Latest / Conspiracy! The Show / The Extradition of Julian Assange (2024 Update Version)

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The Extradition of Julian Assange (2024 Update Version) · Conspiracy! The Show

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, this is Adam, host of the podcast you're
0:03
Speaker 1: about to listen to. Please don't skip this. It is
0:05
Speaker 1: not an ad I am just dropping in to let
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Speaker 1: you know that the episode you're about to listen to
0:12
Speaker 1: was originally recorded and released in late twenty twenty two.
0:17
Speaker 1: I believe it was December of twenty twenty two, and
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Speaker 1: the topic is the extradition of Julian Assange, which is
0:26
Speaker 1: a thing the United States has been fighting for ever
0:30
Speaker 1: since British authorities plucked him out of the Ecuadorian embassy
0:35
Speaker 1: and put him in British prison, which probably isn't quite
0:39
Speaker 1: as bad as US prison. We are re releasing this
0:44
Speaker 1: episode because there is quite an update to this story
0:50
Speaker 1: and you're not gonna believe what it is unless you've
0:54
Speaker 1: seen or heard or just ingested any sort of news
0:59
Speaker 1: in the past couple of days, in which case you
1:01
Speaker 1: know exactly what we're going to talk about. So as usual,
1:06
Speaker 1: when you hear this sound, that's the purge siren. That
1:16
Speaker 1: means an update is forthcoming, So stay tuned for that
1:21
Speaker 1: and until then, enjoy this trip down memory lane where
1:24
Speaker 1: we recap the Julian Aissan story up to this point.
1:29
Speaker 1: And thanks we love you. Let's get to the pode.
1:42
Speaker 2: Welcome to Conspiracy This Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
1:48
Speaker 2: dary podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hidar.
2:04
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm Adam Todd Brown.
2:10
Speaker 3: And I'm Olivia Heidar.
2:11
Speaker 1: And that makes us your hosts. Olivia, how's it going.
2:15
Speaker 3: It's going well, it's going well. I actually kind of
2:19
Speaker 3: mean that for once.
2:22
Speaker 1: That's good to hear. Yeah, I'm fine, and I mean that,
2:26
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just fine for sure. We are talking
2:32
Speaker 1: about some ripped from the headline stuff. If I had
2:36
Speaker 1: a soundboard in Reach, it would play the Law and
2:39
Speaker 1: Order sting right now? Yeah, you know, yeah, the real,
2:43
Speaker 1: the quick one, not the whole, not the jazzy bassline intro.
2:48
Speaker 3: Oh sure, I mean I love the Law and Order theme,
2:51
Speaker 3: the classic Law and Order theme.
2:53
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen Will Arnett play air Law and
2:57
Speaker 1: Order theme? No, it is, I don't think if you
3:00
Speaker 1: can find video of it. It is one of the
3:02
Speaker 1: funniest fucking things you'll ever see. Yeah, it's so good.
3:06
Speaker 1: We're talking about Julian Assange. We haven't talked about him
3:12
Speaker 1: much because I think like myself. You don't like Julian
3:17
Speaker 1: Assange that much.
3:19
Speaker 3: I don't like him personally, have complicated feelings about his
3:23
Speaker 3: legal status, but as a dude, I don't like him.
3:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can tell you someone I wouldn't want to
3:30
Speaker 1: hang out with.
3:31
Speaker 3: Right.
3:32
Speaker 1: And the thing about Julian Assange as it relates to
3:36
Speaker 1: Wiki Leaks, it's kind of a separate the artist from
3:39
Speaker 1: the art kind of thing, And Julian Assange himself has said, well,
3:44
Speaker 1: I'm like the face of wiki leaks. I'm the one
3:47
Speaker 1: who when there's a controversy about something we've done, I'm
3:51
Speaker 1: the one who kind of takes that on right, And
3:55
Speaker 1: that means he gets a lot of heat for the
3:57
Speaker 1: things Wiki leaks does, But it also means he gets
4:00
Speaker 1: a lot more credit for what wiki leaks does than
4:04
Speaker 1: he might necessarily deserve. Yeah, so he's kind of become
4:09
Speaker 1: this celebrity just because of his role in the company,
4:13
Speaker 1: whereas there are so many other people working behind the
4:16
Speaker 1: scenes to actually pull this work off.
4:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a figurehead. He's a very toxic figurehead. I
4:22
Speaker 3: don't know, if I were WikiLeaks, I would probably not
4:25
Speaker 3: want him to be the face of my organization.
4:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, he stepped down, didn't he. I'm pretty sure he's
4:32
Speaker 1: not the head of Wiki leaks anyway.
4:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel like it would be tough living at
4:36
Speaker 3: the Ecuadorian embassy and doing that at the same time. Yeah, yeah, No,
4:42
Speaker 3: he is not anymore. He hasn't been for a while.
4:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. We're mostly talking about the controversy surrounding the US
4:49
Speaker 1: wanting to extradite Julian Assange. Yeah, And it's one of
4:53
Speaker 1: those things where sometimes the cost of an actual free
4:59
Speaker 1: press and legitimately free speech is sometimes you got to
5:04
Speaker 1: stick up for a guy who was accused of spreading
5:07
Speaker 1: shit on the walls inside the Ecuadorian embassy, among other crimes.
5:12
Speaker 3: And like skateboarding in the hall, and also a guy
5:15
Speaker 3: who was credibly accused of sexual assault by multiple women
5:20
Speaker 3: in Sweden that we cannot talk about Julia Desage without.
5:23
Speaker 1: Was it multiple multiple women? I thought it was just one.
5:26
Speaker 3: Really certain it was two women, oh at least. Yeah.
5:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, So all of that obviously complicates matters. Julian Assance
5:35
Speaker 1: just kind of sucks, right.
5:37
Speaker 3: But all of that, the shit on the walls and
5:40
Speaker 3: the rape and all that stuff, is separate from why
5:44
Speaker 3: governments want to hunt him and that makes it so
5:48
Speaker 3: annoying and complicated.
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Speaker 1: Right, So before we dive into the extradition saga, let's
5:55
Speaker 1: just get everyone up to speed on the Julian Assange
6:00
Speaker 1: up to this point, like really high level overview stuff.
6:04
Speaker 1: There's like movies about this. It's very complicated.
6:07
Speaker 3: I can't believe are you're you're gonna pass by the
6:12
Speaker 3: julianaga that was in the notes just for the people
6:16
Speaker 3: at home.
6:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I said Julian Assan saga in the notes, and
6:20
Speaker 1: then I put in parenthesis Julian Asaga.
6:23
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe you would want a jump Lets get
6:25
Speaker 3: by it. That's great.
6:27
Speaker 1: Well, hey, thanks, I appreciate it. Yeah. I just put
6:31
Speaker 1: it in there hoping you would reference it and notice
6:34
Speaker 1: it in the course of the podcast. He helped establish
6:38
Speaker 1: WikiLeaks back in two thousand and six, a long time ago.
6:42
Speaker 1: It was when when Bush was still in office, and
6:45
Speaker 1: a lot of their more inflammatory material early on had
6:49
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the Bush administration and our
6:52
Speaker 1: excursions in the Middle East.
6:55
Speaker 3: Excursions.
6:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one way to put it.
6:58
Speaker 3: That just makes it sound so much more light hearted.
7:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a tribe called quest Song, that's all that is.
7:04
Speaker 1: They made headlines not long after when they uploaded documents
7:10
Speaker 1: that were supplied by US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning.
7:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:17
Speaker 1: I have a very interesting relationship to this story that
7:20
Speaker 1: we will talk about at the end. Yeah.
7:23
Speaker 3: I can't wait, because, yeah, you told me about.
7:26
Speaker 1: This in that I knew that hacker who turned Chelsea
7:29
Speaker 1: Manning in.
7:31
Speaker 3: That's just that that blows my mind.
7:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, but not at the time. It was like years
7:38
Speaker 1: and years later and at a weird point in my
7:41
Speaker 1: life where I was like, how are you showing up
7:43
Speaker 1: in my life right now? It's weird. We'll talk about.
7:46
Speaker 3: It, Yeah, but it's kind of a bad sign.
7:51
Speaker 1: In twenty ten, WikiLeaks released what has come to be
7:54
Speaker 1: known as the Collateral Murder video. You ever watched this video?
7:59
Speaker 3: I did? It is when it came out.
8:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's harrowing. It is basically a video of US
8:07
Speaker 1: soldiers shooting civilians in Iraq from a helicopter, including a
8:14
Speaker 1: Reuter's journalist and his assistant.
8:17
Speaker 3: Purpose they meant to kill these civilians.
8:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Sarah Palin hunting wolves from a fucking helicopter.
8:27
Speaker 3: Wait did that happen?
8:31
Speaker 1: Was that during the controversy?
8:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't remember. That, but that just what it
8:37
Speaker 3: came up makes me think of the thing came up.
8:40
Speaker 1: Back when she was campaigning with John McCain.
8:43
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, sure, but what if she was trying to
8:45
Speaker 3: stop a shape shift?
8:46
Speaker 1: Again, we don't know, you never know, We don't know. Yeah,
8:49
Speaker 1: Reuters had previously requested that video, as you might expect
8:55
Speaker 1: under a Freedom of Information Act request, and the government
8:58
Speaker 1: said no. I can not imagine what their reasoning was,
9:02
Speaker 1: probably something like it's not in the public interest. Sure, yeah, sure.
