Julian Assange To Run For Australian Senate

New submitter bozman8 writes "Announced recently on social networking platform Twitter, Julian Assange has found a way to run for the Upper House of the Australian Senate, despite being detained under house arrest in Britain. Along with Julian's candidacy, WikiLeaks has announced that they are going to run a nominee against current Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her local electorate."

Re:Good luck with that.

[dbIII]

He has no chance of winning but the number of votes he gets will be noticed and may influence policy. Runing for the senate in Australia is not the Billionaire's game that it is in the USA. Last election I recall something like six canditates standing on shooting and fishing issues in my state, as well as a few other single issue canditates. You could just about use the senate ballot paper as a tablecloth.

Senate

[deimtee]

I hope he runs in Vic. I'd vote for him.
The senate has proportional voting.
Everyone ranks all the candidates, then they start counting. As soon as a candidate has enough to get elected, any further votes move to the second preference. You can end up with some funny results if everyone puts the major party they don't like last.

He may have a while to wait ...

[baileydau]

He may have to wait a bit to try for the Senate.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Australian_federal_election [wikipedia.org] it must by held by 30 November 2013. Whilst there is *some* possibility of it being called early, I wouldn't be holding my breath.

Re:Yeah...I don't like this.

[cold fjord]

Case Closed: Weapons Clearly Seen on Video of Reuters Reporters Killed in Iraq [mypetjawa.mu.nu]
You may want to read the documents from the official investigation [scribd.com] which are seen at the bottom or the link above.

From the Department of Redundancy Department...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Upper House of the Australian parliament is the Senate, "Upper House of the Australian Senate" doesn't make any sense.

Re:Yeah...I don't like this.

[Confusedent]

I'm sorry, did you forget about the part where the US government covered it up and lied to Reuters about the investigation? Do you particularly think it's all ok just because it was in their "Rules of Engagement"? If the government says that torturing and killing your family is part of their "Rules of Engagement," is that ok with you? Weekly Standard is neoconservative propaganda founded by News Corp and supported solely by people like Rupert Murdoch (according to Wikipedia the magazine has NEVER been profitable, citing the NY Times), the same liars who spread the same government propaganda that started the Iraq War (remember those WMDs? Whatever happened to those, hm?). US apologists make me sick.

Re:Good luck with that.

[Confusedent]

I wasn't aware that anyone actually took those allegations seriously. They basically amount to a condom having broken and claiming that he intentionally broke the condom, or that he began having sex with them while they were asleep. IIRC, after originally issueing the warrants (or whatever) in Sweden, a higher up judge later dismissed it for lack of evidence, which was then later overturned by another higher up. These women were openly bragging about their relationship with him only days before filing charges, and only did so once they found out he was involved with both of them. They were both seen attending one of his speeches and comfortable watching (this is on video) a few days later. It's rather transparent that the US government (among others) are using BS sex-crime allegations to try and silence someone blowing the whistle on their corrupt practices. Try this [indiatimes.com], if you'd actually like to hear the other side of the story (that doesn't involve the political motivation to shut down wikileaks and scare off other whistleblowers).

Re:Good luck with that.

[Confusedent]

Oh trust me, I am aware. I've been arrested (case later dismissed) because of women lying about me, and even had to call the cops three months ago to explain how another girl I'd been involved with was trying to spoof emails to frame me for "harassment" in order to avoid paying me the money she owed me. But the US government has wanted to [wsj.com] get Assange [npr.org] extradited [washingtonpost.com] to the US so they could try him under the Espionage Act ever since the Collateral Murder video. I don't see how they'll be able to do that just from this, maybe they think they can put more pressure on the Swedish government than the UK, or maybe they think discrediting him as a rapist or putting him in Swedish jail is satisfactory. Sure, I admit I can't prove it's part of an ochestrated smear campaign or conspiracy, but given the fact that the accusations are based on an apparently obscure and rarely used "surprise sex" law, the timing of the incidents, the fact that at least some people in the Swedish legal system wanted to just throw the case out when it originally happened (this is from memory, sorry I couldn't find a link), I think I'd have to be gloriously naive to think the US didn't play a role in all this, even if they weren't directly involved with the two women making the accusations.

If this is unreasonable, call me out on it, but honestly how can anyone take these charges seriously?

Re:Good luck with that.

[Confusedent]

Correction, I was able to find the original news reports of the allegations against him being dropped [bbc.co.uk] and then [cnn.com] reinstated [tribune.com.pk].

Re:Yeah...I don't like this.

[rbrander]

>in a war that innocent people die

I like that, "in a war" like "in a rainstorm" or other event that had no human cause.

Your google for today is "robert jackson kingpin", and search the top link for "kingpin". Jackson was a US Attorney general that thought (as official US policy) that plotting aggressive war was the greatest crime possible, which he prosecuted before, and as a greater crime than, the Holocaust. In the case of this war, the plotting of aggressive war was made possible by secrecy and lies. The secrecy and lies then continued to deepen and extend the war, and to cover up the thousands of smaller crimes it made possible.

As to your argument that "anyone with a half a mind knew it was going on anyways", clearly people have a remarkable capacity to fool themselves, as you can see years later right here on slashdot, with the link to the two bodyguards that were carrying weapons, and the CentCom "investigation" that exonerated, well, CentCom and all its loyal employees. But the huge majority of those present were NOT carrying weapons, which means to anybody who'd been on a street in Baghdad that year, that they were civilians with the indispensable bodyguards, not a militia where everybody would of course have been armed.

When people don't WANT to believe something, you have to pry their eyes open like Alex in Clockwork Orange and then you still have to rub their noses in it. Twice.

This war will be admitted for the crime it was only long after the last participant has died of old age.

And never mind your "troops in danger" crap, that was trashed using the Pentagon's own admissions about day 2.

Re:Go Assange!

[Pseudonym]

No, because he isn't part of a diplomatic mission. What you're thinking of is that which is known as parliamentary privilege, parliamentary immunity or legislative immunity. In Commonwealth countries such as Australia, parliamentary privilege generally only extends to protection from slander or libel for statements made in the legislature. Legislators are not immune from criminal actions for the simple reason that all are equal under the law. This is pretty much the same as in the US.