EU Launches ‘Legal Proceedings’ Over UK ‘Intermarket’ Bill As Brexit Talks Enter Final Round Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 06:39
Political theater has long been a defining feature of the negotiations between the UK and EU, whether over the initial withdrawal treaty that created a year-long transition period allowing the two sides time to negotiate a comprehensive UK-EU trade agreement. Given that political considerations will always be paramount for both London and Brussels, the two sides must pull off a difficult balancing act if an agreement is to be reached: They must both appear to be taking a hard line, and each side must be able to sell the narrative that they extracted concessions from the other.
This is why the talks under former PM Theresa May were often so infuriating, with neither side giving an inch until the British people in effect approved Brexit for a second time when they sent the Tories back to the Commons with a reinvigorated majority, under the leadership of PM Boris Johnson.
Well, the political brinksmanship between the two belligerents entered a new phase on Thursday when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen initiated legal action against the UK over the Intermarket Bill, just as Brussels promised.
To express its objections to the Intermarket Bill, the EU is sending a “letter of formal notice” to London notifying BoJo’s government that it’s on the verge of violating an international treaty, and that Brussels would activate the dispute-resolution mechanism outlined in the withdrawal agreement. Von der Leyen offered a terse statement on the matter Thursday morning. Here’s the transcript:
Good morning,
As you know, we had invited our British friends to remove the problematic parts of their draft Internal Market Bill by the end of September.
This draft Bill is – by its very nature – a breach of the obligation of good faith
laid down in the Withdrawal Agreement (Article 5).
Moreover, if adopted as is, it will be in full contradiction to the Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland.
The deadline lapsed yesterday.
The problematic provisions have not been removed.
Therefore, this morning, the Commission has decided to send a letter of formal notice to the UK government.
This is the first step in an infringement procedure.
The letter invites the UK government to send its observations within a month.
The Commission will continue to work hard towards a full and timely implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement.
We stand by our commitments.
And here’s the video.
EU Commission has begun legal action against the UK over the Internal Market Bill, President Ursula von der Leyen confirms
Of course, the dispute resolution mechanism is a slow process, and with trade talks entering their ninth and final round this week, it’s clear BoJo is hoping to run out the clock to try and exert maximum pressure on the EU as his government seeks concessions on fisheries, and other matters. The government in London responded to the letter, saying it would respond in “due course”.
Tellingly, the spat over the Intermarket bill, which passed its final reading with zero ‘no’ votes from Tory MPs (even as former PM May denounced the measure as a violation of international law that undermined international trust in the UK) has not stopped negotiations, which are set to conclude on Friday. A crucial UK-EU summit is scheduled for mid-October, during which a trade deal is hoped to be finalized.
Oh no, an infringement procedure, now THAT is definitely going to change things and make the Gove-Cummings gov’t shake in their boots MUAHAHAHA
And what is that I hear about the EU stopping their trade negotiations with us? Oh, yeah, crickets. https://t.co/9DwVleGOS5
But if we’ve learned anything from the last three years of talks, it’s that the “final” summit is never really the end, as talks will inevitably burn down to the wire.
Bloomberg explains how the dispute-resolution mechanisms in the withdrawal treaty are supposed to work: The UK has agreed that for treaty obligations breached before the end of the transition period, it is still subject to rulings by the European Court of Justice for another four years. But the UK could simply ignore any adverse rulings or financial penalties, though that would be a clear treaty violation. Additionally, the Withdrawal Agreement provides for a five-member arbitration panel to rule on matters of non-compliance, and if the UK refuses to pay up, Brussels can unilaterally suspend the withdrawal agreement, setting the “hard Brexit” in motion.
Here’s a more comprehensive explanation from a professor of EU law:
Commission: letter of formal notice sent to UK re the internal market bill and the withdrawal agreement. Invites the UK to reply within a month.
The Commission is using the infringement procedure, which applies if Member States allegedly breach EU law. It applies to UK too for now, due to Art 131 of the withdrawal agreement, which gives CJEU its usual jurisdiction during the transition period, including over the agreement
Starting the infringement process doesn’t establish by itself that UK has broken the law. It contains several pre-litigation phases. After the one month expires, the next phase is a reasoned opinion to the UK. Usually two months to reply to that, but the Commission can shorten.
After that deadline expires, Commission can go to CJEU and ask for a ruling on the point. The legal position is assessed as of the deadline to reply to the reasoned opinion. Commission can ask for interim measures – ie an order for UK to not pass/suspend parts of the law.
The Commission can also ask the CJEU to fast track its case, so to decide in a few months rather than the usual 12-18 months. Art 86 of the withdrawal agreement says that the case will not ‘time out’ due to the end of the transition period.
*IF* the Court rules in the Commission’s favour it’s binding on the UK at international level. But the bill, if passed, purports to block any impact of CJEU rulings at domestic level. Someone might try to litigate in UK courts on that.
If the UK ignores the Court’s ruling the usual process is to go back to the CJEU and ask it to impose fines. But it’s not clear if the withdrawal agreement allows for this route post-transition period. Instead Commission could use arbitration under the withdrawal agreement.
If an arbitration ruling goes against the UK, and is ignored by the end of the period to comply with it, then fines or suspension of part of the agreement (not the citizens’ rights part) could result.
But ultimately this may be political theatre on the EU side, to match the UK. There are lots of ‘off ramps’ in an infringement proceeding – most of these cases are settled before they ever reach the CJEU. Possible for case to be dropped if the bill is amended as part of a deal.
There might also be a political impact, ie no trade talks (but note the EU has not left the talks) or no ratification, or no unilateral measures such as on data protection or financial equivalence.
nb if Brexit bros say this must go to an international court – Art 168 of the withdrawal agreement says that the dispute settlement rules in the agreement are exclusive, ie no other process can be used.
As traders brace for the flurry of Brexit headlines, the pound sunk Thursday morning, falling 0.7% against the dollar and pushing the greenback higher to the chagrin of US equity bulls.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/36jfzwF Tyler Durden
We may be coming out of the first pandemic lockdown and business does, broadly, appear to be picking up; however, some sections of manufacturing, including U.K. car manufacturing, are still suffering badly.
U.K. car industry, supply chain face challenges
An article in the Financial Times starkly outlines the continued pain the U.K. car industry is experiencing and, by extension its extended supply chain.
U.K. car manufacturing fell 44% last month compared with a year earlier. Domestic orders and exports remain severely depressed. Last month’s performance marked the sector’s second-worst since car plants restarted after lockdown.
The Financial Times went on to advise that just 51,039 cars rolled off British production lines. The total fell from 92,153 in August 2019. Meanwhile, August output for U.K. buyers fell 58% to just 7,795 vehicles. The number of cars made for export fell 41% to 73,443 cars.
To be fair, several plants working during summer 2019 boosted August 2019 performance. Summer output followed a three-week closedown in the spring to prepare for the expected Brexit in 2019, which in the end did not transpire.
So, looking at the first half of each year gives a fairer comparison. Yet, even in that view, the decline remains dramatic.
Between January and August, the U.K. produced 40.2% fewer cars than in the same months a year earlier. The period included several weeks of complete stoppages during the first lockdown in March and April.
Year-to-date production is now down by 348,821 units worth more than £9.5 billion to U.K. carmakers, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Furthermore, projections suggest U.K. car manufacturers are now on track to produce just below 885,000 cars this year – down 34% on 2019.
Job losses in the sector
The SMMT reported at least 13,500 jobs have been cut across the U.K. automotive sector this year. The body warned up to one in six positions may be at risk in the future.
Manufacturers are hoping the government’s latest job retention scheme will help employers keep skilled workers. Skilled workers will be needed if, or when, demand comes back, but many of them are currently facing redundancy.
Rising coronavirus cases, tightening restrictions, and Brexit
Yet with virus cases increasing in the U.K. and containment measures ramping up, the SMMT is if anything more pessimistic now than it was in the early summer.
The SMMT says business restrictions look set to make the industry’s attempts to restart even more challenging, with the prospect of Britain’s exit from the European Union also now just 100 days away.
The industry is not in a good state to handle the country’s imminent exit from Europe on Jan. 1. In addition, the automotive industry has been at the forefront of demanding a free trade deal between the U.K. and the E.U., saying last week that “no deal” would cost the pan-European automotive industry some £100 billion in lost trade over the next five years.
Europe, though, is proving very unwilling to retain the open-door, free-trade environment for electric vehicles – which it sees as the future – as it currently does for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
The future of U.K.-E.U. auto trade
The Financial Times recently reported E.U. diplomats said the European Commission is wary of agreeing to U.K. car manufacturers being allowed to source a large number of components from other countries while still exporting electric vehicles tariff-free to the E.U.
Four out of five cars made in the U.K. are exported. Of those exports, more than half goes to the E.U. British car plants owned by Nissan, Toyota and PSA are all reliant on European sales for more than half of their business.
Last year, Nissan sold more than 30,000 U.K.-built Leaf electric cars to Europe. Toyota exported close to 120,000 hybrid models across the channel. Europe is keen to keep the U.K. as a market for components and finished vehicles but not so keen on allowing these plants to sell into the E.U. tariff-free after Brexit.
Coming on top of already challenging times this year, some foreign owners of U.K. car plants may begin to wonder whether continuing to invest in the U.K. is as desirable as it once was.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GeFr22 Tyler Durden
Prison Official Tells Hearing Assange To End Up At Notorious Extreme Isolation ADX Supermax Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 04:15
During WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing this week in London, a former warden at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York testified on behalf of the defense that it’s almost certain that should the US gain custody of Assange, he’ll be transferred to the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.
Describing that during his pre-trial detention in the US he would be put in isolation under ‘Special Administrative Measures’ (SAMS) as it is a national security case, the prison official Maureen Baird underscored that the “only place” he could go is the notorious Supermax facility, which is also known as ADX.
ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado
The testimony took up the continuing defense theme of Assange’s deteriorating health inside the high secure and coronavirus prone Belmarsh Prison.
When asked under what scenario Assange might end up in a less extreme prison and isolation environment, Baird described Assange would have to be “almost dying”.
“From my experience of close to three decades of working in federal prisons, I would agree that long-term isolation can have serious negative effects on an inmate’s mental health,” Baird said.
The Supermax, ultra high secure prison has been dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”
ADX Supermax, via Federal Bureau of Prisons
Currently the ADX facility holds some of America’s most notorious criminals, traitors, and terrorists. For example, one of the 9/11 terror masterminds – Zacarias Moussaoui is being held, and other famous terrorists like the “Shoe Bomber,” along with Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Also serving out a life sentence there is former FBI agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States, Robert Hanssen, whose life was chronicled in the Hollywood film Breach.
By all accounts ADX is set up for extreme, 24/7 isolation of inmates.
Via The Washington Times
Last week a psychiatrist also testified to Assange’s depressed and suicidal state, given the extreme pressures and conditions, likely to be amplified if the US succeeds in extraditing him.
The psychiatrist, Professor Michael Kopelman, had warned that, “The risk of suicide arises out of clinical factors…but it is the imminence of extradition and or an actual extradition that would trigger the attempt, in my opinion.”
Outdoor recreation cages at ADX:
If Assange is transferred and faces a US court, he’s up against at least 175 years in prison for exposing US war crimes, but which Washington sees as espionage and leaking of state secrets.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HDDFaW Tyler Durden
It’s the hidden epidemic which no one wants to talk about…
As a result of the COVID-19 shutdown ordered by governments, adolescents and children are being physically abused in record numbers, with incidences involving children in England and Wales at their highest levels since 2014, according to a recent report by the NSPCC.
