On the list for this weekend is the autobiographical graphic work from Adrian Tomine, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, while Women and Leadership offers up valuable experience and advice from Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

If I Cant Have You is Charlotte Levins study of love, loss and obsession, the updated version of The Most Dangerous Man measures the ongoing impact of Wikileaks, and finally, a memoir of mental illness, drug abuse and sex work is presented in Money for Something. Lets check out the list.

Photo: Dustin Aksland

The iconic comic artist Adrian Tomine manages to squeeze a lifes worth of pain, humour and the complexity of his relationship with art into one book. An insightful visual examination of modern life from one of its keenest observers. Via Faber & Faber.

Two women of outstanding accomplishment former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala offer expert analysis of women in leadership positions and how theyre viewed in comparison to their male counterparts. For more, visit Penguin.

A compelling novel which surrounds the life of Constance, a flawed and compassionately rendered protagonist. Themes of loneliness, obsession are explored in this tale, which invites readers to ponder the very limits of love. See Pan Macmillan for more details.

Wikileaks and the ongoing saga of its founder, Julian Assange, continues to hold the worlds interest. In this updated edition, Fowler turns a forensic eye toward the man who has made some incredibly powerful enemies throughout the years. Via Melbourne University Press.

A riveting memoir which traces the story of Mia Walsch one that takes us on a tour of a Sydney thats unknown to most. A first-hand account of the sex work profession told with rare candour. See Echo for more details.

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The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist and more: Happys Weekend Reading - Happy

In a sentence you probably never thought youd be reading circa 9am on a Tuesday morning, Vivienne Westwoodhas been suspended ten feet in the air in a giant bird cage dressed as a canary outside Londons Old Bailey, in protest against Julian Assanges extradition to the United States.

When shed returned to the ground and emerged from the cage, Westwood, in an all-yellow suit, told reporters: Julien Assange is the canary in the cage, he has been trapped by a big net, taken out of the sun and shoved in a cage, and called his arrest a stitch-up. For the rest of his life he will become a symbol of what happens to you if you dare to expose the truth. Telling the truth is not a crime, the designer and activist, who has long been a vocal supporter of Assange, added.

Currently held on remand in Belmarsh Prison in London, the Wikileaks founder is set to appear at an extradition hearing in early September, with the US government pushing for him to be brought back to America to stand trial for allegedly conspiring to hack into military databases and publishing information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Westwood'sstunt comes the day before his lawyers are set to make a bail application at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Of course, Westwood is no stranger to putting her money where her mouth is when it comes to taking action for the causes she believes in. Away from the runway, where she has long made her ideology known, in 2018 the legendary British designer headed to a proposed fracking site in Lancashire to protest against the practice, making headlines as she danced to Abbas Dancing Queenalongside hundreds of others who had also turned out. More recently, shes been backing Greta Thunbergin her fight against climate change, telling The Big Issue she would make a great world leader.

Read more from the original source:

Vivienne Westwood dressed as a canary in Wikileaks protest - Dazed

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to MOYERS ON DEMOCRACY for a conversation about Roger Stone, William Barr, and Donald Trump with a glancing reference to Roy Cohn. Bills guest is the lawyer Steven Harper, who with his daughter Emma Harper created The Trump-Russia Timeline and now The Pandemic Timeline. These valuable resources for journalists and citizens can be found at BillMoyers.com and Dan Rathers News & Guts. Before his retirement, Steven was a litigator at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago and cited as one of the Best Lawyers in America. Here now is Bill Moyers.

BILL MOYERS: Steve, its good to not only hear you now, but to see you. This is the first time Ive seen you in our conversations.

STEVEN HARPER: Well, its great to see you, Bill, really terrific. Thanks for having me on.

BILL MOYERS: What did you think when you heard that President Trump had commuted Roger Stones prison sentence?

STEVEN HARPER: I was shocked, but not surprised. Hows that? To me, its the culmination of what has been happening since Barr became attorney general. Even before he became attorney general. You know, people forget that the way Bill Barr got his job was by sending an unsolicited memorandum to the Justice Department in the summer of 2018 saying that Muellers investigation was out of bounds, that under no circumstances should Trump sit for any kind of questioning of Mueller. And lo and behold, six months later Donald Trump has finally found his Roy Cohn. To me, thats the most discouraging part of the thing as a lawyer.

RELATED: Democracy & Government

BY Bill Moyers and Michael Winship | June 16, 2016

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean when you say Trump has discovered his Roy Cohn?

STEVEN HARPER: As you know, Roy was the famous McCarthy hatchet man who spared no weapons and took no prisoners. And he was Trumps ultimate fixer. He was Trumps fathers attorney for a while. Ironically enough, it was Cohn who introduced Trump to Roger Stone. Its the very first entry in my Trump Russia timeline is the Cohn-Roger Stone-Trump connection. And now the circle is complete. Who wouldve thought you would ever yearn for the days of Jeff Sessions as attorney general, right? Even Sessions wouldnt go to the lengths that Barr has gone to to protect Trump, to undermine Mueller, whom he characterized during his confirmation hearing as a friend, which is somewhat remarkable to me, to punish Trumps enemies and to reward his friends. Roger Stone is truly a central player in this. And he stands for so much of what we know and also dont know about the Trump-Russia investigation.

BILL MOYERS: Why does commuting Stones sentence matter?

STEVEN HARPER: Well, it matters cause it springs him. You know, it gives him freedom. Heres a guy who was convicted of seven felony counts. He lied to Congress repeatedly. He threatened witnesses actually, with physical violence. Hes a central player in all of this. And the fact that you would commute the sentence of a person who has done everything he could to, number one, frustrate the Trump-Russia investigation. Number two, knows terrible things about Trump, I believe, and Russia, and that Mueller, some of the latest unredacted pieces make that clear. Its just a travesty. And hes yet another poster child of whats wrong with justice in America. There are two systems. If you know the right people, if you have the right kind of resources, you can avoid prison for some crimes that actually threaten democracy.

BILL MOYERS: Five counts of perjury, guilty. One count of obstructing Congress, guilty. One count of tampering with a witness, guilty. The federal judge, as you know, who sentenced Stone, acknowledged that hed been prosecuted for, quote, Covering up the president.

STEVEN HARPER: Thats right.

BILL MOYERS: Thats the judge who sentenced him summing up the case. But now hes going free by the presidents own decree. The man for whom he covered up is setting him free.

STEVEN HARPER: Well, thats what makes this so much worse than Richard Nixon. And I dont have to remind you of all the terrible things that happened with Richard Nixon. But the commutation in this case, which is what makes it, I think, so much more heinous than anything Nixon did, its the culminating act of obstruction of justice with respect to Roger Stone, who constantly said, you know, Im never gonna turn on him. Im an honest guy. And then Trump would, you know, tweet in response, Boy, its good to see people with guts. Its all in plain sight, as it always is with Trump.

BILL MOYERS: Can this be anything but a reward for Stone keeping his lips sealed about Trumps own involvement in the Russian campaign?

STEVEN HARPER: No. I dont see how. None of the so-called justifications for the commutation make any sense. It never went through the formal Department of Justice commutation process. In order to have a sentence commuted, at least, as I understand the rules, you have to at least have served some time in prison. This guy walks before he ever went across the threshold. And theres no other way to see what happened here other than a reward for someone to remain silent. I mean, if you had John Gotti in the White House, I mean, youd expect this sort of thing.

BILL MOYERS: But the conduct, the behavior, the outspoken I mean, Stone actually boasted that he had remained silent. And Trump, as you say, praised him for his quote guts in not cooperating with the prosecutors. Isnt that pretty much of an admission that its one more step in the cover up?

STEVEN HARPER: I think so. I dont see how you can see it as anything else. I really dont. Stone is a guy who I think from the beginning, he was the central intermediary between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. Before, during, and after the election. And then you have this endless, you know, as only Roger Stone could, bragging about how central he was and how he was in touch with WikiLeaks throughout the fall of 2016, and how often he talked to Trump and so on.

BILL MOYERS: So why was Stones lying to Congress so serious to the Russian investigation?

RELATED: Democracy & Government

BY Steven Harper | July 11, 2020

STEVEN HARPER: Because what he lied about was central to the investigation. He lied about whether or not he had documents. He lied about the nature of his communications with WikiLeaks. He lied about who he had communications with. He was lying about matters that went to the core, I believe, of the Russian investigation. But, you know, what makes Barr particularly dangerous is that hes a lot craftier and hes a lot smarter than Trump. And I really believe that theyre using the pandemic to cover a host of sins. And I fear that there are more to come, although I couldnt even begin to tell you what they might be. But, you know, from Flynn to Stone to whatever October surprises Barr has been cooking up with John Durham you know, theyve got this whole sideshow going

BILL MOYERS: John Durham is the veteran prosecutor been serving in Connecticut, whom Barr has appointed to investigate the investigation by the FBI of Trump and Russia.

