Skip to main content

Trump charges Assange, escalates war on free speech

Earlier this month the Department of Justice charged Daniel Everette Hale with the crime of exposing the atrocities committed by Barak Obama and his murderous crew. Hale allegedly leaked Secret and Top Secret documents regarding Obama's use of drones to assassinate people to Jeremy Scahill, a reporter for The Intercept. 

 "From his first days as commander in chief, the drone has been President Barack Obama’s weapon of choice, used by the military and the CIA to hunt down and kill the people his administration has deemed — through secretive processes, without indictment or trial — worthy of execution. There has been intense focus on the technology of remote killing, but that often serves as a surrogate for what should be a broader examination of the state’s power over life and death," wrote Scahill. 

 You can read Scahill's 2014 reporting on Obama's  assassination program here https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/

 The premise of Scahill and his source was that this is the United States of America. We have a right to know what is being done in our name and with our tax dollars.

 That, of course was the premise of Edward Snowden, Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning, Daniel Ellsberg, and the other brave and idealistic young people who believed Americans had a right to know about the dark secrets in America's closet.
Julian Assange - thanks to Wikipedia
In addition to their courage these young people had something else in common. They were all news sources. They provided information to reporters for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Intercept and other news outlets. They didn't write or publish the story. By charging them with crimes against the state the government drew the line. They went after the sources but they didn't go after the publications or the reporters. In the rare instance that they did go after the publisher, they lost.

 With charging Julian Assange, of Wikileaks, with violations of that draconian Espionage Act, the Trump escalates its war on free speech and the media. Trump is now going after the publishers.

 If you've listened to National Public Radio dither about whether Wikileaks is a news source or not you may be confused. Let's be clear: Wikileaks is a news publisher the same as, for example, Buzz Feed News or BBC. I've used Wikileaks for news -- the same as I've used Vox or the Intercept for news. With Wikileaks charged other news sources, whether they be the Boston Globe or The Long Prairie Leader are at risk.

 I encourage you to listen to Jeremy Scahill make that very clear in this video https://theintercept.com/2019/05/21/why-you-should-care-about-donald-trumps-war-on-whistleblowers/

Nothing less then the Constitution is at stake.

Tim
Central Minnesota Political


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Senator Gazelka: Prepare for End Times

Review by John King “Marketplace Ministers are part of how the Lord will reach the peoples of the earth in these last days.” Author Paul Gazelka wrote this astonishing sentence near the conclusion of his 2003 book, Marketplace Ministers , but it is a good place to start here because it so neatly encapsulates the message of the book which is that business people, by spreading the Gospel, are in a unique position to prepare us, for the end of the world.   Gazelka, an insurance salesman in Baxter, Minnesota, devotes chapters one through four to the story of his religious calling and how he came to adopt the “marketplace” as his personal ministry.  He goes to some length, relying in part on the “Fivefold Path” from Ephesians to convince the reader that the marketplace is a legitimate pulpit to spread the Word.  The remainder of the book, using personal anecdotes and biblical passages, he explains how a marketplace ministry would function and what its usefulness w...
3 comments
Read more

70 years of regenerative and organic research

This was published in The Land earlier this year. - Tim By Tim King The Land Correspondent Kutztown, PA, Rodale Institute, which is headquartered on its seventy year old 333 acre research and education farm near here, has opened its Organic Crop Consulting Services based at its Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Center near Marion Iowa. The Land talked to Dr. Andrew Smith, Rodale’s Chief Scientist and Chief Operating Officer, about Rodale’s expanded services in Iowa and about organic and regenerative agriculture in general. Smith is a former organic farmer and Peace Corps volunteer. The Land: Can you tell me about the Rodale Institute? Smith: We are a nonprofit research and education institution, in operation since 1947, headquartered on our farm near Kutztown Pennsylvania. We also operate six other sites in Pennsylvania, Iowa, Georgia, and California. Rodale Institute aims to grow the regenerative organic movement through research, farmer training, and consumer education. On our si...
Post a Comment
Read more

Let us all walk in the foot steps of John Lewis

By John King In Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis, standing in the lead of a long line of marchers, looked down from the crest of The Edmund Pettus Bridge at the line of police armed with clubs, whips and truncheons and said, “I am going to die here.” Lewis intended to lead the marchers from Selma to the capital Montgomery, to demand access to voting for Black people in Alabama. Sheriff Jim Clark lowered his gas mask and led the deputies, some on horseback and some on foot, into the line of marchers. Under swinging clubs and hooves trampling, Lewis was the first to go down. Women and children were not spared. Choking and blinded by tear gas, they were struck by clubs and truncheons wrapped with barbed wire. Lewis, with a fractured skull and a severe concussion, almost did die. The nearby Good Samaritan Hospital did not have enough beds to care for the injured marchers. A nation watched in horror as news footage of that bloody day appeared on T...
2 comments
Read more