QUID PRO QUO

In February 2019, the IMF announced a pending loan of $4.2 billion dollars to Ecuador, a deadbeat country according to Bloomberg, that has paid back only one bond in its two hundred year history. On March 11 of 2019, the loan was approved by the IMF. Was this a good investment?

Ecuador Economy Minister Richard Martinez (center)

Perhaps not, but as Judas money, it managed to secure the arrest thirty days later, on April 10, 2019, of Julian Assange who was ousted from the Ecuadorian Embassy into the renditioning arms of the UK which arrested him on trumped up charges, threatening extradition to the U.S. where a Virginia grand jury has been working to develop a case against the practice of journalism since 2011. Said Daniel Ellsberg: I think this is a warning shot across the bow of every editor and publisher in the country.

Ecuadorean Embassy, London

Even Deporter-in-Chief, serial assassin Obomber, avoided indicting Assange for the practice of journalism, but under the present administration, niceties regarding Freedom of the Press have become irrelevant. And with Manning in jail refusing to testify to that grand jury, and Snowden in Russia, journalism died. 

The all-the-news-that's-fit-to print state organ New York Times published its hit piece dated April 11 by Scott Shane and Steven Erlanger framing Assange as a narcissistic hacker whose skateboard enthusiasms was inclined to scratch the furniture, and with a cat who posed in the Embassy window wearing a tie. Evidently the Times did not care to scuff up the veneer of its own good grey propaganda. Although it was quite happy to make use of Asssange’s stellar journalism when it suited, it entirely missed noticing the unfit to print news that in the context a fascist government insisting on playing close to its chest, nothing but the kind of muckraking journalism practiced by Snowden, Assange, Manning, Greenwald, Scahill, and Pilger among others, can hope to penetrate the iron fisted curtain of the U.S. secretive regime.

Among Assange’s famous unfit to print news releases are the 2010 releases of 92,000 documents from the years 2004-9 regarding the war in Afghanistan that would become known as the Afghan war logs, the hundreds of thousands U.S. “diplomatic” cables exposing the strategic thinking of the officials changed with ensuring U.S. full-spectrum dominance, and the collateral murder” video showing a U.S. helicopter crew callously gunning down Iraqi civilians. (For a full list, go toWikileaks at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_material_published_by_WikiLeaks.)

April 12 S.F. demonstration at Market & Sansome

Like the Beatles in the 60s, with such releases, Assange changed the course of our history in the early years of the 21^st Century. Even prior to Wikileaks, we knew our government was lying to us, but Assange’s revelations renewed our activism, infusing it with energy and purpose.

This week, the arrest of Assange over shadowed the burning of three black churches in a Louisiana parish, and the gutting of the Highland Civil Rights Center and its archives in Tennessee, where a sign of the Romanian fascist Iron Guard Movement was found (the same symbol used by the Christchurch, N.Z. shooter), both events the trickle down effect of Making America Hate Again.

 

Donate Legal Defense Fund 
https://t.co/xTZ8dgPjzS

Call U.K. embassy/consulate to demand Asssange be released:

Washington, D.C. 1-202 588 6500
e-mail: britishembassyenquiries@gmail.com

San Franciscso, CA 1-415 617 1300
e-mail: UKinsanfrancisco@fco.gov.uk

Tell U.K. not to extradite Julian Assange at https://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=13659

Free Julian Assange at https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-usa-extradition?recruiter=531909392&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_message&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial&recruited_by_id=ac65bfa0-09ec-11e6-ad33-e5d85eb9f078

Support Assange at https://www.codepink.org/assange?utm_campaign=assange&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink

Tell Gov. Newsom: Protect California families. Grant pardons to Cambodian Americans facing deportation at
https://act.credoaction.com/sign/newsom-stop-deportations?t=7&
akid=32116%2E21110%2E_peJyJ

Support ending Muslim ban at

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-repealtheban-and-support-the-no-ban-act?detail=emailLL&link_id=14&can_id=655968a96e1bce05c463b2f640bf633c&source=email-armed-israeli-soldiers-threaten-teachers-arrest-9-year-old-palestinian-boy-from-elementary-school&email_referrer=email_525773___subject_678316&email_subject=black-congresswomen-made-political-history-democrats-need-to-give-them-more-support

Stand up for Palestinian rights at https://secure.everyaction.com/XJEo9eoY20C2iPnkDVT0jQ2?emci=e928951b-e25a-e911-b49e-281878391efb&emdi=786dc1f3-ea5a-e911-b49e-281878391efb&ceid=230968&contactdata=3NTt8SCzAGY6q7vFUyeJijjVYYNeyMatsvq0964hoOHZd5eytdzCpXWPzKso1czwB4et3YktI2xQz%2bppKan%2bnQBYmT0PJ8CfthDLSAyIrsKXZ%2bocx2MU5dHp3FKlE7iezDKrpA8ZHXo4x979vc3RUrFmiJXMLTrOxFQ9jU%2b51zmPb%2bpCk09hBAs9ZeZbUlO6

Corbyn opposes extradition of Assange for ‘exposing evidence of U.S. atrocities.’