STEVEN HARPER: Precisely right. And the issue there, of course, is that neither Trump nor Barr like the notion that the investigation at its origins was properly opened. So even though Mueller concluded that it was properly opened, even though Inspector General Horowitz concluded it was properly opened, even though the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by the GOP concluded that the investigation originally was properly opened, one of the first things that Barr did was appoint somebody to take another look at this and say, Well, lets see if it was properly opened.

BILL MOYERS: You remind me that the congressional committee that Stone lied to was Republican controlled. Does it ever cross your mind that some of those Republicans are relieved now that the country will never know why they let him get away with it?

STEVEN HARPER: Well, eventually the truth will out here. And it wont surprise me in the least if Stone does it himself in a tell-all book cause he could make some money doing it. I mean, thats the way these things work. Eventually it unravels. Whether you and I will live to see the ultimate unraveling is not clear, but the judgment of history is not gonna be kind to any of these Republicans who have continued to sit on their hands and just remain silent while all this has unfolded.

BILL MOYERS: But they will be dead, and what judgment will pass on them?

STEVEN HARPER: I dont know if you remember in one of Barrs early interviews, after he was criticized, as he properly shouldve been, for trying to spin the Mueller report out of existence before releasing it, during an interview, somebody asked him, Arent you worried about your legacy? Arent you worried about history? And his comment was a very straightforward, Everybody dies. So, you know, youre in a world where if you dont care, I guess you can convince yourself a lot of things are okay.

RELATED: Letters From an American

BY Heather Cox Richardson | June 25, 2020

BILL MOYERS: But they may, in time, in history, in death, be judged by this. But whats the damage being done now?

STEVEN HARPER: Horrible. I think its just absolutely horrible. And I think people dont realize maybe lawyers have a greater sensitivity to this, although some of my disdain, frankly, is for people like Barr and other enablers with law degrees that are allowing this sort of thing to happen. You know, people bristle at comparisons, you know, to dictators like Hitler and Mussolini. But, you know, Hitler couldnt have done any of the things that he did without lawyer enablers helping him along the way.

BILL MOYERS: Did you read the piece in the NEW YORK TIMES by one of the prosecutors in the Mueller investigation, Andrew Weissmann?

STEVEN HARPER: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: He said that we might get the truth from Stone, some grand jury would call him back and tell him, Why did you lie to Congress? Just begin with that premise. And that would start it all over again even though his sentence has been commuted?

STEVEN HARPER: Well, it could. Hed be being asked a new set of questions under oath and therefore creating new opportunities for himself to lie. So, each new appearance creates the new potential for legal jeopardy. There was another article I read along similar lines by Neal Katyal, who was the acting solicitor general for President Obama for a time. And he also suggests that the Stone story may not be over. I do have to say, at the end of the day, as a practical matter, I dont hold out a whole lot of hope that any of those things are likely to happen. I fear that politicians might say, well, we just dont wanna go down that road. But the road that Trump has taken us down already has been so fraught, and is continuing to be so fraught with danger for democracy that I think its imperative that we hold him accountable.

BILL MOYERS: So you dont think theres any possibility that Attorney General Barr wants to pursue Stone to get at the truth?

STEVEN HARPER: (LAUGH) Im sorry, if you intended it as a serious question

BILL MOYERS: I was just seeing

STEVEN HARPER: No. Nope, I couldnt even restrain myself in response to a rhetorical question.

BILL MOYERS: But what does Barr have to gain from protecting Stone from further prosecution?

STEVEN HARPER: What Barr has been doing in the protection of Trump, in the undermining of the Mueller investigation, in the protection of Flynn, dropping the Flynn case, the nagging question in all of this, to me, is why? Whats in it for him? What is it that he thinks hes achieving? Now the only thing that Ive been able to come up with is that he has this theory of a unitary executive, which is essentially an all-powerful president who is always able to do whatever he wants, and its the closest as we would ever come, and I hope we never get there, to having a king. And so is this just some pursuit of his own pet theory that people shouldnt be able to scrutinize a president? I dont really get it. Somebody somewhere, sometime, someday maybe will be able to figure out what the piece is, but theres a piece of the puzzle there that I dont understand.

BILL MOYERS: You say that Stone was central to the Russia-Trump investigation. Whats going on with that investigation as we speak?

STEVEN HARPER: I think its essentially dead. In terms of the substance of whether anybody is seriously at this point going after or looking into the Trump campaign connections with Russia I think the answer is no. But what people ought to be concerned about is what US attorney John Durham is doing in the so-called investigation I guess its the third one now into whether the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation were proper. When Inspector General Horowitz came out with his 400-page report, one of the conclusions of which was the origin of the investigation was proper, it was appropriately opened, there was no evidence of political bias in the pursuit of the investigation. One of the things that happened immediately was Barr saying, I dont agree. And then immediately after that Durham echoed I dont agree either. Thats unheard of. But thats part of the program that began when Barr first started spinning Muellers report three weeks before releasing it.

BILL MOYERS: And you havent mentioned yet what Barr has been doing in manipulating various federal attorneys under his authority who were investigating or could investigate Donald Trumps activities. Barr has been moving them around out of positions of authority over those investigations and installing his own confidantes.

STEVEN HARPER: Thats right.

BILL MOYERS: What do you make of that?

STEVEN HARPER: Thats very troubling. You know, using this sort of interim acting attorney, US attorney process so, number one, youre bypassing even the Republican controlled Senate in terms of getting consent to the nominations. But lets take the three that you mentioned. In DC he did all sorts of machinations to get Jessie Liu, whom, ironically enough, Trump had personally interviewed before pointing her to the job as DC US attorney, which was also an unprecedented thing to do. I guess thats what you have to do, you have to sound these people out to see if theyre gonna hurt you before you put them in these places where they might. That office winds up inheriting the Mueller investigation, and the Mueller case involving Michael Flynn, so Barr appoints a US attorney out in Missouri to second guess the investigation and the prosecution of Flynn who is a thrice confessed felon and about whom the judge said Arguably you betrayed your country. So thats DC and now were in the process of trying to decide whether Barr can get him off the hook altogether by dropping the charges retroactively after the guy has confessed three times. In the southern district of New York, we all saw very publicly what happened to Geoff Berman who was told that he had resigned to his great surprise and said, No I havent. And then ultimately wound up resigning. Although there Barr did not achieve his objective, which was to put in the person he wanted. He wound up with an acting US attorney who I think is going to be very tough and so I feel okay about that one, but the effort is what happened there. And then, now most recently, last week you had the eastern district of New York, a guy named Richard Donoghue replaced by another Barr confidante, Seth DuCharme. Donoghue was the guy, just to really tangle this web, whom Barr and Barrs deputy had appointed to be the receptacle of Giulianis evidence relating to Hunter Biden. And, oh, coincidentally that office is also handling an investigation into the Trump inauguration committee which was headed by one of Trumps buddies, Tom Barrack. So, hes moving these chess pieces around in a very insidious way. Although, again, here, this causes me to ask a question. Youre four months away from the election, every poll says that Trumps gonna lose the election soundly, and hes gonna be out of office in January, so why do all of this now when the whole cast of US attorney characters is going to change? Whats going on in those offices over the next several months that has Barr and Trump so concerned that they have to make these highly unorthodox personnel moves?

BILL MOYERS: Well, as you indicated earlier theres a prosecutor handpicked by the attorney general, conducting a criminal investigation of the investigators. Hopefully, its been suggested to get a report before the election, that will get Trump off the hook by deciding the investigation was a hoax. And that might have an effect on the last bump in the polling right before people go to vote.

STEVEN HARPER: Yeah, that would be the theory, I suppose, and that would explain Durhams mission. Im not sure it explains what he tried to do in the southern district of New York. I think that has more to do with the Trump organization, and Deutsche Bank, and those sorts of investigations. But thats just my speculation.

BILL MOYERS: But isnt there something really sinister that you sense, or smell, in this?

STEVEN HARPER: Yep. And I will actually go into the realm of speculation, which I dont usually do, but its fearful speculation. And the fearful speculation is that theres a process underway that is now accelerating, that, in addition to undermining the rule of law, is also stripping away fundamental pillars of democracy. And one of the things Im most concerned about is what happens in November. Number one, is there an election? Is it inconceivable that Trump, with the help of Barr providing legal justifications, is it possible that Trump could take the step of declaring martial law? Might he use the cover of the pandemic and the inability of people to vote as the ultimate excuse? I mean, there are a lot of different if youre a conspiracy theorist you could go all the way to some really bad things. But I think whats insidious is that we have a man in the White House, Donald Trump, who is wielding every weapon that he can have, that he can think of, to push every agency and person in government, to bend every one of them to his personal will. And his personal will involves self-interest. And that is at least, except coincidentally, the nations interest. And I think thats about as insidious as you can get.