9:07
Speaker 3: It's not national security blah blah blah. It was so
9:11
Speaker 3: easy for them to just hide shit under the terrorism banner,
9:15
Speaker 3: especially during this time.
9:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, and still all they really are, Still all they
9:21
Speaker 1: really ever have to say is national security, and of
9:25
Speaker 1: course shit just stays locked away for another twenty five years.
9:28
Speaker 1: Released the Elvis files. I want to know what part
9:32
Speaker 1: of Argentina he lived in with the Nazis.
9:35
Speaker 3: Right, it's hard to remember that mindset of what it
9:39
Speaker 3: was like back in like two thousand and six, two
9:41
Speaker 3: thousand and seven, when thows was happening. It was just everywhere,
9:44
Speaker 3: it was just all in the air, this like terrorism
9:47
Speaker 3: bullshit and like fear mongering. It was awful.
9:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, so later that same year, twenty ten, WikiLeaks released
9:55
Speaker 1: the Iraq War Logs, which was a collection of more
10:00
Speaker 1: than three hundred thousand US Army field reports from the
10:05
Speaker 1: war covering two thousand and four to two thousand and
10:08
Speaker 1: nine whole franchise. This was They dropped two sequels in
10:13
Speaker 1: rapid succession, the Afghanistan War Logs, which was Part two
10:19
Speaker 1: and the Guantanamo Bay Files, which was Part three, released
10:24
Speaker 1: in July twenty ten in April twenty eleven, respectively, And
10:28
Speaker 1: they also at one point released a bunch of US
10:30
Speaker 1: diplomatic cables that were referred to as the Cablegate Files.
10:36
Speaker 1: Cablegate Files are arguably the most important thing they released.
10:41
Speaker 1: For one thing, at least in part, it leads to
10:44
Speaker 1: the Arab Spring. Yes, because the diplomatic cables were just
10:50
Speaker 1: exactly what it sounds like, US diplomats from all around
10:52
Speaker 1: the world reporting back to probably the CIA about what
10:57
Speaker 1: they're learning in their respective countries. It was just basically
11:01
Speaker 1: everyone's corrupt, there are no good governments. Thankfully, the diplomatic
11:07
Speaker 1: cables changed that and now there's severable, of course, just
11:11
Speaker 1: fantastic governments operating on the world stage.
11:14
Speaker 3: Look, the Arab spring was a great thing and can't
11:17
Speaker 3: all last forever?
11:18
Speaker 1: What is crazy about these files? And I didn't put
11:22
Speaker 1: all of this in the notes, but I don't know
11:25
Speaker 1: why that matters to people listening. But at one point,
11:29
Speaker 1: unredacted versions of all of these cables got leaked, which
11:35
Speaker 1: is an obviously huge problem. And the way it happened,
11:39
Speaker 1: Julian Assange had given these files to a journalist and
11:44
Speaker 1: gave him an encryption key that he could read them with. Yeah,
11:48
Speaker 1: and that journalist used these files in part to write
11:53
Speaker 1: a book, and for reasons I will never understand, apparently
11:58
Speaker 1: he put that encryption key in the book, assuming it
12:02
Speaker 1: was a thing that would have just expired after a
12:05
Speaker 1: day or two when Julian Nissan gave it to him,
12:07
Speaker 1: and nope, it had not expired, and people were able
12:13
Speaker 1: to use that encryption key to unredact these cables. And
12:18
Speaker 1: at one point Julian Assan is like, what do I do?
12:22
Speaker 1: What do I do? What do I do? I got it.
12:24
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna release the unredacted files myself. It's like,
12:29
Speaker 1: that is a that's a weird course of action, Bud.
12:32
Speaker 1: That might have been the wrong turn to take personally.
12:36
Speaker 3: Sure, I kind of like that's but like that's the
12:39
Speaker 3: sort of thing where I'm like I kind of have
12:41
Speaker 3: to be like, okay, that's well.
12:44
Speaker 1: His argument was basically that everyone who might be targeted
12:50
Speaker 1: because of these files needs to know also sure, so
12:54
Speaker 1: it can't just be a thing where those people are
12:57
Speaker 1: walking around unaware that their name and these files that
13:00
Speaker 1: have been unredacted by the fucking intelligence community.
13:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that makes sense.
13:06
Speaker 1: His argument was, you know, everyone should know about it
13:08
Speaker 1: and adjust their lives accordingly. But him uploading those with
13:15
Speaker 1: the CIA, him uploading those unredacted files is what really
13:21
Speaker 1: got him on the government's radar. I mean they were
13:24
Speaker 1: obviously he was on the radar before that.
13:27
Speaker 3: Of course, of course, And so that's.
13:31
Speaker 1: All the Chelsea Manning stuff that is. I don't know
13:34
Speaker 1: if I don't remember the I don't think the diplomatic
13:36
Speaker 1: cables came from Chelsea Manning. But all of the like
13:40
Speaker 1: the Kuantanamo files, the Afghanistan files, Iraq files, those combined
13:46
Speaker 1: with him unreleased. Him releasing those unredacted cables, that's what
13:50
Speaker 1: gets the government after Julian Assange, and they start investigating
13:57
Speaker 1: Julian Assange around that time. That was twenty ten, twenty eleven.
14:02
Speaker 1: But it comes up at one point. I always talk
14:06
Speaker 1: about how when several different administrations all kind of agree
14:10
Speaker 1: on one thing buckalup, something is afoot. And that's obviously
14:14
Speaker 1: the case with Julian Assange, right where Obama, Trump, Biden
14:20
Speaker 1: have all kind of been in lockstep when it comes
14:23
Speaker 1: to Julian Assange, even though Trump, you know, publicly was like, hey,
14:27
Speaker 1: I love Wiki leaks. I hope they find those emails.
14:30
Speaker 1: But that's sure Trump being a fucking idiot, right. But
14:34
Speaker 1: also the Obama administration, they were the first ones to
14:38
Speaker 1: start investigating Julian Assange, but fair is fair in their case,
14:44
Speaker 1: they argued they could not indict Julian Assange because then
14:47
Speaker 1: they would have to indict the journalists who published this material. Also,
14:53
Speaker 1: it was Trump who changed course on that and in
14:56
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen started investigating Assange with the intent to prosecute
15:03
Speaker 1: him under the nineteen seventeen Espionage Act, which was meant
15:07
Speaker 1: to fight spies in World War One. But what's interesting
15:10
Speaker 1: is Biden hasn't backed away from that either.
15:13
Speaker 3: Huh. That is interesting.
15:16
Speaker 1: And I know we have our heart set on the
15:19
Speaker 1: idea that because a Democrat is in office. The US
15:22
Speaker 1: government is good now.
15:24
Speaker 3: But of course, I mean that's my belief. Are you
15:26
Speaker 3: going to shatter my belief right now?
15:29
Speaker 1: But just flash back to what I just said about
15:32
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, being like, well, if we indict Julian Assange, right, yeah,
15:38
Speaker 1: we have to indict the journalists who publish that material.
15:41
Speaker 1: So now if Biden indicts Julian Assange, are they going
15:46
Speaker 1: to indict the journalists who publish that material because we
15:49
Speaker 1: are talking about the same administration that just disappeared in
15:54
Speaker 1: ABC News.
15:55
Speaker 3: Pretty ser did it disappear him? He just he's vanished
16:00
Speaker 3: from public life and lost his job and refuses to
16:05
Speaker 3: talk to anybody about it.
16:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like that episode of Black Mirror where you
16:09
Speaker 1: get blocked but you're still alive. You just can't see
16:13
Speaker 1: faces and they can't recognize you. He's still alive, but
16:16
Speaker 1: like is he?
16:17
Speaker 3: That might happen of all of the Black Mirror things
16:21
Speaker 3: that might happen.
16:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could see that. They just put contacts in
16:25
Speaker 1: your eyes, but a little bit here something. Yeah. So
16:29
Speaker 1: around this same time though, twenty ten, twenty eleven, that
16:33
Speaker 1: is when the Sweden charges come up. Yeah, where two
16:38
Speaker 1: separate charges rape and molestation are lodged against Julian Assange
16:44
Speaker 1: after a speaking trip to Sweden, and that's what eventually
16:49
Speaker 1: compels him to seek refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. Not
16:54
Speaker 1: so much the wiki leaks stuff, at least not at first. Yeah,
16:58
Speaker 1: because he was in London and it was going back
17:01
Speaker 1: and forth in the courts, and the courts finally decided, yes,
17:04
Speaker 1: you can be extradited to Sweden. That's when he holds
17:08
Speaker 1: up in the Ecuadorian embassy. Imagine being Ecuador and just
17:12
Speaker 1: having that fall into your lap like a right, yeah, man?
17:17
Speaker 1: Why why you.
17:20
Speaker 3: Can only imagine the story Now that we know the
17:23
Speaker 3: stories of what he was doing in Ecuador, we can
17:25
Speaker 3: only imagine the stories that they had heard before he
17:29
Speaker 3: got there, of like him in fucking London or whatever.
