Jerri-Lynn here: Last week, CNN, the Washington Post, and other news outlets reported that the Department of Justice Department is mulling whether to file charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. We’ve posted links analyzing the likelihood that this prosecution– if it indeed occurs– would survive a certain First Amendment challenge. I’ve elected not to post yet on this issue as I thought that until charges are actually brought and details emerge, any thoughts I might produce would be highly speculative and premature.
The issue certainly bears close attention and I’m posting this Real News Network interview with Glen Ford, so that the commentariat has a chance to discuss this threat.
Glen is a distinguished radio-show host and commentator. In 1977, Ford co-launched, produced and hosted America’s Black Forum, the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television. In 1987, Ford launched Rap It Up, the first nationally syndicated Hip Hop music show, broadcast on 65 radio stations. Ford co-founded the Black Commentator in 2002 and in 2006 he launched the Black Agenda Report. Ford is also the author of The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion.
SHARMINI PERIES:It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.
Last week, CNN reported that the Justice Department is ready to file charges against co-founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. The charges would be in respect to the 2010 leak of confidential federal documents, and the recent release of CIA cyber warfare files.
Assange has been exiled in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for almost five years now. It is worth noting that the CNN report incorrectly asserted that Assange is seeking to avoid an arrest warrant for rape charges in Sweden. Julian Assange has not been officially charged with rape, a fact confirmed by both the U.K. Supreme Court, as well as the United Nations.
Furthermore, the UN has now thrice ruled that Assange is being arbitrarily detained by the Swedish, and U.K. governments. The UN also held that Assange must be granted financial compensation, and the right to exit the embassy without fear of state interference, and without delay.
Joining us today to discuss the implications of these claims is Glen Ford. Glen is executive editor of the Black Agenda Report. Glen, thank you for joining us today.
GLEN FORD: Well, thank you for having me.
SHARMINI PERIES: Glen, let me start with your reaction to the claims from CNN that the U.S. Justice Department has apparently found a way around the 1st Amendment in order to prosecute Assange. What are your thoughts on that?
GLEN FORD: Well, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And where there’s a political will, we will find a political trial. That seems to be what we’re headed to. That is the plan.
This is a big flip by Donald Trump because those of us who have memories recall that both Trump and the CIA director, Mike Pompeo, not so long ago, back in the primary days, were thrilled that there was a WikiLeaks, which revealed that Hillary Clinton had played all those dirty tricks on her opponent during the primary season. But now it appears that Donald Trump has discovered that the way you run a normal presidency in the United States is you bomb some third world countries, like Syria. And then you blame all your domestic problems on the Russians, or some agents of Russia.
So, Donald Trump is trying to normalize his very abnormal presidency by getting on the same page as the Democrats, and as the corporate media, and as the rest of the deep state. They’ve already convicted… all three of those actors have convicted Julian Assange and the Russians. They’re holding them as co-defendants.
One of the things that Trump has done is he’s actually gotten a few pages ahead of Barack Obama. Barack Obama prosecuted more reporters and whistleblowers than all the other presidents before him combined. But Donald Trump will be the first president to try to put a publisher in prison for telling the truth.
What the Trump administration has done is to create a political test of what kind of speech is protected, and what kind of speech is not protected, in the United States. Trump has allowed his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, to frame the case against Julian Assange. And that’s really interesting because the CIA director is getting to say more about this case than the Attorney General who’s the one who’s going to prosecute him. Pompeo, who, I guess, speaks for the government, claims that WikiLeaks is acting as a non-state, hostile intelligence service for the Russians.
Or, for state actors like the Russians. Pompeo doesn’t offer any proof. But no proof has so far been offered. But he, and the CIA, and now the Trump administration, now say that the charge must be true because Russia is the party that benefits from the leaks. And Pompeo complains that the WikiLeaks disclosures overwhelmingly focus on the United States, and that that somehow is also proof.
But, of course, that’s not a crime. And the journalist has no obligation to somehow artificially balance their reporting so as to not harm the reputation of the United States. The real fact of the matter is that the United States is an empire. And like all empires it does more crime, more often, in more places, than normal countries do. We have to ask questions like: what other country is engaged in bombing seven other countries right now, around the world? And what other country bugs every telephone in the world, and taps every electronic digital device that it can somehow get its hands on?
