I wonder why Obama hasn’t tried the National Security thing to block the stories won’t other governments just bend over like they did with Bush and block the stories?

Banks operating in secret is vital to our national security!!1! Only a domestic extremist would criticize them!!

[tomorrow's NPR/village/Geithner talking point today]

It would be nice if our personal financial information got the same secrecy treatment.

WaPoS reporters’ bank account statements? O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!

Isn’t there a way to discredit Assange and keep his documents out of the public eye?

It worked so well with Michael Moore. Is Assange fat?

Maybe I’ll try this at the airport: “If you look at my naked body, countless people will die” (spoken breathlessly, with a catch in the voice).

The Democrats Wail

Now Julian Assange is getting into the PR game with dramatic announcements and delayed timing. Wikileaks is milking this for all it’s worth.

Just stop talking about it and post the files already.

We have one related to a bank coming up, that’s a megaleak.

It is a memo from Goldman Sachs to Israel and Saudi Arabia telling them to ask Obama to bomb Iran.

The backstory: Goldman has bought a slew of oil futures and wants to cut off the Iran supply to make a quick killing

makes perfect sense. i am not sure that the vampire squid can be removed from america’s jugular without killing the host, but we’ve got to try. a real preznit would hire some real auditors and turn the SEC loose on them. not gonna happen.

Hey, qualms about Assange’s “motivation” are a wake up call (his phrase) for tbogg, to go with tbogg’s hating third parties for Dems. Even tho a third party has already taken over the Republicans. Go look. World’s nuts.

Julian Assange: “We have one related to a bank coming up, that’s a megaleak.”

let’s hope the one about the banks sees the light of day, we need some kind of real outrage from people besides progressives

Umm, er, hmm. Actually the NPR guy this a.m. was asking a Der Spiegel reporter, “How dare you publish our secrets???!!!” I almost threw the radio. Instead, I just yelled back at him, “How dare you make decisions without consulting the American people regarding military aggression in the Middle East, in Korea, and regarding spying on your allies and on the United Nations. Who the hell do you guys think YOU are???” “How dare you manipulate Iran towards a war with the U.S. by messing with their stuff and people since 1979, and threatening their allies if they don’t join you in bullying Iran??!!” Do you have any idea how much safer the world would be if you ceased to exist??

from the link, assange about the bank leak;

It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume.

he presumes far too much, when the official documents and actual real time minutes from the government of england told us in no uncertain terms that the president fabricated the information taking us into Iraq and murdered our children, when that discovery did not stimulate investigations, our own children murdered, well then this won’t either

It’s pretty hilarious to hear the shocked, shocked air of the same folks who’re okay with outing Valerie Plame and all her associates who were working in secret to protect us from nuclear weapons in the possession of terrorists.

You actually still listen to NPR….wow!

Some gooper the other day was saying he wants to totally defund NPR, it is the only idea coming out of gooperland that makes sense to me.

Here in NH we have a wonderful community radio station (WSCA, streaming on line, to give a plug) that plays a fine selection of music, has local news and also mentions, with a deserved amount of skepticism, national and international news. I am listening to it now as I do every morning.

Donate, eat, buy and listen locally.

People should start planning now for a post-Assange/post-Wikileaks world because the demise of one or both of those things is inevitable. There needs to be a system where if Wikileaks goes, two others pop up in its place.

Good morning, pups. It’s Brooks and Herbert this morning. Bobo strides out to defend “The Fragile Community.” After another dump from WikiLeaks he’s making a case for greater diplomatic privacy. I’m sure he’s equally concerned about your privacy… Mr. Herbert, in “Broken Beyond Compare,” says Justice John Paul Stevens adds his perspective to the growing awareness that America’s system of capital punishment is irretrievably broken.

Here they are.

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got toasted Thomas’ English muffins and your favorite jam. We’re getting some rain today, thank heaven. Even my weeds were turning brown… Have a great day.

Jules is a baby eater and he must be stopped. Quick, somebody press totally fabricated charges on him. Oh, wait, Sweden’s already done that. Ecuador, safe haven? Really? You’re not helping. Why can’t we all just act like mobsters, like we’re supposed to?

It is all about power and money and the favors that are exchanged. People are expendable in the lust for profit. Corporate whores in corporate crime using the media to cover criminality all the time…. Just go shopping America. However before you spend money on loved ones lets waste .80 cents of every dollar you spend on gas, so you can go shopping! Dumber than dead dirt…..

The last thing any “criminal” wants is exposure.

Anybody thinking there’s going to be some investigating is burning some real good bud.

There’s a toilet in DC we flush these problems away ,eric the holder,who isn’t leaving anytime soon because he plays us and his part so well.

