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Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

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Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it preposterous that it took this long to hear that Trump bus tape as well as the Stern recordings. If you were connected to either of these shows, wouldn't the first thing you did when Trump started to become a story was go looking through the material you had on him? It's simply not credible that they "just found" the bus tape. Was it lost behind a toilet somewhere? That they had this for a while now and wer…

Some of the Stern recordings were getting play during the primaries, but they weren't slowing Trump down since his opposition was split among so many different candidates. The bus tape was archival footage. If you're suggesting that every hour of archival audio and video of Mr. Trump should have been sought after as soon as he became the nominee, then, again, you're underestimating just how volatile and fickle the ne…

Occam's razor _supports_ my take.

Regarding Stern, CNN had as "BREAKING NEWS!@!" that Trump told Stern it was OK to call Ivanka a piece of ass. Possibly CNN was lying about presenting this as something they just discovered; is that what you are claiming?

Yes, I am suggesting that every show would have stuck someone (more likely, a team) on reviewing their material (prioritizing the outtake material, if anything) on Trump as soon as it turned out he was a big deal. I am not clear as to why you think this would not have occurred; why Occam's razor supports that viewpoint. The bus tape would have been a huge story at any time and would not have required building off interest in other stories to investigate (e.g. "Gee whiz, we should look at the archival footage and see what we have! Why didn't we think of this before!")

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#792
post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur with this view. I don't necessarily think the Wikileaks are not valid, but from my point of view, Wikileaks lost all credibility being 100% anti-Hillary, with zero anti-Trump information released. Somehow I don't think the RNC would have much different internal e-mails floating around at this point. That being said, I read the Goldman transcripts and other things that were supposed to be so damaging, and the…

I don't think it's entirely fair to blame this imbalance on Wikileaks; they may not have received any information derogatory to the Trump campaign. Wikileaks' current agenda appears to be to disrupt Western governments through leaking damaging information. I don't see a clear preference for political parties; the Manning leaks were damaging to the Republican Bush administration. I believe that the most probable sourc…

While I'm not sure you can entirely fault Wikileaks for the material they receive, I do believe I can fault them for their release policy. I'm not sure of any reason to dole out the leaks slowly over time, leading up to the election. All that does is reduce the time available to get useful information, context and verification about the leaked data. That seems less about journalism informing the public, and more about an activist attempting to influence the public.

I had mixed feeling about Wikileaks before (as I think anyone should, since it's a very complex topic), but any thoughts I had as to him be impartial in any way (as a good journalist should be) are now out the window.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#793
post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something really damaging in Wikileak emails? Even on Fox News they are not able to mention anything that is at the level of Trump tapes. Sure, there is some amusing stuff and quipes by aggressive campaign staff about opponents but nothing that can points to big corruption directly on Clinton's part. The media coverage is unexpectedly very low but I can see why media will want to put these rather boring emai…

There are really damaging things -- although nothing surprising and that's why I think nobody is talking about it. E.g. in one email HRC talks about how Qatar is funding ISIS, and in the next they're giving Bill Clinton a $1m check for his birthday. The wallstreet stuff would've definitely tilted the balance to Bernie Sanders in the primaries. Finally, the level of involvement with the press is far more than I could'…

They didn't give Bill Clinton a check for $1m. They contributed $1m to the Clinton Foundation in honor of his birthday. Contrary to what some alt-right sites maintain, the Clintons derive no personal income from the charitable foundation which takes its name from them.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#794
post #789
post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are obviously missing the point here: Infowars does not hide it - it is on their website. Clinton campaign's plots/schemes would have remained unknown to the public, if not for Wikileaks.

This is not to mention that they aren't advocating 'free speech' like Alex Jones(not that I agree with him); they are actively fostering division and inciting violence between American citizens(using the mentally ill as their pawns) to manufacture outrage and promote a narrative. I encourage anyone reading to watch the video, acknowledge it's biased and draw your own conclusions. You can't edit words into someone's m…

> acknowledge it's biased and draw your own conclusions.

I think this is the soundest advice here. The formatting of the video makes it obvious that there is a partisan motivation behind this investigation. However, the video also provides a certain amount of raw and non-processed evidence that can be judged on their own merits.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#795
post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Only the raw video matters. They should publish all the raw video. Otherwise, everything in the video is just fake.

I worked for years as a film professional, including screenwriting and editing. It is very easy to lie with footage. The craft of editing is to make the edits disappear so that changes in camera angles and content appear natural and seamless. We employ misdirection to exploit a phenomenon in the brain known as suture, which creates the illusion of continuity. As a simple example, in a narrative film I'll cut from ang…

I agree with everything you said. But I am too curious as to what you think of the posted video. I hardly see how there could be manipulation considering the chunks of raw footage posted are always following a Q/A format.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something really damaging in Wikileak emails? Even on Fox News they are not able to mention anything that is at the level of Trump tapes. Sure, there is some amusing stuff and quipes by aggressive campaign staff about opponents but nothing that can points to big corruption directly on Clinton's part. The media coverage is unexpectedly very low but I can see why media will want to put these rather boring emai…

> Even on Fox News they are not able to mention anything that is at the level of Trump tapes. The Trump tapes? You mean that one 11-year-old video that shows him talking very crudely about sexual escapades? Sure, that's reprehensible. Is it worse than what past presidents have done while in office? If not, why is it a problem now? Why is one candidate's personal sex life a bigger problem than collusion with the media…

"You could swap any other Democrat for her and any Republican for him (though any actual Republican would differ much more from Trump than any other Democrat would differ from Clinton), and the underlying issues would be the same. The individual candidates are virtually a facade, a distraction from the real issues at stake."

