From what I heard, Crusade was bad because the Network Executives decided they should be in charge of the plot, the characters, and the setting. They wanted wrestling in space with alien-of-the-week sex.

I wish that was either a joke or an exaggeration.

Not "routinely", if that was the test, NNM would have been bound by the first amendment, because the government routinely offers public access channels. It's a much stricter test of "traditionally and exclusively", which does cover policing, but not a lot of other things that would be covered by "routinely".

I have some questions: What if the government hires 50 corporations to provide policing services, one for each state? How long would they need to contract out those services, before they were no longer "traditionally and exclusively provided by the state"?

It seems like the "traditionally and exclusively" test is too narrow to me. It seems like in this case, being charged with providing a government service should be enough to make you a state actor, at least in terms of what you are not allowed to do.

I actually am surprised, a little bit anyway, that they ruled this way. Conservatives routinely boast that they believe in free speech more than liberals, and yet in this case, when push came to shove, it's the conservatives siding with censorship and the liberals advocating for free speech. Even from a different angle, it still looks weird because the conservative majority on the court stood against restricting the government's power (they stood against enforcing the limitations of government on a contractor working for the government) and the liberals stood for it. It's a little bit Bizarro.

I'm not delusional, but you are. It doesn't matter whether the intelligence community wants Assange dead or not, he doesn't get charged unless Attorney General William Barr approves it and Barr takes his orders directly from Trump. Clearly, Trump and Barr want Assange in prison.

Also, you're a brain dead moron if you think the intelligence community doesn't take orders from Trump. He's the president, they may not like him, but they will obey any non-criminal orders that he gives. Stop being a stooge for a criminal president and repeating everything you hear from Trump or Fox News without ever using your brain.

Well ignoring for the moment that Russia doesn't have an extradition treaty with the United States, that Putin is essentially the leader of Russia and wouldn't be extradited even if they had a treaty, you would also need the Justice Department to lay charges against Putin. It is important to remember at this point that the Justice Department reports directory to Doanld Trump. The same Donald Trump who denies the existence of Russian interference during the election.

So, yes, in theory, Putin should be charged, extradited and tried for espionage crimes, but it's never going to happen for a variety of reasons including that the current president would be embarrassed by the allegations from his own Justice Department that he did not win the election on his own merits, and thus would never allow charges to be placed and would likely immediately fire anyone who attempted to place any such charges.

You should be aware that there was a constitutional challenge to the law that first enabled classification in 1919 and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Espionage Act of 1917 did not violated the free speech rights of the people convicted under it's rules.

According to the Wikipedia page, it hasn't been contested before the Supreme Court again since 1919. So there you go, a hundred years ago, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the government didn't need a constitutional amendment to do that.

As I understand it, that's just wrong. You can be subject to U.S. law if you commit a crime in any U.S. territory (this applies to all countries, not just the U.S.). Since Assange is being charged with conspiracy and the Americans say they have evidence that he did not just receive information from Manning, but helped to direct the hacking and theft of confidential documents, Assange may have exposed himself to legal repercussions.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me that there is a legal distinction between a journalist who publishes classified information that was delivered to him without foreknowledge of or participation in the crimes committed to gather the information, and a journalist who directs and aids in the crimes committed to gather the information. In the first case, the journalist is merely carrying out his duties as a journalist and should be fully protected by the first amendment. In the second case, he has actually committed several crimes that the first amendment will not protect him from, thus the espionage and conspiracy charges.

Now, I can't say whether Assange actually did any of the things that the U.S. Justice Department claims he did. However, if he did and either Manning or the computer that Manning "hacked" were on U.S. soil at the time it was "hacked", then Assange committed a crime on U.S. soil and he would rightfully be subject to U.S. jurisdiction and U.S. laws related to that crime and could be legally and reasonably extradited to the U.S. to face those charges.

On the other hand, I think the 18 charges with a 10 year sentence each is entirely unreasonable and the Trump Justice Department is obviously looking to destroy Assange because they can, and because Trump's voter will probably love seeing Assange destroyed. Most of them probably already think Assange is a traitor and should be executed. Now that's obviously stupid and wrong, but most Trump voters don't seem to care about that at all.

To be fair, the President changed and the new President replaced the Justice Department leadership since then. That statement could have been true in 2013 (that they wouldn't bring charges then), and no longer true in 2019 because different people are in charge now.

So what, you're saying is that she's going to take steps to reduce gun violence and support domestic manufacturing?

Trump's gratitude has always been fleeting because he's always been about what can you do for me now. He's most likely a sociopath and has trouble seeing people as anything more than tools to be used and discarded when they are no longer convenient. His business career is littered with the (metaphorical) bodies of the partners that he has betrayed. Leaving someone else holding the bag is his signature move.

I think you underestimate Hillary a little bit, she threatened to upset the apple carts of a few wealthy people who don't want anyone to do anything about health care or climate change. Sure, she wasn't going to flip all the carts over, but Trump isn't doing anything to flip any carts, unless that particular person has ticked him off by not being sufficiently respectful to the Don.

The most surprising thing about this story is that the warrant was issued after Trump took office, which seems to indicate that either Obama's Justice Department was not trying to extradite Assange, or that Trump's Justice Department didn't like something about the Obama era sealed warrant against Assange and deliberately replaced it with a different warrant.

I knew it. The Deep State conspiracy against Donald Trump is so deep and vast, that even Donald Trump is part of the conspiracy! Trust no one!

You have to remember that with Trump it's not "what did you do for me" that he cares about, it's "what can you do for me now" and it's likely that Trump sees Assange being most useful, now, as a criminal that Trump brought to justice. Because that's how Trump intends to use him, that means that Trump has never heard of Wikileaks. That's very important because Trump is totally innocent (no collusion!) and has never associated with any criminals, ever, and anyone who says otherwise is a lying Democrat or part of the lying media, and probably also an enemy of the people of the United States of Trump... Or at least that's what Trump will be telling anyone who will listen.