Even the prestigious Lancet medical journal is finally admitting that the government’s own lockdown measures have driven increases in mortality resulting – due to movement restrictions imposed during the supposed ‘pandemic.’
As a result of the government’s panic-driven policies and obsession with the ‘R number’, reports of depression, suicides, and child abuse have also skyrocketed in the UK.
The situation has gotten so bad now that even mainstream media outlets like the BBC – are being forced to report on the scale of the social degradation caused by the government’s ill-advised lockdown policies.
A significant drop in the number of child sexual abuse cases reported to police during lockdown masks the true extent of what’s happened to vulnerable children, police chiefs say.
National Police Chiefs Council data shows reports in England and Wales fell by 25% between April and August, compared with the same period in 2019.
But officers told BBC Newsnight this does not represent the true picture.
And senior officers are warning child protection referrals will now rise.
Chief Constable Simon Bailey said he suspected the 25% fall was “a false and misleading picture” of what children may have experienced during those months.
“Those children that would have been exposed to those adverse experiences during lockdown, it is only going to emerge when they spend time within the safe environment of a school, in contact with their teachers, who are very, very good and adept at identifying those signs – the indicators that something is not right within that child’s life,” he said.
Supt Chris Truscott, of South Wales Police, agreed there were limited opportunities during lockdown for vulnerable children to disclose harmful behaviour, which would start to come to light only now schools were back.
He too expected an increase in referrals officers would have had no way of identifying during lockdown.
“If they were vulnerable before the pandemic, then the likelihood is that vulnerability will have increased over that period of time,” Supt Truscott said…
UK Paramedic Team Tests Jet Pack For Rescues Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 02:45
A British jet suit company is revolutionizing how rescuers respond to emergencies in steep, rocky terrain regions. Instead of paramedics scaling the side of a hill, or mountain, on foot, which could take a while, and in an emergency, every minute counts, a “flying” medic could take just a few minutes, reported BBC News.
Gravity Industries, the company behind the flying suit powered by several miniature jet engines, published a video Tuesday of a recent test of its suit in action in Britain’s mountainous northern lake district.
Gravity teamed up with a local paramedic team, Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS), to conduct a simulation emergency where a young girl had fallen from the hillside and sustained a leg injury. The flying medic could scale the side of the hill at 32 mph, arriving at the incident scene in just under 90 seconds; traveling on foot would have taken at least 30 minutes or more.
WATCH: U.K.-based company, Gravity Industries, has been working with paramedics in the rural Lake District to test their jet suit’s capabilities in emergency situations. pic.twitter.com/AvOHsUgr5C
Andy Mawson, director of operations at GNAAS, said the test of the flying suit via a first responder was “awesome” to see.
Mawson said: “There are dozens of patients every month within the complex but relatively small geographical footprint of the Lakes.”
“We could see the need. What we didn’t know for sure is how this would work in practice. Well, we’ve seen it now, and it is, quite honestly, awesome,” he said.
Mawson said the simulation is a game-changer for first responders to deliver timely critical care services.
“The biggest advantage is its speed,” he said. “If the idea takes off, the flying paramedic will be armed with a medical kit.”
Mawson said the speed of the rescue “could mean the difference between life and death.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3l8kpRD Tyler Durden
Following the Julian Assange case as it has progressed through its various stages, from the original Swedish allegations right up to and including the extradition hearing which is currently underway in the Central Criminal Court in London, has been a troubling and very strange experience.
The U.S. government has failed to present a coherent case.
Conscious that the British authorities should in theory refuse to extradite Assange if the case against him were shown to be politically motivated and/or related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist, the U.S. government has struggled to present a case against Assange which is not too obviously politically motivated or related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist.
This explains the strange succession of one original and two superseding indictments.
The U.S. government’s first indictment was based on what was a supposedly simple allegation of computer interference, supposedly coordinated in some sort of conspiracy between Assange and Chelsea Manning.
This was obviously done in an attempt to dispel the idea that the request for Assange’s extradition was politically motivated or was related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist.
However lawyers in the United States had no difficulty pointing out the “inchoate facts” of the alleged conspiracy between Assange and Manning, whilst both lawyers and journalists in the United States and elsewhere pointed out that the facts in the indictment in fact bore all the hallmarks of action by a journalist to protect a source.
The result was that the U.S. government replaced its indictment with a first superseding indictment, which this time was founded largely on the 1917 Espionage Act, and was therefore closer to the real reasons why the case against Assange was being brought.
However, that made the case look altogether too obviously politically motivated, so it has in turn been replaced by a second superseding indictment, presented to the court and the defence team virtually on the eve of the trial, which has sought to veer back towards strictly criminal allegations, this time of involvement in computer hacking.
More Problems for Another Indictment
The allegations in the second superseding indictment have however faced major difficulties, in that they do not seem to concern the United States and may not even be actual crimes. Also they rely heavily on the evidence of a known fraudster, whose “evidence” is inherently unreliable.
The U.S. government has failed to make clear whether the additional allegations in the second superseding indictment are intended to constitute a separate standalone case. Initially they appeared to deny that they did; then they hinted that they might do; now however they seem to be acting as if they don’t.
As if that were not confusing enough, the U.S. government and its British lawyers have floated confusing and contradictory theories about whether or not the British authorities can extradite Assange even if the case against him is politically motivated, and even if it is related to his journalistic activities.
Initially they seemed to be arguing that — contrary to all British precedent and the actual text of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Britain — Britain can in fact extradite Assange to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge, because the enabling Act which the British Parliament passed, which made the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Britain a part of British law, is silent on whether or not individuals can be extradited to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge.
This argument of course came close to conceding that the case against Assange is politically motivated after all.