17:33
Speaker 1: Julian Assange has alleged that some of the crazier stories
17:38
Speaker 1: about his behavior in the embassy in Ecuador were embellished
17:44
Speaker 1: at the best, because Ecuador just wanted him out of there.
17:49
Speaker 1: And we'll get to why they wanted him out of there.
17:51
Speaker 1: They definitely wanted him out of there.
17:53
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
17:54
Speaker 1: That's not even me hinting that we're going to get
17:56
Speaker 1: to Ecuador being not justified in wanting them out of there.
18:00
Speaker 1: They sure a shit should have wanted him out. Julian
18:03
Speaker 1: Assange got kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy for the
18:08
Speaker 1: same reason a lot of comedians bomb on stage. He
18:12
Speaker 1: failed to read the room exactly, He did the wrong
18:17
Speaker 1: material in front of the wrong crowd.
18:20
Speaker 3: That's absolutely, absolutely.
18:23
Speaker 1: Up to that Ecuador. Up to that point, Ecuador was
18:27
Speaker 1: doing everything you would want them to do in a
18:30
Speaker 1: case like this. Yeah, like they were following the fucking
18:33
Speaker 1: law and Renaissange fucked it up.
18:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well that's the thing, And that's the thing with
18:38
Speaker 3: this stuff in Sweden where I'm like, obviously, when you've
18:42
Speaker 3: got governments and shit coming after you, any personal shit
18:46
Speaker 3: is bound to get dragged up and thrown at you.
18:49
Speaker 3: And so it doesn't matter if you could be squeaky
18:52
Speaker 3: clean and with one mistake and they'll find it and
18:55
Speaker 3: they'll use it against you. But still, Julian, if you're
18:59
Speaker 3: on the from the gut, you should know that they're
19:01
Speaker 3: gonna look for this stuff. So why are you fucking
19:03
Speaker 3: do it?
19:04
Speaker 1: Yeah?
19:05
Speaker 3: Insane Because all of the sedual assault charges are from
19:09
Speaker 3: a speaking trip after he's already. Yeah, like you're saying,
19:13
Speaker 3: like on the run basically.
19:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. So that was June twenty twelve when he checked
19:20
Speaker 1: into his room at the Ecuadorian Embassy. He was there
19:24
Speaker 1: for a long time. You can see pictures and videos
19:28
Speaker 1: of his living quarters. They just converted an office into
19:32
Speaker 1: a studio apartment. And if he did go crazy in there,
19:36
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised, because.
19:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, he treated that Ecuadorian Embassy office like my high
19:44
Speaker 3: school bedroom.
19:46
Speaker 1: He did doing fucking kickflips, Jesus slamming mountain dew. So
19:54
Speaker 1: he checks in in June twenty twelve. For more than
19:58
Speaker 1: three years after he he entered the embassy, the Metropolitan
20:02
Speaker 1: Police kept a twenty four hour in person guard around
20:07
Speaker 1: the building on the off chance he might try to,
20:10
Speaker 1: I don't know, sneak out for a scone or fish
20:13
Speaker 1: and chips or something.
20:14
Speaker 3: Okay, you're thinking it's to keep him in, not to
20:17
Speaker 3: keep other people out.
20:19
Speaker 1: No, because he went to the embassy, and when he
20:24
Speaker 1: did that, he was out on bail I think for
20:27
Speaker 1: the rape charges, sure, but either way whatever, he was
20:31
Speaker 1: out on bail. Four he violated his bail by seeking
20:35
Speaker 1: asylum at the embassy. That was the Metropolitan Police's argument.
20:40
Speaker 1: So they thought just because he checked into the Ecuadorian embassy,
20:44
Speaker 1: they should be able to arrest him because of that,
20:47
Speaker 1: And they eventually gave up on that and just installed
20:51
Speaker 1: security cameras, which this is London, where they're not twenty
20:56
Speaker 1: five hundred security cameras pointed at this place already. Right,
21:00
Speaker 1: I've seen the TV shows. I know what's up. What
21:03
Speaker 1: do you mean you installed security cameras? I think you
21:05
Speaker 1: mean you turned one of the dozens that were in
21:08
Speaker 1: the area toward that door. There were some points where
21:14
Speaker 1: it seemed like things were maybe going to go his way,
21:18
Speaker 1: like when Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning. Sure, I think a
21:22
Speaker 1: lot of people thought, well, it was Julian Assange next,
21:24
Speaker 1: and it's like they would have announced Julian Nissans first, right,
21:28
Speaker 1: he is definitely not next, And Obama did that on
21:32
Speaker 1: the way out in January twenty seventeen. In April twenty seventeen,
21:37
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions was like, no, we're still definitely trying to
21:40
Speaker 1: arrest that guy, don't you worry. And by December of
21:44
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, there were rumors that unnamed US figures were
21:49
Speaker 1: planning to either kidnap or poison Julian assans if it
21:52
Speaker 1: is carried on much longer. And at first he did
21:57
Speaker 1: have a lot of support from Ecuador and that probably
22:01
Speaker 1: had a lot to do with the UK. When he
22:05
Speaker 1: sought asylum in that embassy, the UK government reached out
22:10
Speaker 1: to the government of Ecuador and was like, hey, you know,
22:14
Speaker 1: we have the right to come in there and arrest him. Hunh.
22:16
Speaker 1: And they were like, do you that sounds like a threat?
22:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, you sure you want to try that?
22:23
Speaker 1: And so for a long time Ecuador was like, man,
22:26
Speaker 1: Julian Assange can stay as long as he wants.
22:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
22:31
Speaker 1: They gave him citizenship and I think that was the
22:35
Speaker 1: next concern in the UK was that, well, next they're
22:39
Speaker 1: going to try and smuggle him out and get him
22:42
Speaker 1: to Ecuador so he can just live there instead of
22:45
Speaker 1: fucking making people clean up after his cat shit in
22:49
Speaker 1: the embassy in London. It seems like what got him
22:53
Speaker 1: in trouble, and this is where him not reading the
22:56
Speaker 1: room comes up, is when he started getting involved in
23:01
Speaker 1: the Catalan separatist movement. Yeah in Spain.
23:06
Speaker 3: It's Twitter. People need to fucking stay off of Twitter.
23:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had been tweeting about it, and Spain was like, uh, Ecuador,
23:17
Speaker 1: get your boy you. Yeah, you need to. He's taking
23:22
Speaker 1: shelter in your embassy. You got to tell him to
23:25
Speaker 1: tone this down or there's gonna be problems. And he
23:29
Speaker 1: did not tone it down. Ecuador was just like, come on, bro,
23:34
Speaker 1: you gotta understand Spain's not cool, Like we.
23:38
Speaker 3: Are again, Like Julian, put your goddamn phone away, Like
23:45
Speaker 3: why are you're on the runt? You are hunted by
23:49
Speaker 3: multiple superpowers? Like why are you fucking why are you tweeting? Brother?
23:55
Speaker 1: Come on, yeah, it just I understand you still kind
23:59
Speaker 1: of have a job to do, but find there were
24:03
Speaker 1: also stories that there were some countries that were able
24:08
Speaker 1: to kind of talk him out of reporting on stuff,
24:11
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, what was that about. But the
24:14
Speaker 1: Ecuadorian government can't get the same leeway. It wasn't just
24:19
Speaker 1: that he got involved in that separatist movement, which made
24:24
Speaker 1: Spain obviously very angry. But even after all that, at
24:29
Speaker 1: first Ecuador goes in and cuts his internet access after
24:34
Speaker 1: he tweeted about that separatist movement, but eventually he was
24:40
Speaker 1: able to smooth things out enough to where he got
24:44
Speaker 1: internet access again and was able to communicate with the
24:48
Speaker 1: outside world, and it seemed like echuit for a week, Yeah, exactly.
24:54
Speaker 1: He bought the groceries and then WikiLeaks reports on some
24:58
Speaker 1: scandal involving the president of Ecuador while Julian Assange is
25:04
Speaker 1: still living in the embassy, and at that point Ecuador
25:07
Speaker 1: is like, dude, fuck you.
25:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I would say, if you're going to compromise
25:14
Speaker 3: your journalistic or whatever ethics in any case, it might
25:20
Speaker 3: be to not anger the one country on earth that
25:25
Speaker 3: will put up with your crusty as. Yeah.
25:29
Speaker 1: They were going so hard in the paint for him. Yeah,
25:31
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm a journalist, and it's like, no,
25:34
Speaker 1: you're really not. That's kind of why the US is
25:36
Speaker 1: trying to extradite you.
25:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, but also I mean yeah, but regardless,
25:41
Speaker 3: you know, you're also a person and you're staying in
25:44
Speaker 3: these in this country's goddamn place. You got it. What
25:48
Speaker 3: do you expect? Man.
25:49
Speaker 1: He also sued the Ecuadorian government while living inside the embassy,
25:54
Speaker 1: which was probably not a step in the right direction.
25:57
Speaker 1: This is one of those things. It always lows my
26:00
Speaker 1: mind when people file lawsuits like this, knowing it means
26:05
Speaker 1: every detail of this story is going to come out.
26:08
Speaker 1: There was did you read about this QAnon fuck who
26:12
Speaker 1: had just bought a fucking mansion with the money he
26:15
Speaker 1: makes spouting QAnon shit on YouTube? And QAnon, of course
26:20
Speaker 1: very opposed to pedophilia and child sex trafficking, was accused
26:27
Speaker 1: of having a relationship with a fifteen year old girl
26:30
Speaker 1: when he was twenty five, and instead of just being like,
26:33
Speaker 1: ah my bad, that's actually why I hate child sex trafficking,
26:37
Speaker 1: he doubled down and was like, she's a fucking liar
26:39
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna sue her. And they were like, oh okay, interesting,
26:44
Speaker 1: sue us. And when he sued, all of these police
26:49
Speaker 1: records and documents from that underage relationship became public and
26:55
Speaker 1: he had to be like, oh, yeah, I did actually
26:57
Speaker 1: do that.
26:58
Speaker 3: Here's his tactical error. Two tactical errors in this guy's
27:02
Speaker 3: defense of himself. One, like you said, could have could
27:06
Speaker 3: have used it as an origin story. This is why
27:08
Speaker 3: I'm after his ex traffick exactly, which would also another
27:12
Speaker 3: one which would also work for the right wing libertarian
27:16
Speaker 3: chud market that he's trying to win over. He could
27:19
Speaker 3: pull the feebophilia fig sales sheet. You know, age of
27:23
Speaker 3: consent blah blah blah blah blah. You know, that's an
27:26
Speaker 3: easy pr play for that crowd. There are a bunch
27:29
Speaker 3: of fucking creepy dinguses.
27:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, But instead he filed a lawsuit, and Julian Assange
27:34
Speaker 1: filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian government. And that move
27:39
Speaker 1: is where all the stories about Julian Assanj's behavior in
27:45
Speaker 1: the embassy come from. The judge. I think it's an
27:49
Speaker 1: actual quote from his ruling was that your rights have
27:54
Speaker 1: not been violated because the Ecuadorian embassy doesn't want to
27:58
Speaker 1: clean up after your cat. Because that was one of
28:01
Speaker 1: his arguments. They were like, fucking will you at least
28:03
Speaker 1: clean up after your pets and he was like no,
28:06
Speaker 1: Julian Assange.
28:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the smell of cap is.
28:10
Speaker 1: I'll clean up cat shit. I report on corruption within
28:14
Speaker 1: your government. So it wasn't going well there. No, it
28:19
Speaker 1: was turning into an episode of fear Thy Roommate, which
28:22
Speaker 1: is an investigation discovery show about roommates who eventually one
28:26
Speaker 1: of the murders the other. Sure, I love it so much,
28:30
Speaker 1: it's so good. So this was late twenty eighteen and
28:36
Speaker 1: it's also weirdly the point where he starts getting a
28:39
Speaker 1: lot of celebrity support, and most notably, I don't know
28:43
Speaker 1: if most notably, but probably the weirdest. Pamela Anderson starts
28:48
Speaker 1: showing up at the Ecuadorian embassy and cool publicly professing
28:54
Speaker 1: her support for Julian Assange, and at one point she
28:58
Speaker 1: reached out to the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at
29:03
Speaker 1: the time to urge him to protect Assange, and she
29:08
Speaker 1: says she just got a quote smutty reply back, which
29:12
Speaker 1: stands to reason from what I remember, Scott Morrison was
29:15
Speaker 1: a piece of shit. And also, I'm sorry, but you
29:17
Speaker 1: can't be a world leader and be named Scott like you.
29:21
Speaker 1: Your last name can be Scott, but your first name
29:23
Speaker 1: can't be Scott.
29:25
Speaker 3: Come on, you know what, Yeah, I agree with you.
29:29
Speaker 1: It's not a politician name. It's like a it's a
29:31
Speaker 1: sporting name. Go play sports.
29:33
Speaker 3: If it was Scottard what Scottie.
29:39
Speaker 1: Scotty does know Scott?
29:42
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I think yes we should have Montgomery
29:47
Speaker 3: Scott of the USS Enterprise as a president anyway.
29:51
Speaker 1: That's sure, that's fine.
29:53
Speaker 3: Scott Morrison sucks ass.
29:55
Speaker 1: He was a piece of shit and Pamela Anderson issued
29:58
Speaker 1: a statement about reaching out to Scott Morrison and his
30:01
Speaker 1: reply here goes, rather than making lude suggestions about me,
30:06
Speaker 1: perhaps you should instead think about what you are going
30:08
Speaker 1: to say to millions of Australians when one of their
30:11
Speaker 1: own is marched in an orange jumpsuit to Guantanamo Bay
30:15
Speaker 1: for publishing the truth. You can prevent this. More like,
30:20
Speaker 1: damn Mala Anderson, fucking get them.
30:24
Speaker 3: Yeah it's a good statement. I mean she has a point.
30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a solid quote and good for her,
30:30
Speaker 1: Like I know there were other celebrities of kind of
30:33
Speaker 1: speaking up for Julian Assange, but she was going for
30:36
Speaker 1: it absolutely. But also none of that helped. On April second,
30:40
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, Ecuadorian President Lennon Moreno announced that Assange had
30:45
Speaker 1: violated the terms of his asylum. On April fourth, they
30:49
Speaker 1: invited Metropolitan Police inside the embassy to arrest Julian Assange,
30:54
Speaker 1: and of course to have a spot of tea, because
30:57
Speaker 1: you can't invite someone in in England have fucking tea again.
31:02
Speaker 1: I've seen the TV shows. So Julian Nosane has basically
31:07
Speaker 1: been fighting extradition ever since and that fight is still ongoing.
31:13
Speaker 1: There have been some interesting developments. For one thing, Olivia,
31:17
Speaker 1: are you sitting down?
31:18
Speaker 3: Should I be? I guess I can.
31:20
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. Yeah, because we're both very
31:22
Speaker 1: up and active when we record this, pacing around the room,
31:25
Speaker 1: full of nervous energy, you know, just to get the
31:29
Speaker 1: truth out there to the people.
31:30
Speaker 3: Absolutely, so here.
31:32
Speaker 1: Goes I'm just gonna say it. In August twenty twenty two,
31:36
Speaker 1: a group of journalists and lawyers sued the CIA and
31:41
Speaker 1: Mike Pompeo, alleging that they were put under surveillance by
31:45
Speaker 1: the CIA after visiting Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.
31:51
Speaker 1: There's no way that's true.
31:52
Speaker 3: Right, Sorry, my jaw just hit the ground.
31:56
Speaker 1: I can't. That doesn't sound like my CIA.
31:59
Speaker 3: No, that is not my CIA, not my America.
32:04
Speaker 1: I think I would sue the CIA if they didn't
32:06
Speaker 1: start surveilling me after I visited Julien Assange in the
32:10
Speaker 1: Ecuadorian embassy. Yeah, I too, I have feelings.
32:15
Speaker 3: I deserve of character.
32:19
Speaker 1: Oh you think I'm not a threat? Wait till this
32:21
Speaker 1: podcast goes up. Yeah.
32:23
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:25
Speaker 1: The lawsuit was filed in a New York district court
32:28
Speaker 1: claims the CIA had conversations recorded and data from phones
32:32
Speaker 1: and computers copied. No word on whether Pamela Anderson is
32:36
Speaker 1: part of the lawsuit, but it does include journalists Charles
32:39
Speaker 1: Glass and John Gets. This is a quote from Richard Roth,
32:44
Speaker 1: the lawyer representing the group. The United States Constitution shields
32:48
Speaker 1: American citizens from US government overreach even when the activities
32:53
Speaker 1: take place in a foreign embassy in a foreign country.
32:57
Speaker 3: Yep.
32:57
Speaker 1: And that's important because, as John Ramirez reminded us on
33:01
Speaker 1: the episode about UFOs and the intelligence community, the CIA
33:05
Speaker 1: does not absolutely spy on Americans.
33:08
Speaker 3: No, not ever, never, once, except for these times.
33:12
Speaker 1: Don't even suggest it. Yeah, except for all these times
33:15
Speaker 1: that Americans showed up to talk to Julian Assange.
33:17
Speaker 3: Right, But that's not like indicative of a larger trend.
33:21
Speaker 1: No, No, this is an isolated This is an oopsie,
33:24
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, whoop, whoops, Sorry we left the microphones
33:29
Speaker 1: on or something. It's also important because, as Julian Assange's
33:34
Speaker 1: lawyers have rightly argued, how do you get a fair
33:37
Speaker 1: trial when the people accusing you were also recording every
33:42
Speaker 1: conversation you had with your lawyers? Yeah, it's literally no
33:47
Speaker 1: longer possible for him to have a fair trial.
33:50
Speaker 3: Yep, that's true. The United States should give this up.
33:54
Speaker 3: This is a fool's errand.
33:57
Speaker 1: And it really is going to set such a bad press. Yeah,
34:00
Speaker 1: because I think that Obama administration policy still stands. If
34:05
Speaker 1: you indict Julian Assange, who's next? Like what news outlets
34:09
Speaker 1: broke this story?
34:12
Speaker 3: Right?
34:12
Speaker 1: It's a snowball, And it's the kind of thing again,
34:16
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where I know, if you're
34:18
Speaker 1: a hardcore Democrat and you don't want to criticize Joe Biden,
34:24
Speaker 1: you're gonna be content to just kind of let this
34:27
Speaker 1: happen without saying much about it, because Julian Assange is
34:30
Speaker 1: a shitty person. But also it sets a precedent that
34:34
Speaker 1: whoever wins in twenty twenty four can build them.
