Clearly the US vendetta against Assange is payback for uncomfortable revelations such as the helicopter shooting of civilians. I suspect the spy community already knew most of the sources. In any case it's a strange world where telling the truth is a crime.

If Assange is extradited to serve 170 years in the US I think Australia should consider emphatic retaliation against the US and UK. That could include a rethink on defence arrangements and critical minerals. I expect US relations will be in turmoil post November so there will be a lot of dust to settle.

There was a vote in federal parliament to free Assange to return to Australia; 86 votes in favour and 42 against.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, joined Coalition colleagues in opposing the motion on Wednesday, although the Tasmanian MP Bridget Archer crossed the floor to back the pro-Assange motion.

Fortunately, a vote in the Australian Parliament has no influence on the case.

And,of course Assange is a political prisoner; he acted in a political way to undermine US security. He deserves to be extradited to the country he acted against, and it is nothing to do with us. Assange is a disgrace to Australia.

And, there us no similarly between him and Navalny. Navalny was a patriot, allegedly murdered by his government.

Horse feathers, bird's fur, bah humbug. Assange alone is responsible for Assange's actions/criminal tried and found guilty, activities.
Alan B.

Well said Alan. The reason Mr Shipton has been in prison and not out on bail is because he skipped bail and hid in an embassy for several years when Swedish authorities tried to extradite him to answer sexual assault charges. When he exhausts the appeal process he might answer to the US courts as did Chelsea Manning many years ago, when fair weather friend Jules left her high and dry.

"Julian Assange is a journalist who uncovered..."

Julian Assange is not a journalist - perhaps he once was but now he is just a shadow human wreck.

Political or otherwise, nobody should be tortured like him. Just let him return to his family after so many years of persecution, exile and prison.

Everyone assumes that Assange is an angel, however, he was far from innocent in the downloading and distribution of the classified files (including the coaching Manning on how to download and distribute the files). And while some exposed war crimes others lead to the execution of agents in Russia etc.

If JA had only published the data there would be no case against him. The USA is charging him with being directly involved in the extraction of the files which is a felony with a 30-year sentence attached.

If you or I had engaged in the same criminal, repeat, criminal activities, we would now be cooling our heels in a US federal prison, and deservedly so.

Assange's "torture" was mostly self-inflicted as he sought to escape the Swedish courts for multiple rape charges. For which he served no official time.

Had he manned up he could be now living free and clear in Sweden as a moral man?

He could have flown to Moscow, where his good mate Putin would have put him up in a penthouse and kept the girls coming.

Left to me, I'd have ended his misery with a little lead pill right between the peepers.

This miserable excuse for a human being/bail jumping A-hole, deserves no sympathy, just credit for time served.

His imprisonment in the UK appears very soft with many privileges and almost like a holiday camp.

Should be extradited and serve time in a US federal prison he, could die there along with thousands of others. Rapists, hackers, thieves.

Save your sympathy for someone who has earned it!
Alan B.

'Assange is just as much a political prisoner as Navalny'

Maybe in some respects but completely different in others.
Assange really brought himself the ire of the US leadership when he released the Podesta emails, (which may have cost Hilary and the Democratic Party the election, and the wrath of her, the Democrats, many Republicans as well (uniparty for the Military Industrial Congressional Complex) and the CIA in releasing their 'Vault 7' hacking tools.
- Anything else they accuse him of is politically motivated, a way to punish him for daring to expose these people.
I'm fairly sure off memory that Mike Pompeo even stated that the CIA (which he was head of at the time) had even considered assassinating him.

As for Navalny being a political prisoner there is some truth to that, but there's context too.
Navalny never had the support in Russia we're lead to believe he did.
He was originally poor and broke and got into this timber scheme in Kiril, where loggers were stealing timber under the noses of their employers, Navalny came in and acted as a middleman, ensuring the loggers weren't stealing timber on the side, which was sending the company broke, and he made a chunk of money out of it and there were allegations of wrongdoing by Navalny.
Then, he was convinced by a friend to go to Yale, and it was there he was approached by the CIA and got involved with NGO's and the NED (National Endowment for Democracy) who fund opposition groups to create civil unrest and bring about overthrows in foreign countries.
He went back to Russia with intentions to create civil unrest and undermine the country as an agent of the West, and when he did so Russia was politically motivated to bring up these earlier events in Kiril as a way to put him in jail and stop his efforts to create civil unrest and oust Putin.

