Those who tried to demonize Ellsberg for revealing government lies to his fellow citizens -- such as Kissinger and John Ehrlichman -- strongly implied Ellsberg was a Kremlin agent serving Moscow and leaked the documents to help Russia. That's where liberals learned to do this:
In order to accuse their political adversaries (& whistleblowers) of being Kremlin agents and serving Moscow, current-day US liberals obviously borrowed from the McCarthyite script of the 1950s, but also the Kissinger smears of Ellsberg. See for yourself:
But for people who see the start of history as being mid-2016, impelled by fear of Orange Hitler, these crusty CIA scripts seem fresh, noble and new.
"Ellsberg leaked at the behest of Moscow and gave documents to the Kremlin" became "Snowden leaked at the behest of Moscow and gave documents to the Kremlin," all by liberals too historically ignorant and/or inebriated with Trump hysteria to realize who their progenitors are.
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BEFORE TRUMP: refusing to cooperate with the FBI was such a fixed and foundational principle for journalists that reporters were expected to go prison rather than comply with a subpoena to turn over their source, and often did that:
DURING TRUMP: A blogger chased the FBI & begged them to let her *voluntarily* rat out her own source to the FBI on the ground he was a "smoking gun" for Russiagate - even as they laughed at her - and journalists cheered her for doing that.
The Trump years destroyed US corporate journalism in so many ways. That they were willing and eager to disseminate deranged conspiracy theories and falsehoods to stop Trump is well known. But that case of cheering that unwell blogger for voluntary FBI source-ratting is stunning.
It continues to be stunning that not only are US journalists the leaders in demanding online censorship, they also are the ones who cheerlead most for Assange's imprisonment.
Here's a @BusinessInsider writer outright lying to justify Assange's imprisonment & defend the US Govt:
Business Insider's claim that Assange is not in prison because of the USG but because of bail jumping charges is an outright lie. Assange's 50-month sentence for bail jumping ended long ago. He's in prison *solely* because of the US extradition request.
It's the dream of any authoritarian state to get its *journalist class* to take the lead in defending censorship and lying to justify the imprisonment of dissidents. But the US Govt has managed it. This is what a real press freedom defender looks like:
One authoritarian misconception that emerges when Assange is mentioned: "he's not a journalist!"
The premise aside - he's won journalism awards, broke major stories, etc. - press freedom, like free speech, is for everyone, not just a credentialed priesthood called "journalists."
Everyone is guaranteed free speech by the Constitution. Same with free exercise of religion, due process, a jury trial, and the right of assembly.
And same with press freedoms: it's not just for a tiny group of professionals. The right to freely use the press is for everyone.
On Saturday -- the five-year anniversary of the horrific slaughter -- politicians and activists again ratified the outright fiction that Omar Mateen was motivated by anti-LGBT hatred.
It is well past time this lie stop. It dishonors the victims and obscures the real motive.
Instantly, politicians seized on this tragedy to politicize the attack. Obama claimed it was anti-LGBT hatred, not his bombing raids, that caused it. So did Hillary and even Trump. Liberal journalists like @HeerJeet lied, saying it proven it was a hate crime. This was all false.
Jake Sullivan confirmed that Biden confused Syria and Libya three times in less than 90 seconds. Just be honest and watch this clip and decide for yourself.
Given this genuinely disturbing videos and others like it, it's a good day to remind everyone that the warnings that Biden is suffering from serious cognitive decline came *not* from MAGA people or Bernie supporters, but from worried establishment Dems:
By far the biggest attack on press freedom in the US -- it's not even close -- is the attempted prosecution and extradition of Julian Assange, started by Jeff Sessions and continued by the Biden DOJ. The theory used to criminalize him endangers journalists everywhere:
In May, 2019, I wrote a @washingtonpost op-ed on why the Assange indictment threatens all journalists. Two weeks later, my Brazilian source contacted me that led to exposés that caused the Brazilian Govt to try to prosecute me using that exact theory:
50 years ago today, the NYT began publishing the Pentagon Papers, which my childhood hero and current friend, @DanielEllsberg, risked his liberty to provide because they showed a decade of lying by the US Govt to its own citizenry about the Vietnam War: