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Feb. 20, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
31:01
Last Chance For Assange?

As Wikileaks founder and publisher Julian Assange makes one final appeal before UK judges to avoid being extradited to the US to face 175 years in prison, press freedom advocates worldwide call on the governments of the US and UK to cease the years-long persecution. Journalism itself is on trial. What to expect? Also today: Trump 2.0 a "Christian nationalist" Administration? Also - Is it really "white supremacism" to like reading?

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More Hearings Ahead 00:14:48
But there's some more hearings going on, and some claim this is it for him.
He's on a ship to a dungeon in America someplace.
I'd hope not.
I doubt if they'll give him a hotel room.
The hotel rooms are full anyway.
The illegals are in here.
But anyway, I think most people on our station have heard us talk about Assange, and this has been a tragedy going on 10 years or so.
And he keeps getting, you know, with the officials into a deeper hole.
And it is said that this week there are some hearings going on again.
And some will claim it could be the final hearings before he gets sent back, no, sent to the United States.
And, of course, there's a new thing that turned up this weekend that caught our attention and tells you and indicates the typical type of people who are doing this.
Well, maybe we have a good judge.
If we have a good judge, what the heck?
You know, a judge can do a lot to restore the principles of freedom and following the rules.
But here it says Hassan's judge worked for MI6 and the Defense Administration.
And this is the British, I assume, because that's where they've held him.
So the Brits aren't, I sort of look at them as a minor state.
That they just go along with whatever we tell them to do.
And they do a lot, but they still have a lot of influence.
So this is going to be a big deal.
But what they're pursuing right now is we could stop this guy because he lives for money and that's all he cares.
And we're going to bankrupt him.
And the people will see how many dirty, nasty things he's done.
They're going to desert him.
And Biden's going to re-elect it.
So the quality, I mean, Trump has his problems.
But if you have the quality of character of one versus the other, I would say it shouldn't be really a tough job on picking which one would probably serve the interest of liberty more than the other.
But like I said, Trump has his problems, but I'll tell you what, this other guy, I think he's a president right now, he has his problems too.
And he is really working hard.
But it's up to now just to pay for the fees to file.
I think that's the way I interpret it.
He needed $455 million to file.
Yeah, that's a crazy story.
Then it's up to millions of dollars if he ends up being, you know, upheld, if his penalty is upheld.
But he might say, well, maybe we'll just give him a prison term.
He doesn't have any money.
So we'll give him a prison term.
Oh, okay.
175 years.
You know, the one thing is, though, so far, Trump has been able to take all this over the top evil by saying, you know, they're the people who are the most evil.
They're the ones who are evil.
And it turns out, politically speaking, in spite of all the control of the media, all the control of the governments, I would say that he's done quite well because politically, he's probably one of the strongest.
Whoever heard that they're folding the tent on anybody else competing with him for the primary or for the election?
We don't even have a nominee officially.
But everybody knows he's the nominee.
And every once in a while you'll have a Democrat say, you know, maybe this stuff isn't working.
Maybe it's backfiring on us because the record is so clear.
Every time they file another charge against him, his numbers go up.
So that might be what real democracy is like, you know, when the people are speaking out.
But anyway, it's a mess, and we'll be keeping an eye on that.
And hopefully some surprises come along on a positive.
But for some reason, I have this sneaky suspicion that they can't totally destroy truth.
And I think Trump, in a way, has competed with them quite well.
And he's gone up.
Now, what has Biden done during this time?
Has his numbers gone up or down?
His numbers keep going down.
Trump keeps going up.
And there's still the people who, well, anybody but Trump, we've got to hate Trump.
And they never talk about the things that we criticize them about.
You know, we have problems with some of his foreign policy and some of his trade policy.
But the people who say it's never Trump, it's just pure unadulterated hate that drives them.
So hate may carry the day for a day or two and cause a lot of harm, but eventually hate can't be the answer to telling the truth.
Yeah, it's a terrible situation.
And, you know, unfortunately, you know, we're talking about Assange.
I mean, Trump had so many opportunities to pardon him when he was president.
He didn't take the effort to do it.
And so now we're sitting here with these final two days of Assange really fighting for his life.
And put on this first clip because this is The Guardian, and this is just indicative of media all over the world.
U.S. Justice Department must drop spy charges against Julian Assange.
And today and tomorrow are those hearings.
And as you point out, the judge in these hearings, the sub-judge, does have some ties to what we would call the global deep state.
Now, that doesn't necessarily mean he's not capable of making an objective choice, but it is somewhat worrisome.
