The petard hoisting of GRU asset Julian Assange by a leak is never going to get old. https://t.co/kdFBWUDEkg
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) September 17, 2018
This is the AP, not some blog with a history of overreaction, so… cui bono, at this particular moment?
LONDON (AP) — Julian Assange had just pulled off one of the biggest scoops in journalistic history, splaying the innards of American diplomacy across the web. But technology firms were cutting ties to his WikiLeaks website, cable news pundits were calling for his head and a Swedish sex crime case was threatening to put him behind bars.
Caught in a vise, the silver-haired Australian wrote to the Russian Consulate in London.
“I, Julian Assange, hereby grant full authority to my friend, Israel Shamir, to both drop off and collect my passport, in order to get a visa,” said the letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Associated Press.
The Nov. 30, 2010, missive is part of a much larger trove of WikiLeaks emails, chat logs, financial records, secretly recorded footage and other documents leaked to the AP. The files provide both an intimate look at the radical transparency organization and an early hint of Assange’s budding relationship with Moscow.…
WikiLeaks has repeatedly been hit by unauthorized disclosures, but the tens of thousands of files obtained by the AP may be the biggest leak yet.
The AP has confirmed the authenticity of many of the documents by running them by five former WikiLeaks associates or by verifying non-public details such as bank accounts, telephone numbers or airline tickets.
One of the former associates, an ex-employee, identified two of the names that frequently appeared in the documents’ metadata, “Jessica Longley” and “Jim Evans Mowing,” as pseudonyms assigned to two WikiLeaks laptops.
All five former associates spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, in some cases because they didn’t want their past association with WikiLeaks to become public, and in others because they feared legal retaliation or harassment from the group’s supporters…
Metadata suggests that it was on Nov. 29, the day after the release of the first batch of U.S. State Department files, that the letter to the Russian Consulate was drafted on the Jessica Longley computer…
Major Major Major Major
Kinda weird how the AP can, in the same paragraph, call Wikileaks a “radical transparency organization” and then talk about how they’re the sole recipient of internal leaks thereof.
debbie
The leaker got leaked on? I can’t stop laughing!
gwangung
Hrm. That has NEVER struck me as sign of a healthy, above board organization….
Viva BrisVegas
Maybe Assange’s usefulness to the GRU has run its course, and now they find it useful to discredit him before cutting him loose.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I can’t understand why Ecuador doesn’t just dump this asshole out onto the sidewalk. Why are they sticking their necks out for this guy?
ruemara
I LOVE THIS SONG! *twerks*
Gemina13
Hark! Is that the siren song of chickens coming home to roost?
different-church-lady
Hey, everyone in Left-Blogistan who got sucked in by this charlatan, stand up and do The Mea Culpa!
Dog Dawg Damn
WTF is Trump thinking with these tariffs? They are going to hit consumer goods in a big year, beginning at the beginning of the year.
Schlemazel
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Because he pokes the US in the eye. I really think Americans do not understand how much Central & SOuth America wants to get even for all the shit we have done to them
different-church-lady
@Dog Dawg Damn: Donald Trump doesn’t give a shit. Donald Trump just takes what it wants.
Schlemazel
@Dog Dawg Damn:
After Dems take control of the House & Senate. This is perfect, he can blame Dems for the impending disaster
TenguPhule
@Dog Dawg Damn:
End of Sept actually. Just in time for the Christmas shopping season.
The Thin Black Duke
@Dog Dawg Damn: Because his boss, Mr. Putin, wants him to. Of course it will be disastrous for the United States, but Trump does what he’s told to do.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel: Historically, it doesn’t stick unless the party you want to blame has the White House.
TenguPhule
@Gemina13:
Republicans: Nobody here but us turkeys!
MomSense
@different-church-lady:
That will never happen. At least we know we never fell for it.
Dog Dawg Damn
@TenguPhule: Right, but then they jump *again* in January! A ticking time-bomb.
Schlemazel
@Matt McIrvin:
Have you met any of the MAGAts?
They will believe it bigly
Mike in NC
@TenguPhule: A Merry Christmas would involve millions of deplorables getting pink slips as their jobs are slashed at Walmart and other stores.
rachel
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, there were people trying to blame the Dems in ’08 because they had the House. They even tried to blame Obama. (The prospect of his presidence scared the previously fantastic economy into collapse!)
