Seeing as how Assange is apparently so cheap he makes his hook-ups pay for his train fare, he may be buying expired condoms from the five-and-dime.
Is he a rapist? I don’t know but it seems way too coincidental for the charges to be dropped then reinstated after he pissed off the US government. Sexual allegations are a tried and true way of smearing someone and in this case getting him into the clutches of the United States government.
You don’t suppose Sweden would be trying to extradite Ben Rothlisberger if his bad behavior had occurred there do you?
Seems kinda dick of the judge to deny bail. How much of a flight risk can he be if he turned himself in?
Yeah, how much of a flight risk can a foreign, homeless, paranoid recluse be?
Yes, of course he’s a huge flight risk. I don’t care if he turned himself in or not.
Wouldn’t that just mean anyone who planned to flee the jurisdiction would turn themself in, thereby proving they weren’t a flight risk?
If they fled before hand, they wouldn’t need to put up the bail money. And the London gov’t has been saying they were going to arrest him for several days, its not like he hasn’t had the chance. I’d say if he was going to make a run for it, he would’ve done it already. After all, getting out of England is probably a lot easier to do before they issue an arrest warrant.
But fleeing when you have a warrant out for you is probably harder than fleeing after you have been given bail, and been declared not a flight risk.
I’m not sure thats true, but either way, he’s had plenty of time to leave England before either of those things were true.
In anycase, it seems harsh to lock him up for three weeks when charges haven’t even been filed and he turned himself in.
Why? It’s obvious he decided to turn himself in on advice of counsel, or as a move calculated to further his agenda or make his point or whatever, or both.
So you’ve got a guy who’s becoming a worldwide household name in record time, and now he gets arrested for the kind of thing that most guys would brag about (ok, not the non-condom part, the rest of it).
What next? He gets arrested for wrestling a lion atop a jet fighter while roped together with a playboy model?
It looks like he was arrested for not stopping sex when he was asked. Who would brag about that?
I don’t care what his motive was for turning himself in, because that isn’t anything we can know for sure. He’s an expert at disappearing, he’s got lots of people wanting to kill him, and that makes him a flight risk. Period.
And they say Americans don’t do irony. Read and marvel :
5.30pm: With perfect timing an email arrives from Philip Crowley at the state department:
The United States is pleased to announce that it will host Unesco’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from 1-3 May in Washington, DC.
Ironic? Read the next paragraph from the press release:
The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and
innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.
Whoopie Goldberg says it was rape, but not rape rape.
Indeed - he was charged with one kind of leak for committing another kind.
Regards,
Shodan
I haven’t seen it put like that on any of the reports I’d seen. Apparently neither A nor B considered it rape.
But nonetheless, I should be more sensitive in a thread (ostensibly) about rape.
Here’s the thing- there were two incidents and two sets of victims (one with two women, another with a single woman?). Here’s the charges “Sweden first issued the arrest warrant for Assange in November, saying he is suspected of one count of rape, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of unlawful coercion – or illegal use of force – allegedly committed in August.”
Now, Assange’s* Lawyers claims *it’s all consensual, all based upon non-use of a condom. So? Do we accept blindly that someones defense attorneys side of the story is the correct one? In one case, we have allegedly heard from one set of the victims, but again, from what I have seen “according to Assanges lawyers”.
Apparently according to wiki, the rape charges were dropped, then after new evidence, re-brought up. Thus, my WAG is that one set of victims/incident is along the lines of “no condom” but the other is more like “he didn’t stop when I asked him to”, which is rape.
Why? I mean he’s been doing this and pissing governments (even the US government) off for 4 years now. And Assange was only with one of the women due to Assanges Wikileaks newsconference.
eta: re my earlier post- ah, no, now I see it was two incidents, each with a single woman.