Central Criminal Court in London, commonly known as Old Bailey, 2004. (Nevilley, Wikimedia Commons)
This threadbare argument, at least for the moment, seems to have been abandoned. At least nothing has been heard of it throughout the current hearing. Instead the U.S. government and its British lawyers have argued, in the face of the incredulity of a string of expert and factual witnesses, that the case is not politically motivated after all.
The same inconsistencies have beset the U.S. government’s arguments as to whether or not Assange is being charged under the Espionage Act for activities related to his work as a journalist.
Initially the U.S. government’s position was that he was not. This was based on some theory — never satisfactorily explained or articulated — that Assange in some way is not a journalist, even though he is charged with doing things that journalists do.
Faced by a barrage of expert witnesses who pointed out that the charges brought against Assange under the Espionage Act do in fact relate to work journalists do, the U.S. government midway through the hearing reversed course.
Now it says that the charges against Assange not only do relate to his work as a journalist, but that they can be brought against any journalist who does the things Assange is being charged with having done. The U.S. government has even argued that The New York Times would have been successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing the Pentagon Papers, because that was an action essentially identical to the ones for which Assange is being charged.
The implications for journalists of this astonishing reversal are truly shocking. It is staggering that in the media it has attracted no attention.
Trouble with Witnesses
The U.S. government has shown the same lack of coherence in its response to the defence’s impressive lineup of expert witnesses.
The conventional way of responding to an expert is to call another expert to state a contrary view. On the critical issues of U.S. law, especially the protections provided to journalists by the First Amendment to the Constitution, as well as on the politics in the U.S. behind the Assange prosecution, the U.S. government has however done no such thing. Presumably it has found it difficult or impossible to find experts who can be relied upon credibly to state a contrary view.
Instead, armed only with affidavits from U.S. Justice Department officials, who are of course not impartial experts at all, but who are part of the U.S. government’s legal team, the U.S. government’s British lawyers have been left to argue that the defence’s experts are not really experts at all — an impossible argument to make convincingly in my opinion — and to debate with the experts points of U.S. politics and U.S. law — including difficult points of U.S. constitutional and case law — about which the experts are by definition far more knowledgeable than the British lawyers.
The result, inevitably, has been a series of humiliations, as the lawyers have been repeatedly caught out by the experts making basic errors of fact and interpretation about the points which they have sought to argue.
Unsurprisingly, the lawyers have attempted to make up for this by trying to intimidate and denigrate the experts, in a way that has only highlighted their own lack of expertise in the relevant areas by comparison with that of the experts.
Trevor Timm, a defence witness and press-freedom advocate, in 2014. (YouTube)
Given the collapse into incoherence of the U.S. government’s case, it is unsurprising that the U.S. government’s British lawyers are now reportedly trying to persuade the Judge against hearing closing arguments.
Given the constant shifts and reversals in the U.S. government’s position, preparing and presenting a closing argument to the court which would be internally consistent and credible must be fast becoming a nightmare. If closing arguments do take place, as I still expect, it will be interesting to see which of the many conflicting arguments and theories they have made the U.S. government’s lawyers finally run with.
On its face the U.S. government’s case ought to be close to collapse. There was even a point in the hearing where one of the U.S. government’s British lawyers apparently admitted to the judge that the reason for the second superseding indictment was that the first superseding indictment was “failing.”
If so, then given that the charges being prosecuted against Assange are still basically those set out in the first superseding indictment, the case against Assange ought to be dismissed, and the U.S. government’s request for his extradition ought to be refused.
The Underlying Truth
It remains to be seen whether that is what actually happens. However, that brings me to the single most important fact, and the underlying truth, about this extraordinary case.
It is very easy when following the intricacies of such a complex legal process to lose sight of what this case is really about.
Ultimately the U.S. government is not pursuing Julian Assange because he helped Chelsea Manning take certain steps with a computer to conceal her identity, or because he had some historic contacts with hackers, or because he became involved in some activities in Iceland, which caused him to fall foul of a fraudster (and FBI informant).
Nor is it because Assange received and published classified material. In the U.S. the receipt and publication by the news media of classified material has grown to almost industrial levels.
It is because Assange, to a greater extent than any other journalist since the end of the war in Vietnam, has exposed the darkest and most terrible secrets of the U.S. government.
Outside the court where his son endures what the judge now admits is a political trial, Julian #Assange‘s father, John Shipton, describes the human carnage caused by America and utters an unforgettable truth: “Julian didn’t do anything, they did.” https://t.co/O4AbPg4IRU
The case against Assange has its origin in the calamitous “War on Terror” launched by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
That “war” provided the cover for a series of violent military aggressions, primarily in the Middle East, by the U.S. and its closest allies, first and foremost Britain but also including other countries such as Saudi Arabia and France.
The result has been a series of wars in a succession of Middle East countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen— fought by the U.S. and its allies and proxies, which have caused the devastation of whole societies, and the death and dispersal of millions.
In the process the U.S. has become drawn increasingly into practices which it once condemned, or at least said it condemned. These include the “extrajudicial killing” (i.e. murder) of people — who have included children and U.S. citizens — by drone strikes, a practice which has now become routine; the kidnapping of individuals and their detention without trial in places like Guantanamo, a practice which despite unconvincing protestations that “extraordinary rendition” no longer happens almost certainly continues; and the practice of torture, at one time referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which almost certainly still continues, and indeed appears to have become normalized.
All of this activity straightforwardly violates international (and domestic U.S.) law, including war crimes law and human rights law, and does so moreover in fundamental ways.
It also requires, in order to implement the policies that result in these unlawful acts, in the creation of a vast and ultimately unaccountable national security apparatus of a sort that is ultimately incompatible with a democratic society. Inevitably its activities, which have become routinely unlawful, are becoming unlawful within the territory of the United States, as well as outside it.
This manifests itself in all sorts of ways, for example through the vast, indiscriminate and illegal bulk-surveillance program exposed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, and by the systemic FISA surveillance abuse exposed over the course of the Russiagate “scandal.”