Our good friend Thomas Massey and Representative Jim McGovern put out a letter to their colleagues.
If you can put this next one up, a very good letter.
It had a lot of bipartisan support.
Apologies for this being pretty small, but it's just urging President Biden to drop the charges against Assange.
It makes the point that across the world, mainstream media, alternative media, members of the House of Representatives have all urged the end of the persecution of Assange because what he's doing is journalism.
And you go to the next page, you can see that it's a very bipartisan.
This is only some of the names that have signed it.
But I think Senator Paul is on it.
But when you have Thomas Massey, Paul Gosar, and Elon Omar, and Helena Pressy, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know it's a pretty good group of people across the board who are trying to get Assange, get the charges dropped.
The idea, I mean, Assange, as we've said so many times, Dr. Paul, he simply published information that someone leaked him, which is no different than what the New York Times does, Washington Post, with the Pentagon Papers.
You know, they do this all the time, and they've never been.
But they also realize that there's a threat that if Assange can be put in prison for 175 years for publishing leaked classified documents, then they can hear the footsteps coming for them.
And I think that's why it's not that the New York Times has suddenly, you know, gotten religion, but they realize that this could come for them.
So it really is a dangerous situation for Assange.
You know, to me, it sounds like the better the journalist, the more danger he gets into.
But because the empire can't stand the truth, because for them, it's treasonous to everything they believe in.
And they don't have to work at that to convince themselves that that's their mentality.
That's their system of values that they have.
That they have some special knowledge of everything right and wrong.
And, you know, we talk about right and wrong and believe there is a difference and that there is a higher law.
But one of the higher laws is that, you know, you don't have false witness.
Yeah.
And that is one that they have forgotten about.
But, you know, I was glad to see McGovern.
We see his name now often on more often there for a while.
It was a little quiescent because I'm delighted he works with Massey, but not surprised because frequently he did he'd work with Dennis and myself and others in the Congress.
So that's what we need more of.
And, you know, neither one has to give up anything.
And a lot of times when they talk, you know, how I feel about bipartisanship, you don't have to give up half of what you believe in and come together and just do a little bit less evil and say, oh, well, this is bipartisan.
I'll take 80% and y'all get it back later, but I'm bipartisan.
You know, there are some Republicans that did that.
That annoyed me.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, let's have a little fun and do a blast from the past.
Let's turn the time machine back.
Believe it or not, Dr. Paul, 14 years.
It's hard to understand to believe this, but we found a great speech.
One of our good friends on Twitter, who was one of the Ron Paul scholars, by the way, sent me a tweet.
Of you on the floor defending, you might want to grab your earpiece.
Let's listen to the first minute 37.
I'd love to listen to the whole thing, but we don't usually try to go over a minute or so on a speech.
Let's listen to you on the floor talking about WikiLeaks and Assange.
Mr. Speaker, WikiLeaks release of classified information has generated a lot of attention worldwide in the past few weeks.
The hysterical reaction makes one wonder if this is not an example of killing the messenger for the bad news.
Despite what is claimed, information so far released, though classified, has caused no known harm to any individual, but it has caused plenty of embarrassment to our government.
Losing a grip on our empire is not welcomed by the neoconservatives in China.
That Saudi Arabia is a principal supporter and financier of al-Qaeda, and this should set off alarm bells since we guarantee its Sharia-run government.
This emphasizes even more the fact that no al-Qaeda existed in Iraq before 9-11, and yet we went to war against Iraq based on the lie that it did.
It has been charged by self-proclaimed experts that Julian Assange, the internet publisher of this information, has committed a heinous crime deserving prosecution for treason and execution or even assassination.
But should we not at least ask how the U.S. government can charge an Australian citizen with treason for publishing U.S. secret information that he did not steal?
And if WikiLeaks is to be prosecuted for publishing classified documents, why shouldn't the Washington Post, the New York Times, and others that have also published these documents be prosecuted?
Actually, some in Congress, you were saying, not too bad for an amateur.
I didn't know I was into all that serious stuff.
But then again, those were some of my motivations.
It's kind of sad that it's been 14 years and nothing has really changed except 14 years have been stolen from his life from Assange's life.
I saw a picture of his wife Stella and their two little boys, and I remember the last time I saw him was in the movie Ithaca, which I mentioned on the show.
And they're so much bigger now.
And I just think about with my own kids, I'm sure you feel the same way.
You can't get that time back, you know, especially when they're little.
Yeah, yeah.
That's why, you know, we spend a lot of time, and when somebody's investigating an assassination, like they did for decades, like on Kennedy, why do it?
You know, there may be some shenanigans, but it's over and done with.
You can't change anything now.
But I still think it's important to document it because there will be somebody come along and they will reevaluate it because now people are more attuned to the truth of what happened, you know, back in the 1960s.
Not that they've changed their tune because they seem to have trouble picking up the evidence, even the evidence warning is coming, and then it happens and they see it again and say, that's terrible.
Then they go along with it and they march on.
And I think we're a little bit further along with Assange.
At least there's a few more people, but we still have a long way to go to save this person.
Yeah.
Well, let's look at a couple of tweets.
And here's a very distinguished person tweeting, Edward Snowden.
This was a tweet he put out earlier this morning.
And he makes a very important point.
Let's look at this if we can put it on there.
The outrageous part of the UK's years-long trial to condemn Julian Assange to die in an American dungeon is that the victim of his quote-unquote crime, i.e. journalism, is a state rather than a person.
It's a definition of a political offense which the U.S.-UK Extradition Treaty explicitly forbids.
And that is a great point.
The victim, quote-unquote, is the state, not an individual.
So that means by definition, this is a political crime.
They can't extradite for a political crime.
Unless they get away with it.
Yeah, unless they get away with it.
So that's what we don't want them to do because other than that, there will be no rule of law.
And that's on the table right now for what's going to happen in the future.
Because, you know, you think about the elections that have gone on, a lot of controversy, a lot of evidence.
And yet it was said that Trump was evil.
Trump did everything.
And it turned out that the opposition was doing what they accused him of.
So it's bad news, but I still believe in documentation.
And I think the most important thing is that people retain their credibility because the good people like Snowden.
Snowden, look at what he's been through.
He could have been thrown in a dungeon and forgotten about it, but fortunately, he was able to maneuver.
FBI Exposure and Trust Issues 00:02:12
So he's one of the, I'll bet he's one of the most listened to journalists right now ever.
And he can't even come back to his own country, though.
That's what he had to give up.
He can't come home.
Well, one more I just wanted to put up.
I know we need to move on to our other topic, but this is a really good point, I think, and this is put out by Declassified UK.
Now, the article said CIA officials under Trump discussed assassinating Julian Assange.
And that's the news article.
Classified UK commented on this saying, this week, the UK High Court will decide whether to extradite Julian Assange to a country which spied on his privileged legal conversations and plotted to kidnap or kill him.
The independence of the UK judiciary is on trial.
And that's pretty interesting.
We remember, but Pompeo was trying to plot to kill Assange, and now the UK is going to send him to the country that plotted to kill a guy from doing journalism.
I'd like to have somebody do a poll as objectively as possible and ask people, not only the ones that listen to our program, but be as objective as they can possibly be, and say, can you trust the CIA if you'd happen to run a mess, run a mess with him and run into them?
And I think, I don't think there'd be an overwhelming number of Americans that say, oh, I trust him.
I trust him.
Right now, the FBI in the last year or two, there was finally some more exposure by the FBI.
But we were always taught for so long, and I came of age when I was in college, that the FBI was to be respected.
And there were some conservatives that were in the FBI that I knew personally, and there was an assumption that I liked them and I trusted them.
But I don't think that exists.
And then if you've got a little bit of history of J. Edgar Hoover, maybe you would wake up and say, maybe it didn't even start off well.
Yeah.
And I'm sure there's still some good folks in there, but you've got to feel sorry for them because they're in a rotten system.
For sure.
Christian Nationalism's Rise 00:05:05
Well, the next one is kind of interesting.
And this is, I guess we're just, we both noticed it this morning.
We're just kind of flagging it.
This is from Politico, if you want to put that next.
Skip that one, yeah, and go to the next.
We've already covered that part.
Politico, Trump allies prepare to infuse Christian nationalism in the second administration.
And I think we should add one caveat, Dr. Paul, which is that this is Politico.
And although we read it and they occasionally report things that are important, but they do have a bias and their bias is against Trump.
They want to put him in a bad light.
And they also have a different, I think, definition of Christian nationalism than the rest of us might have because they're using it as a pejorative against him.
Nevertheless, I think it's something to keep an eye on.
One of my favorite amendments, this First Amendment, it starts off with profound words.
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or Christian nationalism.
Oh, no, that wasn't it there.
But no, this whole idea is well motivated.
These are good people that are doing this, and they understand Christian values.
But how do you impose Christian values?
You don't do it by getting hold of the government and then saying, well, we're going to remove this.
