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“He Is Our Property”: The D.C. Establishment Awaits Assange With A Glee And Grudge

Below is my column in USA Today on the Julian Assange arrest. We are still learning more about Assange’s confinement, including bizarre accounts of Assange’s conduct in the Ecaudorian Embassy in London. The key question will be the highly generalized allegation in the single count indictment from the Justice Department that Assange played an active role in the hacking. That would cross the Rubicon for journalists and make this an even more difficult case for those worried about free speech and the free press. Yet, the indictment is strikingly silent on details or an assertion that Assange actually used the password. We will likely learn more as the May hearing approaches for his extradition.

Here is the column:

“He is our property.” Those celebratory words of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., came on CNN soon after the news of the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

It was a sentiment shared by virtually everyone in Washington from Congress to the intelligence services. Assange committed the unpardonable sins of embarrassing the establishment — from members of Congress to intelligence officials to the news media. And he will now be punished for our sins. Despite having significant constitutional arguments to be made, it is likely that he will be stripped of those defenses and even barred from raising the overall context of his actions in federal court. What could be the most important free speech and free press case in our history could well be reduced to the scope and substance of an unauthorized computer access case.

For years, the public has debated what Assange is: journalist, whistleblower, foreign agent, dupe. The problem is that Assange is first and foremost a publisher.

Moreover, he was doing something that is usually heralded in the news media. WikiLeaks disclosed disclosed controversial intelligence and military operations. It later published emails that showed that the Democratic National Committee and the campaign of Hillary Clinton lied in various statements to the public, including the rigging of the primary for her nomination. No one has argued that any of these emails were false. They were embarrassing. Of course, there is not crime of embarrassing the establishment, but that is merely a technicality.

The criminal charge against Assange filed in a federal court was crafted to circumvent the obvious constitutional problems in prosecuting him. The charge is revealing. He is charged with a single count for his alleged involvement in the hacking operation of Chelsea Manning in 2010.

By alleging that Assange actively played a role in the hacking operation, the government is seeking to portray him as part of the theft rather than the distribution of the information. The prosecutors say Assange helped Manning secure a password to gain access to additional information. If true, that would be a step that most news organizations would not take.

It’s likely there will be a superseding indictment once Assange is successfully extradited to the United States. Moreover, the Justice Department is likely to move aggressively to strip Assange of his core defenses. Through what is called a motion in limine, the government will ask the court to declare that the disclosure of intelligence controversies is immaterial.

This would leave Assange with only the ability to challenge whether he helped with passwords and little or no opportunity to present evidence of his motivations or the threat to privacy. For the jurors, they could simply be faced with some Australian guy who helped with passwords in hacking national security information. It would be like trying a man for breaking and entering while barring evidence that the house was on fire and he thought he was rescuing people instead.

They will punish Assange for their sins

The key to prosecuting Assange has always been to punish him without again embarrassing the powerful figures made mockeries by his disclosures. That means to keep him from discussing how the U.S. government concealed alleged war crimes and huge civilian losses, the type of disclosures that were made in the famous Pentagon Papers case. He cannot discuss how Democratic and Republican members either were complicit or incompetent in their oversight. He cannot discuss how the public was lied to about the program.

A glimpse of that artificial scope was seen within minutes of the arrest. CNN brought on its national security analyst, James Clapper, former director of national intelligence. CNN never mentioned that Clapper was accused of perjury in denying the existence of the National Security Agency surveillance program and was personally implicated in the scandal that WikiLeaks triggered.

Clapper was asked directly before Congress, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

Clapper responded, “No, sir. … Not wittingly.” Later, Clapper said his testimony was “the least untruthful” statement he could make.

That would still make it a lie, of course, but this is Washington and people like Clapper are untouchable. In the view of the establishment, Assange is the problem.

Washington needs to silence Assange

So on CNN, Clapper was allowed to explain (without any hint of self-awareness or contradiction) that Assange has “caused us all kinds of grief in the intelligence community.” Indeed, few people seriously believe that the government is aggrieved about password protection. The grief was the disclosure operations and controversies long unknown to the American people. Assange will be convicted of the felony of causing embarrassment in the first degree.

Notably, no one went to jail or was fired for the surveillance programs. Those in charge of failed congressional oversight were reelected. Clapper was never charged with perjury. Even figures shown to have lied in the Clinton emails, like former CNN commentator Donna Brazile (who lied about giving Clinton’s campaign questions in advance of the presidential debates), are now back on television. Assange, however, could well do time.

With Assange’s extradition, all will be well again in Washington. As Sen. Manchin declared, Assange is their “property” and will be punished for his sins. Once he is hoisted as a wretch, few will again entertain such hubris in the future.

Jonathan Turley, a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors, is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter: @JonathanTurley

198 thoughts on ““He Is Our Property”: The D.C. Establishment Awaits Assange With A Glee And Grudge”

  3. So how does it feel to have good USA Citizens turn their back on the foreign ideology socialists whose anti USA revolution is being ground bit by bit into little bitty pieces. won’t even have to reject or eject them just make sure the garbage truck shows up

  4. The affadavit:

    https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.384245/gov.uscourts.vaed.384245.2.0.pdf

    Additional information from Micah Lee of The Intercept:

    https://twitter.com/micahflee/status/1117905676594970624

    “The password Assange allegedly agreed to help crack was for the FTP user, which didn’t belong to a human”

    “Contrary to what a lot of people seem to believe, the password in question was for a local computer-only account on two Windows computers that Manning had legit access to. It wouldn’t have given her access to new databases or documents that she didn’t already have access to”

      1. I think it comes down to rhetorical paragraph 16 of the indictment. If the purpose of the conspiracy was a lawful publication, then can the conspiracy be considered unlawful?