The extent to which the very existence of the national security apparatus, required to implement various U.S. illegal activities and to achieve its foreign policy goals, has become incompatible with a democratic society, is shown by one of the most alarming of recent developments, both in Britain and in the United States.
This is the growing complicity of much of the media in concealing its illegal activities. Obviously without that complicity these activities would be impossible, as would the serial violations of international law, including war crimes law and human rights, which the United States and some of its allies now routinely engage in.
US post-war aggressive history of coups and invasions for geo-strategic & economic interests has been covered up by the establishment media, explained as ‘spreading democracy’, and Julian Assange, almost single-handedly, lifted that cover. Hence he is in the dock.
All this explains the extreme reaction to Julian Assange, and the determined attempts to destroy him, and to pulp his reputation.
Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks, have done those things which the U.S. government and its national security apparatus most fear, and have worked hardest to prevent, by exposing the terrible reality of much of what the U.S. government now routinely does, and is determined to conceal, and what much of the media is helping the U.S. government to conceal.
Thus in a series of astonishing revelations Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed in the so-called embassy cables the extraordinarily manipulative conduct of U.S. foreign policy; in the Vault 7 disclosures the instruments the CIA uses in order to — as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said, “lie” and “cheat” — and, most disturbingly, in collaboration with Chelsea Manning, the rampant war crimes and egregious human rights abuses carried out by the U.S. military during the illegal war and occupation of Iraq.
This is an extraordinary record for a journalist, and for an organization, WikiLeaks, which was only set up in 2006.
Not surprisingly, the result has been that the pursuit of Assange by the U.S. government has been relentless, whilst the media, much of which has been complicit in covering up its crimes, has preferred to look the other way.
Hence, the Surreal Quality
It is this underlying reality which gives the whole case currently unfolding in London’s Central Criminal Court its surreal quality.
That the true purpose of the U.S. government’s relentless pursuit of Assange is to prevent him from exposing more of its crimes, and to punish him for exposing those of its crimes which he did expose, if only so as to deter others from doing the same thing, is perfectly obvious to any unbiased and realistic observer. However, the hearing in London is being conducted as if this were not the case.
Thus, the extraordinary zigzags in the U.S. government’s rationale for bringing the case, as it cannot admit the true reason why the case has been actually brought.
Thus, also the U.S. government’s strenuous efforts throughout the hearing to prevent evidence being produced of its crimes which Assange exposed.
The U.S. government has strenuously opposed all attempts to introduce as evidence the appalling “Collateral Murder” video, which shows the deliberate murder of civilians in Iraq by members of the U.S. military. It has also strenuously opposed the introduction of evidence from a defence witness about his own torture. This despite the fact that in both cases the fact of the U.S. crimes is scarcely disputed, and has in fact been all but admitted.
The result is the paradoxical and bizarre situation whereby the U.S. authorities try to cobble together a case against Assange based on a confusing medley of discordant and conflicting claims and facts, whilst failing to prosecute or hold to account those who were responsible for the very serious crimes which he has exposed.
In fact, as the U.S. government’s case has unraveled, the argument has become increasingly confined to the discrete issue of whether — by exposing the U.S. government’s crimes —Assange “irresponsibly” put the safety of various U.S. government informants at risk.
As it happens the evidence is clearly that he did not. Over the course of the hearing the court has heard of Assange’s many and serious attempts to conceal the identities of these informants, and of the reckless and even possibly malicious actions of certain others, who actually exposed them.
The court has also been told of the absence of any evidence that any one of these informants has in fact been harmed by any disclosure by WikiLeaks or Assange. Moreover, an expert witness has argued convincingly that the disclosure by a journalist of the identities of such informants would not under U.S. law be a crime anyway.
In response the U.S. government’s lawyers have relied heavily, not on the evidence of any actual witness, but on passages in a book by two Guardian journalists who are known to be hostile to Assange, and who — by publishing a password — seem to have done more to compromise the identities of the informants than Assange ever did.
Neither of these journalists has been called to give evidence on oath about the contents of their book. Doing so would, of course, have exposed them to cross-examination by the defence about the truth of the book’s contents. Given the weight the U.S. government is apparently placing on the book, I find it astonishing that they were not called.
The surreal quality of the U.S. government’s treatment of this issue is shown by the fact that when an actual witness — the German journalist John Goetz — did in fact come forward and offer to give evidence on oath about a specific allegation in the book — refuting an allegation in the book that Assange supposedly made comments at a dinner, which Goetz attended, that showed a reckless disregard for the safety of the informants — the U.S. government’s lawyers strenuously objected, and were able to get the judge to exclude this evidence.
However, it is the staggering disproportion between the scale of the crimes Assange has exposed, and the crimes of which he is accused — if they are even crimes, and of which he anyway appears to be innocent — which for me stands out.
Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed rampant war crimes and human rights abuses over the course of illegal wars waged by the U.S. government and its allies. The death toll from these wars runs at the very least into the tens of thousands, and more plausibly into the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
By contrast over the course of the entire hearing no evidence whatsoever has been produced that as a result of any of Assange’s actions anyone has come to any actual physical harm.
Yet it is Assange who is in the dock, facing demands for his extradition to the United States, where a 175-year sentence may await him, whilst the persons responsible for the colossal crimes he has exposed, not only walk free, but are amongst those who are trying to jail him.
The point was made forcefully during the hearing by one of the defence’s most powerful witnesses, Daniel Ellsberg.
It was also made forcefully to Consortium News by one of its readers, who has correctly pointed out that the crimes which Assange exposed were clearly defined as war crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal, whose decisions are universally accepted as forming the bedrock of international war crimes law.
The Nuremberg Tribunal moreover made it clear that there is not only a positive duty to refuse to participate in such crimes, even when ordered to do so, but that no sanctions should ever been imposed for exposing such crimes when they occur.