Nobody bought it. They blamed W and the party that had supported his policies.
Elizabelle
@Dog Dawg Damn: My condolences on being without your beautiful Rosie the sheltie. She had a good life with you, and a peaceful end (on a car ride, yet). Glad to hear you will be adopting another lucky pet before too long.
Roger Moore
Can people stop calling them that? Transparency is about deliberately letting people know how things work as a way of increasing confidence in your processes. Any organization that actually cares about radical transparency ought to start with itself, which Wikileaks has never done. They’re as opaque as they can possibly be, while at the same time working to weaponize leaked or hacked information to damage their target as much as possible.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel: A lot of the MAGAts are unreachable, true, but some are. Can’t do anything about those among us who support fascists and would have been early-adopting Nazis. But that’s not most people, and we certainly outnumber them. Now, to get out the vote. And I think we will.
Brachiator
O/T Trump must think that slapping China (and the US economy) around is good campaign strategy going into the mid-terms. His Twitter message makes him sound very full of himself.
Also, more infliction of misery to prove that he is “protecting the country.”
Make America Cowardly Again.
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore: Thank you. WikiLeaks is NOT what its fans pretend it to be. Bit of a personality cult there, too. And, somehow, it benefits fascists and other rightwingers. Funny, that.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Elizabelle: Thank you. :-)
So word on Twitter is that Ronan Farrow has the apprentice tapes….I don’t want to be naive, but after Access Hollywood, I’m sure there’s some awful stuff in them.
debbie
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Trump’s channeling his inner Lee Iacocca, who agitated for these same kinds of tariffs against Japan in the 1970s and 1980s. Cooler heads prevailed back then; now, there really aren’t any (or many) in D.C.
WaterGirl
@Dog Dawg Damn: Be still my beating heart.
debbie
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Tom Arnold’s doing his bit, Farrow or no:
I kid. Ronan’s been absolutely heroic. How long till pervs everywhere tear Woody limb from limb for what he created back when he was busy destroying the Farrow family.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Schlemazel:
And would they be better off if the US were destabilized due to Russian fuckery? I mean, yeah, we’ve done bad shit to them but can’t they see the bigger picture?
Schlemazel
@Elizabelle:
I have been phone banking & I have to say the level of enthusiasm I am hearing tops even 2008. I was hoping for 28 pickups in Congress & 1 in the Senate. I read where 538 thinks 63 is possible in the House & I believe it if what I am hearing is common. I would kill for 3 Senate seats on top of that but that would be a miracle.
Brachiator
@Schlemazel:
Central and South America are doing far more to hurt themselves than they are hurting the US.
cain
@Dog Dawg Damn:
What is up with congress not stopping him? Seriously? Fucking republicans is all about trade and giving their paymasters good deals. These tariffs will fuck over everyone. I don’t understand why they don’t push back if just to keep their party alive. Jeesus.
Miss Bianca
@Gemina13:
I’ll say yes…if only because “the siren cluck” sounds so…clucky.
And yeah…BOOM! To all the dudebros who told me I was “hysterical” for making such a big deal out of rapey JA’s apparent coziness with Mother Russia…or at least, Russian-inspired shenanigans…may I just say, “BOOM!”
cain
@TenguPhule:
At least Christmas is safe and we can all say Merry Christmas!
Schlemazel
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Yeah, like revenge is always a well thought out action.
The enemy of my abuser is my friend
Schlemazel
@Brachiator:
Nose? Meet face
We may see it that way, I am betting they see it differently. I really think AMericans do not understand the depth of their anger at us
germy
according to Tom Arnold, who often bullshits and twists the truth.
I’ll believe it when Ronan announces it.
I think it was something Arnold blurted out while scuffling with Mark Burnett.
The Midnight Lurker
@Dog Dawg Damn: Yeah, I just got back from the store. Prices are starting to climb.
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady:
More like the “Mea Coffee Boy”, I’m thinking…because I’d hate to have to bet on whether any of those guys are self-aware enough to remember or acknowledge just how bad they were had. “Julian Assange? Did I know him?”
