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Ecuador Complains Julian Assange Was a Bad Housegust, Neglected His Pet Cat (bbc.com)
The BBC reports that Ecuador's foreign minister Jose Valencia has been sharing complaints about Julian Assange's conduct during his stay in Ecuador's embassy -- for example, that Julian Assange "damaged the facilities by riding his skateboard and playing football, despite being told not to do so."
Cleaning staff, Mr Valencia said, had described "improper hygienic conduct" throughout Assange's stay, an issue that a lawyer had attributed to "stomach problems". One unnamed senior Ecuadorean official told AP news agency that other issues included "weeks without a shower" and a "dental problem born of poor hygiene". Interior Minister Maria Paula Romo then complained that Assange had been allowed to do things like "put faeces on the walls of the embassy and other behaviours of that nature...."
Assange's stay at the embassy cost Ecuador some $6.5m (£5m) from 2012 to 2018, Mr Valencia said.
NPR reports that Julian Assange's cat also "arguably played a small role in Ecuador's decision to end its asylum agreement," citing remarks from Ecuador President Lenin Moreno: Moreno explained that Assange treated his hosts disrespectfully; late last year the embassy implemented a series of rules for Assange, including a requirement to be responsible for the "well-being, food, hygiene and proper care of your pet." If Assange didn't, the embassy threatened to put the cat in a shelter. In other words, it is likely that Assange didn't effectively clean up after his cat's own wiki-leaks...
The New Yorker reported in 2017 that Assange's interest in the cat was less as an animal lover and more as a master of his own brand. "Julian stared at the cat for about half an hour, trying to figure out how it could be useful, and then came up with this: Yeah, let's say it's from my children," the magazine quoted one of Assange's friends as saying. "For a time, he said it didn't have a name because there was a competition in Ecuador, with schoolchildren, on what to name him. Everything is P.R. -- everything."
Journalist James Ball, an early WikiLeaks employee (who left after three months) said Thursday on Twitter that he'd "genuinely offered to adopt" the cat -- but it was "reportedly given to a shelter by the Ecuadorian embassy ages ago."
Assange's legal team, however, tweeted in November that Assange had been outraged by embassy threats to send the cat to the pound, and asked his lawyers "to take his cat to safety. The cat is with Assange's family. They will be reunited in freedom."
Assange's stay at the embassy cost Ecuador some $6.5m (£5m) from 2012 to 2018, Mr Valencia said.
NPR reports that Julian Assange's cat also "arguably played a small role in Ecuador's decision to end its asylum agreement," citing remarks from Ecuador President Lenin Moreno: Moreno explained that Assange treated his hosts disrespectfully; late last year the embassy implemented a series of rules for Assange, including a requirement to be responsible for the "well-being, food, hygiene and proper care of your pet." If Assange didn't, the embassy threatened to put the cat in a shelter. In other words, it is likely that Assange didn't effectively clean up after his cat's own wiki-leaks...
The New Yorker reported in 2017 that Assange's interest in the cat was less as an animal lover and more as a master of his own brand. "Julian stared at the cat for about half an hour, trying to figure out how it could be useful, and then came up with this: Yeah, let's say it's from my children," the magazine quoted one of Assange's friends as saying. "For a time, he said it didn't have a name because there was a competition in Ecuador, with schoolchildren, on what to name him. Everything is P.R. -- everything."
Journalist James Ball, an early WikiLeaks employee (who left after three months) said Thursday on Twitter that he'd "genuinely offered to adopt" the cat -- but it was "reportedly given to a shelter by the Ecuadorian embassy ages ago."
Assange's legal team, however, tweeted in November that Assange had been outraged by embassy threats to send the cat to the pound, and asked his lawyers "to take his cat to safety. The cat is with Assange's family. They will be reunited in freedom."
Can't help but think that a lot of this character assignation is cover so that no one is talking about how he was sold out for a $4.2 billion loan...
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
A depressed man stares at his cat? He must be a rogue!