- I think this is the basic story anyway...

[Cont.]
Navalny always had more support in the West than he ever did in Russia, and he was a traitor to his own country, but a hero to the West who oppose Putin.

Talk of who killed Navalny....
Well, it's not well publicised that Navalny's wife went to visit him on Feb 14, with 'medicine' and gifts, (while traipsing around with her new boyfriend) and a day later she was at the Munich Security Conference making a big statement about his death.
Some are saying he was killed with Novichuk, but it should also be stated that the West too (including Ukrainians Azov battalion) have access to Novichuk.

You can dig into things and check it all out for yourselves.
I haven't dug too deep into these issues, but this is what I've heard.
Talk it with a pinch of salt if you choose, and do your own research.

Hi AC,

The irony of you remarks is the question of how the west managed to knock off Navalny in a remote Russian arctic prison, yet never got past the conspiracy theories to knock off Mr Shipton. I like Russians. They are a brilliant people and make an enormous contribution to civilisation, but they subjugate themselves to a ruthless psychopath. Such a contradiction!

Maybe Navalny knocked himself off Fester.
- It may not be as far-fetched as it seems.

Unlikely AC,

Navalny was patriotic. He didn't care where he was as long as he was in Russia.

Fester
- Here's the video I got most of the Navalny info I shared in the previous comment from, if you have the time to watch the first 10 minutes of it.

Ask the Inspector Ep. 137
http://www.youtube.com/live/9NI7aqL4bww

You're welcome to disagree with what's stated, but at least it gives us a solid backstory that will suffice as a starting point to understand things.

Thanks AC,

There are things I don't much like about Navalny. I was speculating on his motivation. You might be interested in this Russian historian talking about the motivation of autocrats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOtYV9ZcjdA

Hi Fester,
"You might be interested in this Russian historian talking about the motivation of autocrats."
- Interesting channel.

I think one of the biggest issues here is that the West has corrupted any grassroots political opposition, and so the autocrat has to defend against these 'democratic' or 'humanitarian' movements which are attempting to create civil unrest, and replace the leader with one more aligned with Western interests.

They look like 'movements for change and good'; for 'democracy', but really it's just imperialism and expansion of the US empire.
These nations become vassal states, and the West usually sends all its businesses in to loot the place after the fact as well.

It occurred to me that 'Western democracy' or more specifically 'US foreign policy' is much like the US 'Democratic Party' platform.
- They're an umbrella for all the minority groups, they bring them all together - as one - to gain power unto themselves, often against the nationalists, but they actually represent donors and elites, not specifically the minority groups themselves.

It's just the same on an international level, they go around the world aligning with all the opposition and minority causes, to create civil unrest and disorder to gain power unto themselves, install a US puppet ruler and expand the US empire.

How can an 'autocrat' allow grassroots political opposition if the west co-opts it
via the CIA / National Endowment for Democracy for example.
- specifically to do that country harm?
http://www.ned.org/

By co-opting all grassroots political opposition so they become Western aligned political opposition, this Western attack itself is blocking any kind of real change, real grassroots political opposition can't grow and the West stands back criticising a situation that it caused itself, saying that the 'regime' is suppressing any real political opposition and the leader is a 'dictator'.

NED Statement on the Death of Russian Opposition Leader Aleksey Navalny
http://www.ned.org/ned-statement-on-reported-death-of-russian-opposition-leader-aleksey-navalny/

>>The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is deeply saddened by the tragic death of Russian opposition leader Aleksey Navalny in prison at age 47. Navalny’s death comes after three years of unjust imprisonment, torture, and denial of adequate medical care at the hands of the Russian regime. NED calls for a thorough and transparent investigation into the surrounding circumstances—and the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners arbitrarily detained in Russia for speaking against the regime...

