New on NewsReal – "WikiLeaks: The Movie(s)," Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

My latest NewsRealBlog post:

The enemies of liberty may be gaining steam in Egypt right now, but Hollywood doesn’t seem to notice. No, to them we’re still our own worst enemy. Mike Fleming at Deadline reports that no less than seven potential film projects based on cyber-anarchist Julian Assange and his whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks are under consideration:

The Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal and Management 360 have partnered with financier/producer Megan Ellison to option The Boy Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, an article about WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange in The New York Times Magazine written by the newspaper’s executive editor Bill Keller. Ellison, an exec producer of True Grit, will finance development through her Annapurna Pictures and she, Boal and Management 360 will produce. Boal might write the film, but that will depend on if he has time […]


His is just the latest in a growing number of Julian Assange/WikiLeaks movies that should continue to swell as more books about the controversial figure get published. I’ve heard DreamWorks is circling Inside WikiLeaks, a book that will be released February 15. It is written by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Assange’s number 2 at WikiLeaks who defected because he wanted WikiLeaks to apply journalistic discretion in the dispersal of secret government documents while Assange wanted to release as many as he could get his hands on.

There is also the $1.5 million memoir by Assange. Movie/TV rights will be handled by CAA for lit agency Peters Fraser & Dunlop, and rumors are that The Bourne Ultimatum director Paul Greengrass might come attached (insiders said that’s not definitive). Among the other Assange movies that have already mobilized, Universal  Pictures will finance and distribute an Alex Gibney-directed documentary on Assange and WikiLeaks that will be produced by Gibney and former Universal Pictures chairman Marc Shmuger, and HBO is in talks with BBC to collaborate on a pic that would be based partly on  Raffi Khatchadourian’s New Yorker article No Secrets: Julian Assange’s Mission for Total Transparency. Another documentary, WikiLeaks: War, Lies and Videotape has been picked up to be distributed by Zodiak. There are two more books available for movies: WME is handling Megaleaks by Andy Greenberg, and there is also WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War On Secrecy is coming from David Leigh and Luke Harding, two reporters from UK’s The Guardian who were the first to receive leaks from Assange and then shared them with Der Spiegel and The New York Times.

All of this is to be expected, of course—Hollywood has a track record of presenting the United States government as the bad guy in our conflicts abroad, from Vietnam onward. They pretty consistently bomb at the box office, but Hollywood keeps churning them out anyway, their left-wing ideology drowning out whatever good business sense or understanding of what the audience wants they may have.

Read the rest at NewsRealBlog.

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Young Americans "for" Liberty Disgraces Themselves, as Expected

We already knew YAL was worthless thanks to the intellectual & moral caliber of Wesley Messamore’s attacks on me. Now YAL is honoring Judge Andrew Napolitano as their “Rebel of the Week” for defending Julian Assange. (They don’t, however, mention that Napolitano is a 9/11 Truther.) Between this, and YAL’s cult icon shilling for Assange, I guess we have the answer to the question I posed on Tuesday. Libertarianism is failing another basic moral test.

Of Course: Traitor Ron Paul Shills for WikiLeaks Scumbag

Not that we need any more proof that Texas GOP Congressman Ron Paul is a lying degenerate whose love of America is a total sham, but today we’ve got more anyway. Not surprisingly, Paul is defending Julian Assange, the puffed-up pimp whose WikiLeaks outfit has been exposing sensitive classified information with reckless abandon for a while now:

“In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,” Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.”

Hot Air’s commenters have some simple-yet-effective takedowns of the stupidity:

Doughboy: “Well then hell, Ron, let’s just tell the world where we hide our nuclear weapons and what the arming codes are. You know, since we live in a free society and all.”

Good Solid B-Plus: “Well, Ron, since it’s a free society and all, can you e-mail me your bank account # and PIN? Thanks a bunch.”

But this goes well beyond stupid, and into disgraceful. First, “revealing the truth” isn’t what Assange does. Has Congressman Paul forgotten that this punk released edited footage that falsely made American soldiers look like reckless killers? Or does he just not care?

Second, Julian Assange has the blood of innocent people on his hands, as a direct result of his “truth-revealing”:

The Taliban has issued a warning to Afghans whose names might appear on the leaked Afghanistan war logs as informers for the Nato-led coalition. 
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said they were studying and investigating the report, adding “If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them.”
The warning came as the US military’s top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen said that Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, may already have blood on his hands following the leak of 92,000 classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan by his website.