No character assassination going on here, just honest diplomatic concern.
Ecuador just got some of that debt relief from the IMF
Get out the lube...you're about to be bent over. Ask Sam Clemens and many others. Julian peed in a lotta cornflakes. Funny that not one of the offended parties claims anything he published was fake or a lie. This is pure shoot the messenger to deflect from your own guilt stuff.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Weeks without a shower? "Allowed" to smear feces on the walls? And why would he? It makes no sense. These statements are so outrageous it's clear they're false, with the intention to paint him as a crazy lunatic and erase any sympathy for him and his case.
What is with people being such bad housegusts lately? Bunch of windbags and blowhards! Full of hot air. Prone to sudden outbursts. Always on the move. Very pushy. A bit breezy.
#dadjokes
About not taking care of his cat.
About him having terrible hygiene.
About him wiping feces all over the walls
About verbally attacking officials at the embassy
Remember, they started restricting his movements and internet access years before. This is NOTHING new.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Not even. It was because he exposed and financially embarrassed Moreno, that was the last straw. Nobody in Ecuador even gives a fuck about Assange anymore.
You know, I was originally behind what he was trying to do, but now I just see the guy as a self-serving asshole. He shits on everybody with no apparent rhyme or reason: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/europe/ecuador-assange-wikileaks.html. I do think that getting government secrets out in the open is important, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. He's done it the wrong way.
I don't respond to AC's.
They probably have something really bad to hide, otherwise they would not "share" these stories, no matter whether true or not.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Would YOU accept that type of behavior by any guest in your house? I doubt it. But, because he is your idol and it wasn't your house. You forgive him. Yes or no????
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
There's bound to be some, and no state involved in this is going to be acting cleanly.
Given that Assange sounds genuinely mentally ill, should he be allowed to be turned over to the Swedish or US governments, or remitted to Australian custody and placed in an asylum?
It seems like that would be a far more effective public end to him than anything criminal that can be done in either Sweden or the US. He was a mentally ill whackjob. We returned him to Australia where he can get the treatment a member of society, no matter how unpalatable they may be, deserves.
It shuts him up, it discredits him, and it cleanly solves the problem by making it 'do you stand with the loon, or stand with the sane?' rather than 'Do you stand with the truth or stand with the coverup?'
It's his fault for testing Uncle Sam.
The problem was him going from frontman to glorious leader of wikileaks along with the cabal of his cronies. The whole openleaks schism was from them not liking how he and others in the organization had begun curating the materials, using it to slant the data under claims of 'protecting sensitive information' while conveniently leaking data which was damaging in ways that suited the narrative. As dangerous as it could be if every random document was leaked, it is more damaging if they are selectively leaked since it doesn't give the opportunity to draw your own conclusions or see the whole picture, a picture which the individuals curating it may or may not have been able to piece together, particularly in the pre-machine learning era that wikileaks was most popular during.
Today OSINT+Machine learning could take a lot of these leaks and make far greater inferences off of them, maybe providing the leverage needed for REAL global scale changes based on corruption, financial dealings or use of intelligence assets against allies or to incite blame on enemies.
The being the BBC news, not Fox News or MSNBC, I expect a degree of professional journalism from them. There is little to gain from making him seem like a model resident vs. a horrible human. In terms of the court and countries that want him to see locked up behind bars, they have more evidence to show thean being a bad house guest.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I doubt he would have lasted nearly as long.
Presumably you mean "character assassination", but it's really hard to see much insight there. My new theory is that the real reason for the first-post frenzy is in quest of the easy "insightful" mod that is frequently given to an early comment. Yet another aspect of the broken moderation.
The cat is actually more significant than you seem to understand, per my longer comment on the associated poll: https://slashdot.org/comments....
This story casts doubt on Assange's love of the cat. If Assange actually doesn't care about the cat, how can Trump play Conway's newest game? They need some form of insurance to keep Assange in line when they pardon him, but they can't take the cat hostage if Assange doesn't even care about the cat.