BILL MOYERS: And to those people who argue, Well, that is so un-American it just couldnt happen here, I remind them of what John Adams and other of the founders who were concerned about the character of public leadership worried that democracy could lead to oligarchy, the rule of the rich to favor the rich. I remind them that human nature is such that some men love power more than they love honor.

STEVEN HARPER: And heres what makes the current moment, I think, particularly dangerous. We have become a society where many of us, not all of us something terrible can be happening in the world, but unless its personal its not real. Even with the pandemic. Until it becomes personal, many people dont view it as real. So, for example, in New York, it was real very early on for most New Yorkers. But for the rest of the country it was New Yorks problem. Well, now all of the sudden its hitting the sunbelt, and the red states, and its becoming real for everyone. And I worry about that because if it only matters when it reaches you personally, youre gonna let an awful lot of stuff slip by. Youre gonna let the war on truth happen. Youre gonna let the war on science happen because youre not gonna care. You know, Trump has been counting on that. He was counting on rising investment returns in peoples 401Ks. But if we are a society where for the most part its only real if its personal to us then I think thats when the kind of situation youre describing, democracy transitioning to oligarchy, you know, keep enough people happy that you can maintain some semblance of control over the rest I fear that were dangerously closer to that sort of a problem than people realize.

BILL MOYERS: I think thats one reason the Russian-Trump investigation never gained traction with a majority of the American people, because they didnt understand that Russias meddling undermined their vote. You know, our vote is our voice. But the threat from Russia was never real enough to people that it became personal.

STEVEN HARPER: Thats right, particularly the way it was then rolled out, so that if it comes out because you have Bill Barr spinning it as this innocuous thing, no collusion, no obstruction, both of which are lies, and then you have in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, Federal Judge Walton specifically said that, as hes now had an opportunity to review the Mueller report, it becomes clear to him that Attorney General Barr was intent on creating a one-sided narrative that was at issue, in many ways, with the facts in the report. But, you know, primacy sticks. The first message, if you keep repeating it over, and over again, and there you are. And youre right. It didnt become sufficiently real to people in a way that they would have felt it. I remember saying to people I had dinner with friends very early on in 2017 when a lot of this was going on, and they would sort of say, Well, you know, I dont know, whats the deal with Trump. Maybe hes okay. Maybe hes not. I said, What would you say if it turned out that the only reason Trump is in office is because Vladimir Putin wants him there, and because Vladimir Putin has an agenda that has only to do with undermining everything that the United States stands for? And at that point they said, Well, that would bother me. But somehow the clarity of that message just kind of got lost.

BILL MOYERS: Even now, with all the credible stories about the Russians paying a bounty to the Taliban to pursue and kill American troops, Trump has continued the record shows, he has continued flirt with, and humor and play up to Putin, its incredible.

STEVEN HARPER: Yup, it would be incredible to any prior president who sat in the office. One of the ways they pull this off is by continuing to lie about it. So all of a sudden the bounty thing becomes, Oh, thats no big deal. We know theyve been after us. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, Kayleigh McEnany comes on and says, You know, there is no story here.

BILL MOYERS: How do you explain the White House crusade against Dr. Fauci?

STEVEN HARPER: Theyre trapped in Trumps modus operandi. Thats what he does, in fact I think he tweeted it once, you know, if somebody punches me I counterpunch.

BILL MOYERS: That was Roy Cohns advice to Trump: If youre attacked, hit harder.

STEVEN HARPER: There it is. And so, at a fundamental level thats whats going on. The closest analogy I can think of is a cult. And if I had to think of one cult in particular it would probably be something along the line of Jonestown where, you know, if somebody says, Drink bleach, youre gonna drink bleach. Now, not everyone is quite that enamored of the leader that theyre going to drink bleach, but Trumps modus operandi is it doesnt matter how real it is. If its negative, if its something bad about Trump, if its something that makes him feel badly, or look badly, or is inconsistent with a message that he wants to deliver: whether its Trump-Russia being a hoax; whether were going to attack the investigators; were going to attack Comey; were gonna attack (the bad cops; were going to attack Mueller; were gonna attack everybody. Still, he carries a grudge, and he carries it, apparently, forever. Fauci was totally predictable. Once you saw that the Fauci approval rating was two or three orders of magnitude higher than Trumps something like 70% to 20% you know Fauci was in trouble. I mean, that was the point at which you knew that, number one, Fauci was gonna stop showing up at these press briefings, because they were making Fauci look good, even as he contradicted Trump. Theyve just pulled out the same old playbook. The thing I hope that they have underestimated notwithstanding the publics confirmation bias, and their desire to believe what they wanna believe, and discard facts that are inconsistent with their beliefs even as it relates to the pandemic. They wanna be free of the pandemic, they wanna go out, they wanna believe that Trump is right, but at some point the body bags are a testament to the fact that maybe Trumps wrong. And maybe Faucis right. Itll be interesting to see. My own personal feeling, and I hope Im right, is that the attack on Dr. Fauci will be immensely counterproductive in terms of doing anything that would raise Trumps standing. And I think even Lindsey Graham recently said that its a mistake to attack Dr. Fauci. And this guy has won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hes served how many? Six presidents? He may be the most respected infectious disease doctor in the entire world. We are a country that is, in terms of responding to the pandemic, something slightly better than a third world nation because of the way Trump has botched it. And I just have to believe at some point Americans are gonna say, You know, the Fauci attack just isnt gonna work.

RELATED: Pandemic Timeline

BY Steven Harper | April 22, 2020

BILL MOYERS: Whats your perspective on this as a lawyer. The president is threatening to defund any government entity that goes against his wishes: the Department of Education over whether kids go back to school or not next month, the Postal Service, universities whose culture he doesnt agree with or like. Can he get away with this? I mean, Barr might say he could under the unitary executive privilege or power. But what do you think?

STEVEN HARPER: I think his ability to do that is somewhat limited. His ability to stop funding to public schools, for example, if they dont open, is extremely limited. I think theres a slice of the CARES Act appropriation, the supplemental appropriation related to the pandemic that he has some control over. The more dangerous person, however, in all of that could very well be Betsy DeVos, the education secretary who, I think, would use whatever tools she has economically to implement Trumps message. So theres something there. He doesnt have complete control, I guess is the best way to put it. But he could achieve a lot of pain. He could achieve a lot of disruption. You know, he wants everybody to go back to school, for example, but he has no suggestion about where theyre gonna get the billions of dollars that it would take to retrofit infrastructure, classrooms. I was watching a report on CNN the other day cause Betsy DeVos has taken off on Fairfax County, Virginia, and the superintendent of the schools said, Look, in order for us to reopen consistent with the guidelines that we should be following to preserve the kids health as well as the adults in the homes that they return to, and the staff, and the bus drivers, and so on, we would have to build the equivalent of five Pentagons. Five Pentagon buildings. Where are we gonna put em? Where are we gonna get the money for em? I mean, its as close to magical thinking as you can get. But I mean, we saw what he did to Voice of America, right? Hes got his selected people now controlling the message that America sends around the world through Voice of America. And the people a number of people who were there were extremely concerned about what that meant. So there are gigantic phases of American life that hes obviously able to influence in negative ways, not the least of which is the example he sets for culture, for young people, for old people, for people who maybe they were always out there but they were content to remain silent in their racist views or their intolerant views. Well, now all of a sudden hes given all of them the freedom to speak. And all of that theres so many levels at which his influence has been profound and profoundly horrible that its gonna take an awful long time to unwind it all.

RELATED: Letters From an American

BY Heather Cox Richardson | July 13, 2020

BILL MOYERS: Two final questions.

STEVEN HARPER: Sure.

BILL MOYERS: You have made a singular contribution to public knowledge today, and to history by the indefatigable work you have done on the timeline of the Russian-Trump connection, which began at BillMoyers.com, and is now doing very well on Dan Rathers blog as well as on our site. Youve done that with your daughter, right?

STEVEN HARPER: Yup.

BILL MOYERS: Why were you so obsessed?

STEVEN HARPER: Obsessed. Thats the right word. Obsessed is the right word. Well, I think when we first started this, you and I, it began with a post where all I really wanted to do, and it was very early on, it would have been maybe February of 2017, shortly after Trumps inauguration, and there was so much smoke. You know, those were the good old days when we were fighting about inauguration crowd sizes, for example. And I was fearful that clarity was being lost in the same way that it had been muddled throughout the campaign in terms of the significance of Russias interference with our election. And all I wanted to do was sort of identify a handful of what I thought were key data points, dates really, that would kind of just mark the story. And ironically enough, I think the first post featured prominently Roger Stone. And I think there were about 25 entries, because his were among the most striking to me. He was bragging about his WikiLeaks connection. You know, I knew a fraction of what I do now. And I have to say if you had told me three years later we would now have 3,000 entries, Im not sure I would have embarked on such a project. But its also the sort of thing that once I got started, it would have been very difficult if I hadnt kept track as I went along, to keep track of all of things that were happening, as well as all of the earlier things that were being disclosed as they were happening. And I really thought it was an important story. Frankly, it developed in ways I never would have dreamed in terms of the significance, the scope of the Trump campaign involvement, and on, and on, and on. But, I just thought it was something that if I could help somehow in a world of media clicks and soundbites, if I could somehow just provide something that became a resource for others who were interested in finding out what the truth was, just the facts, and I was very determined not to be at all argumentative in any of the entries that Ive made in the timeline. Theyre all strictly factual and sourced with links to the source. I thought maybe then people would come to their own conclusions, and that those conclusions would be correct. And whether its a journalist writing an article looking for background, or essential facts that might give context to a larger story, or whether it was just an ordinary citizen wanting to understand in the haze, what was all happening I came to believe, when I was trying cases to a jury, that you do a lot better if you lay the facts out and let them come to their own conclusions than if you beat them over the head and try to tell them what the truth is. And once I did it I really did feel that it was important to see it through to at least some culmination.

BILL MOYERS: The WASHINGTON POST the other day reported that Trump had told 20,000 untruths since he became president three and half years ago. Doesnt the sheer weight of lies affect the temperament and character of democracy? What are the stakes here?

STEVEN HARPER: Absolutely. It cant survive, I dont believe, without truth. In a society of people that has lost the capacity to know the truth, to accept facts that lead them to the truth is a people that is lost in a desert from which it may be impossible to return, in some ways. If you go back to Jefferson, and education, and the very premise of the founding fathers that it was an informed electorate that was the essential foundation of democracy well, if you dont have facts with which to inform the electorate, or if you have an electorate that is not willing to entertain facts, or if you have leaders that are not willing to promote facts over fiction, then youve lost democracy, at least in the way that our founders would have envisioned it. Stakes are, for young people, its the kind of country that theyre going to live in. For my children, and my grandchildren and yours, its, are we going to be a democracy or not? I really think its that stark. And we only get to the right place if people fight hard, particularly in this environment, and long, and to the end for the right outcome.

BILL MOYERS: Steve Harper, I thank you for all of the people who will benefit from listening to and reading you. Thank you again.

STEVEN HARPER: Thank you, Bill. Its always a pleasure to talk to you.

ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening to MOYERS ON DEMOCRACY. Until next time, get the facts with Steven Harpers timelines at BillMoyers.com.

Original post:

Podcast: Trump, Barr, Stone and Cohn: Apocalypse on the Potomac - BillMoyers.com

thanks for the views we appreciate : 303

Mike McQuade

Information warfare is at the heart of the scandal engulfing the Trump administration. We spoke with four experts to help explain it, from WikiLeaks role to Putins long gameand Trumps own use of disinformation. Heres what they had to say.

Help MoJo mount a truly independent investigation into Trumps ties to Russia. Make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation today.

Andrei Soldatov is a longtime Russian investigative reporter, the co-founder of Agenta.ru, a website focusing on the Russian secret services, and the co-author of two books on Russian intelligence activities.

Mother Jones: Do you think WikiLeaks is actively coordinating with Russian interests?

Andrei Soldatov: Yeah, after 2016 I think its pretty clear.

MJ: How does that relationship work?

AS: The entire history of the Russian hacking operations is mostly outsourced operations, so you can easily deny your responsibility. Its not so hierarchical and direct, like you have the government secret agency and you have WikiLeaks and you have one guy in between. It might be much more complicated.

MJ: Can you walk us through the ecosystem of how the Russian hacking operations work?

AS: You have three elements: You have the secret services, mostly the FSB. They have extremely good connections to criminal hackers and the IT industry because the FSB is also in charge of licensing all activities in cyber, like encryption. The military is a second actor, extremely active now, extremely adventurous. Then you have informal actors, people who have their own direct access to the Kremlin. Some of them might work for the security services, but a lot of these guys work directly for the administration of the president.

This tactic was developed in 1999, when the Chechens found a way to start all these websites about whats going on in Chechnya. That was a real threat. So the security agencies got some students to hack these websites. And immediately the Kremlin understood that if youve got students, not government actors, attacking your targets, it provides you deniable responsibility. And immediately they started encouraging these people to attack other sensitive targets. Some targets were based in Russia: independent media, political opposition. Some were based outside the country. But the Kremlin understood outsourcing is much more effective. They have been using this trick ever since.

MJ: The US intelligence community has concluded that the hacking operation was closely directed by Putin.

AS: Its entirely plausible to me. This election was really personal for Putin because he believed that Clinton is a personal enemy. He genuinely believed she was behind the Moscow protests in 2012, 2011. I do not think these groups would try to do something without his authorization or his knowledge. It would be really crazy.

MJ: How do everyday Russians view this whole episode?

AS: Its a strange combination of two thoughts. The first one is, Look how ridiculous are Americans. They blame us for everything. And the second thought is, Look how great we are. We are to blame for everything in the world, which means we are really, really important.

Steven Hall, who retired in 2015 after a decorated career at the CIA, ran the agencys Russia operations.

Mother Jones: If you were involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, who or what would you hone in on?

Steven Hall: Mike Flynn, no doubt. Its fun to think about what I would do if I was a Russian intelligence officer in charge of running these various operations. Not just the influence operation, which its quite clear now was pretty successful in increasing the likelihood that Donald Trump would be elected. But if I was the SVR [Russian foreign intelligence] guy who was told, Okay, your job is to try to find whether there are members of the campaign who would be willing to play ball with us, No. 1 on my list would be Flynn. First of all, hes a former chief of the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]. Hes an intelligence officer, so he understands how discreet and clandestine you need to be if youre going to cooperate on that level. And then, theres the future: Hes probably going to land a pretty good job, assuming Trump wins. So its a win-win-win in terms of targeting Flynn. Furthermore, hes come to Moscow. Hes accepted money from Russian companies, and hes tried to conceal that. So on paper, hes a really good-looking candidate for a spy.

MJ: Is there any parallel to this moment that you saw in your 30-plus year career with the CIA?

SH: The short answer is no. There have certainly been big spy cases in the pastAldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen. But I cant think of one that would be as senior a guy as somebody like the national security adviser, or even more unprecedentedif it turns out that the Trump camp had the go-ahead from the big dog to talk to the Russians prior to the election.

MJ: How likely is it that the Kremlin has collected kompromat on Trump?

SH: I can absolutely tell you that the FSB [Russias Federal Security Service] are rigged up to collect as much compromising information against any target they consider to be valuable. So when Trump was there in Russia, would they have collected against him? I think the answer is yes. I think they would have seen Trump for what he was at the time, which to the Russian lens would have just been an American oligarcha rich guy with considerable power who you might need something on at some pointHes a good guy to have at your beck and call.

If there was compromising material that had a shot at actually making Trump behave the way the Russians wanted him to, I would imagine it would be something financialillegal, dirty dealings, or something with legal import.

MJ: Do you think Congress is able to investigate the Trump-Russia allegations effectively?

SH: I dont think so, given where Congress is right now in terms of partisanship. There might have been a time historically15, 20 years ago. Short of having an independent investigator or some other mechanism that can get rid of some of the partisanship, I just dont think its going to happen.

Jack Barsky is a former KGB officer who spent a decade spying in the United States before defecting in 1988. His 2017 memoir, Deep Undercover: My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America, details his path from a Soviet intelligence operative to a proud US citizen.

Mother Jones: What type of intelligence interest would have been aroused by Donald Trumps 2013 trip to Moscow? Is it likely he was surveilled?

Jack Barsky: Absolutely. In todays Russiaif you go over there and talk business with senior businessmen, then youve had some contact with Russian intelligence without knowing it.

MJ: Why was Russia so brazen in interfering in the US election?

JB: It wasnt so much about getting Trump elected. It was about creating disorder, stirring up problems, destabilizing to the extent you can. Even prior to the internet, the KGB was famous for planting false news and somehow getting information circulated in the Western world that was entirely phony. They are taking advantage of the weaknesses of an open society. Its actually a strength. But from the point of view of a tightly controlled regime, our openness, the ability to plant all kinds of information with all kinds of people because we dont have a tightly, centrally controlled mediathat is a weakness. They absolutely succeeded to some degree. And we are helping with this success. Thats what bothers me. We took the bait, the media and the politicians. We are wallowing in this internal bickering. The longer this goes on, the more folks back in Moscow will rub their hands and say, Hey, this is going pretty well.