Judges’ bench at international military tribunal at Nuremberg, 1946. (Wikimedia Commons)
In other words, it is Assange and his sources, first and foremost Chelsea Manning, who are the defenders of international law, including the Nuremberg Principles, and including in the case which is currently underway, whilst it is those who persecute them, including by bringing the current case against Assange, who are international law’s violators.
This is the single most important fact about this case, and it explains everything about it.
Assange and Manning have paid an enormous price for their defence of international law, and for the principles of basic human decency and humanity.
Manning was recently held in long spells of solitary detention, and has had her savings confiscated by the U.S. authorities, for no reason other than that she has refused to testify against Assange.
Assange has been subjected to what various UN agencies have characterized as long periods of arbitrary detention and psychological torture.
He continues to be denied bail, despite his known health problems, and is separated from his family.
He continues to have difficulties consulting privately with his lawyers, and has been exposed to the indignity — qualified in other cases by the European Court for Human Rights as a human rights violation — of being kept inside court rooms confined to a glass box or cage.
John Pilger has described vividly and in great detail, including to Consortium News, the inhuman conditions to which Assange is daily exposed to. That these amount to human rights violations ought not to require discussion or explanation.
International Conventions
That these human rights violations breach a host of international conventions to which Britain is a signatory, including against torture and arbitrary detention, in respect of the right to a fair trial, in respect of the right to privacy and dignity of the person, and of the right to a family life, also ought not to require discussion or explanation.
Recently there has been an outcry in Britain because legislation the British government is proposing, which would allow it to modify unilaterally the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement it agreed last year with the European Union, breaches international law.
Without in any way disputing the importance of this issue, which may have important consequences for peace in Ireland, I find the angry protestations of some British journalists and politicians, that Britain never violates international law, frankly unreal.
If they want examples of Britain violating international law they need look no further than the facts of Assange’s case. They might also benefit from looking at what has been said over the course of the ongoing hearing in the Central Criminal Court.
Despite all the difficulties, there is however no reason to give up hope.
London graffiti, March 2020. (duncan c, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
The extraordinary zigzags the U.S. government has been forced to make as it tries and fails to put a coherent and convincing case against Julian Assange together, show that the law, for all its many flaws, remains an important defence.
I am aware of the many criticisms which have been made of Vanessa Baraitser, the judge who is hearing Assange’s case. I don’t disagree with any of them.
However, I do get the impression that Baraitser’s patience has been sorely tried by the U.S. government’s repeated and dizzying changes of position. I also get the impression that she was particularly annoyed when the U.S. government, on the virtual eve of the hearing, presented to the court and the defence its second superseding indictment, which in effect made a nonsense of the first.
That may explain why the U.S. government’s British lawyers have largely conducted the case as if the second superseding indictment did not exist, basing their arguments mostly on what the first superseding indictment says, though perhaps unsurprisingly, and to the bafflement of the experts, they are now increasingly making arguments which have no basis in any indictment.
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Baraitser has rejected the U.S. government’s various attempts to exclude en masse the evidence of defence witnesses, even if she has imposed a 30-minute guillotine on their examination in chief (direct examination) by defence lawyers.
In summary, and in my opinion, there is still a chance, however small, that Baraitser will decide the case in Assange’s favour.
If she does not do so, then I would have thought, based on what has happened over the course of the hearing, that Assange will have good prospects on appeal.
More encouraging than what has been happening inside the court, where the outcome remains very much in doubt, and where the prospects must be considered problematic to say the least, is what has been happening outside.
My wife, who attended one of the hearings last week, saw placards held up by some of Assange’s supporters outside the court, which called on road users to honk their horns in support of Assange. To her delighted astonishment, despite the media blackout which surrounds the case, and despite the long campaign of character assassination to which Assange has been subjected, an extraordinarily high proportion of road users (more than a quarter) did so.
That reinforces my sense that the tide of opinion, at least in Britain, is shifting. The battle is far from over, and can still be won.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GmJzg4 Tyler Durden
Air Force Reveals Six-Gen Stealth Jet Has Been “Built And Flown” Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/01/2020 – 01:00
The US Air Force has revealed a new stealth fighter prototype it says has already secretly built and flown, according to Defense News.
So move over F-22 Raptor, or better yet, maybe its time for the Air Force to rethink its unreliable F-35 Lightning II program because there’s a new stealth jet that could potentially dominate the skies by 2030.
Air Force acquisition head Will Roper recently spoke with Defense News and said the jet, built under the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, could enter production “pretty fast.”
“We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before,” Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview ahead of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference in mid-September.
Roper said, “We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it.”
As the NGAD program is classified, not much is known about the secretive jet. Roper wouldn’t give additional details on the aircraft to Defense News or anyone at the event.
The disclosure of the Air Force’s sixth-generation prototype could be perfect timing for the Air Force to request more funds from Congress as a modernization wave is sweeping across the military, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget analyst with the American Enterprise Institute.
“If you can quickly get to something and show progress through product, it just changes the whole dynamic for the Hill,” she said. “[Roper has] got so many headwinds, it seems this would be a likely avenue to show conceptual success for his ideas.”
The announcement also follows years of troubling stories about just how “f**ked up” the F-35 program is. Readers may recall:
Nevertheless, there is hope for a new stealth jet, and it appears the Air Force is moving quickly on its futuristic projects. Recently, the Navy’s Rear Adm. Greg Harris recently told a virtual audience that the service is looking at F/A-XX or next-generation air dominance family systems.
Six generation stealth jets could become a reality at the end of this decade.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3ikhXW4 Tyler Durden
Pack was appointed in June and started a big shakeup at the US state media outlets run by the USAGM, like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Pack fired senior staffers, pushed out management, and froze funding.
