Trump's Flip-Flops on WikiLeaks

First he wanted Julian Assange to be executed. Then during his presidential campaign, after WikiLeaks published emails from the Democratic National Committee showing how the DNC rigged the primaries for Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders (all the while pretending to be neutral), and the text of the revealing secret  speech Clinton gave to a Goldman Sachs conference in which she told them in effect Ignore what I tell the dumb rube voters, I'm really on your side. And high finance knows best how to be regulated, Trump publicly proclaimed "WikiLeaks! I love Wikileaks!" 141 times. [1]

Now that the U.S. has bribed the weak and corrupt Ecuadorean president Lenin "The Treacherous Weasel" Moreno to hand Assange over to the British for extradition to the U.S., Trump feigns ignorance of WikiLeaks.  "II  know nothing," he says, as if channeling Sergeant Hans Schultz from the old TV comedy Hogan's Heroes. [2]

Trump's fans are the same kind of cretins who enjoy Wrestlemania, a crude and vulgar theater of the absurd which Trump played himself in. His presidency is a Wrestlemania presidency, a regime of the most outlandish, outrageous  behavior. As in Wrestlemania, rules exist only to be violated in the most brazen and blatant ways.

Unfortunately politics and power is real life, not fantasy, and the Trump regime has been incredibly destructive and meted out misery to many. His loyal followers indeed are "deplorable," in fact they are despicable. They are fully morally responsible for his actions. His nature and plans were plain to see during a lengthy presidential campaign, during which he constantly directed racist vituperations at Hispanics, contradicted himself repeatedly, and told obvious, even ridiculous lies nonstop. Leftists should stop making excuses for those who voted for him. Contrary to their analysis, they had a progressive alternative if progressive policies were there goal- the Green Party. Which only got 2% of the popular vote. That truly is deplorable.

"No matter what I do or say, I always come up smelling like roses."

1] 141 times according to NPR correspondent Mara Liasson on the Brian Lehrer radio show, April 15, 2019.

2] Trump feigns ignorance of WikiLeaks. [video]

U.S. Media Propagandists Rush to Take Advantage of Murder of 5 Newspaper Staffers in Annapolis, MD

In a naked pitch for public sympathy, major "news" media all over the U.S. have made the murder of five employees at an obscure local newspaper the top national story of the day for several days running.

A vicious jackass, angry over accurate reporting of his conviction for stalking a women, attacked the offices of the Capital Gazette paper in Annapolis, Maryland, and shot to death five workers and wounded six others.

U.S. establishment media of all stripes immediately went into "national grief" mode.

Let's put this in perspective.

Every day, people are murdered in the U.S. Thousands are murdered every year.

They are auto mechanics, secretaries, cashiers, air conditioner repairmen, trash collectors, accountants, construction workers, computer technicians, taxi drivers, dietitians, librarians, cooks, bank tellers... do you see where I'm going with this?

What's so special about the particular occupation, "newspaper employee"?

The establishment media feels itself under heavy assault in the Age of Trump, and feels the need to generate public sympathy for itself. Hence the saturation coverage.

The two New York City tabloid rags made it their front page story- as if it had happened in their offices.

The government-established radio propaganda network NPR (National Public Radio) waxed hysterical, with this verbiage: "the deadly shooting an attack on free speech," and it's "courageous" of the reporters at the Capital Gazette to cover the story of their colleagues deaths.

Huh? Why wouldn't they cover it? And given that the killer was immediately arrested at the scene, and denied bail, what's so damn "courageous" about reporting it? Weird assertion.

Meanwhile, the U.S. media barely makes a peep about the ongoing slaughter of journalists in Mexico, for example. Or the persecution of journalists in Turkey, who are regularly jailed on bogus "terrorism" and "coup conspiracy" charges by the autocrat who rules there, Erdogan. There are innumerable other examples of U.S. "journalists" indifference to the murder and oppression of journalists.

How about all the times the U.S. bombed the offices of Al-Jazeera? Nary a word in U.S. establishment media.

WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are demonized by U.S. media and subjected to a relentless campaign by the U.S. government aimed at their destruction. WikiLeaks makes information available to the public. That is journalism!

Hey, here's another one. The U.S. government murdered U.S. journalist Michael Hastings. The attitude of the U.S. media towards that one was "good riddance."

So I find this cynical opportunism by U.S. establishment propagandists to generate sympathy for themselves disgusting. They spent 365 days cheerleading for corporate oligarchic capitalism and aiding and abetting the crimes of the U.S. state, domestic and foreign, with their lies and coverups.

They are accomplices to the murders of millions of people killed as a result of U.S. aggression and U.S. coups that install and support fascist death squad regimes. They want me to feel sorry for them because five people employed by some newspaper no one outside of Annapolis has ever heard of got killed?

Please.