MJ: Whats Russias endgame?

JB: Reestablishing the Russian empire. It doesnt necessarily mean conquering Europe and being super aggressive like Hitler was, but establishing themselves again as a power to be reckoned with in the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost significant influence and power. And Putin wants to restore this. Thats historically something thats part of the Russian national character. And obviously, any kind of intelligence efforts will try to support that end goal.

Help us dig deep on Trumps ties to Russia. Make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation to Mother Jones today.

There are four basic techniques of propagandathe 4Dsaccording to Ben Nimmo, an England-based analyst of Russian information warfare. Though hes mostly applied them to Putins disinformation operations, they also provide a helpful lens for understanding Donald Trumps mastery of spin.

1. Dismiss: Reject uncomfortable allegations or facts.

Example: One day before he fired FBI Director James Comey, Trump tweeted, The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax.

2. Distract: Throw out diversionary stories or shiny counterclaims.

Example: As reports of his staffers Russian ties heated up in March, Trump tweeted that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory.

3. Distort: If you dont like the facts, invent your own.

Example: The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process, Trump tweeted in March, just after National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and Comey testified that Russia had tried to do exactly that.

4. Dismay: And if all else fails, try to scare them into shutting up.

Example: During the election, Trump threatened to prosecute Hillary Clinton if he became president. Trump has also threatened to roll back First Amendment protections for journalists who report purposely negative and horrible and false articles about him: Were going to open up libel laws, folks, and were going to have people sue you like you never got sued before.

Read the original here:

Four Spy Experts on Trump Blackmail, WikiLeaks, and Putins Long Game 2017 http://www.spy.i.ng http://www.trump.i.ng - POP TIMES UK

By Harry Litman

Monday, July 20, 2020 | 2 a.m.

President Donald Trumps commutation of Roger Stones sentence is a body blow to two core democratic values.

The first, and most immediate, is the principle of fair and impartial justice for all. It is a travesty that Stone who was plainly guilty of serious crimes, who thumbed his nose repeatedly at the justice system, who continues to challenge his convictions is now a free man. There is little that can be done now to reverse that injustice.

The second principle is the publics right to know, in this case about the full story of the 2016 election and the Trump campaigns complicity in Russias attack on American institutions. Here Stone may yet be called to account, and that should be a goal shared across political boundaries.

The perversion of justice in Stones case stinks. The commutation vividly illustrates Trumps corrupt two-tiered system: the full force of law for everyone but his cronies and supporters. The special status of Trumpers provided Stone a pass on the most basic of the norms associated with such executive branch actions: People convicted of crimes are not supposed to be eligible for commutation until they begin to serve their sentences and cease challenging their convictions, neither of which Stone has done.

In fact, Stones commutation is arguably the most corrupt use of the presidents constitutionally granted pardon power in history and one of the most corrupt acts of Trumps abysmal presidency. Other controversial pardons in history have provided preferential treatment to friends of the president; this one served to directly protect Boss Trump himself. Trump got Stones silence, Stone got freedom, and the public got shafted.

The exact nature of that shafting is not trivial. As special counsel Robert Muellers report makes clear, Stones lies and his obstruction, including witness tampering are major reasons why to this day, there are large gaps in our understanding of the Russian attack on the 2016 election and the Trump campaigns complicity in it.

Stone is the key witness on two not fully answered questions. The first is whether Trump and the campaign knew in advance about or even collaborated on the WikiLeaks dump of purloined emails from the Clinton campaign. Indeed, freshly unredacted material in the Mueller report indicates that Paul Manafort told Mueller that Stone had been tipped off and had passed that info along to Trump or the campaign. The second question is whether Trump lied in his written answers to Mueller when he claimed he couldnt remember the specifics of any conversation with Stone in the six months before the election.

On both issues, the government should not be finished with Stone. He can and should be made to testify under penalty of perjury.

If he is subpoenaed, Stone could assert his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. Because his sentence was commuted, as opposed to his being pardoned, his convictions stand and the book is not fully closed on the crimes. His further testimony could be used against him as regards those crimes.

But theres a fairly easy workaround, as Muellers deputy Andrew Weissmann explained in a New York Times op-ed this week. If Stone takes the Fifth, the government could grant him immunity, and his liability would disappear.

Immunity isnt something the government offers casually, but it is appropriate when the value of witness testimony is paramount as is the case here and there is no other way to get it. Once immunized, if Stone were to persist in refusing to answer questions, he could be jailed for civil contempt until he agreed to talk. And if he lied (again), he would be subject to brand new perjury charges.

Where should this testimony take place? I suggest Congress, either as part of regular congressional hearings or, possibly, under the aegis of a broad-based commission on Russian election interference, much like the commissions that investigated 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination. Such investigations are specifically meant to inform the American people.

It is galling that the president has managed to foil nearly every effort to impose punishment on his cronies and himself. The ledger is not yet closed, however, and a fuller reckoning may await them after Trump leaves office.

In the meantime, the American people and their lawmakers urgently need to get the fullest possible account of exactly what happened to our election infrastructure in 2016. Examining systemic failures and enemy attacks is what democracies do, not least because it is the only way to reduce the risk of similar harms going forward.

Trump seems to believe that by commuting Stones sentence he closed the book on what Stone knows, ensuring his buddys lifelong silence. Trump has the power to keep Stone out of prison for the felonies he has been convicted of, but keeping him silent is another matter. Commutation notwithstanding, its likely the day will come when Stone has to sing or sink.

Harry Litman is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

See the article here:
This felon still has more to answer for - Las Vegas Sun

LONDON Hackers linked to a Russian intelligence service are trying to steal information from researchers working to produce coronavirus vaccines in the United States, Britain and Canada, security officials in those countries said Thursday.

The hackers, who belong to a unit known variously as APT29, the Dukes or Cozy Bear, are targeting vaccine research and development organizations in the three countries, the officials said in a joint statement. The unit is one of the two Russian spy groups that penetrated the Democratic Partys computers in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said.

The announcement comes as reported coronavirus cases globally have topped 13.5 million, deaths have surpassed the half-million mark, and the stakes for being first to develop a vaccine are high.

Officials did not divulge whether any of the Russian efforts have been successful, but, they said, the intention is clear.

APT29 has a long history of targeting governmental, diplomatic, think tank, health-care and energy organizations for intelligence gain, so we encourage everyone to take this threat seriously and apply the mitigations issued in the advisory, said Anne Neuberger, cybersecurity director for the U.S. National Security Agency.

Moscow has denied the allegations.

We have no information on who could have hacked pharmaceutical companies and research centers in Britain, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Tass state news agency. We can only say this: Russia has nothing to do with these attempts.

U.S. officials say a desire for global prestige and influence also is driving nations actions.

Whatever countrys or companys research lab is first to produce that [vaccine] is going to have a significant geopolitical success story, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said earlier this year.

Canadas Communications Security Establishment, responsible for gathering foreign signals intelligence and the Canadian equivalent of the NSA, said the attacks serve to hinder response efforts at a time when health-care experts and medical researchers need every available resource to help fight the pandemic.

A CSE bulletin said that a Canadian biopharmaceutical company was breached by a foreign actor in mid-April, almost certainly attempting to steal its intellectual property.

The agency also said in May that it was investigating possible security breaches at Canadian organizations working on coronavirus-related research, but did not indicate whether the alleged breaches were state-sponsored.

Weve seen some compromises in research organizations that weve been helping to mitigate, Scott Jones, head of the CSEs Cyber Center, told a parliamentary committee. Were still continuing to look through whats the root cause of those.

The joint announcement comes two months after the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned that China was also targeting covid-19 research, and that health-care, pharmaceutical and research labs should take steps to protect their systems.

Its not unusual to see cyber activity traced to China soon after a pharmaceutical company or research institution makes an announcement about promising vaccine research, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said last week. Its sometimes almost the next day.

Attorney General William P. Barr said Thursday that Beijing, desperate for a public relations coup, is perhaps hoping to claim credit for any medical breakthroughs.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is Russias not alone, said John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis for the cybersecurity firm FireEye. Weve seen Iranian and Chinese actors targeting pharmaceutical companies and research organizations involved in the covid-19 response. This is an existential threat to almost every government on Earth and we can expect that tremendous resources have been diverted from other tasks to focus on this virus.