34:37
Speaker 3: Yeah.
34:37
Speaker 1: Yes, And if that's Trump or DeSantis, one of these
34:41
Speaker 1: people who is very vocal about wanting to punish journalists,
34:45
Speaker 1: this is the shit they're going to point to when
34:47
Speaker 1: they say they have the grounds to do it. And
34:50
Speaker 1: that fucking Supreme Court we got in place right now
34:52
Speaker 1: isn't going to say a goddamn thing about it.
34:55
Speaker 3: No, And there wouldn't really be an argument against that, Yeah,
34:59
Speaker 3: other than a basic you know, moral ethical one, but
35:03
Speaker 3: that doesn't work on fascists. But from a legal like this,
35:08
Speaker 3: it would set a precedent. This is it. We can't do.
35:11
Speaker 1: That, And by not saying more about it, people are
35:17
Speaker 1: you know, you're kind of complicit in it because you know,
35:19
Speaker 1: you get what you ask for a lot of times.
35:21
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the hot Coffee lawsuit from the
35:25
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties where that woman got third degree burns and
35:29
Speaker 1: had to have skin grafts because McDonald's wanted their coffee
35:33
Speaker 1: hot enough for truck drivers, and she was just made
35:38
Speaker 1: a mockery of on late night talk shows for months
35:43
Speaker 1: and months, probably years on end.
35:45
Speaker 3: Years. I remember people in my life making jokes about
35:51
Speaker 3: that case, and I definitely didn't hear it like at
35:56
Speaker 3: the time, so yeah, I do to have been.
35:58
Speaker 1: Years later, there's a docu menory called Hot Coffee, and
36:02
Speaker 1: what's really great about it is it covers that story.
36:05
Speaker 1: And what happened around that story was all this demand
36:09
Speaker 1: for tort reform so people couldn't file frivolous lawsuits and
36:13
Speaker 1: put these poor innocent businesses out of operation forever, and
36:19
Speaker 1: so it covers three other stories that are all the
36:23
Speaker 1: result of that, and one of them these parents, their
36:27
Speaker 1: child was injured during childbirth by obvious negligence by this doctor.
36:32
Speaker 1: And because of all the tort reform laws we passed,
36:35
Speaker 1: the financial award they could be given was capped at
36:39
Speaker 1: like five million dollars, and they were like, that's cool,
36:42
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to take care of this kid his
36:44
Speaker 1: entire life. That five million will probably get us until
36:47
Speaker 1: he's like five, But hot coffee. It's like, this is
36:52
Speaker 1: kind of the same thing. Like, we're going to be
36:54
Speaker 1: really pissed when Trump is literally locking up journalists in
37:00
Speaker 1: twenty five, but it's gonna have a lot to do
37:03
Speaker 1: with us not being that angry that Julian Assange got
37:06
Speaker 1: locked up in nah, twenty twenty three. Probably, I doubt
37:10
Speaker 1: they'll get him this month.
37:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, right now, they'll let him have Christmas.
37:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are nothing if not just right. This is
37:20
Speaker 1: a god fearing nation. We will not deny Julian Assange
37:24
Speaker 1: of his Christmas. There's no way. He's no way. He's
37:28
Speaker 1: not an atheist, right, there's no way.
37:30
Speaker 3: Julian Assange, Yeah, yeah, he's he must be. He just
37:34
Speaker 3: reminds me so much of that era of internet atheism.
37:38
Speaker 1: So apparently the CIA thing, the way it worked when
37:42
Speaker 1: people would show up to visit with Julian Assange, there
37:45
Speaker 1: is this security contractor who was at the door and
37:49
Speaker 1: made people turn over their electronic devices, like it was
37:53
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle and John Mayer touring together and which fucking
37:59
Speaker 1: both of you get over yourselves.
38:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, that just sounds like an extraordinarily unappealing show.
38:07
Speaker 1: No, it happened, though. John Mayer and Dave Chappelle did
38:10
Speaker 1: tour together at one point and did this joint fucking thing,
38:13
Speaker 1: and we're like, no, I don't.
38:15
Speaker 3: I don't doubt that, but it sounds extremely unpleasant.
38:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would hate every minute of it. Except John
38:24
Speaker 1: Mayer can shredd a guitar a little bit better guitar
38:27
Speaker 1: player than people expect. No, no, he is.
38:30
Speaker 3: No. I know. I know that, I know all of
38:32
Speaker 3: the guitar nerd shit about him being a good guitar player.
38:34
Speaker 3: I don't like his music, so it doesn't matter. He
38:39
Speaker 3: plays bad music.
38:40
Speaker 1: Well, so when they would hand their devices over, this
38:44
Speaker 1: company which was called Undercover Global SI, which come on,
38:49
Speaker 1: just say CIA affiliated security. Yeah, I mean just call yourself.
38:54
Speaker 3: The more generic, the more sinister the names, and.
39:00
Speaker 1: These people are like, oh sure, I trust you. Here
39:03
Speaker 1: take my device. And of course they just went and
39:05
Speaker 1: copied the contents of these devices and sent all of
39:09
Speaker 1: that to the CIA. According to the lawsuit.
39:13
Speaker 3: If they're not working for the CIA, they probably love
39:18
Speaker 3: the CIA. Oh hell, get into fucking security and shit,
39:22
Speaker 3: if you don't fetishize law enforcement.
39:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, they work there because they failed the test that
39:27
Speaker 1: gets you into the CIA.
39:29
Speaker 3: The psych tests.
39:32
Speaker 1: So the claims in that lawsuit kind of mirror the
39:35
Speaker 1: media's reaction to the Assange case in general. In December
39:40
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, The Nation published in op ed by
39:44
Speaker 1: John Nichols titled the prosecution of Julian Assange absolutely threatens
39:48
Speaker 1: freedom of the press. And it absolutely does. And what
39:53
Speaker 1: I found out in researching this is it turns out
39:57
Speaker 1: the sticking point here is the US government's argument is
40:01
Speaker 1: that Julian Assange is not a journalist, because if he was,
40:07
Speaker 1: then what he did is it's like Watergate. Shit, it's
40:11
Speaker 1: just reporting. It's reporting on government corruption, and you cannot
40:15
Speaker 1: under the current constitution, you can't be prosecuted for that.
40:19
Speaker 1: That's not a crime. But The government's argument is, well,
40:23
Speaker 1: he's not a journalist.
40:24
Speaker 3: He's just a guy, just some guy.
40:26
Speaker 1: And the thing is, the Bill of Rights doesn't say that.
40:30
Speaker 1: The Bill of Rights isn't but we're only talking about journalists, Like,
40:33
Speaker 1: it doesn't reference journalists.
40:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's freedom of the people who have a Bachelor
40:41
Speaker 3: of Arts in journalism.
40:44
Speaker 1: From an accredited college.
40:46
Speaker 3: From an accredited college.
40:47
Speaker 1: Right, none of this online bullshit.
40:50
Speaker 3: With a three point zero.
40:53
Speaker 1: Send us an essay, tell us about what groups you've
40:56
Speaker 1: been involved in, will decide.
40:58
Speaker 3: It's all in the Bill of Rights.
41:01
Speaker 1: But that is kind of the government's argument is, well,
41:04
Speaker 1: we get to decide who's a journalist, like yeah, and
41:08
Speaker 1: it's like, no, you don't. That's not what the point
41:12
Speaker 1: of the Bill of Rights was. It wasn't to protect
41:15
Speaker 1: the profession of journalist. It was to protect the free
41:20
Speaker 1: flow of information, as John Nichols puts it in his
41:24
Speaker 1: op ed. So it's an absurd argument, but it's one
41:29
Speaker 1: that if Julian Assange is extradited, where's it gonna go.
41:33
Speaker 1: It's gonna go to the Supreme Court. And what is
41:36
Speaker 1: this Supreme Court gonna do when this case is in
41:39
Speaker 1: front of them? I would argue it doesn't matter if
41:41
Speaker 1: Biden is in office. It doesn't matter who's in office.
41:44
Speaker 1: Like they're gonna side with the authoritarian view of things.
41:50
Speaker 3: Right, the court transcripts will just be sixty straight minutes
41:54
Speaker 3: of laughter.
41:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fucking doodles and shit. Yeah, Garfield, I love
42:02
Speaker 1: this country. Yeah, it's this is oh really Yeah. The
42:10
Speaker 1: only US politician who has really said anything of note
42:15
Speaker 1: about this is US Representative Roe Khanna, a Democrat from California,
42:21
Speaker 1: who said, I oppose the criminal prosecution of Assange. The
42:24
Speaker 1: prosecution of Assnge will have a chilling impact on any
42:27
Speaker 1: journalist who publishes information and is a violation of the
42:32
Speaker 1: First Amendment. Assange did many morally suspect things by failing
42:37
Speaker 1: to redact the personal information of civilians and putting them
42:40
Speaker 1: in harms way, and also coordinating the timing of his
42:43
Speaker 1: releases to wreak havoc in the twenty sixteen election. But
42:47
Speaker 1: one can condemn Assange's actions while not setting a precedent
42:53
Speaker 1: of criminalizing the publication of material that challenges state power.