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Schlemazel:
That’s kind of my point. And this seques into another hobby horse of mine; Putin’s actions couldn’t have come at a worse time because the world needs stability and to work together to solve climate change, not return to the 1930s. Shortsighted, evil people are dooming the human race
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
We’ve survived much worse! But they’re certainly not improving the prospects for the current form of human civilization.
Brachiator
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Oh please, oh please, oh please….
I don’t think the release of any tapes will have a tremendous impact right now, but it would drive Trump up a wall, and unleash a category 5 Tweet storm.
Schlemazel
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Ah, I misunderstood.
Yeah, we are giving away the last chance I think. I hope the bastards enjoy the last few million on their already engorged stack of cash. Not that they care but their grandkids will die with the rest of us
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: Note that Obama allowed 110,000 in his last year.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
But Putin doesn’t give a shit because the bad things will happen after he is safely dead. So fuck everyone.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Not really. Pretty certain we haven’t faced a global extinction event yet.
rikyrah
César (@crimmigration) Tweeted:
ICE is telling people they have court dates but isn’t coordinating with the courts. “Some immigrants have even been given documents ordering them to be in court at midnight, on weekends and on a date that doesn’t exist: Sept. 31,” reports @disolis
https://t.co/5HjbRjc6oG https://twitter.com/crimmigration/status/1041709109727375360?s=17
The Midnight Lurker
@germy: How would Ronan Farrow come into possession of ‘The Apprentice’ tapes?
And that stupid business between Mark Burnett and Tom Arnold? I make it even money the whole thing was staged to use as a promo for Arnold new show Lost— er, I mean, The Search for the Trump Tapes or whatever the hell they’re calling it. I won’t watch it.
And is anyone else here dog tired hearing about fuckin’ tapes?!
raven
@The Midnight Lurker: no
germy
@The Midnight Lurker: Arnold is a first class bullshitter. He has nothing, but he keeps teasing his audience that something is right around the corner. He’s the Palmer Report of comedians.
Schlemazel
@The Midnight Lurker:
I am worried about the sort of moron who would finally be convinced by hearing the tapes.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: we survived this one.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Evil bastards. Drawn to ICE the way some germans were drawn to the SS.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: We were that extinction event.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule: They didn’t survive us.
debbie
@The Midnight Lurker:
People are contacting Ronan Farrow. He’s done all the reporting on #MeToo. Arnold may be whacked, but not Ronan.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: nonsense, we merely ensured that nature didn’t recover.
Ruckus
@Schlemazel:
Might that be because many Americans do not know what was done in and to SA countries in our names?
raven
@Ruckus: The Banana Marines!
TenguPhule
Dodged a bullet there.
oh. well shit.
TenguPhule
@raven: gunboat diplomacy
Amir Khalid
@TenguPhule:
I fear this will have a terrible effect on the price of budget electric guitars in America.
HalfAssedHomesteader
Shamir told the AP he was plagued by memory problems…
That is some high amperage irony.
Amir Khalid
@TenguPhule:
Trump’s opening statememnt at the meeting: You non-proliferate. Aerica must have more nukes.
TenguPhule
@Amir Khalid:
Nothing of value was lost. //
TenguPhule
@Amir Khalid: I have no mouth and I must scream.
Kathleen
@Miss Bianca: Brava, Ms. Bianca!!!!
Schlemazel
@Ruckus:
That would be my guess, yes.
Schlemazel
@raven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvxqQTh3m4
raven
@Schlemazel: One of my favs!
raven
Go Berz!
Haroldo
@Roger Moore: Well said!
Schlemazel
SCOTT LEMIEUX over at LG&M had a great line I intend to use when discussing the Dumps
Schlemazel
@raven:
May be a bit close to your heart though
raven
@Schlemazel: I loved the Vatican Rag too!
Steve in the ATL
@TenguPhule: how about a meeting to discuss how Saudi Arabia sows discord in the middle east through its funding of Wahhabism?
Major Major Major Major
@raven: ah, that’s a quality one.
James E Powell
@Steve in the ATL:
How about a meeting to discuss what the US is doing in Afghanistan?
