Friday Reads
Posted: December 10, 2010 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Barack Obama, Julian Assange, taxes, Wikileaks 62 Comments
Good Morning!!
Our arrogant president is very full of himself after making his “grand deal” with the Republicans and completely cutting out the Congressional Democrats. He told NPR today that he’s not afraid of any rebellion by Democrats.
A snippet from Steve’s [Steve Inskeep] interview with the president, the full version of which will be heard on Friday’s Morning Edition.
“STEVE: Can you accept some changes to this plan or is it the kind of deal you cannot change?
“PRESIDENT OBAMA: My sense is there are going to be discussions between both House and Senate leadership about all the final elements of the package. Keep in mind we didn’t actually write a bill. We put forward a framework. I’m confident that the framework is going to look like the one we put forward…
“Here’s what I’m confident about, that nobody — Democrat or Republican — wants to see people’s paychecks smaller on Jan. 1 because Congress didn’t act.”
Not only that, Obama is so confident now that he plans to initiate a complete overhaul of the U.S. tax system, presumably with the help and support of Congressional Republicans.
President Obama is considering whether to push early next year for an overhaul of the income tax code to lower rates and raise revenues in what would be his first major effort to begin addressing the long-term growth of the national debt.
Mr. Obama has directed his economic team and Treasury Department analysts to review options for closing loopholes and simplifying income taxes for corporations and individuals, though the study of the corporate tax system is farther along, officials said.
The objective is to rid the code of its complex buildup of deductions, credits and exemptions, thereby broadening the base of taxes collected and allowing for lower rates — much like a bipartisan majority on Mr. Obama’s fiscal commission recommended last week in its final blueprint for reducing the debt through 2020.
Flat tax, here we come?
Besides preventing the DADT repeal from coming to the Senate floor, Republicans managed to block a bill that would have aided rescue workers who responded to the public needs after the 9/11 attacks and then became ill from breathing “toxic fumes, dust, and smoke.”
The 9/11 health bill, a version of which was approved by the House of Representatives in September, was among several initiatives that Senate Democrats had hoped to approve before the close of the 111th Congress. Supporters believe this was their last real opportunity to have the bill passed.
The action by the Senate created huge uncertainty over the bill’s future. Its proponents were working on Thursday to salvage the legislation, with one possibility being to have it inserted into a large tax-cut bill that Republicans and Democrats are trying to pass before Congress ends its current session.
Such a move seemed unlikely, since it might complicate passage of the tax package, which includes a provision that President Obama sought in return for backing the continuation of tax cuts for all income levels that Republicans wanted: an extension of unemployment benefits.
There is lots of Wikileaks news. The New York Times has an article about hackers who are defending the site after the arrest of editor Julian Assange:
They got their start years ago as cyberpranksters, an online community of tech-savvy kids more interested in making mischief than political statements.
But the coordinated attacks on major corporate and government Web sites in defense of WikiLeaks, which began on Wednesday and continued on Thursday, suggested that the loosely organized group called Anonymous might have come of age, evolving into one focused on more serious matters: in this case, their definition of Internet freedom.
While the attacks on such behemoths as MasterCard, Visa and PayPal were not nearly as sophisticated as some less publicized assaults, they were a step forward in the group’s larger battle against what it sees as increasing control of the Internet by corporations and governments. This week they found a cause and an icon: Julian Assange, the former hacker who founded WikiLeaks and is now in a London jail at the request of the Swedish authorities investigating him on accusations of rape.
“This is kind of the shot heard round the world — this is Lexington,” said John Perry Barlow, a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties organization that advocates for a freer Internet.
The Atlantic reports that the group may target the U.S. Senate next.
According to a poll set up by the ad-hoc group, Operation Payback, the Senate could be their next target. It leads voting ahead of Re-attacking Mastercard, Re-attacking Visa, Sarah Palin’s website, and Authorize.net. Out of a total of 1179 votes cast (as of 5:22 pm), 445 of them went to attacking the Senate website.
Operation Payback formed in response to companies like PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard cutting off WikiLeaks from their services. It is composed of members associated through the loose network of people known as Anonymous, which specializes in denial-of-service attacks, among other general mischief.
