The News Thread

Tucker Carlson being a little bitch, stirring partisan anger, as usual.

Good Morning America covered the story this morning and literally said "Julian Assange is not being charged with publishing information or with hacking the DNC; he's being charged with assisting Chelsea Manning."

The media isn't perpetuating the version of the story that Tucker says they are. He's lying to his viewers to get them riled up.
 
The concern is more that the specific allegation of hacking is relatively minor (he provided advice to Manning in the latter's hacking attempts) yet carries a potentially very serious punishment. It's not really any different than charging the guy who stole the Pentagon Papers.
 
I'm not saying we shouldn't question the legal precedent for the charge; I'm just pointing out that Tucker is using the controversy to stir up anger among his viewers. He even goes so far as to say "blame Obama." It's just such blatant pandering to what he knows his viewers want to hear. In fact, Obama pardoned Manning and didn't pursue charges against Assange because of concerns that it would be hostile to journalistic freedom.
 
He says "blame Obama" in the context of the specific hacking of military files, and in the context of other Dems calling for life imprisonment of Assange. Naturally, it's a polemic trick to undermine the political opposition, but so is vice versa. It's a political issue, and if you think Carlson is the only guy trying to stir up anger, you're oblivious. I don't remember Obama ever publicly stating that he didn't wish to pursue charges against Assange btw, I think the main reason he didn't was simply because he had no access to Assange.
 
He says "blame Obama" in the context of the specific hacking of military files, and in the context of other Dems calling for life imprisonment of Assange. Naturally, it's a polemic trick to undermine the political opposition, but so is vice versa. It's a political issue, and if you think Carlson is the only guy trying to stir up anger, you're oblivious. I don't remember Obama ever publicly stating that he didn't wish to pursue charges against Assange btw, I think the main reason he didn't was simply because he had no access to Assange.

I definitely don’t think he’s the only guy.

Re. Obama’s justice dept, access may have been an issue, but I recall discussions about journalistic freedom circulating at the time too. Also, this:

The Obama administration made a decision that it couldn’t prosecute Assange for disseminating classified information without threatening the First Amendment. “The problem the department has always had in investigating Julian Assange is there is no way to prosecute him for publishing information without the same theory being applied to journalists,” Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman, told The Washington Post in 2013.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...an-assange-wikileaks-first-amendment.amp.html
 
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Regarding Obama's deep love for journalistic independence:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/20/obama-doj-james-rosen-criminality

And in slightly-related news that went under the radar:



Private banks have an obligation to not loan money to oil-related businesses because muh doomsday according to some Dems. Take into context with repeated attempts to defund and deplatform many other things they personally disagree with (see: Operation Chokepoint), and it's clear that the Dems are desperately trying to bring back the FDR glory days of government-corporate collusion. The problem with supposed liberal moderates and principled capitalists is that those in power get to cherry-pick between absolute government power and unlimited private discretion whenever one is more politically expedient than the other. We actually had public, government-run banking beginning in the Taft administration until the corporate leftist LBJ ended that, but we're not going to see that again any time soon until people admit that capitalism only works in free markets. I'd vote for a president running on a financial nationalization platform at this point.
 
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I definitely don’t think he’s the only guy.

Re. Obama’s justice dept, access may have been an issue, but I recall discussions about journalistic freedom circulating at the time too. Also, this:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...an-assange-wikileaks-first-amendment.amp.html

Thanks for that, although then it'd not clear why the 2013 WaPo article seems to imply that the DOJ had no charges, when in fact we now know they're seeking at least one charge for involvement in hacking. Did they lie to the press in 2013 or did that revelation not come until later?
 
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What I'm seeing on social media is mouthbreathers claiming he's a traitor who "cost American lives". Where is that storyline coming from?