I think we're in completely new territory now. It's sort of conceivable that they were willing to "invest" $4 billion in getting Assange. Trump really is such a lousy negotiator, especially since it isn't his own money. He's actually rather skilled at getting his own cut up front while gambling with other people's money, and now he has the entire federal budget to play with.
We've actually reached the insane point where Trump is actively encouraging crimes and promising pardons to criminals for crimes that have not yet been committed. The pardon of Joe Arpaio now looks like a trial balloon and proof of concept. What's to keep Trump from now making a deal with a skilled murderer: "I'll pardon you for your last murders if you promise to kill Nancy Pelosi and I'll pardon you for that murder, too."
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If I ever got a mod point to give, I'd give this one an interesting, but...
Anyway, I'm mostly disagreeing with you, but beyond the Comment Subect: line I'm only going to refer to my longer comment in the related poll: https://slashdot.org/comments....
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Interesting comment, and I guess that I'd moderate it that way if I ever had a mod point to give. I think you raise a number of interesting points, and I like your style, though (on the premise you are fuzzily and indirectly defending Assange) I still mostly disagree, especially about this one:
Fark that misogynist racist nepotistic asshole Trump for flip-flopping and hanging Julian out to dry.
While I think your characterization of Trump is much too kind, I'm actually predicting that Trump is about to pardon Assange. Details of my crazy conspiracy theory are already in the related poll, so I'm just going to link rather than repeat: https://slashdot.org/comments....
However, my theory hinges on the cat, and this story casts further doubt on Assange's loyalties. I really doubt Trump has the guts to pardon Assange without insurance against more bad journalism with Trump in the sights.
On reflection, I better add one more point of clarification: I think Assange is just a pawn in the plot of Conway and Miller to have puppet Trump campaign in 2020 by focusing on the Department of White Homeland Security. They probably have additional plans for how to use Assange after he's pardoned...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Wikileaks was just a "fuck the US site", didn't care if agents were given away or whatnot. He decided to play these games. As they say, play stupid games win stupid prizes.
âoeFark Ecuador for not doing anything to get him out, or helping resolve the issue through diplomatic means.âoe
seriously? such entitlement! what obligation did Ecuador have to him in the first goddam place? and they should have done MORE than diplomatically keep him out of prison for several years? seriously?
Not true, the materials were redacted when possible.
This is a opinion piece by a US law professor: How likely is an Assange conviction in the USA.
The thing that Assange will be extradited for, is the password thing with Manning. The professor says this is no different than a journalist setting up a drop point for information.
Never the less, Assange will be convicted, and most likely new charges will magically appear once he is on US soil.
The issue here is not whether Assange has bad personal hygiene, or whether he is a self serving narcissist. The issue is freedom of the press in Western democracies, and the willingness to make an example out of him to deter others.
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After https://slashdot.org/comments.... I finally heard the BBC reporting on the radio this morning that Wikileaks have advised that the cat is ok.
No mention of how Assange is doing, but at least they finally covered the important aspect of the story.
I suspect he's lost his marbles.
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Interesting viewpoint+++++
...that lynches it's Negroes?
Assange is a hero. Imprisoned for reporting the truth.
this is the weakest character assassination...
"professional journalism"
It appears all the semi-official media outlets are regurgitating the Official Narrative. I believe that is what's now considered journalistic professionalism.
^ this
Who would have thunk it?!?!
Fuck! That's two errors on the front page this morning!
*sigh*
I get that not everyone has good grammar (or uses Grammarly), but FFS, every modern device that edits text has a spell checker built in... Use the goddamn thing!
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
You know, I was originally behind what he was trying to do, but now I just see the guy as a self-serving asshole. He shits on everybody with no apparent rhyme or reason: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/europe/ecuador-assange-wikileaks.html.
It looks a lot like a smear campaign.
I do think that getting government secrets out in the open is important, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. He's done it the wrong way.
According to who? Is there some "How to release Secret Military Databases for Dummies" book that I missed?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I don't know Assange personally, so who am I to judge on his character?
