- New Video Emerges Of "Saucer-Like" Chinese Stealth Drone
China Central Television (CCTV) on Saturday published a video showing a “saucer-like” drone performing flying tests, and state-run media outlet Global Times claimed that the new drone’s stealth technology would allow it to fly undetected.
The Global Times, citing a CCTV report, said China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation had developed China’s first “flying wing” stealth drone, the Sky Hawk, conducted takeoff and landing tests at an undisclosed location and time. This was the first time the aircraft has been publicly seen in flight.
The drone, reportedly flew last February, but no video had been published before Saturday’s broadcast.
According to the CCTV video, the drone is capable of avoiding radar detection and penetrating deep behind enemy lines.
A video featuring China’s flying saucer-like stealth drone the Sky Hawk was shown for the first time on CCTV on Sat, with experts saying the technologies mastered by Chinese developers will allow the drone fly faster, farther and escape detection. https://t.co/AeTSjn7vHA pic.twitter.com/KQoi9gDKWt
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) January 6, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
While most of the footage is computer-generated imaging of the plane, there is about ten seconds of real footage.
The video also shows the drone is equipped with China’s most advanced photo-electric aerial platform.
The platform contains seven different cameras, including an infrared camera and multispectral sensors.
With the wingspan of approximately 59 feet, the drone can reach a maximum cruising altitude of 24,600 feet and have a payload of 815 pounds.
In early November, the drone was displayed at the 2018 China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition but was not flown there.
Song Zhongping, a military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday that the drone is being developed and manufactured on schedule.
The CCTV report said the flying wing aerodynamic design is similar the US’ Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.
Military experts are expecting the drone will operate on China’s aircraft carriers, including those that employ electromagnetic catapults.
While the US’ Northrop Grumman X-47B stealth drone has already been tested, it should be of great concern to Pentagon officials that China’s modernization efforts are rapidly accelerating.
- Zuesse: Why One Should Distrust The News
Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
An article by the BBC on “The world’s most nutritious foods” ranks the healthfulness of foods on the basis of an article at the supposedly scientific PLOSone journal, titled “Uncovering the Nutritional Landscape of Food”. That study is based on a dataset that entirely ignores antioxidant-content of foods. Antioxidant-content has come to be recognized during recent decades as constituting perhaps the most important factor in nutrition. It’s probably even more important than vitamin-content and than mineral-content and than protein, carbohydrate, and fat content. So, the basis upon which the article’s ranking was done is the factors that were known about, in 1950, to be important, but that are now known to be far less determinative of a person’s health and longevity than are foods’ anti-oxidant contents. Neither the article nor its underlying dataset even so much as just mentions “oxidant” anywhere. The authors of the BBC and PLOSone articles and of the underlying dataset were apparently entirely ignorant of the findings in nutritional research during the past 60+ years — findings about antioxidants, which have transformed our understanding of nutrition. (Furthermore, there were many other important methodological flaws producing that PLOSone ranking, not only its ignoring antioxidants.)
This is not unusual.
(Incidentally, “ORAC Values: Antioxidant Values of Foods & Beverages” is a ranking of foods on the basis of antioxidant-contents, as measured by ORAC; and this is likely a far more accurate indicator of the relative healthfulness of foods than is the ridiculous BBC-PLOSone ranking — but far fewer people are being exposed to it.)
Here’s another example of the untrustworthiness of news-media and of other allegedly nonfiction presentations, even in many ‘scientific’ journals — but this one will be an example from what has become overwhelmingly the world’s leading encyclopedia: Wikipedia.
The CIA-edited and –written Wikipedia writes about the anti-CIA Michel Chossudovsky, by saying against his organization, the Centre for Research on Globalization, that it “promotes a variety of conspiracy theories and falsehoods.[7][19][8][20][21][22][23].” However (just to take one example there), the 22nd footnote “[22]” brings the reader to a lying 11 September 2013 article in the neoconservative The New Republic. This TNR article says against the progressive organization Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity(VIPS) that “The sources for VIPS’ most sensational claims, it turns out, are Canadian eccentric Michel Chossudovsky’s conspiracy site Global Research and far-right shock-jock Alex Jones’s Infowars.”
Wikipedia’s linking to that lying TNR article is part of Wikipedia’s ‘proof’ that both of those ‘conspiracy’ sites (the leftist Chossudovsky’s and the rightist Jones’s) are false (in other words: Wikipedia there is blatantly deceiving its readers, and is even assuming they’re stupid enough to believe such a ridiculous thing as that and wouldn’t even bother to check out Wikipedia’s sources to find whether Wikipedia is the liar there, and not Chosudovsky’s site that is the liar).
It’s also assuming that the Obama regime was truthful when saying that Bashar al-Assad was behind the 21 August 2013 sarin gas attack in Ghouta Syria. However, that second assumption is likewise demonstrably false. The TNR’s article and its allegation against Assad regarding Ghouta were, in fact, disproven, on 14 January 2014, when leading US weapons-scientists Theodore Postol and Richard Lloyd studied closely all the evidence on that event and the US Government’s evidence that Assad had been associated with causing it, and the Lloyd-Postol finding was unequivocal that “the US Government’s Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT.”
Furthermore, Obama actually knew that he was falsifying. Seymour Hersh’s 17 April 2014 article in the London Review of Books, proved this. Obama was lying. Neither Lloyd-Postol nor Hersh is even referred to in today’s Wikipedia’s article. It still trusts Obama’s and TNR’s proven lie that Assad (instead of Obama’s ‘Syrian rebels’ — a.k.a.: jihadists) had done that sarin attack. Wikipedia smears Chossudovsky with that proven lie, by simply reasserting the lie, and by assuming that Chossudovsky’s site is less trustworthy than Wikipedia (which is yet another lie). But that’s merely one of many lies that are in the Wikipedia article against Chossudovsky. No intelligent reader trusts Wikipedia — or any source (except sources that the reader has repeatedly confirmed to be true and never to have asserted falsehoods — unlike Wikipedia, which is full of distortions, cover-ups, and lies).
Intelligent skeptics dig down like this (which can be done only online, which is why print and broadcast ‘news’ is even less trustworthy than online news), and routinely find that there’s a very selective use of ‘evidence’ that’s behind most claims, and that the reality is that the ‘news’ is often false, and, worse than that, the ‘news’ is usually false for a purpose or purposes — that the ’news’ is often fraudulent, that it is propaganda, PR, often even of the lying sort, instead of being honest and carefully verified research and reporting, such as it claims to be.