“If this is true, I want Putin and everyone around Putin, Putin’s friends, his government to know they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, and to my husband,” said Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Aleksey Navalny, at the Munich Security Conference, which gathers influential policymakers and world leaders only hours after reports of her husband’s death. “I want to call on the entire world community, all the people in this room, and all over the world so that we unite together and defeat this evil, defeat the horrific regime that is now in Russia.”<<

** Note use of the word: 'Regime'?
- You see, it's a school play - they're reading lines - following a pre-prepared script

Navalny's mum says Navalnaya didn't go to see him for 2 years,
[but she did go on February 14, with medicine (novichok) and 'gifts'].
Watch -> http://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1760689047490724042

President Biden meets Alexei Navalny's widow and daughter
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68378730

If this was real 'Russian' grassroots opposition Biden wouldn't be meeting with them.
Look at the photos, they're hugging.

She's their guy now and probably has been for some time, she's being pushed forward (Munich security conference) to take Navalny's place, as an activist and spokesperson not necessarily a political opponent.

And all the new measures they bring against Russia because of Navalny's death, is the motive for killing him;
He had no further usefulness, he was discredited in Russia and sentenced to a Siberian gulag for 20+ years.

Hi AC,

I thought that Navalny was very much a part of the political system in Russia. Western nations supported him because he opposed Putin, but his mindset was still one of "them and us". That Russian historian gave a good description of what was happening, with Putin using propaganda to make the population believe that Russia faced destruction and enslavement by a jealous west. Of course, Putin is the strong man hero who will save them. Nazi propaganda had much the same narrative and objective.

False equivalence and conspiracy.

Too many Australians avert their gaze from Assange's behaviour and helping the Trump campaign, now avoiding extradition versus Navalny who had the balls to return to Russia....

From US left Mother Jones, David Corn:

'Denounce Julian Assange. Don’t Extradite Him. The prosecution of the conniving WikiLeaks founder poses a threat to American journalism....
But one PR problem with the case is that Assange is a highly unsympathetic character, for he is partly responsible for the damage done by Donald Trump during his presidency: 400,000 or more preventable deaths of Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic; the lack of action to address climate change; the promotion of disinformation and lies to incite a violent attack on the US Capitol; a tax cut that favored the wealthy and added to the national debt; right-wing appointments to the Supreme Court that could lead to the severe curtailing of reproductive rights for women; the spread of bigotry and racial hatred; the suppression of voting rights; cutbacks in government health programs; creeping (or galloping) authoritarianism; and so much more.

The United States has suffered greatly because of Assange. In 2016, he collaborated with the Russian attack on the US election to help Trump win. As has been detailed by several government investigations—including in special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report and in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee last year—after Russian intelligence teams hacked Democratic targets, they passed the stolen emails and documents to WikiLeaks, which then publicly disseminated the material.

The Senate report notes that Assange’s group “timed its document releases for maximum political impact.” That is, WikiLeaks wasn’t acting in a noble information-sharing manner. It sought to weaponize the information pilfered by Vladimir Putin’s operatives to cause harm to candidate Hillary Clinton, whom Assange and WikiLeaks had disparaged as a “sadistic sociopath” and a threat to the world. (“We believe it would be much better for [the] GOP to win,” WikiLeaks had tweeted.)'

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/12/denounce-julian-assange-dont-extradite-him/

Hi Andras Smith,
In all fairness, you can only make that kind of argument (damage caused by Trump winning) in comparison to the damage that Hillary Clinton might've caused if she was elected.
- And we just don't know how things would've turned out in that scenario, which makes the Mother Jones article merely a hit-piece, not unbiased fact-based journalism.

And lets not forget, Hillary Clinton had private gmail accounts that she was using instead of her official state.gov email account, and she wouldn't hand over any access or data until most of the information was scrubbed.
That most likely smells of 'corruption', which likely goes back going back to when her husband was president.
Given that she was the Democratic Candidate at the time, (and Secretary of State prior) she was probably involved in the fake Russiagate story, and the plan to spy on the Trump campaign, and the murder of Seth Rich.

Also the Clinton foundation was doing 'Pay to Play'
- Pay the Clinton Foundation, if you want favorable treatment by the government.
And she was a divisive figure, calling the majority of the country (who went on to elect Trump) deplorables.

I do agree with you about Assange regarding the Podesta emails.
- But honestly I think Assange was doing the country a good service in those releases.

AC think false equivalence....