I agree real issues are at stake. A lot of them local, like prop 61 in California. Pharmacutical companies dread this prop passing.

Trump is no Rebublican I can recall.

He's for tarriffs? He's against Globalization.(that little thing that lets your bosses build their stuff in the cheapest, most corrupt country.)

He is so far from being a true Republican; Rebublican voters are voting for Hillary. They don't want anyone touching their cheap labor. Apple must be a bit scared?

One of the problems with Trump is I just don't trust the guy. I don't trust him on any level. As to the issues, he must know by now can't just raise Tarriffs; without congressional approval, and breaking a bunch of legal trade agreements?

So, I feel, he's running just to run at this point. I don't trust her either.

I do have a feeling he will win though. Just a weird feeling. I don't feel voters would admit to pollsters they might vote for the guy.

On the bright side, if he screws up too bad, he could be impeached, or worse.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#797

We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now, and it's been this way for quite a while. It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Ever since the DNC leaks and the subsequent accusations against Russia, it became clear to me that, at some point, the attempts to tarnish Wikileaks's name was to…

If this is the case (and I think it is), then what is the underlying motive? It seems to me that if things are coming to a head like this it's because there is an underlying Issue (capital-I) that is also coming to a head or will be soon. I get a sense of near desperation from some of this.

My totally off the cuff hypothesis:

We are approaching a tipping point where new energy technologies (solar+batteries, etc.) will get cheap enough to "go exponential" vs. fossil fuels. This has huge geopolitical implications.

A more or less permanent crash in fossil fuel prices could completely realign the world. The biggest winners would probably be the USA, EU, and China since these are net energy importers and have economies based on high tech, manufacturing, finance, and services. The biggest losers would be Russia and the Middle Eastern petro-states, but certain regions within the USA and Canada would also lose substantially vs. others. More importantly you'd have a major crash in the value of certain corporations vs. others. Apple being briefly worth more than Exxon Mobil is perhaps a preview.

I've heard the view before that WWI and WWII were really about dominance of the emerging petroleum age. If that age is now ending, what happens next? WWIII?

Edit: Second hypothesis:

The world economy is about to crash again hard, and when that happens there will be a great window to enact all kinds of changes. Various parties are struggling to make sure they are in power for that window.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I disagree. Trump is the Republican nominee for the 2016 US presidential elections which means that he's as much a politician as Hillary or Obama is and should be held against the same set of standards like every politician does and this notion that since he's novice in this field he deserves to get preferential treatment and be forgiven for all his mistakes and wrongdoings is bit disingenuous.

> Trump is the Republican nominee for the 2016 US presidential elections which means that he's as much a politician as as Hillary or Obama is I hope you're kidding when you say he's as much a politician as Hilary. He has very limited political experience. She's been doing it for 30+ years. He's a candidate, but has held precisely zero public offices thus far. > this notion that since he's novice in this field he dese…

To suggest that Trump has 'very limited' political experience when he's been rubbing shoulders with the country's political elites for a few decades is simply disingenuous.

> Who said anything about "forgiving" him? ... I expect more from my politicians.

gotchange's point is that some people give Trump a lower bar of expectations because he's an 'outsider' or 'new at this' - that difference in expectations is forgiving him to a certain degree. Like a handicap at sport.

gotchange's whole point is about expecting more from politicians, and asking why the expectations are lowered on the Trump side.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#799

From a Swedish perspective the Julian Assange case is particular close to the heart since it really shows how corrupt even our courts and politicians are. Sweden is rated as one of the countries with the lowest corruption but still 6 years have passed without even interviewing him for the pathetic accusations. The entire case is a joke and whatever the US-election result is, it's bad for the entire world since our co…

In a legal system, the accused doesn't get to negotiate the details of his interview. Assange, being the narcissistic idiot that he is, chose to imprison himself because for him, being imprisoned in an embassy at least feels a bit like a spy novel instead of just a case of him getting a bit too rapey. And how is this supposed to be "corrupt". Are you implying a vast conspiracy were the CIA is orchestrating everyone f…

It is not worth trying to put the blame on Assange here, no matter if and in that case what sort of personality (disorder) he has. The simple fact is that the Swedish justice department acted in very strange ways in this case. I can not find blame for the first round of the case, he'd been accused of rape and those accusations need to be taken seriously. The accusations were investigated after which the prosecutor decided there was no case. This would and should have been the end, were it not that a new prosecutor (Marianne Ny) took up the investigation again and decided to prosecute, lack of case notwithstanding. She refused to hear him in the UK, refused to hear him in Sweden with a guarantee not to be extradited to the US. She refused and waited and drew out the case for such a long time that most of the charges went past the statute of limitations. The details of the case have been discussed far and wide [1] so there is no need to dig into them here, if you're interested just read a few sources (preferably from all sides of the political spectrum to get something resembling the truth).

[1] https://www.google.se/search?q=assange+rape+case

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