        I think that’s what Glenn is getting at there

        “THE INDICTMENT TRIES to cast itself as charging Assange not with journalistic activities but with criminal hacking. But it is a thinly disguised pretext for prosecuting Assange for publishing the U.S. government’s secret documents while pretending to make it about something else.

        Whatever else is true about the indictment, substantial parts of the document explicitly characterize as criminal exactly the actions that journalists routinely engage in with their sources and thus, constitutes a dangerous attempt to criminalize investigative journalism.

        The indictment, for instance, places great emphasis on Assange’s alleged encouragement that Manning — after she already turned over hundreds of thousands of classified documents — try to get more documents for WikiLeaks to publish. The indictment claims that “discussions also reflect Assange actively encouraging Manning to provide more information. During an exchange, Manning told Assange that ‘after this upload, that’s all I really have got left.’ To which Assange replied, ‘curious eyes never run dry in my experience.’”

        But encouraging sources to obtain more information is something journalists do routinely. Indeed, it would be a breach of one’s journalistic duties not to ask vital sources with access to classified information if they could provide even more information so as to allow more complete reporting. If a source comes to a journalist with information, it is entirely common and expected that the journalist would reply: Can you also get me X, Y, and Z to complete the story or to make it better? As Edward Snowden said this morning, “Bob Woodward stated publicly he would have advised me to remain in place and act as a mole.”

        THIS MAY BE A PROBLEM THE SCOTUS WILL HAVE TO ADDRESS ASSUMING ASSANGE GETS CONVICTED. we will see!

        it is troubling sometimes HOW FAR JOURNALISTS CAN GO to encouraging other people to break the law. People don’t generally understand this. I don’t think it’s fair for Glenn to hang it all on Trump. No government agency likes the PP precedent when faced with illegal activities to obtain classfied information. Nobody does who ever has the responsibility of keeping information safe.

        Journalists are something of a protected class in the US and they protect their privileges zealously. Maybe that is worth it in the end? but they get away with a lot of stuff that would land other people in prison.

        this is why, in considering how far the 1st amendment protections will go, it may fall to SCOTUS in the end, if they are going to roll it back to keep Assange locked up.

        1. “But it is a thinly disguised pretext for prosecuting Assange for publishing the U.S. government’s secret documents while pretending to make it about something else.”

          I don’t think so. Indictments don’t have pretexts. This is a hacking indictment. And nothing more.

          1. Well Steve indictments often have pretexts. the persecutors sit around deciding who gets a spanking like parents and little kids. the nominal reason may not be the true reason. i see that speculation as valid.

            1. But is assisting someone with a hack nominal — whether successful or not? Why as a journalist would you do that. I would have thought the red lights would have gone up all over the place.

    2. Well then why try and supply it? It looks like an effort to help Manning log on unanimously under false pretenses. In other words, it’s an assist for a hack.

      1. Apparently to help Manning to conceal his identity — in an attempt to keep Manning safe.

        1. “Apparently to help Manning to conceal his identity”

          Well yeah. So he could hack the computer. I’m not seeing a 1st amendment protection for that.

          1. This is the real reason:

            “In April, 2017, Pompeo, while still CIA chief, delivered a deranged speech proclaiming that “we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” He punctuated his speech with this threat: “To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.””

            https://theintercept.com/2019/04/11/the-u-s-governments-indictment-of-julian-assange-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedoms/

            1. Also from the linked article by Greenwald:

              “Journalists have an ethical obligation to take steps to protect their sources from retaliation, which sometimes includes granting them anonymity and employing technical measures to help ensure that their identity is not discovered. When journalists take source protection seriously, they strip metadata and redact information from documents before publishing them if that information could have been used to identify their source; they host cloud-based systems such as SecureDrop, now employed by dozens of major newsrooms around the world, that make it easier and safer for whistleblowers, who may be under surveillance, to send messages and classified documents to journalists without their employers knowing; and they use secure communication tools like Signal and set them to automatically delete messages.”

              “But today’s indictment of Assange seeks to criminalize exactly these types of source-protection efforts, as it states that “it was part of the conspiracy that Assange and Manning used a special folder on a cloud drop box of WikiLeaks to transmit classified records containing information related to the national defense of the United States.””

  5. Manning asked Assange if he could help crack a password, according to the military court records.

    His reply: “yes.” When Manning sent a string of numbers, according to the chat logs, Assange replied: “passed it onto our . . . guy.”

    Days later, the records show, Assange told Manning he had had “no luck so far.”

    My understanding is that’s the evidence against Assange in this indictment. The proper journalistic response to that kind of request from a source is “we can’t help you with that.” That’s not the response Assange gave. And that’s we why the indictment was brought.

    1. seems to me that the indictment doesn’t face any problems from NYT v US. the pentagon papers precedent. but i am no expert.

      I will wait and see if the government seems to have made a persuasive case or not

      for now I favor assange — innocent until proven guilty

    1. Julie, you have said in less than 10 words what most Americans believe

      Not even Anon, Natacha, Diane, L4B can overcome those sentiments in spite of their quoting thousands and thousands of paragraphs from Mein Kampf, Ich Kämpfe, Das Kapital, Saul Alinsky’s Dangerous Rules for Radicals and writings of Walter Duranty, just for starters

      Keep the Faith.

      1. Judson? That’s the name of a ghost town in Yellowhead Township, Kankakee County, Illinois.

        Read up and find out about the Vault 7 and Vault 8 leaks. Assange is no hero. But he might not be a villain, either. It’s complicated.

    2. Funny but Americans selected Hillary as our president, so your claim is doubtful.

      1. “Funny but Americans selected Hillary as our president, so your claim is doubtful.”

        Actually, we didn’t.

  7. Julian’s day of deliverance will come when good ol’ boy democrats get hold of him.

    1. “Julian’s day of deliverance will come when good ol’ boy democrats get hold of him.”

      good ol’ boy democrats?!?!?!