For example, if you read summary and reporting of the Mueller Report & Congress Committee, blaming Seth Rich murder on Clinton was another conspiracy promoted by Assange, FoxNews et al.; the latter was compelled to pay Rich's parents significant but undisclosed damages.... suggesting another RW conspiracy to favour Trump....

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/24/media/seth-rich-family-fox-news-settlement/index.html

The Hacktivist (We Are Legion) movie features Julian Assange along with others seemingly a somewhat Wokeist / Communist movement. One of the features of the Hacktivist movement was Hoic/ Loic/ Ddos attacks on Visa/ Mastercard as well as other tactics attacking popular Traditionalist's such as Sarah Palin. Perhaps there were more shadowy communist figures inciting the proxy teenagers like Moot, Assange, etc. Some of the actions of the Hacktivist movement were seemingly about web democratization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hacker_groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Legion

Hi Andras Smith,
"For example, if you read summary and reporting of the Mueller Report & Congress Committee, blaming Seth Rich murder on Clinton was another conspiracy promoted by Assange"

- Only if you believe the FBI to be squeaky clean and unbiased, which I do not.
I believe Mueller was likely chosen as a person who would cover things up and return a 'Move along, nothing to see here' kind-of story, rather than expose any wrongdoing.
He was a gatekeeper.

Navalny was a 'pied piper' type of figure, who wanted to trick Russian citizens into destroying their own country for the benefit of Western financial interests.

http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4475835-navalnys-ominous-warnings-for-us-investors/

"Navalny’s vision for an economic transformation of Russia is embodied in the electoral platform of his presidential campaign of 2018. Among the actions that Navalny envisaged were measures that foreign investors, international financial institutions and economic analysts had been advocating for years. Those included demonopolizing the economy, privatizing state enterprises, lowering the tax burden on small and medium-sized enterprises, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy, opening up the banking sector to competition to lower borrowing costs, tax revenue sharing with sub-federal levels of government and increasing government spending on infrastructure, education and health care."

- Basically he wanted to get the Russian people to support him to sell off the government stake in Gazprom and other companies with state ownership, on an anti-corruption platform, and promising to give more to pensioners and improve infrastructure. But it wasn't about helping the pensioners and building better infrastructure, it was about allowing foreign interests to get their foot in the door and hands on Russias resources, depriving the government of these important strategic state-owned assets.

[Cont.]
Moreover,
If the West could take some control back over Russian oil interests, and put a US puppet ruler in place, this would place China in a bad situation if the West tries to make war on China, which would involve blockading Chinas access to oil in the Middle East, and from Russia.

The whole plan has backfired spectacularly, and Europe will now pay the price. Their prosperity was based upon access to Russian oil and gas, which is now gone, their economic misfortune is not temporary, like a drought in northern Africa several thousand years ago, Europe's future is the Sahara desert.

AC, you are offering opinion by claiming it's just somebody's opinion or the FBI culture; got any informed or credible sources vs. conspiracy theories?

In the Anglosphere there's much cherry picking of both the faux anti-imperialist tankie left and radical right that ignores salient facts e.g. why was Assange liaising with Trump campaign's Roger Stone and accepting a visit by Nigel Farage (who allegedly handed over a USB of DNC emails from Russians).

Related, what was Alexander Downer's role in meeting with Trump campaign's and Russian cutout Papadopoulos, then reported as incidental or now pre-arranged? Former PM Turnbull, cited by Lowy Institute, as alleging that Downer's unspecified behaviour or actions were a sackable offence?

On Europe or the EU's future, no idea what you are claiming, but the Anglo radical right represented by Koch Network behind the GOP, Tories, Brexit and LNP/The Voice, detests the EU for having regulation supporting minimum labour, consumer, environmental, competition and financial standards.

"AC, you are offering opinion by claiming it's just somebody's opinion or the FBI culture; got any informed or credible sources vs. conspiracy theories?"

In a perfect world, YouTube wouldn't delete entire channels and years of content when requested by powerful people, and I wasn't the one who did the research on all the events through those years, it's just what I remember.

(The channel I refer to was George Webb's YouTube channel content from 2015 through till around 2018 when said channel and content were deleted without warning by YouTube or any opportunity to back it up.)