America is, in fact, an exceptional nation, like it claims to be. But not in the way that it claims to be. It commits truly exceptional numbers of crimes. It commits more crimes than China and Russia, because it has a further reach than China and Russia. WikiLeaks sees its job as reporting on blockbuster crimes. And the United States is the champion imperial crime-maker in the world.
SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Glen, earlier, in the previous administration, when President Obama wanted to pursue charges against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in particular, they refrained from doing so because if they were to prosecute WikiLeaks for publishing some of these so-called confidential and secret documents, they would also have to prosecute the New York Times and the McCutcheon(?) newspapers, and others who also published these documents that were released by WikiLeaks. What’s your reaction to that?
GLEN FORD: Well, that was the big political obstacle. And, if you’re going to do a political trial, you gotta get your politics straight. And you can’t just cavalierly go up against the Washington Post and the New York Times, which were among the many, many newspapers that printed WikiLeaks revelations. So that was a no-go zone.
But now, Donald Trump has mended the fences that separated him from the corporate media. He’s on, as I said, the same page as them. And they are in agreement. That is, the Trump administration, and the corporate media, that WikiLeaks is rogue. In fact, I was just reading a Time Magazine article that specifically called him a rogue. Pompeo notes that Assange is not an American citizen. And he says and I think legally incorrectly that since Assange is not an American citizen, he doesn’t have American freedom of speech rights.
So, they’re trying to create a defenseless zone for WikiLeaks, and to get around the prohibitions relating to freedom of speech. But they have to do this by connecting WikiLeaks directly to Russia, by actually proving that WikiLeaks is a foreign agent. And that’s a hard thing to do. That requires real facts. And so far, no facts have been forthcoming. Not even facts that can convince a large segment of the American public.
SHARMINI PERIES: And this also absolves the Trump administration from the allegations it faces about its collaboration, potentially, with the Russians. Which is really also unproven at this point, but at least in the public discourse it absolves the Trump administration of any alliance with the Russians at this time.
GLEN FORD: That’s right. He thinks this will call off the corporate media dogs. I don’t think that it will. But he’s certainly willing to reverse himself on WikiLeaks. Remember he was so thrilled that WikiLeaks was there when he needed it while he’s not there when Julian Assange needs some support.
SHARMINI PERIES: On that note, Glen, let’s listen together what Trump had to say about WikiLeaks during the campaign.
DONALD TRUMP: This just came out. This just came out. WikiLeaks I love WikiLeaks.
CROWD: (cheering)
SHARMINI PERIES: Glen, let me get your reaction to that.
GLEN FORD: Not the clip that you just played, but the events that have just come down from the Justice Department, the threat to indict Julian Assange — it really is the sound of the other shoe falling. The first shoe was the attack on the Syrian air base. This is the other shoe.
Now Donald Trump can feel confident about that he is back on the right side of the war party, and will no longer be charged with being un-American himself. It appears that, in the United States, in order to show that your patriotism is intact, you have to paint someone else with the subversive brush.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right. Glen, I thank you so much for your words, and look forward to your report next time. Thank you.
GLEN FORD: Thank you.
SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us here on The Real News Network.
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Why do they need real facts?
They didn’t need real facts to send a bunch of tomahawk missiles into Syria.
They didn’t need real facts to say the Russians hacked the election.
They didn’t need real facts to invade Iraq.
When did real facts start to matter? They’ll do what they always do: make some sh*t up, attribute it to those they don’t like, and punish them for it.
I mean, there’s another video up on Real News currently, the title of which pretty much sums up the U.S. government’s attitude: U.S. Threatens Nuclear Deal it Admits Iran Respects. Iran is abiding by all the provisions of the deal they signed? So what? The U.S. is going to attack them anyway.
Real facts obviously have nothing to do with it.
Unless, of course, those electronic digital devices belong to Donald J. Trump. We must remember that the Intelligence Community quite specifically said neither they nor any of their allies ever, at all, under any circumstances, tapped into Trump’s communications. Not even accidentally.
Exactly why Trump got the exemption is something they have yet to offer an explanation for.
Glen Ford, from the interview:
Just to comment I think that is the wrong answer.