Snowden leads global chorus condemning Assange arrest as grave assault on journalism.

Immigration

Neilsen, empress of family separation, most aggressive immigration hawk in history, resigns. 

Protesters shed light on Florida Detention Center For Migrant Children.

WH threatens flooding sanctuary cities with asylum seekers. Bring ‘em on!

Federal Court orders U.S. to Abandon ‘remain in Mexico’ plan.

Southern Poverty Law Center announces Judge blocks #45’s cruel asylum policy.

Volunteer doctors on U.S. Mexico boarder struggle to provide stopgap care to immigrants.

Health

Renewed push seeks to make Medicare for 64-year-olds a step towards Medicare for All.

Connecticut lawsuit may bar anti-choice clinics from lying to pregnant people.

Domestic

Sanders agreed to FOX town hall to send message to #45 voters: He lied to you. Duh!

Sanders vows to ban anti-labor “Right to Work” laws.

Democratic Party may be coming to its senses. (Don’t hold your breath).

Coordinated hunger strike at two Wisconsin Prisons demanding end to solitary torture.

Following CA governor Newsom’s moratorium on Death Penalty announcement, six former governors and two CA Supreme Court justices commend him.

CA police used of deadly force bill, AB 3932 moves forward.

San Francisco proposal to close juvenile hall draws show of support.

Activist claiming NYPD tried to frame him, gets $860,000 settlement.

Students lead movement to restore prisoners’ voting rights on East Coast.

Protest prompts Beloit College to cancel Erik Prince lecture.

Hopkins students protest private police oplan,  citing school officials’ campaign contributions to Pugh.

Georgetown students vote for reparations.

Progressive Democrats threaten to tank $733 billion in insane Pentagon spending if social programs are not also boosted.

Hunger in America: Nonprofit program is taking unused school food and turning it into meals students can take home.

Poverty in  America: George to give out free tampons and pads in schools, and to low-income folks.

House votes to renew Violence Against Women Act with added gun reform NRA dislikes.

Kentucky becomes 25^th state to protect pregnant employees at work.

Tennessee Senate unanimously passes anti-SLAPP Bill

Digital Rights activists celebrate as House approves “save the Internet Act” to restore net neutrality.

Apple employee detain at U.S. border over IPhone and laptop speaks out.

All tech start ups that are poster boys for innovation are built on two profound inventions, both born of cooperation between scientists and public funded research not driven by profit-driven competition: the digital computer and the internet.

31,000 workers at Stop & Shop across Connecticut, MA, and RI, go on stroke.

Thousands strike at 5 UN hospitals, alleging unfair labor practices.

Due to activist organizing Wells Fargo CEO Sloane’s congressional testimony that the bank has changed since its scandal three years ago was met with skepticism and rebuke in Congress.

On Thursday Wells Fargo announced Sloane quit in wake of multiple scandals.’

Chicago to go 100% renewable.

Breakup with oil and gas culture: several Louisiana communities start divorce proceedings.

Mothers Out Front launches “Beyond Gas” campaign 2-year campaign.

Washington Court of Appeals upholds right to present necessity defense in climate crisis.

Foreign

Iran designates U.S. Central Command a terrorist Group operating in Middle East.

Berlin Activists march, demanding city seize housing from companies owning more than 3,000 units. Now, benefiting from novel interpretation of constitutional provision allowing private assets to be transferred to public ownership, their campaign gathers signatures to force citywide vote to force companies owning over 3,000 properties to sell them to the city.

Florence, Italy uses precautionary principle for rollout of 5G.

Cantons of Geneva and Vaud, Switzerland suspends 5G, prohibiting construction of 5G antennae.

5G: CA Supreme Court affirms local authority to regulate wireless infrastructure.

54,000 Germans petition Parliament to stop 5G auction on health grounds.

In Norway electric vehicles outsold gasoline-powered cars for first time in history.

U.S. calls for probe of Yemen hospital bombing.

No thanks to MSNBC, bill to end Yemen siege passes.

U.S. unable to attack Venezuela: too many confirmed S-300 anti-air systems.

Tel Aviv Israelis protest for Right of Return in solidarity with the Great March of Palestinian Return.

Sudan military coup topples ruler after protests.

After more than six weeks of street protests, with the abdication of President Bouteflika, Algeria wins historic victory.

After 21 weeks of skirmishing with municipal authorities, St. Nazaire yellow vests hold “House of the People” hosting 700 delegates.

Bogota bans cars every Sunday and people love it.

Indigenous Chiapas community learns agroecology lessening its dependence on pesticides.

Hundreds of people in Oresund, Denmark built Tvindkraft, the largest windmill in the world and give away the patent so others can do the same. It still powers the town of Ulfborg in western Denmark.

 

Chiapas’ 8-Year-old Xóchitl Guadalupe Crux wins top science prize for her invention of a roof-top solar water heater.