The Atlantic also links to this story at The Economist: The 24-hour Athenian democracy
I am talking to members of a group called “Anonymous”, using a web-based collaborative text-editing service. It is the first such interview for all of us, and their answers begin to collide on the page. One member comes from Norway; another shows surprise, then offers that she is from New Zealand. Another writes that group members come from Nepal and Eastern Russia. They all speak through pseudonyms, but I don’t even know which psuedonym comes from what country because shortly after I read these answers, someone who calls himself “Tux” erases them all and writes
We are Everywhere. We are everyone. We are Anonymous.
Members of Anonymous, whoever they are, have in the last week taken offline websites run by Postfinance, a Swiss bank that closed the account of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks; PayPal, an online payments processor that halted donations to WikiLeaks; and the Swedish prosecutor who has brought a case against Mr Assange. As I followed some “anons” over internet relay chat (IRC) on Tuesday, they voted among themselves not to attack the “UK metro police”. I’m not sure which website they were referring to. After I left the chat, they turned their attention to lieberman.senate.gov, the website of the American senator Joe Lieberman. According to Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher at Panda Security, that site was down, briefly, at 7:11 US Eastern time on Tuesday. Logs from the chat room the group was using indicate that for some time all of senate.gov—the website of every American senator—was either down completely or slow in many parts of the world. What all of these sites have in common is that their owners have in some way impeded the work of WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange.
This is starting to feel like V is for Vendetta or something.
CNN has two very interesting and lengthy articles about Julian Assange and Wikileaks. The first is a profile of Assange: The Secret Life of Julian Assange. Here’s just a short exerpt:
Assange has been described by his mother, Christine, as “highly intelligent.”
He was just 16 when she bought him a Commodore 64 computer. It was 1987, and there were no Web sites. Assange attached a modem to his computer and began his journey through the growing world of computer networks.
“It’s like chess,” he told New Yorker magazine. “Chess is very austere in that you don’t have many rules, there is no randomness and the problem is very hard.”
Though his mother raised him without any religious influence, she sensed that from a tender age, her son was led by a strong desire to do what he perceived as just.
“He was a lovely boy, very sensitive, good with animals, quiet and has a wicked sense of humor,” she told the Melbourne, Australia, Herald Sun newspaper Wednesday.
The other article is about the encoded “insurance file” that Assange has said will be released if anything happens to him: Assange’s “poison pill” impossible to stop, expert says.
“It’s all tech talk to say, ‘I have in my hand a button and if I press it or I order my friends to press it, it will go off,'” said Hemu Nigam, who has worked in computer security for more than two decades, in the government and private sector.
“Julian is saying, ‘I’ve calibrated this so that no matter how many ways you try, you’re never going to be able to deactivate it,'” Nigam said. “He’s sending a call to action to hackers to try it. To the government, he’s also saying, ‘Try me.'”
There’s a reason Assange specifically announced — on the Web — that there is a 256-bit key encryption code that only a few trusted associates know that will unleash the contents of the 1.4 gigabyte-size file.
“He’s saying don’t even bother trying. It will take you so long to succeed that by that time, it will be too late,” Nigam said. “Most of the time, you see a 56-[bit]key encryption. That’s considered secure. When you are using 256, you are sending a message: ‘I’m smart enough to know that you will try to get in.'”
I don’t really want anything to happen to Assange, but I’d sure like to know what is in those files.
Raw Story reports that one of Assange’s accusers has fled to the Middle East and may have stopped cooperating with Swedish police.
According to a report at Australian news site Crikey.com, Anna Ardin has moved to the Palestinian territories to volunteer with a Christian group working to reconcile Arabs and Israelis.
Crikey.com reports:
One source from Ardin’s old university of Uppsala reported rumors that she had stopped co-operating with the prosecution service several weeks ago, and that this was part of the reason for the long delay in proceeding with charges — and what still appears to be an absence of charges.
She is apparently also sympathetic to the Wikileaks cause:
“MasterCard, Visa and PayPal — belt them now!” Ardin urged in a Tweet Wednesday, evidently referring to the cyber-attacks launched on those institutions after they severed their relationships with WikiLeaks.