Amir Khalid
@TenguPhule:
… And the price of kids’ clothing, and of household items, and of all kinds of goods that ordinary Americans need.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
Saudis have played the Orb of Osuvox which renders them immune to all criticism until a level 99 lawyer casts the counterspell of “Fuck your sovereign immunity”.
TenguPhule
@James E Powell:
You mean other then losing?
TenguPhule
@Amir Khalid:
You can’t make a soylent green omelet without people. And corporations are people, my friend.
Amir Khalid
@Steve in the ATL:
Not just the Middle East. They spread that Wahabbist shit everywhere in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the West.
James E Powell
@Amir Khalid:
They spread that Wahabbist shit everywhere in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the West.
I’m curious about this. Do they do it because it keeps their version of the rubes in line? Like the way Republicans do with the worst features of Christianity? Or do they actually believe that the Wahabbist way is how the whole world really ought to be?
Schlemazel
@raven:
I grew up in a Catholic neighborhood & clearly remember Vat-II. My friends mostly stopped telling me I was going to hell.
Mike in NC
@TenguPhule: But Trump’s reading and speaking comprehension is limited to two syllable words.
raven
@Schlemazel: My grandfather took the family out of the Catholic Church.
Mike in NC
@Steve in the ATL: What?! Those Saudis gave Fat Bastard a basket of shiny baubles and a cool looking saber. His devotion is complete.
Thoughtful David
@TenguPhule: That’s a perfect thing to have him serve as chairman of. Something he knows nothing about, can’t comprehend, and can’t even pronounce the multi-syllable words. He’ll sit there and look like a fool, and all of the other world leaders can mock the shit out of him. But it’s a “debate,” which means that no actual outcome or product is expected of the meeting, so no matter what shit he does or says, no harm is done. But the world gets to point and laugh.
They’ve put him in the most harmless, ineffective place they possibly could have put him.
TenguPhule
@Mike in NC:
They didn’t say it was going to be a pleasant meeting.
TenguPhule
@Thoughtful David:
You presume he’d act in a civilized manner and follow the rules of the UN.
Amir Khalid
@James E Powell:
The first is why they do it at home. The second is why they do it everywhere.
B.B.A.
@TenguPhule: In future news: 190+ countries quit the UN, form the International Union of No-Donalds.
TenguPhule
Everyone Trump nominates is a shitty crook, part eleventy.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule:
Because Trump set the standard.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule: And in case you thought I was joking about part eleventy…..
Schlemazel
@raven:
Because of Vat II?
At the time (late 50s – early 60s) the CHurch still held a lot of power in the daily lives of a lot of families in my hood. They really were more important than life
raven
@Schlemazel: Oh no, in the 20’s.
chopper
@TenguPhule:
funny, that. long was basically the only person in the whole admin with a solid background in the area of his position. of course, that was only because a background is congressionally mandated, otherwise trump would have stuck his show pony in the job.
Schlemazel
@raven:
That is stunning. He had some courage to take that step.
Gelfling 545
@TenguPhule: Trump will chair a debate? Nonsense. He’d never involve himself in something at which he wasn’t the main event.
Gelfling 545
@raven: Genuflect! Genuflect! Genuflect! It was quite popular when I was a nice young Catholic girl.
Mike in NC
Assange is going to somehow manage to fall off the roof of a 15 storey parking garage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemazel: Not to stomp on raven’s story, sometimes there is little choice. My great-grandmother took her family out of the Church in the 1900s. One of my grandfather’s brothers was ill and she could not afford both medicine and tithing. The priest came by her house and told her not to come back to church until she paid up. She never went back. She was also someone who, when one of her kids complained about the food he was served, said, “Eat that or eat shit.”
raven
@Schlemazel: Yea, I’m not really sure what the deal was, part of the family was Irish and the other Norwegian. It was a big deal to my old man but I never got the whole story.
Schlemazel
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think I could like that woman a lot!