U.S. officials say Russian government hackers have penetrated energy and nuclear company business networks

The Russian hacker group scanned computer IP addresses owned by the organizations and then deployed malware to try to gain access, officials with Britains National Cyber Security Centre said. In some cases, the hackers used custom malware known as WellMess and WellMail to conduct further operations on a victims system, British officials said.

Paul Chichester, director of operations at the NCSC, said in a statement that APT29 launched despicable attacks against those doing vital work to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Health Organization reports that of the more than 160 vaccines being developed, 23 have begun clinical trials in humans including top candidates being developed by academics, national laboratories and pharmaceutical companies in Britain, Canada and the United States.

Russia is developing 26 vaccines, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said Wednesday, but only two are undergoing clinical trials. A month-long trial on 38 people for one of the vaccines concluded this week. Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the countrys sovereign wealth fund, told reporters that a larger trial with several thousand people is expected to begin in August.

We will produce 30 million doses of the vaccine in Russia, or 50 million if necessary, which means that Russia may complete vaccinations early next year, Dmitriev said.

Alongside their legitimate efforts, the Russians are probably cheating, Western analysts say.

I have absolutely no doubt that if there was the slightest probability of stealing it, the Russians would do it, said Jonathan Eyal, international director at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.

Mr. Putin has not had a good pandemic, Eyal said. He has devolved the handling of it to regional governments to try and escape responsibility. Hes nowhere to be seen. The figures about the numbers who have died are clearly manipulated.

The Russian hacking group APT29 is well known to cyber experts. U.S. intelligence officials say it is part of the SVR, Russias foreign intelligence service. That outfit hacked the White House and State Department email systems in 2014. It also infiltrated the Democratic National Committee servers in summer 2015, many months before the Russian military spy agency GRU did, investigators said.

The GRU funneled hacked emails to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which released them online, in an attempt to sow discord in the party. The SVR, by contrast, hacked the partys servers apparently for classic espionage purposes to glean insights into the plans and policies of the potential next U.S. president.

They quietly steal information from their targets, and if you are hit by this actor, you may never know it, Hultquist said. Were talking about an intelligence collection operation where Russia quietly leverages the research of others to advance their own.

How the Russians hacked the DNC and passed its emails to WikiLeaks

Britains Raab also told a parliamentary intelligence committee Thursday that Russian actors sought to interfere in the United Kingdoms 2019 general election by acquiring unpublished documents used in trade talks between the U.S. and Britain, and then leaking the material via social media.

Sensitive government documents relating to the U.K.-U.S. Free Trade Agreement were illicitly acquired before the 2019 General Election and disseminated online via the social media platform Reddit, Raab said in a written statement to Parliament.

The foreign secretary added, It is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 General Election through the online amplification of illicitly acquired and leaked Government documents.

Moscow called the charges of election interference unfounded.

The British administration is making the same anti-Russian mistake again and thus not only further undermining bilateral relations with Moscow, but also its own authority, Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian State Dumas foreign affairs committee, told reporters Thursday, according to the Interfax news agency.

Raab is using the phrase highly likely again, Slutsky said. That is, a criminal case is again being initiated on the basis of highly likely, in the absence of specific evidence, which the head of the Foreign Office admits. What happened to the presumption of innocence? Where is the evidence?

After the trade documents emerged online, they were used during the December 2019 election by the opposition Labour Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party of preparing to sell off precious access to the National Health Service to U.S. companies.

The charges were a hot-button issue at the time but did not change the outcome: Johnson won the election in a landslide.

A much-delayed report into allegations of wider Russian interference in Britains democracy is due next week.

Booth reported from London and Coletta from Toronto. The Washington Posts Isabelle Khurshudyan in Moscow, Karla Adam in London and Adam Taylor in Washington contributed to this report.

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U.K., U.S. and Canada report Russian cyberspies may be trying to steal vaccine research - Seattle Times

The Robert Mueller investigation into alleged Russian interference in favour of Trump in the contest four years ago flattered to deceive. Now, an attorney who played a leading role in the inquiry, Andrew Weissmann, is about to release a book on the examination of links between Trump and Moscow. This announcement coincided with the president commuting a prison sentence passed on his aide and ally, Roger Stone, emanating from Muellers efforts.

Stone, suspected of being the conduit between Russian intelligence, Wikileaks and Trump, was convicted for lying to Congress, obstructing justice and intimidating witnesses. He was condemned to 40 months in prison. Senator Mitt Romney, a former presidential nominee of Trumps Republican party, termed the presidential pardon as unprecedented, historic corruption.

There can admittedly be many a slip between the cup and the lip. But with three and a half months to go to polling day, the US presidency appears to be all but in the briefcase for Biden. So, what could possibly go wrong between now and D-Day?

A recent 4-part television documentary on Hillary Clinton on Britains Channel Four depicted how a certain triumph slipped out of her grasp. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) decided to review emails exchanged outside a secure server by Clinton when she was secretary of state in 2008-12. The surmise is not established beyond doubt - Edward Snowden, a US National Security Agency insider turned whistle-blower now enjoying Russian protection, hacked into Clintons account and handed the communications to WikiLeaks. Clinton rued: If not for the dramatic intervention of the FBI director in the final days, we would have won the White House.

The FBI eventually concluded Clinton hadnt breached security. But the reopening of the case at a critical stage of the campaign decimated her. It irrefutably refuelled Trumps Crooked Hillary slogan.

The animosity between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Clinton was indeed personal. Yet, its mind-boggling Russia could play game-changer in a US presidential election. Clinton told USA Today: There certainly was communication and there certainly was an understanding of some sort (between Trumps team and the Russians).

It is incredible Trump survives in office. At the very least, his impeachment by the House of Representatives notwithstanding the US senate saving him from eviction - ought to have made him unelectable. But he has ridden the wave; and is snooping for skeletons in Bidens cupboard. He shockingly but unsuccessfully seemed to seek Ukraines cooperation to defame Biden and his son. A former staffer accused Biden of sexual assault in 1993. But three of the five people she named as knowing about it, told NBC Nwews they did not recall any such conversation. Trumps last resort could be Putin. But even for the erstwhile KGB operative it could be a bridge too

See the rest here:
Polls say US Presidents chances of re-election bleak and his nieces book may have driven the last nail - National Herald

DENIS ROGATYUK: The fight to bring Julian home has been a monumental challenge since his unjust conviction. But it has certainly become much more difficult since his expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy in March 2019. What have been the primary actions that you and the campaign have undertaken since then?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well we fight against the United Kingdom, Sweden, the United States, and to a certain extent Australia. They have marshaled all of their forces and broken every law in human rights and due process in order to send Julian to the United States and destroy him.

Before our eyes, we have watched the gradual murder of Julian through psychological torture, through ceaseless breaking of procedures and due process. So that is what we fight against.

During the latest hearing, the judge Barrett asked Julian to prove that he was unwell, that he didnt come onto the video. So again, we see a process that we witness over and over again, blaming the victim.

In the case of Australia, the Australians say that theyve offered consular assistance. When I say the Australians, DFAT (the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), and the prime minister, and the foreign minister, Marise Payne, say that they have consular assistance over and over again. Their consular assistance consists offering last weeks newspaper and to see if hes still alive. Thats about the extent of it.

So consular assistance, I think they maintain, DFAT maintains that theyve made 100 offers. Well this is a profound testimony to failure.

Its now 11 years; Julian has been arbitrarily detained 11 years. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared that Julian was arbitrarily detained, and should be compensated and freed straightaway.

The latest of their reports was February 2018. It is now 2020 and Julian is still in maximum security Belmarsh prison under lockdown 23 hours a day.

DENIS ROGATYUK: And how would you describe the relationship between the current campaign for his release and the Wikileaks organisation?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well WikiLeaks continues its work and continues to hold the most extraordinary library of the American, United States diplomacy since 1970. Its an extraordinary artifact that any journalist or any historian, any of us can look up the names of those who have been involved in diplomacy with the United States, in their own countries or with the United States. This is a great resource. It continues to be maintained.

Just the week before last, WikiLeaks released another set of files, so WikiLeaks continues its work.

The people who defend Julian include Wikileaks, but include 100,000 people all around the world who are working constantly to bring about Julians freedom and stop this oppression of the free press, of publication, of publishers, and of journalists. We work constantly to do that.

There are about 80 websites around the world that publish and agitate for Julians freedom. And about 86 Facebook pages devoted to Julian. So there are many of us. And the upswelling of support continues, despite Covid. Covid slowed us down a little bit. Now that Covid-19 is withdrawing, the upswelling continues.

And it will do so until the Australian Government and the United Kingdom recognise that this is the crime, the oppression of Julian, is the great crime of the 21st century.