“Mr Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,” he said.

Information from the documents could reveal:

  • Names and addresses of Afghans cooperating with Nato forces
  • Precise GPS locations of Afghans
  • Sources and methods of gathering intelligence

Does Ron Paul remember that? Was he paying attention at the time?

Does Ron Paul even care?

We already know the answer.

Today’s Moral Test for Libertarians

So, apparently the verminous Julian Assange is telling people he considers himself a libertarian in some ways, and that he leaks classified government information to make free markets better informed and work better. I wonder how many libertarians will buy that line, and how many will have the decency to distance themselves from Assange.

Did the Commander-in-Chief Allow the Endangerment of Afghan Informants?

That’s what scumbag propagandist Julian Assange apparently alleges. If it’s true that Obama had the opportunity to redact the names and locations of “hundreds of Afghan civilians who worked as informants for the U.S. military,” it would sure strike me as impeachment-worthy. But this is Julian Assange we’re talking about; his word isn’t enough evidence to go after Obama on.

Horrible: Shooting at an AK Recruiting Office

One American soldier was killed and another injured today, as a man with an assault rifle opened fire on an Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas.  The murderer is in custody, though his motive has not yet been made public.  Whatever it is, though, he needs to be punished to the full extent of the law.

It makes me sick to think that someone who signs up for the armed services can put himself in harm’s way day after day, and then return to his own home and be murdered by one of the very citizens he was defending.

Please, pray for our fallen hero and his family, as well as for the full recovery of the surviving hero.

Update: Now we know—the shooter was a recent convert to Islam with a grudge against the Army.  Big surprise.

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Use the Force…sort of.
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President Bush on FISA

This morning, President Bush excoriated the House of Representatives for failing to renew FISA:

At the stroke of midnight tonight, a vital intelligence law that is helping protect our nation will expire. Congress had the power to prevent this from happening, but chose not to.

The Senate passed a good bill that would have given our intelligence professionals the tools they need to keep us safe. But leaders in the House of Representatives blocked a House vote on the Senate bill, and then left on a 10-day recess.

Some congressional leaders claim that this will not affect our security. They are wrong. Because Congress failed to act, it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attack. At midnight, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence will be stripped of their power to authorize new surveillance against terrorist threats abroad. This means that as terrorists change their tactics to avoid our surveillance, we may not have the tools we need to continue tracking them — and we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.

In addition, Congress has put intelligence activities at risk even when the terrorists don’t change tactics. By failing to act, Congress has created a question about whether private sector companies who assist in our efforts to defend you from the terrorists could be sued for doing the right thing. Now, these companies will be increasingly reluctant to provide this vital cooperation, because of their uncertainty about the law and fear of being sued by class-action trial lawyers.

For six months, I urged Congress to take action to ensure this dangerous situation did not come to pass. I even signed a two-week extension of the existing law, because members of Congress said they would use that time to work out their differences. The Senate used this time productively — and passed a good bill with a strong, bipartisan super-majority of 68 votes. Republicans and Democrats came together on legislation to ensure that we could effectively monitor those seeking to harm our people. And they voted to provide fair and just liability protection for companies that assisted in efforts to protect America after the attacks of 9/11.

The Senate sent this bill to the House for its approval. It was clear that if given a vote, the bill would have passed the House with a bipartisan majority. I made every effort to work with the House to secure passage of this law. I even offered to delay my trip to Africa if we could come together and enact a good bill. But House leaders refused to let the bill come to a vote. Instead, the House held partisan votes that do nothing to keep our country safer. House leaders chose politics over protecting the country — and our country is at greater risk as a result.

House leaders have no excuse for this failure. They knew all along that this deadline was approaching, because they set it themselves. My administration will take every step within our power to minimize the damage caused by the House’s irresponsible behavior. Yet it is still urgent that Congress act. The Senate has shown the way by approving a good, bipartisan bill. The House must pass that bill as soon as they return to Washington from their latest recess.

At this moment, somewhere in the world, terrorists are planning a new attack on America. And Congress has no higher responsibility than ensuring we have the tools to stop them.

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