on the people with power.
>and it's hard to argue the Clinton emails weren't newsworthy.
That the emails were released was newsworthy, but I would argue that nothing in the emails themselves was particularly newsworthy.
And Donna Brazile's just a liar I guess.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-b...
Brazile's case is trickier. Taking everything she says at face value (which is a mistake), the main thing she demonstrated was that Hillary's campaign saved the DNC from bankruptcy before the primary by assuming its debt. Hillary (reasonably) put some controls on the DNC's finances in response to the mismanagement. Brazile had no evidence, nor did she claim that Hillary or anyone directed the DNC to act against Bernie. Besides, with the unfiltered look into the DNCs emails and Hillary's campaign's emails, you would expect to see mountains of evidence of Hillary manipulating the DNC against Bernie. But there was no such evidence whatsoever.
The other issue is the fundraising agreement that combined DNC-raised money with Hillary campaign money. But the fundraising agreement was standard and Bernie's campaign had the opportunity to sign the same fundraising agreement but declined.
If DWS stepping down was a purely optics move, then why was she then immediately added as a campaign chair to the Clinton campaign, in probably what was the worst possible optics given the situation.
> Brazile's case is trickier. Taking everything she says at face value (which is a mistake)
"Let's just start off delegitimizing what she had to say, not because I have any evidence to contrary. I just don't like what she said."
> the main thing she demonstrated was that Hillary's campaign saved the DNC from bankruptcy before the primary by assuming its debt. Hillary (reasonably) put some controls on the DNC's finances in response to the mismanagement. Brazile had no evidence, nor did she claim that Hillary or anyone directed the DNC to act against Bernie. Besides, with the unfiltered look into the DNCs emails and Hillary's campaign's emails, you would expect to see mountains of evidence of Hillary manipulating the DNC against Bernie. But there was no such evidence whatsoever.
> The other issue is the fundraising agreement that combined DNC-raised money with Hillary campaign money. But the fundraising agreement was standard and Bernie's campaign had the opportunity to sign the same fundraising agreement but declined.
You fundamentally misunderstood the scandal it seems. What Brazile revealed was the full extent of the issues with the Hillary Victory Fund, and why that happened. These aren't two different issues.
The way the HVF worked was as a way to subvert maximum donor limits. You as a donor can normally only donate $2,700 to a campaign. Instead the HVF allowed you to donate simultaneously to each of the 50 state's individual DNC parties, who then immediately donate that money to the national DNC, who then immediately donated that money to the Clinton campaign. Yes the same deal was available to the Sanders campaign, in that they were also essientially allowed to donate ~$100 to the Clinton campaign for every dollar they raised. Yes, the setup was that all VF money was to make it's way to the Clinton campaign. I wonder why they didn't take that wonderful offer.
Nothing about that was standard. This setup of giving VF money during the primary had never previously happened, was against internal bylaws, and is the main reason why we lost the house so bad. She had been pilfering funding for down ticket races in order to fund the primary campaign.
It was a part of the deal to get DWS to resign. Hillary created a token position for DWS. It's like you don't understand politics at all.
>Yes the same deal was available to the Sanders campaign, in that they were also essientially allowed to donate ~$100 to the Clinton campaign for every dollar they raised. Yes, the setup was that all VF money was to make it's way to the Clinton campaign. I wonder why they didn't take that wonderful offer.
Yeah, that's bullshit. I'm gonna need some real sources for this one.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clin...
Really? Nothing at all? Big fat nothingburger?
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-the-latest-mue...
That indictment does not actually mention Wikileaks at all, let alone suggest that Wikileaks knew the source was the Russian government.
If you read the indictment it's pretty clear that "Organization 1" is Wikileaks.
Your reading of the indictment (https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2018/07/Mueller...) is severely lacking.
It specifically mentions that 12 russians conspired "with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury" to "stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 US election".
You don't have to be a genius to infer that one of those "persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury" is Assange.
Sure. Wikileaks still is not mentioned as the prosecution does not feel they have a winnable case against the organization, and these indictments do not show Wikileaks knowingly coordinated with Russia.
If they had received the emails, discovered they were forged and then released them anyways, then I think there'd be a different story. News outlets need to provide true information, they can be opinionated if they are open about it but blatantly lying (i.e. National Enquirer) is the only thing I think is objectionable.
