Week in Review Discussion on The Critical Hour (5/3/2019)

Friday News Roundup: Venezuela Still Under Siege, Don't Let the Coup Fool You

US Attorney General William Barr did not show up for Thursday’s scheduled hearing about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. So, what’s being reported is that the Justice Department objected to the format of the planned hearing, which would have allowed the committee’s Democratic and Republican counsels question Barr for as long as 30 minutes at a stretch after an initial five-minute exchange with lawmakers. What's really going on?

Discussion of Julian Assange Extradition Hearing on The Critical Hour (5/2/2019)

Dems Run Out Of Steam, Accuse AG William Barr Of Lying And Hiding

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Daniel Lazare, journalist and author of three books: "The Frozen Republic," "The Velvet Coup" and "America's Undeclared War."

Loud & Clear Discussion on Day of Assange Extradtion Hearing (5/2/2019)

Will the UK Extradite Assange?

On today's episode of Loud & Clear, Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Jim Kavanagh, the editor of thepolemicist.net.

Julian Assange today appeared in a London court by videolink for a preliminary hearing to fight his extradition to the United States. A judge asked Assange if he was prepared to surrender himself for extradition. He replied, “I do not wish to surrender myself for extradition for doing journalism that’s won many, many awards and affected many people.” An attorney representing the US government then asked for a formal extradition hearing on June 12.
[My related article: Avoiding Assange]

Listen to "Will the UK Extradite Assange?" on Spreaker.

Loud & Clear is a daily program of news, commentary, and political analysis on Radio Sputnik, hosted by Brian Becker and John Kiriakou, featuring independent experts, activists, and political writers. (Introduction above is theirs, with related articles of mine referenced in brackets.)

Week in Review Discussion on The Critical Hour (4/26/2019)

On this episode of The Critical Hour, Dr. Wilmer Leon is joined by Jon Jeter, author, two-time Pulitzer Prize, former Washington Post bureau chief and award-winning foreign correspondent; and Jim Kavanagh, political analyst and commentator and editor of The Polemicist.

The United States government is seeking to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for one reason: to punish him for publishing true and embarrassing information about US crimes and intimidate every journalist in the world from doing so again. If the US government succeeds in doing this, it will strike a devastating blow to the fundamental elements of democracy throughout the world — the freedom of the press and the related ability of citizens to know what their governments are doing. 
[My related article: Avoiding Assange]

Avoiding Assange

The United States government is seeking to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for one reason: to punish him for publishing true and embarrassing information about US crimes and intimidate every journalist in the world from doing so again.

If the US government succeeds in doing this, it will strike a devastating blow to the fundamental elements of democracy throughout the world—the freedom of the press and the related ability of citizens to know what their governments are doing.

I say “throughout the world” because It's important to understand that the US government in this case is asserting its prosecutorial authority over someone who is not an American and whose journalistic activity took place outside the United States. The United States is demonstrating its ability to get a foreign government to arrest and extradite journalists who are neither Americans nor citizens of its own country and send them off to the United States to face charges under American law. It's not only a brazen attempt to quash press freedoms; it's a further extension of the United States’ arrogant assertion of extra-territorial—indeed, universal—jurisdiction of its laws.

As Jonathan Cook says, those who accept this have “signed off on the right of the US authorities to seize any foreign journalist, anywhere in the world, and lock him or her out of sight. They opened the door to a new, special form of rendition for journalists.”