WikiLeaks doesn’t control what it receives. After verifying, they can only publish what is leaked to them. Julian has stated they publish everything they receive if it is verified and of interest or benefit to the public to know. They don’t consider countries when deciding whether to publish.
Additionally, they have leaked documents involving many other countries. I wish there was a nice list somewhere.
Clicking the subheadings at https://wikileaks.org/ [Intelligence, Global Economy, International Politics, Corporations, Government, War & Military] will show you leaks from around the world.
Wiki recently tweeted about “3,630 documents from our archives on French presidential candidate François Fillon” since it is timely to bring up again.
Here is a tweet mentioning Kenya, Saudi Arabia:
https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/857115737823080448
MSM in America doesn’t cover leaks regarding other countries by WikiLeaks like they do the ones that involve America, so people here aren’t as aware of them.
Other countries. Here is another one just for readers’ information since I ran across it:
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Bank_Julius_Baer_vs._Wikileaks (2008)
*Interesting.
It’s very disappointing Trump seems to be drowning in the swamp he promised to drain.
I try to think of possible alternative paths even though some of them are just crazy.
I just came up with one such crazy alternative path: Remember that Wikileaks has a deadman switch. The data they release are verified but they have much more not fully verified. Once Assange is arrested, he will be away long enough for the deadman switch to kick in. Then holders of the key will then release the unreleased data.
That unreleased data is an avalanche that Trump uses to clean house. Sufficient info there for him to have an excuse to, um, drain the swamp. Letting Assange be arrested is giving the alphabet soup agencies a noose to hang themselves.
It’s an unlikely thesis, tho – much more likely that Trump is drowning in the swamp. But that deadman switch gives me pause…
Sorry to rain on your parade, but I think that’s highly unlikely. Trump’s not that. Never was. Never will be.
I have not clue what he thought on the campaign trail, but whatever that was, it’s not what’s going to happen. Ever.
WYSIWYG.
Trump’s “drain the swamp” speech: the draining consisted of term limits for Congress (over which he has no power, and would not be ex post facto applicable to current Congresspersons), “banning” members of the executive branch from being lobbyists for 5 years and asking Congress to do the same (again no power to make this happen), and asking Congress to ban foreign lobbyists from raising money for US political campaigns.
Nothing in that speech about not filling his administration with a “swamp” of corporate predators and de-regulators, white supremacists and Christian dominionists, war mongers, and privatizers; nothing to indicate a need for controls on the “alphabet soup” agencies from furthering the domestic and foreign agenda of those swamp denizens.
Link to speech
An adversary, especially one in existential danger, is not constrained to abide by any norms or traditions. Deadman switches can be blocked, especially by organizations that have a “privileged position within the network” such as real-time, retrospective Internet monitoring systems like XKEYSCORE, especially against a non-adaptive bot like that. In fact, with Assange incommunicado, I would be unsurprised to see them put some number of analysts on watch directly monitoring accounts he may have touched. That Spice must absolutely not flow.
The problem is the post of the Presidency that exists to preside over the primitive accumulation by enclosure of the freedoms and rights of the people and “sell their fat azzes right back to them”, as one Chuck Palahniuk character famously quipped.
Trump is not drowning in the swamp, he’s swimming in it.
By Julian Assange – Washington Post opinions page, April 25, evening.
Julian Assange: The CIA director is waging war on truth-tellers like WikiLeaks
[Also from this article, further to my first comment about countries:]
Please see entire article at link.
I never seriously worried about Julian until the latest cyber file leaks and insults to the CIA. You’ve got to respect him. Apparently, he is fearless. Sure, I worried before, but not like I do now.
As he does in this article, I have also heard him in interviews talking about how incompetent the CIA is and how they “lost control” of their files.
I’m not sure that the CIA lost control of their files.
Pres Trump claimed that the CIA was hacked ( http://www.politico.com/video/2017/03/trump-cia-was-hacked-062495 ).
Trumenstien claims a lot of things. In a fact free universe you can claim anything, especially if they justify your actions and crimes. Now isn’t hacking a serious crime? People have been getting 30 year sentences. Spreading malicious viruses likewise. We not only live in a fact free universe, but an accountability free universe, too big, too connected to jail. We have truly gone from a society of laws to society of lawless psychopaths. What is it that bad parents say to their children…”because I said so!”