Usually, it’s false because the intention is to deceive, not because Wikipedia (or whatever other news-and-public-affairs medium one happens to be considering) merely goofed. As was noted here, Wikipedia is edited, and even written, by the CIA. (Remember what a “slam-dunk” about “Saddam’s WMD” they delivered to the George W. Bush regime in 2002?) Only sources that are approved by the CIA are linked to there. Some of the sources are true, but many are not. The article on Chossudovsky was done for the CIA by an asset of the CIA, about a critic of the CIA. The CIA represents America’s billionaires, and Chossudovsky doesn’t.
Extremely wealthy people buy, advertise their corporations in, and/or donate to, public-affairs media, not in order to profit from them as owners of them, so much as in order to influence public affairs by means of them. This is one of the ways in which to grab hold not only of the government, but even of the people who vote for the government and who also buy those billionaires’ corporations’ products and services.
Trust should never be given; it should only be earned. Regarding what is public, trust is earned only rarely — and is never earned when that trust is in the major ‘news’-media (all of which are owned and controlled by billionaires and centi-millionaires who actually have interests in many corporations, including some they don’t control but only serve or else invest in). The major ‘news’-media don’t always lie, but they often lie – especially about foreign affairs, which are the main focus and concern of international corporations.
For example: where do you ever see, in the major ‘news’-media in The West, such high quality news-reporting as this, at the obscure news-site 21st Century Wire, from the great investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley? What even comes close to such honesty, at CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, The Times, New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Public Interest, National Review, Rolling Stone, Truthout, Truthdig, Alternet, Salon, etc.? Obviously, nothing, ever.
So: that’s why one should always distrust the news. The system here is designed for deceit of the public.
Here are other recent articles from me, describing other instances of this phenomenon, the routine deceiving of the public:
And here is something that brings together both Wikipedia and the MH17:
“Wikipedia As Propaganda Not History — Mh17 As An Example”
- India's Railway System Announced 63,000 Job Openings… 19 Million People Applied
In February, the railway system in India announced that it was recruiting for some of the most basic and menial positions in its organizational hierarchy. It was looking for positions like helper, cleaner, track maintainer and rail switchman. It announced 63,000 vacant jobs it was trying to fill. It got 19 million applicants.
Those applicants included people like Anil Gujjar, who traveled to India’s capital in search of a job. Gujjar was the first person in his family to attend college, but wound up having to compete with millions of other men like him, almost all of which were college students or graduates. Some even had postgraduate degrees.
The flock to these jobs indicates a bigger problem in India: the country has a fast growing economy, but isn’t generating enough jobs for its educated young populace.
A Washington Post article estimates that the number of people in India between age of 15 and 34 is expected to hit 480 million by the year 2021. They have higher literacy levels and are staying in school longer than any other previous generation. The surge of youths could be an immense opportunity for the country, if it can find a way to put them to work. But the employment trends in the country are not optimistic.
An analysis performed by Azim Premji University shows that unemployment between 2011 and 2016 in nearly all Indian states was rising. The jobless rates for younger people and those with higher education also increased sharply. For instance, for college graduates, it grew from 4.1% to 8.4%.
The feat of staving off jobseekers has become a major political task for Prime Minister Modi, who is seeking reelection this year. He rose to power promising job creation, but all of his attempts to increase domestic manufacturing and entrepreneurship have yet to help the employment cause. Further, Modi‘s decision to invalidate most of India’s banknotes in 2016 resulted in about 3 million jobs being lost over the course of the first four months of 2017. The Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a research firm in Mumbai, found that the Indian labor force also shrank between 2017 and 2018.
Mahesh Vyas, the firm’s CEO stated: “India is rapidly losing an opportunity. We’re just arguing needlessly and endlessly rather than deploying all these young people coming into the labor market into productive work.”
As a result, finding a job is a job in and of itself for many young Indian people. Job scams are popping up across the country and an entire industry offering “personality development” classes in order to help make people more employable has popped up. The educated youth are waiting for good productive jobs instead of settling.
Ajit Ghose, an economist at the Institute for Human Development in Delhi, says that the country needs to generate jobs not just for the 6 million to 8 million new workforce entrants annually, but also for people like women who are working less than they would be if they could get jobs at a decent wage. The same economist notes that India has about 104 million “surplus” workers.
Expanding the labor market that much is a tall task for any government, not just India. Modi’s track record of job creation also remains somewhat of a mystery, as the country hasn’t offered nationwide employment data since 2016. The ministries of labor and statistics have conducted surveys of Indian households, but the results have not been made public.
Amit Basole, an economist at Azim Premji University, said: “It’s anybody’s guess whether we’ll see any employment statistics come out before the 2019 elections.”
Another economist, Arvind Panagariya, argues that it is difficult to make an assessment of the employment situation until nationwide data is released. At a test center in Delhi, applicants for railway positions showed up three times a day, every day, from September through mid December. The same scene played out at hundreds of exam centers across the country. In fact, there were so many test takers that an economy was born out of job applicants. Entrepreneurs opened storage lockers and started businesses holding backpacks and phones for those going inside to take the test.
Even though the rail jobs are low on the totem pole, they offered a comparatively good salary and benefits like free train travel. The applicants were almost all young men who are college students and graduates from the northern Indian states trying to get out of the villages where they grew up. Their reason for leaving home? There are no jobs there, either.
- New Data Suggests Shocking Shale Slowdown
Authored by Nick Cunningham via Oilprice.com,
U.S. shale executives often boast of low breakeven prices, reassuring investors of their ability to operate at a high level even when oil prices fall. But new data suggests that the industry slowed dramatically in the fourth quarter of 2018 in response to the plunge in oil prices.
A survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas finds that shale activity slammed on the brakes in the fourth quarter.
“The business activity index – the survey’s broadest measure of conditions facing Eleventh District energy firms – remained positive, but barely so, plunging from 43.3 in the third quarter to 2.3 in the fourth,” the Dallas Fed reported on January 3.
The 2.3 reading is only slightly positive – zero would mean that business activity from Texas energy firms was flat compared to the prior quarter. A negative reading would mean a contraction in activity.
The deceleration was true for multiple segments within oil and gas. For instance, the oil production index fell from 34.8 in the third quarter to 29.1 in the fourth. The natural gas production index to 24.8 in the fourth quarter, down from 35.5 in the prior quarter.
But even as production held up, drilling activity indicated a sharper slowdown was underway. The index for utilization of equipment by oilfield services firms dropped sharply in the fourth quarter, down from 43 points in the third quarter to just 1.6 in the fourth – falling to the point where there was almost no growth at all quarter-on-quarter.
Meanwhile, employment has also taken a hit. The employment index fell from 31.7 to 17.5, suggesting a “moderating in both employment and work hours growth in the fourth quarter,” the Dallas Fed wrote. Labor conditions in oilfield services were particularly hit hard.