      Somebody needs to tell Rip Van Winkle there that it’s not 1964.

      1. Mr Kurtz,

        Wait till Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff & Jerry Nadler get their hands on Julian.

  8. “It would be like trying a man for breaking and entering while barring evidence that the house was on fire and he thought he was rescuing people instead.”

    That’s an interesting statement. Given Assange’s narcissism, I’m not persuaded that he was trying to help anybody. I think he just wanted another document dump. And I don’t think assisting someone in hacking a computer fits in with the imminent threat to human life that you describe. If he helped his source with a hack, he did not operate as a journalist. Nor was he saving anybody in any legal sense.

  9. The conduct of the upper ranks of the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of Justice has in the last 5 years been so repulsive they’ve managed to turn a Loki-like figure like Assange into a sympathetic character. Heckuva job, guys.

  10. Enough people support, respect, and admire the brilliant and courageous Julian Assange, that the more public officials attack him, the stupider they look.

  11. We have Assange. Now what? I am not concerned with whether or not he goes to jail. I am concerned with our security and the fact that our government uses security to hide its own transgressions. How can we best use Assange?

  12. “He is our property.”

    I suspect that if the DC establishment were honest, they would say the same about most Americans.

    And the system as currently structured would support that statement.

  13. If America is a constitutional “rule of law” government, don’t we have to also DOJ torture attorneys -or- stop exploiting the Espionage Act to be used against non-spies, journalists and whistle-blowers? If we indict Assange, wouldn’t Ashcroft, Mueller, Bybee and others be fair game? Torture was a felony crime, warrantless wiretapping is a felony crime, violating the FISA Act is a federal crime, kidnapping suspects is a felony crime, etc. We can’t prosecute Assange without going after the others under the 14th Amendment.

  14. So how does the Establishment punish Assange for crimes committed along with Bradley Manning

    When Manning was let off the hook? and walking free!

  15. What happens if Chelsea Manning steps forward and says that Assange played no active role in the hacking?

    1. Manning belongs in prison, if not on a gallows.

      In re Manning and Berghdahl, Obama did not disapprove of what they did. Obama himself is a perfectly banal professional-class character in our time. There’s our problem as a political society.

      1. Sure, nothing defines banality like President of the Harvard Law Review, professor ship at the conservative U of Chicago and twice elected President – by an actual majority of votes, a novel idea for Republicans – and now ranked 12th best in that office by historians.

        PS The comment above comes from someone who carries Trump water.

        1. Sure, nothing defines banality like President of the Harvard Law Review,

          It was an office-political position, not selected in the manner of an ordinary law review editor. One of the editors on the law review offered that Obama seemed to want to be the law review president rather than do anything with the position. It took years to identify the single case note he wrote for the review (the year previous).

          professor ship at the conservative U of Chicago

          He was a 40%-time lecturer, hired one year after completing his law degree. He was never in a position to earn tenure. In 12 years employed at the school, he never published a single scholarly article. He taught boutique electives, not core courses. See Wm. Dyer on his specialty: the trouble with conLaw is that an instructor can fake it more readily than one can in any other subdiscipline. Dyer offered that he’d have been more impressed had BO taught commercial law or tax law, where you have know your onions.

          Pretty amusing how having a scatter of known Republicans on a faculty makes yours a ‘conservative’ institution to the liberal ‘mind’.

          and twice elected President – by an actual majority of votes, a novel idea for Republicans – and now ranked 12th best in that office by historians.

          No clue where you got that last talking point. No clue why anyone such a contention seriously.

          Of course, everything you said was irrelevant to my remarks. Partisan Democrats seem unable to respond to anything that isn’t covered in the day’s talking points.

          My actual point is that Obama’s attitudes couldn’t be more banal among people of a certain class living in a certain sort of place. The man hasn’t a trace of originality to him. His administrations disposition was the resultant of the vectors at work in the Democratic Party.

          1. Bradford Berenson Harvard Law, class of ’91; associate White House counsel, 2001-’03, Past-officer, The Federalist Society:

            “You don’t become president of the Harvard Law Review, no matter how political, or how liberal the place is, by virtue of affirmative action, or by virtue of not being at the very top of your class in terms of legal ability. Barack was at the very top of his class in terms of legal ability. He had a first-class legal mind and, in my view, was selected to be president of the Review entirely on his merits…

            The block of conservatives on the Law Review my year I think was eager to avoid having any of the most political people on the left govern the Review. …the conservatives were eager to have somebody who would treat them fairly, who would listen to what they had to say, who would not abuse the powers of the office to favor his ideological soul mates and punish those who had different views. Somebody who would basically play it straight, I think was really what we were looking for.

            And ultimately, the conservatives on the Review supported Barack as president in the final rounds of balloting because he fit that bill far better than the other people who were running. …

            We had all worked with him over the course of a year. And we had all spent countless hours in the presence of Barack, as well as others of our colleagues who were running, in Gannett House [the Law Review offices], and so you get a pretty good sense of people over the course of a year of late nights working on the Review. You know who the rabble-rousers are. You know who the people are who are blinded by their politics. And you know who the people are who, despite their politics, can reach across and be friendly to and make friends with folks who have different views. And Barack very much fell into the latter category. …

            [After Obama is selected,] he does a very able job as president. Puts out what I think was a very good volume of the Review. Does a great job managing the difficult and complicated interpersonal dynamics on the Review. And manages somehow, in an extremely fractious group, to keep everybody almost happy….
            .
            his first and foremost goal, it always seemed to me, was to put out a first-rate publication. And he was not going to let politics or ideology get in the way of doing that. …

            He had some discretion as president to exercise an element of choice for certain of the positions on the masthead; it wasn’t wide discretion, but he had some. And I think a lot of the minority editors on the Review expected him to use that discretion to the maximum extent possible to empower them. To put them in leadership positions, to burnish their resumes, and to give them a chance to help him and help guide the Review. He didn’t do that. He declined to exercise that discretion to disrupt the results of votes or of tests that were taken by various people to assess their fitness for leadership positions.