42:58
Speaker 1: End quote. And there it fucking.
43:00
Speaker 3: Is well said.
43:02
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter who this has happened to. This
43:06
Speaker 1: is actually a very serious moment in American history. At
43:11
Speaker 1: least if it goes that way, it will be looked
43:14
Speaker 1: back on as very serious. Absolutely, and again, you know,
43:20
Speaker 1: separate the artists from the art.
43:21
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, this is just like Tar. It's basically the
43:24
Speaker 3: same moral.
43:25
Speaker 1: It's exactly like Tar.
43:27
Speaker 3: Right.
43:27
Speaker 1: I feel like this episode is going to be in
43:29
Speaker 1: contention for all the same awards that that happens. Absolutely
43:32
Speaker 1: will be.
43:33
Speaker 3: I'm up for Best Actress. Yeah no, I mean, you know,
43:38
Speaker 3: And Julian Assange is eventually gonna end up composing music
43:42
Speaker 3: for Monster Hunter Worlds.
43:45
Speaker 1: So not only is that one op ed writer at
43:49
Speaker 1: the nation up in arms about this, The most recent
43:52
Speaker 1: development happened just this past week. The list of names
43:57
Speaker 1: opposing the extradition of Julian Assan just became a whole
44:02
Speaker 1: lot more prominent. The editors and publishers of five different
44:06
Speaker 1: media outlets, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde,
44:11
Speaker 1: Der Spiegel, and El Paice published an open letter calling
44:16
Speaker 1: for the United States government to end its extradition and
44:19
Speaker 1: prosecution of Julian Assange. That's actually what got this story
44:24
Speaker 1: back on my radar. I was scrolling through headlines and
44:27
Speaker 1: saw that and was like, hmm, that's big.
44:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting.
44:32
Speaker 1: It's especially interesting because this is, at the same time
44:37
Speaker 1: a story that you would think mainstream media outlets like
44:41
Speaker 1: the New York Times would be a little angrier about,
44:43
Speaker 1: or would be a little more vocal about. But you're
44:46
Speaker 1: not hearing a whole lot about it. It's mostly overseas press.
44:52
Speaker 1: And you'll notice that every other outlet that signed that
44:56
Speaker 1: letter is from a different country, not the New York Times.
44:59
Speaker 1: But I mean, good on the New York Times for
45:02
Speaker 1: doing this still, but.
45:03
Speaker 3: Like collectively, they are all from different countries, right then,
45:08
Speaker 3: you know, because the New York Times and it's from
45:09
Speaker 3: America anyway. I was just including the New York Times
45:13
Speaker 3: within what you were saying.
45:15
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, but also it's the United States doing this,
45:19
Speaker 1: so you well, you would prefer if I don't know,
45:22
Speaker 1: maybe the Washington Posts signed on the Wall Street Journal, maybe,
45:27
Speaker 1: you know, like that would also be pretty great.
45:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I no way the Wall Street Journal
45:34
Speaker 3: is anything like that. No, And watching the Post maybe
45:39
Speaker 3: we'll see.
45:39
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was again I brought up earlier the
45:42
Speaker 1: Obama administration didn't decide decided not to indict Julian Assange
45:48
Speaker 1: on the grounds that they would also have to indict
45:51
Speaker 1: the publishers of that material. Yeah, and so it's easy
45:54
Speaker 1: to go, oh, yeah, Trump, he's the authoritarian. He's bringing
45:58
Speaker 1: it back now. He wants to indict Julian, but so
46:01
Speaker 1: does Obama's VP. Joe Biden is not scaling any of
46:05
Speaker 1: that Trump shit back. And when you couple that with
46:08
Speaker 1: that Obama administration quote, it's kind of easy math that
46:12
Speaker 1: Joe Biden does kind of intend this to be a
46:16
Speaker 1: means of prosecuting journalists for reporting on your errors, because
46:20
Speaker 1: it's not like he doesn't have anything that people can
46:24
Speaker 1: report on. Like, right, the withdrawal of from Afghanistan was
46:28
Speaker 1: pretty fucking ugly. Granted it's a thing we were begging
46:32
Speaker 1: Obama to just do happen the entire time. Yeah, it
46:36
Speaker 1: needed to happen. Was just really fucked it up, you
46:39
Speaker 1: can believe it.
46:40
Speaker 3: So you're saying the American Armed Forces fucked something up
46:45
Speaker 3: in the Middle East.
46:46
Speaker 1: I know, yes, it's called the Middle East. That's what
46:50
Speaker 1: we fucked up in the Middle East. Ye, So this
46:54
Speaker 1: isn't really a bright side. But there has been a
46:57
Speaker 1: change of course within the Australian government also because Julian
47:01
Speaker 1: Ossange is Australian. He's an Australian citizen.
47:04
Speaker 3: Right.
47:04
Speaker 1: While Scott Morrison was convinced that this was a matter
47:08
Speaker 1: for the US to worry about and no one else,
47:12
Speaker 1: current Prime Minister Anthony Albanize sees it differently. A few
47:16
Speaker 1: days after that open letter was released, he said he'd
47:19
Speaker 1: raised the issue of Assange with US representatives recently and
47:22
Speaker 1: would continue to do so until the US government drops
47:25
Speaker 1: the matter. He also acknowledged that the Assage case is
47:29
Speaker 1: an issue of great interest to many Australians and of
47:33
Speaker 1: interest to people across this chamber. And that's an important
47:36
Speaker 1: statement because Scott Morrison really did when asked when he
47:40
Speaker 1: was asked about this, he really did say that's for
47:43
Speaker 1: the US to worry about.
47:45
Speaker 3: See like he was just like, man, I want to
47:47
Speaker 3: fuck Pamela Anderson or something. Apparently that was his go
47:51
Speaker 3: to and she asked him about it.
47:53
Speaker 1: So it is important that this Prime minister came out
47:56
Speaker 1: and said that because yeah, at least he's concerned about
48:00
Speaker 1: his citizens, because that's the thing. At the end of
48:02
Speaker 1: the day, you're the prime minister, you have to at
48:05
Speaker 1: least be like, well, yeah, he's Australian. Of course we care.
48:09
Speaker 1: We don't want him, right, but Scott Morrison's a piece
48:12
Speaker 1: of shit.
48:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's similar. You know, it's this whole
48:15
Speaker 3: coalition thing, especially with some right wing asshole like Scott Morrison.
48:19
Speaker 3: And look, I don't know much about Anthony Albanize. I
48:23
Speaker 3: don't know what his politics are particularly, but I'm sure
48:27
Speaker 3: Morrison was much more willing it seems to suckle at
48:31
Speaker 3: the US T Yeah.
48:33
Speaker 1: I don't know much about the current state of Australian politics.
48:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean neither.
48:39
Speaker 1: I'm sure they've really come around on immigration since I
48:42
Speaker 1: last checked out.
48:42
Speaker 3: Oh sure, yeah, absolutely, I bet there's no racism in
48:46
Speaker 3: Australian politics at all anymore.
48:48
Speaker 1: So that's kind of where the Julian Assan story is.
48:52
Speaker 1: We're still waiting to see if he's going to be extradited.
48:55
Speaker 1: It seems like kind of the global feeling on it
48:59
Speaker 1: is that he should not be. Like, yes, that part
49:02
Speaker 1: is also crossing some boundaries, just like the side that
49:06
Speaker 1: wants to have him extradited and prosecuted that crosses several
49:11
Speaker 1: US government administrations. But there are all sorts of sectors
49:16
Speaker 1: of the world outside of that that are calling for
49:19
Speaker 1: the opposite, and I think it's a perfectly valid point.
49:23
Speaker 1: I do think this is kind of an important moment
49:26
Speaker 1: that yeah, we got a hope goes our way.
49:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, fingers trusted.
49:38
Speaker 1: So, as I mentioned up top, that sound means we
49:41
Speaker 1: have an update, a huge update. As it turns out.
49:45
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've already heard or already seen, Julie Assange
49:50
Speaker 1: has been released. The case in the US has been settled,
49:54
Speaker 1: and he is a freeman and back in Australia. This
49:57
Speaker 1: is a legal battle that carried on for fourteen years.
50:03
Speaker 1: He did plead guilty to violating US espionage law, but
50:07
Speaker 1: as part of a deal that allowed him to avoid
50:11
Speaker 1: additional jail time, he was sentenced to five years in prison,
50:15
Speaker 1: but as time served, he's already done five years in
50:18
Speaker 1: prison in England since being pulled out of the embassy.
50:23
Speaker 1: The United States has repeatedly claimed that what Julia Nassange
50:27
Speaker 1: did was reckless and put lives at risk, but when
50:32
Speaker 1: pressed by reporters, even after this verdict, State Department officials
50:37
Speaker 1: weren't able to specify anyone who was actually harmed. It
50:41
Speaker 1: was also noted by the judge who presided over the
50:44
Speaker 1: case Ramona v. Manglona, Chief US District Judge in the
50:50
Speaker 1: US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands. More on that later,
50:55
Speaker 1: that there were no actual victims. Here's a quote. There's
50:58
Speaker 1: another significant fact the government has indicated there is no
51:02
Speaker 1: personal victim here. That tells me the dissemination of this
51:05
Speaker 1: information did not result in any known physical injury end quote.