Trump was never what he proclaimed to be on the campaign trail, but I concur with the “other shoe dropping” framing. State capture of Trump is now complete. He’ll never be loved by all, but he’s now been fully convinced by his establishment minders that if he follows the path they’ve laid out for him, he’ll be lauded as presidential and elicit praise from the other side of the aisle. Whenceforth Bannon, though, as this new paradigm evolves? As far as WikiLeaks is concerned, Assange seems to have has nine lives. I’m wondering if the chirping about charges is signaling of sorts:
“Hey Julian, thanks for blowing up Hill’s campaign* with the Podesta leaks. But lest you have any doubt, don’t think about doing the same to this administration, MMMkay?”
Makes it so that the Trump administration can care less about inspecting accounts on mobile devices. A few spurious “Alt” accounts on Twitter are one thing … credible info ending up in a WikiLeaks dump is another. Assange may be simply being brought to heel.
* – purely adlib; we all know that Hill blew her own campaign up.
I don’t think for a minute that Trump is anything but a hollow little man who has surrounded himself with a huge ego to shield himself from the self knowledge of his deficiencies. So when the Deciders sat down with him for a heart-to-heart talk after the election it was easy enough to convince him to see the Light.
“You have two options.”
“1- Follow the path we have laid out for Clinton. Drop this nonsense about an accord with the Russians. We spent decades conditioning the public to hate and fear them at great profit to ourselves, and have no intention of loosing such a perfect enemy. Reviving the Cold War has far greater profit potential than pretending to fight a few thousand rag heads hidden in caves. Leave it to us– we will provide all the necessary news disinformation and stage any false flags needed to keep things moving along properly.
2- Continue as you promised during the election and we will continue to paralyze your administration with the kind of fabricated attacks that are now happening. You needn’t worry about being impeached—you will simply be assassinated when the discord reaches its peak.”
From where I sit, it certainly seems to be something like that. That combined with the fact that I feel that Trump is in waaaay over his head and was simply flailing and failing. Obama was clueless enough when he was elected, but he did have a few clues about how everything shakes out in Versailles on the Potomac. Trump? Clueless. Probably happy in some ways – albeit he’d never admit it even to himself – that someones have come along to dictate what to do and how to do it. He really needs a minder. That’s evident.
Ha! I like both your explanations better … ;-)
As Lambert occasionally reminds us – the GOP is more feral.
With that it mind, it’s a good bet that minder conversations were less “Mr. President, may we …” and more “Listen up, you …”; and yes, a man out of his depth wouldn’t need much convincing.
Come to think of it, Consul Pomposo, saying that Wikileaks is a hostile intelligence service of a foreign power, is setting him up to be an unlawful combatant. Once the Borg get a hold of him he will be indefinitely detained in Guantanamo Bay, no trial necessary. Like Consul Pomposo said he isn’t even an American citizen and the first amendment doesn’t apply. In fact the rule of law doesn’t apply, because the Great White Hope said so. He is very bad, so very very bad. One of these days a black helicopter is going to land on the roof of the Ecuadorian embassy and Assange is going to face a life of waterboarding, rectal feeding and stress positions. I wonder if Pamela Anderson will be allowed to have conjugal visits? Will masses of his supporters surround the Ecuadorian embassy to protect him? Will masses of his supporters march on Washington for him? Right! This is not an Age of Heroes is it?
Come to think of it, Consul Pomposo, saying that Wikileaks is a hostile intelligence service of a foreign power, is setting him up to be an unlawful combatant. Once the Borg get a hold of him he will be indefinitely detained in Guantanamo Bay, no trial necessary. Like Consul Pomposo said he isn’t even an American citizen and the first amendment doesn’t apply. In fact the rule of law doesn’t apply, because the Great White Hope said so. He is very bad, so very very bad. One of these days a black helicopter is going to land on the roof of the Ecuadorian embassy and Assange is going to face a life of waterboarding, rectal feeding and stress positions. I wonder if Pamela Anderson will be allowed to have conjugal visits? Will masses of his supporters surround the Ecuadorian embassy to protect him? Will masses of his supporters march on Washington for him? Right! This is not an Age of Heroes is it?