            He was unwilling to undermine, based on the way I viewed it, meritocratic outcomes or democratic outcomes in order to advance a racial agenda. That earned him a lot of recrimination and criticism from some on the left, particularly some of the minority editors of the Review. …

            It confirmed the hope that I and others had had at the time of the election that he would basically be an honest broker, that he would not let ideology or politics blind him to the enduring institutional interests of the Review. It told me that he valued the success of his own presidency of the Review above scoring political points of currying favor with his political supporters.”

                1. Here are the full rankings:

                  1. Abraham Lincoln
                  2. George Washington
                  3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
                  4. Teddy Roosevelt
                  5. Dwight Eisenhower
                  6. Harry Truman
                  7. Thomas Jefferson
                  8. John F. Kennedy
                  9. Ronald Reagan
                  10. Lyndon Johnson
                  11. Woodrow Wilson
                  12. Barack Obama
                  13. James Monroe
                  14. James Polk
                  15. Bill Clinton
                  16. William McKinley
                  17. James Madison
                  18. Andrew Jackson
                  19. John Adams
                  20. George H.W. Bush
                  21. John Q. Adams
                  22. Ulysses Grant
                  23. Grover Cleveland
                  24. William Taft
                  25. Gerald Ford
                  26. Jimmy Carter
                  27. Calvin Coolidge
                  28. Richard Nixon
                  29. James Garfield
                  30. Benjamin Harrison
                  31. Zachary Taylor

                  1. 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 15, 26 ranked far far far too high as they were all Anti Constitutionalists who violated in wholesale amounts and . 28 is about right and Lincoln himself is placed far too high for the same reasons. 11, 3, and 10 however will remain the bottom dwellers. Wilson as the one that introduced Socialism and 3 as the one that did the most to try and cement it in place. Along with their record as war mongers and their kill ratio of American Citizens followed by LBj and Truman.

                  2. Here are the full rankings:

                    Again, the inanity of this exercise is obvious.

                    1. How do you sample?

                    2. If it’s just a reflection of their policy preferences, who cares?

                    3. Of course it will be, because American history is now an apologetical enterprise.

                    4. Any historian who makes a categorical statement about someone whose been out of office less than 50 years is a douchenozzle.

                    This isn’t that difficult.

                    1. Again Anon demonstrates his inability to think and requires someone else to provide him numbers he likes so he can repeat them hoping that will make him look smart. What were the criteria for the rankings. ‘Huh?’ Anon grunts. Who were the historians and how were they chosen? ‘Huh?’ Again Anon grunts. When does the grunting stop and the thinking begin?

            2. 1. It was an elected position, like student body president.

              2. The man ‘at the top of legal ability’ published one (1) case note the year previous. That is the only scholarly publication he registered over a period of 16 years.

              3. The man ‘at the top of legal ability’ either did not obtain or could not be bothered to obtain a clerkship on graduating. He did not land a position as a working lawyer until two years after his graduation. He joined a 12 lawyer firm specializing in landlord-tenant and labor law. Pro-rating part-time and seasonal work, he was employed in law offices for about 4 years. He was never granted a partnership. He was granted ‘of counsel’ status in 1996 and let his license to practice lapse in 2002.

              This isn’t that difficult.

              1. Thanks for your stupid attempt at face saving. I’ll go with the past office of the Federalist Society and WH council in the W administration who was actually asst Harvard with Obama. Your comments are banal.

                1. What did that guy say about Obama asst Harvard again? Oh yeah! He said – “You don’t become president of the Harvard Law Review, no matter how political, or how liberal the place is, by virtue of affirmative action, or by virtue of not being at the very top of your class in terms of legal ability. Barack was at the very top of his class in terms of legal ability. He had a first-class legal mind and, in my view, was selected to be president of the Review entirely on his merits…”

                  1. People with first-rate legal minds do one of two things:

                    1. Practice law; or

                    2. Teach law and contribute to the scholarly literature.

                    He did neither. This isn’t that difficult.

                    1. So , when Benson saidYou don’t become president of the Harvard Law Review, no matter how political, or how liberal the place is, by virtue of affirmative action, or by virtue of not being at the very top of your class in terms of legal ability. Barack was at the very top of his class in terms of legal ability. He had a first-class legal mind and, in my view, was selected to be president of the Review entirely on his merits…”

                      He didn’t know as much as absurd about Obama as the ahead banal absurd. Yes, this is not difficult.

                    2. Of course Berenson probably did not have as distinguished a career as the always banal absurd, since he only went to Harvard, became WH council, and was an officer in the conservative.Federalist.Society, who no doubt had low standards. Therefore, whetn be said.- You don’t become president of the Harvard Law Review, no matter how political, or how liberal the place is, by virtue of affirmative action, or by virtue of not being at the very top of your class in terms of legal ability. Barack was at the very top of his class in terms of legal ability. He had a first-class legal mind and, in my view, was selected to be president of the Review entirely on his merits…” we should not give it as much weight as absurd’s, otherwise widely known as an internet troll of the highest order.

                    3. What Benson said or did not say is of no interest. What Obama actually did is of interest. Other people’s revealed preferences are of interest.

                      I put the question to a working lawyer of my acquaintance what sort of lawyer he would call Obama. He says, ‘one who had absolutely no interest in practicing law…common type among law school graduates’. OK, what did he do in lieu of practicing law. Well, he ran the Chicago Annenberg Challenge into the ground. Boo Yah!