51:11
Speaker 1: For their part, the State Department claims there were no
51:14
Speaker 1: victims because they knew these cables were going to be
51:17
Speaker 1: published and they acted accordingly to move people out of
51:21
Speaker 1: harm's way. Here's the exact quote. The State Department did
51:24
Speaker 1: an extraordinary amount of work when we found out that
51:27
Speaker 1: these cables were going to be published to get people
51:31
Speaker 1: out of harms way, that is a State Department spokesperson.
51:34
Speaker 1: They also said the Justice Department acted independently of the
51:38
Speaker 1: State Department in this case. Another quote. There was some
51:42
Speaker 1: small coordination role between our embassy and the Australian government
51:46
Speaker 1: just in the past few days, but this was other
51:49
Speaker 1: than that, a law enforcement matter handled through law enforcement channels. Now,
51:55
Speaker 1: Australia has been pushing for Soannge's release for a while
52:00
Speaker 1: now on account of how he is an Australian citizen
52:03
Speaker 1: and it finally worked. He was accompanied on his flight
52:07
Speaker 1: back to Canberra, Australia by Australian Ambassador to the United States,
52:13
Speaker 1: Kevin Rudd, and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Stephen Smith.
52:19
Speaker 1: Ooh la la, So not Stephen a Smith, just a
52:23
Speaker 1: Stephen Smith. That's a joke for sports fans. There are
52:27
Speaker 1: pictures of assannge landing in Australia all over the world
52:30
Speaker 1: Wide Web, showing him raising a celebratory fist upon touching
52:35
Speaker 1: down in the land of crocodile dundee and horse sized spiders.
52:40
Speaker 1: He called Prime Minister Anthony Albanize from the tarmac and
52:44
Speaker 1: told him the Australian government intervention saved his life. This
52:49
Speaker 1: is a quote from Anthony Albanize. He described it as
52:51
Speaker 1: a surreal and happy moment his landing here in our
52:55
Speaker 1: national capital, Canberra. I had a very warm discussion with
52:58
Speaker 1: him this evening. He was very generous in his praise
53:02
Speaker 1: of the Australian Government's efforts. Assange's wife Stella Assange and
53:07
Speaker 1: his father, John Shipton were waiting for him when he landed,
53:11
Speaker 1: and despite a huge media presence at the landing. He
53:15
Speaker 1: managed to not talk to the press, but his wife
53:19
Speaker 1: did give a statement at a press conference a couple
53:22
Speaker 1: hours later. She said, Julian wanted me to sincerely thank everyone.
53:26
Speaker 1: He wanted to be here, but you have to understand
53:29
Speaker 1: what he's been through. He needs time, he needs to
53:32
Speaker 1: recuperate and this is a process. End quote. Another of
53:36
Speaker 1: his lawyers, Barry Pollock, did assure people that Julie Nossange's
53:41
Speaker 1: work with Wiki leaks will carry on, but there are
53:45
Speaker 1: some tweaks and quirks to that, which we'll get to
53:48
Speaker 1: in a second. But there's one obvious question I'm sure
53:51
Speaker 1: people have right off the bat, why did this happen
53:55
Speaker 1: in the Northern Mariana Islands, specifically in its capital city, Saipan.
54:01
Speaker 1: There are hundreds of US district courts all throughout the country,
54:05
Speaker 1: and the one Assange pleaded guilty in is the smallest,
54:10
Speaker 1: the newest, and the furthest from Washington, DC. And the
54:14
Speaker 1: answer to why he ended up pleading guilty in this
54:17
Speaker 1: particular court won't surprise anyone one bit. It's that he
54:23
Speaker 1: refuses to set foot in the continental United States, which
54:27
Speaker 1: makes a whole lot of sense. Also, the Northern Mariana
54:31
Speaker 1: Islands are much, much, much closer to Australia, which is
54:36
Speaker 1: where he was going immediately after pleading guilty. If you're wondering,
54:40
Speaker 1: the Northern Mariana Islands are similar to territories like Guam
54:45
Speaker 1: or Puerto Rico, where we just kind of own the
54:47
Speaker 1: place but don't do anything for the people. Which it's
54:51
Speaker 1: cool that we're still doing that kind of stuff. In
54:53
Speaker 1: two k twenty four, we took the islands over during
54:56
Speaker 1: World War two, if you've ever heard of that, after
54:59
Speaker 1: the aptly aimed Battle of Saipan. It is, according to
55:03
Speaker 1: the BBC, a popular destination for tourists from Korea and China.
55:08
Speaker 1: But interesting note there. Some of that has to do
55:11
Speaker 1: with the fact that it's the only place in the
55:14
Speaker 1: US that Chinese citizens can enter without a visa. I
55:18
Speaker 1: thought that was interesting, and of course there are people
55:20
Speaker 1: trying to change that. So what's Julian Assange gonna do now?
55:25
Speaker 1: Aside from maybe keeping up his wikilik's work, it seems
55:29
Speaker 1: like the rest of his plans are pretty chill. This
55:32
Speaker 1: is another quote from Stella Assange. He is just savoring
55:35
Speaker 1: freedom for the first time in fourteen years. Julian plans
55:38
Speaker 1: to swim in the ocean every day. He plans to
55:41
Speaker 1: sleep in a real bed, he plans to taste real food,
55:45
Speaker 1: and he plans to enjoy his freedom. End quote. Interesting
55:49
Speaker 1: detail about the flight Julian Assange took to get to Saipan,
55:53
Speaker 1: He and his team had to pay for it. His
55:56
Speaker 1: wife set up a crowdfunding page to raise the necessary
56:00
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this? Five one hundred and twenty
56:05
Speaker 1: thousand United States dollars to pay for the flight, which
56:09
Speaker 1: seems like a whole lot of money for one chartered flight.
56:13
Speaker 1: But how would I know? I don't fly private. This
56:16
Speaker 1: is a quote from the crowdfunding page. Julian's travel to
56:19
Speaker 1: freedom comes at a massive cost. Julian will owe USD
56:23
Speaker 1: five hundred and twenty thousand, which he is obligated to
56:27
Speaker 1: pay back to the Australian government for charter flight VJ
56:31
Speaker 1: one nine nine. He was not permitted to fly commercial
56:34
Speaker 1: airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia. Any contribution,
56:39
Speaker 1: big or small is much appreciated. End quote. That is
56:44
Speaker 1: a lot of money. Again, but they were able to
56:48
Speaker 1: raise it pretty easily on account of how one single
56:53
Speaker 1: donor chipped in eight bitcoin, which, as it turns out,
56:58
Speaker 1: is worth ride around five hundred thousand dollars, So that
57:02
Speaker 1: part ended up being pretty easy at least. What's likely
57:06
Speaker 1: to be far less easy is finding out the details
57:11
Speaker 1: of the government's case against Julian Assange. Now that it's
57:15
Speaker 1: not an active case, we should, in theory be able
57:19
Speaker 1: to see all of that stuff, and maybe we will,
57:22
Speaker 1: but someone's going to have to ask for it. And
57:25
Speaker 1: as part of his plea deal, Julian Assange is not
57:29
Speaker 1: allowed to Freedom of Information Act the government for those details.
57:34
Speaker 1: This is another quote from Stella Assange speaking to Australian media.
57:39
Speaker 1: Julian isn't allowed to request freedom of information make information
57:43
Speaker 1: requests to the US government, but you can, and I
57:47
Speaker 1: encourage you to so please do end quote. Part of
57:50
Speaker 1: the plea deal also required Assange to delete any unpublished
57:54
Speaker 1: information he had about the United States, along with anything
57:59
Speaker 1: still in the possession of Wiki Leaks. This is one
58:02
Speaker 1: last quote from his lawyer, Barry Pollock. The United States
58:05
Speaker 1: in court in Saipan yesterday conceded and the judge found
58:10
Speaker 1: that there is no evidence that any harm has befallen
58:13
Speaker 1: any individual anywhere in the world as a result of
58:18
Speaker 1: mister Osane's publications. That being said, they did insist that
58:22
Speaker 1: he issue an instruction to the editor of Wiki Leaks
58:25
Speaker 1: to destroy any materials they might have that were not published,
58:30
Speaker 1: and Julian has complied with that provision. End quote. So
58:34
Speaker 1: rest easy, America. We are forever more safe from the
58:39
Speaker 1: tyranny of Julian Assange. No longer will we lose sleep
58:44
Speaker 1: worrying that the enemies of America will tell people about
58:48
Speaker 1: all the war crimes we do us A. And hey,
58:52
Speaker 1: that's the end of the update. Thanks for listening. Let's
58:55
Speaker 1: drive this pod back to its home in the Northern
58:57
Speaker 1: Mariana Islands. The last part I want to talk about
59:08
Speaker 1: is uh I mentioned it earlier, but the Chelsea Manning case.
59:13
Speaker 1: What happened there is Chelsea Manning was dealing with WikiLeaks,
59:17
Speaker 1: but also reached out to a hacker named Adrian Lamo
59:22
Speaker 1: at the time, and if you read the transcripts, it's like, hey,
59:26
Speaker 1: what would you think if I could tell you, like
59:29
Speaker 1: it was like the active locations of troops in the
59:32
Speaker 1: Middle East and shit, And Adrian Lamo turned Chelsea Manning
59:36
Speaker 1: in reported to the authorities.
