Cedric's Big Mix: 2022-01-09

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

A CERTAIN FACTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY HAS TREATED AOC LIKE SHE IS BOTH JESUS CHRIST AND WONDER WOMAN. THIS DESPITE THE FACT THAT HER ONLY SUPER POWER IS HER ABILITY TO DISAPPOINT.

BUT SOMETIMES PEOPLE BELIEVE THEIR OWN PRESS. WE ARE SAD TO LEARN AOC HAS COVID. WE ARE SAD TO LEARN THAT ANYONE HAS IT. BUT WHEN WE ALSO LEARN THAT SHE SHOWED UP IN FLORIDA (A HOME STATE FOR ONE OF US) PARTYING WITHOUT A MASK? OUR SYMPATHY IS A LITTLE LESS. SHE'S A SUPER SPREADER WHO LECTURES OTHERS ABOUT MASKS BUT FAILS TO WEAR THEM.

REACHED FOR COMMENT, AOC TOLD US -- MUST QUOTE BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- "ANYONE WHO DOES NOT FALL BEFORE ME ON THEIR KNEES IS A REPUBLICAN. HOW DARE ANYONE EVER CRITICIZE ME! [COUGH COUGH] I AM A GOD! I AM IN CONGRESS! PISS ON YOU! PISS ON ALL OF YOU! I HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE AS A MEMBER OF CONGRESS! YOU DON'T HAVE S**T! AND YOU NEVER WILL! [COUGH COUGH] NEVER!"

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange.

Julian Assange: "A knowledgeable public, is an empowered public, is a free public" #FreeAssangeNOW

6:46 PM · Jan 5, 2022

Why does Joe Biden insist upon persecuting Julian Assange?

He needs to be asked that. He's the one with the power here. Make it personal. For Julian Assange, this is his life. It is very personal.

So, Joe, why are you persecuting Julian?

What's it going to take for you to stop persecuting him?

Time to put Joe on the spot.

He wants to do this, make him justify it.

Julian Assange revealed the truth -- that's not a crime.

RABBLE explains:

Julian Assange is the founding editor and publisher of Wikileaks, the pioneering transparency website. Wikileaks exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture at Guantanamo and other abuses of power, releasing thousands of secret U.S. government and military documents that major news organizations worldwide, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian then used as the basis for award-winning reporting. Assange is currently locked up in England’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, which has been described as the “British version of Guantanamo Bay,” as he fights the U.S. government’s attempt to extradite him on espionage and hacking charges. If extradited, he faces up to 175 years in prison if found guilty.

On Wednesday, activists marked Assange’s 1,000th day of incarceration at Belmarsh with a rally demanding his release. Prior to Belmarsh, he spent almost seven years inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, under political asylum.

Among those protesting was Stella Moris, Assange’s financée and the mother of his two youngest children. “It’s really taking a toll on him,” Stella Moris said on the Democracy Now! news hour in November, speaking from outside the UN climate summit in Glasgow. “There’s no end in sight. This can go on for years, potentially.”

Stella Moris announced the 1000th-day vigil in a tweet that included an audio recording reportedly made inside Assange’s Belmarsh cell. Men screaming, guard dogs barking, and the incessant clang of metal doors slamming open and closed echo through the recording, painting a stark picture of the harsh conditions inside Belmarsh.

“The U.N. special rapporteur on torture has said that he is being psychologically tortured,” Moris continued. “His physical health has seriously deteriorated. They are killing him. If he dies, it’s because they are killing him. They are torturing him to death.”

Moris recently revealed that Assange had suffered a mini-stroke in prison on October 27th, the first day of his High Court appeal hearing. That court ultimately sided with the U.S. government, ordering that his extradition could proceed. Assange is currently seeking permission from that same High Court to appeal the ruling to the UK’s Supreme Court.

Threats to journalists and media workers worldwide have been on the rise. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that, as of December 8th, 24 journalists had been killed in the line of duty in 2021, with eight more whose deaths may have been linked to their work. A record-breaking 293 journalists were imprisoned last year.