Here is a 1-1/2 minute video with Obama, Comey, and Clapper saying WikiLeaks does not have ties to Russia.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/856735098175180800
Trump conned a majority of the American people and somehow got (s)elected, thanks to Hilly being the Dim’s nominee. Now he’s taken the mask off and is busy outdoing Lord Obama on foreign intervention, whistle blowers and the like. The propaganda machine (MSM) keeps repeating lies over and over hand have blinded most of the people. We’re trapped in the empire. The two party (actually one neo-liberal party) is the main reason.
He didn’t con a majority. Turnout was only 55%. “I stayed home” beat both Trump and Hillary.
Moreover, focus groups show that many, possibly even most, Trump voters were well aware of his flaws and the possibility that he would not deliver. They decided to gamble on him rather than vote for Hillary who was sure to deliver more of the same.
Does the term “jurisdiction” even mean anything? Assange never set foot in the US … he’s not a US citizen but the only legal system that should apply here is Australia or Britain/Sweden’s.
Perhaps Australia is appropriate, as only kangaroos would hear this case.
In a kangaroo court. LOL
I maintain a kernel of faith that the US Judiciary has not been completely corrupted. In an actual criminal proceeding not adjudicated by marsupials, the prosecution would have to present some evidence of at least probable cause of a crime, and Assange would be afforded a legal team who would argue the jurisdiction issue along with the other big problem (tying wikileaks to Russia with no evidence to support that.)
The prosecution of Assange does therefore have some political risk to the deep state, not only because of the embarrassment factor of Assange walking out of a preliminary hearing scot free, but also because it might just get the left and the libertarian wing of the right fired up enough to finally join forces.
Does the US have jurisdiction over Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria? Face it, the rule of Law is over, get over it.
Should Glen ask if a soft coup was successful carried out? Is Trump not feeling confident, but compelled to kowtow, to obey a power more powerful than the president of the US?
Wouldn’t that be the bigger story here?
And will Trump pull another informing-Russians-before-launching-missiles here, by handling Assange with over control over the process?
It didn’t take long for Trump to embrace the same Washington Consensus that he disparaged on the campaign trail. Now we have another four years of Obama/Clinton/Bush II policies.
Most politicians do a 180 once elected. I challenge anyone to name a politician that has done more 180’s than President Donnie Three Wives!
It would be interesting to ask his wives, all of whom he promised to “love and honor, all the days of my life.”
I don’t recall hearing of any wedding vows which were term linted to each of his wives.
One has to give him credit (/s) for being a fast learner. I’d love to see the instruction material (presentations with pictures) he has received.
Wife Ivana, wife I I believe, said that he had a copy of Mein Kampf at his beside, apparently the only book he read and apparently treasured. I imagine, Goebbels of the big lie is another hero of his
The IC and the MIC seemed too impatient in retrospect, then.
Why all the desperation moves of the last few months?
because they’re all hacks deep down?
Let’s supposed the Russian government really is behind some of the WikiLeaks content. Does anyone expect them, headed up by Mr. Former KGB Head, to leave a nice, obvious paper trail connecting them to it? Please, it would be buried behind so many layers, even the people who fed it to WikiLeaks wouldn’t have known it was a Putin operation. They wouldn’t be able to connect the Russian government to it, let alone get any evidence WikiLeaks was a co-conspirator.
Why is Trump the subject of that headline? Ford points out that CIA has taken on the functions of prosecutors, legislators, and founding fathers. Trump is not even the predicate there. CIA did what they always do to presidential figureheads: they purged or co-opted his cadre and surrounded him with Prouty-type focal points. At this point he doesn’t know which way is up. He has no more influence on state actions than you or me.
Personalization is still probably the most effective aspect of state propaganda. People are parsing Trump’s white noise on twitter for intent. People are even attributing Trump’s actions to his character flaws. That’s like blaming Vanna White when your cousin got bankrupped on Wheel of Fortune. Vanna only spins the wheel, Lurlene.
Assange said something very interesting on his recent DemocracyNow interview, that the Trump administration has revealed how long it takes for the “deep state” to fully “digest” a president, turns out 75 days is enough.
He’s given several very enlightening interviews lately, when I get the chance I’ll compile the links and post a comment here.