Irony and hypocrisy are not in the gooper lexicon.

The BBC is streamed on WAMC in NY during the night, then NPR kicks in just before daybreak. It’s a good alarm clock, but that’s about all it is worth. Online I see that NPR central has given the Social Security debate over to just the sole voice of a P.G.Peterson puppet, Maya MacGuineas. They are repeating the IOU meme over and over and getting away with it too. I despise NPR.

Oh, wait, Sweden’s already done that.

In the same interview (made on Nov. 11), Assange says he has some Pharma stuff curing also. Apparently it will be a while for that one. Maybe the target already knows, though.

Would take amounts of intelligence that are obviously lacking, I guess.

Are we talking then about another whistleblower coming forward? Not Bradley Manning? If so, that means Obama and his banking buddies must be crapping gold bricks. The lovely little TBTF fantasy they sold to everyone might eventually be exposed for the Treasury theft that it was (fingers crossed). You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, as Lincoln said. They were so pumped full of hubris they thought they could.

Bobo strides out to defend “The Fragile Community.” After another dump from WikiLeaks he’s making a case for greater diplomatic privacy.

Maybe he should think about greater diplomatic diplomacy.

This is starting to remind me of John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider (1975). That science fiction novel is best known for having originated the use of the word “worm” to describe a self-propagating, self-sustaining distributed computation. But Brunner’s novel is interesting in another way as well. One of the computer worms described there acts as an automated WikiLeaks, a search engine ferreting out the secrets of the high and mighty, and revealing them to the eyes of the public.

Brooks on the role of reporters at the NYT:

“As journalists, they have a professional obligation to share information that might help people make informed decisions.”

Haha

Ruth Calvo @ 13
Thank you Ruth, that really needed to be said. I have not seen the movie yet but it is on my list of things to do.
There are so many things for progressives to be angry about but that is one that is at the top of my list.

Ah, you’re implying that he thinks…

Ain’t he a scream? Of course, he doesn’t have to do any of that icky reporting stuff. As a columnist all he has to do is hold forth at the Applebee’s salad bar, opining about stuff and being consistently wrong. Wotta gig!

Morning all, the nooze keeps showing on the ticker that Assange is wanted in Sweden for rape and molestation charges. I thought he already sat before a judge on that. Am I wrong?

Oh well, anything they can do to squash him they will try. It is so plainly evident it is backlash.

How can Assange be a Handmaiden of Terror? He’s a guy! How ’bout the Butler of Terror, or the Stable Boy of Terror.

+1000

Sweden has reversed itself at least once on whether there is a sufficiently compelling case against him to warrant trial for the sexual offenses. I wonder why.

Good morning all.

Happy to see the world of false equivalencies & faux PTB outrage continues in full force this morning.

Pool boy of terror.

They are already in the works. Link.

Nice to know that the corporate media can still be “outraged” by something.

I can’t wait to see the pharma material.

Hi eCAHN – lol the cabana boy of terror.

was going to comment on Bobo, but decided that he annoys me too much to write about without getting excessively outraged.

I’m still getting off on Sharkbabe’s comment. Really.

You’re going to have to wait more than a year evidently. WTF?

Hmmm. Maybe one of those ‘eye’ agencies planted the crap?

Yeah, they are so top notch. Can’t even locate Osama bin Forgotten!

Here’s a post from July that whether right or wrong is the most interesting thing I’ve seen written about Wikileaks and the endgame. (Sorry, this was not supposed to be a reply to you SirLurks)

Maybe he suspects that he can uncover even more damning material on pharma (than what he already has) if he gives himself a little more time.

Wasn’t that O’s 11th dimensional plan behind freezing fed employee wages? /s

thanks eblair, good link – reads like a chapter from cryptonomicon…JA is no dummy, that’s for sure

There needs to be a system where if Wikileaks goes, two others pop up in its place.

I strongly suspect that there already is, and that that’s the real reason why they haven’t already moved against WikiLeaks. I’m sure they could shut it down if they really tried. But I’m not sure at all – nor, most likely, are they – that they could prevent new hydra heads from sprouting. And, while they may find it expedient to accuse WikiLeaks of recklessly endangering the lives of agents, they may secretly fear that the problem could be a much more real concern if WikiLeaks were replaced by something run by people truly lacking in restraint.

Please… From my poking around in the international press, the accusations against Assange are idiotic. So he had sex with two different 20 something women without a condom, particularly prior to sex with one of them she was apparently really worried about getting pregnant so explicitly said she wanted him to wear one.

Wow, well I guess after she made a statement of her desire, I guess that absolves her of any further responsibility. WTF.