My sister married a Catholic boy. Shortly after the wedding the priest showed u & told them they needed to start paying school tuition or he would not be able to provide any future kids they might have with a space at the church school. For all his faults (many -none of which were his religion) he told the priest to f off.
karen marie
@rachel: Yeah, about that …
The American public has an extraordinarily short attention span. Hence, the current Republican majorities in the House and Senate, not to mention the shitwhistle spreading his disgusting skin cell flakes all over the White House..
sukabi
@TenguPhule: in other words, he’ll be holding a trump campaign rally at the UN. That’s gonna increase our credibility in the world I’m sure.???
debbie
@TenguPhule:
You’ll recall Haley doesn’t like to be contradicted.
schrodingers_cat
So what are the chances that Special K becomes Justice K?
MisterForkbeard
@Miss Bianca: Oh, I’ll totally admit that I liked Assange when WikiLeaks first popped up on the scene. Guardedly, as I didn’t like a lot of what they were doing and thought they were slightly hypocritical, but I thought they were trying to do good.
I haven’t held that opinion for years, but I’ll totally cop to having it at one point. But then, I’m not a DudeBro and I wasn’t shitting on people pointing out the obvious about Assange back in 2016. Quite the opposite.
Gravenstone
@TenguPhule: There’s thought the human population may have been reduced to less than 50k individuals. So we’ve come perilously close. Granted, that was a very long time ago and circumstances were quite different.
oldgold
On the Rachel Maddow Show they played extensive footage of Anita Hill’s testimony in the Thomas confirmation hearing.
I had forgotten what a compelling witness she was. She spoke the truth.
What a damn tragedy Thomas was confirmed.
Gelfling 545
@Omnes Omnibus: Interesting. I’ve never heard of Catholics tithing before. I suspect the good father was running a con.
J R in WV
@cain:
Merry Xmas? Happy Merry, instead! or Merry Happy, really.
debbie
@TenguPhule:
Don’t forget this is also the guy who . . .
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: What happened to Chelsea Manning? There were elebenty FP posts on Manning and Assange back in the day on Balloon Juice. The biggest worry was stealing metadata and dronez. I miss those innocent times.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gelfling 545: Tithing, dues, collection plate, whatever. She wasn’t having it.
Jamey
@Viva BrisVegas: Polonium tea for one?
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: 50/50. There are at least 3 senators who would prefer at this point not to vote at all and two who have nothing to lose. Chances are that Trump’s ego and expectation that Kavanaugh will protect him probably gets him to a vote one way or another.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: The What Now? Did I read the words wrong or did he…. WTF?
raven
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hallelu, Hallelu, put a nickel on the drum,
Save another drunken bum.
Hallelu, Hallelu, put a nickel on the drum,
And you’ll be saved
. . .
Omnes Omnibus
@Barbara: I am calling no on confirmation. More is going to come out. BK is a creep, and the people who are trying to normalize thing by saying that what he and judge did is like that time you were making out with a girl and you tried to put your hand up her shirt and she said no are fucking monsters. They are trying to make it seem like all guys go through a rapey phase. DK is a rapey shit, and there is more to come.
I did some ranting earlier, so I kept this one short of short.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
IKR?
(You cannot make this stuff up.)
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Chelsea Manning got pardoned by Obama and immediately started palling around with white supremacists, so now she’s persona non grata in progressive circles.
By a strange coincidence, Julian Assange also has a history of making common cause with white supremacists, ?
MobiusKlein
@James E Powell: I imagine they do it for the same reasons Christian evangelical folks do. They think they are right
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: EDIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ben Cisco
@Mnemosyne: Strange coincidence indeed.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
I just tried using lynx (ancient command line browser) and it does an OK job of previewing comments, at least for making sure tags are closed etc. Copy draft comment text to file, then “lynx filename”. No javascript, but not needed.
Since our Balloon Juice Overlords insist on perfect comments. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Arnold: I understand nothing of this.
MomSense
She’s not the most exciting Senator and I differ with her on many issues, but Diane Feinstein is masterful at working the committee process.
Knowing how to work the levers is a highly underrated skill in politics.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
Dianne Feinstein is kicking ass right now because the Republicans are fucking with two things she cares deeply about: women’s rights and gun violence. Despite her myriad faults in other areas of politics, she has never and will never compromise on those two things.
As I was saying the other day, her Democratic opponent in November, Kevin De Léon, has unfortunately picked the wrong year to be a younger man trying to push an older, more experienced woman out of office.
VFX Lurker
@Mnemosyne: Hear, hear!