The data lends weight to comments made by top oilfield service firms from several months ago. Schlumberger and Halliburton warned in the third quarter of last year that shale companies were slowing drilling activity. Pipeline constraints, well productivity problems and “budget exhaustion” was leading to weaker drilling conditions. The comments were notable at the time, and received press coverage, but oil prices were still high and still rising, and so was shale output. The crash in oil prices and the worsening slowdown in the shale patch puts those comments in new light.
What does all of this mean? If oil producers are not hiring service firms and deploying equipment, that suggests they are rather price sensitive. The fall in oil prices forced cutbacks in drilling activity. Oilfield service firms in particular are bearing the brunt of the slowdown. Executives from oilfield service firms told the Dallas Fed that their operating margins declined in the quarter.
In fact, roughly 53 percent of the oil and gas executives that responded to the Dallas Fed’s survey said that the recent drop in oil prices caused them to “lower expectations for capital spending” in 2019. A further 15 percent said that it was still too early to make a decision on capex changes. Only 31 percent of oil executives who responded to the Fed survey said that the oil price downturn would not affect their spending plans.
The oil rig count climbed for much of 2018, but began to level off in the third quarter. The rig count, which stood at 885 in the last week of December, has barely budged since late October when prices began to fall.
The downturn is still in its early days. It takes several months before the rig count really begins to respond to major price movements. The same is true for a string of other data – production levels, inventories, as well as capex decisions.
In other words, some early data points already suggest that the U.S. shale industry could struggle if WTI remains below $50 per barrel. But the longer WTI stays low, the more likely we will see a broader slowdown.
- Restaurants Are Facing A Labour Crisis As Teenagers Abandon After-School Jobs
Though it might sound counter-intuitive, the minimum wage hikes that are happening across the US in 2019 aren’t the biggest employment-related threat to the restaurant industry and its bottom line. A bigger problem – surprisingly enough, given all the talk about automation displacing low-skilled workers – is a lack of willing employees.
According to Bloomberg, fast food restaurants are resorting to unorthodox and creative methods to try and boost hiring as fewer teens enter the job market and wage hikes at several big-box retailers – including Wal-Mart, Amazon and Target – combined with near-record-low unemployment make low-paid food service work seem unattractive by comparison.
Since 1968, teenage employment has plunged, with even young legal adults avoiding work as many enroll in college (perhaps because the debt burden being incurred seems so insurmountable, that it makes more sense to focus exclusively on school to try and boost their post-grad earning potential).
Ironically, while investors and the Trump administration celebrated Friday’s blockbuster jobs number, fast-food franchisees may have been one of the few groups who interpreted it as a net negative for their restaurants.
One increasingly problematic impediment for fast food restaurants is the fact that they are typically loathe to raise wages…
Many franchisees, who do most fast-food hiring, are loath to raise wages, which must be offset by higher menu prices. They count on ample pools of workers willing to accept modest pay. So the falloff in employment among postmillennials, those less than 22 years old, is particularly troublesome for restaurants that have depended on young workers since the days of soda jerks and carhops. Just 19 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds had jobs in 2018, compared with almost half in 1968, according to a Pew Research Center study published in November. It wasn’t much better for 18- to 21-year-olds: In 2018, 58 percent had been employed in the previous year, down from 80 percent in 1968, Pew says.
…So instead, they are “rethinking” their approach to hiring workers, even offering quarterly bonuses for some of their more-senior employees.
Some restaurants are throwing “hiring parties” with free food to entice young people to consider hopping into the work force. Others have launched apps that allow workers to switch shifts at the last minute.
That’s making restaurants rethink how they recruit and retain young workers. Taco Bell has started holding “hiring parties” with free nacho fries to draw prospects. Tom Douglas, vice president for operations at Golden Gate Bell, which operates 80 Taco Bell locations in and around San Francisco, has gone further: He’s started using software to connect with potential hires. The program sends prospects text messages with links to its career page, along with occasional food freebies to lure candidates. Golden Gate Bell, which employs about 1,800 and competes with Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and big-box retailers for employees, also recently started a quarterly bonus program for hourly staff.
“The traditional way of trying to hire folks just isn’t working,” says Douglas. “We’re just trying to make ourselves a little bit different and stand out from the competitors.”
Actions that increase employee retention are also getting a lot of attention in the high-turnover business. The White Castle hamburger chain is using an employee mobile app that allows hourly staff to swap shifts at the last minute when conflicts inevitably arise. And Sticky Fingers Ribhouse, an 11-store barbecue chain in South Carolina, is asking employees for their opinions. It recently surveyed staff about its new rib recipe, along with their happiness with its uniforms. “The younger labor market, they really want to feel connected to a brand,” says Will Eadie, global vice president for strategy at WorkJam, which provides training and other digital labor services through a mobile app for clients including restaurants and retailers such as Target Corp. and Shell gas stations.
Other methods include handing out “hiring cards” instead of business cards, and trying to streamline kitchen operations to require fewer workers and making jobs less strenuous so that less-than-competent workers can still succeed.
How desperate are fast-food operators to reach the right people? Instead of business cards, managers at Church’s Chicken outlets in October started handing out recruiting cards that say, “We are looking for great talent like you!” The cards include phone numbers and emails for cook and cashier prospects to get in touch.
Meanwhile, Applebee’s, a dining chain owned by Dine Brands Global Inc., is trying to offset rising wage costs with kitchens that are easier for workers. No longer are cooks hand-cutting steaks, and it’s adding other foods that take less prep, Chief Executive Officer Steve Joyce said in December. “It’s hard to find quality folks to work in the restaurants,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make every other part of the restaurant as efficient as possible.”
Still others are focusing more on retirees and senior citizens to fill jobs once held by teenagers (which is hardly surprising given that many elderly Americans are broke).
Increasingly, chains are hedging their traditional bets on younger workers by boosting hiring pitches toward much older workers. Both McDonald’s Corp. and Church’s have said senior citizens will be a focus area to build out their ranks in 2019. Other chains including Bakers Square and Village Inn are paying to list jobs on the AARP website.
Setting aside all of the pressure exerted by the “Fight for $15” crowd, the shortage of low-skill laborers is expected to persist. Which means we’ll likely be seeing more of these in the very near future.
- Cleaning Up "Marxist Trash" Is The Best Way For Bolsonaro To Build A Better Brazil
Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,
The long-running joke about Brazil is that it is the country of the future, and always will be. If Jair Bolsonaro is able to follow through on the tone he has set at the start of his presidency, however, it may not be long until the future becomes the present.
Officially sworn into office at the start of the year, the Bolsonaro administration has already captured international attention. Having been portrayed for years by Western media as a sinister threat to Brazilian democracy, in spite of being a successful populist candidate embraced by a diverse electorate, the same outlets have been quick to depict the new government as a hostile threat to minority rights. The real story, however, is Bolsonaro’s apparent commitment to the sort of ideological revolution that is desperately needed for his country to thrive. While history shows we should never trust a politician to deliver on lofty promises of liberty and freedom, the initial days of his presidency have moves deserving of praise.
