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Some people were wondering (well, I was at least), why Julian Assange seems to take such an active role in the USA presidency election (by publishing delicate emails at a sensitive point in time). While both candidates are somewhat controversial, the current leaks seem to be quite focused on the democrats candidate, Hillary Clinton. A tweet sent from wikileaks twitter-account, referencing this story on truepundit, might shed some light on these animosities between Hillary Clinton and Julian Assange: Allegedly, Clinton suggested in 2010 to kill Assange with a drone:
"Can't we just drone this guy?" Clinton openly inquired, offering a simple remedy to silence Assange and smother Wikileaks via a planned military drone strike, according to State Department sources. The statement drew laughter from the room which quickly died off when the Secretary kept talking in a terse manner, sources said. Clinton said Assange, after all, was a relatively soft target, "walking around" freely and thumbing his nose without any fear of reprisals from the United States.
This might heat up expectations and speculations regarding the announced upcoming leaks. Another interesting question might be, how neutral will the Ecuadorian government stay in this struggle. Afterall, Julian Assange does rely on their hospitality at the moment. Will they stay out of it? Or might they have some vested interest to make sure the future US-president is from the democrats? Or would they actually be interested to see Trump being elected?
takyon: WikiLeaks' Assange signals release of documents before U.S. election
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Tuesday the group would publish about one million documents related to the U.S. election and three governments in coming weeks, but denied the release was aimed at damaging Hillary Clinton. Assange, speaking via a video link, said the documents would be released before the end of the year, starting with an initial batch in the coming week. Assange, 45, who remains at the Ecuadoran embassy in London where he sought refuge in 2012 to avoid possible extradition to Sweden, said the election material was "significant" and would come out before the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election.
[...] "The material that WikiLeaks is going to publish before the end of the year is of ... a very significant moment in different directions, affecting three powerful organizations in three different states as well as ... the U.S election process," he said via a video link at an event marking the group's 10th anniversary. He said the material would focus on war, weapons, oil, mass surveillance, the technology giant Google and the U.S. election, but declined to give any details. "There has been a misquoting of me and Wikileaks publications ... (suggesting) we intend to harm Hillary Clinton or I intend to harm Hillary Clinton or that I don't like Hillary Clinton. All those are false," he said.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @04:51PM
Imagine if Trump said this! The main stream news outlets would be on it like white on rice, 24/7.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:17PM
Trump tends to focus on ethnic groups rather than just individuals.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:26PM
Trump tends to focus on ethnic groups rather than just individuals.
So says the mass media.
Clinton has her own legacy of ethnic-group bashing that somehow never gets mentioned.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:18PM
Please mention it.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:31PM
The few ethnic gaffes I know of she apologized for. Trump only half apologized on ANYTHING once.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:02PM
Hillary tends to focus on killing everyone against her..... "if your not with us, your again' us!"
Hillary will do ANYTHING for power.
Drones, bullets, bombs, freak smiles during a debate.....
Stay safe Jullian... keep on bringing it, but keep your head down.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @12:37AM
^ Fox-Foil Hat
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:59AM
find me one politician who does NOT fit the 'will do anything for more power' description.
go ahead. I'm waiting.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Wednesday October 05 2016, @11:33AM
A vast majority of them stays above, for example, MURDER of opponents.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:07PM
Too bad that your opinion (the one that says that Clinton murdered/murders people) isn't backed up by facts... If you could nail the part where you actually have data or evidence, you may be able to one day make a compelling case...
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:06PM
That's completely untrue. He has epic grudge matches against individual people all the time, and repeatedly threatens to destroy individual people for their offenses against him.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday October 04 2016, @05:29PM
For 12 hours, until the next thing came out of his mouth and displaced it, only to be forgotten 12 hours later when the next next thing became "news". Rinse, repeat...
Fox and the others would spend those 12 hours repeating that Assange is a traitor endangering Our Fighting Heroes and therefore should be sniped inside the Embassy.
If the amount of time per questionable statement were equal, we'd either fully drown in Trump, or hardly ever hear about Hillary.
Happy false equivalences.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:01PM
> Imagine if Trump said this!
It would come out differently . . .
We will build a wall around WikiLeaks!
