The worst fears of Julian Assange's legal team have just been realized.
Just as Wikileaks' editor in chief anticipated, the DoJ has revealed that a grand jury in Virginia has returned a new 18-count superseding indictment against Assange that includes violations of the Espionage Act stemming from his role in publishing the classified documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, as well as his original charge of conspiring to break into a government computer, per the New York Times.
The DOJ said with the indictment that Assange will face a maximum of 10 years for each of the 17 Espionage Act violations, plus the five-year penalty for his earlier hacking charge.
In addition to significantly raising the punishment threshold (from a maximum of 5.5 years under the previous indictment to the prospect of a death sentence for violating the Espionage Act), the new charges will raise serious first amendment issues as Assange will become the first journalist charged under the Espionage Act.
read on...
“The West” is much divided over what should happen in Libya. This is particularly true for France and Italy, who each have vast oil and gas economic interests and are increasingly at odds with one another.
While admittedly the US and UK have an eye on their potential economic interests in a future Libya, theirs is more of an anti-terrorism focus aimed at eradicating ISIS’s presence in Libya and specifically to find ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who is thought to have recently moved to Libya and set up his new HQ.
ISIS released a few weeks ago an 18 minute video (which TV stations around the world only had access to a few minutes) of him speaking, thought to have been taped in Libya, the first such video showing al-Baghdadi, providing proof of life, to be released in five years.
In the intervening current period, the battle to take Tripoli continues by Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar’s forces.
Also in almost tandem with the US/UK concentration on finding extremist terrorists in Libya (and elsewhere of course), views on the Muslim Brotherhood are being re-evaluated.
read on...
Andrew Napolitano: President Trump Is Continuing the Long Trend of Expanding Presidential Power
President Donald Trump is participating in a “disturbing trend,” dating back to the Woodrow Wilson presidency, of United States presidents acting to expand presidential power beyond what is prescribed in the US Constitution, declares Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano in a new episode of his Fox News video editorial series Judge Napolitano’s Chambers.
read on...
Andrew Napolitano Praises San Francisco’s Facial Recognition Technology Ban
Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano, in a new interview with host Stuart Varney at Fox Business, praised the San Francisco Board of Supervisors vote Tuesday to make San Francisco the first American city to ban city government use, including by the city’s police, of facial recognition surveillance technology.
read on...
Who Attacked Four Oil Tankers in United Arab Emirates?
Earlier this week mysterious reports came in of a sabotage of four (empty) oil tankers in port in the United Arab Emirates. They were not destroyed, just damaged. With the US military on a hair trigger in the Middle East, any suggestion that Iran was behind it would lead a big step closer to war. Some unnamed US officials blamed Iran, while the Iranians blamed Israel. RPI Director Daniel McAdams participated in a debate on PressTV on this topic and on US/Iran relations in general...
read on...
Lawrence Wilkerson: We Could See a Repeat of the Vietnam War in Venezuela
If the United States military invades Venezuela, we can expect to see a repeat there of what happened in Vietnam — a long war costly in lives lost and ending in defeat for the US. That is the conclusion of College of William & Mary professor and former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson in a recent interview with host Sharmini Peries at The Real News.
read on...
Lawrence Wilkerson Warns the US is Driving Down a Highway to War with China
Former Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the George W. Bush administration, warns in a new The Real News interview with host Sharmini Peries that the United States government is driving down a “highway to war” with China — a war for which Wilkerson sees no sound justification.
read on...
Become a member of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and help us continue the Revolution.
Latest neocon alerts. If you see something, say something. Send us your tips and snips.