In a more recent Tweet, she complained of the media reports digging into her background.
Soooo….what are you reading this morning? Have at it! And TGIF!!!
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Could I suggest that while 15% of the population is not workiing, 85% are and they are saving because of the uncertainty of the economy. More over they know the bleeding deficit and debt have to be addressed. States are in trouble. Basic intuition realizes the spending cannot go on and Obama comes in with a program that drastically continues the increasing debt and they know we have a problem. In a way, the US House has always been the canary in the coal mine. Obama was not predisposed to talk to anyone in the House.
I just do not know why Obama does not take the postion that the War must be paid for. People would understand this. With the record of the financial debacle and rosy presidential economic predictions (Bush and Obama), the public no longer trusts the economic projections. Like Bush, when Obama starts talking the TV is turned off because they have no trust. I also think the punditry is not longer seriously listened to.
I think he doesn’t discuss paying for the war because wars are magical, they pay for themselves! They are never discussed as part of the budget except by war protesters, it seems.
Wahahh! I’m one of the first to comment, instead of the last, because I’m up very late. Unusual positioning for me.
I’m finding the Assange stuff fascinating. I know so many people like him, like the Anonymous group that are bringing down the sites (temporarily, but at least they are annoying like gadflies). I happen to believe most of the same things they do, e.g. information wants to be free. I have supported EFF and actually have a bunch of geek icons arrayed around my computer desk. I even have a Tux blanket on my bed.
Most of these guys (and girls, there are some girls involved) are very principled, sometimes even rigidly so. They delight in the game, and see coding and hacking challenges as a game. They are very smart, but not very socially adept. They fixate easily. They dream pretty big, and often fail. They are mocked as overweight computer nerds living in their mom’s basement, but a lot of times they are actually pretty successful, however money doesn’t matter as much as the game. They work very hard at their jobs and take great pride in what they produce, but they will turn around and give all their coding away in an instant under the GPL license just so long as no-one else profits monetarily from it. They argue about coding arcana constantly.
Heh, I miss them.
I for one agree with what they are doing and hope they keep doing it. We need a free internet that is open to all and we need to stop the government from keeping all of its operations secret from the people they supposedly work for.
Anonymous or someone with them via a wikilink posted this video with their message yesterday. The message is about Free Speech, and censorship. I first heard about the group when they were defending the posting of material of a religious group and they did a video in the UK. My understanding then, was that they were a world wide group and that they were working on modes of world wide Freedom of Information without restrictions and busy defending the WikiLeaks release of the Scientology documents. When they org threatened Assange, his response was to post all of them, with a statement about censorship.
Anonymous
Operation Payback – Anonymous Message About ACTA Laws, Internet Censorship and Copyright
Operation Payback – Anonymous Message About ACTA Laws, Internet Censorship and Copyright
I wanted to put this link up because I found it quite interesting.
Larry Beinhart at HuffPo on Recessions, Depressions and Tax Policy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/weird-tax-myths-2-recessi_b_794592.html
He pretty much blows the idea that tax cuts help the economy out of the water, show that they create bubbles and then crashes. Another point he made just in passing struck me, if people are taxed more they tend to put their money into concrete things, like new factories and so on, to keep it from being taxed. I don’t know if that’s true overall, but it makes sense to me.
Its this kind of evidence that the decisions those at the top are making should be looking at when they factor in how they will vote. Rather, they look at what is politically suitable to thier cause.
Asshats.
Hillary 2012
That is true. Rich people who are taxed at high levels also give more money away in order to get deductions. IMHO all of the tax cuts should be restored to the Clinton levels. Obama used middle class tax cuts to divide and conquer for the rich.
I mentioned Project Lioness downthread. It’s pretty cool.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/7354794_female_engagment_teams_winning_hearts_and_minds_in_afghanistan
I’ve been reading everything I can by way of explanation of tax deal(and how it screws low income workers).
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/12/tax_fix.html
I also read about the $250 credit that went down for the elderly in addition to the 9/11 workers. Oh and I’m waiting with bated breath to hear how Obama is going to reform the tax code…. not.