DENIS ROGATYUK: The latest superseding indictment of Julian regarding the alleged conspiracy with unnamed anonymous hackers appears to be another attempt to fast-track his extradition. Do you believe this is a symptom of desperation on the part of the Department of Justice of the United States?

JOHN SHIPTON: No I dont. The people who work in the Department of Justice get paid, whether this succeeds or not. Whether Julian is extradited they get paid; if hes not extradited they still get paid. They still go home, and have a glass of wine, take the kids to the movies, and then come to work the next day, and think up another instrument of torture for Julian. This is their job.

So I dont know why, but I could speculate or guess, if you like, that the Department of Justice would like to see the trial delayed, the hearing delayed, until after the American election (in November 2020). So there will be appeals by the lawyers in court that they havent had time to accommodate and that the judge, they asked the judge to move the hearing date. Thats what I imagine.

But I dont think its an act of desperation at all. If anything it is giving us who defend Julian more things to worry about, so that our energies are not focused singularly upon getting Julian out. So the conversation drifts over to this further indictment and about who is included in it.

It is Siggi and Sabu, both of whom are not credible witnesses. Siggi (Sigurdur Thordarson, or Siggi hakkari) is a convicted sex offender, a con man, who stole $50,000 from Wikileaks and so on. There are not credible witnesses (to these allegations). I guess that it is either to delay the hearing and or to cause the conversation to drift away from what is important.

DENIS ROGATYUK: I wish to move to the second part of our interview now, exploring Julians life.

A lot has been researched and published about Julians life and early days in the 1990s. I would like to discuss the aspects of his life that have given him the resilience and the strength to withstand the challenges that he faces now.

Julian is incredibly committed to telling the truth in his interviews. He is very articulate and he is very careful about communicating and choosing the exact words to describe things. Is this something that his family taught him or is it something special about Julian?

JOHN SHIPTON: I dont really know, you know, it is sort of a gift that I would like to have myself. So I dont know where it came from. I guess you would have to ask the gods, maybe they know the answer.

The path he has forged is distinct and distinctly his. I admire and am proud of him for his capacity to adapt, and his capacity to continue fighting, despite 11 years of ceaseless psychological torture. That doesnt come without cost. It cost him a lot.

However, we believe that we will prevail. And Julian will be able to come home to Australia, and maybe live in Mullumbimby for a little bit, or in Melbourne; he used to live here down the corner.

Oh actually I dont like the word, if I may withdraw that sentence, I dont like the word hope. Hope sort of makes a really nice breakfast, and a bad dinner. So we will prevail in this fight is what I would say.

DENIS ROGATYUK: Julian displayed incredible physical and mental resilience these past 9 years, particularly nearly 8 years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy and this past year in the Belmarsh prison. Where do you think this strength is coming from his moral and political convictions or something he developed in his early life in Australia?

JOHN SHIPTON: I think its a gift that he has, that he will continue to fight for what he believes. And if there are elements of truth in what he is fighting for, well then he never surrenders. Its an aspect of character.

I dont mind in fact myself, but I am invigorated by fighting for Julian. And each insult or offence against Julian increases my determination to prevail, and the determination of Julians supporters to prevail. Each insult increases our strength.

And so you can see, when the second a lot of indictments were brought down week before last, supporters around the world raised their voices in disbelief, and began again to raise awareness of Julians situation.

So its really interesting, the Department of Justice might think one thing that it causes us to fracture, but what actually happens is the upswelling of support continues unabated.

DENIS ROGATYUK: John, I wish to ask you a more personal question. How does it feel to be the father of a man like Julian, and to see his son son go through all this hardship and slander, and to keep traveling and fighting for his liberation across the world?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well some of it is hard to believe, what people say about Julian. You know those American politicians are shooting, and you know the UC Global employees in Spain, who were supposed to look after the security of the Ecuadorian embassy, who speculated on how to poison Julian at the behest of CIA and Mossad and Sheldon Adelson, whatever whatever you want to call those bunch of creeps.

Im surprised, but you know I ignore it. For myself I take not the slightest bit of notice. Im surprised that people put their energies into calling Julian names, and theyve never met him, never even set eyes on him, some people, and yet they find the time and energy to write scurrilous things.

I think maybe they dont have anybody to go out with, or theres no friends at home, or something like that, or their their wife cant stand them, so they go down the backyard with their laptops and write scurrilous things about Julian or whatever, or their neighbors dog.

Im very surprised that people put the energy into that sort of thing.

DENIS ROGATYUK: But how does it feel to keep this campaign for a liberation going? Because you have done a lot of travel around the world; you have been advocating for his release everywhere you go. So what has that journey been like for you, personally?

JOHN SHIPTON: Uh Denis, I dont count the costs, not even for a minute. I do what Im here today with you, I do what comes before me, and then I go on to the next thing. But I never, ever count costs.

DENIS ROGATYUK: And for the last part of our interview I wanted to actually discuss your thoughts and your opinions on some of the more important and more prominent issues of our day.

Ever since the extradition hearings began, against Julian, the US government, particularly Trump, Mike Pence, and Mike Pompeo, have been doubling down on their attacks against Julian and WikiLeaks. Pompeo even called it a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.

The US establishment appears to be dead set against them, and both major parties are playing along. So what do you think ought to be the strategy of activists and journalists in the US to challenge this?

JOHN SHIPTON: Well first of all, Mike Pompeo, dear oh dear, I mean a failed secretary of state and a failed CIA director, declares war on WikiLeaks in order to get the CIA support for his future ambitions to run for president. And he moves now from secretary of state to the Senate for Kansas.

The secretary of state is an important position. However Mike Pompeo doesnt strike me as being a historically significant personality.

The US establishment must fall in line with what the CIA wants and thinks. So Pompeo in that address on the (13th) of April 2017 that you just quoted, he just wants to get all of his workers to support him in his bid for presidency.

And also to oppress and intimidate journalists all over the world, and publishers and publications his sole aim is to ruin your capacity to bring to the public ideas and information, and our capacity as members of the public to talk amongst ourselves and sort out things through conversation with each other, on what we ought to do and how we ought to go about life.

They just want to have it all their own way, declare war on whomever, murder another million people, destroy Yemen, destroy Libya, destroy Iraq, destroy Afghanistan, the list goes on destroy Syria, millions of people refugees, flooding the world, and moving into Europe; the Maghreb in turmoil, the Levant in turmoil, Palestinians murdered this is their aim.

And so for us, we depend upon you to bring us truthful information, so that we can have fair opinions of how the world is moving around us.

What Pompeo wants is for what he says to be believed. Well you can see his history. They say it may be up to 5 million people since 1991 died as a result of the United States and its allies moving on Iraq in an illegal war.

You can watch Collateral Murder and you can see a good samaritan dragging a wounded man into his car to take him to the hospital, taking his children on the way to school, murdered before your eyes. The pilots of the helicopter begging for instructions to be able to shoot a wounded man, two kids, and two good samaritans, begging for instructions from their controller.

So they dont want us to see that. However we depend upon you journalists, publishers, publications to bring to us the crimes that governments commit so that we are energized, so that we place our shoulders to preventing these murders with all of the determination and energy we can muster, to prevent the murder and destruction of an entire country.

If I may remind you, in Melbourne, there were a million people marched against the Iraq War. All over the world I think a total of 10 million people. We dont want war. They lie to us in order to have wars, for whatever satisfaction, I cant make out myself.

Who would want to see and hear the lamentation of widows, the cries of children, the groans of men? Who would want that? Its monstrous.

And so we need the information in order to say no.

DENIS ROGATYUK: The new cold war between the United States and the European Union on one side and China and Russia on the other, threatens to pull the ordinary people of the world into another confrontation on behalf of these political and economic elites among these countries.

From your experience of seeking international support for Julian, what are the best ways of forging solidarity across borders in this new conflict that seems to be developing?

JOHN SHIPTON: I think the best way is to talk to your friends and discuss things, gathering friends and discussing things, becoming aware outside of what the mass communication outlets want us to see and hear.

So just face-to-face conversations and then conversations over social media is sufficient. Each day you will see, the last two weeks, Facebook and YouTube and Twitter removing, as platforms of discussion, certain subjects, and certain YouTube channels. They remove them because we are succeeding, not because nobody watches them, nobody goes there. Its because we are succeeding to educate ourselves as to what governments do in our name.

To bring peace between or fair relationships between the members of the European Union and Australia and China and Russia, ordinary people the Sochi World Cup, soccer world cup, was the greatest success, fabulous success. Everybody who went to Russia came back full of admiration for Russia and Russian hospitality.

Well this is what is needed, just ordinary people getting to know each other and discussing matters of importance, not depending upon CNN or any other talking head for how you should feel about this or that subject. Just talk to friends, talk to groups of people, talk amongst each other, exchange ideas, exchange where to get good information, and things will change.