                    4. DSS, What do people with below third rate amateur legal minds do? They copy the first thing that seems to agree with them and then go no further. You are dealing with one of those minds.

                      Anon can decode but cannot comprehend.

                    5. Obama could have cleared all this up by releasing his Harvard records. But suddenly some aren’t interested in transparency and neither is the media nor Harvard because if either of them were those recordes would have been revealed.

                    6. Cleared what up? His grades and test scores aren’t at issue (though they may be instructive in a way). What he did during his legal career is of issue. But that’s already public.

                    7. The issue presently under discussion is how he got on law review. That could be cleared up at least in part.

                    8. law review big whoop dee do. gosh…he wrote an anonymous note it appears with a conventional liberal viewpoint.

                      https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/exclusive-obamas-lost-law-review-article-012705

                      who cares about Hahvah Law Review!

                      yes he benefited from AA of course he did.

                      He was no Great President but I believe, he wasnt really that bad either. I don’t like to pick on him. He was ok. There have been worse. Oh, he could have been a lot worse.

                      He was politically weak. Not as an insult I say this, just an observation. He was clever, and he proved it, but when he was elevated he was very green. Clearly he was picked out of the large pool of possible figureheads, and elevated. Similar powers that be as backed Hillary too, I suspect. But, she had a lot more sources of personal political power than he.

                      For as politically weak as he was, he was able to avoid the really big mistakes that any POTUS could make, like getting us nuked. Yes, I’m thankful for that.

                      It’s hard to see what will be a good policy accomplishment or a bad one until some time has passed. NAFTA seemed like a good thing to me at the time. Now, not so much.

                    9. Really funny watching people who spend their day posting on somebody else’s blog criticizing a past Harvard Law Review president and the word of an accomplished and clearly conservative GOP lawyer and classmate.

                      Keep it up y’all. This is a parade of the pathetic.

                  2. Anon, Obama is one of those rare politicians who can talk in perfect paragraphs.

                    Presidents are largely judged by the challenges they faced upon entering office. Obama faced the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. He also inherited wars in two different theaters. As far as challenges go, Obama faced the biggest.

                    By the time Obama left office, the Great Recession had become a robust recovery. And though Afghanistan and Iraq remained trouble spots, the latter was no longer a hot war for U.S. troops. Even ISIS was already in decline thanks in large part to our Kurdish allies.

                    Although Obamacare was seriously sabotaged by Republicans, it completely changed how America thinks about healthcare. The days of Free-Market Only healthcare are over in terms of popular thought. Republicans can’t sell it anymore. Obamacare will be remembered as the turning point.

                    Yet there are conservatives like Tabby, AKA ‘Absurd’, who maintain that Obama was merely an Affirmative Action Quota. Like Obama was, in reality, a completely empty suit with no achievements to his name.

                    But what did Tabby think of Sarah Palin? Did he think Palin was ready to be anywhere near the White House?? Did Tabby think John McCain had any appeal to people under 50?

                    Did Tabby notice that Mitt Romney changed positions so often that no one really knew where Romney stood on anything? There is actually a video clip of Romney in debate where he is asked about his ever-changing position on abortion. Romney sarcastically answered, “Pro-choice, Pro-Life, whatever!”, or something to that effect. It was telling moment for Romney.

                    But in the minds of conservative like Tabby, Obama was just a silly joke who fooled half the country. We were ‘too liberal to see that Obama was just a racial quota’.

                    1. Anon, Obama is one of those rare politicians who can talk in perfect paragraphs.

                      When the TelePrompTer is turned on.

                      Presidents are largely judged by the challenges they faced upon entering office. Obama faced the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. He also inherited wars in two different theaters. As far as challenges go, Obama faced the biggest.

                      Every remedial measure was already in place on the day he entered office. Production levels stabilized in May of 2009. The addenda offered by the Administration were bogus (the Porkulus) when not egregious (the auto industry bailout, which included the rape of secured creditors in favor of Democratic Party clients).

                      By the time Obama left office, the Great Recession had become a robust recovery.

                      Growth rates in per capita income since 2009 have been quite unremarkable (1.42% per year) by historical standards.

                      See Casey Mulligan’s work on the ill-effect of various Democratic Party nostrums on the labor market.

                      NB, Obama faced a split legislature for four years and a Republican legislature for two.

                      the latter was no longer a hot war for U.S. troops.

                      The Surge was an initiative of the previous administration. The Bush Administration managed a 70% reduction in the level of violence during it’s last 17 months in office. Obama’s best year in Iraq barely improved on the level of violence registered in Bush’s last month in office.

                      Although Obamacare was seriously sabotaged by Republicans, it completely changed how America thinks about healthcare.

                      Is there nothing for which Democrats take responsibility? Sheer childishness aside, what it did was set up a series of actuarially unstable state markets in medical insurance. People who buy on the individual market have been having quite a trip since then.

                      The days of Free-Market Only healthcare are over in terms of popular thought.

                      Peter fancies Obama came up with Medicare and Veterans hospitals.

                      Yet there are conservatives like Tabby, AKA ‘Absurd’, who maintain that Obama was merely an Affirmative Action Quota. Like Obama was, in reality, a completely empty suit with no achievements to his name.

                      You’re all hot and bothered when his actual life course, work history, and legislative record are delineated. There’s a reason for that. There’s a reason the linchpin of Anon’s argument is a set of remarks by a law school classmate Obama’s hardly crossed paths with in 28 years and never worked with professionally (remarks cropped by editors at PBS). Get a clue, Peter.

                      But what did Tabby think of Sarah Palin? Did he think Palin was ready to be anywhere near the White House?? Did Tabby think John McCain had any appeal to people under 50?