To start, his inaugural address, Bolsonaro vowed to follow through on his campaign message of dramatically changing a government plagued by corruption and economic crisis:
I stand humbled by the honor to address you all as President of Brazil, and stand before the whole nation on this day as the day when the people began to liberate themselves from socialism, from the inversion of values, from state gigantism and from political correctness…
Our flag will never be red. It will only be red if we need to bleed over it to keep it green and yellow.
He followed this up with a tweet vowing “to tackle the Marxist garbage in our schools head on.”
What’s encouraging here is that Bolsonaro is identifying that the true enemy of his administration is not simply a political rival or a series of bad policies that must be reformed, but the socialist ideology that has caused so much misery throughout the world and Latin America in particular. Correctly identifying the underlying problem is the best way to go about finding a solution.
This aligns well with Ludwig von Mises’s views about the importance of ideas in society. He wrote extensively about how the ultimate deciding factor to the success or failure of civilization has less to do with the politicians and institutions that have been built, but the underlying ideas that direct them. As he wrote in Economic Policy:
Everything that happens in the social world in our time is the result of ideas. Good things and bad things. What is needed is to fight bad ideas. We must fight all that we dislike in public life. We must substitute better ideas for wrong ideas…
Ideas and only ideas can light the darkness.
Of course, a true ideological revolution requires more than simply political rhetoric and rousing speeches, the question will be how he is able to follow through with pro-market policies that will actually allow Brazil to succeed.
Luckily what most of the Western media has completely ignored is that the rise of Bolsonaro isn’t as simple as populist politics sparked by the corruption of presidents past, the country has seen a remarkable rise in pro-market and libertarian scholars within its intellectual class.
Thanks to organizations such as Mises Brasil, Instituto Rothbard, Students for Liberty and more, the works of great thinkers such as Mises, Murray Rothbard, Frédéric Bastiat, and more have been translated and dispersed throughout the country. President Bolsonaro has even been photographed with Portuguese copies of Bastiat’s The Law and Mises’s Economic Policy.
This is important not only because it highlights the growth of these ideas beyond the narrow lens of politics, but also because it demonstrates that Bolsonaro has a talent pool to be able to tap into for his administration. In the words of Mises Brasil president Helio Beltrão, the new president has put together a “remarkable team and with noble intentions.” This includes scholars affiliated with various free market and libertarian organizations, including Mises Brasil, have been tapped for positions within the administration — including Bruno Garschagen, host of their popular podcast. The new Minister of Education, Ricardo Velez Rodrigues, was himself a guest of the show.
Naturally, when taking over a huge government bureaucracy that has long been under socialist control, removing bad actors is every bit as important as bringing in new talent. While Donald Trump brought the term “the Deep State” into the American mainstream, his administration has been damaged by failing to truly drain the swamp of its long-standing political professional class. Here too is another area where Bolsonaro’s administration is showing true promise.
On January 3, Chief of Staff of the Presidency, Onyx Lorenzoni, announced that the Bolsonaro government will be removing communist-sympathetic officials from positions of public administration. While headlines about “communist purges” from a “right-wing Latin American leader” are designed to evoke images of the bloody policies of Augusto Pinochet and Jorge Videla, firing bureaucrats is hardly comparable to “right-wing death squads.”
Of course, one of the best ways to follow through with Bolsonaro’s anti-Marxist vision would be to leave many of these vacated positions open as part of a general reduction of the Brazilian government. Hopefully, the administration will also pay heed to Helio Beltrão’s suggested plan for de-bureaucratization of the nation’s economy.
Another promising sign that has come from Lorenzoni is that he has instructed all government ministers to inventory the properties under their control so they can identify what assets are better off being privatized. The hope is that the Bolsonaro administration will follow through on the statements made by Paulo Guedes, the new Minister of the Economy, to “privatize everything that is possible.” Not only will such sales help to work down the countries debt (currently at $1.6 trillion, or 81.4% of GDP), but allow assets and companies to operate more efficiently free of the strangulation of government central planning.
While there are many signs of optimism from the early days of Bolsonaro’s government, it would be unwise to ignore the challenges that still face the country. As Leandro Roque has noted, the administration is inheriting numerous challenges, including the rising costs of retirement programs and an aging population. Will an elected populist be willing to make the painful reforms necessary? We shall see.
Also, it would be a mistake to confuse anti-Marxist rhetoric for a genuine embrace of liberty and free markets. America’s own history has shown how some of the loudest opponents of communism have enacted some of the worst policies domestically. Will Bolsonaro’s team of classical liberals be able to stand strong with the pressures of public office, or end up being a disappointment like so many others have been before? Only time will tell.
What is encouraging is to see the rise of a popular politician willing to use his platform to openly call out the dangers of Marxist ideology. If Brazil can maintain a course of Menos Marx, Mais Mises, then it will finally be able to live up to its long acknowledged potential.
- Venezuela Supreme Court Judge Flees To US, Spills Secrets Of Maduro's Hold On Power
The Venezuelan government “has only brought hunger, misery and destruction to the country” as a “failed state” — admitted a Venezuelan Supreme Court justice and longtime government loyalist who is now making headlines by his shocking and unprecedented defection to the United States. “I’ve decided to leave Venezuela to disavow the government of Nicolas Maduro,” the former powerful judge, Christian Zerpa, told reporters. “I believe Maduro does not deserve a second chance because the election he supposedly won was not free and competitive.”
Considering such a powerful and high level former regime loyalist has just safely fled to Florida with his family, could gaping fissures now surface within the Caracas government and begin to grow, resulting in more defections to come?
Now defected Venezuelan Supreme Court justice Christian Zerpa Zerpa told reporters while speaking from Florida on Sunday that he could no longer stomach Venezuela’s highest court being a mere appendage of Maduro’s ruling inner circle, complaining that since 2015 only handpicked insider loyalists were appointed to the bench. As Maduro is set to enter his second, six-year term in an oath of office ceremony on Thursday, Zerpa cited that “he didn’t want to play a role legitimizing Maduro’s rule when the Supreme Court swears him in,” according to the AP.
“We are in the presence of an autocracy that has condemned to death any opposition to this particular vision of power,” Zerpa told a Miami-based news broadcast. Western leaders and international rights organizations have condemned the latest presidential election, noting important opposition leaders and parties were banned, or in some cases boycotted the election knowing they would be pressured or forced out.
Zerpa’s defection has been confirmed by Venezuelan officials and official media , which have started an apparent smear campaign claiming the supreme court justice was facing multiple sexual harassment charges by women he worked with. He now says he’s ready to work with US investigators into corruption and human rights inquiries in Venezuela, even after being under sanction by Canada, but not yet by the United States.