Yep, the elderly, government workers, the poor, and the long-term unemployed are being hurt in order to pay for more tax cuts for the uber rich.
In the UK, “Congress” just voted for triple tuition increases, which means up to 9000 pounds/yr (which is about $14,500/yr in US dollars. So I guess we’re not the only country that is working at killing the middle class.
And of course, the US media is only focused on the fact that the Royal’s limo was “attacked” by the protesters. POOR Charles and Camilla! I’m sure they returned to their luxurious digs and ordered a massage and a bartender and maybe their personal mental therapist. If only the rest of us had THEIR problems. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/10/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main7136927.shtml
The people going after the royals is somewhat misplaced.They don’t have any policy authority and are more or less just figureheads. Their ire SHOULD be focused on 10 Downing Street.
In local news, the Big Dawg is headed to the White House today. I thought the era of Clinton was over. His time in office was so bad that the great senator from Missouri would even speak his name.
Asshats.
Hillary 2012
http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/12/09/president-clinton-meet-president-obama-friday
Yes, but my point is that the real story is that British students are getting royally screwed, but the focus is on “attacking the Royals”.
Personally if I were a British citizen, watching my or my child’s tuition triple while the royals are out partying, I’d be royally p*ssed too.
I’m with you. These people are a bunch of “do nothings” that survive on the taxes of the British people and expect others to walk backward in their presence owing to their “royal births”. Give me a break!
Caught up in planning a lavish wedding come April where all stops are pulled in the face of a faltering economy, the average Brit must resent these “royals” who live in luxury while they are expected to cut corners and make sacrifices while this crowd faces “exhaustion” from turning up and cutting a ribbon every now and then.
I’m angry as well in watching congressional legislation that supposedly is designed to serve the common good be put on hold until Donald Trump is awarded another tax break while I cut coupons in order to survive.
I share their anger from across the pond.
I don’t disagree with you. It just seems that their angst is misplaced. The royals really had nothing to do with that crazy ruling by Parliament. Education shouldn’t go up that much at once. Whatever they are trying to raise money for surely could come from other sources. Is that concurrent with their new political philosophy? They did just elect a new party into power….
Rock, they have a high profile…that’s why the Royals… They have little to do about anything…but they are a symbol, for good or ill, of the upper crust ….and certainly the tactic worked…mucho press coverage resulted
Indeed… Glad someone is making a fuss about such things …Media wise we see the same tactic with the Wikileaks story and Julian Assange. They make the story about him…and not what he has revealed…just as with this story . The “news” is the royals …not the kids being saddled with with triple fees…frankly I can see the government tageting C&C as a means to do this …
A Clinton to the rescue. Again!
Unfortunately, Bill supports the “compromise” with tax cuts for the uber rich that increases the deficit by more than the stimulus plan did.
That’s so funny. $14,000 tuition is cheap here. The private university where I got my degree: $38,000. With room and board: $50,000.
BB, your private education has apparently isolated you from what tuition costs in public schools. Public university tuition here is never more than $10,000. At University of Washington, it’s about $8700/yr. In some states it’s even less. At University of Massachusetts it’s $6,900-9,000/yr.
Comparing apples to apples, public school tuition at $14,000/year is extremely high . Lucky you that you could afford private school. Most people can’t, and those that can’t likely can’t afford their tuition tripled to $14,000/yr.
a collage education is for the rich again…another triumph in the quest to return us to pre new deal world….for the rest of us a, fly by night “institute” which promises jobs…but just sticks you with a big loan…
I beg to differ. The UW tuition for some baccalaureate programs (accelerated program in nursing) is as high as $25,000/yr, and master’s & doctoral (PhD, DPT, DNP, but not MD) programs range $14,000 to $22,000/yr. If you have to keep working and thus go to school only part-time, you can pay proportionately even more per credit.
Many degree programs got recently switched to the “Fee-Based” (sic) category because the departments felt they weren’t getting enough money via the state-sponsored funding & tuition rates. And this classification means that those degree programs no longer qualify for any tuition waivers that are available to state employees. Just more shafting of the working class.
Students — and all UK citizens — get covered by national health care. Here we have to pay for it.