President Joe Biden opened his “Summit for Democracy” on December 9th, saying, “Free and independent media. It’s the bedrock of democracy. It’s how the public stay informed and how governments are held accountable. Around the world, press freedom is under threat.”

Biden’s words are true, but ring hollow as his Justice Department seeks to imprison Julian Assange for life, simply for performing those very functions of a free press that Biden praised.

“On the same day the Nobel Peace Prize honors journalists, a UK court ruled that the United States can extradite Julian Assange, a move that seriously damages journalism,” CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said on December 10th, referring to Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia for their courageous reporting while under threat from their governments. “The U.S. Justice Department’s dogged pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder has set a harmful legal precedent for prosecuting reporters…The Biden administration pledged at its Summit for Democracy this week to support journalism. It could start by removing the threat of prosecution under the Espionage Act now hanging over the heads of investigative journalists everywhere.”

A coalition of 24 groups, including Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, PEN America and Reporters Without Borders called on the Biden administration to halt its Assange prosecution, saying it “threatens press freedom because much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely—and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do.”

It's not 'the Biden administration.' Have the guts to speak up or go cower in the corner, RABBLE. It's Joe Biden. One person holds Julian Assange's fate in their hands -- just one person.

Call him out or shut up because we don't need you. We don't need you distracting or diverting attention.

Hang this around Joe Biden's neck, where it belongs. Hang it around his neck and force him to face reality: History will punish him forever if he does not stop persecuting Julian.

Hang it around his neck.

He wants it so make him own it.

"The future of journalism is at stake - it will not stop with Julian Assange" #FreeAssangeNOW

6:24 AM · Jan 5, 2022

At CONSORTIUM NEWS, Dean Yates notes:

Let’s talk about what is indisputable, who really was endangered and by whom.

The United States of America jeopardized the lives of Iraq’s entire 25 million people with an illegal and reckless invasion based on the lies that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had direct ties to al Qaeda.

It’s indisputable that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi combatants and civilians were killed in the eight-year war because of violence and war-related causes. (Research in 2013 put the total at 400,000). It’s indisputable that four million Iraqis fled their country. Millions more were displaced internally.

It’s reasonable to say millions of Iraqis were wounded by violence or suffered illness from war-related causes. It’s fair to say millions of Iraqis will struggle with trauma and mental illness for life, that a countless number have already killed themselves.

American families suffered too: 4,431 U.S. soldiers were killed in the war and 31,994 wounded. Hundreds of thousands of American veterans have PTSD or moral injury, affecting millions of loved ones and friends. Same goes for any other foreigner who spent time in Iraq – soldier, security contractor, truck driver, cook, journalist.

And in case people think the Iraq War is over, Islamic State rose from its ashes. Yet no American government or military leader has ever been held to account for the lies and misrepresentations over Iraq. Meanwhile, the United States brazenly misrepresents the facts in its case against Assange with the blessing of successive Australian governments.

That’s why we need to make Assange’s freedom an election issue in Australia. It’s why we need to make noise on social media, in the mainstream media, to politicians, and on the streets. Because Assange is being tortured in a foreign country for telling the truth about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he will be extradited to America where he will likely die in prison.

Remember — the Australian government eagerly took part in the invasion of Iraq. His case is the biggest test of press freedom in decades. Make some noise Australians! Bring Assange home.

Brett Wilkins (COMMON DREAMS) points out:

According to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Assange has been arbitrarily deprived of his freedom since he was arrested on December 7, 2010. Since then he has been held under house arrest, confined for seven years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London while he was protected by the administration of former Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, and jailed in Belmarsh.

"The U.S. government is trying to put an Australian publisher on trial in a U.S. national security court, where he faces a 175-year sentence and imprisonment in conditions of torture and total isolation, simply because he was doing his job," Morris said. "He received true information about the victims and the crimes committed by U.S. operations in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq from Chelsea Manning, and he published it."

Lisa McCormick Tweets:

After American leaders dismissed human tragedies as "collateral damage" #JulianAssange & @WikiLeaks
 released more than 490,000 documents about the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That is journalism, not a crime.

6:37 PM · Jan 1, 2022

And Desiree notes:

~ Julian Assange ~
"The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance."