American Consequences - June 2017

T his month, Stansberry Investor Hour hosts Buck Sexton and Porter Stansberry for an interview from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. WikiLeaks co- founder Julian Assange joined

Julian Assange: Exactly. The New York Times and Washington Post have giant “slander cannons” is the way to think about it. They’re like beefed up destroyers with slander cannons all over the deck. And when someone irritates them or threatens them, they can point those slander cannons and blast. That causes the government to keep its distance. On the other hand, they also are involved in ingratiating themselves constantly. So they also have giant flattery cannons. They deploy this combination of slander and flattery – and occasionally even telling the truth – to maximize their institutional power. And at a social level, the power interests of the journalists who work there. Then of course, to tie in with the interests of the proprietor: Washington Post now is owned by Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon (AMZN). Q: It’s very odd to see both the New York Times and the Washington Post , which are typically left-leaning publications, as well as the

Wall Street Journal , which is typically a right-leaning publication, all hammering Trump’s administration day

after day after day. It seems like Trump threatens the political establishment – both

sides of the aisle – and the newspapers are fighting back on behalf of their friends and contacts in the political establishment. Is that the right read? Julian Assange: I think it’s a lot along those lines. It’s shifting as time has gone by. A very interesting experiment: what happens when you’ve got a populist candidate – in this case, a populist-right candidate. You imagine the same thing would’ve happened to Sanders if he had been chosen by the Democratic Party. You’ve got a populist candidate not connected to existing establishments in a substantive way. Trump, during the election – the only establishment that he had was the evangelicals via Pence. And that’s it. He had no one else. He didn’t have the military. He didn’t

No matter what you think of him... Whether you support his exposure of state secrets or believe he’s endangered U.S. lives... Julian Assange is worth listening to. Being a bold truth-teller and being a dangerous maniac are not, after all, mutually exclusive. Their conversation revealed important insight about the “War of Leaks” in DC... how the political establishment is attempting to shove President Trump back into line... and how the public benefits from transparency and sharing of information... Q: The New York Times and the Washington Post publish classified information – and they don’t get prosecuted. So why is there a “who- the-law-will-be-applied-to” difference when it comes to WikiLeaks?

American Consequences | 49

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker