Professional Assange Smearers Finally Realize His Fate Is Tied To Theirs by Caitlin Johnstone!!!!
(2019-05-24 at 13:34:09 )

Professional Assange Smearers Finally Realize His Fate Is Tied To Theirs by Caitlin Johnstone

Rachel Maddow has aired a segment condemning the new indictment against Julian Assange for 17 alleged violations of the Espionage Act.

Yes, that Rachel Maddow.

MSNBCs top host began the segment after it was introduced by Chris Hayes, agreeing with her colleague that it is surprising that more news outlets are not giving this story more "wall to wall" coverage, given its immense significance.

She recapped Mr. Assanges various legal struggles up until this point, then accurately described Mr. Assanges new Espionage Act charges for publishing secret documents.

"And these new charges are not about stealing classified information or outsmarting computer systems in order to illegally obtain classified information," Maddow said.

"It is not about that. These new charges are trying to prosecute Mr. Assange for publishing that stolen, secret material which was obtained by somebody else. And that is a whole different kettle of fish then what he was initially charged with."

"By charging Mr. Assange for publishing that stuff that was taken by Manning, by issuing these charges today, the Justice Department has just done something you might have otherwise thought was impossible," Maddow added after explaining the unprecedented nature of this case.

"The Justice Department today, the President Trump administration today, just put every journalistic institution in this country on Julian Assanges side of the ledger.

On his side of the fight. Which, I know, is unimaginable.

But that is because the government is now trying to assert this brand new right to criminally prosecute people for publishing secret stuff, and newspapers and magazines and investigative journalists and all sorts of different entities publish secret stuff all the time.

That is the bread and butter of what we do."

Ms Maddow carefully explained to her audience that these new charges have nothing at all to do with the 2016 election or any of the Russiagate nonsense the MSNBC pundit has been devoting her life to, correctly calling what the President Trump administration is doing with Mr. Assange "a novel legal effort to punch a huge hole in the First Amendment."

She tied this in with President Trumps common references to the mass media as the "enemy of the people", finally taking mainstream liberalism into a direct confrontation with President Trumps actual war on the press instead of nonsense about his tweeting mean things about Jim Acosta.

She rightly highlighted the dangers of allowing a president with a thick authoritarian streak the ability to prosecute journalists he does not like, and discussed the possibility that the United Kingdom may not comply with this new agenda in extradition proceedings.

"I think these 17 espionage charges against the WikiLeaks guy are a huge deal, and a very dark development," Ms Maddow concluded. "Chris Hayes this evening called it a -four alarm development-, and I absolutely share that."

"And, you know, I know you," Maddow continued, pointing to the camera. "Given everything else that we know about the WikiLeaks guy, I can feel through the television right now your mixed feelings about what I am saying. I can feel what may be, perhaps, a certain lack of concern about Julian Assanges ultimate fate, given his own gleeful and extensive personal role in trying to help a hostile foreign government interfere in our election in order to install their chosen president with WikiLeaks help.

Okay? I know. Okay, I feel ya. I got it.

But, it is a recurring theme in history, heck, it is a recurring theme in the Bible, that they always pick the least sympathetic figures to try this stuff on first.

Despite anyones feelings about this spectacularly unsympathetic character at the center of this international drama, you are going to see every journalistic institution in this country, every First Amendment supporter in this country, left, right and center, swallow their feelings about this particular human and denounce what the President Trump administration is trying to do here. Because it would fundamentally change the United States of America."

Wow. Make no mistake, this is a hugely significant development.

This is not just some columnist for the New York Times or the Guardian, this is Rachel effing Maddow, the Queen Mother of all tinfoil pussyhat-wearing Russiagate insanity.

This same pundit was just a couple of months ago not just smearing but outright lying about Mr. Assange, deceitfully telling her audience that the new legal rings closing around Mr. Assange were about his 2016 publications then instructing viewers not to Google anything about it because they will get computer viruses.

Now that she is recognized that this could actually hurt her and her network directly, she is finally feeding her audience a different narrative out of sheer enlightened self-interest.

The fact that such a hugely influential figure in mainstream liberal media is now pushing back against Mr. Assanges prosecution, and doing so in a way that her mainstream liberal anti-Trump audience can relate to, cannot be over-appreciated.

Ms Maddows credulous audience would eat live kittens if she told them to, so the way she is pushing back against a dangerous legal precedent in language they can understand will make a difference in the way United States of American liberals think about Mr. Assanges predicament.

It will not make them like him, it will not make them value the things he has done, but it will get them to finally begin resisting something that badly needs to be resisted.

And that is huge.

The danger has always been that this fatal blow to journalism would be meted out with total compliance and support from a population hammered into docility by the ongoing narrative war which has been waged on Mr. Assanges and WikiLeaks reputations with the help of the mass media.

There was a very real danger that thought leaders like Ms Maddow were going to choose their feelings over reasoning when the foot finally fell and the charges that criminalize journalism as "espionage" were finally put into play.

I do not think anyone would have been surprised if she had applied that giant intellect of hers into making it possible to ignore it without upsetting her audience and try and figure it out later when it was too late and the legal precedent was set.

It would have been so easy to keep feeding into the dominant "Mr. Assange is bad so everything bad that happens to him is good" sentiment, but she did not.

She directly contradicted it.

She actually chose to do the right thing.

I am gobsmacked, and it is not an exaggeration to say that my hope for humanity sparked up a little today.

If the resting smugfaced apex of liberal psychosis is getting this one right, then many more will surely follow.

And indeed, many already are.

In addition to Hayes coverage of the story, MSNBCs Ari Melber also did a segment harshly criticizing the implications of President Trump administrations new charges.

We are seeing multiple segments from CNN about the grave dangers of the legal precedent that is being set with the superseding indictment, as well as urgent warnings about the new charges from major publications like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian.

The outlets which have been smearing Mr. Assange relentlessly are now finding themselves forced to defend him.

A typical comment under Ms Maddows YouTube share of this segment reads "This is very strange. Very alarming!

There we go again.

The GOP is preparing the country for a Dictatorship."

And okay, that is not exactly what is happening (this has been a bipartisan push and it is not just preparations, we are in full swing), but whatever, now this viewer can actually see the monsters outlines.

Finally the Ms Maddow crowd which has been fruitlessly expending all their energy so far on punching at Russian shadows will actually be attacking a real thing.

And I am quietly excited about that.

I am eager to see what happens to the #Resistance if it actually starts #Resisting something.

It does not matter that this is only happening because mainstream liberal media outlets realized that they might be next on the chopping block; it matters that it is happening, period.

For years mainstream liberals have been fixating on the fake Russiagate psyop and rending their garments about President Trumps rude tweets while commentators like me desperately implored them to pay attention to the actual dangerous agendas that this administration is actually advancing.

They have been in a holding pattern of adamantly refusing to do that, and now, because it is threatening them personally, we are suddenly seeing a sharp deviation from that holding pattern.

As Bill Murray said at the end of Groundhog Day, something is different.

Anything different is good.

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