And we'll make WikiLeaks pay for it.
It will be the biggest bestest wall you've ever seen.
I promise.
And believe me, I know my walls.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:07PM
And Cyber! A lot of it! It will be a Cyber wall! We will mix Cyber and concret, the best concrete that anyway, and Mexico as well!
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:16PM
To be fair, "cyber" this and "cyber" that is current military-industrial complex jargon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:09PM
Back in my day "cybering" meant something wholly different
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:17PM
Me thinks single malt scotch typed this :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:23PM
The New York Times Accurately Portrays Hillary Clinton as an Unrepentant Warmonger
http://reason.com/blog/2016/02/28/hillary-clinton-is-an-unrepentant-warmon [reason.com]
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:03PM
Actually, no. That is me being sober, in a good mood :-) But you are right, if I have a drink, single malt it is :-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WillR on Tuesday October 04 2016, @06:24PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:40PM
"Imagine if Trump said this! The main stream news outlets would be on it like white on rice, 24/7."
Exactly this.
It also answers the question: "While both candidates are somewhat controversial, the current leaks seem to be quite focused on the democrats candidate, Hillary Clinton."
Its not because she said she wanted to kill him. (well, not entirely) Its because she is pretending to be something she is not and getting away with it to some extent.
Trump is obviously what he is to anyone who cares to see. The media beat him up appropriately.
But not so for the hillmeister. Sure they talk about her "little white lies" and her medical mishap. But the real shit which matters, not so much.
Also all of the above misses the problem that both PARTIES (fuck the figurehead candidates) are completely and utterely morally bankrupt and corrupted in almost every way possible.
Hillary is being painted as the "safe, steady as she goes" candidate. She is not.
I maintain that a Trump win would be good for america. Not because he is a good president, but precisely because he is terrible.
He will be a lame duck with both parties working against his wishes to an extent. He will be ridiculed. He will embarrassing.
So much so that maybe, finally, america will WAKE THE FUCK UP and make the ACTUAL changes to its government that need to happen. (or die trying...)
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 04 2016, @08:15PM
I've had that thought plenty of times. What it boils down to is that our "community center" will burn down to the foundation, but afterwards we come together and rebuild it better than before.
That being said, it does require something to be burned and destroyed. While it may provide opportunities, both during the burning and afterwards, I'm not so sure if the rest of the world would survive Trump too.
It may not be just our country he burns down.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:07AM
There have been many peaceful revolutions.
Still being (mostly) a democracy helps.
The people together can change things in a surprisingly short amount of time if they want to.
The together part is the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:51AM
america won't wake up. if trump gets in (which I do seriously doubt) then the loonies will embrace him and the power brokers will try to leverage him. he won't be a laughing stock to those that can USE him. and powerful people always look to those they can USE to increase their own power and wealth.
he would do immeasureable damage to the US and it would take decades to undo it. we are still trying (not very hard, though) to undo the bush and even the reagan damage that those fuckers did to us.
I like the idea of a shock to the system, but I don't really think that will 'reboot us'. and we do, desparately, need a true reboot. but he won't be it. he'll just take us down further and make us closer to a 3rd world hellhole.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:09AM
If you think 8 years of hillary will do anything other than entrench the inequality and disenfranchisement you are dreaming.
There will come a time soon when the state will, due to drone/robotic and other tech, be able to ignore the will of the people even more than they already blatantly do.
And then it will be too late.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:07AM
And you think Trump won't? He'll double-down on all that shit, while Hillary will just maintain the status quo. As bad as Hillary is (she's fucking horrifyingly bad, her presidency will be an epic fucking disaster), Trump is significantly worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:38PM
Or it might fly under the radar as it would be the 3rd time that day he asked the same thing about someone else.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @07:54AM
Yes, it would be important news, if she said it now, while being a candidate for President.
However, when she did say it, six years ago, she was Secretary of State, and said it in a meeting about Assange releasing US secret documents. As a non-US citizen, being killed to prevent the release of this kind of information is on the table. Has been since FOREVER.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday October 06 2016, @03:02AM
It was indeed widely reported when he said
I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.
-- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/24/donald-trump-says-he-could-shoot-somebody-and-still-not-lose-voters [theguardian.com]