Trump was an easy meal for them, though. Man has shown a tendency to agree or lean towards the opinion of the last person he talked to, especially when it’s his children. So just make sure he’s constantly surrounded by Deep State insiders, get Ivanka on their side, they’re set.
I found this interview on Democracy Now particularly interesting. While interviewing Assange, Amy then brings in Allan Nairn, her ex-boyfriend and sometime collaborator, and lets him totally attack Assange, accusing him of helping Trump get elected. I found it disgusting, but not surprising, given what Amy’s real politics are these days.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/10/julian_assange_vs_allan_nairn_did
I agree, it pretty much ruined the interview. Amy’s first question in the interview was an explicit “did you get them from Russia/how do you know it wasn’t ultimately Russia”, and later they played Klein’s attack on Assange, and he responded to both, there was no need to harp on it with Nairn, it was a great interview until he came on. After that it became this accusatory bullshit, and ruined the whole calm, rational vibe of the interview, especially when Nairn started with the whole liberal moralistic blackmail of saying, when Assange said the Trump admistration is interesting for such and such reasons, that “it’s not interesting for everyone’s who’s died!”. Oh well, it was a good interview nonetheless.
I’m interested in that and I’ll try to keep an eye out for them. Not easily done though..
Okay here’s a quick list, hopefully people will see it, I might copy and paste on tomorrow’s links post as well.
WL Press Conference from 9 January 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az8zRgsluJk&feature=youtu.be
Assange Reddit AMA from 10 January 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWCQmQ8wjv0
Interview with Brazilian journalist Fernando Morais at the embassy (part 1 of 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMB_SD4-Av4
WL Vault 7 Press Conference from 9 March 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=uxmMt4EW3PQ&app=desktop
Interview with Arabic language channel DW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k_H9LMRyyQ&feature=youtu.be&t=1367
DemocracyNow! Interview: https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/12/full_interview_julian_assange_on_trump
Intercepted Podcast Interview with Jeremy Scahill: https://theintercept.com/2017/04/19/intercepted-podcast-julian-assange-speaks-out-as-trumps-cia-director-threatens-to-end-wikileaks/
Interview on Randy Credico’s radio show WBAI NY, 11 April 2017: https://www.wbai.org/archive-popup.php?id=24847&title=Randy%2520Credico%2520-%2520Live%2520On%2520The%2520Fly&short=randyCrelof&date=2017-04-11&time=17:00:02&duration=60&hosts=Randy%2520Credico&music=N&icon=icon-archives-misc.jpg&audio=wbai_170411_170002randyCrelof.mp3
And a few bonuses from years past, still highly relevant and edifying:
Amy Goodman moderates discussion between Assange and Slavoj Žižek, from 2011, pre-embassy imprisonment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Xm08uTSDQ
Going Underground RT Interview on Google, discussing the book When Google Met WikiLeaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTV_Vz-Ur2M
Žižek, Yanis Varoufakis, and Assange from 2015, moderated by Srećko Horvat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjxAArOkoA0
Just a thought that crossed my mind…is this more kayfabe by Trump?
The timing of the announcement seems interesting. The Justice Department dropped this AFTER the Ecuadorean election was concluded. The opposition in Ecuador had openly stated they’d cut Assange loose.
Was Sessions told to wait to announce until AFTER they knew they couldn’t lay a glove on him?
From this standpoint, seems a bit like the Syrian strike….more show than substance.
Come to think of it, Consul Pomposo, saying that Wikileaks is a hostile intelligence service of a foreign power, is setting him up to be an unlawful combatant. Once the Borg get a hold of him he will be indefinitely detained in Guantanamo Bay, no trial necessary. Like Consul Pomposo said he isn’t even an American citizen and the first amendment doesn’t apply. In fact the rule of law doesn’t apply, because the Great White Hope said so. He is very bad, so very very bad. One of these days a black helicopter is going to land on the roof of the Ecuadorian embassy and Assange is going to face a life of waterboarding, rectal feeding and stress positions. I wonder if Pamela Anderson will be allowed to have conjugal visits? Will masses of his supporters surround the Ecuadorian embassy to protect him? Will masses of his supporters march on Washington for him? Right! This is not an Age of Heroes is it?