At any rate, Assange is an idiot for doing what he did, but far from a rapist or molester. Sweden is awesome in many ways, but just like the US, their overwhelming favoritism in he said/she said cases is garbage. Women are only responsible for their actions if they choose to be, otherwise its the guy’s fault.

There are so many possibilities with respect to Sweden, it makes my head hurt, but one that just occurred to me in the shower is that perhaps Sweden is just pushing this to make sure Assange steers clear of Sweden. In other words, they don’t want him here, especially if things get really hot. Given this whole WL hurlyburly, I’m starting to think it unlikely that Assange will show up in Stockholm. And, Ecuador invited him in just a few hours ago. Just a possibility, but to my mind, the most likely. Of course, I have a new theory every 12 hours. hehe.

RE: totally defunding NPR

I am not certain about NPR, but PBS is almost totally insulated from citizen influence. More than 20 years ago, I donated to PBS so that I could QUOTE become a member in the PBS family. I waited for the membership card so that could vote in the local stations leadership elections. It never arrived, and I soon moved to a different state.

Much later I read in an article in FAIR. Activists Put the Public in Public TV

Quote: KQED ( PBS station ) is one of the few stations in the country that has an elected board of directors. Later I found out that board members elect their own replacements!

And KQED really wastes money on offices, salaries, and perks for themselves. It is fundraiser central, endless appeals for money. And the programming is thin and pretty annoying at times. Damn Antiques Road Show seemed to be on 24/7.

Eric Holder and his heroes of justice preparing frantically to steadfastly ignore clear evidence of fraud, there in black and white. Tell me Eric, how d’you do that without criminalising yourself?

Maybe before the 2012 election, Assange can get around to revealing the skeletons in Palin’s closet.

Why is it that those officials who are the first to accuse Assange of having blood on his hands are all the guiltiest of what they accuse him of.

War whores !

They will take the pay cut (with inflation it really is a pay cut) and like it. Where else can they go?

Saw this, they will get him. Hope he sets it up so his organization has many Spartacuses.

TomThumb: NPR’s political and economic reporting has definitely taken a righward turn. I noticed it during the primaries for the 2008 elections. During the Ohio primaries they had one segment where the economics editor of the Wall Street Journal was brought in as apparently the only expert on the economic positions of the candidates.

He spent the entire segment defending free trade. I was sorta shocked by his role as advocate for a certain economic stance when he was being pimped as giving some expert opinion on where the candidates stood (not the quality of their beliefs). Having tuned NPR in and out, I have heard this guy several times–apparently he is the official and it appears only voice on economic issues.

I recently caught a segment on the Catfood Commission with two of their reporter experts and it was like they were reading right wing talking points.

The gopers are certainly using NPR as a culture war hot point, but at the same time, I would classify the political and economic reporting as definitely right wing.

Eh? Most of the skeletons in Palin’s closet have already been revealed, but her slavering worshippers just bowed down ever lower at her trashy feet. I’d prefer Assange to do much more than that. Palin’s not worth the time & effort.

I would say “watch out Julian”. Exposing government officials is one thing, but exposing the shadow powers running the government is another thing. Reminded me of what happened to the editor of Forbes’ Russian edition a number of years ago. He was gunned down. Speculation in that admittedly suspicious culture was that his publication of a list of the richest men in Russia did not sit well with some of the oligarchs.

Yeah probably. Well put.

The whole thing with all the Middle Eastern Potentates & Israel wanting to bomb bomb bomb Iran is “interesting.” Let those f*cks do their own dirty work, if that’s what they want so bad (yeah yeah, I know: Team USA wants a piece of the $$$ pie).

Indeed. Assange treads ever more onto perilously thin ice. Good luck to him… he’s making some very powerful enemies, that’s for sure.

Hope some of the rubes wake up, though…

Nifty Propoganda Reporting is a big fat waste of time, albeit I know that for some in more remote and rural areas of the country, NPR offers the only alternative to a lot of junk.

Speaking only for myself, I could care less if the Goopers complete defund it. Especially since the Bush era, NPR has gone from being mostly centrist (I never ever thought NPR was particularly “left wing;” to me it was just more “reality based”) to being very rightwing – and not just “right of center.” The weekend programs are about all I listen to anymore. I simply cannot stand their “Fox nooz” “reporting,” esp their “economic” reporting. It is JUNK and b.s. and very xenophobically FOX-lite (and not all that “lite” anymore).

PBS is… eh? I dunno. Again the “entertainment” programs are alright. I almost never watch their “nooz” anymore. It’s marginally better than Nice Polite Republicans “nooz” but that’s not saying much.

I would miss Mystery & Masterpiece Theatre.

Are you promoting the Chinese media as a model? I think their board of directors appoints their own successors also.