Full disclosure – I actually have to sometimes remind myself of the other things going on in the world, unrelated to politics, such can be the almost obsessive bent I can go on. And besides British mysteries and crime dramas, I dive in to the deep end of politics and pundits on the daily, first thing, java in hand, wiping sleep from my eyes.

And, so it is that I sometimes just sit here, blank screen, cursor blinking, thinking where do I even start? The words tumble around, emotions pulling in different directions, but it is all pablum, a jumbled mess of different things, of rage, and fear, confusion. And wouldn’t it be great if everyone played by the rules, it was all black and white, clear as a bell, and everyone didn’t have to have a degree in law and American history, be an expert on constitutional law, the tax code and immigration just to gain even a smidgen of clarity? But nope, we are in OZ folks.

Almost makes me think that is the point, to break so many rules that everyone is too confused to even know where to look, who to listen to, what to do, say, think, how to act, and instead the average Jo just rages against their neighbour, cashier, guy in the car in front, rage, rage, and more rage.

So, first on the menu of mayhem was Julian Assange, arrested & dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London like a 5-year-old not wanting to go to the dentist, and if you cheered silently inside, you are not alone.

However, don’t get too excited as this extradition was first set forth in motion in March 2018, and what we are actually seeing before our eyes might not be as it first appears.

More or less an attempt, big maybe, but maybe an attempt to establish a precedent, maybe, maybe not, but the lawyer for Assange is making the assertion that this is about being able to hamper the US media’s ability to report on stories, either foreign or domestic, to ensure the privacy of sources is removed and allow the government to prosecute them for exposing truth, more or less.

The charges are for cracking a password stored on a U.S. department of defense computers, so what exactly hacking has to do with journalism I don’t know, but some are arguing this slant for supporting Assange, as they believe this is all about hampering the freedom of the press.

So, one article had this to say;

According to Interior Minister María Paula Romo (of Ecuador), this evidently exceeded redecorating the embassy (in London) with excrement—alas, we still don’t know whether it was Assange’s or someone else’s—refusing to bathe, and welcoming all manner of international riffraff to visit him. It also involved interfering in the “internal political matters in Ecuador,” as Romo told reporters in Quito. Assange and his organization, WikiLeaks, Romo said, have maintained ties to two Russian hackers living in Ecuador who worked with one of the country’s former foreign ministers, Ricardo Patiño, to destabilize the Moreno administration.

We don’t yet know whether Romo’s allegation is true (Patiño denied it) or simply a pretext for booting a nuisance from state property. But Assange’s ties to Russian hackers and Russian intelligence organs are now beyond dispute.

The Atlantic | Julian Assange Got What He Deserved | by Michael Weiss April 12, 2019

To be clear the dude sounds like a megalomaniac, and basically a ruddy nuisance, so they just threw up their hands and told the U.S…TAKE HIM… come get him… but he ain’t stayin’ here.

One great mind I do admire, if not necessarily agree with all the time, but always intrigued by those who challenge the status quo – American philosopher, cognitive scientist, political dissident (etc), Noam Chomsky – in a piece I watched from Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, he summed it up rather succinctly – efforts to silence a journalist who was producing materials that people in power didn’t want the rascal multitude to know about—OK?—that’s basically what happened.

So, is he a courageous speaker of truth to power, or, is he just a Russian stooge paid to undermine various foreign governments at his leisure? Recipient of classified information to undermine the world order, excrement spreading, sexual predator wanted by Sweden and certainly no “journalist”?

So there is that.

Now, to be honest, as far as the half-cocked crap the POTUS has been up to, promising pardons to border guards that break the laws he wants them to break, or dumping immigrants in sanctuary cities, or rallying the violent racist pieces of dog dung that follow him to violence against a congresswoman using 9/11 imagery, but personally, the image that has been seared into my brain the last few days is of this young girl being threatened with expulsion all alone back to her violent home without her parents.

Besides constantly attacking media like the good little 21st century fascists they are, the level of cruelty this administration are all too willing to inject into the lives of vulnerable strangers seeking asylum is staggering. The idea that they would try to use someone such as Assange, dangling fruit that he is, to use him to attack the freedom of the press, and use this in future to attack journalists, well, is not out of the realm of possibilities with this administration.

And besides the simple fact that so many of their actions goes against that religion they give lip service to, besides the complete and utter lack of any human decency, no morality, against everything America once proudly aspired towards, now thrown aside for… you know, at this point I can’t even say for certain what it is they really want. I wonder if they even know anymore, some just seem to be slathering for more horror from this amoral troll who resides in the White House.

What do they want? I sincerely, with full on rose-tinted glasses, I do believe that not all his followers are so callous, so heartless, so lacking in human decency. I mean, I know this because I know two Trump voters, my dad and step-mom, who are none of those things. Yet, yet, they support him, even now, even still, and quite frankly I believe something is in the air down there, like I mean coming through the electricity into their home via their state TV Fox News.

I refuse to spend, or expend, any breath in trying to speak to them about how I feel, because personally I believe my complete and utter silence on the matter speaks louder than words. My father knows who I am, he knows my heart, my soul, my altruistic nature, he knows what my silence means.

Is there something they want? A spectacle fit for the Roman Coliseum, feeding the Christians and all government dissidents to the lions?

Yet, how much of all this does the average Jo down yonder actually see?

Social Media has become the champion of free speech, as nothing anyone says can truly ever be silenced. Regardless of whether the tweet is deleted, the thread expunged, the meme removed, somewhere in cyberland it is cached, and no one today can in all sincerity argue their speech is being blocked, cause dude, it is a free-for-all, and we are living in the wild, wild west.