                      Sarah Palin, unlike Barack Obama and Joe Biden, had actually held executive positions for 11 years. This isn’t that difficult.

                      Since north of 40% of the voters under 50 cast a ballot for him, John McCain can be said to have appeal to that segment of the population. (It’s indicative of Peter’s general silliness that he finds this datum of moral interest).

                      But in the minds of conservative like Tabby, Obama was just a silly joke who fooled half the country.

                      Did it ever occur to you try a flip test on your own arguments? Didn’t think so.

                    2. Tabby, Sarah Palin had been mayor of a town that wasn’t much more than a truck stop. Spare us this ‘Executive Experience’ crap. You’re not talking to Trumpers.

                    3. Actually, 13,000 people live in the dense settlement around Wasilla. The economy is a tad more sophisticated than truck stops.

                      You might ask yourself how municipal government functions differ from one size category to another and one venue to another. Except you never go even one layer deep.

                      She was also a state bureau chief and the Governor of Alaska.

                      Number of years Joe Biden and Barack Obama spent running a municipal government, state bureau, or state government = zero.

                  3. “What did that guy say about Obama”

                    The real question is, what did the Crimson say about affirmative action and the Harvard Law Review?

                    “In 1981, all 80-some editors except one were white, and it would be another decade before the Review elected its first black president, Sen. Barack H. Obama, (D-Ill.) … It was then that the saga of the Law Review’s affirmative action program began, …”

                    1. Let’s keep this one going. I’m enjoying the banal comments from absurd and his pathetic posse. Here’s what Brad Berenson – clasmmate, WH councel under W, past Federalist Society officer and still member said about Obama: “You don’t become president of the Harvard Law Review, no matter how political, or how liberal the place is, by virtue of affirmative action, or by virtue of not being at the very top of your class in terms of legal ability. Barack was at the very top of his class in terms of legal ability. He had a first-class legal mind and, in my view, was selected to be president of the Review entirely on his merits…”

                      https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/obama/harvard.html

                    2. The problem with your logic Anon is that you take an account of what a man said but forget what the rules are and how they are followed.

                      It’s hard to be a smart person if one’s mind shuts down when a potential conflict appears. That prevents one from clearly reading what was said, what the rules are and what the Crimson said. That is because you are a dim light intellectually in part due to a bias so deep fact has no impact. If you were able to think you could see how all the opinions and facts can merge together. Berenson didn’t deny that affirmative action exists at Harvard Law Review. He said nothing about it rather he rendered an opinion “in my view, was selected to be president”. He might feel that even if Obama was selected through affirmative action that it was with merit even if a number students would have gotten the position had the rules not had some type of affirmative action.

                    3. Keep in mind that these keyboard statesmen claiming high standards are all Trump supporters.

                      Funny stuff.

                    4. “Keep in mind that these keyboard statesmen claiming high standards are all Trump supporters.”

                      Keep in mind that Anon takes a position based on his faith based religion and he is deficient at reading the printed word that actually states the rules.

                    5. Where’s the teleprompter. I hear the complete sentences and paragraphs but they’ve hidden the teleprompter.

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq5l3T5AxUs

                      Did we discuss the fact the he wrote some of his biggest speeches himself? Man that AA is powerful stuff.
                      How did these losers get in school?

                2. Thanks for your stupid attempt at face saving.

                  As always, cannot figure out if you’re animated by stupidity or fraud.

                  1. Apparently my (Allan) comment was “awaiting moderation” so I will repeat it under anonymous. I think it was because I inadvertantly left one of the addresses on twice.

                    Our affirmative action President or not. No law review paper written, apparently unheard of at Harvard. The fifth spot at law review went to an affirmative action candidate rather than academic, in other words to a minority. How many did Harvard have?

                    Affirmative action in action: How Barack Obama became President of the Harvard Law Review

                    We’re always told by our liberal friends that Barack Obama is brilliant and as as proof of that brilliance they pull out the fact that he was president of the Harvard Law Review.

                    Uh-oh. Now a new article calls that evidence into question.

                    Barack Obama became President o the Harvard Law Review thanks to affirmative action. He became an effeminate male model all on his own.
                    Before our liberal readers start saying, “Yeah, where’d you get that? Fox News?” we should point out that it comes from the Harvard Crimson. And we assume we can trust the liberal Harvard Crimson to report accurately on the liberal Harvard Law School.

                    Here’s how the Crimson describes the circumstances that may have lead to Barack Obama’s rise to prominence:

                    In 1981, all 80-some editors except one were white, and it would be another decade before the Review elected its first black president, Sen. Barack H. Obama, (D-Ill.) Fewer than a dozen of the editors on the Review were women, although Susan R. Estrich, the law professor and Democratic political operative, served as the Review’s president in 1977.

                    It was then that the saga of the Law Review’s affirmative action program began, when the editors adopted a race- and gender-conscious policy by a 45 to 39 vote, to the vehement opposition of some faculty members.

                    Several months of intense debate and negotiations ensued between the Review and the faculty, at the end of which the Review began for the first time considering factors other than merit in choosing its members.

                    Young Barack Obama seems to have majored in posing for photos
                    Prior to 1981, law students could join the Review either by being among the top five students in their first-year sections—each class used to be divided into four sections—or through a combination of their grades and their scores on an annual writing competition, a process designed to preserve absolute objectivity.

                    But the 1981 editors felt it necessary for their admission policy to take into account the underrepresentation of minorities and women.

                    Under their modified plan, the top four students in each first-year section would still be elected to the Review, but the fifth spot would be reserved for the top-scoring minority student among the top 25, and if no such minority student existed, the fifth spot would go to the woman with the highest grades.

                    Two days after the adoption of this policy, three editors—including one woman—resigned in protest.