During last week’s hearing, Democrats and Republicans on the committee teamed up to attack Pack for his purges. But what seemed more important to Congress and former USAGM officials was Pack’s move to freeze funds to the Open Technology Fund (OTF). The OTF was formed in 2012 and operated as part of Radio Free Asia for seven years. In 2019, the OTF became an independent non-profit, although it is financed by US taxpayer dollars through the USAGM.
“Color Revolutions”
According to former USAGM officials and OTF board members, the OTF supports protesters in other nations across the world. “In many places around the globe, OTF quietly is providing support to protesters,” said Grant Turner, the former USAGM chief financial officer, who Pack removed in August. “So the Hong Kong protesters are protecting their identities from surveillance by OTF tools; protesters in Iran; we’ve seen it in Beirut,” Turner said.
Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, who sits on the board of the OTF, also testified and spoke of how the OTF helps protest movements. “OTF has a long history of supporting internet freedom efforts, and was poised to expand its efforts in Hong Kong,” Kornbluh said. “It was going to serve support for circumvention tools and expand support for digital training.”
Kornbluh explained that the USAGM froze OTF funds before China’s national security law for Hong Kong came into effect. “And then USAGM froze, and continues to withhold, its funding – and did that just weeks before the new security laws came into effect,” Kornbluh said. “So OTF hasn’t been able to support any of these efforts.”
The frozen Hong Kong funds were first reported by Time magazine in June. According to Time, Pack froze $2 million that would have “directly benefited the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.” One project the OTF was working on in Hong Kong was a “cybersecurity incident response team” that would have analyzed Chinese surveillance techniques in Hong Kong. The team would have shared information with developers who would design apps for protesters to use. The freeze in funding made this project impossible to go through with.
Another OTF project hampered by the freeze was a $500,000 “rapid response fund, designed to provide fast relief for civil society groups, protesters, journalists, and human rights defenders.” According to Time, this initiative has already made several payouts to groups in Hong Kong since the civil unrest began in June 2019.
Michael Pack is the chief executive of the US Agency for Global Media, US Senate file image
Besides the US government supporting Hong Kong protesters through cutout organizations like the OTF and NED, there has been more overt interference in the city. Throughout the demonstrations, protesters were seen waving US flags and calling for Congress to pass legislation. Leaders of the movement even traveled to Washington and testified before Congress, pleading for US intervention.
Pack was appointed to head the USAGM after the White House accused Voice of America of repeating Chinese state propaganda in its coronavirus coverage. Considering this, the damage Pack’s overhaul did to the OTF’s support for protesters in Hong Kong was likely an unintended consequence.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Gqe7xk Tyler Durden
Military Suicides Rise An Alarming 20% As Top Brass Blame COVID Stress Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/30/2020 – 23:40
Military suicides are up an average of 20% this year over the same period in 2019, according to the Associated Press, citing military officials.
Broken down by service, suicide among active duty Army is up 30%, from 88 last year to 114 this year, while the Army Guard is up 10% from 78 to 86 over the same period.
While the Pentagon would not provide 2020 suicide data, Army officials cites discussions in DoD briefings – and say that while they can’t directly attribute the rise to COVID-19, the timing coincides.
“I can’t say scientifically, but what I can say is – I can read a chart and a graph, and the numbers have gone up in behavioral health related issues,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told AP.
Pointing to increases in Army suicides, murders and other violent behavior, he added, “We cannot say definitively it is because of COVID. But there is a direct correlation from when COVID started, the numbers actually went up.”
Preliminary data for the first three months of 2020 show an overall dip in military suicides across the active duty and reserves, compared to the same time last year. Those early numbers, fueled by declines in Navy and Air Force deaths, gave hope to military leaders who have long struggled to cut suicide rates. But in the spring, the numbers ticked up. –Associated Press
“COVID adds stress,” said Air Force chief Gen. Charles Brown in public remarks. “From a suicide perspective, we are on a path to be as bad as last year. And that’s not just an Air Force problem, this is a national problem because COVID adds some additional stressors – a fear of the unknown for certain folks.”
There were 98 suicides between active duty Air Force and reserves as of September 15, unchanged from from last year – which was the worst in three-decades for active duty suicides across the branch. In 2018, the Pentagon claimed in a report that the military suicide rate was roughly equivalent to the US general population “after adjusting for the fact that the military is more heavily male and younger than the civilian population.“
The 2018 rate for active duty military was 24.8 per 100,000, while the overall civilian rate for that year was 14.2, but the rate for younger civilian men ranged from 22.7 to 27.7 per 100,000, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. –Associated Press
“We know that the measures we took to mitigate and prevent the spread of COVID could amplify some of the factors that could lead to suicide,” said the Army’s director of resilience programs, James Helis – who said that virus-related isolation, combined with loss of childcare and financial disruptions is putting a strain on military families.
Meanwhile, Army leaders also pointed to stress from the United States being at war for nearly two decades – with deployments being compounded by the virus, along with civil unrest and natural disasters.
According to Army veteran Sergio Alfaro who served for 4.5 years, fears associated with the virus amplified his PTSD and suicidal thoughts.
“It’s definitely something that’s made things a bit more chaotic, trying to plan for the future, do things together,” said the former Iraq vet who dealt with daily mortar rounds in Baghdad in 2003. “It’s almost like adding more trash on the heap.“
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3insU9j Tyler Durden
Even if it has been a while since you read Fahrenheit 451, you might remember Ray Bradbury’s classic for its portrayal of a dystopian future in which an authoritarian government burns books.
Read Fahrenheit 451 again to discover why people wanted their tyrannical government to burn books. Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, yet the parallels to today’s social climate for censorship are haunting.
Bradbury’s protagonist is Guy Montag, who, like all firemen in Bradbury’s future, burns books.
In Bradbury’s dystopia, firemen became “custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors.”
Today’s mainstream and social media are “custodians of our peace of mind” as they filter out “conflicting theory and thought.” Captain Beatty is Montag’s boss. Beatty explained, “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one.”