Julian Assange Dodges a Bullet in Ecuadorean Presidential Election

They just concluded a presidential election in Ecuador. Julian Assange was granted political asylum by the outgoing president, but the British, being loyal stooges of the U.S., refused to allow him safe passage to Ecuador, so he's been trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for years, surrounded by British police and secret police outside, like a treed animal.

The British want to extradict him to Sweden, not to face charges- contrary to false media reporting, no charges have ever been filed against him- but to be interrogated a second time concerning sexual (mis)behavior. (Failure to use a condom during intercourse.) The Swedes have adamantly refused to question him in Britain. In Sweden he will be automatically locked up in jail during this process. (And you thought Sweden was liberal! Sweden helped the CIA kidnap two Egyptians from Sweden to send them to Egypt for torturing.)

The current vice president, Lenin Moreno, won the election, luckily for Assange, because the rightwing candidate, a rich reactionary banker dog named Guillermo Lasso, vowed to throw Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London into the eager clutches of the British police, from when he would be shipped straight to a Swedish jail cell. 9As I said, NOT because he'd been convicted of a crime, NOT EVEN because he was so much as CHARGED with a crime, but for "investigation." Investigation of not using a condom.)

Banker Lasso, having lost 51-49%, is crying fraud. The BBC says he "is disputing the results and alleging fraud." Unlike what they kept saying about Trump's accusation that Obama wiretapped him, the  BBC DIDN'T say "without evidence," about Lasso's baseless sour grapes/sore loser charge.

Typically, the reactionary attacks the legitimacy of the result. As far as reactionaries are concerned, ONLY THEY have a right to rule. Guillermo accused his predecessor of trying to install an illegitimate government. "Illegitimate" means following policies that reactionaries don't like.

Lasso has called his mobs into the streets to protest the "fraud." Needless to say, if they get violent and have to be suppressed, the U.S. will denounce the "brutal repression" of the government. It will cloak rightwing violence inthe fine verbal garb of free speech, freedom of assembly, human rights, blah blah blah. Same shit it pulled in Ukraine, where fascist mobs were setting policemen on fire and trying to storm government buildings, and Obama demanded that the security forces be ordered to retreat!

Meanwhile, the U.S. blinds and maims Dakota Access pipeline protesters in North Dakota.

The cynicism of U.S. elites is truly vile.

American Propagandist: The Unbearable Sanctimony of Barack Hussein Obama

And hypocrisy, too.

On December 29, 2016, Obama delivered a verbal tongue-lashing to Russia over what the U.S. government and media claim is proven fact- that Russia "stole" emails from Democratic Party apparatchiks and funneled them to WikiLeaks. (This in turn prompted an establishment conspiracy theory claiming that WikiLeaks and its leader Julian Assange are Russian agents, conveniently ignoring the fact that WikiLeaks is set up for receiving anonymous uploads of data. But then, these are the same people who claim Edward Snowden is a "traitor" and "Russian agent" who "fled to Russia," ignoring the fact that they trapped Snowden in Moscow's airport, where he sat for six weeks, by canceling his passport while he was in transit to Latin America. Dishonestly ignoring facts in order to promulgate lies- euphemistically called "false narratives," is habitual behavior with most of the U.S. political/media elite.)

Obama said on the 29th, in announcing his initial punishment of Russia: "“The United States and friends and allies around the world must work together to oppose Russia’s efforts to undermine established international norms of behavior."

Apparently, using computer malware to sabotage Iran's centrifuges, and having your NSA spy on the personal communications of heads of state of allied nations, and engaging in economic espionage against foreign corporations, and spying on the communications of European parliamentarians en masse, and trying to steal every phone call, email, text message, Internet search, fax and everything in the whole world, is within "established international norms of behavior."

But ferreting out emails from one of the two U.S. political cartel parties, and sharing it with the world, (something that U.S. officials also do anonymously, in "leaks," actually plants, in the media), THAT is outside "established international norms of behavior."

The "norms" that the U.S. dictates, which boil down to: The U.S. Can Do Whatever It Wants, And The Rest Of You Have To Do What The U.S. Says.

Gall, nerve, chutzpah, brass- call it that. Imperialist arrogance is more to the point, however.

The only question about Obama is- to what degree is he self-brainwashed with his own guff, which makes him a hypocrite, versus his awareness of how cynical he's being. Where does Obama fall onthe hypocrisy-cynicism spectrum? Ultimately it's a minor question.

If Russia indeed revealed that useful information about the inner machinations of the venal Democratic Party and its sleazy con artists, and Hillary Clinton's "secret" speech to Goldman Sachs, more power to them. We the people who inhabit this planet, are entitled to that information. Our rulers are NOT entitled to deceive us, as they endeavor to do every single day. A side effect of the conflict between rival national regimes with an insatiable hunger for power is that occasionally things are revealed as they battle each other for tactical and strategic advantage. That's all to the good. Don't look a gifthorse in the mouth just because it's Russian.

Long Live WikiLeaks and freedom of information.

Obama tries to intimidate Putin in Stare-Down. Hangzhou, China, September 2016.