                    In response, the Review’s leadership convened to reconsider their plan, opting for a non-quota system that would merely take race and gender into consideration. But despite the modification, the Review continued to encounter opposition from students, alumni, and most importantly, from the faculty.

                    The first Affirmative Action President. We’ll leave it up to you to figure out if we’re talking about the Harvard Law Review or the United States of America.

                    Read the whole article at the link immediately below.

                    https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/6/5/law-review-debates-affirmative-action-policy/

                    From:
                    https://www.ihatethemedia.com/affirmative-action-how-barack-obama-became-harvard-law-review-president

            3. Our affirmative action President or not. No law review paper written, apparently unheard of at Harvard. The fifth spot at law review went to an affirmative action candidate rather than academic, in other words to a minority. How many did Harvard have?

              https://www.ihatethemedia.com/affirmative-action-how-barack-obama-became-harvard-law-review-president

              Affirmative action in action: How Barack Obama became President of the Harvard Law Review

              We’re always told by our liberal friends that Barack Obama is brilliant and as as proof of that brilliance they pull out the fact that he was president of the Harvard Law Review.

              Uh-oh. Now a new article calls that evidence into question.

              Barack Obama became President o the Harvard Law Review thanks to affirmative action. He became an effeminate male model all on his own.
              Before our liberal readers start saying, “Yeah, where’d you get that? Fox News?” we should point out that it comes from the Harvard Crimson. And we assume we can trust the liberal Harvard Crimson to report accurately on the liberal Harvard Law School.

              Here’s how the Crimson describes the circumstances that may have lead to Barack Obama’s rise to prominence:

              In 1981, all 80-some editors except one were white, and it would be another decade before the Review elected its first black president, Sen. Barack H. Obama, (D-Ill.) Fewer than a dozen of the editors on the Review were women, although Susan R. Estrich, the law professor and Democratic political operative, served as the Review’s president in 1977.

              It was then that the saga of the Law Review’s affirmative action program began, when the editors adopted a race- and gender-conscious policy by a 45 to 39 vote, to the vehement opposition of some faculty members.

              Several months of intense debate and negotiations ensued between the Review and the faculty, at the end of which the Review began for the first time considering factors other than merit in choosing its members.

              Young Barack Obama seems to have majored in posing for photos
              Prior to 1981, law students could join the Review either by being among the top five students in their first-year sections—each class used to be divided into four sections—or through a combination of their grades and their scores on an annual writing competition, a process designed to preserve absolute objectivity.

              But the 1981 editors felt it necessary for their admission policy to take into account the underrepresentation of minorities and women.

              Under their modified plan, the top four students in each first-year section would still be elected to the Review, but the fifth spot would be reserved for the top-scoring minority student among the top 25, and if no such minority student existed, the fifth spot would go to the woman with the highest grades.

              Two days after the adoption of this policy, three editors—including one woman—resigned in protest.

              In response, the Review’s leadership convened to reconsider their plan, opting for a non-quota system that would merely take race and gender into consideration. But despite the modification, the Review continued to encounter opposition from students, alumni, and most importantly, from the faculty.

              The first Affirmative Action President. We’ll leave it up to you to figure out if we’re talking about the Harvard Law Review or the United States of America.

              Read the whole article at the link immediately below.

              https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/6/5/law-review-debates-affirmative-action-policy/

              From:
              ihatethemedia.com/affirmative-action-how-barack-obama-became-harvard-law-review-president

        2. The comment above was written by someone who wishes she looked half as feminine as Bradley and a clit as monstrous as Chelsea

        3. these kinds of accolades ONLY GO TO BANAL PEOPLE IN THE FIRST PLACE

          but if you didn’t go to law school you might not get that.

    2. RSA says: April 16, 2019 at 8:51 AM

      “What happens if Chelsea Manning steps forward and says that Assange played no active role in the hacking?”

      Chelsea Manning has been in jail for a little over a month already for refusing to answer a subpoena to testify to the grand jury investigating Assange in the Eastern District of Virginia. Chances are Chelsea won’t testify against Assange. But the DOJ might be more interested in the Vault 7 and Vault 8 leaks than anything that happened in 2010.

  16. The long and the short of it is that the government is energetically dedicated to killing the messenger. By doing so they can distract from the message. Further, the American public is so stupid that the process is working beautifully.

    1. The American public may be declining in intelligence due to dysgenic fertility, but they still understand that government overall is highly corrupt, self-serving, and incompetent.

        1. Presumably “dysgenic fertility” is “eugenicist code” for the differential reproductive success of individuals whose genes are supposedly harmful to the gene pool of some breeding population. For instance, were intelligence a heritable trait, were intelligence beneficial to the gene pool of some breeding population, and were intelligence observed to be declining in that breeding population, then supposedly the less intelligent individuals would be having more reproductive success than the more intelligent individuals in that population.

          So the question arises whether or not the less intelligent individuals actually are reproducing more offspring on average than the more intelligent individuals. Unless and until Sam and his or her fellow eugenicists actually measure both differential intelligence and differential reproductive success, then Sam and his or her fellow eugenicists are blowing it out their backsides in a most unintelligent way.

          P. S. Look up the term “ecological fallacy.”

        2. An ecological fallacy (or ecological inference fallacy) is a formal fallacy in the interpretation of statistical data that occurs when inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inferences about the group to which those individuals belong. Ecological fallacy sometimes refers to the fallacy of division, which is not a statistical issue. The four common statistical ecological fallacies are: confusion between ecological correlations and individual correlations, confusion between group average and total average, Simpson’s paradox, and confusion between higher average and higher likelihood.

  17. Turley wrote, “It’s likely there will be a superseding indictment once Assange is successfully extradited to the United States.”