59:38
Speaker 3: And what Dick how can you call yourself a hacker? Well,
59:43
Speaker 3: his shit like.
59:44
Speaker 1: That argument, and I never really talked to him about
59:49
Speaker 1: this specifically, but I do know his argument was that
59:53
Speaker 1: he legitimately thought people were going to be killed if
59:57
Speaker 1: that information was released in the way they wanted to
1:00:01
Speaker 1: release it. So he, I mean, I guess to put
1:00:04
Speaker 1: yourself in his shoes. He kind of felt like, well, yeah,
1:00:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be an asshole if I report this, but
1:00:10
Speaker 1: I'm also kind of an asshole if I don't.
1:00:13
Speaker 3: I guess yeah.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: And I didn't know who Adrian Lamo was right, and
1:00:20
Speaker 1: then he just kind of showed up as a fan
1:00:24
Speaker 1: of my writing at Cracked. And what's weird is in
1:00:29
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, when almost no one was willing to say
1:00:33
Speaker 1: they even thought Trump could win the Republican nomination, much
1:00:38
Speaker 1: less win the presidency.
1:00:40
Speaker 3: People didn't want to jinx it.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: Well, I remember in twenty fifteen, Norm MacDonald was actually
1:00:47
Speaker 1: one of the first people to come out in an
1:00:49
Speaker 1: interview and was like, oh, this Trump's kind of like Hitler, right,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: And people are like, okay, okay, has Trump committed genocide?
1:00:58
Speaker 1: And it's like it took Hitler a while to get there.
1:01:00
Speaker 1: You dip shits. But I remember seeing all the uproar
1:01:03
Speaker 1: around that and I was like, what are you talking about?
1:01:05
Speaker 1: Of course Trump is like Hitler, and I wrote a
1:01:09
Speaker 1: Cracked article about it, and it got something like six
1:01:13
Speaker 1: million page views. And this is like in the thick
1:01:17
Speaker 1: of Trump announcing that he's going to run, and I
1:01:20
Speaker 1: wrote this article and was like, of course Trump could win.
1:01:22
Speaker 1: After I wrote that article, which that's a lot of
1:01:25
Speaker 1: people to read one article, a lot of people started
1:01:29
Speaker 1: showing up in my life after that, and Adrian Lamo
1:01:33
Speaker 1: was one of those people who just kind of befriended
1:01:37
Speaker 1: me after that Cracked article out of the blue, like
1:01:40
Speaker 1: I had never gotten Cause there's like people who were
1:01:43
Speaker 1: fans of my work, but I like heard from them
1:01:45
Speaker 1: before that, Like they showed up when I wasn't doing political,
1:01:49
Speaker 1: Like I've done political stuff for a long time, but
1:01:53
Speaker 1: that's when I, like this, my podcast and my right
1:01:55
Speaker 1: and got really political when Trump was run. And that's
1:01:58
Speaker 1: also when people like Adrian Lamo showed up. And it's like, dude,
1:02:02
Speaker 1: you're being nice and I get I appreciate if you
1:02:05
Speaker 1: are a fan, I appreciate it, but also you turned
1:02:08
Speaker 1: a motherfucker into the government.
1:02:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's tough.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here criticizing the government. So like, fortunately we
1:02:17
Speaker 1: never really talked about anything that important because he would
1:02:22
Speaker 1: always like he would want to like send you an
1:02:25
Speaker 1: encryption key to be able to talk to him on
1:02:27
Speaker 1: some strange platform, and it's like, don't trust that either, Sorry,
1:02:31
Speaker 1: I don't.
1:02:32
Speaker 3: He's like it needs to be more secure than like
1:02:35
Speaker 3: signal or whatever, yeah, or WhatsApp.
1:02:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, open the Global Undercover SI app on
1:02:41
Speaker 1: your phone, the same people that you give your phone
1:02:44
Speaker 1: to at the Ecuadorian embassy. And yeah, So I knew
1:02:50
Speaker 1: that guy, and it was that's crazy. It was weird.
1:02:53
Speaker 1: And then he died in twenty nineteen in Wichita, Kansas,
1:02:58
Speaker 1: like three months before my first and only ever trip
1:03:02
Speaker 1: to Wichita, Kansas, and we didn't stay in touch enough
1:03:06
Speaker 1: for me to know that he was going to Wichita.
1:03:08
Speaker 1: Apparently his family is from there, and I didn't find
1:03:12
Speaker 1: out that he had died until months and months and
1:03:15
Speaker 1: months later because it wasn't like a huge I still
1:03:19
Speaker 1: don't really know how I found out. I think like
1:03:21
Speaker 1: a fun tweet probably, But yeah, that's that's my weird
1:03:26
Speaker 1: side note to the Julian Assan story. I knew Adrian Lamo.
1:03:30
Speaker 1: I mean he seemed like a nice enough guy. But sure, Also,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: you can't go infiltrate upstart young political writers and be
1:03:38
Speaker 1: an asshole about it. The government sent me here, Yeah,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: tell me who you are. Yeah, follow me on the signal.
1:03:47
Speaker 1: It's like you have signal already.
1:03:49
Speaker 3: It must be hard to build trust at a certain point.
1:03:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would argue we never really built trust. Well,
1:03:58
Speaker 1: sure we Facebook message and again he was nice, but
1:04:02
Speaker 1: it was weird. It was it was really of all
1:04:05
Speaker 1: the people to have show up, like having that guy.
1:04:08
Speaker 1: It's like our this this, this would be bad for
1:04:11
Speaker 1: my reputation, right, what's happening here? But also rest in peace.
1:04:18
Speaker 1: They still don't know how he died. He died under
1:04:23
Speaker 1: very mysterious conditions. He I think is younger than or
1:04:28
Speaker 1: was younger than me, And I think his cause of
1:04:30
Speaker 1: death was like natural causes. They just don't really know.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: They think he might have had a drug interaction with Kratum.
1:04:38
Speaker 3: But he he fell and his head fell into a
1:04:43
Speaker 3: Sheeta saran wrap and it got tangled.
1:04:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly natural. He took acid and got too hysterical
1:04:51
Speaker 1: and jumped out a window. Oh man, the government, right.
1:04:58
Speaker 3: Right, the government. We have fun.
1:05:02
Speaker 1: We love our gov.
1:05:04
Speaker 3: We are fascist.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: The government, not us, I.
1:05:08
Speaker 3: Know, not us, not you and me.
1:05:11
Speaker 1: Uh so, unless you have any questions about Adrian Lamo
1:05:15
Speaker 1: or any final thoughts, Julie, I don't.
1:05:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, just kind of flabbergasses about that. I mean, it's
1:05:22
Speaker 3: a crazy thing and it's crazy that he died. Other
1:05:26
Speaker 3: than that, I don't really yeah, I don't know.
1:05:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was strange. It was very strange. Yeah. Do
1:05:32
Speaker 1: we have anything to plug before we get out of here?
1:05:35
Speaker 1: I think that's our episode, right.
1:05:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, don't arrest.
1:05:39
Speaker 1: Don't don't arrest Julian Assan.
1:05:41
Speaker 3: No, yeah, that fuck that sucks. I mean, or like
1:05:45
Speaker 3: maybe like Sweden should arrest for the sexual assault stuff,
1:05:48
Speaker 3: but like all this other stuff whatever, but uh as plugs.
1:05:55
Speaker 3: Uh going back our lost Rewatch podcast, nearing the end
1:05:59
Speaker 3: of season one one, having a good time. Uh, I'm
1:06:04
Speaker 3: find the dying social media platform Twitter. I don't tweet
1:06:08
Speaker 3: very often unless something insane happens. I don't know, like
1:06:13
Speaker 3: the sitting president breaking up a union strake.
1:06:18
Speaker 1: That did happen.
1:06:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I didn't know about that until the day
1:06:23
Speaker 3: and uh, other than that, nothing, no plugs.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: I would like to plug Adam Todd Brown dot substack
1:06:29
Speaker 1: dot com where you can read my writings. Uh, if
1:06:33
Speaker 1: you would follow me there, I would appreciate it. Also
1:06:36
Speaker 1: follow me on Hive Social at Adam Todd Brown. That's
1:06:40
Speaker 1: Todd with one D, trying it out, trying out the
1:06:43
Speaker 1: Twitter alternative. I took the leap, tweeted about it, said
1:06:47
Speaker 1: follow me on Hive Social, and a bunch of people
1:06:49
Speaker 1: tweeted back and said the servers are down for maintenance
1:06:52
Speaker 1: and that is a situation that lasted about two days,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: so that tweet was pointless. Yeah, you know you can
1:06:59
Speaker 1: follow me there anyway, And uh, I think that's it.
1:07:03
Speaker 1: That's good enough. Let's get the funk out of here.
1:07:05
Speaker 1: Olivia say goodbye bye, goodbye everybody. We love you. Also,
1:07:09
Speaker 1: rest in peace, Christine McVie.
1:07:11
Speaker 3: Yes, rest in peace. People of trying to