They do indeed. I was covered when I was a student in Britain, and although I didn’t know they would at the time, my experiences with the health care there became a defining moment for me. But then, so many of my experiences over there did the same.
15k is a lot for British families and students, who are paying more in taxes precisely for education and health and so on. I’m glad the students are protesting, students at my old school in England occupied the mayor’s office!
I couldn’t afford it. As a graduate student, I got my tuition paid in return for teaching and other work. I also had to take out loans.
My only point was that education in the UK is so much cheaper than here that when the tuition was tripled, it was only $14,000.
Yea, it was, and still is, cheaper. I hate that we have made students slaves to loans. I also hate that TPTB in Britain seem to think the American way is the best way. Load of crap, that is.
BB, your private education has apparently isolated you from what tuition costs in public schools.
I’m not isolated. I attended a state school as an undergraduate. I worked as a Teaching assistant in order to cover my tuition in grad school. I also had to borrow a shocking amount of money that I’ll die before I can pay back.
I couldn’t afford private school, and I can barely afford to eat now. Please don’t call me isolated.
In state tuition at U. Mass. is about $12,000, $20,000 including room and board.
I’m in the same boat and I’ve still got one daughter at LSU and another one looking at whooping loans from going to a public school med school. The youngest wants an MBA too. I can only image what that’s going to run us.
Regarding Wikileaks, the suppression of free speech has really captured my attention. PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa refusing to allow donations, Wikileaks being kicked off the Amazon servers, the loss of Wikileaks.org domain name after EveryDNS refused service, Tableau removing charts (that simply showed classification of cables by origin, etc. – these charts had been created by a third party and were merely linked by Wikileaks) – all under apparent U.S. government pressure.
The latest related item – most people have probably heard of the anonymous hackers performing denial of service attacks against companies that suspended accounts used to donate to Wikileaks (noted by Sima above). Well, the government has now obtained federal court orders forcing various sites/blogs to cease documentation of the online attacks!!! For example, the satirical site Encyclopedia Dramatica was forced to remove the wiki encyclopedia article on this topic! As far as I can see, this constitutes naked censorship. It’s one thing to go after people actually carrying out denial of service attacks. It’s entirely another to try to prohibit online documentation of these events!
That’s another aspect of the story – the government making these unspectacular leaks and Assange himself seem much more important than they really are by its censoring actions.
Of course I wouldn’t want my private correspondence leaked out for everybody to see, whether the content was spectacular/controversial or not, it’s the principle of the thing. But then again I am not a government working for the people and which has some obligation to be transparent.
Wow, I didn’t know about that, and yes, it seems that Free Speech isn’t Free and who knows, maybe Joe Leiberman and his Powers will come sew our mouths shut next to make sure that we don’t talk about it either.
I voted for Joe Leiberman for VP and see he is really a Dick Cheney who disguised himself as a Democrat. I wish I could take my vote back, but I blame Gore, because he must have known WHO Joe Leiberman really is.
affinis at 6:55 am
Very interesting…thanks for your post . Fascinating to see how completely the tentacles wrap around whatever it wishes.
As to wikileaks – it seems that the person of Julian Assange has emerged as much more salient to the story than the contents of the leaks themselves, which so far seem fairly routine in nature.
What a colossal bore.
Nobody says it better than the Irish!
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/irishman-speaks-his-mind
Thanks Pat, I enjoyed that!
Can you believe this?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101210/ap_on_re_us/us_bailout_income
The report says the $700 billion bailout has made us $35 billion dollars. But then is says that Congress estimates that the program will be $25 billion over-budget. SO our $700 billion investment has made us a grand total of $10 billion. How clingy or bitter am I to say that we are being governed by some nincompoops? And that is a slight to nincompoops worldwide…….
Asshats.
Hillary 2012
It was a give away to Millionaires/Wall Street Greedos (Obama’s base).
yup, and straight up…I bet people in DC are complaining about that 10 billion got lose and actually trickled down… heads will roll I tell you! /snark
I was reading about the sexual assault case against Assange (of Wikileaks). I don’t have time to write up a fully coherent comment, but I thought people might find some of the material of interest. Some of the links below are in Swedish, so people might need to run them through Google Translate (or some analogous translation service).