    No. That’s wrong. Once Assange is extradited, The Rule of Specialty in the 2003 extradition treaty between the U. S. and the U. K. prohibits Assange from being tried for any additional offenses committed before Assange was extradited. There’s an exception for the receiving state (the U. S.) to waive The Rule of Specialty. But that, too, must be done before Assange is extradited. And the U. K. might not grant extradition under that waiver.

    There’s another exception for Assange to waive his right to an extradition hearing in the U. K. But that would only happen if Sweden brings charges Assange. Assange has vowed to fight extradition to the U. S. And that may force the DOJ to bring new charges against Assange before the extradition hearing.

    The most likely new charges against Assange involve the Vault 7 and Vault 8 leaks. But there’s no way to know whether the DOJ is ready to bring those charges. Likewise, there’s no way to know whether DOJ is ready to bring any charges for a conspiracy between Assange and Roger Stone et al. Nevertheless, the DOJ has to file whatever additional charges they intend to bring against Assange before Assange is extradited. Or else the U. K. would have to approve of the U. S. waiver of the Rule of Specialty.

    1. There were two reports from The Guardian that may explain the disposition of the U. K. toward the extradition of Assange:

      [1st report]

      Ecuador last Dec. 19 approved a “special designation in favor of Mr. Julian Assange so that he can carry out functions at the Ecuadorean Embassy in Russia,” according to the letter written to opposition legislator Paola Vintimilla.

      “Special designation” refers to the Ecuadorean president’s right to name political allies to a fixed number of diplomatic posts even if they are not career diplomats.

      But Britain’s Foreign Office in a Dec. 21 note said it did not accept Assange as a diplomat and that it did not “consider that Mr. Assange enjoys any type of privileges and immunities under the Vienna Convention,” reads the letter, citing a British diplomatic note.

      [2nd report]

      Russian diplomats held secret talks in London last year with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, the Guardian has learned.

      A tentative plan was devised that would have seen the WikiLeaks founder smuggled out of Ecuador’s London embassy in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to another country.

      One ultimate destination, multiple sources have said, was Russia, where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US. The plan was abandoned after it was deemed too risky.

      The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017, one source claimed, and was linked to an unsuccessful attempt by Ecuador to give Assange formal diplomatic status.

      [end excerpt]

      If the U. K. believes that Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London primarily to evade extradition to the U. S. rather than to avoid arrest on the Swedish warrant, then the U. K. might be willing to approve of a U. S. waiver of the Rule of Specialty. In that case, new charges could be added against Assange after he is extradited to the U. S. However, Assange had been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy for many years before the U. S. filed its extradition request on December 22nd, 2017. And the Obama administration never brought charges against Assange for fear of the chilling effect on press freedom. So it must have been some far more recent event that changed the position of the Trump Justice Department on the subject of charging and extraditing Assange.

      1. Shame you had no sources other than the extreme left wing. That’s like admitting your both stupid and untrustworthy.

        1. Uff Da! You have no sources besides your own psychosis. So there. Flaming Ass-[w]hole.

  18. The DC establishment’s constant resort to criminal prosecutions for vindication is very disturbing, but it’s been going on a long time. Alger Hiss? He was a commie, but the whole episode was pretty ugly, and part of its fruit was the Nixon presidency.

    1. He ran a Soviet spy ring. He belonged in prison.

      The case put Nixon on the map, but given that 19 years elapsed between Hiss’ trial and conviction and Nixon’s election, not seeing how one event determines the other.

      1. Well, it not only put Nixon on the map, it got him on the 1952 Republican ticket (over Eisenhower’s misgivings) for VP because the party needed to shore up its conservative base and RMN was wunderkind for getting Hiss. The rest, of course, is history.

        1. He was a Soviet spy. So what if it helped Nixon. Nixon wasn’t a spy. But thanks for the history lesson nonetheless.

          2. This is quite a digression. My very modest point was that criminal prosecutions with heavy political components have been prevalent in DC for a long time, that’s all.

            I agree Hiss was a spy, no doubt. Although he was ultimately imprisoned for perjury, not spying. And you’re welcome for the history lesson! The Alger Hiss saga is a very important episode from the 20th century. Not enough people know about it.

            1. Neither the history lesson nor the digression are anywhere near quite complete. Consider this:

              Whittaker Chambers, born Jay Vivian Chambers (April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961), was an American writer-editor and former Communist spy who in 1948 testified about Communist espionage, thereafter earning respect from the American Conservative movement. After early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), he defected from the Soviet underground (1938) and joined Time magazine (1939–1948). Under subpoena in 1948, he testified about the Ware group in what became the Hiss case for perjury (1949–1950), all described in his 1952 memoir Witness. Afterwards, he worked briefly as a senior editor at National Review (1957–1959). President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1984.

        2. To the extent Nixon had fixed policy preferences, he was inclined toward the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party.

          Over the period running from 1804 to 1956, only one sitting or quondam vice president was ever elected to the office de novo. (And prior to 1890, VPs who succeeded to the office were not nominated to continue at the subsequent election). Eisenhower would have had every reason to believe that he’d handed Nixon a dead-end job so long as he, Eisenhower, was in satisfactory health.

          1. True of course that Nixon was ultimately a centrist. Among other things 🙂

            Nevertheless, in 1952 he was the darling of the Republican right because he’d gotten Hiss. And the Republican right was not all that happy about Ike, so Nixon was the bone the party leaders threw them.

            1. I don’t think Robert Taft’s constituency had any special affinity for Nixon.

  19. The DC establishment should be careful of what they ask for. When bombs like Assange go off, they don’t discriminate in their destruction. Time to get it all out in the light of day.

    1. Assange might not go along with getting it all out in the light of day unless he gets a great deal of transactional immunity. However, depending upon how well informed Assange might be, he might have a few opportunities for practicing graymail against the United States. If so, then either the charges get dropped or the trial goes into a CIPA SCIF of the type they have in EDVA.

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