I have an undying belief in the capacity and goodness of general humanity. And I am proved right every time, because 10 million people marched against the Iraq War, but a few hundred manipulated the nations by blowing up railway stations, what they called terrorism, just a few hundred manipulated those nations into destroying Iraq.

Ordinary people dont want war; we want to be able to just talk to our friends, look after our families, thats all.

DENIS ROGATYUK: And one final question, John. The Covid-19 pandemic has not only revealed the inadequacies of the neoliberal economic order, but it has also revealed its increasing instability and desperation to maintain itself.

This is also true with regards to prominent right-wing governments the United States, Brazil, and Bolivia seeking to silence journalists and reports regarding their mismanagement of the pandemic.

We are seeing independent journalism under attack around the world, through censorship, intimidation threats, and assassinations.

What do you think should be the best way of fighting back against them?

JOHN SHIPTON: These governments, they cant even look after their own populations, let alone order the world in a decent way. And their ambitions are to order the world, while they cant even look after the people of Seattle.

Its just, if it wasnt so tragic, it would be just amusing, you would read about it just to get a laugh every morning.

Of course they oppress the journalists; of course they oppress publications; of course the warrants that allow you to broadcast on a certain spectrum are removed; platforms are removed. Because we continue to understand and expose their shortcomings.

The shortcomings are criminal. They actually consider the phrase herd immunity to be something scientific. They actually contemplate allowing hundreds of thousands of old people or older people to die. And they use phrases like, Oh well, they had comorbidities. Everybody over 60 has a comorbidity. You dont get older and get weller; you get older and get a little bit sick, or a little bit not so strong.

The actual contemplation of doing away with the steadying part of a society older people steady the young; the young are full of vigor, and the old are full of caution; this is a fair balance in society allowing them to die off, for whatever reason we cant discern. We cannot discern; it doesnt cost any more money to look after a section of society and prevent Covid. You dont lose anything from it; you actually gain access to the experience and judgment of the older section of your society.

So it is incomprehensible, like neoliberalism itself, nobody quite understands why weve got, it but its there.

Denis is a Russian-Australian freelance writer, journalist and researcher. His articles, interviews and analysis have been published in a variety of media sources around the world including Jacobin, Le Vent Se Lve, Sputnik, Green Left Weekly, Links International Journal, Alborada and others.

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Assanges father speaks out, calls oppression of WikiLeaks founder a great crime of 21st century - The Grayzone

Even amid the endless torrent of malevolent incompetence that characterizes the Boss Trump regime, some days stand out. One such was his Friday night commutation of career lowlife Roger Stones 40-month sentence for lying to Congress, obstructing a congressional investigation and witness tampering. The federal judge who handed it down described Stones crimes as covering up for the president.

Specifically, he obstructed the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In the immediate aftermath, Stone bragged to veteran journalist Howard Fineman about why he lied and who he was protecting. He (Trump) knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didnt.

Turn on him, that is, by fully describing his own and Trumps conversations about WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, when Julian Assange served as a cats paw for Russian intelligence by publishing the Democratic National Committees stolen emails. Trump testified that he has no memory of talking with Stone about it, although two witnesses overheard them. He also swore that his son Donald Jr. never told him about meeting Kremlin operatives promising dirt on Hillary Clinton in Trump Tower.

If you believe that ...

Well, lets move on.

During Attorney General William Barrs Senate confirmation hearing, he was asked, Do you believe a president could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipients promise to not incriminate him?

No, Barr answered, that would be a crime.

A straight-up mob-style transaction, as the inimitable Charles Pierce describes it, one worthy of the fictional Tony Soprano or the all-too-real John Gotti. Disorganized crime, you might call it; a cynical attack upon the rule of law. Even so, its a good bet that the attorney general has changed his opinion, and would likely quibble that a commuted sentence is not a pardon.

No, but in the Stone case, its actually worse. To accept a pardon, see, a convicted felon must admit guilt. By so doing, he surrenders his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and can be called in front of, say, a congressional committee, and required to talk under penalty of perjury.

Cant have that, can we? So no prison time for Roger, although there are reasons to suspect he might have enjoyed certain aspects of incarceration. Back in 1996, the veteran political scam artist he has a tattoo of Richard Nixons face on his back claimed that Bill Clinton had made improper advances toward his wife. The National Enquirer turned up evidence that Stone himself had been advertising her charms in a magazine called Local Swing Fever:

Hot, insatiable lady and her handsome body builder husband ... seek similar couples or exceptional muscular well-hung single men. Shes 40DD-24-36; hes 195, trim, blond, muscular ... Prefer military, bodybuilders, jocks.

Thats Roger Stone, voluptuary and fop. He later admitted everything to The New Yorkers Jeffrey Toobin. Im not guilty of hypocrisy, Stone said. Im a libertarian and a libertine.

Some years later, he founded an anti-Hillary organization called Citizens United Not Timid.

In short, he and Trump speak the same language. So its only natural that they would end up allies even though Trump described Stone to Toobin as a stone-cold loser ... He always tries taking credit for things he never did.

But Stone did plenty during the 2016 campaign. A seeker of notoriety rivaling Trump himself, he communicated directly with Guccifer 2, the Russian intelligence operatives that hacked the DNC, even as he predicted WikiLeaks document dumps to any Republican who would listen.

Angered by the Trump commutation, special counsel Robert S. Mueller wrote a Washington Post column objecting that regardless of attempts to portray him as a victim, Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so ...

A jury determined he lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks.

For that matter, Stone was also convicted for threatening to kill a witness named Randy Credico and his beloved dog in a text message. Also like his patron in the White House, the man is infinitely cunning, but not real smart.

As for being a felon, far from being ashamed, Stone couldnt be prouder. To him, its a badge of honor. Hes a made man in Boss Trumps political mob.

It has been reported that what Sen. Mitt Romney called an act of unprecedented, historic corruption was vigorously opposed by William Barr. If so, the attorney general has resources. The Justice Department can empanel a grand jury, grant immunity to Roger Stone for previous acts and compel his testimony.

I am not holding my breath.

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Lyons: Stone proud to be in Trumps political mob - Muskogee Daily Phoenix

Did you know that coins used for criminal activity are also used by WikiLeaks?

Wikileaks.shop, the branch of WikiLeaks that sells merchandise to financially support WikiLeaks, currently accepts BTC, BCH, DASH, ETH, LTC, XMR, and ZEC as payment. Unfortunately, nearly all of these coins have been used by criminals in the past, which puts WikiLeaks, as well as anyone who wishes to pay with one of these currencies at the WikiLeaks.shop, at risk.

Zero transparency is NOT the answer

The problem with a majority of the coins/tokens that WikiLeaks supports is that they allow their users to make transactions off-chain, or are practically 100% anonymous like Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC).

When transactions are not transparent, or the origin of a coin is obfuscated through coin-mixer services, the coin or token becomes attractive to criminals looking to conduct illicit activities.

This places risk on innocent consumers because if they own or receive a privacy coin that has been used for criminal activity, they could, unfortunately, find themselves holding dirty money or stolen property. Sending, receiving, or even owning a privacy coin is like playing a game of hot-potato, if you are caught holding the illicit or dirty coins at the end of the game, theres a good chance you are going to be investigated by a government agency or that you might find yourself in a legal battle over the coins or tokens. Privacy, after all, is not the same as anonymityand in fiats case, cash has serial numbers.

The IRS is aware

The IRS knows that individuals are using privacy coins and off-chain transactions to facilitate crime and launder moneyand they are not happy about it. Recently, the IRS released a request for information on privacy coins and sidechains.

XMR, ZEC, DASH, the BTC Lightning Network, Ethereums Raiden Network, and any coin that has implemented the Schnorr Signature algorithm, such as BCH were all cited in the IRSs request for informationin other words, 6 out of the 7 payment methods that WikiLeaks accepts are on the IRSs radar.

To quote Jon Southurst, who wrote, If its private for you then its just as private for those who would do you harm, including large criminal organizations, powerful-but-corrupt governments and officials, and large corporate bad actors.

If a coin or token is appealing to you for privacy or security reasons, it is also going to be appealing to criminals looking to do harm. When transactions are not transparent or are nearly impossible to track, criminals see the coin or token as the perfect vehicle to commit crime and cover their tracksor even better, leave no tracks behind. However, governments of the world are now imposing more and more regulation, which is why the Bitcoin SV platform is designed from scratch to work inside this inevitable situationits the only possible outcome so Bitcoin designed itself for it.

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeksBitcoin for Beginnerssection, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about Bitcoinas originally envisioned by Satoshi Nakamotoand blockchain.

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WikiLeaks accepts criminal coins and tokens - CoinGeek