Straight MSM news pieces with relevant info.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updates
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B669H20101207?pageNumber=1
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20025111-503543.html
http://www.nickdavies.net/2010/08/29/assange-and-the-sex-charges-the-missing-facts/
Articles critical of the accusers or supporting Assange.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/assange-rape-accuser-cia-ties/
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/09/rundle-r-pe-case-complainant-has-left-sweden-may-have-ceased-co-operating/
http://www.counterpunch.org/shamir09142010.html
http://nicholasmead.com/2010/08/21/how-to-smear-a-hero/
http://radsoft.net/news/20101001,01.shtml
http://rixstep.com/1/20101202,01.shtml
Pieces defending the accusers and/or questioning Assange’s innocence on the charges.
http://www.anglofille.com/2010/12/07/wikileaks-and-rape/
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2010/12/08/naomi-wolf-to-serve-as-new-spokesmodel-for-ladies-against-feminism/
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/07/julian_assange_rape_accuser_smeared
Comments (in threads) that I found interesting or informative (for one reason or another).
http://nicholasmead.com/2010/08/21/how-to-smear-a-hero/#comment-1585
http://nicholasmead.com/2010/08/21/how-to-smear-a-hero/#comment-1698
http://nicholasmead.com/2010/08/21/how-to-smear-a-hero/#comment-1701
http://blogs.computerworld.com/16803/wikileaks_julian_assange_not_a_rapist_cia_smears#comment-212817
Personally, I’m inclined to think that there may be at least some truth to the accusations. In both cases, it seems that the women continued to hang out with Assange (apparently amicably) after the events in question, and texted or tweeted about being with him (for example – Anna Ardin later hosted a party for Assange and tweeted – “Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”). In certain of the more recent news accounts, it’s said that the two women were concerned about the possibility of HIV or other STD due to unprotected sex and wanted Assange to get tested for STDs – but that they initially couldn’t reach him and when they did reach him and obtain his assent, it was the weekend and clinics were all closed (and they only approached police given the lack of testing for Assange). However, it’s not clear to me how valid this information is.
But some of the info gives me pause. Some news accounts claim that SMS texts between the two accusers show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand (i.e. before approaching the police) in order to maximize the damage to Assange. Also, Ardin had written a piece for her blog titled “7 steps to legal revenge” – basically, advocating duplicity to carry out revenge. [Part of step 3: “Remember that revenge will not only match the deed in size but also in nature. A good revenge is linked to what has been done against you. For example if you want revenge on someone who cheated or who dumped you, so should the punishment be something with the dating / sex / fidelity to do.”] It appears that after approaching police about Assange, she initially attempted to delete parts of her blog (including this entry), but the attempt was unsuccessful in removing the information from the internet, given the presence of internet caches. She ultimately restored the deleted information, but it’s possible she slightly modified it – since I see accounts stating that her “7 steps to legal revenge” entry used to begin with the Swedish equivalent of “a girl fancies a guy that in return does not fancy the girl but fancies another girl behind the first girls back” – this would be consistent with the photo that accompanies the entry, but this language is not present in the current version of the entry.
Ardin also had written a piece for her blog in 2006 in which she discussed the legal ramifications for a hypothetical scenario where a woman withdrew consent in the middle of sex – the entry was specifically about how Swedish law could play out in such a case (this was followed by a lengthy IM comment by two others elaborating details).
http://nicholasmead.com/2010/08/21/how-to-smear-a-hero/#comment-1701
I find some of her entries odd. For example, here she is asserting that there was urine in the Eldorado brand orange juice that she had purchased, and that she’s sure that this urine must have been added by a worker or workers engaged in a trade union protest.