But I do wonder how much of this is something that years of confinement do to you? From what I gather, prison inmates have more than he had. At least they have a yard and sports and work. Assange was literally sitting in a few rooms for years. It would be strange if that hadn't affected him mentally.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
here is an interesting piece:
https://therealnews.com/stories/ecuadorian-presidents-motives-for-surrendering-assange-vengeance-imf-loan
tl;dr:
- you cannot revoke asylum you gave someone, that is a crime under international law
- President of Ecuador is allied with Trump administration and involved in corruption
- Assange is a journalist not a spy
- He will be very likely tortured in US. He deserves asylum from every country that condemns that
- This situation is huge BS.
he also touched me once in my danger area, via skype
and ive heard on cnn he routinely uses cheats in videogames
guy is a danger, but now our democracy is safe again
He is not being charged with anything related to the mishandling or publishing of classified material.
Not according to the charges laid. They allege that he was in possession of US military databases.
Read the fucking indictment:
* https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-julian-assange-indictment
There is one count, see paragraphs 15(A) ("to knowingly access a computer, without authorization and exceeding authorized access ...") and 15(B) ("to intentionally access a computer, without authorization and exceeding authorized access ...").
He is being charged with "hacking", and not with possession of classified material (which could be defended against by journalist free press principles). Greenwald and Poitras also had possession of classified material (the Snowden documents), but you don't see them being charged with anything--because they didn't help Snowden hack anything.
Sounds like nobody at the embassy rents properties. They needed to hire a property manager. Treat him like a tenant, because that's what he was. Don't take care, get out. He could have been out years ago.
The hygiene thing is just disgusting. Especially the mouth. Don't take care of your teeth, they'll go away.
I think that by now we should have learned that there are no limits to what Trump is willing to do, no barrel big enough to keep him from crashing through the bottom. Also, no matter what sort of idiot he is (and I often doubt if he rises to the level of useful idiocy), he is easily manipulated by some quite nasty and cunning people, not even starting with all those criminals whose money he's been laundering for so many years. I think Trump's mental condition goes ALL the way back to his infancy, when he was raised as a minor tool for dodging taxes. Trump has NO memories of childhood innocence.
The theory is that Trump cannot pardon state-level crimes, but there are lots of theories that Trump has blown through. The obvious "solution approach" (for quite evil values of solution) is to figure out new ways to convert the state crimes into federal ones so as to bring them within the scope of Trump's pardons. There are various ways to give the federal courts jurisdiction over crimes that originated in lower course. I'd even say that most of them have been legal. In the past. In Trumpistan, the definition of "legal" is merely "can I get away with it" and the only residual problem is how slow the courts tend to be.
I've already thought of an obvious one, based on the "unitary executive" insanity. Just claim that any crime involving the president is automatically elevated to the federal courts because he is a federal officer. As long as the Supreme Court (sans Merrick Garland) agrees with 5 votes, the "deal" is done.
A less obvious approach would involve appealing to the verdict of the Civil War. My own view is that the War Between the States effectively overturned the 2nd and 10th Amendments, though some people might think it's merely a YUGE cloud of confusion (and Trump's puppeteers and minions (and possibly even henchmen) LOVE confusion).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I'd argue they didn't even give a fuck about Assange then. It was about the President of Ecuador (at the time) itching to flip the bird towards the US.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
One thing: he didn't have to pay any rents as far as I'm aware, so that's good for him.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
Thanks for modding this way down so I couldn't see the responses in time to reply while the post is hot.
Everyone pull your heads out and watch this before saying anything more in public:
https://youtu.be/_xSRS5YpiQM
seriously. Ecuador is a country in the world, and as any nation has real-world responsibilities to support truth, freedom and justice. They didn't keep him out of prison - they kept him in THEIR prison to use as a political pawn. Diplomatically, they COULD have transferred him to Ecuador a long time ago.
I can totally imagine Assange as a cat-type personality.