If you don’t want people debating questions such as Covid-19 policy, Beatty has the ticket:
“Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely `brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving.”
Today, millions listen daily to reports of case counts of Covid-19. Like Bradbury predicted, listeners can recite the numbers but have no context to make sense of the numbers. Many have little idea that important scientists and doctors have advocated alternatives to lockdowns that could save lives and abate catastrophic impacts on economies. As in Bradbury’s world, many are working tirelessly to disparage and censor alternative views.
After Montag questions his role as a book burner, he recites Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold to neighbors. His neighbors were shocked at the feelings the poem provoked. One cries out, “Silly words, silly words, silly awful hurting words… Why do people want to hurt people? Not enough hurt in the world, you’ve got to tease people with stuff like that!”
Incredibly, Bradbury anticipated today’s social climate where people claim censorship is justified because someone hurt their feelings.
Beatty explains a dominant social norm justifying censorship: Do not offend minorities. Bradbury is clear; “minorities” meant practically everyone:
“Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico.”
Pretending you can “stay happy all the time” was another social norm driving popular demand for censorship in Fahrenheit 451. Beatty explains,
“[Censorship] didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.”
In Bradbury’s dystopia, to consider conflicting theories makes for unhappiness, so Beatty lauds the fireman’s mission and justifies censorship:
“The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we’re the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dyke. Hold steady. Don’t let the torrent of melancholy and dreary philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don’t think you realize how important you are, we are, to our happy world as it stands now.”
In Bradbury’s future, intellectuals came under scrutiny when ideas conflicted. The word “intellectual” became a “swear word.” The public dreaded “the unfamiliar” and disdained a world where merit mattered. Again, Bradbury has Beatty explain the mindset behind such thinking:
“We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well read man?”
In Bradbury’s dystopia, thinking was not welcome. Even front porches were eliminated. One of Montag’s young neighbors explained why:
“People sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn’t want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over… they didn’t want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think.”
Social distancing is today embraced as a way to keep us safe from Covid-19. Social distancing also keeps us safe from “conflicting theories and thoughts.” Chairs have been removed from social gathering places. Hallways are quiet. Nobody stands around the water cooler. People have few places to talk with each other. The parallel to porches is haunting.
Perhaps you are sensing a shift in social norms undermining parental rights and the sanctity of the family. Bradbury foresaw a push for government-funded pre-school. Captain Beatty explains, “The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That’s why we’ve lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we’re almost snatching them from the cradle.”
Bradbury also anticipated today’s justification of looting. Some claim that rioters are merely damaging property, not people. Before he began to see the evil he was part of, Montag eased his conscience with this similar line of thinking: “You weren’t hurting anyone, you were hurting only things! And since things really couldn’t be hurt, since things felt nothing, and things don’t scream or whimper.”
Warning his readers of policies shaped by the majority, Bradbury writes, “The most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority.” Today, politicians claim the right to destroy freedom when they get a majority vote of the people. This dangerous reasoning is antithetical to the founding principles of this country.
We can take a lesson from Bradbury’s character Professor Faber, who recognized the consequences of his own self-censorship:
“I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the `guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.”
How ironic that today, claiming they are “woke,” progressives clamor for tyranny and censorship. In Bradbury’s world the “woke” saw through the lies of tyranny and censorship. Bradbury would exhort us to avoid expediency and speak out to prevent the worst.
In his novel, Bradbury didn’t take a deep dive into the psychology of saying nothing. My recent essay on mask mandates by businesses provoked a strong response. Many were sympathetic to my point that businesses respond to consumer demand. Yet, some believe that business policy is being shaped by a small but frightened and very vocal minority who complain loudly to managers about customers not wearing a mask.
Going against the vocal herd takes courage. In his book The Heart Aroused, poet David Whyte, who works with businesses on organizational change issues, shares a universal story:
“A man I know finds himself in a meeting room at the very edge of speech; he is approaching his moment of reckoning, he is looking for support from his fellow executives around the table … the CEO is pacing up and down on the slate gray carpet. He has asked, in no uncertain terms, for their opinion of the plan he wants to put through. ‘I want to know what you all think about this,’ he demands, ‘on a scale of one to ten.’”
Whyte explains the CEO made it plain he wanted to hear “ten.” Whyte’s friend thinks the plan is terrible, and rumors are that other executives feel the same. As the CEO goes around the room, Whyte’s friend hears his colleague, one by one, say “ten.” When it is his turn, “against everything he believes, (Whyte’s friend) hears a mouselike, faraway voice, his own, saying ‘ten.’”
According to Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s theory of the spiral of silence, “our willingness to express an opinion is a direct result of how popular or unpopular we perceive it to be.” When we believe our belief is popular, we will make a point of signaling that we are part of the herd. Like Whyte’s friend, we will avoid expressing our point of view when we sense it will be unpopular.
If you think the public is empowered by social media to express unpopular views, you would be mistaken. As in Fahrenheit 451, people censor themselves first, even before Facebook and Twitter add their own censorship.
In 2014, the Pew Research Center surveyed the public about their willingness to freely express their views about the 2013 Edward Snowden revelations. The survey revealed that “people were less willing to discuss the Snowden-NSA story on social media than they were in person.” Social media was not an outlet for those concerned about expressing an unpopular view.
Consistent with the “spiral of silence” theory and compatible with Bradbury’s dystopian future, no matter what the setting, people are reluctant to share an unpopular view. A 2020 Cato survey found 62% “of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive.”
Today, how many say nothing to their neighbors and colleagues about Covid-19 policies for fear of being accused of not valuing human lives? In Fahrenheit 451, silence helped pave the way for the public’s embrace of tyranny. In 2020, Fahrenheit 451 is far more than a chilling, cautionary tale. To reverse the spiral of silence we must make space for candid conversations by thoughtfully considering alternative viewpoints.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3jmsdPc Tyler Durden