In early media statements made after fleeing his home country, Zerpa described abuses ranging from receiving directives from first lady Cilia Flores on how to rule in cases that are politically connected, to finding legal means and creating loopholes in order to block opposition representatives from taking key swing vote seats in Congress.
One bombshell confession made by Zerpa related to his role on the court, involves his personally taking steps to ensure Maduro maintained total control of Venezuelan congress. The AP report describes this as follows:
As a newly installed justice, he recounted being summoned to the court and told to sign off on a key ruling without first reviewing its details. It disqualified three elected representatives of Amazonas state from taking their seats in congress following the opposition’s sweep of legislative elections in 2015.
The outcome prevented the opposition from amassing a two-third super majority that would have severely curtailed Maduro’s power.
He further related he had flee because he would be jailed for coming forward, and is now apologizing to the public for “propping up” the Maduro government.
He apologized for propping up Maduro’s government, saying that he feared being jailed as a dissident where his life would be put at risk.
Meanwhile, other dissenters have recently fled the country amidst a collapsed economy, runaway inflation, and an extreme food and medicine shortage after two decades of socialist rule. One such opposition lawmaker, Julio Borges, who previously fled the country fearing for his life, urged Latin American leaders on Monday to intensify pressure on Maduro, saying, “The inhuman arrogance of this dictatorship led by Nicolas Maduro personally challenges the heads of state of the region.”
He added further in a blistering critique of Maduro personally: “It’s not fair that a whole country should perish to satisfy one man’s lust for power.”
Nicolas Maduro begins another 6-year term on Thursday, via Venezuelan Presidency/AFP Indeed the situation continues to be dire as the socialist country suffers from a perfect storm of starvation, disease, a lack of healthcare and extreme violence, with tragic reports of children dying from hepatitis and malaria.
“There is a human catastrophe in Venezuela. There is a resurgence of illnesses that were eradicated decades ago. Hundreds have died from measles and diphtheria. Last year, more than 400,000 Venezuelans presented malaria symptoms. Up to now, there are over 10,000 sick people from tuberculosis,” said Caracas mayor and former political prisoner Antonio Ledezma, who founded the opposition party, Fearless People’s Alliance. He added provocatively of the dire medicine and healthcare situation amidst a collapsed system: “People have been doomed to death. More than 55,000 cancer patients don’t have access to chemotherapy. Every three hours a woman dies due to breast cancer.”
As the country continues its downward spiral, certainly to be exacerbated by at least another six years of Maduro’s failed policies, Zerpa’s high level defection is likely the start of more to come.
- Let's Play Follow The Climate Money!
Authored by Paul Driessen, originally published at CFACT.org
The climate crisis industry incessantly claims that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global economies, health and living standards possible.
Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.
However, as France’s Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world is not prepared to go down that dark path. Countries worldwide are expanding their reliable fossil fuel use, and families do not want to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.
Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we’ve experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.
More importantly, the CCI “solutions” would cause unprecedented disruption of modern industrialized societies; permanent poverty and disease in poor countries; and serious ecological damage worldwide.
Nothing that is required to harness breezes and sunshine to power civilization is clean, green, renewable, climate-friendly or sustainable. Tens of billions of tons of rock would have to be removed, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and install them on millions of acres of wildlife habitats – to generate expensive, intermittent energy that would be grossly insufficient for humanity’s needs. Every step in this process requires fossil fuels – and some of the mining involves child labor.
How do CCI alarmists respond to these points? They don’t. They refuse to engage in or even permit civil discussion. They rant that anyone “who denies climate change science” is on the fossil fuel industry payroll, thus has a blatant conflict of interest and no credibility, and therefore should be ignored.
“Rebuttals” to my recent “We are still IN” article cited Greenpeace and DeSmogBlog as their “reliable sources” and claimed: I’m “associated with” several “right-wing think tanks that are skeptical of man-made climate change.” One of them “received $582,000 from ExxonMobil” over a 14-year period, another got “$5,716,325 from Koch foundations” over 18 years, and the Koch Brothers gave “at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science” in 20 years, my detractors claimed.
These multi-year contributions work out to $41,571 annually; $317,574 per year; and $59,728 per organization per year, respectively – to pay salaries and overhead at think tanks that are engaged in multiple social, tax, education, medical and other issues … not just energy and climate change.
But let’s assume for a moment that money – especially funding from any organization that has any kind of financial, regulatory or other “special interest” in the outcome of this ongoing energy and economic battle – renders a researcher incapable of analyzing facts fairly and honestly.
Then apply those zero-tolerance, zero-credibility Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-CCI standards to those very same climate alarmists and their allies – who are determined to shut down debate and impose their wind, solar and biofuel policies on the world. Where do they get their money, and how much do they get?
Billionaire and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave the Sierra Club $110 million in a six-year period to fund its campaign against coal-generated electricity. Chesapeake Energy gave the Club $26 million in three years to promote natural gas and attack coal. Ten wealthy liberal foundations gave another $51 million over eight years to the Club and other environmentalist groups to battle coal.
Over a 12-year period, the Environmental Protection Agency gave its 15 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members $181 million in grants – and in exchange received quick rubberstamp approvals of various air quality rules. It paid the American Lung Association $20 million to support its regulations.
During the Obama years, the EPA, Interior Department and other federal agencies paid environmental pressure groups tens of millions in collusive, secretive sue-and-settle lawsuit payoffs on dozens of issues.
Then we get to the really big money: taxpayer funds that government agencies hand out to scientists, computer modelers and pressure groups – to promote global warming and climate change alarmism.
As Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore noted recently, citing government and other reports:
* Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
* The Feds spent an estimated $150 billion on climate change and green energy subsidies during President Obama’s first term.
* That didn’t include the 30% tax credits/subsidies for wind and solar power: $8 billion to $10 billion a year – plus billions more from state programs that require utilities to buy expensive “green” energy.
* Worldwide, according to the “progressive” Climate Policy Initiative, climate change “investment” in 2013 totaled $359 billion – but this “falls far short” of the $5 trillion per year that’s actually needed.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change echoes those greedy demands. It says the world must spend $2.4 trillion per year for the next 17 years to subsidize the transition to renewable energy.
Bear in mind that $1.5 trillion per year was already being spent in 2014 on Climate Crisis, Inc. research, consulting, carbon trading and renewable projects, according to the Climate Change Business Journal. With 6-8% annual growth, we’re easily looking at a $2-trillion-per-year climate industry by now.
The US Government Accountability Office puts United States taxpayer funding alone at $2.1 billion per year for climate change “science” … $9.0 billion a year for technology R&D … and $1.8 billion a year for international assistance. Total US Government spending on climate change totaled $179 billion (!) from 1993 through 2017, according to the GAO. That’s $20 million per day!