You know, you can't have a class called communism and then you compensate it with saying, well, here's a class on Christian nationalism.
That's imposing.
But there's ways of doing that, you know, of learning.
See, we deal with that in our homeschooling program.
Historically, we look at all the things, and you're supposed to be able to help make your own decision.
But that is something, but does that mean you just have to sit back and say, well, they do it and the courts aren't going to do anything?
No, you have to have an alternative.
How do you get a Christian government or a people?
Well, if people are Christian, they set the standard.
But you don't do it by legislation.
You don't do it with the government.
And I think most of this stuff can be settled whether it's immigration or schooling or whatever.
It's property.
Because in property, your house is your castle, and you can discriminate.
You're the disciplinarian for your children, and you can discipline who comes into your house.
And yet today, who's decided, oh, the government says, well, these immigrants need a place to stay.
So kick your kids out of school.
You people in the hotel.
We need your rooms.
And it's all over property.
but they don't have a precise definition of that.
But then how does your message spread?
It has to be voluntary.
It has to by setting an example.
And I don't think if, I don't think it's very difficult for people who understand what Christian character is like to not have to go up and say, are you a Christian?
You can tell it's the way they act and treat people and how they help people.
And I think there's a lot of that.
I think there's more of that now than there has been in the past because they're reacting to the evil that is spreading more quickly.
But that is why it's so important.
But the frustration cannot lead to saying, well, the Congress shall make laws except when we need it.
We'll get rid of communism, but we will tell them what Christian values are.
Well, maybe somebody doesn't want to express his religion.
Well, that might be, then you'll have to try to persuade them to or set a standard for them.
But they don't seem to want to rely on that.
They want to use the government force to do it.
And that is a big problem for us.
Yeah, so the guy they're writing about is Russell Voigt.
He has a group called the Center for Renewing America.
And I guess it's a conservative Christian outlet.
You know, I do think, like you say, there are a couple of things about this.
Number one, I think there's a panic in the mainstream media that Trump, it looks more and more, may well come back.
And they're trying to desperately poison the well when he comes back.
Oh, he's going to have a bunch of Christian analysis.
Oh, he's going to do this.
Oh, he's going to do that.
Oh, he might start funding Ukraine.
He might do all these things.
So I think that's kind of here a little bit.
But, you know, there's a little bit of a problem with Trump himself because he's kind of an empty vessel.
You know, and you've talked about it a lot.
He doesn't really have an ideology or a governing philosophy or a real vision for the U.S.
And so a lot of people want to pour their own vision into him.
So that's why you see people like Lindsey Graham, for example.
Oh, I'm with Trump on this and that and the other.
The neocons are divided.
A lot of them hate him, like Bill Crystal, but a lot of neocons pretend that he's one of them because they want to try to influence.
And so there's kind of that problem that he can be manipulated by people around him.
Understanding White Supremacy 00:08:54
Yeah, there are some things in Christian history that aren't exactly Christian or non-aggression or libertarian because I have no trouble with my convictions regarding my religion and my political positions, you know, because I'm a strong believer in non-aggression, that you don't have a right.
It doesn't make any sense.
And there are other ways to solve these problems.
And it's not through government force.
And that makes me very comfortable.
So my moral Christian principles do not contradict.
I don't want them to.
That doesn't mean that I work it out perfectly every time.
But that doesn't mean that we can put that in the law.
Matter of fact, it means be very careful when you try to put it in the law.
So that's why I think the founders did a pretty good job on the First Amendment.
Short, sweet, and simple.
Well, I guess we'll look at our next one if you're ready.
And this is kind of our outrage of the day.
You noticed this, and I had to do a double take on it.
Go to the next one if you can.
This is, we found it on Zero Hedge.
Seattle English students told that it's white supremacy if you love reading and writing.
I don't know about that, Dr. Paul.
Well, I sure hope there are still some people who love reading.
But there are, and what you read should be absolutely voluntary.
There should be no force.
And that's why you can't settle the book argument for schools.
You know, book burners.
They call it book burning if you have the most horrible, ugly thing in the books and have it laying on a shelf of 10-year-olds.
And there should be somebody to monitor.
But it's hard to pick the monitor because you can't please everybody about it and people will complain.
But if the people want to do it, like I said about my private school, the homeschooling, we have no problems with it.
People know what they're coming to.
And the curriculum isn't a Christian doctrine.
I believe in that.
And matter of fact, people say, well, you're not running as a purely Christian program.
I said, yes, but I'm thinking more about a program that teaches the principles that will allow anybody to have a voluntary homeschooling.