RT's logo has a producer's credit in his show's credits. It's an RT show.
Wikileaks isn't a news organization. They don't do reporting. They are a publisher, which still has first amendment protections.
By selectively prosecuting non-violent speech, a state denies freedom to all journalists, because it asserts itself as the ultimate censor of what is acceptable to publish and what not. You get a massive dilemma: are the other, non-imprisoned journalists, the "real" journalists or are they simply afraid to say the truth because truth lands you in prison?
Why do they get to decide what's "pertinent"?
One option at least pays lip service to legal and ethical considerations.
Doesn't need to be state-sponsored (and most news organization aren't "state-sponsored" ... unlike RT, for example) to be credible.
If true, that's the point at which Assange and Wikileaks departed from the path of legitimate journalism.
They did it to make it seem that the Clinton Campaign and the DNC had something nefarious going on
They weren't released to show evidence of any particular wrongdoing, nor did they show any illegal activity. They were simply dumped in order to fuel the fire of the impression of wrongdoing, and in hopes that some smoking gun or salacious material could be found to use against her politically.
Of course, Wikileaks never released any data dumps from the Republicans, so we can't really know, I guess. Maybe the Republican Party is just a paragon of virtue and their opsec is perfect.
I feel the constant triangulation is a big reason why the democratic world is so messed up right now.
Did the Republicans choose Trump because they felt he was the most likely to do good and communicate why?
I think we should talk more about it though. People can make a difference. Even if we can't keep this train from derailing, maybe we can slow it down a bit before impact.
There are no true scotsmen either.
Known by whom? Its been over 2 years and there has still been absolutely no evidence released at all proving this. Claims made by the CIA, the US government or anyone else are proof of nothing, despite what you may think.
>even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network.
Larry King has a show on RT too, is he an agent of the Russians also? The fact is that RT gives all sorts of people shows - especially people who make us look bad. What is really unfortunate is that so many of those shows are able to make us look bad without lying at all. They just have to give a platform to people (like Chris Hedges) willing to report on the many misdeeds we have, and continue, to commit.
The Russians are no angels and neither are we. The very heart of this case is about freedom of the press and free speech. If we let the government decide who is "legitimate" and who is allowed to publish then there is no "freedom of the press" at all.
This shit is easy to lookup ... and the fact of the matter is, trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked up regime's actions. No matter how bad the US has been in Wars and sticking their fingers in democratic elections, the Russians are 10 times as worse and they know it.
Not sure what part of "claim" you don't understand. It doesn't matter who makes the claim. Claims by the Secretary of State or the CIA are no more credible than claims by you or I if they don't come with evidence we can independently scrutinize. Older people should have learned this lesson in 2003 with the WMD debacle. Those of us who are even older should have learned it at the Gulf of Tonkin.
>trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked up regime's actions.
Demanding evidence I can scrutinize is not "dispelling criticism". If you trust the evidence- free claims of the government (or anyone else) - on any matter - you are incredibly naive. Unfortunately you aren't alone.
How are we distinguishing influencing the election and fitness of the candidate? I'm not seeing a substantive difference between the two, other that the source (if anything, their campaign practices seem more relevant).
And the distinction is usually as follows: speech that threatens or criticises those in power is generally illegal, and the speech that supports it is legal.
Reality check - partisan newspapers, news channels, and news organizations publish partisan nonsense with the intent of influencing elections. All the time.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, freedom of speech does not mean 'Freedom of unbiased speech.' If it did, then you could shut down the entire media establishment tomorrow.
NY Time has a great 3-part video series about Russia's history of spreading fake news. Each video is about 15 minutes but it's well worth the watch.
And publishing false information is not illegal. Knowingly aiding a foreign government in their efforts to undermine an election is treason.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/gucci...
Assange is not a US citizen.
I've definitely read several news articles that say he stands accused of both treason and espionage, though. I do wonder how that works for a foreigner. Has he ever even been to the United States?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-d...
> especially when they released campaign emails during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
As a leaks organisation this is what their job is about: leaking information, emails this time.
Was Wikileaks biased on what they released? Probably, but to my knowledge they did not release anything false - this would be similar to prosecuting say the guardian people for publishing the Snowden leaks, after all some would consider them "left wing" and "biased". I believe that especially America that was founded on the principle of freedom should take the principle of free speech more seriously.