The near total lack of reporting of the Assange extradition trial.

[Borg Refinery]

tiresome little shit.

Sounds like one of the badly acted upper crust caricatures in Spooks or something.

[papasmurf]

Not really.

Leaving aside the considerations that perhaps he SHOULD be shot as a spy, the guy behaved as a complete arse AFTER his impromptu stay at the Ecuadorian embassy was arranged and eventually the president decided to invite Scotland Yard to rid him of the tiresome little shit.

What "spying?" Bringing to light just some of the very nasty activities  USA government(s) get up to is not spying.

[johnofgwent]

There's a lot more to this than 'he annoyed his hosts'.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

Not really.

Leaving aside the considerations that perhaps he SHOULD be shot as a spy, the guy behaved as a complete arse AFTER his impromptu stay at the Ecuadorian embassy was arranged and eventually the president decided to invite Scotland Yard to rid him of the tiresome little shit. 

[Borg Refinery]

There's a lot more to this than 'he annoyed his hosts'.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

[johnofgwent]

You may not but if Assange is deported, and as I suspect executed. Investigative and very necessary journalism challenging government is dead.
That is very bad for democracy and very necessary whistle blowing.

Well, as the rest of my post pointed out, the guy brought it on himself. 

And as for investigative journalism, well, the argentinian "boyfriend" of the "journalist" used as a mule to export secret government documents should have been charged with espionage and shot as an enemy agent of a hostile foreign power in order that the independent understand the difference between "investigative journalism" and violation of the official secrets acts.

[papasmurf]

Papa he will not be executed if deported to The USA . That would be a condition of any extradition .

The US would take no notice of such a condition.

[Streetwalker]

You may not but if Assange is deported, and as I suspect executed. Investigative and very necessary journalism challenging government is dead.
That is very bad for democracy and very necessary whistle blowing.

Papa he will not be executed if deported to The USA . That would be a condition of any extradition .

His acts (allegedly ) were acts of espionage  and put lives in danger . There are times when investigative journalism needs to expose and times when its inappropriate , even in a democracy .

[papasmurf]

Does anybody CARE ??

You may not but if Assange is deported, and as I suspect executed. Investigative and very necessary journalism challenging government is dead.
That is very bad for democracy and very necessary whistle blowing.

[johnofgwent]

Does anybody CARE ??

Bottom line.

Let us suppose that you, or I , found ourselves the victim of what we felt a government stitch-up.

Let us further suppose that we then found ourselves the sudden guest of a foreign sovereign state whose president or monarch whichever it be felt it served their political ends to provide you or I with legally recognised sanctuary from the forces of law and order we felt were stitching us up.

In that hypothetical situation, would you

a) do your utmost to find ways to become useful to said government, or government head; lose no opportunity to extol the virtues of said monarch, president, government, and state; use whatever means available to sing the praises of the place and its people as a tourist destination, as a place one could do business with, as a bastion of democracy ... in short, take every possible opportunity to repay my unexpected host for their hospitality, in hope they may see me as a positive asset, or at least not throw me back out onto the street.............

or would you

b) take every opportunity to abuse your host's hospitality by using their own internet facilities to pour scorn on the country, the people, and take the piss out of the preident to the point they tireof you and invite sdaid forces of law and order into take you away.

I personally would choose (a) and above all else avoide like the plague any suggestion of (b). Assange however .......... was the instrument of his opwn misfortune by choosing path b. I have no sympathy for him.

[papasmurf]

I have using a newspaper reference but this one appears to hit the nail on the head:-

Far more at link:-

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/julian-assange-trial-extradition-us-trump-wikileaks-press-freedom-b747774.html

The Assange extradition case is an unprecedented attack on press freedom – so why's the media largely ignoring it?
Assange and WikiLeaks did everything journalists should do by finding out important information about US government misdeeds and handing it over to the public

Patrick Cockburn
@indyworld
21 hours ago

Astonishingly, British and American commentators are in a state of denial when it comes to seeing that what happens to Assange could happen to them. They argue bizarrely that he is not a journalist, though the Trump administration implicitly accepts that he is one, since it is pursuing him for journalistic activities. The motive is openly political, one of the absurdities of the hearing being the pretence that Trump-appointed officials provide a reliable and objective guide to the threat to the US posed by the WikiLeaks revelations.