So there could be any religion, no religion, whatever.
If you want your homeschooling, you can do that.
There are no rules.
And I want to make sure it's legal for Christians to have their homeschooling group too, which sometimes there's been a lot of challenges to homeschooling, especially if they're Christian-oriented.
Yeah.
Well, I've done the Robin Paul curriculum.
I've not seen anywhere it says in the curriculum that liking to read and write is white supremacism.
So that is so weird, isn't it?
It is weird.
Why wouldn't that discredit them from all conversation?
I would not want to go to Seattle, that's for sure.
Well, we have a second clip from that.
Let's put that second one up.
Just that final, just a couple of things from that article.
So they handed out, this is a Lincoln High School in Seattle.
They handed out a booklet, The Nine Characteristics of White Supremacy.
And one of them is that the worship of the written word is white supremacy because it is an erasure of the wide range of ways we communicate with each other.
So you're not supposed to like the written word.
But there's no prohibition against how you get your information.
I mean, you know, I like to talk to people about what do you like to get your information from.
Somebody said, I like to read.
I like to listen to it.
I like to write about it.
You know, that sort of thing.
Everybody gets your information differently.
But to say, well, the written words, that's white supremacy.
Sometimes I run into some people.
I don't think they're so supreme.
What's funny?
It doesn't figure.
They talk about this white supremacy.
Then they put some of the worst people in government.
They hate their guts.
Oh, all white people are supremacists.
So too much for the lack of understanding and desire to have voluntarism in all that we do and nonviolent.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if you just accepted those two rules?
And they say, well, who would feed the poor?
Well, there would be a lot less people on the streets of San Francisco if you had that, because they wouldn't be a lot of be laying in the streets and robbing.
In pure bright daylight, they go in and they just pick up bags and shopping carts.
And they walk out and nobody does anything.
You talk about the need for a higher law.
There is one there.
Or some more.
The government just give up on the government because they didn't do it.
But it ought to be legal for the people who have private property to protect their private property.
And I think that's where this whole effort breaks down.
Exactly.
Well, I'm going to close out, Dr. Paul, and just thank our viewers for watching the show and just ask you again to hit like and hit follow on Rumble.
Or if you're watching us on YouTube, do the equivalent over there or wherever else you're listening to us if you're listening to the podcast as an audio.
We appreciate you doing so.
And we hope to see you again tomorrow.
Up to you, Dr. Paul.
Oh, very good.
You know, here's a little story about that.
The white student said something and offended somebody.
And the big debate here is: well, what do you do to apologize?
How do you do it?
What's the proper procedure for apologizing for people being white supremacists or what's going on?
So you have all these rules on what to do when you make a mess out of things.
Well, just leave them alone and let people make their own mistakes and let them suffer their consequences.
That's too cruel.
We don't want a cruel society.
We want a compassionate society.
And you know, Patterson's talk about compassionate, and that is the compassion with a guillotine.
Yeah.
Humanitarianism.
So, anyway, I want to thank our viewers for tuning in today.
This was sort of a miscellaneous thing, but we consider this really important about Assange.
And I just wished I knew the answer for getting around more people.
We need more people to have the information.
That's why we're delighted when you send people to us and they start watching our program.
And now and then they'll pick up an idea and understanding how to spread messages.
But the other goal I always had is to make people feel comfortable with it.
Because if you're the only one, if you're in a class of 30 people and you're the only one that you express a higher principle, you know, you shouldn't kill people.
You know, no, oh no, I'm talking about that, the simple principle, and that's why a higher law is purely not identified with one religion.
And that is a higher law has been long known, as far as I'm concerned, from the beginning of times.
It doesn't take a genius, it doesn't take a lot of writing, it doesn't take any history books or anything else.
That killing and lying and cheating is not a very good thing.
And I think, and I believe that most people know that.
Sometimes I wonder how these people who do these great harm to us, like bragging about, look at what we did to a song, look at what we just did to Trump.
You know, they go on and on, and they have no remorse, and they have no bad feelings about all the evil.
I often wonder how the people who instigate a war and thousands, if not millions of people, die of it, they have no remorse at all.
And they don't show shame.
That's why this whole principle of understanding a higher law, which is universal and has been around from the beginning of times, people ought to understand it.
I think inside everybody, they have that desire, but they get booed out of it, not by their, you know, one individual, mostly booted out by organized governments.
They're the ones who penalize people for being independent and thinking they should make a lot of these decisions through private property rights and voluntarism.
That's the program I'd like to see installed.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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