At the September 2018Global Climate Action Summit, 29 leftist foundations pledged to give $4 billion over five years to their new Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign. Sea Change Foundation co-founder Nat Simons made it clear that this “is only a down payment”!
And I get pilloried for working with organizations that received $41,571 to $59,728 per year from fossil fuel interests … questioning claims that fossil fuels are causing climate chaos … and raising inconvenient facts and questions about wind, solar and biofuel replacements for coal, oil and natural gas.
Just as outrageous, tens of millions of dollars are squandered every year to finance “studies” that supposedly show “surging greenhouse gases” and “manmade climate change” are creating dangerous hybrid puffer fish, causing salmon to lose their ability to detect danger, making sharks right-handed and unable to hunt, increasing the number of animal bites, and causing US cities to be overrun by rats.
Let’s apply the Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-Climate Crisis, Inc. standard all these organizations and researchers.
Their massive multi-billion-dollar conflicts of interest clearly make them incapable of analyzing climate and energy matters fairly and honestly – and disqualify them from participating in any further discussions about America’s and the world’s energy and economic future.
At the very least, they and the institutions that have been getting rich and powerful off the catastrophic manmade global warming and climate hustle should be cut off from any future federal funding.
- Wikileaks Warns Reporters Not To Publish 140 "False And Defamatory" Statements About Julian Assange
WikiLeaks is sick and tired of mainstream media outlets publishing inaccurate and at times defamatory claims about its founder, Julian Assange. So in a recent email to journalists who regularly cover the organization, Wikileaks described 140 “false and defamatory” claims about its founder, who has been living inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 2012.
According to Reuters, WikiLeaks accused the Guardian of publishing a false report about Assange, though it was not immediately clear what specific report prompted the warning. The Guardian has refused to comment on the allegations.
The 5,000 word email claimed it was defamatory to suggest that Assange had ever been an “agent or officer of any intelligence service,” or that he had ever been employed by the Russian government, or that he is – or has been – closely connected with the Russian state.
Some of the claims were more bizarre, like claiming that Assange was a pedophile, rapist, murder or a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Others pertained to personal hygiene, like that Assange bleaches his hair, or has poor grooming habits. They also said it was defamatory to claim that Assange is a hacker or that he is not an Australian citizen.
Assange has remained in the embassy for fear that he could be extradited to the US to face charges stemming from violations of the Espionage Act. According to reports from late last year, the DOJ is preparing to file an indictment of Assange. Meanwhile, speculation that Ecuador could soon withdraw its offer of asylum has been simmering since President Lenin Moreno took over from the seemingly more sympathetic Rafael Correa.
Though the email was marked “not for publication,” a copy leaked online in its entirety.
* * *
CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL COMMUNICATION
NOT FOR PUBLICATION.Julian Assange has published the largest leaks in the history of the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, the U.S. Democratic Party, and the government of Saudi Arabia, among many others, as well as saving Edward Snowden from arrest. Predictably, numerous falsehoods have been subsequently spread about WikiLeaks and its publisher.
Falsehoods have also been spread by third parties: media competitors, click-bait sites, political party loyalists, and by those linked to the governments WikiLeaks or Julian Assange are litigating or have litigated (U.K., U.S., Ecuador, Sweden), which seek his arrest (U.S., U.K.), expulsion (Ecuador), or who have formal criminal investigations (U.S., Saudi Arabia, Australia), or who have banned or censored WikiLeaks (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China).
Since Mr. Assange’s unlawful isolation and gagging on March 28, 2018, the publication of false and defamatory claims about him has accelerated, perhaps because of an incorrect view that Mr. Assange, due to his grave personal circumstances, can no longer defend his reputation.
These defamation efforts have reached a new nadir with the recent front page fabrication by Guardian newspaper, which falsely claimed that Julian Assange had multiple secret meetings with Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, right down to a made up description of latter’s pants at the fabricated meetings (“sandy coloured chinos”) [see https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-vira…].
It is clear that there is a pervasive climate of inaccurate claims about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, including purposeful fabrications planted in otherwise ‘reputable’ media outlets. In several instances these fabrications appear to have the intent of creating political cover for his censorship, isolation, expulsion, arrest, extradition and imprisonment.
Mr. Assange’s isolation, ongoing proceedings and pending extradition also increase the legal and ethical burden on journalists, publishers and others to get their facts straight.
Consequently journalists and publishers have a clear responsibility to carefully fact-check from primary sources and to consult the following list of defamations to ensure they do not spread and have not spread falsehoods about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The purpose of this list is to aid the honest and accurate and to put the dishonest and inaccurate on notice.
Defamation List v1.3
the absense of any claim from this list does not imply that the claim is not false or defamatoryIt is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has ever been, charged with an offence by the United Kingdom or Sweden [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has ever been, an agent or officer of any intelligence service [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks is, or has ever been alleged by the U.S. government to be, a State “foreign intelligence service”.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has ever been contacted by the Mueller investigation.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that there is any evidence that the U.S. charges against Julian Assange relate to the Mueller investigation.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or Wikileaks is, or has ever been alleged by the U.S. government to be: Russian, Russian owned, a Russian subsidiary, contracted by Russia, Russian staffed, based in Russia, “in league” with Russia, an “arm of Russia” or a “Russian cutout” [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government claims that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks directed, conspired, colluded or otherwise engaged in a crime, to obtain information from the Democratic National Committee or John Podesta [in fact, the government has made no such claim].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the Democratic National Committee has claimed that Julian Assange directed, conspired, or colluded to hack the Democratic National Committee or John Podesta [in fact, the DNC makes no such claim: https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/WikiLeaksDNC…].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks was alone in publishing allegedly hacked Democratic Party materials in 2016 [in fact, most U.S. media organizations did so: Politico, the Hill, The Intercept, Facebook, WordPress and Twitter, and every major press outlet, including CNN and the New York Times, republished, see https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/WikiLeaksDNC…].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever met or communicated with Paul Manafort [see https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-vira…].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever met or communicated with George Cottrell [see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1068475150314676225].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange privately provided information about its then pending 2016 U.S. election-related publications to any outside party, including Nigel Farage, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, Donald Trump Jr., Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn Jr., Cambridge Analytica, or Rebecca Mercer [it is defamatory because it falsely imputes that Julian Assange acted without integrity in his role as the editor of WikiLeaks, associates with criminals, or has committed a crime].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever colluded with or conspired with, or compromised the integrity of its journalism for, any political campaign or State [in fact, published communication records show WikiLeaks doing exactly the opposite: rejecting approaches by Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign for information on its pending publications, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was in communication with Roger J. Stone during, or prior to, the U.S. 2016 presidential election [in fact, the only message sent from WikiLeaks was a demand that Mr. Stone cease falsely stating that he had “communicated” with Julian Assange].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that there was a “back channel” between Julian Assange and Roger J. Stone during, or prior to, the U.S. 2016 presidential election.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Nigel Farage met with Julian Assange during, or prior to, the U.S. 2016 presidential election.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the purpose of Nigel Farage’s meeting with Julian Assange in 2017, after the U.S. election, was in any way improper or not journalistic.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange timed the publication of its series on John Podesta to conceal the Access Hollywood “grab them by the pussy” video of Donald Trump [in fact, it is well documented that the video release was moved forward three days to be on the day of WikiLeaks’ publication, see https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/19/inside-wikileaks-working-with-the…].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is “anti-American” or “anti-U.S.” [in fact, he has an abiding love for the United States, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/julian-assange-wikileaks-has-th…].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have not published critical information on Russia, Syria or Donald Trump [in fact, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents on Russia, millions on Syria, and thousands on Donald Trump, see https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/, https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=russia%7Cputin%7Cmoscow#results, https://wikileaks.org/syria-files/ & https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=trump#results].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever worked for, or has ever been employed by “Russia Today”, “RT” or the Russian government.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was “given a show”, “made a host”, or “hosted a show” on RT [in fact, in 2012, he and two British companies, Dartmouth Films and Journeyman Pictures conceived, produced and distributed “The World Tomorrow”, which was licensed to a dozen broadcasters and newspapers, only one of which was RT].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks “works with RT” or “works with Russian State media” [in fact, only once, for one publication in 2012, was RT part of a consortium of nearly two dozen re-publishers of WikiLeaks’ series on the private surveillance industry, the SpyFiles].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks arranged for Edward Snowden to go to Russia [in fact, WikiLeaks gave legal assistance to Mr. Snowden to obtain asylum in Ecuador, but the U.S. government cancelled Mr. Snowden’s passport mid-flight, stranding him in a Moscow transit lounge for 40 days [see https://edwardsnowden.com/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange applied for a Russian visa in 2010 or obtained a Russian visa in the year 2010 or subsequently.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that there was a “Russian plan” to “smuggle”, or to otherwise remove, Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London or that Fidel Narvaez, or anyone else, was in contact with the Russian embassy in London in relation to such a claimed plan [see https://therealnews.com/stories/ecuadorian-ex-diplomat-report-claiming-…].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was made an Ecuadorian diplomat to Russia [in fact, his diplomatic credentials were lodged to the government of the United Kingdom and he was appointed as an Ecuadorian diplomat to the United Kingdom; at no point were they lodged with Russia].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange claimed that any person or entity was their source for WikiLeaks’ 2016 U.S. election publications [it is defamatory because Julian Assange’s professional reputation is substantially based on source protection].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks does not have a perfect record of accurately verifying its publications.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government has ever denied the authenticity of a WikiLeaks publication.
It is false and defamatory to deny that DNC Chair Donna Brazile and Senator Elizabeth Warren admitted that Julian Assange was, in fact, correct and that the DNC had indeed “rigged” the 2016 primary election in favour of Hillary Clinton [see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/926250463594516480 and https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/926094515261378561].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that John Podesta or Donna Brazile deny the authenticity of emails about them published by WikiLeaks [in fact, Brazile confessed that WikiLeaks was correct and she had indeed shared debate questions with the Hillary Clinton campaign https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/843216277225308161].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the French government found that “MacronLeaks” were hacked by Russia [in fact, the head of the French cyber-security agency, ANSSI, said that they did not have evidence connecting the hack with Russia, see https://wikileaks.org/macron-emails/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks “targetted” the French presidential election of 2017 and published “MacronLeaks” during that election [in fact, WikiLeaks published MacronLeaks after the election].
It is false and defamatory to suggest any of the MacronLeaks published by WikiLeaks are inauthentic or that President Macron attempted to make such a claim after the publication by WikiLeaks.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever stated that Russia was not behind the attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal [in fact, Julian Assange stated that it was “reasonable” to view Russia as “the leading suspect”].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever stated it was not appropriate to expel Russian diplomats and spies over the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Ecuador isolated and gagged Mr. Assange due to his comments on Sergei Skripal [in fact, he was isolated over his refusal to delete a factually accurate tweet about the arrest of the president of Catalonia by Spain in Germany, along with U.S. debt pressure on Ecuador. The president of Ecuador Lenin Moreno admitted that these two countries were the issue, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
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It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange does not have political asylum or is merely “seeking asylum” [in fact, he won his asylum case in relation to U.S. government moves to prosecute him on August 16, 2012 and was granted formal refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange “fled” to the Embassy of Ecuador [in fact, he walked into the embassy and lodged an asylum claim; it was not until 10 days later that the UK government issued a warrant for his arrest. see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has been, “hiding” in the embassy [in fact, his location is well known and his formal legal status is “political refugee”; it is incorrect to suggest that refugees, by virtue of being in the jurisdiction of refuge, are “hiding”].
It is false and defamatory to deny that Julian Assange has been formally investigated since 2010 and charged by the U.S. federal government over his publishing work [it is defamatory because such a claim falsely imputes that Mr. Assange’s asylum is a sham and that he is a liar, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that such U.S. charges have not been confirmed [in fact, they have, most recently by Associated Press (AP) and the Washington Post in November 2018].
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government denies the existence of such charges.
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is not wanted for extradition by the U.S. government [in fact, public records from the Department of Justice show that the U.S. government says it had been intentionally concealing its charges against Mr. Assange from the public specifically to decrease his ability to “avoid arrest and extradition”].
– It is false and defamatory to suggest that the U.S. government has not publicly confirmed that it has an active grand jury, or pending or prospective proceedings, against Julian Assange or WikiLeaks, each year since 2010.It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange’s asylum is “self-imposed” or that he is “free to walk out any time he likes” [in fact, the UK government states that he will be immediately arrested, the U.S. government seeks his extradition and the exits to the embassy are under 24-hour surveillance; it is self-evident that refugees, having been compelled by the risk of persecution to seek asylum are not “free” to return to the area of risk, any more than one is free to leave a house with a bear on the porch, see https://defend.wikileaks.org].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange applied for political asylum over “sex allegations” or “extradition to Sweden” or to “avoid questioning” [in fact, he formally applied for and received political asylum over the U.S. grand jury proceedings against him; the UN and the Swedish courts found that Sweden was improperly refusing to question him, not the other way around, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is merely a “guest” of the embassy and does not have refugee status, including under the 1951 Refugee Convention, or that the UK is not a party to the Convention, or that Julian Assange received only “diplomatic asylum” or that his refugee status is, in any sense, improper or incomplete [it is defamatory because it suggests that Julian Assange committed a crime by applying for asylum, which is false, see https://defned.wikileaks.org/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange, as a political refugee, does not have the right to voice his political opinions or a right to communicate them [it is defamatory because it falsely suggests Mr. Assange is a liar when he states he has never agreed to be gagged and when he asserts that it is a fact that refugees have the legal right to express political opinions and because his reputation is to a significant degree based on the accuracy of his statements and in being the world’s best-known free speech proponent and practitioner].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange did not have the right to apply for asylum or committed an offence in doing so [in fact, he has not been charged with an offence in the UK at any time and a “reasonable excuse” is a complete defence against any hypothetical future charge of “failing to surrender” under UK law and there has been no legal finding that his defence is invalid, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the terminated Swedish preliminary investigation started prior to the U.S. grand jury proceedings [in fact, the U.S. grand jury proceedings started in June 2010, three months before the Swedish preliminary investigation].