As an well known example however, I can offer you the fact that US Democrats, FBI, and social media companies were caught suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story as 'Russian Misinformation', as well as keeping the contents of the laptop a secret (which confirmed Biden's corruption in Ukraine) from the US public leading up to the 2020 election.

When you ask what Assange was doing?
Probably trying to prevent Hillary from winning;
But a lesser evil than Democratic Party operatives, the FBI and social media companies colluding to get Trump out / put Biden into - the Whitehouse in 2020.

Regards your other questions, Downer / Papadopoulos, I can't remember all the full details, and I can't go back and refer to YouTube content that no longer exists.

- So they have form, that's the best I can do right now, without contacting the author of the videos, which I can do if you want.

"On Europe or the EU's future, no idea what you are claiming"
- Just saying their prosperity was built on Russian oil and gas which is now gone, and they're paying significantly more to replace it, causing deindustrialisation, and costing jobs, many businesses have moved to U.S. and China, and many EU countries are now in recession.
- And this is just the trajectory, things aren't likely to change for Europe anytime soon.

The EU is authoritarian, can't even have the best interests of their own farmers, and bullies and threatens its own member states.

Hi Andras Smith,
I emailed George last night after I commented, and I just got an email back.
Unfortunately he didn't give or direct me to any specific info (regarding Mueller, Papadopoulos, and Downer)
- but I know for certain he covered them on his channel YouTube deleted years ago.
He directed me to his substack instead, and I'm not sure if I can search only his content with keywords.

http://georgewebb.substack.com/archive

I'm not sure how I feel about responding back to George anything other than 'thanks'.
He's usually fairly busy, and the last thing a content creator / researcher would want is a content viewer bugging them.
- Best I can do for now, maybe I'll have a dig through the content later if I get a chance.

One would trust informed and credible sources vs. opinions and beliefs relying on dubious sources and analysis?

The author of this article, Hunter, apparently works in an academic setting , but not his area of expertise?

Finnish researcher Pekka Kallioniemi's Vatnik Soup:

'In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an Australian hacker, publisher and activist, Julian Assange. He's best-known as the founder of WikiLeaks, leaking hacked and stolen data, cooperating with the Russian intelligence, and for being under criminal investigation in the US.'

https://vatniksoup.com/en/soups/269/

George relied mainly on deep diving open source media releases - google compound searches and people with an intimate understanding of government.
I watched George for several years daily, and can attest to his determination.
If YouTube didn't wipe his channel and content probably at the insistence of the same type of people you defend, we wouldn't be disagree.

Your 'vatniksoup' looks like the perfect site for people with existing 'Hate Russia' biases.
- Not a real good place to start in my opinion.
You might as well just post info on Russians marked for 'liquidation' on the Ukrainian hit list Myrotvorets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrotvorets
If you look at this page, you'll see the website listed for the Ukrainian hit list Myrotvorets, which is:
http://myrotvorets.center/
Go there, click on it - now look in the top right-hand corner.
What's it say?
Langley, Virginia, USA
What's in Langley?
CIA Headquarters

Mike Pompeo About CIA : We lied, We cheated, We stole
http://youtu.be/6RmEsPE7iq0

You want to talk to me about 'informed and credible sources'?
Clearly the FBI was protecting the Bidens from having their corruption exposed from the Hunter Biden Laptop in order to get Donald Trump out of office for the interests of the Uniparty, the MIC, Clintons and other Lobby groups and donors.
Sheet, the Democrats even screwed over Bernie Sanders...

Do you understand the term 'rotten to the core'
or maybe 'Doing everything they accuse others of themselves'?

Some people think all the arguments are settled but anyone who actually looks slightly deeper than the crap that passes as news knows it doesn't pass the smell test.

Are you the 'informed', or the 'gullible and naive'?
- When you're reposting stuff that likely originated from Langley, Virginia?

While Ukraine and USA fight a propaganda war, Russia is destroying the Ukrainian military.
They're destroying the Ukrainians means to fight faster than the west can replace weapons, ammo and troops.
That's why Macron declared his willingness to send troops.
- But all the others backed away.

Ukraine gets what it deserves for installing right wing NAZIs into government after the Western sponsored coup.