She had also approached the police and sought sexual assault charges against someone previously
https://www.flashback.org/sp25026857
And had filed a sexual harassment complaint at the university where she works – apparently she was giving a lecture on gender equality and a male member of the audience was leafing through notes rather than attending to her lecture.
http://www.svd.se/opinion/ledarsidan/mansgrisigt-att-bladdra-i-papper-pa-universitet_2897797.svd
Click to access beslut.pdf
When she approaching the police in the Assange case, Ardin also attempted to delete the tweets she had sent out around Assange’s visit (they could be viewed as exculpatory), but these tweets were also preserved in alternative locations:
http://www.samtycke.nu/doc/AnnaArdin_cache19aug.htm
So I personally suspect that there may be some merit to the charges (e.g. given my sense of Assange’s ego, the plausibility of at least some elements of the account, etc.), but some of the circumstances are hinkey (including reopening of the case by a second prosecutor) – and I suspect that the case might not have been brought if it was someone else (other than Assange).
You left out her being kicked out of CUBA for working with the group that was connected to the airplane bomber that killed 70 people (as I recall) and how there are now several articles she is connected to the CIA.
She also lists herself as a ‘Latin American’ expert??? Ay Caramba!
Yes – though personally I’m somewhat skeptical that she herself has any direct CIA connection (other than indirectly via involvement with anti-Castro groups).
Also, I realized I forgot to include the link for Ardin’s revenge guide:
Ay Caramba is right….
Bernie Sanders talking right now in the Senate about the coming Social Security cuts that will follow if Obama’s tax cut bill passes.
Please watch if you can.
I’ve got it on now.
He has been wonderful, I have watched since he started. He’s done a hell of a job explaining this mess and what will happen. He was joined briefly by Sherrod Brown (my senator) I just wish others would stand up and help him out . This is what they should have been doing all along.
Obama’s tax cut bill upsets many major donors.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dem-donors-20101210,0,49525.story
Prince Charles appears after attack by College Tuition Student Protesters
and the photo which says a lot, despite what brave faces they now put on, they were fearful as the photo shows.
http://www.news.com.au/pictures/gallery-e6frflv9-1225969067148?page=3
Added a long comment that might be stuck in the spam filter (probably too long and too many hyperlinks). Just thought I’d add this note in case you want to let it out (though it discusses the Assange assault case – which can be touchy territory – so if you feel it might offend sensibilities, it can stay in spam – use your judgment).
This is really frightening: http://tinyurl.com/2bq9pp9. Raw Story reports that Walmart, certain malls, retail outlets, and hotels will soon be featuring tv screens running a message from Janet Napolitano saying,
I’m well aware of Godwin’s law, but in this case I think the comparison is justified. DHS wants us all to live in fear of our neighbors. What happens when innocent people are reported just because someone doesn’t like the way they look? Or that they purchase “the wrong kind” of book? This is nothing short of appalling.
Remember that horrible campaign commercial which featured Hillary on a big screen like something out of 1984? And the Obama people said they didn’t make the thing, but turns out they had links to it?
And here it is.. Obama’s people have a big talking head going where the little people shop in order to gain more control in the name of safety. Irony’s not even sneaking up in this case.
Funny, they target Elizabeth,\…hemmm…seems like the Patriarchy loving nuts to me, as they want women to shut their mouths and not stand on their own two feet, even when faced with cancer/battle for their lives.
What a bunch of sickos, that can’t leave her alone. She was faithful during her marriage, she loved her family, cared for Americans facing health care issues, volunteered and was a wonderful advocate for the poor. This hate group would have protested Mother Teresa, what a bunch of sickos.
What happened to Jesus’ message of love and compassion? I think Ghandi said: I like your Christ; I do not like your christians.
Those aren’t ‘MY’ Christians, no more than the Hindus that set women on ‘FIRE’ are Ghandi’s Hindus. There are NUTS everywhere, my point is this is a group that has as much love as the KKK, and they don’t know now to be respectful, not even when people are putting their loved ones to rest.
Bernie Sanders, standing in for the rest of us, is making an impassioned speech on the Floor. Thank goodness someone has the guts to take a stand.
Amazing, have been watching all morning.
He’s fantastic. Came through.
Looks like my cynacism was wrong. Love being wrong at times like this!
Despite Obama pulling the rug out from liberals they got up and are fighting the fight. Hope this emboldens them going forward.
Here comes Mary Landrieu.
Pass the popcorn, please.
It’s on top of a live thread! 😉
She’s spectacular today.
We needed this!
Man HUNT???
He turned himself IN!