It is false and defmatory to suggest that the dropped Swedish preliminary investigation against Julian Assange ever had any legitimacy whatsoever [in fact, already by August 2010, the Chief Prosecutor of Stockholm found that “no crime at all” had been committed, and SMS messages from the alleged complainant showed that she “did not want to accuse Assange of anything”, that she felt “railroaded by police and others around her”, and that “police made up the charges”; documents from the UK government prove serious impropriety by the State, and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UN WGAD)found Sweden’s conduct to be illegal, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and potentially defamatory to suggest that the UN WGAD decision finding Julian Assange to be unlawfully detained in the UK is not legally binding [in fact, the UN has released two statements in response to such false reporting, stating that the decision is “legally binding” https://twitter.com/UN_SPExperts/status/1076107846629158914].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever been charged with, or committed, an offence in the United Kingdom.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever “breached his bail”, “jumped bail”, absconded, fled an arrest warrant, or that he has ever been charged with such at any time.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has a sentence to serve or has ever avoided serving a sentence.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange fled Sweden [in fact, the State prosecutor granted him permission to leave, he was not wanted for arrest or charged with an offence at the time he left Sweden, and he left for a publicly scheduled talk in Geneva, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has been accused by any person of raping them [in fact, both so-called Swedish “complainants”, who were falsely reported to have made such an accusation, denied that they had been raped, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the Swedish preliminary investigation was closed due to an inability to proceed caused by Mr. Assange or a statute of limitations [in fact, the prosecution abandoned the entire preliminary investigation, the arrest warrant was dropped, and the file closed and destroyed as the direct result of Julian Assange filing a case against the government of Sweden for its abuse of legal due process; the UN WGAD also twice found that Sweden had acted unlawfully, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was never interviewed by Swedish officials or has ever attempted to avoid being interviewed by Swedish officials [see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that there was ever a charge, case or prosecution against Julian Assange in Sweden [in fact, the matter never reached beyond the “preliminary investigation” stage].
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It is false and defamatory to deny that WikiLeaks is a media organization [in fact, WikiLeaks has won many media awards, is registered as a media organization, has been repeatedly found to be a “media organization” by the UK courts, and employs top journalists who (including Julian Assange) are members of their respective media unions, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/].
It is false and defamatory to deny that Julian Assange is an award-winning editor, journalist, publisher, author and documentary maker who has won the highest journalism award in his country, among many others. [https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/]
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever, through intent or negligence, revealed a source [in fact, in the case of alleged source Chelsea Manning, the allegation by the State is that Manning spoke, in a knowing breach of WikiLeaks’ security rules, to a reseacher for Wired magazine, Adrian Lamo, who promised him journalistic confidentiality, only to then inform on him to the FBI].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks is a “group”, that it has “members” or that Julian Assange is a “member” of WikiLeaks [in fact, WikiLeaks is a publication and a publishing organization; it has a highly accomplished salaried staff, not members; it is not al-Qaeda].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has ever directed, conspired, or colluded in a criminal manner with its sources.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange claimed “informants deserve to die” [in fact, Der Spiegel signed a statement refuting a false claim that he did, see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/762711823216996352].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has asserted that the Syrian government did not conduct chemical attacks during the war in Syria [in fact, WikiLeaks has published millions of documents from the Syrian government, including Bashar al-Assad’s personal emails https://wikileaks.org/syria-files/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks publications have caused deaths [in fact, the Pentagon’s General Robert Carr, who was assigned to look at their impact, admitted under oath in the trial of Chelsea Manning that the U.S. government had not been able to find any such incidents].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks recklessly published unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables [see https://wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that any of WikiLeaks’ claims about its 2017 CIA leak, Vault 7, “were later retracted” [the series had no retractions].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange ever published millions of records about female voters in Turkey [see https://wikileaks.org/10years/distorted-facts.html].
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It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is not an Australian citizen.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a “hacker”.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange was charged with an offence at any time by Bermuda.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever extorted the United States government.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange filed a lawsuit against Ecuador over trivialities [in fact, he filed an injunction to force the state to cease illegally gagging and isolating him since March 28, 2018 and moving to void his asylum after his publication of the largest leak in CIA history. Contrary to false reports, his cat hasn’t even been at embassy since well before the inunction was filed, see https://justice4assange.com/Protection-Action.html and https://defend.wikileaks.org/].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever neglected an animal or has ever been asked by a state to take “better care” of an animal [see https://justice4assange.com/Protection-Action.html].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever called to overthrow the Spanish state by calling for the independence of Catalonia [in fact, he never called for the independence of Catalonia].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange’s reporting on the violence and censorship inflicted against Catalans in any way connected to Russia [in fact, the managing editor of El Pais, David Alandete, was fired for spreading this false claim].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the Catalan government, or any other entity, paid Julian Assange to report on the violence and censorship inflicted against Spain’s Catalan minority, or to otherwise support their right to self-determination [in fact, Spanish prosecutors confirmed that there were no records of Mr. Assange receiving such payments contrary to what had been falsely reported].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is “far right”.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a racist.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a paedophile.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a rapist.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a murderer.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever proposed that he not publish, censor or delay a publication in exchange for any thing.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever agreed to do anything or to not do anything as a condition of his asylum.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that the administration of President Rafael Correa imposed any conditions in exchange for his refugee status or asylum.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a criminal or has a criminal record [in fact, his convictions for offences as a teenager in Australia have been expunged].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange called the Panama Papers “a Soros-funded attack against Putin” [see https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717810984673484800].
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has ever published, uttered or tried to promote a “conspiracy theory”.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange has ever suppressed materials critical of Israel, Russia or any other State.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that WikiLeaks possessed unpublished leaked material on the Trump campaign or the GOP or Russia and surpressed it.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever hacked the state of Ecuador.
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